Acts17 ESV

English Standard Version
Paul and Silas in Thessalonica

1Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” 4And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. 5But the Jewsa were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. 6And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, 7and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” 8And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. 9And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

Paul and Silas in Berea

10The brothersb immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. 12Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. 13But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. 14Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. 15Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.

Paul in Athens

16Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

Paul Addresses the Areopagus

22So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,c 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28for

“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;d

as even some of your own poets have said,

“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’e

29Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

32Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33So Paul went out from their midst. 34But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

Footnotes:
a 5 Greek Ioudaioi probably refers here to Jewish religious leaders, and others under their influence, in that time; also verse 13
b 10 Or brothers and sisters; also verse 14
c 24 Greek made by hands
d 28 Probably from Epimenides of Crete
e 28 From Aratus's poem "Phainomena"

History judges Napoleon Bonaparte.

On chocolate.

Yet more iconoclasm III

Continuing to unsettle 'settled science'

Oxford’s Denis Noble Advocates “Fundamental Revision” in “Reductionist…Neo-Darwinism” - 
David Klinghoffer

Here is a new book from Oxford University biologist Denis Noble, Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity. He is one of the Third Way of Evolution folks, and no advocate of intelligent design.

Now read this comment on the book from Jos de Mul of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He is likewise no proponent of ID:

In this elegantly written and personal book world-renowned physiologist and systems biologist Denis Noble effectively argues for a fundamental revision of the theory of evolution. Against the reductionist, gene-centered approach of Neo-Darwinism, which has dominated biology for more than a century, Noble passionately pleas for a more integrated approach. Massively supported by recent postgenomic and epigenetic empirical research, Dance to the Tune of Life deepens and synthesizes ideas Noble earlier developed in The Music of Life: Biology Beyond the Genome (2006) and subsequent writings. Just like Newtonian physics underwent a major transformation in the beginning of the 20th century due to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the life sciences are facing a no less fundamental transformation. Noble’s book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand this transformation.

That is strong language — a “fundamental revision” in evolutionary theory, against “reductionist…neo-Darwinism,” comparable to how “Newtonian physics underwent a major transformation in the beginning of the 20th century.” Meanwhile fake science news out of the mainstream media and the National Center for Science Education assures us that evolutionary thinking is established as firmly as the Pillars of Hercules.

The book was published in January by Cambridge University Press. Don’t believe me? It’s all right on the Amazon page. Noble was among the organizers and participants at the Royal Society meeting in London that we’ve talked so much about here.

Evolutionary biology is in a state of ferment verging, in some quarters, on open rebellion. Don’t let Darwin apologists tell you otherwise.


- See more at: https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/03/new-book-from-denis-noble-advocates-fundamental-revision-in-reductionistneo-darwinism/#sthash.9cTYiVmt.dpuf

Academic freedom on the march?

Louisiana Adopts Science Standards, Including Louisiana Science Education Act - 
Sarah Chaffee

On Tuesday, March 7, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted in committee on proposed science standards. They confirmed their adoption the following day. In a 7-2 vote, they added the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) to the standards. Then, the Board voted unanimously to adopt the standards as amended.

Gene Mills, president of the Louisiana Family Forum, commented:

I am encouraged that the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education recognized the wisdom of the Louisiana Science Education Act, and saw fit to educate and empower science teachers with its rich provisions. Encouraging teachers “to assist students to understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied” promotes understanding and supports student engagement in the disciplines of science. This is an enormous step forward for Louisiana education and the state as a whole.

This action came after Dr. Wade Warren, professor of biology at Louisiana College, spent months trying to ensure accurate evolution standards. His was the lone dissenting vote at the Standards Committee meeting last month. At the BESE meeting, Warren explained the scientific evidence for claims made in several specific life science standards on evolution.

Dr. Warren noted:

Although this was a positive step, the standards on evolutionary biology are still not acceptable. There are multiple places they do not reflect correct, up-to-date science. The public should weigh in on these standards during the 120-day review period.

The LSEA, authored by Senator Ben Nevers (D), is a 2008 academic freedom law based on the model academic freedom bill prepared by the Center for Science & Culture. It passed 94-3 in the House and unanimously in the Senate.


- See more at: https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/03/louisiana-adopts-science-standards-including-louisiana-science-education-act/#sthash.phjj2cIo.dpuf

On the anti-Christ: The Watchtower Society's commentary.

Who Is the Antichrist?

A recent horror film was entitled Antichrist.

A popular music group named one of its albums Antichrist Superstar.

Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th-century philosopher, named one of his works The Antichrist.

Kings and emperors in the Middle Ages often called their opponents antichrists.

Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, labeled Roman Catholic popes as antichrists.

SINCE the term “antichrist” has long been used as a label for everything from monarchs to movies, it is only natural to ask: Who is the antichrist? Does this term have anything to do with us today? Surely the logical place to begin when searching for the identity of the antichrist is in the Bible, where the term appears five times.

