Design re: the origin of brains is a no brainer.

On the Origin of Brains
Evolution News & Views 

Brains first make their appearance in the Cambrian explosion. Beware, your own brain may explode when you hear how Darwin defenders explain their origin.

Consider for a moment how complex even a simple brain is. A single neuron is very complex, lined with precision sodium channels that "fire" in sequence down an axon or dendrite. At the tip, vesicles carry complex chemical neurotransmitters across a gap, or synapse. But a single neuron is useless alone; it needs a network of other neurons to communicate information. That information must be processed by some kind of central nervous system, which must be able to interpret the information and respond by commanding other specialized tissues, such as muscles. The earliest Cambrian animals possessed brains that could operate numerous complex systems: sensory organs, digestive systems, articulated limbs, sexual organs and complex behaviors. Those things were lacking in their Precambrian predecessors, the Ediacarans.

Current Biology this month has a special section on the origin of brains. The authors commit the same blunders we saw just days ago: (1) they appeal only to unguided natural processes, (2) they rely on magic words, and (3) they ignore arguments and evidence for design of the type Stephen Meyer presents in Darwin's Doubt. Brains just explode into existence -- no intelligence required!

Name It and Claim It

In "The Basal Ganglia Over 500 Million Years," in Current Biology, Grillner and Robertson have this to say:

Cyclostomes have evolved separately from mammals over more than 500 million years. It follows that when detailed similarities are demonstrated between forebrain circuits in the lampreys of today and those of mammals, these circuits were most likely already present at the dawn of vertebrate evolution (Figure 1). This was at the time of the Cambrian explosion when fossil records show the appearance of a multitude of now extinct species, but also the origin of different extant phyla like arthropods and molluscs, as well as vertebrates (cyclostomes). At this time, many of the molecular components of nerve cells had been designed (through evolution), including most ion channels, transmitters, and ionotropic and metabotropic receptors. [Emphasis added.]
This kind of language conceals rather than enlightens. The authors simply assume evolution: "Cyclostomes ['round mouths' or jawless fish] have evolved," they assert, demanding unquestioned affirmation. They refer to "the appearance of" and "the origin of" complex animals without asking how that happened. Then they present a list of complex machinery involved in brain cells, informing us that at the very time all the animal phyla abruptly appeared, these things "had been designed (through evolution)." It's enough to make your brain hurt.

The Arthropod Circus Cannon

Strausfeld, Ma, and Edgecombe recount the greatest show on earth, the Arthropod Cannon. Practice your most exuberant P.T. Barnum impression on the last clause in this excerpt from "Fossils and the Evolution of the Arthropod Brain" in Current Biology:

Recent phylogenies of the arthropods, based on fossil and molecular evidence, and estimates of divergence dates, suggest that neural ground patterns characterizing onychophorans, chelicerates and mandibulates are likely to have diverged between the terminal Ediacaran and earliest Cambrian, heralding the exuberant diversification of body forms that account for the Cambrian Explosion.
They don't let us peek inside the cannon. All we see is the explosive appearance of central nervous systems in all three branches of arthropods after the explosion. But what happened inside the barrel? The story requires a leap of faith.

The oldest body fossils of euarthropods [true arthropods] date to the second of four series into which the Cambrian is divided, coincident with the first appearance of trilobites around 521 million years ago. This almost certainly underestimates the antiquity of euarthropods based on two lines of evidence: trace fossils and molecular dating. Rusophychus traces, excavations interpreted as having been made by the jointed appendages of euarthropods, first appear close to the base of the Cambrian in many parts of the world, and Fortunian (earliest Cambrian) sediments include other euarthropod traces, such as Diplichnites, Monomorphichnus and Cruziana. The trace fossils (Figure 1A,B) thus predate the body fossil record of euarthropods but yield no evidence for Ediacaran (> 541 million year old) arthropods. On the contrary, it suggests that euarthropods first diversified in the early Cambrian.
But the fossils shown in Figure 1 are not much help. It takes a lively imagination to see arthropod traces in the squiggly lines on a flat surface of rock they say dates from late Ediacaran. The first true arthropod fossils at the base of the Cambrian "had exoskeletons, were highly motile and exploited three-dimensional space," they note. By the time the Burgess Shale was deposited, Cambrian arthropods had a "brain, optic lobes..., prominent eyes and a triplet of ocelli." Since the fossils don't show the transition, they place some hope in molecular dating. We've explained why the molecular clock is untrustworthy. These authors concur that "molecular dating yields substantially different estimates for the dates of divergence" for different groups, but they choose to believe that the divergence had to take place earlier, based on "the most recent studies" cited in 2013 and 2014, written before the 2015 paper that we reported shows the molecular clock is broken.

The other five Figures in the paper show fully developed, complex central nervous systems capable of operating articulated limbs, eyes, muscles, digestive systems and complex behaviors. Most interesting is the early Cambrian animal Fuxianhuia protensa, which Casey Luskin wrote about. He quoted Nature calling its brain "a very modern brain in an ancient animal." That was in 2012. These authors, describing it in 2016, say, "Fuxianhuia may have been an active predator requiring considerable brain power." Brains are exploding all over the place.

Because We Say So

Hardcastle and Krapp are fond of saying that complex things "have evolved." We count ten instances in their Current Biology piece about "The Evolution of Biological Image Stabilization."

"No matter how simple or sophisticated the eye design, mechanisms have evolved across phyla to stabilize gaze."

"Here, we present a few examples which illustrate the general principles of how, and why, visual animals stabilize their gaze relative to the world they live in, and some of the species-specific adaptations of the sensory and motor systems which have evolved to support a level gaze."

"As described by Land in a recent review, areas of high spatial resolution have evolved independently of phylogenetic age in various phyla, and are found in aquatic, terrestrial and aerial animals alike."

