Yet more predarwinian tech takes the witness stand for design.

The Machine that Fuels ATP Synthase

Evolution News & Views

Why do you need oxygen to breathe? Oxygen actually plays a secondary role in the amazing process of respiration. What you really need are protons (hydrogen atoms). For every proton captured from your food, there's an electron needing proper disposal. Oxygen is just an electron receptor at the end of a long chain of processes, driven by molecular machines, that captures protons for fuel. The machines translocate the protons across a membrane, creating a pool of protons that enter the ATP synthase rotor and make it turn (see our animation, "ATP Synthase: The Power Plant of the Cell"). In a sense, the whole job of respiration is to set up a proton gradient in the mitochondrial membrane to serve as fuel for ATP synthase.

A bit of background: The protons turn the rotor in ATP synthase like a carousel or waterwheel. This, in turn, rotates a camshaft to mechanically force ADP and phosphate into ATP in the catalytic center of the motor. The energy from your food (or from sunlight in plants) thus transforms chemical energy to electrical energy to mechanical energy and, finally, to another form of chemical energy. Most of the other processes in the cell use ATP for their energy.

We've heard of the mitochondrion as the "powerhouse" of the eukaryotic cell. That's because it creates the ATP to power everything else. Along its folded inner membranes, called cristae, molecular machines pump protons to one side of the inner membrane where they can be channeled into the "turbines" of ATP synthase. In plants, chloroplasts serve this function, capturing energy from sunlight. Bacteria have the same basic machinery in their inner cell membranes. Since we are eukaryotes, let's look at what's going on in our mitochondria, where thousands of molecular machines are working 24/7 to set up the proton gradient, a literal "voltage" to run your motors.

The first of those machines has a cumbersome name, NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase (sometimes NADH dehydrogenase). We can use its nickname "Complex I" for convenience. It's one of five "complexes" in the electron transport chain of respiration (also called oxidative phosphorylation), ending with ATP synthase as Complex V. The last of the molecular machines to be elucidated, Complex I has just been described in unprecedented detail by scientists from the molecular biology laboratory at Cambridge.

For many years, scientists knew the general function of Complex I. Its job is to generate four protons for the proton gradient from each input. It does this by taking electrons from NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), a sugar phosphate first described in 1906. The reduced form is called NADH.

Now for some terminology: For historical reasons, removing electrons is called "oxidation", and donating them is called "reduction." Together, these are abbreviated "redox" reactions. But since negative electrons and positive protons are involved, it might help to think of 'reduction' as reducing the number of protons. Oxidizing a molecule leaves it with fewer electrons, resulting in a positive charge -- i.e., with extra protons. Reducing a molecule leaves it with a negative charge, or a reduced number of protons. A proton is the same as a hydrogen ion (H+).

The docking site of Complex I oxidizes NADH to NAD+, passing two captured electrons to a cofactor called ubiquinone. In the process, by passing the electrons through a series of iron-sulfur clusters (Fe-S), the machine pumps four protons through the inner mitochondrial membrane, contributing about 40 percent of the proton gradient needed by ATP synthase. You can watch a simplified animation from NDSU Virtual Cell showing how the complexes move electrons and protons around.

The mitochondrion is where the well-known "citric acid cycle" takes place. Students often hear about the chemistry of life, but not as often about the mechanics. They learn how energy from food is transferred through various molecules to make ATP as we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide and water vapor. That's great to know, but what is more fascinating is how these reactions require machines with moving parts. Let's see what scientists have discovered about Complex I, in terms of its structure and dynamics.

Complex I is a huge enzyme, one of the largest in the cell. In mammals, it has 14 core subunits and 31 "supernumerary" (fancy word for "extra") subunits, adding up to a whopping mass of 980 kilodaltons (kDa). (A Dalton is about the mass of a hydrogen atom; technically, 1/12 the mass of a carbon atom.) Such high mass implies over 7,000 properly-sequenced amino acids. That's one huge machine, considering the average size of an enzyme is about 300-400 amino acids. The bacterial Complex I, lacking many of the supernumerary subunits, is still gigantic, weighing in at 550 kDa.

In appearance, Complex I resembles a boot, with the ankle inside the mitochondrion and the sole anchored in the crista. NAD enters the ankle. The protons exit the sole into the inner membrane. But what actually goes on in this structure? Research published in Nature in 2010 suggested the possibility that the bacterial enzyme moves with an action resembling a piston.

The overall architecture of this large molecular machine is now clear. F-ATPase has been compared to a turbine. In a similar vein, complex I seems to resemble a steam engine, where the energy of the electron transfer is used to move a piston, which then drives, instead of wheels, a set of discontinuous helices. The full mechanistic details remain to be clarified by atomic structures of the membrane domain and the entire complex.
A subsequent paper in Nature in 2014 called the piston-like motion into question, at least for the mammalian version, but it did not rule out smaller-scale motions (called "conformational changes" in the literature).

Now, using cryo-electron microscopy, the Cambridge team has described all 45 subunits of Complex I from bovine mitochondria. In Nature, they mention having found moving parts:

We have located and modelled all 45 subunits, including the 31 supernumerary subunits, to provide the entire structure of the mammalian complex. Computational sorting of the particles identified different structural classes, related by subtle domain movements, which reveal conformationally dynamic regions and match biochemical descriptions of the 'active-to-de-active' enzyme transition that occurs during hypoxia. Our structures therefore provide a foundation for understanding complex I assembly and the effects of mutations that cause clinically relevant complex I dysfunctions, give insights into the structural and functional roles of the supernumerary subunits and reveal new information on the mechanism and regulation of catalysis.
The supernumerary subunits "are central to the structure, stability and assembly of the complex, and some also have regulatory or independent metabolic roles," they say. Some of them may serve a role in anchoring the machine to the membrane. That makes sense if the machine is vibrating from moving parts. What do the dynamic regions do? Later in the paper, they explain:

The two states of mammalian complex I described support the idea that dynamic, flexible regions at the hydrophilic-membrane domain interface are important for coupling ubiquinone reduction to proton translocation.
They go into detail about additional movements in a chain reaction, concluding:

Thus, a cascade of events originating from the ubiquinone-binding cleft may couple ubiquinone reduction and protonation to proton translocation. Although all such mechanisms for complex I are currently hypothetical, cryoEM now provides a powerful tool to study individual trapped conformations or separate mixed states computationally in order to determine how conformational changes are initiated, coordinated and propagated.
Currently, biochemists are limited to catching snapshots of the action. In the future, will they be able to watch Complex I move in real time? That's something to look forward to!

Students are likely to be much more interested in cell biology if they learn about molecular machines with moving parts. Who wants to memorize the chemical reactions in the citric acid cycle when you can watch rotors, pistons and pumps? That's what really goes on. We are privileged to live in a time when these realities are coming to light.

The authors point out two other observations of interest for intelligent design. One is that mutations in these machines cause disease and death; they cannot tolerate much change, meaning that the specificity in the amino acid sequence is vital to the function. That's why they say that the core machinery is "conserved from bacteria to humans."

The other observation is that the machines have to be assembled to work in the first place. It's like Scott Minnich's comment in Unlocking the Mystery of Life that the assembly instructions for the bacterial flagellum are even more complex than the machine itself. A machine needs a plan (encoded in DNA). It needs materials that must be delivered to the right place at the right time, in the right quantities. The parts have to be assembled in a coordinated sequence. Each step requires inspection, so that the cell doesn't waste time building something that won't work. That's true of Complex I and the entire factory of machines in the electron transport chain that make life possible. We see similar requirements in the construction of a house or manufacturing plant. It's Undeniable that we compare these processes and intuitively understand that intelligent causes must have been at work in the design of molecular machines.