ANTICHRIST EXPOSED:
The only Bible writer to use the word “antichrist” is the apostle John. How did he describe the antichrist? Note these words in the first letter bearing his name: “Young children, it is the last hour, and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared, from which fact we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of our sort . . . Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.”—1 John 2:18, 19, 22.


he apostle John understood the antichrist to be all who deliberately spread religious deception about Jesus Christ and Jesus’ teachings:

What do we learn from those words? John mentioned “many antichrists,” indicating that the antichrist is, not an individual, but a collective term. People or organizations making up the antichrist spread lies, deny that Jesus is the Christ, or the Messiah, and try to distort the relationship between God and His Son, Jesus Christ. Those who make up the antichrist claim to be Christ or his representatives, but since “they went out from us,” they deviated from true Bible teachings. Furthermore, this group was present at the time when John wrote his letter, in “the last hour,” presumably the end of the time of the apostles.

What else did John write regarding the antichrist? Speaking about false prophets, he warned: “Every inspired statement that acknowledges Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh originates with God. But every inspired statement that does not acknowledge Jesus does not originate with God. Furthermore, this is the antichrist’s inspired statement that you have heard was coming, and now it is already in the world.” (1 John 4:2, 3) Then, in his second letter, John reiterated this point: “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those not acknowledging Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.” (2 John 7) Clearly, John understood the antichrist to be all who deliberately spread religious deception about Jesus Christ and Jesus’ teachings.


“FALSE PROPHETS” AND “THE MAN OF LAWLESSNESS”:
Long before John wrote about such religious deceivers, Jesus Christ advised his followers: “Be on the watch for the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves.” (Matthew 7:15) The apostle Paul likewise warned Christians in Thessalonica: “Let no one lead you astray in any way, because it [the day of Jehovah] will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness gets revealed, the son of destruction.”—2 Thessalonians 2:3.

Hence, in the first century, false prophets and apostates were already at work, endeavoring to weaken the Christian congregation. All those involved in spreading lies and religious deception about Jesus Christ and his teachings were included in John’s term “antichrist.” Jehovah’s view of them was revealed when Paul described them as “the son of destruction.”

BEWARE OF ANTICHRIST’S ACTIVITIES TODAY:


What about today? People and organizations making up the antichrist still oppose Christ and his teachings. They deliberately spread lies and deceptions with the intent of confusing the identity of the Father, Jehovah God, and of His Son, Jesus Christ. We have good reason to beware of such religious deceptions. Let us look at two examples.

For centuries, the churches propagated the doctrine of the Trinity, claiming that the Father and the Son are part of the same entity. The antichrist thus shrouds in mystery the identity of Jehovah God and Jesus Christ. This mystery hinders sincere people from imitating Jesus Christ and drawing close to God, as the Bible encourages them to.—1 Corinthians 11:1; James 4:8.

The churches add to the confusion by promoting the use of Bible translations that omit God’s personal name, Jehovah, from the text. They do this despite the fact that the name Jehovah occurs some 7,000 times in the original text of the Bible. The result? The identity of the true God becomes even more shrouded in mystery.

On the other hand, knowing God’s name, Jehovah, has helped many honesthearted worshippers to draw closer to God. That was the experience of Richard, who recalls a conversation with two of Jehovah’s Witnesses. “They showed me from the Bible that the name of the true God is Jehovah,” explains Richard. “I was fascinated by the thought that God has a personal name, something I had never heard before.” From that point on, he made changes in his life to conform to Bible standards and to please Jehovah. “Learning God’s name has helped me to develop a close relationship with him.”

For centuries, the antichrist has kept millions in spiritual darkness. But by studying God’s Word, the Bible, we are able to learn the true identity of the antichrist and be set free from the antichrist’s religious lies and deceptions.—John 17:17.

On the God is love hence God is three argument

On Falling out of love with falsifiability

Falsifiability only gained traction as anti-creation move?
January 11, 2016 Posted by News under Philosophy, Science, Creationism, News

Odd, and it speaks very poorly of the science of the day. But one historian says that the historical data demonstrate that view.Further to the new science mythbuster book, Newton’s Apple and Other Myths About Science, a reader kindly notes that we also learn from the paywalled review in Science:

Michael Gordin … [debunks] the widely accepted belief that science can be easily differentiated from pseudoscience simply by determining whether a particular theory is falsifiable. In addition to the philosophical shortcomings of this approach, he notes that if a negative result is sufficient to falsify a theory, then high-school science students manage to “falsify” most of Western science each week in their lab classes. Gordin goes on to analyze why this particular idea rose to such prominence in the 1980s. When various U.S. states legislated that creationism get equal time in school science classes, it became politically urgent to define why creation “science” was nothing of the kind. Part of the appeal of the falsification axiom (if it could never be disproved, it can’t be science) was that it was simple enough for nonscientists to grasp. Yet, when we look at history, falsification simply does not work as a definition of science. As Gordin explains, most historians and scientists accept a sociological definition: Science is what the scientific community says it is (e.g., peer-reviewed work in reputable journals). It’s not a perfect definition, nor a stable one, but it has the virtue of being the one by which scientists actually operate.

So whatever peers say is science is, and evidence is irrelevant?

And now they don’t want falsifiability because favoured theories don’t make the cut, right?

Given the state of peer review today, that’s part of the problem that physicists are anguishing over now.

Should string theory be accepted as science, without falsifiability, because boffins say it is cosmology’s free non-falsifiable lunch?

Note the sneer at “non-scientists.”

