Yet another lynching by the Darwinian inquisition.

Happy Darwin Day! German Natural History Museum Is Our 2017 Censor of the Year
David Klinghoffer

The often-heard assertion that a scientific "consensus" exists in favor of orthodox Darwinian theory is true on the surface, but otherwise deceptive. Yes, a large majority of scientists if pressed, especially in public, would hastily affirm that neo-Darwinism explains the development of complex biological forms.

We know, however, that this apparent agreement conceals a great deal of intellectual and personal turmoil, just behind the facade. The unanimity is maintained by a tight discipline that includes outright censorship. That's why every year Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture recognizes a Censor of the Year, an outstanding example of a person or institution that contributed to this pro-Darwin "consensus" through intimidation, agitation, or professional retaliation.

Now, with the debate about intelligent design (ID) taking place on an increasingly international stage, we reach across the Atlantic to name Germany's Natural History Museum in Stuttgart as our 2017 Censor of the Year.

If you follow us at Evolution News, you'll already have an inkling of the story that lies behind this choice. On Friday  we announced a new Senior Fellow with the CSC, the distinguished German paleo-entomologist Günter Bechly, formerly curator of amber and fossil insects at the Natural History Museum. In welcoming Dr. Bechly, a specialist in dragonflies, we left out one thing. After coming out as an ID sympathizer in 2015, following his private exploration of the evidence for design in nature, Bechly was the victim of retaliation and censorship by his institution. Though the addition of Dr. Bechly to our scientific community is a wonderful boon to us, the ensuing parting of the ways with his museum came with heavy personal, professional, and health costs.


As told in the documentary  Revolutionary (see an excerpt below), his doubts on evolution were first stirred in 2009 when he organized an exhibition to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. The exhibit included a display of a "scale" weighing the Origin against a collection of ID books by Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, and others. Bechly's "mistake" was to actually read those books.This commenced a journey for him, motivated by scientific curiosity, not religion. As he recalls in the film, he had no religion to begin with, but only a love of and fascination with nature and animals.

He kept his interest in and support of ID private until October 2015, when he broached the subject on Facebook and a personal web page. Even then, Günter kept his ID writing strictly separate from his work for the museum. But word got out. He has shared it all with us, though some must be kept back, including names and positions, to protect innocent parties.

It began with strange smiles from colleagues, icy faces, and backstabbing gossip, moving on finally to open hostility. Without warning, his applications to acquire new fossil material -- say, a collection of mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber -- were blocked by unprecedented bureaucratic obstacles. He learned that a position he relied on, his amber preparator (handler), was proposed to go unfilled after its previous occupant retired.

Emails among his fellow scientists asked, "Have you already heard that Bechly has become a creationist? How shall we react and what can we do about it?" Conspiratorial meetings took place behind his back, as a colleague wondered, "How can we help Günter?" as if he were unwell. Co-workers placed phone calls to scientists outside the museum to ask if they knew about Bechly's turn to "creationism."

He was told that the large amber collection he was responsible for as curator would be moved away from his office. He was directed to resign from a position as ombudsman for the  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), a research-funding group.A colleague sought to draw out evidence of his heresy in a seemingly friendly email exchange, after which Günter was summoned for a discussion of his future at the institution. Says Dr. Bechly, he was told that "as a big threat to the credibility and reputation of the museum," he was "no longer welcome, and that it would be appreciated if I would decide to quit." The museum also informed him that colleagues no longer want to collaborate with him.

To reinforce the impression that Bechly would no longer enjoy a comfortable, supportive, and productive professional life there, the museum deleted his webpages (which made no mention of ID) and erased him from its own website. It dismissed him as scientific head of a major exhibition he had conceived and designed, "Life in the Amber Forest." Dr. Bechly was now forced to report as an underling to a colleague with no expertise in his area. He asked if he was being accused of any misconduct, and received the answer that, no, that certainly wasn't the case. On the contrary, his 17 years of work at the museum had been exemplary.

Seventeen years of fine work! And he was being gradually forced out over privately held views. "After a few days of soul searching and long discussions with my wife," says Bechly, "I decided that it did not make sense anymore to continue working in a hostile environment that makes productive research and collaboration with colleagues impossible." He resigned this past December, and now joins us.

"It was offensive, humiliating, and unfair," Bechly concludes in an apt summary. A few weeks after his resignation he received a troubling medical diagnosis of severe heart problems. He faces heart surgery later this month.

His story reminds us of many other cases, some involving past Censors of the Year. It recalls in particular evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg's experience at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. That was after Dr. Sternberg published a peer-reviewed article by ID proponent Dr. Stephen Meyer in a journal that Sternberg edited, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. (I wrote about that in the Wall Street Journal  and at National Review Online.) For his offense -- editing an article! -- Sternberg suffered retaliation including being denied access to specimen collections, having his master key taken away from him, and an internal investigation of his religious and political belief. As with Bechly, colleagues refused to work him, and he was eventually forced out of his position.

This is how the "consensus" for Darwinian evolution is maintained. Oh, not only or primarily through outright censorship. Vanity is the single most effective tool that ensures uniformity of opinion. Men are monsters of vanity -- males especially, but women too. The pressure to be on the prestige side of any significant disagreement is intense, a fact often unacknowledged unless you are pretty honest with yourself. This holds across science, the media, education, politics, religion, and other fields.

Dr. Bechly was among the contingent of ID-friendly scientists present at the Royal Society meeting ("New Trends in Evolutionary Biology") in London last November. Another scientist on hand, we noted, a senior figure with views on Darwin overlapping with ours but allergic to ID itself, was visibly skittish about even being seen talking with us. So it goes.