"Animals and their sensory systems have evolved under severe energy constraints...."

"Independent of phylogenetic origin, almost all animals have evolved strategies using sensory modalities and motor plants to support gaze stabilization."

"The combination of feedforward and feedback signals in control architectures has also evolved in other gaze stabilization systems."

"Aspects of behavior, including species-specific locomotor modes, the use of sensory systems and of motor systems -- all of which are likely to have evolved in parallel -- therefore need to be considered as reasons for the origin of a given gaze control strategy."

"Different phyla have evolved diverse motor systems for gaze stabilization, which nevertheless exhibit similarities in design."

"In most cases, they have evolved a rather sophisticated neck motor system to do so."

"Adaptations to these interactions include the specification of sensory modalities and motor systems, which have likely evolved in parallel to simplify the integration of sensory signals and their transformation into motor commands for controlling behavior."

Why, you ask, have they evolved? Because image stabilization systems are good designs. They help the animals. Indeed, their first sentence agrees, "The use of vision to coordinate behavior requires an efficient control design that stabilizes the world on the retina or directs the gaze towards salient features in the surroundings."

When have they evolved? "A visual streak that is stabilized to align with the external horizon evolved in ancient crustaceans, for instance, which first appeared during the Cambrian explosion about 511 million years ago," they confidently state. Crustaceans, we note, have eyes, limbs, guts, muscles, sexual organs, and much more. Presumably all those things "have evolved," along with the brains that exploded onto the scene with everything else.

Evolving Understanding

Since everything evolves, understanding must evolve, too. That's what Niven and Chittka say in their Guest Editorial in Current Biology, "Evolving understanding of nervous system evolution." Are we there yet? Do we understand? We'll let them describe the problem Darwinians face:

Nervous systems encompass a staggering diversity from nerve nets of just a few hundred neurons -- as in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans -- to the highly centralised and cephalised nervous systems of arthropods that may contain a million neurons, as in the honeybee, and those of cephalopod molluscs, such as the octopus, and amniotes that can contain hundreds of millions to billions in the case of the human brain. Nervous systems have been evolving in concert with the animals that possess them since the Precambrian more than 580 million years ago. Arguably, all extant nervous systems are success stories; no single one is inherently better than any other: they are the products of different sets of evolutionary pressures produced by different life histories. Our knowledge of nervous systems is derived from multiple levels and types of analysis: genetics, development, cell signalling, morphology, biophysics, physiology and behaviour. Understanding how so many organisational levels are integrated to produce even a single behaviour is difficult; understanding their evolution even more so.
Understanding takes hard work. It's much easier just to stipulate what you want to believe. As they bluntly assert at one point, "Brains are not designed but evolve 'blindly' through selection."


If you've got a headache by now, relax and consider that the failure of these articles to address Meyer's critique of Darwinian explanations for the Cambrian explosion constitutes strong affirmation that his critique is sound. If they had better evidence and arguments, they surely would provide them.

The point of no return?

Artificial Eggs Used to Make Living Animals

Wesley J. Smith

As we roll around in the dirt like Sarge fighting Beetle Bailey, big and potentially culture-altering events are occurring in the world that are not being discussed, much less debated.

Scientists have turned rodent skin cells into eggs, which were fertilized and the resulting embryos brought to birth. From the Telegraph story:

Artificial eggs have been grown in a petri dish for the first time and used to create living animals in a breakthrough hailed as 'remarkable' by British experts.

Scientists in Japan proved it is possible to take tissue cells from the tail of a mouse, reprogramme them as stem cells and then turn them into eggs in the lab.

The 'eggs in a dish' were then fertilised and the resulting embryos were implanted in female mice which went on to give birth to 11 healthy pups.

This is huge and there is no reason why the proper techniques couldn't, one day, be used on humans. Such research will be sold to the public as a breakthrough to help the infertile have babies.

But the primary and most significant uses to which this technology will likely be put is as the great accelerator to human cloning research, genetic engineering, and other such technologies that have been stymied by a shortage of human eggs, one of which is needed for every cloning try.

That dearth may now be ending. Once biotechnologists can indulge in mass cloning, it's Brave New World time, baby!

These technologies could have a huge impact on perceptions of what it means to be human. Yet where are the important national -- nay, international -- conversations about how and whether to proceed down this path? Where are the debates about what, if any, limits should be placed on this technology?

Those debates aren't much happening.

On the Fate of the dead :The Watchtower Society's commentary.

What Hope Is There for the Dead?

1. What is the good news about the dead?

When Jesus arrived at Bethany near Jerusalem, his friend Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus went to the burial place with Martha and Mary, sisters of the deceased man. Soon, a crowd gathered. Can you imagine the joy of Martha and Mary when Jesus raised Lazarus back to life?—Read John 11:21-24, 38-44.


Martha was already aware of the good news about the dead. She knew that Jehovah will resurrect the dead to live on earth again.—Read Job 14:14, 15.

2. What is the condition of the dead?

Humans are made from dust. (Genesis 2:7; 3:19) We are not spirits living in a body of flesh. We are physical creatures, so no part of us survives death. When we die, our brain dies too, and our thoughts perish. Thus, Lazarus said nothing about his experience of death because the dead are unconscious.—Read Psalm 146:4; Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10.


Does God torment people with fire after death? Since the Bible shows that the dead are unconscious, hellfire is clearly a false teaching that slanders God. The very idea of tormenting people with fire disgusts him.—Read Jeremiah 7:31.

3. Can the dead speak to us?

The dead can neither speak nor hear. (Psalm 115:17) But some angels are wicked, and they may speak to people and pretend to be dead humans. (2 Peter 2:4) Jehovah forbids trying to inquire of the dead.—Read Deuteronomy 18:10, 11.

4. Who will return to life?

Many millions of people who are dead in the grave will return to life on earth. Even some who did not know God and who practiced bad things will be resurrected.—Read Luke 23:43; Acts 24:15.