Just a minute here. If historian Gordin is right, many only agreed to the falsifiability criterion in the first place for political reasons—and now want to get rid of it… also for political reasons?

The problem is, of course, falsifiability was never thought of by most people as a “definition” of science, but more of an alarm system that non-scientists could use when things were going hairball.

When scientists want the alarm turned off, they lose a reputation for evidence-based thinking, along with credibility and moral authority. They may as well forget the science, join a Darwin trollblog (and specialize in creative profanity) or a crackpot cosmology site and do great graphics.

See also: Physicist: We can only argue positions based on philosophy The problem is that the philosophy that prevails gets to call itself “science” and decide what is or isn’t evidence and whether it matters. And that could just come down to a vote.

Unholy holy men?

It's official:Russia's war on religious liberty goes to the next level.:The Watchtower Society's commentary.

MARCH 16, 2017
RUSSIA

Russia’s Ministry of Justice Moves to Ban Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia

Russia’s Ministry of Justice (Ministry) has filed a claim with the Supreme Court, seeking “to declare the religious organization, the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses, extremist, ban its activity, and liquidate it.” On March 15, 2017, the Supreme Court posted notice on its official website that it had received the claim from the Ministry. The Ministry did not notify Jehovah’s Witnesses that it had taken this latest step in its ongoing attack on their worship.

A decision by the Supreme Court in favor of the claim brought by the Ministry would have dire consequences for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. The Witnesses could lose properties dedicated to religious worship, almost 400 legal entities could be dissolved, and each of the over 170,000 Witnesses could be criminally prosecuted merely for meeting for worship, reading the Bible together, or talking to others about their faith.


Vasiliy Kalin, a representative of the Administrative Center in Russia, stated: “The profound desire of each of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia is just to be able to worship our God peacefully. For over 100 years, the authorities in Russia have trampled on the guarantees of their own laws, which grant us this right. I was just a boy when Stalin exiled my family to Siberia merely because we were Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is sad and reprehensible that my children and grandchildren should be facing a similar fate. Never did I expect that we would again face the threat of religious persecution in modern Russia.”

Tutorial for aspiring Titans.

A clash of Titans. XLIX

The Saudi-U.S alliance a liability?:Pros and cons.

Time to unhype charter schools?:Pros and cons.

Why you should listen to Dr. mom.

On the science of muscle.

On Milk.

"Junk" v. Darwin.

Three Ways that Transposable Elements Demolish Evolutionary Theory 
Cornelius Hunter

Transposable elements just don’t make sense. These so-called “jumping genes” are segments of junk DNA that insert themselves at random in our genomes. That is the evolutionary interpretation of these genetic units, but how and why do they move about, and why don’t they wreak havoc on the genome?

The answers to these questions, which have been emerging in recent years, is that transposable elements are exquisite, finely tuned, highly functional molecular machines that contradict evolutionary expectations. Evolutionists have a long, failed history of presumed disutility — after all, the world arose by chance, surely it doesn’t work very well — and transposable elements are just one more example of this failed prediction. But the junk-to-hero story is only one of three ways that transposable elements utterly demolish evolutionary theory. The other two prongs in this Darwin-destroying triad are serendipity and pattern.

By serendipity, I am referring to the rather awkward findings, which are undeniable at this point, that if evolution is true, then it must have come about by highly complex, non-adaptive, mechanisms. From diploid genetics to horizontal gene transfer, alternate gene splicing, genetic regulation, epigenetics, mechanisms that cause adaptive mutations, and transposable elements, evolution must have bumbled along by luckily constructing fantastically complex mechanisms. Those mechanisms would provide no immediate adaptive value, yet somehow would persist and become vital agents in evolutionary history. Simply put, evolution must have created evolution in a most unlikely (astronomically unlikely) set of circumstances. That’s serendipity, not science, and transposable elements heap more fuel onto the fire.

By pattern, I am referring to another set of awkward findings, again undeniable, that the pattern of structures observed across the species consistently contradicts evolution’s predictions. One of those contradictions are the enormous differences found in otherwise allied species.

All three of these contradictions — disutility, serendipity, and pattern — are on display in a new, systematic study of transposable elements out of Didier Trono’s lab in Switzerland. The study details the interactions between transposable elements and a class of proteins. The findings indicate the complexity and interdependency of these molecular mechanisms. As the press release admits:

Long considered as junk DNA, transposable elements are now recognized as influencing the expression of genes. … the extent of this regulation and how it is harnessed were so far unknown. EPFL scientists have now taken the first extensive look at a family of ~350 human proteins, showing that they establish a complex interplaywith transposable elements … KZFPs can convert transposable elements in exquisitely fine-tuned regulatory platforms that influence the expression of genes, which likely takes place at all stages of development and in all human tissues. … It is a highly combinatorial and versatile system … As a field, epigenetics has come into prominence in recent years, revealing a previously unimagined complexity and elegance in genetics.

Not exactly junk DNA. And of course all of this would require large amounts of serendipity. For evolutionists are now forced to say that transposable elements would have to have played a, err, key role in evolution itself. Evolution would have had to have constructed this highly specific, detailed, system including hundreds of proteins and genetic elements, with hundreds of specific interactions, providing no immediate benefit. As Trono explains:

The vast majority of KZFPs binds to specific motifs in transposable elements. For each KZFP we were able to assign one subset of transposable elements, and also found that one transposable element can often interact with several KZFPs.

Finally, all of this contradicts the expected common descent pattern. This failure has become so common we now have non-evolutionary terminology, such as “species-specific” and “lineage-specific.” The paper uses the term “species-restricted”:

KZFPs partner with transposable elements to build a largely species-restricted layer of epigenetic regulation

Species-restricted? In other words, the designs we are discovering in biology are unique to particular species. This is precisely the opposite of what evolution expects. Note also the teleological language (which as usual is evident in the infinitive form): The proteins “partner” with the transposable elements “to build” a largely “species-restricted” layer of epigenetic regulation. This is a classic example of evolution’s absurd creation-story language.

The contradictory pattern was, of course, unsuspected. As Trono explains:

KZFPs contribute to make human biology unique. Together with their genomic targets, they likely influence every single event in human physiology and pathology, and do so by being largely species-specific — the general system exists in many vertebrates, but most of its components are different in each case. … This paper lifts the lid off something that had been largely unsuspected: the tremendous species-specific dimension of human gene regulation.

Yes, it was largely unsuspected. For what these findings reveal is a tremendous species-specific dimension of human gene regulation. In other words, we would need proteins and genetic elements to evolve, via independent and yet interdependent, random mutations, to construct an entirely new set of genetic regulation instructions. This is astronomically unlikely, no matter how many millions of years are available.

Yet more iconoclasm. II

Nylon and Nylonase: Ann Gauger Disentangles an Evolutionary Icon - 
David Klinghoffer

Nylon is a human-synthesized substance. It’s familiar from ladies’ stockings and a variety of other uses, from toothbrush bristles to car parts.

It didn’t exist until 1935 years ago because it hadn’t been invented. Thus a strain of bacteria capable of digesting it would evidently need to do something novel that no bacteria had done before. When Japanese scientists in 1975 discovered such a bacterium at work, Darwinists later brandished this. They said it showed evolving new proteins is a breeze.

The nylon-degrading enzyme nylonase arose in the course of 40 years. That sounds like a score for evolution, right? Indeed, our theistic evolutionary friends over at BioLogos were in a triumphant mood on the subject a little while back on their Open Forum (“Biological Information and Intelligent Design: evolving new protein folds“).

Now they had Doug Axe on protein evolution, and by extension Stephen Meyer, beat! Writes biologist Dennis Venema:

Meyer’s argument (based on Axe) is that protein folds are too rare for evolution to find. The amino acids in the de-novo nylonase are a new sequence of amino acids — the frameshift mutation means that the old gene is being translated in a different reading frame, hence a new string of amino acids. This new, de novo, protein folds up into a functional nylonase.

If Meyer’s argument was correct, this could not happen. The probability of these new amino acids finding a functional sequence is, according to Meyer, only one in 10 to the 77th power. So, the fact that we can observe new functions coming into being shows that his estimate is grossly over-inflated.

In a brief window of time, some bacteria developed the ability to consume nylon. Ergo, no need for intelligent design in biology?

Not so fast, explains Discovery Institute biologist Ann Gauger. In an ID the Future conversation, she talked with Sarah Chaffee. Conclusion: “Nylonase was a pre-existing enzyme, had a pre-existing activity. It was easy to convert it to the ability to degrade nylon [by a] step-wise path. Therefore, there’s no reason to think that the enzyme is a newly derived enzyme from a frame shift. We don’t need that explanation.”

In short, as an icon of evolution, nylonase has no legs. Listen to the podcast here, or download it here.

Behind the elephant's legendary memory.

Yet more iconoclasm.

Evolving Icons of Evolution
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

Peter and Rosemary Grant, the husband and wife pair from Princeton University, have spent 40 years studying four species of ground finch on one uninhabited island of the Galápagos archipelago. They are to be commended for their dedication, and for details that they have published over the years about the birds made famous by Darwin. (Design advocates appreciate the Grants for their findings that undermine neo-Darwinism, although they would not see it that way.)

In a new Perspective piece in Science Magazine, “Watching Speciation in Action,” they show that they are not the only ones who have witnessed the origin of species. Beginning with the Darwin quote about “grandeur in this view of life” that evolves, they describe a number of studies like theirs that illustrate organisms that have varied and diversified from parent stock. Let’s begin by listing the examples and what is known about them, both genetically and phenotypically. These can be considered their finest “icons of evolution” for 2017.

Darwin’s finches. The Grants witnessed variations due to five beak genes, two transcription factor genes, hybridization, climate forcing, and reproductive isolation.
Peppered moths. The black morph comes from one transposon, which “suggests that transposable elements may play a more important role in generating variation among species in ecologically important traits than is currently realized.”
Pentstemons and morning glories. Asymmetric loss-of-function mutations and inversions tend to change pollinators from bees to hummingbirds, but not the reverse.
Ruff, a wading bird “with an unusual mating system in which three male forms, differing in plumage and behavior, compete for females on a courting arena.” An inversion 3.8 million years ago, they say, was followed by mutations that produced this result.
Deer mice in Nebraska’s sand hills. The lighter coat colors, adaptive for the sandy environment, “were the result of selection on not one but multiple mutations in the Agouti”
Three-spined sticklebacks. Marine fish that have colonized freshwater environments repeatedly evolved into surface dwellers and bottom dwellers. They also lost the pelvic apparatus and armor through similar genetic pathways (involving a transcription factor and a signaling protein).
High-altitude birds. Hemoglobin adaptation to high altitude has been shown to involve “repeated use of the same genetic pathway.” It “may be the case generally” that “closely related species use similar genes, whereas more distantly related species use different genetic pathways that depend on their genetic backgrounds.”
Heliconius butterflies. The genes involved in Mullerian mimicry are shown to be due to introgressive hybridization, “that is, gene exchange between species as a result of hybrids backcrossing to a parental species.” This process is also seen in the Darwin finch study.
Mosquitos and mice. Cases of insecticide resistance have been “transmitted between populations” by introgressive hybridization.
Asian longhorn beetles. These eukaryotes, in a case “even more remarkable, and similar to introgressive hybridization,” obtained genes for digesting plant cell walls via horizontal gene transfer from bacteria and fungi.
High-altitude humans. They say that Tibetans may have obtained adaptation to high altitude via interbreeding with Denisovans.
Sunflowers. Members of Helianthus colonized salt marshes via “transgressive segregation,” a form of hybridization whereby individuals can “colonize novel habitats where neither parental lineage can survive.”
Blind cave fish. Mexican fish lost vision via “release of hidden [cryptic] variation.” In their case, the heat shock protein HSP90 masks variation for eye size in surface waters. “This variation is exposed in the altered conductivity of cave water and becomes available for selection.”
It’s an impressive list. The Grants have thrown down the gauntlet to Darwin skeptics, providing a baker’s dozen of clear examples of variation leading to populations with phenotypic change. But before we bow before these icons, we should ask some important questions — like those Jonathan Wells asked in his classic book, Icons of Evolution (2000). What kind of evolution have they really shown? Nobody doubts variation. It was clearly evident long before Darwin. Even today, the most ardent creationists allow for significant variability within what they call “created kinds,” while a good number of intelligent design advocates cheerfully accept universal common descent even as they reject neo-Darwinian evolution as the explanation for it.

To distinguish Darwin’s explanation from these positions, therefore, the burden on the Grants is to demonstrate adaptive variation arising by random mutations and positive natural selection. (Loss of function, while interesting, is not particularly helpful to their argument.) These adaptive variations, moreover, must be significant enough to create true novelties, innovations beyond mere reshuffling of existing information. And they must persist in new populations that are reproductively isolated, so as to branch off Darwin’s tree in new directions. We need to see something as significant as the presumed first tetrapod colonizing land, or the first dinosaur obtaining powered flight — something on a new fitness peak that has the appearance of being designed, but is now demonstrably explainable by gradual steps up the backside of Mt. Improbable. Furthermore, the selected random variations should be detectable in the genes.

A key point of the Grants’ article is that variation did not always arise by random mutation. In fact, most of the cases in their list involve reshuffling of existing genetic information by interbreeding, hybridization or horizontal gene transfer. This immediately takes #8-12 off the list. The challenge to Darwinism by hybridization was shown in our post last year, “Hybrids Weave Darwin’s Tree into a Web,” which mentions the Grants and the potentially devastating impacts of this “revolution” on their work.

Loss of function takes #13 off the list as well as #2, #3, and #6. None of these demonstrate Darwinian evolution. That leaves us with #1 Darwin’s finches, #4 Ruff, #5 Deer mice, and #7 High-altitude birds. To give the best benefit of the doubt, we might put #11 High-altitude humans back on the list with #7, High-altitude birds.

Jonathan Wells discussed three of these icons in his book: #1 Darwin’s finches, #2 Peppered moths (see his update last year), and #11 Human evolution. The Grants don’t offer any new solutions. In fact, the situation is worse now for Darwinians than it was in 2000. Now we know that hybridization was involved in the finches. Now we know that a transposon created the dark peppered moth — a case of shuffling of existing information. And now we know about interbreeding of modern humans with Neanderthals and Denisovans, proving they were compatible species and not “reproductively isolated” (a requirement for speciation). None of the variations in these cases are demonstrably due to neo-Darwinian mechanisms.

What about the Ruff wading birds? At best, these involve minor changes to existing information. Birds already were divided into males and females. Birds already had plumage. Birds already had behaviors. If all three male types can mate with the females, they are members of one species anyway; this is not a case of the origin of species.

What about the deer mice? This is another peppered-moth case, merely shifting the ratios of existing populations. Again, even if multiple mutations occurred in the Agouti locus, they only affected fur color. The mice already had fur. Lots of mammals, including humans, show wide variations in hair color. The paper in Science referenced by the Grants indicates that the coloration patterns fall on a continuum. The researchers used a highly-contrived artificial lab experiment to try to correlate fur color to predation, but even so, all the mice of all colors are members of the same species anyway. So, peppered mice? Much ado about nothing. See also what Casey Luskin wrote about stickleback fish (#6), and what Kirk Durston wrote about microevolution, which is what all the examples on the Grants’ list amount to.

In short, nothing the Grants presented rises to the level of evidence required to distinguish their view from those of intelligent design or even Young Earth Creationism. What’s perhaps most illuminating about the Grants’ article is the frank admission that, 158 years after Darwin’s Origin, and after 40 years on Daphne Major studying finches, evolutionists still do not understand microevolution, let alone macroevolution. In the first paragraph, they state:

Today, scientists are using genetics to understand how species multiply, and ecological and behavioral knowledge to understand why they do so [implying that they still do not understand]. However, many questions remain about the sources of genetic variation and how new phenotypes arise in response to environmental change [isn’t that what Darwin solved?]. Recent research has revealed unexpected origins of genetic variation, providing crucial insights into phenotypic divergence and the evolutionary effects of rare events triggered by global climatic change. [Emphasis added.]

Yes, be sure to mention climate change to score extra points with the editor. At the end, they state:

Future genomic and ecological research on natural populations will provide a more comprehensive answer to Darwin’s question of why the world is so extraordinarily rich in numbers, diversity, and complexity of organisms. Foremost among current questions is how gradual climate change and extreme climatic events cause rapid evolutionary change, and why some species groups diversify prolifically while others do not.


So exactly how much is understood about this theory that rules biology?

The parody defying absurdity of the war on human exceptionalism.

River to Receive Human Rights?
Wesley J. Smith

In  The War on Humans, I warned that radical environmentalists wanted to accord human-type “rights” to “nature.” The idea is to prevent development and human exploitation of natural resources. Under these laws, anyone can sue on behalf of “nature,” and courts have to give the rights of the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees “equal consideration” to the needs or desires of humans.

Toward this end, New Zealand granted the Whanganui River the rights of “personhood.” Now, a proposal is being pushed in the U.K. to give “rights” to the Frome River. From the SomersetLive story:

The River Frome could soon be capable of bearing the same rights as humans and companies, if proposals to establish a nature rights by-law go ahead.

Sustainable Frome is campaigning to get Frome Town Council to create a new type of by-law which recognises the river as a legal system capable of bearing the same rights as us humans.

The key elements of a nature rights by-law for the river were laid out at a town council meeting last July. These would be:

1. That the river be given appropriate rights stemming from the function of rivers within the wider whole of nature.

2. That local people and the council be granted the power to enforce these rights on behalf of the river. Currently anyone trying to defend the nature of the river has to show sufficient interest in order to bring a case.

3. That the river must not be subordinated to the rights and interests of companies of natural persons, whose property claims must respect the rights of the river.

Some here in the U.S. have also caught this radical infection: More than thirty U.S. municipalities — including Santa Monica, which has no “nature” left to protect — have instituted laws that recognize the “rights of nature.”


The message, of course, is that humans are not the least bit exceptional. Indeed, this view posits the subversive view that we are merely one species among flora and fauna possessing no special value nor entitled to unique rights.

Britain should have opted out of the war to end war?:Pros and con.

I.D is already mainstream? II

Light Sails: In Fast Radio Bursts, Harvard Scientists Seek Evidence of Intelligent Design - 
Evolution News

Some critics of intelligent design — the less serious ones — maintain that seeking to detect design in nature is akin to searching out fairies and unicorns. Tell that to Avi Loeb and Manasvi Lingam, researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Their forthcoming paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters is “Fast Radio Bursts from Extragalactic Light Sails.” It applies what is manifestly (albeit not by that name) a design filter to evaluating a mysterious phenomenon in distant space. So-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) could be natural. Or they could be an artifact of non-human intelligence, an unknown technology in use to power enormous alien spacecraft in “sailing” across the stars. Distinguishing nature from artifact is the main point on the agenda of all intelligent design research, whether it’s called that or not.

A statement  announcing the publication is fascinating:

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has looked for many different signs of alien life, from radio broadcasts to laser flashes, without success. However, newly published research suggests that mysterious phenomena called fast radio bursts could be evidence of advanced alien technology. Specifically, these bursts might be leakage from planet-sized transmitters powering interstellar probes in distant galaxies.

“Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven’t identified a possible natural source with any confidence,” said theorist Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking.”

As the name implies, fast radio bursts are millisecond-long flashes of radio emission. First discovered in 2007, fewer than two dozen have been detected by gigantic radio telescopes like the Parkes Observatory in Australia or the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. They are inferred to originate from distant galaxies, billions of light-years away.

Loeb and his co-author Manasvi Lingam (Harvard University) examined the feasibility of creating a radio transmitter strong enough for it to be detectable across such immense distances. They found that, if the transmitter were solar powered, the sunlight falling on an area of a planet twice the size of the Earth would be enough to generate the needed energy. Such a vast construction project is well beyond our technology, but within the realm of possibility according to the laws of physics.

…

[Lingam and Loeb] asked, why build such an instrument in the first place? They argue that the most plausible use of such power is driving interstellar light sails. The amount of power involved would be sufficient to push a payload of a million tons, or about 20 times the largest cruise ships on Earth.

“That’s big enough to carry living passengers across interstellar or even intergalactic distances,” added Lingam.

