Yet more on the plagiarism of the original technologist.

Biomimetics -- Where the Action Is, Continued

Evolution News & Views 


We pick up where we left off last week ("Biomimetics -- Where the Action Is") with more examples of design-based science from around the world.

Gecko astrobot. Get a grip! NASA just launched a space hero to the International Space Station. You could call him Supergecko. Actually, it's a new material inspired by this superhero among animals, the lizard that can cling to anything. New Scientist says, "In a few years, the exterior of the International Space Station could be crawling with geckos."

It's not an alien invasion, or the plot of a low-budget sci-fi movie. The robotic geckos could follow from an experiment NASA launched to the International Space Station on Tuesday aboard an uncrewed Cygnus spacecraft.
The Gecko Gripper devices use tiny artificial hairs that replicate the ones geckos use to climb walls. They are designed to help astronauts to keep track of objects in zero gravity, and enable robots to crawl around a spacecraft to inspect and repair it. [Emphasis added.]

The bots have been tested and are able to grab and manipulate 100-kilogram objects. Instead of using adhesives, geckos adhere to almost anything using atomic van der Waals forces thanks to tiny hairs on their foot pads. "Geckos are nature's most amazing climbers," a JPL scientist says. "They go from the floor to the ceiling in 2 seconds."

Lignin plastic. The woody material in plants, lignin, is finding a new use. In a new alloy with rubber, it's replacing plastic with a biodegradable, "green" thermoplastic material to replace the petroleum-based plastics used in headgear and Lego pieces. Oak Ridge National Laboratory tells how this new material, using 50 percent renewable content, does not require solvents in its manufacture. It's a "meltable, moldable, ductile material that is at least ten times tougher than ABS" (the petroleum-based plastic used in many products from car bumpers to kitchen appliances). Another advantage is that it can put the waste from pulp and paper mills to good use. In this case, scientists are not imitating lignin as much as using their own intelligence to combine lignin's well-designed properties with soft rubber, producing a new material that takes advantage of the plant's built-in molecular wizardry.

Nature-inspired nanotubes. Thinking about how proteins assemble and fold, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were inspired to copy that "design principle" in the manufacture of nanotubes.

The research is the latest in the effort to build nanostructures that approach the complexity and function of nature's proteins, but are made of durable materials. In this work, the Berkeley Lab scientists studied a polymer that is a member of the peptoid family. Peptoids are rugged synthetic polymers that mimic peptides, which nature uses to form proteins. They can be tuned at the atomic scale to carry out specific functions.
One can't fail to notice that man's best efforts to date fail to "approach the complexity and function of nature's proteins," but they think it's a good start getting just a tube to form. "But building nanostructures is difficult," they say. "And creating a large quantity of nanostructures with the same trait, such as millions of nanotubes with identical diameters, is even more difficult." The simplest bacterium has this solution nailed down pat, from coding to manufacture.

Flagellum bots. Inspired by bacteria that swim with their outboard flagellar motors, scientists have created "soft microrobots whose body shapes can be controlled by structured light, and which self-propel by means of travelling-wave body deformations similar to those exhibited by swimming protozoa," Nature says. Such remote-controlled "microswimmers" could revolutionize medicine by unclogging arteries, fixing immotile sperm, or delivering drugs on demand to specific locations in the body. Microbes, of course, already meet all the design requirements for a microswimmer:

Designing a robust microscopic robotic swimmer that can navigate complex environments and perform useful functions is a key component of the quest. To operate autonomously or on demand, a microswimmer should be able to harvest energy, propel itself through fluid towards its target and respond to external signals. Energy is needed both to overcome the friction of the fluid and to maintain motion for a long time -- up to an hour for some biomedical applications.
One team publishing in Nature Materials has succeeded in designing biomimetic "soft microbots" that can swim, driven by structured light. It's not as fast as a paramecium, but it's a start at the JV track team. Nature compares a paramecium's speed with the dolphins we saw in Living Waters swimming in massive pods:

Nature has mastered highly effective means of micrometre-scale propulsion, exemplified by the rotation of helical bacterial flagella, and the wavy beating of the cilia (tiny hair-like structures) that cover Paramecium. This metachronal wave -- the sequential movement of thousands of cilia -- enables paramecia to swim at astounding speeds, up to ten body lengths per second. (For comparison, a dolphin barely makes two to three body lengths per second when in a hurry.)
Another paper in Nature Communications discusses the subject of microswimmers. First sentence: "Interactions of microswimmers with their fluid environment are exceptionally complex." Bacteria manage the complexities with ease using their flagella. "This mechanism does not require any active sensing in contrast with fish rheotaxis," the paper says, speaking probably of salmon fighting their way upstream against the current.

Human epigenetics. This last example is so striking, and so foreboding, as to raise serious questions about the future of biology and of the human race. Scientists at MIT are boasting about a new programming language they invented to program DNA. MIT biological engineers have created "a programming language that allows them to rapidly design complex, DNA-encoded circuits that give new functions to living cells."

Using this language, anyone can write a program for the function they want, such as detecting and responding to certain environmental conditions. They can then generate a DNA sequence that will achieve it.
"It is literally a programming language for bacteria," says Christopher Voigt, an MIT professor of biological engineering. "You use a text-based language, just like you're programming a computer. Then you take that text and you compile it and it turns it into a DNA sequence that you put into the cell, and the circuit runs inside the cell."

They plan to make the design interface available on the Web. Anyone will be able to create genetic programs -- no experience needed.

"You could be completely naive as to how any of it works. That's what's really different about this," Voigt says. "You could be a student in high school and go onto the Web-based server and type out the program you want, and it spits back the DNA sequence."
On the one hand, this accentuates the case for intelligent design, because it shows that the existing circuits in life represent programs coded for function on a hierarchical scale. On the other hand, can this kind of technology be trusted in the hands of morally challenged humans? What would this technology mean for bioterrorists and rogue nations seeking to employ biological warfare? Could a high school student release a dangerous microbe by mistake?


For now, we'll defer such discussions to ethicists and theologians. One thing all these examples show, however, is that the imitation of nature depends on design thinking. Think about that.

On Darwinism and the deprivileging of human life.

New Poll Reveals Evolution's Corrosive Impact on Beliefs about Human Uniqueness:

Evolution News & Views 


From the earliest days of civilization, humans have considered themselves exceptional among living creatures. But a new survey by Discovery Institute of more than 3,400 American adults indicates that the theory of evolution is beginning to erode that belief in humanity's unique status and dignityAccording to the survey, 43 percent of Americans now agree that "Evolution shows that no living thing is more important than any other," and 45 percent of Americans believe that "Evolution shows that human beings are not fundamentally different from other animals."