Let's end with a look at one more level of organization. We mentioned cristae, the folds in mitochondrial membranes where these machines reside. A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the machines are arranged on the cristae in such a way as to maximize efficiency. In particular, the ATP synthase engines form V-shaped pairs, offset with respect to neighboring pairs so that their moving parts do not conflict but rather promote their respective operations. The spacing and angular displacement of the pairs, furthermore, results in the characteristic curvature of the cristae, which maximizes the proton gradient by creating local concentrations of protons aimed at the engines.

And this was found in Paramecium.

The Science delusion.

Two Kinds of Science "Skepticism"
David Klinghoffer

Over the weekend in New York, the excellent science journalist John Horgan spoke at a convention of "Skeptics," the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, and absolutely flailed crowd. I wish I could have been there. Even better, he published his comments at Scientific American. This is a man after my own heart. He begins:

I hate preaching to the converted.
Ditto.

If you were Buddhists, I'd bash Buddhism. But you're skeptics, so I have to bash skepticism.
I'm a science journalist. I don't celebrate science, I criticize it, because science needs critics more than cheerleaders. I point out gaps between scientific hype and reality. That keeps me busy, because, as you know, most peer-reviewed scientific claims are wrong.

Preach it! Horgan makes the great distinction between "skepticism" directed at "soft" versus "hard" targets. Capital-S "Skeptics" have a tendency to bullying. Almost exclusively, they go after the weak and easy targets -- Bigfoot, UFOs, homeopathy, that kind of thing. It's their way of identifying as a tribe, says Horgan:

So I'm a skeptic, but with a small S, not capital S. I don't belong to skeptical societies. I don't hang out with people who self-identify as capital-S Skeptics. Or Atheists. Or Rationalists.
When people like this get together, they become tribal. They pat each other on the back and tell each other how smart they are compared to those outside the tribe. But belonging to a tribe often makes you dumber.

Here's an example involving two idols of Capital-S Skepticism: biologist Richard Dawkins and physicist Lawrence Krauss. Krauss recently wrote a book, A Universe from Nothing. He claims that physics is answering the old question, Why is there something rather than nothing?

Krauss's book doesn't come close to fulfilling the promise of its title, but Dawkins loved it. He writes in the book's afterword: "If On the Origin of Species was biology's deadliest blow to supernaturalism, we may come to see A Universe From Nothing as the equivalent from cosmology."

Just to be clear: Dawkins is comparing Lawrence Krauss to Charles Darwin. Why would Dawkins say something so foolish? Because he hates religion so much that it impairs his scientific judgment. He succumbs to what you might call "The Science Delusion."

"The Science Delusion" is common among Capital-S Skeptics. You don't apply your skepticism equally. You are extremely critical of belief in God, ghosts, heaven, ESP, astrology, homeopathy and Bigfoot. You also attack disbelief in global warming, vaccines and genetically modified food.

These beliefs and disbeliefs deserve criticism, but they are what I call "soft targets." That's because, for the most part, you're bashing people outside your tribe, who ignore you. You end up preaching to the converted.

Meanwhile, you neglect what I call hard targets. These are dubious and even harmful claims promoted by major scientists and institutions.

Yes. My goodness, how I loathe tribal thinking -- perhaps to a fault.

What the genuine soft targets have in common is that, besides being encumbered by major and easily identified holes in them, they don't matter much. (I would exclude belief in God in both these respects.) If Sasquatch does or does not stalk the wildernesses of the Northwest, it hardly impacts our lives or our outlook on the meaning of existence. Also, there's no powerful Bigfoot "establishment" ready to mercilessly defend its preferred view or penalize you for your wayward thinking. Mocking Bigfoot belief costs the Skeptic nothing.

Not so with the "hard" targets, associated with prestige academia and government support. Horan's illustrations include "Multiverses and the Singularity," "Overtested and Overtreated for Cancer," and "Mental-Illness Over-Medication."

On the multiverse:

For decades, physicists like Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene and Leonard Susskind have touted string and multiverse theories as our deepest descriptions of reality.
Here's the problem: strings and multiverses can't be experimentally detected. The theories aren't falsifiable, which makes them pseudo-scientific, like astrology and Freudian psychoanalysis.

Some string and multiverse true believers, like Sean Carroll, have argued that falsifiability should be discarded as a method for distinguishing science from pseudo-science. You're losing the game, so you try to change the rules.

Physicists are even promoting the idea that our universe is a simulation created by super-intelligent aliens. Last month, Neil de Grasse Tyson said "the likelihood may be very high" that we're living in a simulation. Again, this isn't science, it's a stoner thought experiment pretending to be science.

He loses me at the end when he advocates for extreme skepticism directed at war. Pacifism and anti-war thinking can be all too comfortable ceding ground to evil, a luxury that may feel good but leaves the weak, innocent, and threatened to fend for themselves. Otherwise this is bracing stuff. Read it.

Of course among the hardest targets of all are the prestige scientific ideas about life's origins, especially the Darwinian explanation of how major novel biological structures arise. The "Skeptics" really steer clear of challenging those.

In the context of some of the discussions we have here, the critics are happy to go after a soft target like creationism. But they keep a safe distance from tackling the massive and serious critique of the Darwinian mechanism articulated by Meyer, Axe, Sternberg, Berlinski, Behe, Gauger, Wells, Nelson, et al. That's very telling.

How the earth became flat again.

Flat-Earth Myth, Anyone? Recalling Neil deGrasse Tyson's Long Pedigree

 evolutionnews.org

 

There's only one Neil deGrasse Tyson, winner of last year's Censor of the Year award. Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture recognized celebrity TV educator Dr. Tyson for his outstanding work in foisting a photoshopped narrative of scientific history on viewers of the popular series Cosmos, animated by a desire to falsely cast religious faith as the enemy of scientific progress.

Well, a neat article at Newsweek reminds us that others pioneered in the same censorious field long before Tyson came along. Douglas Main gives the example of the myth that claims benighted religious scholars once insisted upon the doctrine of a flat earth. No, wrong, says Mr. Main. Medieval knowledge encompassed the knowledge that our planet is spherical. Going back to the ancient Greeks, that awareness was not lost in the Christian Middle Ages. Where, then, did the myth come from? The pedigree goes back more than a century and a half:

The fault lies with 19th century writers such as Washington Irving, Jean Letronne and others. Letronne was "an academic of strong anti-religious prejudices... who cleverly drew upon both to misrepresent the church fathers and their medieval successors as believing in a flat earth, in his On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers," published in 1834, [historian Jeffrey Burton Russell] writes.
Irving also penned a "history" of Christopher Columbus in 1828 that was treated as fact, but was largely fictional, and Russell credits him with inventing "the indelible picture of the young Columbus, a 'simple mariner,' appearing before a dark crowd of benighted inquisitors and hooded theologians at a council of Salamanca, all of whom believed, according to Irving, that the earth was flat like a plate."
These falsehoods were picked up and amplified by historians such as John Draper and Andrew Dickson White, and "perpetrated in texts, encyclopedias, and even allegedly serious scholarship, down to the present day," Russell notes.
Why bother perpetuating falsehoods? Russell and [Stephen Jay Gould] suggest the flat-earth myth was used to demonize Christians and religion in general, and to lionize scientists. "The falsehood about the spherical earth became a colorful and unforgettable part of a larger falsehood: the falsehood of the eternal war between science (good) and religion (bad) throughout Western history," Russell writes.
"The reason for promoting both the specific lie about the sphericity of the earth and the general lie that religion and science are in natural and eternal conflict in Western society, is to defend Darwinism," he continues, which was introduced around the same time.
"The flat-earth lie was ammunition against the Creationists. The argument was simple and powerful, if not elegant: 'Look how stupid these Christians are. They are always getting in the way of science and  progress. These people who deny evolution today are exactly the same sort of people as those idiots who for at least a thousand years denied that the earth was round. How stupid can you get?'"
The false narrative that science and religion are warring, necessarily conflicting forces continues to the present day, and impedes "a proper bonding and conciliation between these two utterly different and powerfully important institutions of human life," Gould writes.
Of course, none of this is to discourage "fringe" beliefs or unpopular ideas; most ideas that have revolutionized the world were first regarded as such.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The flat earth story was concocted to "demonize Christians and religion in general, and to lionize scientists" -- "Look how stupid these Christians are. They are always getting in the way of science and progress" -- and it was further promoted in order to "defend Darwinism," a notion that was "introduced around the same time."