Doubts about Darwin are also held in check by fear of what will happen to you if the suspicion gets around that you're in league with the "creationists." That word alone -- a masterpiece agitprop tool in the hands of Darwin enforcers, applied to everyone from Biblical literalists to the most sophisticated scientists examining objective evidence of design in nature -- does all the work of intimidation needed to keep most people in line.

But fear of punishment is a major factor too. When a scientist really does cross the line, as Günter Bechly did, the hammer almost always comes down, ruthlessly. So it proved at Stuttgart's Natural History Museum.

Günter's case, like others, is revealing. We know of many science professionals whose career or research would be endangered if we said a word here about their ID sympathies. Instances like that come to our attention all the time, and prudence keeps us from saying more.

Someday, a tipping point will come. Numerous closets will open in a swell of confessions: "I've doubted the straight Darwin story for years." "I've long suspected that design or teleology of some kind must have played a role in evolution, but I would never admit it till now." And at that time we'll stop giving out Censor of the Year awards. But that day has not yet arrived.

History Judges Cleopatra.

Examining the house that Darwin built. II

With Darwin Day Coming Tomorrow, Here's Tom Bethell on Darwin's Deception
David Klinghoffer

Update: Darwin Day is also Academic Freedom Day . Be sure to check back in here after midnight to find out who our 2017 Censor of the Year will be!














This year, Darwin Day falls on a Sunday -- tomorrow, February 12. Of all the Darwinist talking points, the most transparently false may be the claim that this 19th-century materialist theory of origins poses no challenge whatsoever to serious, sincere religious belief.

Oh, please! Do they really think we're that gullible? Well, maybe they are not wrong about that anyway.

As Tom Bethell (that's him in the video above) points out over at The American Spectator, many churches and synagogues, pastors, priests, and rabbis, have been captivated by the idea that they can have their cake and eat it too: enjoy the prestige and regard that come with assenting to evolutionary theory, while retaining the authority and regard that come with their clerical position.

February 12 is Darwin Day, and this year the international celebration falls on a Sunday. Look for theistic Darwinists to reassure churches that Charles Darwin believed in God, or at least that his theory of evolution harmonizes beautifully with Christian theology.

The reality is more complex.

In The Origin of Species, Darwin suggested the idea of a God who created a few original forms and then let the "laws" of nature govern the outcome. "It is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms," he wrote, "as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of his laws."

But later he wrote privately to friend Joseph Hooker, "I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation." And in 1862, he told Harvard botanist Asa Gray there seemed to be "too much misery in the world." He could not accept, for example, "that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created [digger wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."

Darwin was careful to conceal his own loss of faith, and his surviving family members kept up the tradition.

[R]ealizing that a thoroughgoing materialism wasn't an easy sell, [Darwin] actively concealed this aspect of his thinking. In one notebook he reminded himself to "avoid stating how far, I believe, in Materialism."

...

One doesn't hear much about the materialism of Darwin and Darwinism, likely because there has been a longstanding effort to ignore and suppress it. Many of today's theistic Darwinists play this game, but they are hardly the first. So, for instance, Darwin's mounting hostility to Christianity was suppressed by his widow, who removed some inflammatory comments from his Autobiography.

Read the rest here. Veteran journalist Bethell's new book is Darwin's House of Cards: A Journalist's Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates. As a writer, he is a delight, praised by Tom Wolfe as "one of our most brilliant essayists." The tragedy of the clergy and their mass surrender to evolutionary thinking is that it is so unnecessary.


Yes, it requires some homework and independent thinking to realize this, but the cogency of evolution's main claim -- that blind churning produces brilliant novelties -- rests on remarkably little evidence. Bethell, as I've pointed out, has put to the rest "I'm not a scientist" dodge beloved by clergy, journalists, and other professionals unwilling to do that homework for themselves.

A clash of Titans. XLVII

How politics poisons everything II

The Truth about Soviet Science and Darwinian Evolution Isn't as Darwinists Would Like Us to Believe

Jonathan Wells

As an article at The Conversation by Professors Ian Godwin and Yuri Trusov observes,  "The tragic story of Soviet genetics shows the folly of political meddling in science."

There is much truth in the article, but its authors assume that during the era of Trofim Lysenko the Soviet government persecuted people who "embraced evolution and genetics." On this point, they quote "Australia's Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, [who]  mentioned him [that is, Lysenko] during a speech  at a meeting of chief scientists in Canberra."

They continue:

The emerging ideology of Lysenkoism was effectively a jumble of pseudoscience, based predominantly on his rejection of  Mendelian genetics and everything else that underpinned [Nikolai] Vavilov's science. He was a product of his time and political situation in the young USSR.

In reality, Lysenko was what we might today call a crackpot. Among other things, he denied the existence of DNA and genes, he claimed that plants selected their mates, and argued that they could acquire characteristics during their lifetime and pass them on. He also espoused the theory that some plants choose to sacrifice themselves for the good of the remaining plants -- another notion that runs against the grain of evolutionary understanding.