The highest levels of support for the idea that evolution shows that humans aren't fundamentally different from other animals are found among self-identified atheists (69 percent), agnostics (60 percent), and 18 to 29 year-olds (51 percent).

The theory of evolution is also reshaping how people think about morality. A majority of Americans (55 percent) now contend that "Evolution shows that moral beliefs evolve over time based on their survival value in various times and places."

"Since the rise of Darwin's theory, leading scientists and other thinkers have insisted that human beings are just another animal, and that morality evolves based on survival of the fittest," says historian Richard Weikart, author of the new book The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life (Regnery).

What this new survey shows is just how pervasive these ideas have become in our culture. Many people no doubt continue to believe that humans are unique, but most do not think that evolution supports that position. Many critics of my earlier scholarship will be disconcerted to see this data, which powerfully supports my arguments about the way that Darwinism devalues human life, a key point I explain further in my new book.

Weikart is a professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus, and a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture.

The data for this survey was collected from March 17-20, 2016, using SurveyMonkey Audience, a nationally representative panel of more than 6 million people recruited from the 30+ million people who take SurveyMonkey surveys each month.

The SurveyMonkey platform has been used for public opinion surveys by NBC News, the Los Angeles Times, and other media organizations. Survey respondents were randomly sampled from members of SurveyMonkey Audience in the United States who are 18 or older, and the survey included 3,427 completed responses.
The poll report is available as a free download here.

Darwinism as lottery

More on Randomness in Natural Selection and Evolution

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig

 

 

A common objection to neo-Darwinian evolution highlights the fact that the theory is based to a large extent on chance events, or chance in general. For decades now there has been an extraordinary volume of grim polemics against that objection. I wrote about this here last week in the context of a dispute between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Meyer. To my earlier comments, I would add the following.
Huxley stated in 1962, p. 44:

The frequent assertion that biological evolution is based on chance is entirely untrue. "Chance" events furnish its raw material but the process itself is directional, self-steering, but automatically steering itself in a definite direction. This is because...natural selection is not a random but an "ordering" mechanism.

Ridley 1985, p. 124, concurred:

How can I hope to succeed with three authors (Denton, Hayward, and Pitman) who, like the Victorian astronomer Sir John Herschel, think that evolution by natural selection is the "law of higgledy-piggledy" -- a "random search mechanism" (Denton), of "pure chance" (Hayward and Pitman)?

And up to the present, authors including Lorenzen, Mayr, Krauss (2016), and Dawkins (2016) have made similar statements (see here for Stephen Meyer's response to Dawkins).
Now, let's assume for a moment that the frequent assertion that biological evolution is based on chance is itself "entirely untrue." Assume instead that the process is, in fact, "directional" and "self-steering," truly an ordering mechanism.
In that case, what is the biological basis for the "survival of the fittest"? The survival is very clearly dependent on the functionality of the anatomical, physiological, genetic (and more) structures, synorganized and cooperating in the organism (including its behavior or conduct), about whose origin we just asked. How did these structures and functions evolve?
A hare runs faster, a lion jumps farther, a zebra senses a carnivore better, an eagle spots prey at a greater distance, a chimp responds more effectively than his or her conspecifics. Why? Because -- according to the neo-Darwinian doctrine -- the chance events of mutation and recombination have equipped them as needed, with all structures originating until then as well as the newly gained improvements. All this occurs in a continuous process of evolution. Thus, chance events determine everything in evolution: form and function of all structures dominating natural selection in the struggle for life and hence the entire phylogeny of plants and animals.
There is, of course, even according to neo-Darwinian theory, no selection without form and function of already existing and subsequently improved structures. Let me emphasize: all must be generated by random micro-mutations with "only slight or even invisible effects on the phenotype."
Hence, natural selection is in itself neither self-steering nor an ordering mechanism, etc. Instead it is the result of structures, features, forms, functions, and capabilities altogether produced by the chance events of accidental mutations alone, including the overproduction of descendants.
It is the habitual method of many supporters of the modern synthesis to disconnect or decouple natural selection from chance events, but this is totally unjustified. For me this disconnection or detachment appears to be part of a wily and widespread propaganda effort, seeking to manipulate public and scientific opinion to make neo-Darwinian evolution more acceptable and digestible. For evolution by an almost infinite series of fortunate strokes of small serendipities seems to be, prima facie, implausible to most thoughtful people.
And yet, consistent with evolution, the entire world of organisms has to be, in fact, traced back to pure chance events and random occurrences. Nobel laureate Jacques Monod seemed to belong to a minority of evolutionists who fully comprehend the consequences of the synthetic or neo-Darwinian theory. He wrote concerning mutations:

We call these events accidental; we say that they are random occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of modifications in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organism's hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. [Italics by Monod.]

Yet, Monod's assertions on the origin of the biosphere are essentially all wrong. See here, please, for the facts and inferences in my encyclopedia article about natural selection. For references, see here.

Once saved always saved?:The Watchtower Society's commentary

Does the Bible Teach ‘Once Saved, Always Saved’?

The Bible’s answer

No, it does not teach the doctrine of ‘once saved, always saved.’ A person who has gained salvation by faith in Jesus Christ can lose that faith and the salvation that comes with it. The Bible says that maintaining faith requires great effort, a “hard fight.” (Jude 3, 5) Early Christians who had already accepted Christ were told: “Keep working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”—Philippians 2:12.

Bible verses that disprove the teaching of ‘once saved, always saved’

The Bible warns against serious sins that will keep a person from entering God’s Kingdom. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Galatians 5:19-21) If salvation could not be lost, such warnings would be meaningless. Instead, the Bible shows that someone who has been saved can fall away by returning to a practice of serious sin. For example, Hebrews 10:26 states: “If we practice sin willfully after having received the accurate knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice for sins left.”—Hebrews 6:4-6; 2 Peter 2:20-22.
Jesus emphasized the importance of maintaining faith by giving an illustration in which he likened himself to a vine and his followers to branches on that vine. Some of them would at one time demonstrate faith in him by their fruits, or actions, yet would later fail to do so and be “thrown out like a [fruitless] branch,” losing their salvation. (John 15:1-6) The apostle Paul used a similar illustration, saying that Christians who do not maintain their faith “will be lopped off.”—Romans 11:17-22.
Christians are commanded to “keep on the watch.” (Matthew 24:42; 25:13) Those who fall asleep spiritually, whether by practicing “works belonging to darkness” or by not fully performing the works that Jesus commanded, lose their salvation.—Romans 13:11-13; Revelation 3:1-3.
Many scriptures show that those who have been saved must still endure faithfully to the end. (Matthew 24:13; Hebrews 10:36; 12:2, 3; Revelation 2:10) First-century Christians expressed joy when they learned that fellow believers were enduring in their faith. (1 Thessalonians 1:2, 3; 3 John 3, 4) Does it seem reasonable that the Bible would stress faithful endurance if those who did not endure would be saved anyway?