We credited Tyson as last year's top censor for much the same thing. Which reminds me, who will be this year's COTY (Censor of the Year)? I told you already you've got until February 5 to give us your nominations. Do so by clicking on the orange Email Us button at the top of this page. We'll announce the winner in time for Darwin Day, aka Academic Freedom Day, on February 12.

The Watchtower Society's commentary on the prophet Moses.

MOSES:
(Moʹses) [Drawn Out [that is, saved out of water]].

“Man of the true God,” leader of the nation of Israel, mediator of the Law covenant, prophet, judge, commander, historian, and writer. (Ezr 3:2) Moses was born in 1593 B.C.E., in Egypt, being the son of Amram, the grandson of Kohath, and the great-grandson of Levi. His mother Jochebed was Kohath’s sister. (See, however, JOCHEBED.) Moses was three years younger than his brother Aaron. Miriam their sister was some years older.—Ex 6:16, 18, 20; 2:7.

Early Life in Egypt. Moses, a “divinely beautiful” child, was spared from Pharaoh’s genocidal decree commanding the destruction of every newborn Hebrew male. He was hidden by his mother for three months, then placed in a papyrus ark among the reeds by the bank of the Nile River, where Pharaoh’s daughter found him. Through the wise action of his mother and sister, Moses came to be nursed and trained by his mother in the employment of the daughter of Pharaoh, who then adopted him as her son. As a member of Pharaoh’s household, he was “instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” becoming “powerful in his words and deeds,” undoubtedly powerful in both mental and physical capabilities.—Ex 2:1-10; Ac 7:20-22.

In spite of his favored position and the opportunities offered to him in Egypt, Moses’ heart was with God’s enslaved people. In fact, he hoped to be used by God to bring deliverance to them. In the 40th year of his life, while making observation of the burdens his Hebrew brothers were bearing, he saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew. In taking up his fellow Israelite’s defense, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. It was at this point that Moses had made the most important decision of his life: “By faith Moses, when grown up, refused to be called the son of the daughter of Pharaoh, choosing to be ill-treated with the people of God rather than to have the temporary enjoyment of sin.” Moses thereby gave up the honor and materialism that he might have enjoyed as a member of the household of mighty Pharaoh.—Heb 11:24, 25.

Actually, Moses felt that the time had come that he would be able to give the Hebrews salvation. But they did not appreciate his efforts, and Moses was forced to flee from Egypt when Pharaoh heard of the slaying of the Egyptian.—Ex 2:11-15; Ac 7:23-29.

Forty Years in Midian. It was a long journey across wilderness territory to Midian, where Moses sought refuge. There, at a well, Moses’ courage and readiness to act forcefully to help those suffering injustice again came to the fore. When shepherds drove away the seven daughters of Jethro and their flock, Moses delivered the women and watered the flocks for them. As a result he was invited to Jethro’s house, where he entered Jethro’s employment as a shepherd for his flocks and eventually married one of Jethro’s daughters, Zipporah, who bore him two sons, Gershom and Eliezer.—Ex 2:16-22; 18:2-4.

Training for future service. While it was God’s purpose to deliver the Hebrews by the hand of Moses, God’s due time had not yet arrived; neither was Moses yet qualified to serve over God’s people. He had to undergo another 40 years of training. The qualities of patience, meekness, humility, long-suffering, mildness of temper, self-control, and learning to wait on Jehovah needed to be developed in him to a higher degree, in order for him to be the fitting one to lead God’s people. He had to be groomed and prepared to endure the discouragements, disappointments, and hardships he would encounter, and to handle with loving-kindness, calmness, and strength the multitude of problems a great nation would present. He possessed much learning, and his training as a member of Pharaoh’s household had doubtless given him dignity, confidence, and poise and had accentuated his ability to organize and command. But the lowly occupation of shepherding in Midian provided the training needed to develop fine qualities that would be even more important for the task ahead of him. Similarly, David underwent rigorous training, even after being anointed by Samuel, and Jesus Christ was tried, tested, and proved, to be perfected as King and High Priest forever. “He [Christ] learned obedience from the things he suffered; and after he had been made perfect he became responsible for everlasting salvation to all those obeying him.”—Heb 5:8, 9.

His Appointment as Deliverer. Toward the end of his 40-year sojourn in Midian, Moses was shepherding Jethro’s flock near Mount Horeb when he was amazed to see a thornbush flaming with fire but not consumed. As he approached to inspect this great phenomenon, Jehovah’s angel spoke out of the flame, revealing that it was now time for God to deliver Israel out of bondage and commissioning Moses to go in His memorial name Jehovah. (Ex 3:1-15) Thus God appointed Moses as His prophet and representative, and Moses could now correctly be called an anointed one, or messiah, or “the Christ” as at Hebrews 11:26. Jehovah, through the angel, provided credentials that Moses could present to the older men of Israel. These were in the form of three miracles as signs. Here, for the first time in the Scriptures, we read of a human empowered to perform miracles.—Ex 4:1-9.

Moses not disqualified because of diffidence. But Moses showed diffidence, arguing that he was unable to speak fluently. Here was a changed Moses, quite different from the one who had, of his own accord, offered himself as Israel’s deliverer 40 years earlier. He continued to remonstrate with Jehovah, finally asking Jehovah to excuse him from the task. Although this aroused God’s anger, he did not reject Moses but provided Moses’ brother Aaron as a mouthpiece. Thus, as Moses was representative for God, so Moses became as “God” to Aaron, who spoke representatively for him. In the ensuing meeting with the older men of Israel and the encounters with Pharaoh, it appears that God gave Moses the instructions and commands and Moses, in turn, relayed them to Aaron, so that Aaron did the actual speaking before Pharaoh (a successor of the Pharaoh from whom Moses had fled 40 years previously). (Ex 2:23; 4:10-17) Later, Jehovah spoke of Aaron as Moses’ “prophet,” meaning that, as Moses was God’s prophet, directed by him, so Aaron should be directed by Moses. Also, Moses was told that he was being made “God to Pharaoh,” that is, given divine power and authority over Pharaoh, so that there was now no need to be afraid of the king of Egypt.—Ex 7:1, 2.

Though reproving him, God did not cancel Moses’ assignment because of his reluctance to take up the tremendous task as deliverer of Israel. Moses had not demurred because of old age, even though he was 80. Forty years later, at the age of 120 years, Moses still had full vigor and alertness. (De 34:7) During his 40 years in Midian, Moses had had much time to meditate, and he had come to see the mistake he had made in trying to deliver the Hebrews on his own initiative. He now realized his own inadequacy. And after this long time, detached from all public affairs, it was doubtless quite a shock to be suddenly offered this role.

Later the Bible tells us: “The man Moses was by far the meekest of all the men who were upon the surface of the ground.” (Nu 12:3) As a meek person, he recognized that he was a mere human, with imperfections and weaknesses. He did not push himself forward as Israel’s invincible leader. He expressed, not fear of Pharaoh, but an acute awareness of his own limitations.

Before Pharaoh of Egypt. Moses and Aaron were now key figures in a ‘battle of the gods.’ In the persons of the magic-practicing priests, the chiefs of whom were apparently named Jannes and Jambres (2Ti 3:8), Pharaoh summoned the power of all the gods of Egypt against the power of Jehovah. The first miracle that Aaron performed before Pharaoh at Moses’ direction proved Jehovah’s supremacy over the gods of Egypt, even though Pharaoh became more obstinate. (Ex 7:8-13) Later, when the third plague occurred, even the priests were forced to admit, “It is the finger of God!” And they were so severely stricken by the plague of boils that they were altogether unable even to appear before Pharaoh to oppose Moses during that plague.—Ex 8:16-19; 9:10-12.

Plagues do softening and hardening work. Moses and Aaron became the announcers of each of the Ten Plagues. The plagues came as announced, proving Moses’ commission as Jehovah’s representative. Jehovah’s name was declared and much talked about in Egypt, accomplishing both a softening and a hardening toward that name—softening the Israelites and some of the Egyptians; hardening Pharaoh and his advisers and supporters. (Ex 9:16; 11:10; 12:29-39) Instead of believing that they had offended their gods, the Egyptians knew that it was Jehovah who was judging their gods. By the time nine plagues had been executed, Moses too had become “very great in the land of Egypt, in the eyes of Pharaoh’s servants and in the eyes of the people.”—Ex 11:3.

There was a marked change in the men of Israel also. They had at first accepted Moses’ credentials, but after experiencing harder working conditions at the order of Pharaoh, they complained against him to the point that Moses in discouragement appealed to Jehovah. (Ex 4:29-31; 5:19-23) The Most High at that time strengthened him by revealing that He was now going to fulfill that for which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had looked, namely, the full revealing of the meaning of his name Jehovah in delivering Israel and establishing it as a great nation in the land of promise. (Ex 6:1-8) Even then the men of Israel did not listen to Moses. But now, after the ninth plague, they were solidly behind him, cooperating so that, after the tenth plague, he could organize them and lead them out in an orderly way, “in battle formation.”—Ex 13:18.

Courage and faith required to face Pharaoh. It was only in the strength of Jehovah and due to the operation of his spirit upon them that Moses and Aaron proved equal to the task set before them. Picture the court of Pharaoh, the king of the undisputed world power of that time. Here was unparalleled splendor, the haughty Pharaoh, supposed to be a god himself, surrounded by his advisers, military commanders, guards, and slaves. Moreover, there were the religious leaders, the magic-practicing priests, chief among Moses’ opposers. These men were, aside from Pharaoh himself, the most powerful men in the realm. All this impressive array was aligned to back up Pharaoh in support of the gods of Egypt. And Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh, not once, but many times, Pharaoh’s heart getting harder each time, because he was determined to keep his valuable Hebrew slaves under his domination. In fact, after announcing the eighth plague, Moses and Aaron were driven out from before Pharaoh, and after the ninth plague they were ordered not to try to see Pharaoh’s face again on pain of death.—Ex 10:11, 28.

With these things in mind, it becomes most understandable that Moses repeatedly appealed to Jehovah for assurance and strength. But it must be noted that he never failed to carry out to the letter what Jehovah commanded. He never diminished one word of that which Jehovah gave him to tell Pharaoh, and Moses’ leadership was such that, at the time of the tenth plague, “all the sons of Israel did just as Jehovah had commanded Moses and Aaron. They did just so.” (Ex 12:50) Moses is held before Christians as an example of outstanding faith. The apostle Paul says of him: “By faith he left Egypt, but not fearing the anger of the king, for he continued steadfast as seeing the One who is invisible.”—Heb 11:27.

Before the tenth plague, Moses was privileged to institute the Passover. (Ex 12:1-16) At the Red Sea, Moses had to face further complaints of the people, who appeared trapped and about to be slaughtered. But he expressed the faith of a true leader under Jehovah’s mighty hand, assuring Israel that Jehovah would destroy the pursuing Egyptian army. In this crisis he apparently called out to Jehovah, for God said to him: “Why do you keep crying out to me?” Then God commanded Moses to lift up his rod and stretch his hand out over the sea and split it apart. (Ex 14:10-18) Centuries later the apostle Paul said, of Israel’s subsequent crossing of the Red Sea: “Our forefathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all got baptized into Moses by means of the cloud and of the sea.” (1Co 10:1, 2) Jehovah did the baptizing. To be delivered from their murderous pursuers, the Jewish forefathers had to unite themselves with Moses as head and follow his leadership as he led them through the sea. The entire congregation of Israel was thus, in effect, immersed into the liberator and leader Moses.

Mediator of the Law Covenant. In the third month after the Exodus from Egypt, Jehovah demonstrated before all Israel the greatness of the authority and responsibility that he placed upon his servant Moses as well as the intimacy of Moses’ position with God. Before all Israel, gathered at the foot of Mount Horeb, Jehovah called Moses into the mountain and, by means of an angel, spoke with him. On one occasion Moses was privileged to have what was probably the most awe-inspiring experience of any man prior to the coming of Jesus Christ. High in the mountain, alone, Jehovah gave him a vision of his glory, putting his “palm” over Moses as a screen, allowing Moses to see his “back,” evidently the afterglow of this divine manifestation of glory. Then he spoke to Moses personally, as it were.—Ex 19:1-3; 33:18-23; 34:4-6.

Jehovah told Moses: “You are not able to see my face, because no man may see me and yet live.” (Ex 33:20) And centuries later, the apostle John wrote: “No man has seen God at any time.” (Joh 1:18) The Christian martyr Stephen told the Jews: “This [Moses] is he that came to be among the congregation in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai.” (Ac 7:38) So Jehovah was represented on the mountain by an angel. Nevertheless, such was the glory of Jehovah as manifested by Jehovah’s angelic representative that the skin of Moses’ face emitted rays so that the sons of Israel could not bear to look at him.—Ex 34:29-35; 2Co 3:7, 13.

God constituted Moses mediator of the Law covenant with Israel, an intimate position such as no man has ever held before God except Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant. With the blood of animal sacrifices Moses sprinkled the book of the covenant, representing Jehovah as one “party,” and the people (no doubt the representative older men) as the other “party.” He read the book of the covenant to the people, who replied, “All that Jehovah has spoken we are willing to do and be obedient.” (Ex 24:3-8; Heb 9:19) In his office of mediator, Moses was privileged to oversee the building of the tabernacle and the making of its utensils, the pattern of which God gave to him, and to install the priesthood in office, anointing the tabernacle and Aaron the high priest with the oil of special composition. Then he took oversight of the first official services of the newly consecrated priesthood.—Ex chaps 25-29; Le chaps 8, 9.

A fitting mediator. Moses went up Mount Horeb several times, remaining on two occasions for periods of 40 days and nights. (Ex 24:18; 34:28) After the first of these occasions he returned with two stone tablets “written on by God’s finger,” containing “the Ten Words” or Ten Commandments, the basic laws of the Law covenant. (Ex 31:18; De 4:13) On this first occasion Moses showed himself to be fittingly qualified as mediator between Jehovah and Israel and leader of this great nation of perhaps three million or more. When Moses was in the mountain, Jehovah informed him that the people had turned to idolatry and Jehovah said: “Now let me be, that my anger may blaze against them and I may exterminate them, and let me make you into a great nation.” Moses’ immediate reply revealed that the sanctification of Jehovah’s name was the thing of primary importance to him—that he was completely unselfish and did not desire fame for himself. He asked nothing for himself but, rather, showed concern for Jehovah’s name that He had recently exalted by the Red Sea miracle, and regard for God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jehovah, in approval of Moses’ plea, spared the people. Here it is seen that Jehovah regarded Moses as satisfactorily filling his mediatorial role and that He respected the arrangement through which he had appointed Moses to that office. Thus, Jehovah “began to feel regret over the evil that he had spoken of doing to his people”—that is, because of altered circumstances, he changed his attitude regarding bringing evil upon them.—Ex 32:7-14.

Moses’ zeal for true worship as he served in behalf of God was displayed when he got down from the mountain. Seeing the idolatrous revelers, he threw the tablets down, breaking them, and called for those who would take Jehovah’s side. The tribe of Levi joined Moses, and he commanded them to put to death those engaging in the false worship. This resulted in the slaying of about 3,000 men. Then he returned to Jehovah, acknowledging the people’s great sin, and pleaded: “But now if you will pardon their sin,—and if not, wipe me out, please, from your book that you have written.” God was not displeased at Moses’ mediatorial plea, but answered: “Whoever has sinned against me, I shall wipe him out of my book.”—Ex 32:19-33.

Many were the times that Moses represented Jehovah’s side of the covenant, commanding true, clean worship and executing judgment on disobedient ones. More than once he also stood between the nation, or individuals thereof, and their destruction at Jehovah’s hand.—Nu 12; 14:11-21; 16:20-22, 43-50; 21:7; De 9:18-20.

Unselfishness, Humility, Meekness. Moses’ chief interests were in Jehovah’s name and His people. Consequently he was not one to seek glory or position. When Jehovah’s spirit came upon certain men in the camp and they began to act as prophets, Moses’ assistant Joshua wanted to restrain them, evidently because he felt that they were detracting from Moses’ glory and authority. But Moses replied: “Are you feeling jealous for me? No, I wish that all of Jehovah’s people were prophets, because Jehovah would put his spirit upon them!”—Nu 11:24-29.

Although he was Jehovah’s appointed leader of the great nation of Israel, Moses was willing to accept counsel from others, particularly when it would be of value to the nation. Shortly after the Israelites left Egypt, Jethro visited Moses, bringing with him Moses’ wife and sons. Jethro observed how hard Moses was working, wearing himself out handling the problems of everyone who came to him. He wisely suggested an orderly arrangement wherein Moses would delegate degrees of responsibility to others, to lighten his load. Moses listened to Jethro’s advice, accepted it, and organized the people into thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, with a chief over each group as a judge. Only the difficult cases were then brought to Moses. It is noteworthy also that Moses, explaining to Jethro what he was doing, said: “In the event that [the people] have a case arise, it must come to me and I must judge between the one party and the other, and I must make known the decisions of the true God and his laws.” In this, Moses indicated that he recognized his duty to judge, not according to his own ideas, but according to Jehovah’s decisions and that, moreover, he had the responsibility to help the people to know and recognize God’s laws.—Ex 18:5-7, 13-27.

Moses repeatedly pointed to Jehovah, and not himself, as the real Leader. When the people began to complain about food, Moses told them: “Your murmurings are not against us [Moses and Aaron], but against Jehovah.” (Ex 16:3, 6-8) Possibly because Miriam felt her prominence might be eclipsed by the presence of Moses’ wife, she and Aaron jealously and disrespectfully began to speak against Moses and his authority. The record shows that their speech was all the more contemptible because it is at this point that it says: “The man Moses was by far the meekest of all the men who were upon the surface of the ground.” Moses apparently was hesitant to assert himself, meekly enduring the abuse. But Jehovah was incensed at this challenge, which was actually an affront to Jehovah himself. He took up the issue and severely chastised Miriam. Moses’ love for his sister moved him to intercede for her, crying out: “O God, please! Heal her, please!”—Nu 12:1-15.

Obedience, Waiting Upon Jehovah. Moses waited upon Jehovah. Though he is called Israel’s lawgiver, he recognized that the laws did not originate with him. He was not arbitrary, deciding matters on his own knowledge. In legal cases in which there was no precedent or where he could not discern exactly how to apply the law, he presented the matter to Jehovah to establish a judicial decision. (Le 24:10-16, 23; Nu 15:32-36; 27:1-11) He was careful to carry out instructions. In the intricate work of constructing the tabernacle and making its utensils and the priests’ garments, Moses exercised close oversight. The record reads: “And Moses proceeded to do according to all that Jehovah had commanded him. He did just so.” (Ex 40:16; compare Nu 17:11.) Repeatedly we find other statements that things were done “just as Jehovah had commanded Moses.” (Ex 39:1, 5, 21, 29, 31, 42; 40:19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29) It is good for Christians that he did so, for the apostle Paul points out that these things constituted “a shadow” and an illustration of heavenly things.—Heb 8:5.

Moses Stumbles. It was while Israel was encamped at Kadesh, probably in the 40th year of their wanderings, that Moses made a serious mistake. A consideration of the incident magnifies in our eyes the fact that Moses not only was in a highly privileged position but also was under very heavy responsibility to Jehovah as leader and mediator for the nation. Because of a water shortage the people began to quarrel bitterly with Moses, putting the blame on him for leading them up out of Egypt into the barren wilderness. Moses had endured much, putting up with the perverseness and insubordination of the Israelites, sharing their hardships, and interceding for them when they sinned, but here he momentarily lost his meekness and mildness of temper. Exasperated and embittered in spirit, Moses and Aaron stood before the people as Jehovah commanded. But instead of calling attention to Jehovah as the Provider, they spoke harshly to the people and directed attention to themselves, Moses saying: “Hear, now, you rebels! Is it from this crag that we shall bring out water for you?” With that, Moses struck the rock and Jehovah caused water to flow forth, sufficient for the multitude and their flocks. But God was displeased with the conduct of Moses and Aaron. They had failed of their primary responsibility, namely, to magnify Jehovah’s name. They “acted undutifully” toward Jehovah, and Moses had ‘spoken rashly with his lips.’ Later Jehovah decreed: “Because you did not show faith in me to sanctify me before the eyes of the sons of Israel, therefore you will not bring this congregation into the land that I shall certainly give them.”—Nu 20:1-13; De 32:50-52; Ps 106:32, 33.

A Writer. Moses was the writer of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, namely, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. His writership has been acknowledged by the Jews throughout their history, this section of the Bible being known by them as the Torah, or Law. Jesus and the Christian writers frequently speak of Moses as giving the Law. He is generally credited with writing the book of Job, also Psalm 90 and, possibly, 91.—Mt 8:4; Lu 16:29; 24:27; Ro 10:5; 1Co 9:9; 2Co 3:15; Heb 10:28.

His Death and Burial. Moses’ brother Aaron died at the age of 123 years while Israel was encamped at Mount Hor, on the frontier of Edom, in the fifth month of the 40th year of their journey. Moses took Aaron into the mountain, stripped off Aaron’s priestly garments, and clothed Aaron’s oldest living son and successor, Eleazar, with them. (Nu 20:22-29; 33:37-39) About six months later, Israel arrived at the Plains of Moab. Here Moses, in a series of discourses, explained the Law to the assembled nation, enlarging upon it with adjustments that would be necessary when Israel changed from nomadic camp life to a settled one in their own land. In the 12th month of the 40th year (in the spring of 1473 B.C.E.), he announced to the people that, according to Jehovah’s appointment, Joshua would succeed him as leader. Joshua was then commissioned and exhorted to be courageous. (De 31:1-3, 23) Finally, after reciting a song and blessing the people, Moses went up into Mount Nebo according to Jehovah’s command, first to view the Promised Land from this mountain vantage point, then to die.—De 32:48-51; 34:1-6.

Moses was 120 years of age at the time of his death. Testifying to his natural strength, the Bible comments: “His eye had not grown dim, and his vital strength had not fled.” He was buried by Jehovah in a location never since discovered. (De 34:5-7) Likely, this was to prevent the Israelites from being ensnared into false worship by making a shrine of his grave. Evidently the Devil desired to use Moses’ body for some such purpose, for Jude, the Christian disciple and half brother of Jesus Christ, writes: “When Michael the archangel had a difference with the Devil and was disputing about Moses’ body, he did not dare to bring a judgment against him in abusive terms, but said: ‘May Jehovah rebuke you.’” (Jude 9) Before crossing over into Canaan under the leadership of Joshua, Israel observed a 30-day mourning period for Moses.—De 34:8.

A Prophet Jehovah Knew “Face to Face.” When Miriam and Aaron challenged Moses’ authority, Jehovah told them: “If there came to be a prophet of yours for Jehovah, it would be in a vision I would make myself known to him. In a dream I would speak to him. Not so my servant Moses! He is being entrusted with all my house. Mouth to mouth I speak to him, thus showing him, and not by riddles; and the appearance of Jehovah is what he beholds. Why, then, did you not fear to speak against my servant, against Moses?” (Nu 12:6-8) The conclusion of the book of Deuteronomy describes Moses’ privileged standing with Jehovah: “But there has never yet risen up a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom Jehovah knew face to face, as respects all the signs and the miracles that Jehovah sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants and all his land, and as regards all the strong hand and all the great awesomeness that Moses exercised before the eyes of all Israel.”—De 34:10-12.

According to Jehovah’s words, Moses, though he never literally saw the very person of Jehovah, as mentioned in the foregoing, had a more direct, constant, intimate relationship with Jehovah than did any prophet prior to Jesus Christ. Jehovah’s statement: “Mouth to mouth I speak to him,” revealed that Moses had personal audience with God (by means of angels, who have access to the very presence of God; Mt 18:10). (Nu 12:8) As Israel’s mediator, he enjoyed a virtually continuous two-way conversational communication arrangement. He was able at any time to present problems of national importance and to receive God’s answer. Jehovah entrusted Moses ‘with all His house,’ using Moses as his intimate representative in organizing the nation. (Nu 12:7; Heb 3:2, 5) The later prophets simply continued to build on the foundation that had been laid through Moses.

The manner in which Jehovah dealt with Moses was so impressive that it was as if Moses actually had beheld God with his own eyes, instead of merely having a mental vision or a dream in which he heard God speak, which was the usual way in which God communicated with his prophets. Jehovah’s dealings with Moses were so real that Moses reacted as if he had seen “the One who is invisible.” (Heb 11:27) Evidently the impression made on Moses was similar to the effect of the transfiguration vision on Peter centuries later. The vision was so real to Peter that he began to participate in it, speaking but not realizing what he was saying. (Lu 9:28-36) And the apostle Paul likewise experienced a vision that was so real that he later said of himself: “Whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know; God knows.”—2Co 12:1-4.

No doubt Joshua’s extraordinary success in establishing Israel in the Promised Land came, to an extent, by reason of the fine qualities inculcated in him by Moses’ training and example. Joshua was Moses’ minister “from his young manhood on.” (Nu 11:28) Evidently he was army commander under Moses (Ex 17:9, 10) and was close to Moses as his attendant in many experiences.—Ex 24:13; 33:11; De 3:21.

Prefigured Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ made clear that Moses had written about him, for on one occasion he told his opponents: “If you believed Moses you would believe me, for that one wrote about me.” (Joh 5:46) “Commencing at Moses and all the Prophets,” when in the company of his disciples, Jesus “interpreted to them things pertaining to himself in all the Scriptures.”—Lu 24:27, 44; see also Joh 1:45.

Among the things Moses wrote concerning Christ Jesus are Jehovah’s words: “A prophet I shall raise up for them from the midst of their brothers, like you; and I shall indeed put my words in his mouth, and he will certainly speak to them all that I shall command him.” (De 18:18, 19) The apostle Peter in quoting this prophecy left no doubt that it referred to Jesus Christ.—Ac 3:19-23.

In many ways there was pictorial correspondency between these two great prophets, Moses and Jesus Christ. In infancy both escaped the wholesale slaughter ordered by the respective rulers of their time. (Ex 1:22; 2:1-10; Mt 2:13-18) Moses was called out of Egypt with Jehovah’s “firstborn,” the nation of Israel, Moses being the nation’s leader. Jesus was called out of Egypt as God’s firstborn Son. (Ex 4:22, 23; Ho 11:1; Mt 2:15, 19-21) Both fasted for 40 days in wilderness places. (Ex 34:28; Mt 4:1, 2) Both came in the name of Jehovah, Jesus’ name itself meaning “Jehovah Is Salvation.” (Ex 3:13-16; Mt 1:21; Joh 5:43) Jesus, like Moses, ‘declared the name of Jehovah.’ (De 32:3; Joh 17:6, 26) Both were exceptional in meekness and humility. (Nu 12:3; Mt 11:28-30) Both had the most convincing credentials to show that they were sent by God—astounding miracles of many sorts, Jesus Christ going farther than Moses by raising dead persons to life.—Ex 14:21-31; Ps 78:12-54; Mt 11:5; Mr 5:38-43; Lu 7:11-15, 18-23.

Moses was mediator of the Law covenant between God and the nation of Israel. Jesus was Mediator of the new covenant between God and the “holy nation,” the spiritual “Israel of God.” (1Pe 2:9; Ga 6:16; Ex 19:3-9; Lu 22:20; Heb 8:6; 9:15) Both served as judges, lawgivers, and leaders. (Ex 18:13; 32:34; Da 9:25; Mal 4:4; Mt 23:10; Joh 5:22, 23; 13:34; 15:10) Moses was entrusted with and proved faithful to his stewardship in the ‘house of God,’ that is, the nation, or congregation, of Israel. Jesus showed faithfulness over God’s house that he as God’s Son constructed, namely, the nation, or congregation, of spiritual Israel. (Nu 12:7; Heb 3:2-6) And even in death there was a parallel: God disposed of the bodies of both Moses and Jesus.—De 34:5, 6; Ac 2:31; Jude 9.

Toward the end of Moses’ 40-year sojourn in the wilderness, while he was shepherding his father-in-law’s flock, God’s angel made a miraculous manifestation to him in the flame of a thornbush at the foot of Mount Horeb. Jehovah there commissioned him to deliver His people from Egypt. (Ex 3:1-15) Thus God appointed Moses as His prophet and representative, and Moses could now correctly be called an anointed one, or “Christ.” In order to come into that privileged position, Moses had had to give up “the treasures of Egypt” and let himself “be ill-treated with the people of God” and thus suffer reproach. But to Moses such “reproach of the Christ” was riches greater than all of Egypt’s wealth.—Heb 11:24-26.

A parallel to this is found in Jesus Christ. According to the angel’s announcement at his birth in Bethlehem, he was to become “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” He became Christ, or Anointed One, after the prophet John baptized him in the Jordan River. (Lu 2:10, 11; 3:21-23; 4:16-21) Thereafter he acknowledged that he was “the Christ,” or Messiah. (Mt 16:16, 17; Mr 14:61, 62; Joh 4:25, 26) Jesus Christ also kept his eye on the prize and despised the shame that men heaped upon him, as Moses had done. (Php 2:8, 9; Heb 12:2) It is into this Greater Moses that the Christian congregation is baptized—into Jesus Christ, the foretold Prophet, Liberator, and Leader.—1Co 10:1, 2.

On Michael the archangel the Watchtower Society's commentary.

Who Is the Archangel Michael?

The Bible’s answer:

Michael, referred to by some religions as “Saint Michael,” is evidently a name given to Jesus before and after his life on earth. * Michael disputed with Satan after the death of Moses and helped an angel deliver God’s message to the prophet Daniel. (Daniel 10:13, 21; Jude 9) Michael lives up to the meaning of his name—“Who Is Like God?”—by defending God’s rulership and fighting God’s enemies.—Daniel 12:1; Revelation 12:7.

Consider why it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus is the archangel Michael.