In fact, the Soviet government embraced Darwinian evolution (which according to Darwin's own writings contained Lamarckian elements), and persecuted Mendelian genetics, which was considered to be a threat to Darwinism. For more, see the abridged excerpt below from Chapter 16 of my 2006 book  The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design:

American Lysenkoism

When Mendelian biologists criticized Trofim Lysenko, he simply evaded their arguments and declared that Mendelian genetics was unacceptable because it contradicted Darwinian evolution.1 By then, many Western biologists were accepting the "modern synthesis" of Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics, but Soviet Minister of Agriculture Jakov Jakovlev supported Lysenko by declaring Mendelism to be incompatible with true Darwinism. In 1937, Prezent praised Lysenko for "marching under the banner of reconstruction of biological science on the basis of Darwinism raised to the level of Marxism," while he demonized the Mendelians as "powers of darkness."2

If government officials and Darwinist ideologues had not come to Lysenko's rescue, the Mendelians would probably have prevailed -- as they did outside the Soviet Union -- because they had better science on their side. Lysenko's Stalinist suppression of Mendelians in the 1940s made matters much worse, but the underlying problem was that the government-supported scientific establishment had chosen to support one side in a scientific dispute. For many years, biologists in the Soviet Union were persecuted by the government if they challenged the official view of Darwinian orthodoxy or defended Mendelian genetics.3

So, contrary to the claims of [American Darwinists], the scientific conflict underlying Lysenkoism was not Lamarckism against Darwinism, but classical Darwinism (which had undeniably Lamarckian elements) against the new Mendelian genetics. The present conflict between neo-Darwinism and intelligent design resembles Lysenkoism in the sense that the Darwinists are still opposing new ideas.

Darwinists would like us to believe that ID proponents -- like Lysenko -- want to use the government to oppose evolution. But as often happens, Darwinists have things exactly upside-down. Stalin and Lysenko were Darwinists who persecuted Mendelians, just as modern Darwinists persecute IDers (though, thank God, they haven't imprisoned us). In fact, Darwinism is at the root of the persecution in both cases. And like Mendelism, ID is better science than Darwinism.

So the lesson is legitimate: Don't allow the government to use its power to enforce a particular view on a scientific question. If only the government would stay out of the evolution-ID controversy!

Notes:

(1) Nils Roll-Hansen, The Lysenko Effect: The Politics of Science (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2005), 86-89. Valery N. Soyfer, Lysenko and the Tragedy of Soviet Science (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 63. David Joravsky, The Lysenko Affair (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 208, 238-239. Zhores Medvedev, The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), Chapter 3.

(2) Roll-Hansen, 218-220. Medvedev, 46-49.

(3) Medvedev, Chapter 11. Loren R. Graham, What Have We Learned about Science and Technology from the Russian Experience? (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), Chapter 1 and Conclusions. Roll-Hansen, Chapter 10.

The Struggle for equality is the problem?:Pros and cons.

second guessing the original designer?

Is There a Limit to the Number of a Designer's Creative Acts?
Walter Myers III 

Recently, I was listening to Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1068, followed a couple of days later by watching the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion. What does one have to do with the other? Well, the latter includes in the soundtrack the song "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by the 1960s English rock group Procol Harum, and it occurred to me that "A Whiter Shade" may be based on Bach.

A little research revealed that the organ countermelody of "A Whiter Shade" is, indeed, based on BWV 1068. The song itself is an adaptation of Bach's church cantata, Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe ("I am standing with one foot in the grave"), BWV 156. Bach is among the most prolific and accomplished composers of all time, credited with in excess of 1,100 surviving compositions (many others of which have been lost). In its list of the Top 15 greatest composers, ListVerse has declared Bach the greatest of these based on "the intellectual depth of his music, the technical demand, and the artistic beauty." I agree, but that's neither here nor there.

"A Whiter Shade" is, in a real sense, a descendant of Bach's BWV 156, similar to an untold number of other songs that have borrowed from Bach over the centuries. An example would be "A Lover's Concerto" by The Toys, based on Bach's Minuet in G Major, BWV Anh. 114, but arranged in 4/4 time. Thinking about this led me to reflect on creativity and creative acts. What came to mind was Charles Darwin's statement in The Origin of Species:

In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. Nevertheless, such a conclusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory, until it could be shown how the innumerable species inhabiting this world have been modified, so as to acquire that perfection of structure and coadaptation which most justly excites our admiration.

This passage, repeated in several forms in The Origin, comes from the introduction. Darwin criticized naturalists who believed each species could have been "independently created," or rather, designed. He felt that such thinking must be mistaken due to the sheer number of species, and considering the work it would take to modify them all to fit perfectly into their respective environments.

But let's think again. It is estimated that at present, there are approximately 8.7 million species on Earth. Yet when we consider the human brilliance of Bach, whose work was voluminous, and only limited by his untimely death of a stroke at 65, why would Darwin, or anyone else, conclude that the complexity, beauty, and artistry of extant species could not possibly come about through the creative act of a designer? Let's look at the syllogism that Darwin uses in this passage:

There are an innumerable number of species

It cannot be shown how an innumerable species could have been modified to adapt so well to their environments

Therefore, species could not have been independently created

On inspection, we see this syllogism fails, since the conclusion, (3), does not necessarily follow from premises (1) and (2). First, it is speculative to say that a particular number of species, which may be innumerable, yet still finite, could not each be the result of creative acts. Second, because it cannot be shown precisely how those species became so well adapted to their environment, it is not appropriate to conclude that evolution is the only possible mechanism.

Indeed, we know a lot about independent creative acts. For one thing, we know that not all acts are necessarily new but may be built on previous such acts, as we see with The Toys or Procol Harum that built on the previous work of Bach, while adding new and novel arrangements (or rather, information). So when we consider the creativity of the human mind, and what it is able to accomplish, why would we conclude that any given extant species could not have been the product of a continually working designer over the course of time?

When we look at the depth, complexity, and beauty that comes forth from the minds of humans such as Bach, The Toys, or Procol Harum, we reasonably conclude that a mind far greater than the human mind could over time have created the almost 9 million catalogued species we see on Earth. My argument is not that all species were created independently, as the ability to speciate could well have been built into the DNA of a number of aboriginal forms. However, when you look at an almost 600-million-year period of complex life forms, an average of about 70 creative acts per year does not seem outside the domain of possibility.