Resurrected ones will be able to learn the truth about God and to exercise faith in Jesus by obeying him. (Revelation 20:11-13) Those who return to life and do good things will be able to enjoy life forever on earth.—Read John 5:28, 29.

5. What does the resurrection tell us about Jehovah?

God made hope for the dead possible by sending his Son to die for us. So the resurrection tells us about Jehovah’s love and undeserved kindness. When the dead return to life, whom do you especially want to see?—Read John 3:16; Romans 6:23.

The patriarch Joseph on getting the mind of God:The Watchtower Society's commentary.

“Do Not Interpretations Belong to God?”

JOSEPH walked along the dark corridor, dripping with sweat from his toil in the stifling heat. Outside, the Egyptian sun was baking the prison like a kiln. It seemed at times as if he knew every brick in the place, every crack in every wall. This was his whole world now. True, he was highly regarded here. Nonetheless, he was a prisoner.

How often he must have cast his thoughts back to his life in the high rocky hills in Hebron, where he had tended his father’s flocks! He was about 17 years old when his father, Jacob, sent him on an errand that took him dozens of miles (km) from home. Such freedom seemed almost unimaginable now. Joseph’s jealous brothers had turned on him with murderous hatred and then sold him as a slave. He was taken down to Egypt, where he first served in the household of the Egyptian official Potiphar. Joseph held his master’s trust until a false accusation of rape from Potiphar’s wife landed him here in this prison. *—Genesis, chapters 37, 39.

Joseph was 28 years old now, with about a decade of slavery and imprisonment behind him. To put it mildly, his life was not turning out as he had hoped. Would he ever be set free? Would he see his dear elderly father again or his beloved younger brother, Benjamin? How long would he be stuck in this pit?


Have you ever felt as Joseph did? Sometimes life turns out to be a far cry from our youthful hopes. Indeed, painful situations can seem to drag on endlessly, and it can be hard to see a way out or a way to endure. Let us see what we can learn from the faith of Joseph.

“JEHOVAH CONTINUED WITH JOSEPH”

Joseph knew that his God, Jehovah, never lost sight of him, and this knowledge surely helped him to endure. Even here in a foreign prison, Jehovah found ways to bless Joseph. Thus, we read: “Jehovah continued with Joseph and kept showing loyal love to him and granting him favor in the eyes of the chief officer of the prison.” (Genesis 39:21-23) As Joseph continued to work hard, he kept giving his God a basis for blessing him. How comforting it must have been for him to know that Jehovah was always with him!

Did Jehovah intend to let Joseph remain in that prison indefinitely? Joseph could only guess at the answer, and he surely kept the matter before his God in prayer. As it so often happens, the answer came in a most unexpected way. One day, there was some commotion in the prison as two new inmates arrived—officers from Pharaoh’s personal staff. One was the king’s chief baker; the other was the chief cupbearer.—Genesis 40:1-3.


The chief of the guard entrusted Joseph with the care of those two formerly prominent  men. * One night they each had a vivid and puzzling dream. When Joseph saw them in the morning, he could tell that something was wrong. So he asked: “Why are your faces gloomy today?” (Genesis 40:3-7) Perhaps his kindly manner assured the men that it was safe for them to reveal their troubles. Joseph did not know it, but that conversation would lead to a turning point in his life. Would there have been any conversation, though, had Joseph not chosen to show a little kind concern for others? His choice may move us to ask ourselves, ‘Do I express my faith in God by showing an interest in fellow humans?’

The two men explained that they were agitated by their vivid and puzzling dreams—and by the fact that they had no interpreter with them. The Egyptians placed a lot of weight on dreams and depended heavily on the men who claimed to be able to interpret them. The two men did not know that their dreams had come from Joseph’s God, Jehovah. But Joseph knew. He assured them: “Do not interpretations belong to God? Relate it [the dream] to me, please.” (Genesis 40:8) Joseph’s words resound today for all sincere students of the Bible. If only every religious person showed the same humility! We need to be willing to set aside prideful human thinking and to rely on God as we seek correct interpretations of his word.—1 Thessalonians 2:13; James 4:6.

The cupbearer went first. He told Joseph of a dream about a vine with three twigs that bore clusters of grapes. The grapes ripened, and the cupbearer squeezed the juice into Pharaoh’s cup. Thanks to Jehovah, Joseph instantly knew the meaning behind the dream. He told the cupbearer that the three twigs meant three days; within that time, Pharaoh would restore the cupbearer to his former position. As relief swept over the cupbearer’s features, Joseph added this request: “Please show me loyal love and mention me to Pharaoh.” Joseph explained that he had been kidnapped from his home and imprisoned without just cause.—Genesis 40:9-15.

Encouraged by the good news the cupbearer had received, the baker asked Joseph the meaning of his own dream in which he had seen three baskets of bread as well as birds eating from one of the baskets on his head. The answer to this riddle was also given to Joseph. But it did not mean good news for the baker. Joseph said: “This is its interpretation: The three baskets are three days. Three days from now, Pharaoh will behead you  and will hang you on a stake, and the birds will eat your flesh from you.” (Genesis 40:16-19) Like all of God’s faithful servants, Joseph boldly revealed God’s messages, both the good news and the news of impending judgment.—Isaiah 61:2.


Three days later, Joseph’s words came true. Pharaoh held a birthday party—a practice not found among God’s people in Bible times—and pronounced judgment on his two servants. The baker was executed, just as Joseph had foretold, whereas the cupbearer was restored to his former position. Sadly, though, that neglectful man forgot all about Joseph.—Genesis 40:20-23.

“I NEED NOT BE CONSIDERED!”