Only when his death was imminent did the apostle Paul feel that his salvation was assured. (2 Timothy 4:6-8) Earlier in his life, he recognized that he could still miss out on salvation if he gave in to fleshly desires. He wrote: “I pummel my body and lead it as a slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself should not become disapproved somehow.”—1 Corinthians 9:27; Philippians 3:12-14.

File under "well said." XXII

He that gives should never remember, he that receives should never forget.
 The Talmud

A clash of titans. XII

Is Roman Catholicism beyond redemption?Pros and Cons.

Another failed Darwinian prediction XV

Complex structures evolved from simpler structures

“To suppose that the eye,” wrote Darwin, “could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.” But Darwin argued that we must not be misled by our intuitions. Given natural selection operating on inheritable variations, some of which are useful, then, if a sequence of numerous small changes from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, and if the eye is somehow useful at each step, then the difficulty is resolved. (Darwin, 143) The key was to identify “a long series of gradations in complexity, each good for its possessor” which could lead to “any conceivable degree of perfection.” (Darwin, 165)

But ever since Darwin the list of complex structures in biology, for which no “series of gradations in complexity” can be found, has continued to grow longer. Both the fossil record and genomic data reveal high complexity in lineages where evolution expected simplicity. As one evolutionist explained:

It is commonly believed that complex organisms arose from simple ones. Yet analyses of genomes and of their transcribed genes in various organisms reveal that, as far as protein-coding genes are concerned, the repertoire of a sea anemone—a rather simple, evolutionarily basal animal—is almost as complex as that of a human. (Technau)

Early complexity is also evident in the cell’s biochemistry. For instance, kinases are a type of enzyme that regulate various cellular functions by transferring a phosphate group to a target molecule. Kinases are widespread across eukaryote species and so they must persist far down the evolutionary tree. And the similarity across species of the kinase functions, and their substrate molecules, means that these kinase substrates must have remained largely unchanged for billions of years. The complex regulatory actions of the kinase enzymes must have been present early in the history of life. (Diks)

This is by no means an isolated example. Histones are a class of eukaryote proteins that help organize and pack DNA and the gene that codes for histone IV is highly conserved across species. So again, the first histone IV must have been very similar to the versions we see today. An example of early complexity in eyes is found in the long-extinct trilobite. It had eyes that were perhaps the most complex ever produced by nature. One expert called them “an all-time feat of function optimization.” (Levi-Setti, 29) Reviewing the fossil and molecular data, one evolutionist explained that there is no sequential appearance of the major animal groups “from simpler to more complex phyla, as would be predicted by the classical evolutionary model.” (Sherman) And as one team of evolutionists concluded, “comparative genomics has confirmed a lesson from paleontology: Evolution does not proceed monotonically from the simpler to the more complex.” (Kurland)

References

Darwin, Charles. 1872. The Origin of Species. 6th ed. London: John Murray.
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F391&viewtype=text&pageseq=1

Diks, S., K. Parikh, M. van der Sijde, J. Joore, T. Ritsema, et. al. 2007. “Evidence for a minimal eukaryotic phosphoproteome?.” PLoS ONE 2.

Kurland, C., L. Collins, D. Penny. 2006. “Genomics and the irreducible nature of eukaryote cells.” Science 312:1011-1014.

Levi-Setti, Riccardo. 1993. Trilobites. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sherman, M. 2007. “Universal genome in the origin of metazoa: Thoughts about evolution.” Cell Cycle 6:1873-1877.
Technau, U. 2008. “Evolutionary biology: Small regulatory RNAs pitch in.” Nature 455:1184-1185.

Lamarck's revenge IV

A Tunable Mechanism Determines the Duration of the Transgenerational Adaptations

Tuning the Duration of Directed Adaptations

Organisms adapt to environmental challenges. In fact, many different organisms adapt in non-homologous ways to many different, unforeseen, environments. This contradicts evolution. For we are not talking about random changes occurring by chance, occasionally getting luck enough to confer an adaptation, and then propagating throughout the population. We’re not talking about an evolutionary process of random mutations and natural selection. That would take a long time. What we’re talking about are adaptations that specifically address environmental challenges, and occur in a good fraction of the population, over a few generations, or perhaps within a generation. Such directed adaptation occurs quickly.

That contradicts evolution because random mutations are not going to create such a complicated adaptation capability. Furthermore, they are not going to do this over and over, in so many different species, for so many different environments. And even if, by some miracle, this did occur, it would not be selected. That is because the adaptation capability is not for the current environment the organism faces, but for an unforeseen, hypothetical, future environment. The moment it arises, the adaptation capability is of no use, and would not be selected for.

But that’s not all.

As with Lamarck’s inheritance of acquired characteristics, these rapid, directed, adaptations are transgenerational. From parent to offspring, the progeny inherit the adaptation from the progenitor.

So now we must not only believe that evolution’s random mutations constructed these unbelievably detailed, complicated, unique adaptation capabilities, but that evolution also constructed the incredibly complicated means to transmit the adaptations to the next generation. As we saw recently, new research has demonstrated such transgenerational inheritance to be genetic, rather than via the parent’s behavior, breast milk, etc.

So again, random mutations must have created yet another complex design (the ability to pass along adaptations for an unforeseen environmental challenge), and it would have been worthless until that particular environmental challenge arose.

But that’s not all.

New research out of Tel Aviv University explains how these acquired adaptations persist through the later generations. Previously, these inherited adaptations were assumed simply to decay or “peter out” over a few generations. But the new research has uncovered proteins that manage and govern the duration of the adaptations. The adaptations are transmitted by small RNA molecules, and the proteins provide a tunable mechanism to govern the duration of the adaptation, over the generations. As the title of the paper explains:

A Tunable Mechanism Determines the Duration of the Transgenerational Small RNA Inheritance

Again, random mutations are not capable of producing such designs, and the designs would not be selected for. None of this makes any sense on evolution.