The Washington Post points out that space sails are an idea explored in science fiction. They mention a short story by Arthur C. Clarke (“Sunjammer”) and a 2002 Star Wars installment (Attack of the Clones). So is this just a case of more fairies and unicorns? Obviously not. Avi Loeb is known for his out-of-the-box thinking. But he is a highly regarded astrophysicist. The science seems sound. Solar sails, indeed, are probably the easiest way to imagine travel to the stars.

As the Post concedes, NASA is already on the verge of employing light sails, on an appropriately modest scale.

Solar sails are poised to jump into real life, too, in 2018. Two years ago, NASA announced its Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, which will use a reflective sail to travel toward a lump of space rock.

And if the technology of light sails seems beyond our present ken, that should come as no surprise. Do you think Aristotle could even begin to conceive of a TV remote? Or a cell phone? Not likely. So on what grounds do we suppose that advanced aliens would employ technologies easily comprehensible to us?

Even without evaluating the physics of FRBs in relation to the Lingam & Loeb hypothesis, it’s good to observe their use of a design-filter mode of reasoning. Seeing intelligent causation not as fantastic or inherently suspect, but another genuine causal possibility reached by objectively sifting evidence, is the first step to setting science free from its slavery to materialism.

In short, there’s no magical thinking in light sails. Only good ID science. Their hypothesis is speculative, but thoughtful and serious. It also rests on a good deal less evidence than the argument for design in our familiar world of terrestrial biology.


- See more at: https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/03/light-sails-fast-radio-bursts-harvard-scientists-seek-evidence-intelligent-design/#sthash.u7Ed3AIb.dpuf

Origin of life science tosses up yet another Just so story

Cranky young sun kickstarted life? No.

Unless you believe New Scientist::

Giant flare-ups from the young sun might have kept early Earth warm – and any life nicely fertilised. By splitting inert nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere, charged particles from the sun could have sparked chemical reactions that heated the planet and could be the precursor for life.

This suggestion is the latest attempt to solve a famous paradox known as the “faint young sun” problem. About 4 billion years ago, the sun was only 70 per cent as bright as it is today, which should have made the Earth a frozen snowball. But geological evidence shows that ancient Earth was warm enough for liquid water. The same holds true for Mars.

Now, Vladimir Airapetian of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland suggests that blasts of protons from the hyperactive young sun could be the answer .More.

Physicist  Rob Sheldon writes to say,

This is a bit close to my field: magnetospheric particles, flares, etc. But its claim is rubbish:

a) The number of nitrogen molecules “split” by solar protons is miniscule, because we’re talking maybe 10 protons/cubic centimeter. This is ultra-high vacuum in any other location on the surface of the planet. And all that split nitrogen is high up in the ionosphere–unlikely to ever diffuse down to sea level.

b) Sea-level lightning splits nitrogen and generates the majority of the NOx in the Earth, which is gratefully used by life, the density of nitrogen being some 17 orders of magnitude larger here than in solar flares.

c) But to sustain life, neither flares nor lightning is important, life does it alone from nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria in the oceans or root-nodules of legumes. Nitrogen fixation is then one of those “irreducibly complex” problems for evolution.

But what this article does reveal–like so many Darwinian “breakthroughs”–is that nitrogen is a real problem for Origin-of-life (OOL). Every protein and nucleobase has nitrogen in it, which needs to be “fixed” or chemically bound for life to start, because fixed nitrogen is unstable. That is because the N2 gas that fills our atmosphere (“unfixed”) is so extremely stable, as organic matter decomposes in our garden, it loses nitrogen to the atmosphere, which never comes back. That’s why coal has no nitrogen content. Other than fresh organic stuff, (or mined organic stuff such as guano) farmers have to put (fixed) nitrogen back in the soil as “nitrates”, a popular version being “ammonium nitrate”, which is now made synthetically using the Nobel-prize winning “Haber-Bosch” high-temperature catalyst process.

So what OOL needs, in addition to energy sources, entropy barriers, miscible membranes, hot-springs etc, is some way to get fixed nitrogen in the environment as well. This article wants to tie it into solar flares and thence to a young sun to make OOL on Earth more likely. In contrast, Miller-Urey argued for lightning, which is indeed, far more efficient than solar protons. This fellow is either cheerleading for Darwin, or advertising his (overly-simplistic) 2-D computer modeling codes (having done some 3-D magnetosphere models ~20 years ago.) But that’s the way this

game is played–no matter how insignificant your result, if you want the media to notice your press release, claim it either supports Darwin or global warming or both.

Hardest puzzle ever?

Diminishing returns II

Is Russia'a war on religious liberty going to the next level?:The Watchtower Society's commentary.

Ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia Imminent?

On February 21, 2017, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation issued a new order to the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. The Ministry is now demanding that the Administrative Center provide information on all 2,277 congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout Russia.

The Ministry of Justice issued this latest order while it was conducting an inspection of the Administrative Center, ordered by the Prosecutor General’s Office. During that inspection, authorities focused only on the legal entities that the Witnesses use. These entities include the Administrative Center itself as well as Local Religious Organizations, which congregations use to hold title to properties for religious services. On February 27, 2017, the Ministry of Justice concluded its inspection and reported that the Administrative Center violated the law and showed signs of engaging in “extremist activity.”


Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world are gravely concerned for their fellow believers in Russia. With this second order, the Ministry of Justice has turned its attention to the congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Based on the authorities’ latest actions, the Witnesses believe that the Prosecutor General is moving not only to liquidate all legal entities of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia but also to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout the Russian Federation.

Is Darwinism cleverer than Darwinists?

Vertebrates to Land Is an Evolutionary Transition Dripping with Teleology - 
David Klinghoffer


Cornelius Hunter, among other observers, has pointed out the recurring need on the part of evolutionary thinking to resort to the language of teleology. Darwinian evolution is supposed to have done away with the need for purpose or will in driving the history of life. The words of Darwinists themselves tend to refute that idea.

That’s especially the case when they don’t have the defense of highly technical language to obscure what’s going on. As an illustration, see how researchers describe their idea about how vertebrates made the transition from sea to land some 385 million years ago.

Getting to solid ground, according to previous thinking, was driven by the evolution of limbs. These scientists, however, say it was all in the eyes.

Large eyes are unhelpful in water, but a necessity on land. So to make the launch to dry earth, sea creatures “evolved” larger eyes. They explain in an article for Science Daily, “Vision, not limbs, led fish onto land 385 million years ago.” “Led“? Note the language suggestive of teleology, purpose, forethought, in bold:

A provocative new Northwestern University and Claremont McKenna, Scripps and Pitzer colleges study suggests it was the power of the eyes and not the limbs that first led our ancient aquatic ancestors to make the momentous leap from water to land. Crocodile-like animals first saw easy meals on land and then evolved limbs that enabled them to get there, the researchers argue.

…

[E]yes nearly tripled in size before — not after — the water-to-land transition. The tripling coincided with a shift in location of the eyes from the side of the head to the top. The expanded visual range of seeing through air may have eventually led to larger brains in early terrestrial vertebrates and the ability to plan and not merely react, as fish do.

It sounds like it was not only the early terrestrial vertebrates that were doing the “planning.” More:

“We found a huge increase in visual capability in vertebrates just before the transition from water to land. Our hypothesis is that maybe it was seeing an unexploited cornucopia of food on land — millipedes, centipedes, spiders and more — that drove evolution to come up with limbs from fins,” MacIver said.

“Seeing” the food “drove evolution” to “come up with,” i.e., to invent, limbs. A longing for tasty treats on land! They saw that the millipedes and whatnot were good for food, and that this “cornucopia” was a delight to the eyes, or they would have if they had eyes adapted for seeing through air instead of water — no small thing.

What Big Eyes You Have!

The problem, again: Who needs larger eyes in water? Nobody. Yet they “evolved” larger eyes, appropriately situated. The researchers wondered what the “point,” the purpose, might be.

“Bigger eyes are almost worthless in water because vision is largely limited to what’s directly in front of the animal,” said Schmitz, assistant professor of biology at the W.M. Keck Science Department, a joint program of Claremont McKenna, Scripps and Pitzer colleges.

“But larger eye size is very valuable when viewing through air. In evolution, it often comes down to a trade-off. Is it worth the metabolic toll to enlarge your eyes? What’s the point? Here we think the point was to be able to search out prey on land,” he said.

Teleology is the study of such “points” to things. The article concludes: “Rather than limbs, it was eyes that brought our ancestors to land.”

Obviously, in ordinary English “bringing” things, “leading” them, implies purposeful action. A report on the same study for Quanta Magazine puts it in intriguing terms: “The ancient creatures who first crawled onto land may have been lured by the informational benefit that comes from seeing through air.” The early vertebrates were lured ashore by information!

The reference is to information about food. But researcher Malcolm MacIver doesn’t seem to realize how much he sounds like an ID theorist when he tells Quanta, “It’s hard to look past limbs and think that maybe information, which doesn’t fossilize well, is really what brought us onto land.” Don’t worry, he’s not a design advocate, but it’s amusing to think you could just as easily have lifted that sentence out of a book by Stephen Meyer.

Greetings from Burbank

The paper in PNAS (“Massive increase in visual range preceded the origin of terrestrial vertebrates“) fills in the technical details and gives the theory a cute name:

The consequent combination of the increase in eye size and vision through air would have conferred a 1 million-fold increase in the amount of space within which objects could be seen. The “buena vista” hypothesis that our data suggest is that seeing opportunities from afar played a role in the subsequent evolution of fully terrestrial limbs as well as the emergence of elaborated action sequences through planning circuits in the nervous system.

If Buena Vista (“good vision”) rings a bell, by the way, that might be because it’s the street in Burbank, California, where the Walt Disney Studios has its headquarters, leading to a brand name, Buena Vista, long associated with Disney. The brand name is the result of the street name. It was chosen purposefully, consciously to match one with the other, a minor example of action directed toward an end.

As Dr. Hunter notes:

The teleology is not a mere slip-up. As we have documented many times, it is a common thread running throughout the genre of evolutionary literature. It is needed to make sense of the data, because evolution doesn’t.

Certainly, “buena vista” is a prerequisite to life on land. It seems to have been “selected” for, however, prior to there being much need for it. That kind of looking ahead to future requirements is a hallmark not of blind Darwinian shuffling but, of course, of intelligent design.


- See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/03/vertebrates-land-evolutionary-transition-dripping-teleology/#sthash.2eWJYL38.dpuf