Two full years passed. (Genesis 41:1) Imagine how frustrating that must have been for Joseph! Perhaps his hopes were high after Jehovah gave him the understanding of the puzzling dreams of the cupbearer and the baker. Thereafter, as each day dawned, Joseph may have awakened with renewed hope that this would be the day of his release—only to find once again that the dull routine of prison life dragged on, unchanged. Those two years might well have been the most challenging of all for Joseph to endure. Yet, he never gave up his trust in his God, Jehovah. Rather than giving in to despair, he was determined to endure, and he emerged from that trying time all the stronger.—James 1:4.

In these difficult times, who of us does not need to work on our endurance? In order to face life’s ongoing trials, we need the kind of determination, patience, and inner peace that only God can give us. As he did with Joseph, he can help us to fight despair and hold on to hope.—Romans 12:12; 15:13.

The cupbearer may have forgotten Joseph, but Jehovah never did. One night, he sent Pharaoh a pair of unforgettable dreams. In the first, the king saw seven fine-looking, fat cows emerge from the Nile River, followed by seven ugly, thin cows. The thin ones devoured the fat ones. Later, Pharaoh dreamed that he saw a stalk of grain sprouting seven choice ears. But then another seven ears, wind-parched and sickly, sprouted up and devoured the choice ones. In the morning, Pharaoh awoke deeply agitated over the dreams, so he called on all his wise men and magic-practicing priests to interpret them. They all failed. (Genesis 41:1-8) Whether that means that they were dumbfounded or that they came up with a variety of conflicting ideas, we do not know. At any rate, Pharaoh was let down—yet he was more desperate than ever to find an answer to this puzzle.

Finally, the cupbearer remembered Joseph! His conscience stung him, and he told Pharaoh about the remarkable young man in prison who two years earlier had correctly interpreted his dream and that of the baker. Immediately, Pharaoh had Joseph summoned from prison.—Genesis 41:9-13.


Imagine Joseph’s feelings as Pharaoh’s messengers came with the royal summons. He quickly changed his clothes and shaved—likely removing all the hair from his head, for such was the Egyptian custom. No doubt he prayed fervently that Jehovah would bless him in this interview! Soon he found himself in the opulent court of the royal palace, standing before the monarch. We read: “Then Pharaoh said to Joseph: ‘I had a dream, but there is no one to interpret it. Now I have heard it said about you that you can hear a dream and interpret it.’” Joseph’s response showed, once again, both his humility and his faith in his God: “I need not be considered! God will speak concerning Pharaoh’s welfare.”—Genesis 41:14-16.

Jehovah loves humble, faithful people, so it is no wonder that he gave Joseph the answer that had eluded the wise men and priests. Joseph explained that Pharaoh’s two dreams had the same meaning. By repeating the message, Jehovah was signifying that the matter was “firmly established”—absolutely sure of fulfillment. The fat cows and the healthy ears of grain represented seven years of plenty in Egypt, while the lean cows and the sickly ears of grain pictured seven years of famine that would follow the years  of plenty. That famine would devour the land’s abundance.—Genesis 41:25-32.


Pharaoh knew that Joseph had the answer. But what could be done? Joseph recommended a plan of action. Pharaoh needed to find a man both “discreet and wise” to oversee the gathering of the land’s surplus grain into storehouses during the seven years of plenty and then to distribute that surplus to the needy during the ensuing famine. (Genesis 41:33-36) Joseph’s experience and abilities more than qualified him for that job, but he did not promote himself. His humility made such a presumptuous course unthinkable; his faith made it unnecessary. If we have real faith in Jehovah, we have no need for ambition or self-promotion. We can be at peace, leaving matters in his capable hands!

“CAN ANOTHER MAN BE FOUND LIKE THIS ONE?”

Pharaoh and all his servants saw the wisdom in Joseph’s plan. The king also acknowledged that Joseph’s God was the real force behind Joseph’s wise words. He said to his servants there in the royal court: “Can another man be found like this one in whom there is the spirit of God?” To Joseph, he said: “Since God has caused you to know all of this, there is no one as discreet and wise as you. You will personally be over my house, and all my people will obey you implicitly. Only in my role as king will I be greater than you.”—Genesis 41:38-41.

Pharaoh was as good as his word. Joseph was soon clothed in fine linen. Pharaoh gave him a gold necklace, a signet ring, a royal chariot, and full authority to travel through the land and put his plan into effect. (Genesis 41:42-44) Within the space of a day, then, Joseph went from prison to palace. He awoke a lowly convict, and he fell asleep as the ruler second to Pharaoh. How clear that Joseph’s faith in Jehovah God was justified! Jehovah saw all the injustices that his servant had suffered through the years. He addressed those issues at just the right time and in just the right way. Jehovah had in mind not only correcting the wrongs done to Joseph but also preserving the future nation of Israel. We will see how that was so in a future article in this series.


If you face a trialsome situation, perhaps an injustice that seems to drag on for years on end, do not despair. Remember Joseph. Because he never lost his kindness, his humility, his endurance, and his faith, he gave Jehovah every reason to reward him in the end.

Even some Darwinist admit that the tree of life is fallen.

 As the Tree of Life Tumbles: Now, the "Public Goods" Hypothesis
Evolution News & Views


Even as Richard Dawkins informs presidential candidate Rick Perry that "evolution is a fact," many evolutionary biologists are quietly (or not so quietly) abandoning what Dawkins claims as the central aspect of that fact, namely, the Tree of Life (TOL) hypothesis. In his bestseller The Greatest Show on Earth (2009), Dawkins writes that "today we are pretty certain that all living creatures on this planet are descended from a single ancestor" (p. 408). But this textbook picture, widely accepted since Darwin's time, is increasingly being dumped by biologists, in favor of very different histories.

You can follow the action by visiting the lively open access journal  Biology Direct. This journal is exceptional because it includes the referee reports, along with the authors' replies to the referees, at the end of each paper. This admirable practice enables the reader to follow the details of scientific debate, usually hidden from public scrutiny.