Michael is “the archangel.” (Jude 9) The title “archangel,” meaning “chief of the angels,” appears in only two Bible verses. In both cases, the word is singular, suggesting that only one angel bears that title. One of those verses states that the resurrected Lord Jesus “will descend from heaven with a commanding call, with an archangel’s voice.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16) Jesus has “an archangel’s voice” because he is the archangel, Michael.
Michael commands an angelic army. “Michael and his angels battled with the dragon,” Satan. (Revelation 12:7) Michael has great authority in the spirit realm, for he is called “one of the foremost princes” and “the great prince.” (Daniel 10:13, 21; 12:1) These titles designate Michael as “the commander-in-chief of the angelic forces,” as New Testament scholar David E. Aune puts it.
The Bible mentions only one other name of someone having authority over an army of angels. It describes “the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels in a flaming fire, as he brings vengeance.” (2 Thessalonians 1:7, 8; Matthew 16:27) Jesus “went to heaven, and angels and authorities and powers were made subject to him.” (1 Peter 3:21, 22) It would not make sense for God to set up Jesus and Michael as rival commanders of the holy angels. Rather, it is more reasonable to conclude that both names, Jesus and Michael, refer to the same person.


Michael “will stand up” during an unprecedented “time of distress.” (Daniel 12:1) In the book of Daniel, the expression “stand up” is often used to refer to a king who rises up to take special action. (Daniel 11:2-4, 21) Jesus Christ, identified as “The Word of God,” will take special action as the “King of kings” to strike down all of God’s enemies and protect God’s people. (Revelation 19:11-16) He will do so during a time of “great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning.”—Matthew 24:21, 42.

Yet another zombie apocalypse.

To Launch Zombie Science with Jonathan Wells, Join Us April 18 at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

The mystery of life — accounting for the variety and complexity of animals to which history has given rise — is the heart of the evolution controversy. So what better place could there be to celebrate a provocative new contribution to that debate than at…the zoo?


Think of it. People go to a zoo to stand in awe at the wonder of life in its many forms. All those gorgeous animals, each appearing to be a superb work of art in itself, are together no more than the product of blindly swerving, shuffling bit of matters, unplanned, unwanted genetic junk washed up on Earth’s shore. That’s what Darwinists contend. And they claim to have the science all tied up in a neat bundle to prove it. Are they right? Biologist Jonathan Wells has been at the forefront of a movement in science arguing that evolutionists practice zombie science — animating a failed, empirically unsupported theory that ought to have been buried long ago.On April 18, join us at the renowned Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle for the national launch  of Dr. Wells’s new book Zombie Science: More Icons of Evolution. Celebrate with us as Wells speaks about his book and leads a Q&A discussion with the audience. It’s the official publication date, so you can be one of the first people to get a signed copy!

Says paleontologist Günter Bechly, “Wells’s book represents an important contribution for a paradigm change that is long overdue.” Seattle’s own Michael Medved, nationally syndicated radio host, agrees: “Jonathan Wells delivers here with his customary gusto and clarity. This important new book makes a persuasive case.”

More than 15 years ago, Dr. Wells took the science world by storm with Icons of Evolution, a book showing how biology textbooks routinely promote Darwinism using bogus evidence — icons of evolution like Ernst Haeckel’s faked embryo drawings and peppered moths glued to tree trunks. Critics complained that Wells had merely gathered a handful of innocent textbook errors and blown them out of proportion. Now, in Zombie Science, Wells asks a simple question: If the icons of evolution were just innocent textbook errors, why do so many of them still persist?

Science has enriched our lives and led to countless discoveries, but as Dr. Wells argues, it is being corrupted. Empirical science is devolving into zombie science, shuffling along unfazed by opposing evidence. Discredited icons of evolution rise from the dead while more icons — equally bogus — join their ranks. Like a B horror movie, they just keep coming!

Watch the trailer for the book here.

We’ll meet in the Education Center Auditorium, Woodland Park Zoo, 750 N. 50th Street in Seattle. There will be a reception at 6:45 pm, and auditorium doors will open at 7. The event will run from 7:30 to 9 pm. It’s free! But you must register.  Please do so here.

Zombies are make-believe, but zombie science is real, demanding absolute power in labs, journals, classrooms, culture, and the media. Is there a solution? Wells is sure of it, and he points the way.

The feather v. Darwin.

Feather Design Is Better than Thought
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

Man-made designs often get simpler the deeper you look. Once you get inside a steel girder or wallboard, for instance, the material looks basically homogeneous. Biological materials, by contrast, “are complex composites that are hierarchically structured and multifunctional,” notes Theagarten Lingham-Soliar in a paper on  Nature Scientific Reports.

We all know that feathers have an elegant shape for flight and insulation: they are self-healing, aerodynamic, and lightweight yet strong. But when this materials scientist from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa inspected bird feathers with a scanning electron microscope (SEM), he found wonderful things — all the way down to the molecular level.

First, some terminology. The main shaft of a feather is called a rachis (rey-kis), which tapers from base to tip like a long, narrow cone. Branching off the rachis are barbs. Branching off the barbs are barbules with tiny hooks that zip the barbules together, forming the familiar feather surface. These are demonstrated in Illustra Media’s film Flight:  Flight: The Genius of Birds. (See a short video clip about feathers at the film site). If you examine the rachis in cross-section, you will see some medullary  pith in the center, surrounded by a stiff cortex of tough fibers made of the protein keratin.

Keratin is a very unique protein. Lingham-Soliar describes how the specific molecular arrangement of keratin makes it ideal for feathers:

Feathers of flying birds are subjected to extraordinary aerodynamic forces during flight. They are made of a remarkably hard material, keratin. During the first half of the last century pioneering X-ray studies indicated that the conformation of the polypeptide chain in the hard keratins of birds and reptiles is based on the β-pleated-sheet (β-form) rather than the coiled-coil α-helix (α-form) found in mammalian keratins. Early use of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) on chicken and seagull feather rachises showed that β-keratin was composed of a framework of fine microfibrils approximately 30 angstroms (Å) in diameter and that these long protein filaments were surrounded by an amorphous protein matrix, each filament possessing a helical structure with four repeating units per turn.
The cortical fibers of keratin along the rachis are called syncytial barbule fibers, or SBFs for short. “SBFs form long, continuous filaments of β-keratin, the majority of which are tightly assembled parallel to the longitudinal axis of the rachis,” Lingham-Soliar says — but not all of them. Therein lays a tale. What he found about those SBFs solves two design problems for the bird, and may inspire a new generation of structural engineers. Here’s the problem:

Perhaps one of the most intriguing questions in bird flight involves how toughness or a high work of fracture is achieved in the cortex of the rachis and barbs. Put another way, what are the material conditions that would help prevent (or delay) the feather from splitting or cracking down its length or across its hoop (circumference) during the stresses of flight. That question was intuitively first raised over 38 years ago by the notable aeronautical engineer, John Gordon although he declared it was a mystery at the time of writing. However, recent research on the cortical SBF structure of the rachis and barbs has allowed new light to be shed on the problem. But, as so often happens as we find new answers we also find more questions. I consider one such question here, which is also closely tied to bird flight. [Emphasis added.]
Lingham-Soliar could not understand how these SBFs could prevent catastrophic fractures in the feather. If the fibers were all parallel to the long axis, they would have to continuously terminate as the rachis tapers down toward the tip. This would open up thousands of fracture zones where small stresses could exacerbate the fractures, “analogous to the scissor-snip a tailor makes before tearing a piece of fabric,” leading to catastrophic failure of the feather.

In the 1920s, Griffith showed that according to thermodynamic principles the magnitude of the stress concentration at a crack tip is dependent on the crack length (L) i.e. that the strain energy released in the area around the crack length (L2, proportional to the crack length) is available for propagating the crack. From this principle we see that there is a dangerous potential of numerous self-perpetuating cracks in the feather cortex. How then have birds in the 150 million years of their evolution been able to respond to this threat? The present hypothesis is that there must be a means to eliminate this potentially catastrophic condition in a structure critical to bird flight — i.e., crucially a structural mechanism to avoid an inherent condition of notches or cracks in the feather rachidial cortices. To this end the feather cortices and comprising SBFs are investigated.
For the first time, Lingham-Soliar could see the answer. He had to look at the detailed microstructure of the SBFs on the order of millionths of a meter (micrometers) with SEM. What came to light was “a biomechanically ‘ingenious’ and novel architecture of the fibre organization” that solves the fracture problem and does something else, too: it distributes the stress load throughout the feather. This multi-functional “distinctive architecture of the SBFs” is bound to inspire engineers faced with the demands of designing lightweight yet strong materials that can absorb stress without failing.

Here’s the basic idea: instead of terminating along the rachis, some of the SBFs (fiber bundles) branch off into the barbs. As you travel down the tapering shaft, you see more SBFs branch out, thinning the cortex toward the tip. It’s an elegant solution. Here’s what the author says about it:

Here I report a new microstructural architecture of the feather cortex in which most syncitial barbule fibres deviate to the right and left edges of the feather rachis from far within its borders and extend into the barbs, side branches of the rachis, as continuous filaments. This novel morphology adds significantly to knowledge of β-keratin self-assembly in the feather and helps solve the potential problem of fatal crack-like defects in the rachidial cortex. Furthermore, this new complexity, consistent with biology’s robust multi-functionality, solves two biomechanical problems at a stroke. Feather barbs deeply ‘rooted’ within the rachis are also able to better withstand the aerodynamic forces to which they are subjected.
It’s actually more sophisticated than it sounds. In addition to the branching, there’s a glue-like substance that holds adjacent SBFs together. The glue has properties that “improved the tensile stiffness of the material by improving lateral slippage.” The SBFs are also held together longitudinally by hooks and rings.

Think about the design problem as the feather emerges from the follicle during development. How do some of the SBFs know to bend out into a barb? What teaches these growing fibers to cross over the longitudinal access in successive waves and branch out left and right into the barbs, leaving enough material behind to continue building the cortex all the way to the tip? What concentrates the glue where it is needed, in the right amount? What tells the barbs to grow barbules with hooks and channels that fit just right? Building a machine that could do this by extrusion would seem like an engineer’s nightmare.

Lingham-Soliar examined the feathers of different birds — chickens, falcons, eagles, swans, geese, ibises, pheasants, macaws, and toucans — and found that all their feathers use this design principle. As an evolutionist, he assumes they all got it from a common ancestor. But he seems conflicted at the design facts visible under his microscope and the story that must be told, “perhaps the most controversial question, the origin and evolution of the feather.” Unfortunately, he sticks to the Darwin story:

It is clear that this extraordinary cortical microstructure of the feather has evolved and been perfected over the millions of years of bird evolution….
After describing what engineers learned from gluing nanotubes to increase tensile strength, he says:

But we also see that the architecture of SBFs in the feather is more sophisticated compared to the engineered tubules i.e., with respect to the dogbone shape (aided frequently by hooks), which functions in fibre pull-out… This must be a tribute to over 150 million years of feather evolution in response to extreme aerodynamic stresses involved in bird flight.
It’s tragic to watch scientists who have been trained to think Darwinly becoming enslaved to chance explanations for fantastic designs that are so good, engineers want to imitate them.

The field of biomimetics is relatively new but has been receiving increasing attention in recent years. Biological materials are complex composites that are hierarchically structured and multifunctional. Their mechanical properties are often outstanding, considering the weak constituents from which they are assembled. Structures in nature have evolved over millions of years (frequently hundreds of millions) and because of their multifunctionality are difficult to resolve or break down into simpler components that could help in engineered materials. Whereas current engineering designs benefit from simplicity, future ones might be more sophisticated with a much wider performance envelope and broader range of applications inspired by biology’s vastly different scales of architectural organization and robust multi-functionality. As biologists and evolutionists we hope to help untangle some of the complexities of natural materials by extensive investigations and to collaborate with materials scientists and engineers with the ultimate goal of mimicking them in synthetic systems.
Wouldn’t it be nice if someday soon the shackles of methodological naturalism were taken off, so that authors could freely talk about design in nature? Darwinian evolution and eons of time don’t contribute anything of value to this investigation. The author could have left out that “most controversial question” about feather origins and evolution entirely. He came close. “Their unique morphology, which includes nodes with hooks and rings, plays a major part in the design strategy of keeping the filaments locked together,” he said earlier.


We say, toss the evolutionary talk and leave it at that. This is a design paper that inspires design. It can inspire us all to appreciate even more “the genius of birds.” After learning about those SBFs, we will never look at a crow the same way again.

Why macro evolution is DOA

Fitness Terrains and Their Challenge to Darwinian Theory
David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

A new episode of ID the Future on fitness terrains is quite relevant to the fish-to-man question I wrote about earlier today. Evolutionists picture major innovations in the history of life as no big deal. Forget fish-to-man — consider the more modest challenge of fish-to-amphibian, as Dr. Miller notes.

As Center for Science & Culture research coordinator Brian Miller explains in a conversation with Sarah Chaffee, minor changes (microevolution) lie with the reach of unguided Darwinian processes. But major inventions are a different story.

Remember, in the Darwinian understanding, every modification, building up successively over generations, must be advantageous to survival and reproduction or, at worst, neutral. From human innovation, he gives the example of trying to transform a car into a helicopter. Imagining such a thing necessarily entails catastrophic losses of function along the way, something that evolution could never tolerate.


Brian Miller is a fine and lucid science explainer. Listen to the episode  here, or download the podcast here.

Storytelling in lieu of science.

Evolution Proponents: Try Rewriting This Video Without the Teleological Language
David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

Northwestern University promotes the research of one of its scientists with this adorable video about the evolution of fish to man,  “Our short-sighted inner fish: Vision explains why our fish ancestors came on to land.”

400 million years ago, fish made the evolutionary leap from water to land. If they hadn’t, you might not be reading this sentence. Why? Because it led to more complex cognition. A new study by Northwestern professor Malcolm MacIver and Claremont Colleges professor Lars Schmitz discovered a near tripling of eye size might be what triggered the invasion of land.
Molecular biologist Douglas Axe watched it and was impressed by the persistent use of language inflected with teleology, attributing intelligent motivation not only to animals, but to their individual organs, and to the process of evolution as a whole. So, how did fish come on to land?

It all seems to have started when the first fish peeked above the water’s surface….And behold — a smorgasbord of tasty land dwellers! To capitalize on this discovery, the fish would have to evolve. Its eyes soon moved to the top of its head and tripled in size. And its fins began evolving into limbs so that it could stalk its new prey like a crocodile. [Emphasis added.]
Dr. Axe tweets: “Evolutionary reasoning is all about storytelling. Hard to tell stories without invoking purpose, as this vid shows.”

Yep. On that note, here’s an exercise for evolution proponents. Try rewriting the script of this evolution video without using any teleological language. Tough, isn’t it?

As a side point, too, look at how the video ends. The fish evolves into man, but man has a problem. Despite his keen vision, he doesn’t look ahead to see the consequences of his actions. We see him mowing the law, and he pulls off his shirt and gets a sunburn. To cool off, his neighbor hands him a beer, which he drinks and immediately gets fat. Meanwhile, perhaps from the exhaust of the law mower, he causes global warming, resulting in melting glaciers and sad polar bears.

In the final scene, a group of human beings are show donning virtual-reality headsets. The narrator concludes:

Understanding the relationship between vision and planning may help us engineer solutions, like using technology to bring far away things closer. That just might give us the evolutionary advantage we need to survive the next 400 million years.
Right. So we’ll save the planet by cutting ourselves off from other human beings and interacting not with the reality in front of us but with computers and simulated reality. That’s the “solution” to human problems — stick a computer in front of everyone’s face.


Someday, thoughtful people will look back and see the madness of that pervasively influential way of thinking — quite apart from the silliness of trying to deny the obvious workings of purpose in nature. But that time has not yet come.