Yes, I'm having a little fun with such speculation, and taking extinction into account, am well aware there have been far more than 8.7 million species over time. A quick Internet check suggests 5 billion extinct species, which is fine. The point holds, because the numerical quantity of species over time is immaterial. What's material is that we know from our everyday experience that minds can produce creative acts. And thus, Darwin's insistence that only evolution can account for the modification of innumerable species is more an argument from personal incredulity than an argument from science.

Thoughts on the new atheism.

Science rediscovers an old truth.

Acts20:35NASB " In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Has 'convergent evolution' become Darwinism's utility belt?

Pythons and boas shed new light on reptile evolution

Source:

Australian National University

A new study into pythons and boas has for the first time found the two groups of snakes evolved independently to share similar traits, shedding new light on how the reptiles evolved.

Pythons and boas are two families that include the largest snakes in the world, like the reticulated python and the anaconda boa, which have been known to grow close to eight meters in length.
The Australian National University (ANU) study found that by living in the same habitat, pythons and boas evolved independently to look similar. This happened at least five times in different habitats. Aquatic pythons look like aquatic boas, burrowing pythons look like borrowing boas and tree-dwelling pythons look like tree-dwelling boas.
Lead researcher Damien Esquerre said the study found pythons and boas were an important example of convergent evolution in reptiles. Convergent evolution is where species adapt to the same conditions and evolve similar traits.
"The finding of such a strong case of convergent evolution demonstrates the power of natural selection and adaptation in living organisms," said Mr Esquerre from the ANU Research School of Biology.
"If we see that different groups evolve the same things independently when they face the same challenges, we can find predictability in evolution."
Other famous examples of convergent evolution are sharks and dolphins, which are not related but have evolved similar body plans. Similarly, the extinct Tasmanian Tiger, a marsupial mammal, and the wolf, a placental mammal, evolved similar body plans.
Although they look the similar and both constrict their prey, the pythons and boas last shared a common ancestor 70 million years ago in the age of the dinosaurs.
The research focused on the head shape of close to 2,000 specimens in museum collections in Australia and America.
Mr Esquerre said not all evolution was driven by natural selection, but examples such as pythons and boas reinforce its importance in shaping biological diversity.
"By having greater understanding of the evolution of pythons and boas, researchers can now have better ideas of what extinct fossil snakes were doing before they disappeared," he said.

---

Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Australian National University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

The establishments policy on design advocates:Give them a 'fair trial' and then hang them.

In the "Public Interest"? ProPublica Misrepresents Intelligent Design and Discovery Institute Policy
Sarah Chaffee


In a recent article on Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos (confirmed yesterday), Annie Waldman at ProPublica delves into intelligent design -- and in the process misrepresents design theory and Discovery Institute.

She starts by describing intelligent design as a "more nuanced outgrowth of creationism," and then says that Discovery Institute's Briefing Packet for Educators  advocates teaching ID under the guise of "critical thinking." That's wrong on both counts.

Intelligent design, unlike creationism, restricts itself to scientific evidence and the rational inferences that can be drawn from that evidence. It does not base its conclusions on the Bible or any other sacred text.

ProPublica, which claims to offer "Journalism in the Public Interest," insists that "[w]ithin this movement, 'critical thinking' has become a code phrase to justify teaching of intelligent design." Ms. Waldman then brings Discovery Institute in:

Advocates have contended that presenting  presenting intelligent design side-by-side , also known as "teaching the controversy," would enhance the critical thinking skills of students and improve their scientific reasoning. Indeed,  briefing packet for educators from the leading intelligent design group, the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, walks teachers through this approach.

"In American public education today, the status quo teaches evolution in a dogmatic, pro-Darwin-only fashion which fails to help students use critical thinking on this topic," the report states, adding that teaching "the controversy" can help students "learn the critical thinking skills they need to think like good scientists."

John West, vice president of the Discovery Institute, said that the implication that "critical thinking" is code for intelligent design is "ludicrous."

"Critical thinking is a pretty foundational idea supported by lots of people, not just us," said West in an email, adding that he also thinks "critical thinking should apply to discussions of evolution."

Discovery Institute does NOT advocate pushing intelligent design into public schools. Waldman cites our Briefing Packet, but she seems to have skimmed over our science education policy, which is in that document. It notes:

As a matter of public policy, Discovery Institute opposes any effort to require the teaching of intelligent design by school districts or state boards of education. Attempts to mandate teaching about intelligent design only politicize the theory and will hinder fair and open discussion of the merits of the theory among scholars and within the scientific community. Furthermore, most teachers at the present time do not know enough about intelligent design to teach about it accurately and objectively.

Instead of mandating intelligent design, Discovery Institute seeks to increase the coverage of evolution in textbooks. It believes that evolution should be fully and completely presented to students, and they should learn more about evolutionary theory, including its unresolved issues. In other words, evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned.

Teaching intelligent design is not the same as teaching criticisms of evolution. An argument for design requires making a positive case -- starting with observations of what human designers create (specified complexity) and examinations of where we find specified complexity in nature.

Furthermore, science standards in Kansas and Ohio, mentioned by Ms. Waldman, did not call for teaching intelligent design, but rather critical analysis.

Waldman also quotes Greg McNeilly, identified as a "longtime aide to DeVos and an executive at her and her husband's privately held investment management firm." He says regarding Mrs. DeVos:

I don't know the answer to whether she believes in intelligent design -- it's not relevant...There is no debate on intelligent design or creationism being taught in schools. According to federal law, it cannot be taught.

The claim that intelligent design is against federal policy is false. Perhaps he was referring to Kitzmiller v. Dover, a court decision involving design, but that applies only to the Middle District of Pennsylvania. For more on Kitzmiller, see our book  Traipsing into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller v. Dover Decision.