As an example, check out a paper published this week (still in manuscript form), "The public goods hypothesis for the evolution of life on Earth," by four European evolutionary biologists (James McInerney, Eric Bapteste, Davide Pisani, and Mary J. O'Connell). McInerney et al. argue that the TOL is "becoming increasingly implausible." Although the TOL "has been stretched to fit the data" in various ways, "given our knowledge of the data, it seems that the elastic limit of the original hypothesis has been passed." Time to try a different picture.

To replace the TOL, McInerney et al. favor what they call "the public goods hypothesis." Borrowing a term from the economics Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson, they argue that many (but not all) genes and proteins are "public goods," meaning entities that belong to no one in particular. These genes and proteins are thus available for use by all, and their presence in any lineage does not necessarily indicate common ancestry. As they explain,

According to this hypothesis, nucleotide sequences (genes, promoters, exons, etc.) are simply seen as goods, passed from organism to organism through both vertical and horizontal transfer. Public goods sequences are defined by having the properties of being largely non-excludable (no organism can be effectively prevented from accessing these sequences) and non-rival (while such a sequence is being used by one organism it is also available for use by another organism). The universal nature of genetic systems ensures that such non-excludable sequences exist and non-excludability explains why we see a myriad of genes in different combinations in sequenced genomes.

The radical consequences of this hypothesis are easy to imagine -- but we leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Complexity or bust?

"Irremediable Complexity"
Michael Behe 


An intriguing "hypothesis" paper entitled "How a neutral evolutionary ratchet can build cellular complexity"1, where the authors speculate about a possible solution to a possible problem, recently appeared in the journal IUBMB Life. It is an expanded version of a short essay called "Irremediable Complexity?"2 published last year in Science. The authors of the manuscripts include the prominent evolutionary biologist W. Ford Doolittle.

The gist of the paper is this. The authors think that over evolutionary time, neutral processes would tend to "complexify" the cell. They call that theoretical process "constructive neutral evolution" (CNE). In an amusing analogy they liken cells in this respect to human institutions:

Organisms, like human institutions, will become ever more ''bureaucratic,'' in the sense of needlessly onerous and complex, if we see complexity as related to the number of necessarily interacting parts required to perform a function, as did Darwin. Once established, such complexity can be maintained by negative selection: the point of CNE is that complexity was not created by positive selection.2
In brief, the idea is that neutral interactions evolve serendipitously in the cell, spread in a population by drift, get folded into a system, and then can't be removed because their tentacles are too interconnected. It would be kind of like trying to circumvent the associate director of licensing delays in the Department of Motor Vehicles -- can't be done.
The possible problem the authors are trying to address is that they think many systems in the cell are needlessly complex. For example, the spliceosome, which "splices" some RNAs (cuts a piece out of the middle of a longer RNA and stitches the remaining pieces together), is a huge conglomerate containing "five small RNAs (snRNAs) and >300 proteins, which must be assembled de novo and then disassembled at each of the many introns interrupting the typical nascent mRNA."1 What's more, some RNAs don't need the spliceosome -- they can splice themselves, without any assistance from proteins. So why use such an ungainly assemblage if a simpler system would do?

The authors think the evolution of such a complex is well beyond the powers of positive natural selection: "Even Darwin might be reluctant to advance a claim that eukaryotic spliceosomal introns remove themselves more efficiently or accurately from mRNAs than did their self-splicing group II antecedents, or that they achieved this by 'numerous, successive, slight modifications' each driven by selection to this end."1

Well, I can certainly agree with them about the unlikelihood of Darwinian processes putting together something as complex as the spliceosome. However, leaving aside the few RNAs involved in the splicesome, I think their hypothesis of CNE as the cause for the interaction of hundreds of proteins -- or even a handful -- is quite implausible. (An essay skeptical of large claims for CNE, written from a Darwinian-selectionist viewpoint, has appeared recently3 along with a response from the authors4).

The authors' rationale for how a protein drifts into becoming part of a larger complex is illustrated by Figure 1 of their recent paper (similar to the single figure in their Science essay). A hypothetical "Protein A" is imagined to be working just fine on its own, when hypothetical "Protein B" serendipitously mutates to bind to it. This interaction, postulate the authors, is neutral, neither helping nor harming the ability of Protein A to do its job. Over the generations Protein A eventually suffers a mutation which would have decreased or eliminated its activity. However, because of the fact that Protein B is bound to it, the mutation does not harm the activity of Protein A. This is still envisioned to be a neutral interaction by the authors, and organisms containing the Protein A-Protein B complex drift to fixation in the population. Then other mutations come along, co-adapting the structures of Protein A and Protein B to each other. At this point the AB complex is necessary for the activity of Protein A. Repeat this process several hundred more times with other proteins, and you've built up a protein aggregate with complexity of the order of the spliceosome.

Is this a reasonable hypothesis? I don't mean to be unkind, but I think that the idea seems reasonable only to the extent that it is vague and undeveloped; when examined critically it quickly loses plausibility. The first thing to note about the paper is that it contains absolutely no calculations to support the feasibility of the model. This is inexcusable. The mutation rates of various organisms -- viral, prokaryotic, eukaryotic -- are known to sufficient accuracy5 that estimates of how frequently the envisioned mutations arrive could have been provided. The neutral theory of evolution is also well-developed6, which would allow the authors to calculate how long it would take for the postulated neutral mutations to spread in a population. Yet no numbers -- not even back-of-the-envelope calculations -- are provided. Previous results by other workers7-9 have shown that the development of serendipitous specific binding sites between proteins would be expected to be quite rare, and to involve multiple mutations. Kimura6 showed that fixation of a mutation by neutral drift would be expected to take a looong time. Neither of these previous results bodes well for the authors' hypothesis.