So now we must not only believe that evolution’s random mutations constructed these adaptation capabilities, and the means to transmit them to later generations, but also to control precisely their duration.

The science contradicts evolution.

Posted by Cornelius Hunter at Monday, March 28, 2016 

Human engineers continue to plagiarise the original technologist.

Biomimetics -- Where the Action Is
Evolution News & Views April 2, 2016 3:50 AM 

Since our last report on biomimetics (the imitation of nature's designs), several exciting new projects have come to light. Let's survey some of the research going on around the world that is inspired by biology.

Cactus cooler. How can you clean a fish farm? Use cactus, says the American Chemical Society. An old trick known by rural Mexicans uses prickly pear cactus to clean dirty water, but how does it work? ACS scientists found that mucilage, the gummy substance in some cactus tissues, attracts impurities like arsenic and bacteria (see the video clip in the article). Made up of some 60 sugars, mucilage seems like a useful cleanser for aquariums and fish farms. The scientists want to synthesize the compound to make a "recirculating aquaculture system that uses cactus extract as a cleansing agent."

Fish cornea. Meet the "elephantnose fish." Its unique ability to find predators and prey in murky water is inspiring technology that could touch the apple of your eye some day: high-tech contact lenses. The elephantnose fish has a specialized retina that captures and amplifies light. News from the National Institutes of Health tells how researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are learning and imitating this fish's secrets:

The team took their inspiration from the elephant nose fish's retina, which has a series of deep cup-like structures with reflective sidewalls. That design helps gather light and intensify the particular wavelengths needed for the fish to see. Borrowing from nature, the researchers created a device that contains thousands of very small light collectors. These light collectors are finger-like glass protrusions, the inside of which are deep cups coated with reflective aluminum. The incoming light hits the fingers and then is focused by the reflective sidewalls. Jiang and his team tested this device's ability to enhance images captured by a mechanical eye model designed in a lab. [Emphasis added.]
The article describes how their bio-inspired contact lens (5-10 years away) will contain solar cells, sensors and electronics to enhance and focus light. The team is also finding inspiration in the compound eyes of insects, envisioning numerous applications in the line of sight. See the open-access paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), where the authors say, "Our work opens up a previously unidentified direction toward achieving high photosensitivity in imaging systems" -- inspired by fish and insects.

Dragonfly cornea. Speaking of insects, "Someday, cicadas and dragonflies might save your sight," another news item from the American Chemical Society says, but not because of their compound eyes. These insects protect their delicate wings with "a forest of tiny pointed pillars that impale and kill bacterial cells unlucky enough to land on them." Could this secret render artificial corneas and lens implants antibacterial without coatings? By imitating these pillars with Plexiglas or Lucite, researchers at UC Irvine found they work to kill both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, depending on the size of the nanostructures they fabricate. "The group has filed for patents on the bactericidal surface and artificial cornea application and hopes to begin animal trials this year." Biomimetics can make money!

Mussel glue. How mussels and barnacles cling so well underwater has long puzzled scientists, but they sure would like to copy that ability. "The need for bio-inspired wet adhesives has significantly increased in the past few decades (e.g., for dental and medical transplants, coronary artery coatings, cell encapsulants, etc.)," begins another paper in PNAS. Somehow, mussels do it with protein. To copy the animal's wizardry, therefore, scientists need to identify and understand the molecular interactions of the "mussel foot proteins" involved. Scientists from UC Santa Barbara and Lehigh (Behe's turf) are making progress. They found out that mussels learned how to manage "a delicate balance between van der Waals, hydrophobic, and electrostatic forces." You have to know physics as well as biology to succeed here.

Shape shifter. You've heard of 3D printing. How about 4D printing? In "Biomimetic 4D Printing," Nature tells about efforts to imitate "nastic plant motions, where a variety of organs such as tendrils, bracts, leaves and flowers respond to environmental stimuli (such as humidity, light or touch) by varying internal turgor, which leads to dynamic conformations governed by the tissue composition and microstructural anisotropy of cell walls." We don't usually think of plant motions, but if seen in time lapse, their motions are real and targeted. If we could 3D-print things that shift their shapes in response to environmental triggers, think of the possibilities: "smart textiles, autonomous robotics, biomedical devices, drug delivery and tissue engineering." Here's what the wizards at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have come up with so far:

Inspired by these botanical systems, we printed composite hydrogel architectures that are encoded with localized, anisotropic swelling behaviour controlled by the alignment of cellulose fibrils along prescribed four-dimensional printing pathways. When combined with a minimal theoretical framework that allows us to solve the inverse problem of designing the alignment patterns for prescribed target shapes, we can programmably fabricate plant-inspired architectures that change shape on immersion in water, yielding complex three-dimensional morphologies.
Bone buildings. Bones and eggshells have the advantage of strength in spite of light weight, Michelle Oyen writes in The Conversation (see her in a video clip in the article). Why don't we build things like that? Steel and concrete are heavy, and to a world worried about climate change, they are dirty. Why not use clean, lightweight building materials inspired by nature? Caution: basic research needed:

In order to make biomimetic materials, we need to have a deep understanding of how natural materials work. We know that natural materials are also "composites": they are made of multiple different base materials, each with different properties. Composite materials are often lighter than single component materials, such as metals, while still having desirable properties such as stiffness, strength and toughness.
It's the biological component, like protein, that's the secret. Eggshells are 95 percent mineral and just 5 percent hydrated protein but that makes all the difference. Oyen says we can learn nature's tricks one of two ways: by mimicking the composition of the material itself, or by copying the process by which the material is made. Her lab is working on "neo-bone" at the centimeter scale, but there's no reason it could not be scaled up to industrial size, she says; it just takes a "major rethink" in how we build things. "The science is still in its infancy, but that doesn't mean we can't dream big about the future."

Frog therapy. Advances in biomimetics come from observation followed by inspiration. Who would have thought that the foam that tiny frogs use to surround and protect their eggs could someday deliver healing drugs to burn patients? At Strathclyde University, the BBC reports, engineers "are taking inspiration from the tiny Tungara frog from Trinidad" to do just that. The frogs use at least six proteins to retain the shape and strength of their egg nest. The scientists have made a synthetic version of frog foam that "could trap and deliver medication while providing a protective barrier between the wound dressing and the damaged skin." So far, they're only halfway there. "While foams like these are a long way from hitting the clinic, they could eventually help patients with infected wounds and burns, by providing support and protection for healing tissue and delivering drugs at the same time," they hope.