Teaching the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution is different from teaching ID. Let me give you a couple examples of what critical analysis might look like:

Evaluating whether natural selection acting on random mutation can account for all life we see around us. This is an important discussion right now in the scientific world -- in fact, at the November Royal Society Conference, "New Trends in Evolutionary Biology," theoretical biologist Gerd Müller noted  that natural selection has a hard time accounting for phenotypic novelty and complexity. The conference provided a forum for proponents of the Modern Synthesis and the Third Way of Evolution to discuss questions about evolutionary mechanisms.

Learning about various proposed scientific scenarios for the origin of life. This includes discussing the code-first model (most prominently, RNA world), the metabolism first model, and the protein-first model. As the 2007 Priestley Medalist George M. Whitesides has noted: "Most chemists believe, as do I, that life emerged spontaneously from mixtures of molecules in the prebiotic Earth. How? I have no idea."

A quality science education teaches students accurate, up-to-date information. But it does more than that as well: It teaches them to think critically about science.

Scientific inquiry is fostered, not suppressed, by teaching topics, such as evolution, that are still under debate by scientists. No one expects high school biology students to solve the origin of life dilemma in the classroom, but by tracing the research and arguments of scientists in the field, they learn about approaches and methods of science that can only be beneficial to them in the future -- inside or outside the lab.


Critical analysis does not entail any discussion of religion. ProPublica's insistence to the contrary showcases a bias, common in the media, against any presentation of valid criticisms of neo-Darwinism. That's not in the public interest, and certainly not in the interest of students.

On Darwinism's conflating of micro with macro.

Incremental Versus Radical Innovation: A Response to Josh Swamidass on Evolution and Cancer

Brian Miller

Joshua Swamidass is an Assistant Professor of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine at Washington University, and a frequent critic of intelligent design. At the theistic evolutionary site BioLogos, he  recently posted  on the use of evolutionary theory in understanding cancer. He has written on this topic previously, and we have analyzed his arguments (see  here, here, and here ). I would like to take a step back and put his case in a larger context, the question of incremental versus radical innovation.

But first, let's meet Dr. Swamidass. Recently, he and I exchanged emails, giving me a chance to ask him to clarify his positions. I thank him for his time.

Swamidass explained that he is a devout Christian, and believes that God did create life. However, he thinks that the exact means by which this was accomplished, how the blueprints of different species were instantiated in the physical world, is a mystery. Because of this, he said, he doubts that the unfolding of life can ever be disentangled from physical processes.

Instead, he feels the evidence for design in nature should be seen as an entire package. He is skeptical of any characteristics of living organisms being used, via modern design-detection methods, as distinct, isolated evidence for design. Rather, he thinks the Modern Synthesis offers a very helpful framework for understanding many aspects of nature, such as antibiotic resistance and  cancer growth. He sees connections between these small-scale changes and patterns identified when comparing the genomes of different species. Therefore, he promotes the standard theory of evolution as the best approach to understanding the development of life.

There is some common ground here. Proponents of intelligent design agree with Swamidass that the evidence from nature taken as a whole points to a designer, while he's right as well that just how this design was instantiated in biology remains a mystery. There follows, however, a sharp parting of ways. First, ID theorists argue that many features of life could not plausibly arise from undirected natural process, and that those features instead display signatures (in the form of biological information) uniquely associated with intelligent agents. Second, we observe, recognizing this fact is scientifically fruitful. It leads to essential insights and new directions in research needed to fully understand biological processes and patterns.

Many biologists appear to recognize the second point, at least unconsciously. We notice this, in their frequent use of design language and logic in describing systems ranging from single cells to complex structures (see  here  and here). Of course, they always attribute such design features to the wondrous power of natural selection. This is their faith.

Which brings us to the subject of cancer. As Swamidass recognizes, and this is the key to his argument, an evolutionary framework can indeed provide insights into how tumor cells change and propagate (see here and here). However, this is true only to a certain limited extent. The key question is whether the sorts of mutations seen in tumors could accumulate in independent organisms to drive the large-scale transformations seen throughout the history of life. The answer is no. We see this, in part, from theories of engineering design that focus on the process of innovation. Such approaches recognize a fundamental difference between improving an existing design (incremental innovation) and creating an entirely new design based on a different design logic (radical innovation).

A crude example would be the difference between slightly modifying a car by streamlining the frame, on one hand, and changing a car into a helicopter, on the other. Making slight improvements through a series of small steps would help optimize performance. However, this process could not be extrapolated to change the basic design architecture. Very soon after incremental changes were made to start turning the car into a helicopter, the car would suffer a dramatic loss of functionality. This would occur long before it could ever fly. The problem is that the two basic designs operate under fundamental constraints that are directly in conflict. Any change helping to meet the target constraints (e.g., power from the engine redirected to turning the rotor) would cause the system to fail to meet the original constraints (e.g., power from the engine directed to turning the wheels), thus downgrading performance or eliminating it altogether. Such self-defeating alterations would be immediately abandoned, causing the "evolutionary" process to come to a halt.

Innovation experts  Donald Norman and Roberto Verganti  have illustrated this distinction in terms of hill climbing. They picture incremental improvements (in the evolutionary context, microevolution) as gradually climbing to the top of a local hill. A person only going uphill (improved fitness) would eventually reach a peak and become stuck. However, radical innovation (macroevolution) is the equivalent of moving from the face of one hill to an entirely different one. This would require a single, dramatic leap over the suboptimal terrain in between. What's more, the different hills are so isolated that any undirected leap would land the system in the middle of a sea of nonfunctional arrangements of parts. The whole basis of innovation theories (e.g., TRIZ) lies in using previous knowledge of innovation to anticipate where the islands of functionality might reside. Therefore, innovation can only proceed through intelligent direction.