The second thing to notice about the paper is that there is no experimental support for its hypothesis. As the authors point out:

Development of in vitro experimental systems with which to test CNE will be an important step forward in distinguishing complex biology that arose due to adaptation versus nonadaptive complexity, as part of a larger view to understand the interplay between neutral and adaptive evolution, such as the intriguing long-term evolution experiments of Lenski and coworkers.1
Yet no such experimental evolutionary results have been reported to my knowledge, either by Lenski or by other workers.10
Besides the lack of support from calculations or experiments, the authors discuss no possible obstacles to the scheme. I certainly understand that workers want to accentuate the positive when putting a new model forward, but potential pitfalls should be pointed out, so that other researchers have a clearer idea of the promise of the model before they invest time in researching it.

The first possible pitfall comes at the first step of the model, where a second protein is postulated to bind in a neutral fashion to a working protein. How likely is that step to be neutral? At the very least, we now have two proteins, A and B, that now have a large part of their surfaces obstructed that weren't before. Will this interfere with their activities? It seems there is a good chance. Second, simply by Le Chatelier's principle the binding of the two proteins must affect the free energies of their folded states. What's more, the flexibility of both proteins must be affected. Will these individual effects serendipitously cancel out so that the overall effect will be neutral? It seems like an awful lot to ask for without evidence.

In the next step of the model Protein A is supposed to suffer a mutation that would have caused it to lose activity, but, luckily, when it is bound to Protein B it is stabilized enough so that activity is retained. What fraction of possible mutations to Protein A would fall in that range? It seems like a very specialized subfraction. Looking at the flip side, what fraction of mutations to Protein A and/or Protein B which otherwise would not have caused A to lose activity will now do so because of its binding to Protein B?

The last step of the model is the "co-adaptation" of the two proteins, where other, complementary mutations occur in both proteins. Yet this implies that the protein complex must suffer deleterious mutations at least every other step, provoking the "co-adaptive" mutation to fix in the population. Wouldn't these deleterious mutations be very unlikely to spread in the population?

Finally, multiply these problems all by a hundred to get a spliceosome. Or, rather, raise these problems to the hundredth power. But, then, why stop at a hundred? As the authors note approvingly:

Indeed, because CNE is a ratchet-like process that does not require positive selection, it will inevitably occur in self-replicating, error prone systems exhibiting sufficient diversity, unless some factor prevents it.1
Why shouldn't the process continue, folding in more and more proteins, until the cell congeals? I suppose the authors would reply, "some factor prevents it." But might not that factor kick in at the first or second step? The authors give us no reason to think it wouldn't.
The CNE model (at least on the scale envisioned by the authors) faces other problems as well (for example, it would be a whole lot easier to develop binding sites for metal ions or metabolites that are present in the cell at much higher concentrations than most proteins), but I think this is enough to show it may not be as promising as the article would have one believe.

Besides the model itself, it is interesting to look at a professed aspect of the motivation of the authors in proposing it. It may not have escaped your notice, dear reader, that "irremediable complexity" sort of sounds like "irreducible complexity." In fact, the authors put the model forward as their contribution to the good fight against "antievolutionists":

... continued failure to consider CNE alternatives impoverishes evolutionary discourse and, by oversimplification, actually makes us more vulnerable to critiques by antievolutionists, who like to see such complexity as ''irreducible.''1
So there you have it. The authors don't think Darwin can explain such complexity as is found in the proteasome, and they apparently rule out intelligent design. (By the way, when will these folks ever grasp the fact that intelligent design is not "antievolution"?) "Irremediable complexity" seems to be all that's left, no matter how unsupported and problematic it may be.
Although the authors seem not to notice, their entire model is built on a classic argument from ignorance, beginning with the definition of irremediable complexity:

''irremediable complexity'': the seemingly gratuitous, indeed bewildering, complexity that typifies many cellular subsystems and molecular machines, particularly in eukaryotes.1
"Seemingly gratuitous." In other words, the authors don't know of a function for the complexity of some eukaryotic subsystems; therefore, they don't have functions. Well the history of arguments asserting that something or other in biology is functionless is pretty grim. More, the history of assertions that even "simple" things (like, say, DNA, pre-1930) in the cell either don't have a function or are just supporting structures is abysmal. Overwhelmingly, progress in biology has consisted of finding new and ever-more-sophisticated properties of systems that had been thought simple. If apparently simple systems are much more complex than they initially seemed, I would bet heavily against the hypothesis that apparently complex systems are much simpler than they appear.
References
1. Lukes, J., J. M. Archibald, P. J. Keeling, W. F. Doolittle, and M. W. Gray, 2011 How a neutral evolutionary ratchet can build cellular complexity. IUBMB Life 63: 528-537.
2. Gray, M. W., J. Lukes, J. M. Archibald, P. J. Keeling, and W. F. Doolittle, 2010 Cell biology. Irremediable complexity? Science 330: 920-921.
3. Speijer, D., 2011 Does constructive neutral evolution play an important role in the origin of cellular complexity? Making sense of the origins and uses of biological complexity. Bioessays 33: 344-349.
4. Doolittle, W. F., J. Lukes, J. M. Archibald, P. J. Keeling, and M. W. Gray, 2011 Comment on "Does constructive neutral evolution play an important role in the origin of cellular complexity?" Bioessays 33: 427-429.
5. Drake, J. W., B. Charlesworth, D. Charlesworth, and J. F. Crow, 1998 Rates of spontaneous mutation. Genetics 148: 1667-1686.
6. Kimura M., 1983 The neutral theory of molecular evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
7. Nissim, A., H. R. Hoogenboom, I. M. Tomlinson, G. Flynn, C. Midgley, D. Lane, and G. Winter, 1994 Antibody fragments from a 'single pot' phage display library as immunochemical reagents. EMBO Journal 13: 692-698.
8. Griffiths, A. D., S. C. Williams, O. Hartley, I. M. Tomlinson, P. Waterhouse, W. L. Crosby, R. E. Kontermann, P. T. Jones, N. M. Low, T. J. Allison, and G. Winter, 1994 Isolation of high affinity human antibodies directly from large synthetic repertoires. EMBO Journal 13: 3245-3260.
9. Smith, G. P., S. U. Patel, J. D. Windass, J. M. Thornton, G. Winter, and A. D. Griffiths, 1998 Small binding proteins selected from a combinatorial repertoire of knottins displayed on phage. Journal of Molecular Biology 277: 317-332.
10. Behe, M. J., 2010 Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-function Mutations, and "The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution". Quarterly Review of Biology 85: 1-27.