Are you getting inspired by biological design? Consider that biomimetics is proving to be a shot in the arm for both basic research and for applied science. Scientists have to understand what they observe, being curious about why a biological solution works (e.g., how does a mussel grip a rock underwater?). Then, with a little imagination, they can envision ways the natural process can be applied. From there, inventors and engineers can get busy trying to imitate the solution. Everyone can profit from the results.

On continuing to challenge "settled science"

"Question the Answer" -- in Every Field but Evolution
Sarah Chaffee March 31, 2016 12:39 PM

Walking on the University of Washington campus here in Seattle last week, I saw a banner proclaiming, "QUESTION THE ANSWER." It's fitting that this flag is on the campus of a research university, where scientists and students from all disciplines seek knowledge. It's healthy to confront the fluidity and uncertainty of scientific truth. In reality, though, when it come to the mechanisms of evolution, current thinking discourages "questioning the answer" -- in the lab, and in the biology classroom.

An article in Quartz ("Many scientific 'truths' are, in fact, false") reminds readers of how many recent scientific findings have turned out not to be reproducible. But author Olivia Goldhill looks on the bright side, observing that it is all part of the scientific process.

For example, a 2005 paper found that of 34 well-regarded medical research results that were retested, "41% had been contradicted or found to be significantly exaggerated." A project that sought to reproduce 100 psychological experiments had only a 40% success rate. The publication notes that "[b]y some estimates, at least 51% -- and as much as 89% -- of published papers are based on studies and experiments showing results that cannot be reproduced."

Goldhill attributes this phenomenon, which could be regarded as scandalous, to two factors: first, the push to publish, with journals preferring contributions that show significant results; and second, scientists mining large volumes of data for "significant" correlations.

Yet she sees a silver lining: "The idea that papers are publishing false results might sound alarming, but the recent crisis doesn't mean that the entire scientific method is totally wrong. In fact, science's focus on its own errors is a sign that researchers are on exactly the right path."

Or as Ivan Oransky at Retraction Watch told Quartz, "If you never find mistakes, or failures to reproduce in your field, you're probably not asking the right questions."

And they're correct, of course. But who will tell the evolutionists? Scientists and science teachers alike are expected to uphold allegiance to neo-Darwinism.

As scientists arguing for a new Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) told Nature:

The number of biologists calling for change in how evolution is conceptualized is growing rapidly. Strong support comes from allied disciplines, particularly developmental biology, but also genomics, epigenetics, ecology and social science. We contend that evolutionary biology needs revision if it is to benefit fully from these other disciplines. The data supporting our position gets stronger every day.

Yet the mere mention of the EES often evokes an emotional, even hostile, reaction among evolutionary biologists. Too often, vital discussions descend into acrimony, with accusations of muddle or misrepresentation. Perhaps haunted by the spectre of intelligent design, evolutionary biologists wish to show a united front to those hostile to science. Some might fear that they will receive less funding and recognition if outsiders -- such as physiologists or developmental biologists -- flood into their field.

So groupthink and self-censorship are, or should be, a concern. Meanwhile, one-sided teaching of evolution misinforms students about the nature of science. It may lead them to see neo-Darwinism as a "fact" rather than an area of ongoing scientific debate. It certainly lends support to the mistaken idea that scientific ideas, once established, are no longer open to questioning.

Pedagogy in general benefits from critical thinking, not excluding on the subject of science. As Nature notes, "[S]tudents gain a much deeper understanding of science when they actively grapple with questions than when they passively listen to answers."

"Science isn't about truth and falsity, it's about reducing uncertainty," Brian Nosek, the psychology professor who tried to repeat 100 experiments, told Quartz. "Really this whole project is science on science: Researchers doing what science is supposed to do, which is be skeptical of our own process, procedure, methods, and look for ways to improve."


Neo-Darwinism is ripe for just such an approach.

Commonsense about entropy.

The Common Sense Law of Physics
Granville Sewell March 27, 2016 1:16 PM

While the first formulations of the second law of thermodynamics were all about heat, about thermal entropy, many general physics texts generalize the second law beyond thermodynamics, with statements such as "In an isolated system, the direction of spontaneous change is from order to disorder" (Classical and Modern Physics, Kenneth Ford, 1973), and give examples of irreversible "entropy" increases that have nothing to do with thermal entropy, such as tornados turning towns into rubble, explosions destroying buildings, or fires turning books into ashes.

In these examples, "entropy" is generally used simply as a synonym for "disorder." In a 1970 Smithsonian article, for example, Isaac Asimov (Smithsonian, Volume 1, August 1970, p. 4) writes:

We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself, it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily.... How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order; how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out -- all by itself -- and that is what the second law is all about.

The development of civilizations on a barren planet would seem to be a spectacular violation of these more general statements of the second law. How could a few fundamental, unintelligent, forces of physics alone rearrange the fundamental particles of physics into human brains, computers, jet airplanes, and Apple iPhones?

Asimov recognizes the problem in his Smithsonian article. He writes:

You can argue, of course, that the phenomenon of life may be an exception [to the second law]. Life on earth has steadily grown more complex, more versatile, more elaborate, more orderly, over the billions of years of the planet's existence. From no life at all, living molecules were developed, then living cells, then living conglomerates of cells, worms, vertebrates, mammals, finally Man. And in Man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe. How could the human brain develop out of the primeval slime? How could that vast increase in order (and therefore that vast decrease in entropy) have taken place?

But Asimov concludes that there is no conflict with the second law here, because:

Remove the sun, and the human brain would not have developed.... And in the billions of years that it took for the human brain to develop, the increase in entropy that took place in the sun was far greater; far, far greater than the decrease that is represented by the evolution required to develop the human brain.

This "compensation" argument, used by every physics text which discusses evolution and the second law to dismiss the claim that what has happened on Earth may violate the more general statements of the second law, was the target of my article "Entropy, Evolution, and Open Systems," published in the proceedings of the 2011 Cornell meeting Biological Information: New Perspectives (BINP).

In that article, I showed that the very equations of entropy change upon which this compensation argument is based actually support, on closer examination, the common sense conclusion that "if an increase in order is extremely improbable when a system is isolated, it is still extremely improbable when the system is open, unless something is entering which makes it not extremely improbable." The fact that order can increase in an open system does not mean that computers can appear on a barren planet as long as the planet receives solar energy. Something must be entering our open system that makes the appearance of computers not extremely improbable, for example: computers.

My BINP article includes a section entitled "The Common Sense Law of Physics," which uses a little humor to show how silly Asimov's compensation argument really is:

I was discussing the second law argument with a friend recently, and mentioned that the second law has been called the "common sense law of physics." The next morning he wrote: "Yesterday I spoke with my wife about these questions. She immediately grasped that chaos results in the long term if she would stop caring for her home."

I replied: "Tell your wife she has made a perfectly valid application of the second law of thermodynamics. In fact, let's take her application a bit further. Suppose you and your wife go for a vacation, leaving a dog, a cat, and a parakeet loose in the house (I put the animals there to cause the entropy to increase more rapidly, otherwise you might have to take a much longer vacation to see the same effect). When you come back, you will not be surprised to see chaos in the house. But tell her some scientists say, 'But if you leave the door open while on vacation, your house becomes an open system, and the second law does not apply to open systems...you may find everything in better condition than when you left.' I'll bet she will say, 'If a maid enters through the door and cleans the house, maybe, but if all that enters is sunlight, wind, and other animals, probably not.'"

Imagine trying to tell my friend's wife that, provided her house is an open system, the fact that chaos is increasing in the rest of the universe -- or on the sun, provided sunlight enters through the door -- means that chaos could decrease in her house while she is gone. Even if the door is left open, it is still extremely improbable that order in the house will improve, unless something enters that makes this not extremely improbable -- for example, new furniture or an intelligent human.

Suppose we take a video of a tornado sweeping through a town, and run the video backward. Would we argue that although a tornado turning rubble into houses and cars represents a decrease in entropy, tornados derive their energy from the sun, and the increase in entropy outside the Earth more than compensates the decrease seen in the video, so there is no conflict with the second law? Or would we argue that what we were seeing was too difficult to quantify, so we can't be sure there is a problem? Some things are obvious even if they are difficult to quantify.

In Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer appeals to common sense, in applying the second law to information: "Most of us know from our ordinary experience that information typically degrades over time unless intelligent agents generate (or regenerate) it. The sands of time have erased some inscriptions on Egyptian monuments. The leak in the attic roof smudged the ink in the stack of old newspapers, making some illegible.... Common experience confirms this general trend -- and so do prebiotic simulation experiments and origin-of-life research."

I have found that Darwinists, after reading this article, or my more recent 2013 Bio-Complexity article (both of which are reproduced in my Discovery Institute Press book In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design) quickly see how silly the compensation argument is, and immediately retreat to the original, early, statements of the second law, saying that the second law of thermodynamics should never have been generalized beyond thermodynamics, and evolution does not violate the second law as applied to thermal entropy. Nevertheless, I'm sure general physics texts are still being written that apply it much more generally, and still dismiss the spectacular increase in order seen on our planet by saying, entropy can decrease in an open system.


Many others who read the article will ask, How could an idea as dumb as the compensation argument have been believed by so many intelligent scientists, for so long? That's a question that many people are finally starting to ask about Darwinism itself.

Another failed Darwinian prediction XIV.

Gene phylogenies are congruent:

Just as evolution predicts that gene trees and species trees should be congruent, it also predicts that different gene trees should be congruent. In 1982 David Penny and co-workers tested this prediction. They wrote that “The theory of evolution predicts that similar phylogenetic trees should be obtained from different sets of character data.” Their character data came from five different proteins and they concluded “there is strong support from these five sequences for the theory of evolution.” (Penny, Foulds and Hendy) But in later years, as more genetic data became available, it was clear that different genes led to very different evolutionary trees. As one study explained, the sequences of genes, “often disagree and can seldom be proven to agree.” (Doolittle and Bapteste) It is now well understood that “Gene and genome trees conflict at many levels” (Haggerty, et. al.) and that “Incongruence between gene trees is the main challenge faced by phylogeneticists in the genomic era.” (Galtier and Daubin) For evolutionists this failed prediction will require more complicated models of evolutionary history. As Penny now writes, he is “not rejecting the tree per se but enriching the tree concept into a network.” (Penny)

References

Doolittle, W., E. Bapteste. 2007. “Pattern pluralism and the Tree of Life hypothesis.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:2043-2049.

Galtier, N., V. Daubin. 2008. “Dealing with incongruence in phylogenomic analyses.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363:4023-4029.

Haggerty, L., et. al. 2009. “Gene and genome trees conflict at many levels.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 364:2209-2219.

Penny, D. 2011. “Darwin’s Theory of Descent with Modification, versus the Biblical Tree of Life.” PLoS Biol 9:e1001096.

Penny, D., L. Foulds, M. Hendy. 1982. “Testing the theory of evolution by comparing phylogenetic trees constructed from five different protein sequences.” Nature 297:197-200.

A clash of titans XI

The Watchtower Society's commentary on Paul's epistle to the Galatians.

GALATIANS, LETTER TO THE
The inspired letter written in Greek, by Paul an apostle, “to the congregations of Galatia.”—Ga 1:1, 2.

Writership. The opening sentence names Paul as the writer of this book. (Ga 1:1) Also, his name is used again in the text, and he refers to himself in the first person. (5:2) A portion of the letter, in the way of an autobiography, speaks of Paul’s conversion and some of his other experiences. The references to his affliction in the flesh (4:13, 15) are in harmony with expressions seemingly relating to this affliction in other Bible books. (2Co 12:7; Ac 23:1-5) Paul’s other letters were usually written by a secretary, but this one, he says, was written with his “own hand.” (Ga 6:11) In his other writings, almost without exception, he sends the greetings of himself and those with him, but in this letter he does not. Had the writer of the letter to the Galatians been an impostor, he would very likely have named a secretary and would have sent some greetings, as Paul usually did. Thus the writer’s form of address and his honest direct style vouch for the letter’s authenticity. It would not reasonably be fabricated this way.

The letter is not usually contested as being a letter of Paul’s except by those who attempt to discredit Paul’s writership of all the letters commonly attributed to him. Among evidences from outside the Bible supporting Paul’s writership, there is a quotation that Irenaeus (c. 180 C.E.) makes from Galatians and ascribes to Paul.

To Whom Addressed. The question of which congregations were included in the address “the congregations of Galatia” (Ga 1:2) has long been a controversy. In support of the contention that these were unnamed congregations in the northern part of the province of Galatia, it is argued that the people living in this area were ethnically Galatians, whereas those of the S were not. However, Paul in his writings usually gives official Roman names to the provinces, and the province of Galatia in his time included the southern Lycaonian cities of Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe as well as the Pisidian city of Antioch. In all these cities Paul had organized Christian congregations on his first evangelizing tour when he was accompanied by Barnabas. That the congregations in the cities of Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, and Pisidian Antioch were addressed agrees with the way the letter mentions Barnabas, as one apparently known by those to whom Paul was writing. (2:1, 9, 13) There is no indication elsewhere in the Scriptures that Barnabas was known to Christians in the northern part of Galatia or that Paul even made any trips through that territory.

Paul’s exclamation, “O senseless Galatians,” is no evidence that he had in mind only a certain ethnic people who sprang exclusively from Gallic stock in the northern part of Galatia. (Ga 3:1) Rather, Paul was rebuking certain ones in the congregations there for allowing themselves to be influenced by an element of Judaizers among them, Jews who were attempting to establish their own righteousness through the Mosaic arrangement in place of the ‘righteousness due to faith’ provided by the new covenant. (2:15–3:14; 4:9, 10) Racially, “the congregations of Galatia” (1:2) to whom Paul wrote were a mixture of Jews and non-Jews, the latter being both circumcised proselytes and non-circumcised Gentiles, and no doubt some were of Celtic descent. (Ac 13:14, 43; 16:1; Ga 5:2) All together, they were addressed as Galatian Christians because the area in which they lived was called Galatia. The whole tenor of the letter is that Paul was writing to those with whom he was well acquainted in the southern part of this Roman province, not to total strangers in the northern sector, which he apparently never visited.

Time of Writing. The period covered by the book is of an undetermined length, but the time of writing has been set between approximately 50 and 52 C.E. It is implied in Galatians 4:13, that Paul made at least two visits to the Galatians before he wrote the letter. Chapters 13 and 14 of the Acts of Apostles describe a visit of Paul and Barnabas to the southern Galatian cities that took place about 47 to 48 C.E. Then, after the conference regarding circumcision in Jerusalem, about 49 C.E., Paul, with Silas, went back to Derbe and Lystra in Galatia and to other cities where Paul and Barnabas had “published the word of Jehovah” (Ac 15:36–16:1) on the first tour. It was evidently after this, while Paul was at another point on his second missionary tour, or else back at his home base, Syrian Antioch, that he received word that prompted him to write to “the congregations of Galatia.”

If it was during his year-and-a-half stay in Corinth (Ac 18:1, 11) that Paul wrote this letter, then the time of writing was likely between the autumn of 50 and the spring of 52 C.E., the same general period during which he wrote his canonical letters to the Thessalonians.

If the writing was done during his brief stop in Ephesus or after he got back to Antioch in Syria and “passed some time there” (Ac 18:22, 23), it would have been about 52 C.E. Ephesus is an unlikely place for writing, though, both because of his short stay there and because if Paul had been so close when he heard of the deflection in Galatia, it is to be expected that he would have personally visited the brothers or explained in his letter why it was not possible for him to do so at the time.

What his letter says about the Galatians “being so quickly removed from the One who called [them]” (Ga 1:6) may indicate that the writing of the letter was done soon after Paul had paid a visit to the Galatians. But even if the writing had not taken place until 52 C.E. in Syrian Antioch, it would still have been relatively soon for such a deflection to occur.

Canonicity. Early evidence of the book’s canonicity is found in the Muratorian Fragment and in the writings of Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen. These men referred to it by name along with most or all of the other 26 books of the Christian Greek Scriptures. It is mentioned by name in the shortened canon of Marcion and even alluded to by Celsus, who was an enemy of Christianity. All the outstanding lists of the books in the canon of the inspired Scriptures, up to at least the time of the Third Council of Carthage, in 397 C.E., included the book of Galatians. We have it preserved today, along with eight of Paul’s other inspired letters, in the Chester Beatty Papyrus No. 2 (P⁠46), a manuscript assigned to about 200 C.E. This gives proof that the early Christians accepted the book of Galatians as one of Paul’s letters. Other ancient manuscripts, such as the Sinaitic, Alexandrine, Vatican No. 1209, Codex Ephraemi rescriptus, and Codex Claromontanus, as well as the Syriac Peshitta, likewise include the book of Galatians. Also, it harmonizes completely with Paul’s other writings and with the rest of the Scriptures from which it frequently quotes.

Circumstances Relating to the Letter. The letter reflects many traits of the people of Galatia in Paul’s time. Gallic Celts from the N had overrun the region in the third century B.C.E., and therefore Celtic influence was strong in the land. The Celts, or Gauls, were considered a fierce, barbarous people, it having been said that they offered their prisoners of war as human sacrifices. They have also been described in Roman literature as a very emotional, superstitious people, given to much ritual, and this religious trait would likely influence them away from a form of worship so lacking in ritual as Christianity.

Even so, the congregations in Galatia may have included many who formerly had been like this as pagans, as well as many converts from Judaism who had not entirely rid themselves of scrupulously keeping the ceremonies and other obligations of the Mosaic Law. The fickle, inconstant nature attributed to the Galatians of Celtic descent could explain how at one time some in the Galatian congregations were zealous for God’s truth and a short time later became an easy prey for opponents of the truth who were sticklers for observance of the Law and who insisted that circumcision and other requirements of the Law were necessary for salvation.

The Judaizers, as such enemies of the truth might be called, apparently kept the circumcision issue alive even after the apostles and other elders in Jerusalem had dealt with the matter. Perhaps, too, some of the Galatian Christians were succumbing to the low moral standards of the populace, as may be inferred from the message of the letter from chapter 5, verse 13, to the end. At any rate, when word of their deflection reached the apostle, he was moved to write this letter of straightforward counsel and strong encouragement. It is evident that his immediate purpose in writing was to confirm his apostleship, counteract the false teachings of the Judaizers, and strengthen the brothers in the Galatian congregations.

The Judaizers were crafty and insincere. (Ac 15:1; Ga 2:4) Claiming to represent the congregation in Jerusalem, these false teachers opposed Paul and discredited his position as an apostle. They wanted the Christians to get circumcised, not seeking the Galatians’ best interests, but so that the Judaizers could bring about an appearance of things that would conciliate the Jews and keep them from opposing so violently. The Judaizers did not want to suffer persecution for Christ.—Ga 6:12, 13.

To accomplish their objective, they claimed that Paul’s commission came to him secondhand, that it was only from some men prominent in the Christian congregation—not from Christ Jesus himself. (Ga 1:11, 12, 15-20) They wanted the Galatians to follow them (4:17), and in order to nullify Paul’s influence, they had to paint him first as no apostle. Apparently they claimed that when Paul felt it expedient, he preached circumcision. (1:10; 5:11) They were trying to make a sort of fusion religion of Christianity and Judaism, not denying Christ outright but arguing that circumcision would profit the Galatians, that it would advance them in Christianity, and that, furthermore, by this they would be sons of Abraham, to whom the covenant of circumcision was originally given.—3:7.

Paul thoroughly refuted the contentions of these false Christians and built up the Galatian brothers so that they could stand firm in Christ. It is encouraging to note that the Galatian congregations did remain true to Christ and stood as pillars of the truth. The apostle Paul visited them on his third missionary tour (Ac 18:23), and the apostle Peter addressed his first letter to the Galatians, among others.—1Pe 1:1.

[Box on page 881]

HIGHLIGHTS OF GALATIANS

A letter emphasizing appreciation for the freedom that true Christians have through Jesus Christ

Written a year or perhaps several years after the Galatians had been informed about the decision of the governing body that circumcision is not required of Christians

Paul defends his apostleship

Paul’s apostleship was not of human origin but was by appointment from Jesus Christ and the Father; he did not consult with the apostles in Jerusalem before beginning to declare the good news; not until three years later did he briefly visit Cephas and James (1:1, 13-24)

The good news he proclaimed was received, not from men, but by revelation from Jesus Christ (1:10-12)

By reason of a revelation, Paul, with Barnabas and Titus, went to Jerusalem regarding the circumcision issue; he learned nothing new from James, Peter, and John, but they recognized that he had been empowered for an apostleship to the nations (2:1-10)

At Antioch, when Peter wrongly separated himself from non-Jewish believers in fear of certain visiting brothers from Jerusalem, Paul reproved him (2:11-14)

A person is declared righteous only through faith in Christ, not works of law

If a person could be declared righteous by works of law, Christ’s death would have been unnecessary (2:15-21)

Galatians received God’s spirit because of their responding in faith to the good news, not because of works of law (3:1-5)

True sons of Abraham are those who have faith like his (3:6-9, 26-29)

Because of being unable to keep the Law perfectly, those seeking to prove themselves righteous by works of the Law are under a curse (3:10-14)

The Law did not invalidate the promise associated with the Abrahamic covenant, but it served to make transgressions manifest and acted as a tutor leading to Christ (3:15-25)

Stand fast in Christian freedom

Jesus Christ, by his death, released those under law, making it possible for them to become sons of God (4:1-7)

Returning to an arrangement of observing days, months, seasons, and years would mean going back into slavery and coming into a position like that of Ishmael, the son of the servant girl Hagar; with his mother he was dismissed from Abraham’s household (4:8-31)

Having been liberated from sin and no longer being bound by the Law, they were to resist anyone who would induce them to accept a yoke of slavery (1:6-9; 5:1-12; 6:12-16)

Do not abuse your freedom but yield to the influence of God’s spirit, manifesting its fruitage in your life and shunning the works of the flesh (5:13-26)


Readjust in a spirit of mildness anyone taking a false step; but all are individually obligated to carry their own load of responsibility (6:1-5)

Yet more on pre-evolutionary design II

An Engineered "Minimal" Microbe Is Irreducibly Complex, Thus Evidence of Intelligent Design.

Ann Gauger March 24, 2016 4:00 PM

Science Magazine published a paper last week, "Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome," describing the creation of a bacterium with a stripped-down genome. The paper represents twenty years of work by many scientists, including celebrated biochemist J. Craig Venter. They managed to reduce the genome by almost half, from over 900 genes to 473, a little bit at a time. The paper has made a splash across the Internet (see, for example, articles from Associated Press and Bloomberg).

Why on earth would the researchers do such a thing? The hope is that this minimal bacterium will provide a useful vehicle for future synthetic biology, enabling the production of useful medicines to treat disease.

But there is another reason they spent twenty years on this project. It's an attempt to answer a basic question. What's the minimum amount of genetic information needed to get a functioning cell? Estimates have ranged from 250 to 300 genes, depending on what kind of cell and where it is living. For the bacterium M. mycoides, the starting point of their work, the answer seems to be about 470 genes. Scientists want to know the answer because the simplified cell may allow them to tease apart how the genes interact, and what all of them do. It's easier to tackle 400 genes than over 900, or in the case of the common bacterium E. coli, over 4,000.

This work has already yielded some interesting results. They still don't know what 30 percent of the reduced genome does, just that the genes are essential. Second, genes that appear to be nonessential by themselves can become essential when another gene is deleted. Clearly there are complex interactions going on among the 473 genes.

All of this leads to an obvious question. This little bacterium has to be able to copy its DNA, transcribe and translate it into protein, plus be able to coordinate all the steps involved in cell division. It has to be able to make all the things it can't get from its environment. That's a lot of information to be stored and used appropriately. Hence 473 genes.

But where did the cell come from in the first place? It's a chicken-and-egg problem. Given the number of things the cell has to do to be a functioning organism, where does one begin? DNA or RNA alone is not enough, because protein is needed to copy the DNA and to carry out basic cellular processes. But protein is not enough by itself either. DNA is needed to stably inherit the genetic information about how to make proteins.

Some people propose that RNA could do the trick, because under just the right circumstances, and with an experimenter's help, RNA can copy itself, partially. The idea is that if just the right sequence of RNA were to come along, it could serve as both an RNA enzyme (or ribozyme) and as the template for reproducing itself.

That leaves aside bigger problems. Ribozymes can only carry out a few simple chemical reactions, while even a minimal cell needs many kind of reactions. Second, how did the switch to DNA and proteins happen? No one has a clue. Last, let's not forget the problem of interdependence, or irreducible complexity as biochemist Michael Behe calls it in his book Darwin's Black Box. The minimal cell, he writes, is a system "composed of several [many in this case] well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."

Irreducible systems are evidence of intelligent design, because only a mind has the capacity to design and implement such an information-rich, interdependent network as a minimal cell.

Think about the design of a basic car. You need an engine, a transmission, a drive shaft, a steering wheel, axles and wheels, plus a chassis to hold it all together. Then there's gas, and a way to start the whole thing going. (I have undoubtedly left out something, but you get my point.) Having one or two of these things won't make a functioning car. All the parts are necessary before it can drive, and it takes a designer to envision what is needed, how to fit it together, and then to build it.

Whether you're talking about a car or a minimal cell, it won't happen without a designer.