The natural next question is to what extent this characteristic of engineered systems applies to life. At first glance, the logic seems to transfer completely. An illustration in nature would be the lung of a typical tetrapod evolving into the lung of a bird. All vertebrates, which long predate birds, have sack-like lungs, while birds and a few reptiles have lungs that are tubes, with air flowing in one direction only. Any mutation that alters a sack-like lung in such a way as to start turning it into a tube (e.g., puncturing a hole in the end) would seem to diminish the lung's effectiveness. This challenge, by the way, is part of the larger hurdle of a theropod dinosaur transforming into a bird.

However, the analogy is not complete. Living organisms differ from machines in many ways, such as their ability to grow, self-repair, and reproduce. Could these differences cause a comparison with human engineering to break down? Research over the past decades suggests the opposite. All of the differences actually result in even tighter constraints on life, making the challenge to evolution dramatically more severe. Imagine engineering a giant box filled with machinery, which self-assembles into a car. The constraints on that machinery would be greater than on a pre-assembled car, since any alteration at the beginning would have magnifying effects throughout the assembly process.

The self-assembly of a car corresponds in many ways to the development and growth of life (e.g., steps leading from a fish egg to an adult fish). The original egg cell divides into two cells. Then, those cells divide into four cells, and so forth for many generations. The earlier stages of this process establish the basic architecture (body plan) of an organism through networks of genes, which control cell duplication, migration, and differentiation. These developmental networks have been studied for decades, and the  conclusion of leaders in the field  is that they cannot tolerate even minor alterations. Any change that significantly alters an organism's body plan is always harmful and typically fatal, for the effects of early changes grow downstream, resulting in catastrophe for the adult. As a result, the fitness terrain that best corresponds to the different body plans is a series of highly isolated mountains, where every side is a steep, unscalable cliff.

Thus, changing from one body plan, such as a sponge or worm, into another plan, such as a fish, requires many dramatic alterations to be implemented, at once, through intelligent guidance. This conclusion leads directly to the expectation that new body plans (phyla) should appear suddenly in the fossil record without a continuous series of intermediates leading back to the trunk of an evolutionary tree. And this is what we find.


The prediction perfectly matches the pattern seen in the  Cambrian explosion and in n later sudden appearances of new architectures. Joshua Swamidass's protests about cancer notwithstanding, this seamless integration of design theory, developmental networks, and the fossil record is only possible within an ID framework.

The most favored foe?

The Curious Romance of Darwinism and Creationism -- And Why Intelligent Design Must Be Silenced
David Klinghoffer

One of the many smart observations in Tom Bethell's new book, Darwin's House of Cards, pertains to the curious relationship of Darwinism and Creationism -- and how that bears on efforts to suppress investigation of the theory of intelligent design.
Darwinists seem to long for the good old days when their only opposition was from Biblical creationism. This is reflected in efforts to conflate ID with creationism, or to make the former a kind of forbidden science, off limits to discussion. As Bethell writes in his chapter on "Intelligent Design and Information Theory":

Darwinians today are eager to stick their own labels onto ID: "Intelligent design creationism" is one favorite. It's as though an unseen collective voice had cried out: "Give us back our preferred enemy! Bring back creationism! That, we knew how to respond to." But so far, no intelligent rebuttal of intelligent design has appeared.

The longing, the romance -- perhaps "bromance"? -- makes sense, since for all that separates them, Darwinism and creationism have in common that they are both inferences from prior doctrines (respectively, materialism, or a particular way of reading the Bible). ID is different. Says Bethell, "Intelligent design is not a deduction from a philosophy but an inference from observed facts."
This is what's so enraging to Darwinists, and it goes some way to explaining why they lash out -- holding their own tongue, and punishing ID advocates and open-minded researchers for failing to hold theirs.
Bethell cites a telling lecture by University of Akron researcher Nita Sahai, "The Origins of Life: From Geochemistry to Biochemistry." (See the video by clicking on the image at the top.) You actually see her catch herself, as she's helped out by a colleague, first saying that her lab work simulating OOL requires "intelligent design" -- no, no, no, make that "careful selection."
Mr. Bethell also tells the story of the publication of The Privileged Planet. Arguably more interesting than the book itself, he says, is what happened to its astronomer co-author at the Iowa State University, denounced by

[o]ver 400 professor across the state [who] signed various statements, opposing "all attempts to represent Intelligent Design as a scientific endeavor." Both on and outside the planet, whether in astronomy or biology, the professors insisted, the philosophy of naturalism is expected to enjoy a monopoly.

That monopoly was challenged on another campus, Baylor University, by mathematician William Dembski.

Dembski formed the Polanyi Institute to debate these issues, with Darwinians and ID opponents included on the board. But the Institute was shut down after vehement protests from Baylor's biology faculty. They did not want ID to be so much as discussed.

Not even discussed. That is about as telling a statement as there could be. ID, unlike creationism, challenges Darwinian evolution on its own turf. That is not acceptable. Creationism for the Darwinist is a welcome foil. On the other hand, ID, which practices science where Darwinism is ultimately an exercise in philosophy, must be silenced.

How politics poisons everything.

March for Science Gets "Hijacked" by Partisanship
Wesley J. Smith

The Left twists any and every discreet issue, politicizing it into the usual culture war agenda items. Now it's the March for Science, which presents "colonization, racism, immigration, native rights, sexism, ableism," etc. as "scientific issues."