Mr. Berlinski on why many mathematicians are sceptical re:the canonisation of Darwin.

Darwin and the Mathematicians

David Berlinski November 7, 2009 7:00 AM

ENV: In the past, you've remarked about mathematicians and their opinions of Darwin's theory of evolution. They were skeptical, you said; very skeptical. John Von Neumann was an example. How do you know that about him and about other mathematicians?

DB: How do I know? Here's how:

I have been close to a number of mathematicians, and friends with others: Daniel Gallin (who died before he could begin his career), M.P. Schutzenberger (my great friend), René Thom (a friend as well), Gian-Carlo Rota (another friend), Lipman Bers (who taught me complex analysis and with whom I briefly shared a hospital room, he leaving as I was coming), Paul Halmos (a colleagues in California), and Irving Segal (a friend by correspondence, embattled and distraught). Some of these men I admired very much, and all of them I liked.

I had many other friends in the international mathematical community. Weexchanged views; I got around.

Among the mathematicians that I knew from very roughly 1970 to 1995, the general attitude toward Darwin's theory was one of skepticism. These days, I do not get around all that much, and whatever the mathematician's pulse, I do not have my finger on it. But the reactions of which I speak were hardly surprising. Until recently, mathematicians have been skeptical of any discipline beyond mathematics, and I say until recently because attitudes as well as times have changed.

In talking of the mathematician's skepticism, I mentioned Von Neumann because his name was widely known. I might have mentioned Gian-Carlo Rota. He despised the enveloping air of worship associated with Darwin; he thought biology primitive and dishonest.

How do I know this? I know it because we were close friends, and because he said so. He said so to me.

Gian-Carlo had, in fact, read closely one of my unpublished papers on Darwinian evolution. Written in late 1970, during my stay at IIASA (the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis), my essay later made its way into Black Mischief: Language, Life, Logic & Luck, stripped by then of almost all of its technical details.

A few mathematicians at IIASA had already read what I had written; they had, after all, encouraged me to write it. When we met later in the year, Gian-Carlo offered me his delighted agreement, which he extended in the spirit ofit's about time; he urged me to keep at it; he considered publishing my essay in his journal; but after some back and forth between us, he decided that it would be best were I never to publish another word on the subject.

Gian-Carlo was a man of very refined political sensibilities.

It is a mistake to read back into the recent past the political and emotional structure of discussions now current.

Reading things backwards is vulgar as intellectual history and false to the facts -- vulgar because it assigns an aspect of permanence to our own obsessions; and false because it distorts the play of forces playing just a few decades ago.

In the first part of the 20th century, Darwin v. Dissent had not yet acquired its riveting incarnation as a melodrama of intolerance. No heresy, no heretics is a useful proverb, and using, say, 1950 as a reference point, there were no heretics among the mathematicians because there was yet no heresy. Darwin's theory was not then considered totemic; and his touch was not widely understood to cure erysipelas. Darwin v. Dissent is of our time and place.

Now Von Neumann turned from pure mathematics in the 1940s and the early 1950s. Like so many other mathematicians and physicists, he regarded the theory of evolution as a place holder, the full and so the real theory waiting somewhere in the wings of time.

When Erwin Schrödinger published What is Life? in 1944, he electrified the mathematicians and the physicists; and he influenced profoundly biologists such as Francis Crick, the latter a form of Rural Electrification, I suppose. Schrödinger's impact is easy to understand: He gave biologists a set of ideas that they had been unable to give themselves.

"How can the events in space and time," Schrödinger asked, "which take place within the spatial boundary of living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry."

These words were written in 1944, just sixty-six years ago.

"The preliminary answer which this little book will endeavor to expound," Schrödinger went on to say, ... "can be summarized as follows: the obvious inability of present-day physics and chemistry to account for such events is no reason at all for doubting that they can be accounted for by those scientists.''

I have placed in italics words that establish Schrödinger attitude. I do not know which word to stress more: The obviousness of an inability, or theinability of an obviousness.

So I have stressed them together. They reflect the attitude of mathematicians and physicists toward biology during the 1940s, 1950s, and at least a part of the 1960s.

Having asked for a clue, Schrödinger found one on his own. He predicted the existence of a code script, one governing heredity. Just eight years later, Watson and Crick published the first of their two great papers on the structure of DNA.

Everyone took notice, the biologists because Schrödinger had been prophetic, and the mathematicians and physicists because Schrödinger had been one of their own.

These remarks belong to the considerable category of things that must be kept in mind.

So keep them in mind.

What was it that comprised Von Neumann's skepticism about evolution?

It was an attitude in three aspects. Von Neumann, in the first place, saw what mathematicians had seen since Darwin first published his theory. The theory required life to clamber over some very sobering improbabilities; indeed, it seemed to require miracles. Other mathematicians were making the same point. "[T]he formation within geological time of a human body," Kurt Gödel remarked in conversation with Hao Wang, "by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field, is as unlikely as the separation by chance of the atmosphere into its components."

Note the word geological. Gödel, like everyone else, quite understood that Darwin's theory played out over long stretches of time. He might even have grasped the concept of natural selection, commonly said to be too difficult for all but a handful of initiates. He was skeptical nonetheless. It was precisely to do battle against this kind of skepticism that Richard Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker. His proximate target may have been the physicist, Fred Hoyle, but his general target was a whole climate of opinion current among mathematicians and physicists.

Von Neumann, in the second place, thought Darwin's theory inadequate. He thought the theory inadequate because the theory did not yet exist. This is as inadequate as it gets. What did exist lacked the fundamentals. It answered no questions. It had no depth. And it was largely anecdotal. This sense of anecdotal has nothing to do with the idea of just-so stories made popular by Lewontin and Gould. Darwin's theory was anecdotal, Von Neumann suggested, because it lacked the rich and productive concepts that only mathematicians could provide the sciences.

Writing in the 1967 Wistar Symposium, Murray Eden offered a fine sense of the way in which mathematicians and physicists thought Darwin's theory inadequate. "...[T]he continuity of evolution does not demonstrate that natural laws are operative, for the laws are not known."

Murray then added a most useful analogy. "It is," he wrote referring to Darwin's theory, "as if some pre-Newtonian cosmologist had proposed a theory of planetary motion which supposed that natural force of unknown origin held the planets to their courses."

Just so. This is what Darwin's theory is like; and it was how it appeared to a great many mathematicians and physicists.

And then Murray added a demurral. "The supposition is right enough and the idea of a force between two celestial bodies is a very useful one, but it is hardly a theory."

Far from being controversial among mathematicians in the 1940s and 1950s, a sense of the inadequacy of Darwin's theory was widespread.

And there is a third and final component to Von Neumann's skepticism, this one no more than a hint. To say that Von Neumann was skeptical of Darwin's theory is not to say that he was a supporter of intelligent design. I have no reason to think so. I know nothing about his religious views. Yet there is a curious remark he made to Stan Ulam. I suspect that he made the remark at the end of his life. Von Neumann pointed to a house in the distance and remarked to Ulam how absurd it would be to think that the house just assembled itself. The men were discussing Darwin's theory. It was not simply a doubt about improbability to which Von Neumann gave voice: It was a more general susurrus of discontent. The remark suggests that just possibly Von Neumann's sensibility had undergone a change. Ulam never said anything more to Marco and Marco never said anything more to me.

There remains nonetheless that air of intellectual poignancy. Perhaps Von Neumann was aware of his impending death.

So much for what mathematicians thought and think; so much for what Von Neumann thought and thank.

I now pass to the point of this exercise. Where did I get my information? Let me tell you. I got my information about Von Neumann from the horse's mouth, the horse one step removed from the horse himself.

Quite obviously I did not know Von Neumann personally. He was too old and I too young ever to have met. So what I know of views I know at second hand. I know it from my friends.

Stanislaw Ulam was close to von Neuman -- very close; and Ulam was also close to Marco and Gian-Carlo Rota -- very close again. They were close enough to share their views. I knew Marco and Gian-Co very well; and they were close friends of mine.

Since Marco and I were writing a book together about evolution, our interest in Von Neuman's views was natural. Natural, but not consuming. It was a part of the chatter, and it would be wrong to suppose that our curiosity was anything more than curiosity. The subject came up. What had Von Neumann thought? We discussed it. Von Neumann stories were told, as they always were.

Let me fix the time and place:

The winter of 1979 - 1980.

Paris.

And again a year later in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, where I gave a lecture and Gian-Carlo acted as my host and the source for further stories.

When this issue first emerged, I was asked for references. I am not a Von Neumann scholar, and I have not consulted any of the sources. What I know of Von Neumann's views, I know from his friends. But what I know is entirely consistent with the development of his own ideas. Von Neumann's work on self-reproducing automata is an interesting attempt to make good the deficiencies of a theory that he understood had deficiencies and needed remedying, a demonstration of the thesis, left unremarked, unanalyzed and unstated in Darwin's theory, that a self-reproducing automata is logically possible. It fills one hole.

Ulam's paper 'On some mathematical problems suggested by problems in biology,' fills another hole. In it he introduced what he called a "biological metric space" into theoretical biology. The date is 1970. The place is the Rockefeller Institute. And the idea, by the way, is pure Marco. Ulam's paper marks his indifference to the dominant paradigm of Sewell Wright's population genetics. Gone are both Euclidean metrics and Wright's very elaborate apparatus of differential equations.

Whether a theory with quite so many holes in its plush is worth mending is another question entirely.

When the issue of Von Neumann's views appeared in the Bogosphere, Douglas Theobold, a contributor to the Panda's Thumb, much occupied in discharging his indignation, wrote a little post. Von Neumann had apparently said something: "I shudder," Von Neumann wrote in a letter to George Gamow, "at the thought that highly purposive organizational elements, like the protein, should originate in a random process."

Having shuddered, Von Neumann apparently got hold of himself. "Yet many efficient (?) and purposive (??) media, e.g., language, or the national economy, also look statistically controlled, when viewed from a suitably limited aspect. On balance, I would therefore say that your argument is quite strong."

"This," Theobold writes, "may be the ultimate source of many of the claims that von Neumann was anti-evo."

It may well be, but it is not my source as I have explained in detail.

Still, what lends to this exchange its lurid aspect is that having shuddered, Von Neumann might have kept right on shuddering, for if Von Neumann was criticizing Gamow's theories about protein formation, he was right to do so because Gamow's theories were wrong.

And there is the final, the inimitable, touch. I have never claimed that Von Neumann was "anti-evo."

What an idea. No one is. What I did claim is that like so many others, Von Neumann was profoundly skeptical about Darwin's theory of evolution.

And I have just said why.

Check out David Berlinski's newest book, The Deniable Darwin