Over at the American Council on Science and Health blog, Alex Berezow (with whom I have sometimes disagreed) sounds the alarm and explains why he won't be marching:

I wrote previously of my concern that the Science March would be hijacked by the kind of political partisanship it should instead be concerned about - and that has indeed come true. This fear was based on not-so-subtle hints provided by its Twitter feed, such as embracing "intersectionality" (a concept taught in classes on feminism) as a core principle.

...

If you're wondering what this has to do with science, you're certainly not alone. The answer, of course, is nothing. These issues are the primary concern of revisionist historians and social justice warriors, not empirically minded scientists.

Berezow is exactly right: For example, science can tell us the biological nature of a fetus. It cannot tell us whether it is right or wrong to have an abortion. Questions like that belong in a discussion of morality, ethics, or religion.

If science properly understood ever becomes conflated in the public mind with left-wing advocacy, it will profoundly harm that crucial sector and hence, the human future. Science is already too politicized by policy or ethical debates that turn into fights over whether one side or the other is "anti-science."


I suspect that if we were to dig deep enough, we would find George Soros money paying for all of this. Be that as it may, no reputable scientist should march in the March for Science.

A house built on sand?

Tom Bethell on Mind, Matter, and Self-Defeating Darwinism
David Klinghoffer

Over at  The Stream, Tom Bethell, author of  Darwin's House of Cards, clarifies why Darwinists don't talk so much about one straightforward inference from their own commitment to materialism.

If mind is just a special configuration of brain cells, then mind is nothing but matter. How can neurons "decide" to do one thing rather than another? Nerve cells can't make decisions. So, materialism repudiates free will.

The consistent materialist sees this, denies free will and dismisses consciousness as a delusion. "Our sense of self is a neuronal illusion," said Jerry Coyne, a fully paid-up materialist and author of Why Evolution Is True. Molecular biologist Francis Crick said the same thing. "Your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules," he wrote. Or as he put it more succinctly, "You're nothing but a pack of neurons."

How deeply do materialists believe this? Notice that many of them grow outraged at public intellectuals who reject Darwinian materialism. But why the outrage if beliefs, ambitions and will are "nothing but a pack of neurons." On that view the person skeptical of Darwinism can't help himself, so why get outraged at the poor fellow?

The materialists might concede that their outrage is irrational, a byproduct of evolution -- the fight-or-flight mechanism run amok. But that explanation opens a can of worms. If mind is a byproduct of an evolutionary process that maybe saddled us with various irrationalities, why trust human reason? Why trust it to lead us to the truth about biological origins?

In my decades as a journalist covering evolution and interviewing some of the world's leading evolutionary thinkers, I have found that materialists have no good answers to this question, or to many of the evidential challenges that have endured and grown since Darwin's time.

For me the conclusion is inescapable: Modern Darwinism is built on a foundation of sand -- a house of cards, threatened even by the outraged huffing and puffing of its defenders.

In short, there's no sense in placing faith in the kind of reasoning done by a brain that's a product of Darwinian processes.


Beyond this, as Bethell notes in the book, anyone with some common sense and self-knowledge must realize that denying free will is bunk. Our will, the freedom to make good or bad choices, is something we experience every waking moment. The assertion of materialism, which is the foundation of Darwinian theory, runs headlong into what we know about our own inner lives. It's self-defeating. So evolution's defenders naturally play all this down, while being unable to deny it.

On how Darwinists have got befogging down to a science.

Did Complex Flight Feathers "Emerge"?
Evolution News & Views

Here's a thought experiment. Consider something you know is intelligently designed: for example, software code for an app that flies a drone. Now let's describe its "emergence" in Darwinian langauge:

Once assembly language emerged, it diversified into logic gates of increasing complexity, as crawling robots co-opted various functions for novel adaptations, including powered flight. The coding mechanism driving this spectacular process remains unclear. Through morphological analysis of robots in various stages of development, we identify two logic gates that act as major controllers for the topologies of drone propeller blades. Comparison of early and late drone models identifies three major transformations in drone blade evolution: (i) the appearance of stiff protrusions, (ii) further shaping of the protrusions into vanes, and (iii) specialization of the vanes into airfoils of increasing efficiency. Some of the vanes became grouped into fours separated by right angles. Besides these major transformative events, other morphological features that evolved include controlled rotation, autonomous navigation, communication with a smartphone, and so on.
All clear now? You'll find this kind of vacuous language masquerading as scientific explanation repeatedly in the literature when evolutionists describe how complex systems "evolved." Complex functions emerge. Novelty arises. Innovations appear. To show that our parody is not far off the mark, here are opening statements from a paper in Nature Communications  about feather evolution. Notice all the words that assume evolution instead of demonstrating it. Notice also how the authors freely appropriate design words (like program, tuning):

Adaptation of feathered dinosaurs and Mesozoic birds to new ecological niches was potentiated by rapid diversification of feather vane shapes. The molecular mechanism driving this spectacular process remains unclear. Here, through morphology analysis, transcriptome profiling, functional perturbations and mathematical simulations, we find that mesenchyme-derived GDF10 and GREM1 are major controllers for the topologies of rachidial and barb generative zones (setting vane boundaries), respectively, by tuning the periodic-branching programme of epithelial progenitors.... Incremental changes of RA gradient slopes establish a continuum of asymmetric flight feathers along the wing, while switch-like modulation of RA signalling confers distinct vane shapes between feather tracts. Therefore, the co-option of anisotropic signalling modules introduced new dimensions of feather shape diversification.
Major novel functions of feathers that evolved include endothermy, communication, aerodynamic flight and so on. These are achieved through stepwise retrofitting of the original feather forms. [Emphasis added.]

Yikes! "Aerodynamic flight" just evolved? The authors casually toss in three miracles as an afterthought: "major novel functions of feathers that evolved." Let's be clear: warm-bloodedness, communication and powered flight are not afterthoughts. Nor do they arise by "stepwise retrofitting" of feather forms. As Paul Nelson aptly says in Flight:  Flight: The Genius of Birds, "You don't just partly fly, because flight requires not just having a pair of wings, but having your entire biology coordinated towards that function."

Then they toss out even more wonders:

Besides these major transformative events, other morphologic features that emerged during evolution include the deep follicles containing stem cells for cyclic regeneration, the hooklets and curved flanges in barbules and the solid cortex and air-filled pith in rachis and ramus. Together, these features enhanced feather mechanical strength, reduced weight, improved air-trapping efficiency and ensured renewability of feathers after damage.
Argument by assertion is not argument at all. To speak of "features that emerged during evolution" enlightens the reader only about the authors' beliefs. It's not a statement of science; it's a statement of ideology.

Recall the animation of flight feathers in the Illustra film in all their glory: vanes, barbs, barbules, hooks, all interconnected to provide a firm, lightweight, water-resistant airfoil easily repaired by the bird. But having perfect feathers is not enough. Feathers have to be connected to bones, and those to muscles and nerves, and nerves to a brain programmed to know how to fly. Without everything working together, "the evolution of feathers" signifies nothing.

The researchers identified some genes and tweaked them in chickens to see what happened. In some cases, the barb angles changed. In others, the density of barbs grew or shrank. Identifying genes involved in feather "tuning" is fair game in science. It's like reverse-engineering software to identify the logic routines used. Engineers might even run tests to see what happens when the logic routines are modified or rearranged. Those tests, however, would say nothing about the "emergence" of logic routines and complex functions.

The rest of the paper has very little to say about Darwinian evolution -- certainly nothing about mutation and natural selection.

Another paper generalizes the error. In the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, two American evolutionists strive to learn about "Emergence of function from coordinated cells in a tissue." Emergence again. It's a favorite word among evolutionists, obviating any need to identify causation. In this paper, the authors show that by repeatedly stating that something "gives rise to" something else.

A basic problem in biology is understanding how information from a single genome gives rise to function in a mature multicellular tissue. Genome dynamics stabilize to give rise to a protein distribution in a given cell type, which in turn gives rise to the identity of a cell. We build a highly idealized mathematical foundation that combines the genome (within cell) and the diffusion (between cell) dynamical forces. The trade-off between these forces gives rise to the emergence of function. We define emergence as the coordinated effect of individual components that establishes an objective not possible for an individual component. Our setting of emergence may further our understanding of normal tissue function and dysfunctional states such as cancer.
It "may further our understanding," but then again, it may not. This paragraph only makes sense in light of intelligent design (or else what could "an objective" refer to?). Information in a gene can "give rise to" function if and only if it was programmed to do so. Read the paragraph that way, and it makes sense. In fact, the whole paper can be read that way. We would understand cells taking shape as tissues, and tissues "giving rise to" their preprogrammed functions the way the designer intended.

Unfortunately, this is not what the authors appear to be saying. They speak only of forces, distributions, and equilibria -- blind, unguided natural processes.

You can find forces, distributions, and equilibria in rocks or ocean currents, but no "function" could be expected to "emerge" by unguided processes. Function implies a programmed response for the good of the whole in a coordinated, robust fashion, such that the whole organism can move, metabolize, and reproduce.

One might point to the "emergence" of nuclear fission in certain radioactive deposits, like the natural Oklo reactor in Gabon, Africa (Scientific American) as a kind of function. One might consider ocean currents driven by the moon to show the "emergence" of a cycle. Those cases, however, stretch the definition of "function" because they have no objective. A muscle tissue has an objective to generate force according to the will of the controlling brain behind it, for the purpose of movement, metabolism or reproduction. That's the kind of function these two mathematicians are talking about. They think a liver's function "emerges" from natural forces in the tissues it contains, and the protein distribution of each cell in the tissue. There's no thought of a program in their discussion.

Our main theorem (Theorem 5) establishes that monotonicity, a property that we introduce here, implies global convergence of the tissue dynamics to the equilibrium, where all cells have the same protein distribution. This gives a biological justification for our framework and a model for "emergence of function," as well as suggestions for studying the passage from emergence to morphogenesis. On the other hand one could see the emergence described here as a final stage of morphogenesis, completing a cycle.
Our model could give some support to obtaining more insights. Further questions, where quantitative support is expected, are also suggested: (i) To what extent is there a common equilibrium of proteins in each cell in a tissue? (ii) How do cells in a tissue cooperate to give rise to function? And (iii) how do we measure the diffusion between the cells?

One might as well speak of the emergence of metals "giving rise to" the morphogenesis of a bicycle, and the morphogenesis of the bicycle "giving rise to" the emergence of function like locomotion, "completing a cycle." Is something missing in this description?

The math in the paper looks pretty recondite. But no amount of scholarly dressing can overcome a bad premise. If there is no mention of a design plan, program, or purpose in their model, then their concept of "morphogenesis" cannot extend beyond the repetitive patterns in crystals and currents. Snowflakes -- lovely and intricate as they are -- present no function beyond falling and melting. The dynamics of currents can lead to standing waves and cycles; laws of nuclear reactions can "give rise to" sustained fission. None of these non-biological cases exhibit the kind of emergence of function the authors are trying to model. (They specifically refer to examples like skeletal muscle and the liver.)


Rather than increasing our understanding, these authors decrease it by reducing it to vacuous concepts of emergence and morphogenesis which, when stripped of programmed design, cannot "give rise to" a feather, much less an Arctic tern.

On how "fake news" drives the elites' agenda

On the science of sleep

File under "Well said" XLVI

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams