Darwinism continues to lose on every sale.

An Inordinate Fondness for Confounding Darwinians

Evolution News & Views August 31, 2012 12:43 PM

Write FAIL by another Darwinian prediction: there's no relationship between the length of a branch on Darwin's "tree of life" and how many leaves it has. Evolutionists find this result of a massive study surprising and disconcerting.

The question is this: Shouldn't groups of organisms that have been evolving the longest have the most species? If neo-Darwinism could make any law-like predictions, this should be it: the inexorable pressure to evolve or perish should lead to the most species in the oldest groups:

the most fundamental expectation in macroevolutionary studies is simply that species richness in extant clades should be correlated with clade age: all things being equal, older clades will have had more time for diversity to accumulate than younger clades.

So say Rabosky, Slater and Alfaro, who have just published the most exhaustive study to date of species richness as a function of time. They examined species counts for 1,397 clades, representing 1.2 million species "for taxa as diverse as ferns, fungi, and flies" (emphasis added throughout). Here's what they expected, as reported in their paper in PLoS Biology:

The most general explanatory variable of all is clade age: clades vary in age, and this age variation should lead to differences in clade diversity, particularly if all clades have identical net rates of species diversification through time. If clade diversity is generally increasing through time, there is a strong theoretical expectation that species richness should be associated with their age (Figure S1). Even if individual clades are characterized by a "balanced" random walk in diversity, such that speciation and extinction rates are exactly equal, we may still observe a positive relationship between age and richness through time if clade diversity is conditioned on survival to the present day (Figure S1). Stochastic models of clade diversification through time consistently suggest that species richness and clade age should be correlated. These expectations differ from patterns observed for extinct clades, presumably because living clades have survived to the present to be observed. The expectation that age and diversity should be correlated does not minimize the importance of evolutionary "key innovations" and other factors as determinants of clade richness. In fact, to the extent that such factors influence net diversification rates, their effects should further accentuate differences in richness attributable to age variation alone.

Well, guess what. They aren't correlated. "Clade Age and Species Richness Are Decoupled Across the Eukaryotic Tree of Life," says he paper's title. "At the largest phylogenetic scales, contemporary patterns of species richness are inconsistent with unbounded diversity increase through time," the researchers found. "These results imply that a fundamentally different interpretative paradigm may be needed in the study of phylogenetic diversity patterns in many groups of organisms." Much to their consternation, they couldn't wiggle out of this result (readers can check the open-access paper for how many ways they tried).

The three biologists certainly are aware of complicating factors that might rule out a neat, clean graph. They know that "Some groups, like beetles and flowering plants, contain nearly incomprehensible species diversity, but the overwhelming majority of groups contain far fewer species." Only one species of tuatara, for example, remains after 200 million years on the planet. Sometimes extinction rate exceeds speciation rate; sometimes the ecological niche puts constraints on the ability to diversify. Or, species counts might be artifacts of our taxonomic system or the habits of collectors. Still, even when correcting for these factors, Rabosky et al. expected some remnant of a law-like trend between clade age and species diversity. Not only was no correlation found at the large scale, it was not found at finer scales either. When they authors examined beetles in more detail, for instance, age and diversity showed an even lower correlation than for the bigger picture.

This failure of expectations left them scrambling. It's important to understand the causes for this decoupling, they point out, because most phylogenetic models rely on the implicit assumption that clades should diversify over time at some kind of predictable evolutionary rate. "If age and richness truly are decoupled, then species richness in clades should not be modeled as the outcome of a simple time-constant diversification process, as is done in the overwhelming majority of evolutionary and biogeographic studies." Note that point: the "overwhelming majority of ... evolutionary studies" is based on an assumption that is demonstrably wrong!

Commentary by Harmon

When faced with contrary data this strong, evolutionists have to be immensely creative in coming up with ways to dodge the implications. Luke J. Harmon, for instance, commenting on this paper in the same issue of PLoS Biology, tries humor. He tinkers with an irrelevant joke by J. B. S. Haldane who, noting the 400,000-some-odd species of Coleoptera, quipped that "God has an inordinate fondness for beetles." Harmon titled his paper, therefore, "An Inordinate Fondness for Eukaryotic Diversity."

The point of his commentary is that this is not really a problem; sure, the study showed that it is "difficult or impossible to predict how many species will be found in a particular clade knowing how long a clade has been diversifying from a common ancestor" -- but one thing evolutionists can take heart about, he assures us: we're slowly becoming ever wiser and more knowledgeable about Darwin's world:

This pattern suggests complex dynamics of speciation and extinction in the history of eukaryotes. Rabosky et al.'s paper represents the latest development in our efforts to understand the Earth's biodiversity at the broadest scales.

Where is the understanding exactly? Evolutionists predicted a trend, and found none. Does labeling the situation "complex " help? Does a drunken sailor's staggering suddenly make sense simply by speaking of it as reflecting a "complex dynamic"?

Harmon praises Rabosky et al. for "the most ambitious study to date" saying, "This provides a remarkably complete view of what we currently know about the species diversity of clades across a huge section of the tree of life." He imagines an escape hatch in the future, saying that their "analysis is not the final chapter" because "the tree of life is still under construction, and the total number of species in some clades is best viewed as an educated guess." Maybe somebody else will find a pattern some day. With more genomes, or with improved species counts, who knows?

"Still, the results in Rabosky et al. are intriguing and will certainly inspire further study, which I expect will be focused on testing more sophisticated mathematical models, beyond the constant-rate birth-death models prevalent today, that might be able to explain patterns in the data." Yes, falsifying evidence is indeed "intriguing." After that, Harmon wanders off into a distracting diversion about another evolutionist's quip, this one by Huxley, who joked about "Santa Rosalia as the patroness of evolutionary studies." Pay no attention; there's no falsification here. Look at this nice shrine!

News Coverage

How did the science news media spin this result? Michael Alfaro, senior author of the paper, works at UCLA, where a press release written by Stuart Wolpert gave the official interpretation for public consumption (for instance, on PhysOrg). "Why evolution has produced 'winners' -- including mammals and many species of birds and fish -- and 'losers' is a major question in evolutionary biology," we're told.

Scientists have often posited that because some animal and plant lineages are much older than others, they have had more time to produce new species (the dearth of crocodiles notwithstanding). This idea -- that time is an important predictor of species number -- underlies many theoretical models used by biologists. However, it fails to explain species numbers across all multi-cellular life on the planet, a team of life scientists reports Aug. 28 in the online journal PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science.

"We found no evidence of that," said Michael Alfaro, a UCLA associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior author of the new study. "When we look across the tree of life, the age of the group tells us almost nothing about how many species we would expect to find. In most groups, it tells us nothing."

Another idea, that some groups are innately better or worse at producing species, similarly fails to explain differences in species number among all of the major living lineages of plants and animals, the life scientists found.

So far, this is a forthright statement of the findings. Wolpert gives significant space to Alfaro's favorite rescue strategy, that of "adaptive zone carrying capacity" -- the notion that speciation will proceed up to the point where an adaptive zone is filled to its carrying capacity, then will stop. "Most of the groups that we studied have hit their limits," Alfaro said. "Ecological limits can explain the data we see." This is, of course, not an explanation but a post-hoc rationalization.

So despite the despairing tone of the paper, Alfaro finds a little light in the darkness: "The ultimate goal in our field is to have a reconstruction of the entire evolutionary history of all species on the planet," he says. "Here we provide a piece of the puzzle. Our study sheds light on the causal factors of biodiversity across the tree of life."

But in the paper, the three authors jointly considered and rejected adaptive zone carrying capacity as a suitable explanation for the data. The idea of adaptive zones is not new; George Gaylord Simpson coined the phrase in 1953. Adaptive zone carrying capacity was one of several "diversity-dependent processes" the authors investigated that might result in the decoupling of time and diversity they found. The explanation would be that "ecological opportunity influences the tempo and mode of species diversification through time."

A fallacy in this explanation, though, is its assumption that carrying capacity is static: "We may not understand the ecological mechanisms underlying 'carrying capacity dynamics, but we must still wrestle with substantial neontological and paleontological evidence for their existence." The dynamics exist, they mean. Organisms have uncanny abilities to break out of the box and enter new niches, or to rebound after mass extinctions; the explanation, therefore, fails when considered in the long term. It certainly does not explain why one species of tuatara survives in the same adaptive zone as hundreds of species of beetles.

The authors would not have left time-richness decoupling as an unsolved problem if any number of explanations they considered were of any help: "we are not presently aware of any non-biological mechanism that can account for this lack of relationship," they conclude. Maybe in the future someone will find a law-like pattern; for now, it's a failed prediction of Darwin's tree of life that may require a "fundamentally different interpretive paradigm," as yet unknown.

Intelligent design theory holds no fixed view on common descent per se, with some in the ID camp being personally skeptical of the idea and other more accepting. Either way, from an ID perspective, there seems no reason to expect species richness to correlate with time. The data fit well with ID predictions, therefore, but represent a strong disconfirmation of neo-Darwinian predictions. Once again, nature seems to have an inordinate fondness for confounding Darwinians

Less is more.

Primitive?

Stenophlebia amphitrite, a Stunningly Gorgeous Dragonfly from the Upper Jurassic
David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

Our colleague Günter Bechly, paleontologist and Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, sends along two photographs he took. Take a moment and absorb the beauty of this fossil dragonfly:Dr. Bechly explains what we’re looking at:

It is a large dragonfly of the species Stenophlebia amphitrite from the Upper Jurassic (150 mya) lithographic limestone of Solnhofen in Bavaria, which is the same locality where Archaeopteryx was found. The dragonfly has a wing span of 17 cm (and belongs with other species of the family Stenophlebiidae to an extinct suborder Stenophlebioptera that was established by me. All known species are from the Mesozoic (Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous).
When you see something like that, a creature that is so transparently a work of art, how in the world do you jump to evolutionary explanations dependent exclusively on blind churning?

Dr. Bechly tells his story, as a proponent of the theory of intelligent design, in a clip from  Revolutionary: Michael Behe and the Mystery of Molecular Machines. Find it here.

Design derangement syndrome?

Houston Chronicle, We’ve Got a Problem: Meet Fake News Reporter Andrea Zelinski
John G. West

If you need one more reason why the public’s trust in the news media continues to collapse, consider the recent fake news stories filed by the Houston Chronicle and its agenda-driven reporter Andrea Zelinski. The stories focused on the adoption of revised science standards by the Texas State Board of Education.

Zelinski’s articles portrayed the science standards battle as a struggle to introduce creationism or intelligent design into Texas’s science curriculum. Her stories carried titles like “State ed board reins in science standards hinting at creationism” and “SBOE gives final OK to curb creationism language in science standards.”   Another story began by claiming that the science standards dispute was “rekindling a long-running debate about how much to emphasize creationism in public schools.”

In reality, this year’s debate over science standards in Texas was not about either creationism or intelligent design. It centered on whether the standards should encourage students to evaluate the evidence for various evolutionary claims, many of which are disputed by a growing number of scientists.

For example, should students “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for what natural selection can actually do? Should they “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for universal common ancestry? And should they evaluate existing explanations about the origin of DNA or cellular complexity?

Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific explanations is a key part of the scientific process, and it doesn’t require getting into alternative theories such as intelligent design.

Of course, Discovery Institute supports discussion of intelligent design in the public square and the scientific community. But we don’t advocate that discussion in K-12 public schools.

As I clearly told Zelinski in a phone interview, Discovery Institute is not trying to push intelligent design into public schools, and the Texas science standards don’t deal with intelligent design in any case. For K-12 public education, all we recommend is allowing students to critically evaluate the evidence for the main prongs of modern evolutionary theory.

However, Zelinski did her best to obfuscate our actual position about intelligent design in public education, and she let her personal opposition to our views show through in her slanted writing. Here is what she wrote (emphasis added):

Students should be learning more about evolution, not less, said John West, vice president at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based group that seeks to discredit evolutionary biology while pushing the non-scientific theory of “intelligent design.” The group, which has an office in Dallas, is urging Texans to tell school board members to keep the words “evaluate” in the standards.

“Our concern is there is an effort to dumb down the standards,” West said. “To dumb down and to cut out what students would actually learn about and we think more science is better, and we think critical thinking and critical analysis is good too, especially when it comes to the origin of to the origin of the first life, where there are a lot of competing views.”
Notice the loaded language Zelinski used to describe Discovery Institute. According to her, we are trying to “discredit” evolutionary biology while “pushing” the “non-scientific theory” of “intelligent design.”

This is not a neutral journalistic description of our work. It is blatant editorializing.

One can easily see this by re-writing her sentence using more neutral language. What if she had described Discovery Institute as “a Seattle-based group focused on critiquing parts of evolutionary biology and advancing the idea that life is intelligently designed”? The impression conveyed to readers would have been vastly different.

Lest one think Zelinski didn’t know what she was doing, compare her slanted description of Discovery Institute with her innocuous description of the far-left Texas Freedom Network (TFN) as “an activist group focused on religious freedom and individual liberties.”

What if Zelinski had instead described TFN as “an activist group that seeks to discredit the ‘religious right’ while pushing a partisan left-wing agenda”? TFN would have been justifiably upset by such a description appearing in a supposedly impartial news story.

As it was, TFN needn’t have worried, because Zelinski was clearly on their side to begin with.

But Zelinski’s slanted description of Discovery Institute isn’t the biggest problem with her report. Far more serious is the critical piece of information she conveniently left out from her interview with me.

Zelinski nowhere acknowledged that Discovery Institute actually opposes inserting intelligent design in K-12 public schools, and so for us, the science standards debate was not about intelligent design.

By failing to disclose this important fact, Zelinski’s statement that we are “pushing” intelligent design clearly misled readers by making it seem we were trying to insert intelligent design into schools through the Texas science standards.

That’s fake news.

Newspapers are in a free-fall throughout the United States as they deal with competition from new forms of media. You’d think that in such an environment they would be trying to improve their coverage and address reader concerns about agenda-driven and biased reporting. Apparently the journalists at the Houston Chronicle have decided not to bother. Some day they may wish they had.

The Watchtower Society's Commentary on "Judgment day"

JUDGMENT DAY

A specific “day,” or period, when particular groups, nations, or mankind in general are called to account by God. It may be a time when those already judged to be deserving of death are executed, or the judgment may afford opportunity for some to be delivered, even to everlasting life. Jesus Christ and his apostles pointed to a future “Judgment Day” involving not only the living but also those who had died in the past.—Mt 10:15; 11:21-24; 12:41, 42; 2Ti 4:1, 2.

Past Times of Judgment. At various times in the past Jehovah called peoples and nations to account for their actions and executed his judgments by bringing destruction. Such executional judgments were not arbitrary demonstrations of brute force or overwhelming power. In some instances the Hebrew word translated “judgment” (mish·pat′) is also rendered “justice” and “what is right.” (Ezr 7:10; Ge 18:25) The Bible emphasizes that Jehovah “is a lover of righteousness and justice,” so his executional judgments involve both of those qualities.—Ps 33:5.

Sometimes the executional judgments came as a result of the wicked conduct of people in their daily lives. Sodom and Gomorrah are an example of this. Jehovah inspected the cities and determined that the sin of the inhabitants was very heavy; he decided to bring the cities to ruin. (Ge 18:20, 21; 19:14) Later Jude wrote that those cities underwent “the judicial punishment [Gr., di′ken; “judgment,” Da; “justice,” Yg; “retributive justice,” ED] of everlasting fire.” (Jude 7) So those cities experienced a “day” of judgment.

Jehovah conducted a legal case against ancient Babylon, the longtime enemy of God and his people. Because of being unnecessarily cruel to the Jews, not intending to release them after the 70-year exile, and crediting Marduk with the victory over God’s people, Babylon was in line for an executional judgment. (Jer 51:36; Isa 14:3-6, 17; Da 5:1-4) That came to Babylon in 539 B.C.E. when it was overthrown by the Medes and Persians. Because the judgment to be executed was Jehovah’s, such a period could be referred to as “the day of Jehovah.”—Isa 13:1, 6, 9.

Similarly, Jeremiah prophesied that God would “put himself in judgment” with Edom, among others. (Jer 25:17-31) Hence the nation that had shown hatred for Jehovah and his people experienced destructive judgment in “the day of Jehovah.”—Ob 1, 15, 16.

When Judah and Jerusalem became unfaithful and merited God’s disapproval, he promised to “execute in the midst of [her] judicial decisions.” (Eze 5:8) In 607 B.C.E. “the day of Jehovah’s fury” came with an execution of his destructive judgment. (Eze 7:19) However, another “day,” or time, of judgment on Jerusalem was foretold. Joel prophesied an outpouring of spirit before “the great and fear-inspiring day of Jehovah.” (Joe 2:28-31) Under inspiration Peter, on the day of Pentecost 33 C.E., explained that they were then experiencing a fulfillment of that prophecy. (Ac 2:16-20) The destructive “day of Jehovah” came in 70 C.E. when the Roman armies executed divine judgment upon the Jews. As Jesus foretold, those were “days for meting out justice.”—Lu 21:22; see DESTRUCTION.

Future Times of Executional Judgment. Aside from Hebrew Scripture prophecies, the Bible definitely mentions a number of future judgment days that are executional. Revelation points to the time when “Babylon the Great” will be completely burned with fire. This judicial punishment is due to her fornication with the nations and her being drunk with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. (Re 17:1-6; 18:8, 20; 19:1, 2) Mentioning another executional judgment, Peter drew upon what occurred in Noah’s day and foretold a “day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men.” (2Pe 3:7) Revelation speaks of such a destruction as being executed by “The Word of God,” who will strike the nations with a long sword. (Re 19:11-16; compare Jude 14, 15.) Also, in the first century the Devil already had judgment passed on him, and the demons he leads knew that they would be put into the abyss, as will Satan. (1Ti 3:6; Lu 8:31; Re 20:1-3) Thus it follows that the judgment awaiting them is simply the execution of a judgment that has already been decided upon.—Jude 6; 2Pe 2:4; 1Co 6:3.

May or May Not Be Condemnatory. Most of the occurrences of “judgment” (Gr., kri′sis and kri′ma) in the Christian Greek Scriptures clearly carry the force of condemnatory, or adverse, judgment. In John 5:24, 29 “judgment” is set in contrast with “life” and “everlasting life,” plainly implying a condemnatory judgment that means utter loss of life—death. (2Pe 2:9; 3:7; Joh 3:18, 19) However, not all adverse judgment leads inevitably to destruction. Illustrating this are Paul’s remarks at 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 about celebrating the Lord’s Evening Meal. If a person did not discern properly what he was doing, he could eat or drink “judgment against himself.” Then Paul adds: “When we are judged, we are disciplined by Jehovah, that we may not become condemned with the world.” Thus one might receive adverse judgment but because of repenting not be destroyed forever.

Furthermore, the possibility of a judgment that is not condemnatory is apparent from 2 Corinthians 5:10. About those manifest before the judgment seat it says: “Each one [will] get his award . . . according to the things he has practiced, whether it is good or vile.” The judging mentioned in Revelation 20:13 evidently results in a favorable outcome for many. Of the dead judged, those receiving an adverse judgment are hurled into “the lake of fire.” The rest, though, come through the judgment, being “found written in the book of life.”—Re 20:15.

Judgment Day of Personal Accountability. Pre-Christian Hebrews were acquainted with the idea that God would hold them personally accountable for their conduct. (Ec 11:9; 12:14) The Christian Greek Scriptures explain that there will be a specific future period, or “day,” when mankind, both the living and those who died in the past, will individually be judged.—2Ti 4:1, 2.

Identity of the judges. In the Hebrew Scriptures Jehovah is identified as “the Judge of all the earth.” (Ge 18:25) Similarly, in the Christian Greek Scriptures he is called “the Judge of all.” (Heb 12:23) He has, though, deputized his Son to do judging for him. (Joh 5:22) The Bible speaks of Jesus as “appointed,” “decreed,” and “destined” to do judging. (Ac 10:42; 17:31; 2Ti 4:1) That Jesus is thus authorized by God resolves any seeming contradiction between the text that says that individuals will “stand before the judgment seat of God” and the verse that says they will “be made manifest before the judgment seat of the Christ.”—Ro 14:10; 2Co 5:10.

Jesus also told his apostles that when he would sit down on his throne in the “re-creation,” they would “sit upon twelve thrones” to do judging. (Mt 19:28; Lu 22:28-30) Paul indicated that Christians who had been “called to be holy ones” will judge the world. (1Co 1:2; 6:2) Also, the apostle John saw in vision the time when some received “power of judging.” (Re 20:4) In view of the above texts, this evidently includes the apostles and the other holy ones. Such a conclusion is borne out by the remainder of the verse, which speaks of those who rule with Christ for the Millennium. These then will be royal judges with Jesus.

The fine quality of the judging that will take place on Judgment Day is assured, for Jehovah’s “judgments are true and righteous.” (Re 19:1, 2) The kind of judging that he authorizes is also righteous and true. (Joh 5:30; 8:16; Re 1:1; 2:23) There will be no perverting of justice or hiding of the facts.

Resurrection is involved. When using the expression “Judgment Day,” Jesus brought into the picture a resurrection of the dead. He mentioned that a city might reject the apostles and their message, and said: “It will be more endurable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day than for that city.” (Mt 10:15) Although he was evidently using a hyperbole (because Sodom and Gomorrah had undergone everlasting destruction), his statement did point to a future judgment for at least some from such a first-century Jewish city. (Compare Mt 11:21-24; Lu 10:13-15; Jude 7.) Even clearer is Jesus’ statement that “the queen of the south will be raised up in the judgment.” (Mt 12:41, 42; Lu 11:31, 32) The Biblical statements about Jesus’ judging “the living and the dead” can be viewed in the light of the fact that resurrection is involved in Judgment Day.—Ac 10:42; 2Ti 4:1.

A final indication that many being examined on Judgment Day will be resurrected ones is the information in Revelation 20:12, 13. Individuals are seen “standing before the throne.” The dead are mentioned and so is the fact that death and Hades gave up those dead in them. Such ones are judged.

Time for Judgment Day. In John 12:48 Christ linked the judging of persons with “the last day.” Revelation 11:17, 18 locates a judging of the dead as occurring after God takes his great power and begins ruling in a special way as king. Additional light on the matter comes from the sequence of events recorded in Revelation chapters 19 and 20. There one reads of a war in which the “King of kings” kills “the kings of the earth and their armies.” (Earlier in Revelation [16:14] this is called “the war of the great day of God the Almighty.”) Next Satan is bound for a thousand years. During that thousand years royal judges serve with Christ. In the same context, resurrection and the judging of the dead are mentioned. This, then, is an indication of the time when Judgment Day comes. And it is not impossible from a Scriptural standpoint for a thousand-year period to be viewed as a “day,” for such an equation is stated in the Bible.—2Pe 3:8; Ps 90:4.

Basis for judgment. In describing what will take place on earth during the time of judgment, Revelation 20:12 says that the resurrected dead will then be “judged out of those things written in the scrolls according to their deeds.” Those resurrected will not be judged on the basis of the works done in their former life, because the rule at Romans 6:7 says: “He who has died has been acquitted from his sin.”

However, Jesus said that unwillingness to take note of his powerful works and repent or unresponsiveness to God’s message would make it hard for some to endure Judgment Day.—Mt 10:14, 15; 11:21-24.

A "Must read?"

On recent attempts to explain(away) the Cambrian explosion.

This Just In — Latest Cambrian Explosion Excuses
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

When evolutionists deny design, but admit that nature looks designed, they often wind up attributing the skills of a designer to inanimate matter. This is absurd, but what else is available in their explanatory toolkit?

Here’s an example. A headline by Amanda Doyle at NASA’s Astrobiology Magazine reads, “Microbes set the stage for the first animals.” How is this to be understood? Are animals waiting offstage for their debut? Are microbes arranging the props, clearing pathways, and turning on the lights? Surely she cannot mean that. So how can it be understood without personification? Assuming the prior existence of microbes, perhaps she means that their collective behavior resulted in changes in the balances of gases in the atmosphere, or the pH of seawater, or some other unplanned consequence. Does that help?

Doyle focuses on evidence dating from the Ediacaran Period, just prior to the Cambrian explosion. She weaves her plot around the story of a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison working in Siberia. Photos show their tools beside unusual limestone rocks containing stromatolites and algal impressions. The photos don’t appear to show any Ediacaran creatures themselves. Indeed, those creatures play no role in her play, so they exit stage right: “The remains of these odd creatures, most of which have no evidence of a circulatory or digestive system, largely vanished from the rock record at the start of the Cambrian Period,” she admits [emphasis added], essentially agreeing with the scientists whom Stephen Meyer quotes in Chapter 4 of Darwin’s Doubt.

According to Doyle’s headline, microbes were recruited as the explanatory heroes in her play. Microbes altered the sediments, leaving records of levels of oxygen and sulfur at the time. The UW team found a stratum where “environmental conditions apparently changed,” going from euxinic (sulfidic) conditions that favored microbe growth to oxygenic conditions that would have favored animals.

The change from euxinic to non-euxinic conditions at the end of the Ediacaran Period allowed the Ediacaran animals to colonise the now more oxidized and habitable ocean, despite an overall oxygen level in the atmosphere and oceans that was far less than today’s.
We need go no further. This is a rehash of the Oxygen Theory we have dealt with over and over (for the latest, see here and here). It makes no sense; oxygen has no power to create animal body plans, nor can it “allow” the animals to create themselves. Mr. Oxygen can cry out, “Bring forth! I allow you to evolve!” all he wants on the stage, but nothing will happen. Can’t someone answer the real argument of Darwin’s Doubt, that the abrupt increase in functional information in the Cambrian animals requires a cause that is capable of producing it? The only such cause we know from uniform experience is intelligence. Oxygen has no such power.

We learn at the end of the article that “The research was supported by the Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology element of the NASA Astrobiology Program.” But Darwin’s Doubt came out four years ago, and Debating Darwin’s Doubt two years later. Is NASA really unaware of the challenge?

Let’s keep looking for an explanation that’s new and different. Here’s one: in Science Advances, the open-access journal of the AAAS, a team of six from four American universities spices up the story of the Cambrian.

Several positive carbon isotope excursions in Lower Paleozoic rocks, including the prominent Upper Cambrian Steptoean Positive Carbon Isotope Excursion (SPICE), are thought to reflect intermittent perturbations in the hydrosphere-biosphere system. Models explaining these secular changes are abundant, but the synchronicity and regional variation of the isotope signals are not well understood. Examination of cores across a paleodepth gradient in the Upper Cambrian central Missouri intrashelf basin (United States) reveals a time-transgressive, facies-dependent nature of the SPICE. Although the SPICE event may be a global signal, the manner in which it is recorded in rocks should and does vary as a function of facies and carbonate platform geometry. We call for a paradigm shift to better constrain facies, stratigraphic, and biostratigraphic architecture and to apply these observations to the variability in magnitude, stratigraphic extent, and timing of the SPICE signal, as well as other biogeochemical perturbations, to elucidate the complex processes driving the ocean-carbonate system.
Further reading doesn’t help. The authors know that “The Early Paleozoic era … encompasses an important time frame in metazoan evolution, including the Cambrian Explosion,” but their research only focuses on correlation, not causation. They mention the same “increase in atmospheric oxygen, possibly associated with an oceanic anoxic/euxinic event” that Amanda Doyle focused on.

Conceptual models have been constructed to explain the causes and effects of these sundry secular changes, including ocean anoxia/euxinia driving trilobite turnover, associated enhancement of organic carbon and pyrite burial forcing changes in atmospheric oxygen levels, and oxygenated coastal waters driving the diversification of plankton and perhaps the resulting Ordovician biodiversification.
The changes could well be consequences, not causes, of the Cambrian explosion. And whether the element is oxygen, sulfur, carbon, or anything else, it doesn’t matter. They’re inert. They’re dumb. None of them has creative powers to design new body plans, cell types, and organs, even if they were to “allow” such things to “emerge” onstage.

We’ll try one more. In Geology, the Ediacaran animal Cloudina is mentioned in a paper by seven researchers from Scotland, Russia, and Namibia. Do they describe a sufficient cause for the Cambrian animals?

The Ediacaran skeletal tubular putative metazoan Cloudina occurs globally in carbonate settings, which both provided lithified substrates and minimized the cost of skeletonization. Habitat and substrate preferences and the relationship of Cloudina to other metazoans have not been fully documented, so we know little as to its ecological demands or community dynamics. In situ Cloudina from the Nama Group, Namibia (ca. 550–541 Ma), formed mutually attached reefs composed of successive assemblages in shallow, high-energy environments, and also communities attached to either stromatolites in storm-influenced deep inner-ramp settings or thin microbial mats in lower-energy habitats. Each assemblage shows statistically distinct tube diameter cohorts, but in sum, Cloudina shows an exponential frequency distribution of diameter size.
Meyer doesn’t mention Cloudina, but it’s not much to look at. Visualize a stack of cups forming a tube. The Virtual Fossil Museum says, “The Cloudinids lived during the late Ediacaran, and became extinct at the base of the Cambrian.” Categorized with the “small shelly fossils” that preceded the explosion, they can’t have contributed to the Cambrian animal body plans, accordingly (see Chapters 13 and 14 in Debating Darwin’s Doubt). We read on, hoping.

In reefs, we document a periodicity of size variation, where mean, minimum, and maximum tube diameters vary together and show a systematic increase toward the top of each assemblage. We conclude that most Nama Group Cloudina represent one ecologically generalist taxon with highly variable size, that size was environmentally mediated, and that Cloudina could respond rapidly to periodic environmental changes. While Nama Group skeletal metazoans coexisted with soft-bodied biota, there was no apparent ecological interaction, as they were segregated into lithified carbonate and non-lithified clastic microbial mat communities, respectively. We infer that ecological flexibility allowed Cloudina to form varied communities that colonized diverse carbonate substrates under low levels of interspecific substrate competition. This is in notable contrast to the earliest Cambrian skeletal epibenthos that formed biodiverse reef communities with specialist niche occupancy.
So that’s it? Tube diameters increased or decreased according to environmental conditions? If they grew articulated legs, eyes and digestive systems, we might be impressed.


Ho-hum. Evolutionists are not responding to Meyer’s challenge. Looks like a forfeit.

And still yet more on reality's antiDarwinian Bias

Two Genetic Blows Against Darwinian Speciation
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

Classical neo-Darwinism relies on genetic mutations (random mistakes) acted on by natural selection (an aimless effect dependent on what survives). From these two sources of unguided happenstance, all the adapted perfections in life are supposed to have emerged. But what if life is, instead, determined by active information content? An entirely different picture of “evolutionary” change becomes possible: one that involves information sharing. Two recent genomic studies provide additional validation for the new picture.

Insects: Rampant Horizontal Gene Transfer

Horizontal transfer (HT) of genetic information has been well known in microbes for some years now, but recently has been coming more visible in higher organisms. Transposable elements (TE) are, as the name implies, transposable or relocatable within a genome. But could they also play a role in genetic diversity between organisms? Apparently so. A new paper in PNAS announces “Massive horizontal transfer of transposable elements in insects.”

Eukaryotes normally receive their genetic material from their parents but may occasionally, like prokaryotes do, acquire DNA from unrelated organisms through horizontal transfer (HT). In animals and plants, HT mostly concerns transposable elements (TEs), probably because these pieces of DNA can move within genomes. Assessing the impact of HTs on eukaryote evolution and the factors shaping the dynamics of these HTs requires large-scale systematic studies. We have analyzed the genomes from 195 insect species and found that no fewer than 2,248 events of HT of TEs occurred during the last 10 My, particularly between insects that were closely related and geographically close. These results suggest that HT of TEs plays a major role in insect genome evolution.

This is very different from vertical inheritance. How could it happen? It’s like being told you could inadvertently get a piece of DNA from a chimpanzee at the zoo and pass it on to your kids. Impossible. That would scramble every animal’s identity, wouldn’t it? It might explain other people’s kids, but not yours!

The prevalence of HT in higher animals is only now coming to light through systematic studies. These authors examined genomes of “195 insect genomes, representing 123 genera and 13 of the 28 insect orders” to find the 2,248 events they report in the paper. Imagine what this must mean for evolutionary theories of common descent:

We show that DNA transposons transfer horizontally more often than retrotransposons, and unveil phylogenetic relatedness and geographical proximity as major factors facilitating HTT (horizontal transfer of transposons) in insects. Even though our study is restricted to a small fraction of insect biodiversity and to a recent evolutionary timeframe, the TEs we found to be horizontally transferred generated up to 24% (2.08% on average) of all nucleotides of insect genomes. Together, our results establish HTT as a major force shaping insect genome evolution.

The authors recognize that transposons can jump species barriers much easier than genes can. Even so, it’s astonishing to think that this much genetic information could pass readily between species, most likely via bacteria vectors.

In animals and plants, very few cases of such horizontal gene transfers (HGTs) have been reported so far. In fact, most of the genetic material that is horizontally transferred in animals and plants consists of transposable elements (TEs) which are pieces of DNA able to move from a chromosomal locus to another. The greater ability of TEs to move between organisms certainly relates to their intrinsic ability to transpose within genomes, which genes cannot do. HT of TEs (HTT) may allow these elements to enter naive genomes, which they invade by making copies of themselves, and then escape before they become fully silenced by anti-TE defenses.

Some interpretation is required in this kind of analysis. How does one tell HT from vertical inheritance in a stretch of DNA? The authors recognize the challenge, but give four reasons why their numbers are probably low estimates. They conclude, “HTT is not only widespread in insects, but the true number of HTT events is likely to be several orders of magnitude larger than the number we report.” And this is just for recently-diverged insects. Imagine how much transfer goes on worldwide over longer times! At the end of the article, they suggest that more of this is happening than we think, not only in insects, but in other higher eukaryotes:

Extrapolating our estimates over the ∼480 My of insect evolution and the whole insect biodiversity points toward millions of HTT events generating substantial fractions of insect genomes. These inferences, combined with the pronounced impact TEs have on genome structure and dynamics, establish HTT as a major factor driving insect molecular evolution. Our results call for further assessments of the influence of HTT on other taxonomic groups and of the ecological factors and relationships affecting HTT dynamics.

Bears that Care and Share

There’s another means of information sharing: hybridization. Last November we talked about how rampant hybridization is challenging evolutionary theory, weaving Darwin’s tree into a web. Another example just came to light. News from the Senckenberg Research Institute reports widespread gene flow across bears worldwide, leading to the speculation that all bears are interfertile and possibly members of a single species.

Senckenberg scientists have sequenced the entire genomes of four bear species, making it now possible to analyze the evolutionary history of all bears at the genome level. It shows that gene flow, or gene exchange, between species by extensive hybridization, is possible between most bear species – not only polar and brown bear. The DNA samples of different bear species came from different European zoos, underlining their importance not only for conservation, but also for research. The study published today in “Nature Scientific Reports” also questions the existing species concept in general, because other genome studies too have, frequently found gene flow among species.

How could this happen? Hybrids were supposed to be infertile, like the iconic mule. Many hybrids, though, can still bear young, passing on their shared information over generations. The scientists believe that the brown bear may be a “vector species” connecting all species of bears, whether in Asia, Alaska, America, or Europe — by acquiring genes from one region and passing them along between regions as they travel and breed.

As they indicate, this calls into question the very meaning of a species. Dr. Axel Janke wonders, “We have to ask ourselves: Does the species concept still hold true, given there is evidence of gene flow not only in bears, but also in other animals?” This comes close to home with increasing evidence that modern humans have Neanderthal genes. How, then, can we label them with another species label, Homo neanderthalensis? That’s very arbitrary.

Non-Darwinian Implications

In the light of these findings, it seems presumptuous of Darwin to write about “The Origin of Species” when we can’t even say what a species is. But neither would it be correct to think that all plants and animals have fluid boundaries, able to morph endlessly like shape-shifters into anything else. Clearly, you look different from a mushroom. How, then, are we to interpret the living world?

Try information. Notice that both these examples of information sharing are non-Darwinian. They don’t involve accidental mutations and blind natural selection. They are both methods whereby an organism’s genetic information can be given and received. We might consider the way people share good books with one another. That information might cause “change through time” in the way people behave based on what they come to know, but it would not be a blind, unguided process.

In the same way, a designer would give designed organisms the means to adjust to changing environments by the acquisition of pre-existing information, so that they remain what they are but don’t readily go extinct when entering a new habitat or climate regime. Programming for that kind of robustness would make a lot of sense.

On becoming a servant of JEHOVAH:The Watchtower Society's commentary.

How Do I Become One of Jehovah’s Witnesses?
The steps needed to become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses are described by Jesus and can be found at Matthew 28:19, 20. That passage outlines what a person needs to do to become a disciple of Christ, which involves speaking, or bearing witness, about Jehovah.

Step 1: Learn what the Bible teaches. Jesus instructed his followers to “make disciples . . . , teaching them.” (Matthew 28:19, 20) The word translated “disciple” literally means “a learner.” The Bible, especially the teachings of Jesus Christ found there, contains the information you need in order to have a happy and fulfilling life. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17) We are glad to help you learn what the Bible teaches by means of our free Bible study program.—Matthew 10:7, 8; 1 Thessalonians 2:13.

Step 2: Put what you learn into practice. Jesus said that those who learn must also “observe all the things [he] commanded.” (Matthew 28:20) This means that your study of the Bible must be more than an intellectual exercise—it may call on you to make significant changes in your thinking and behavior. (Acts 10:42; Ephesians 4:22-29; Hebrews 10:24, 25) Those who observe Jesus’ commands are then moved to make a personal decision to follow him by dedicating their lives to Jehovah God.—Matthew 16:24.

Step 3: Get baptized. (Matthew 28:19) In the Bible, baptism is compared to a burial. (Compare Romans 6:2-4.) It serves as a symbol of dying to a past course of life and beginning a new one. Your baptism, then, is a public acknowledgment that you have completed the first two steps described by Jesus and are asking God for a clean conscience.—Hebrews 9:14; 1 Peter 3:21.

How will I know if I’m ready for baptism?

Speak to the congregation elders. They will talk with you to ensure that you understand what is involved, are applying what you have learned, and have dedicated yourself to God of your own free will.—Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:1-3.

Do these steps apply to children of Witness parents?

Yes. We raise our children “in the discipline and admonition of Jehovah,” just as the Bible commands. (Ephesians 6:4) However, as they grow, they must make a personal decision to learn, accept, and apply what the Bible teaches before they can qualify for baptism. (Romans 12:2) Ultimately, each person must make his own choice concerning worship.—Romans 14:12; Galatians 6:5.

The skilled trades are not a consolation prize.

Reality is a computer program?

A clash of Titans. LII

The mathematics of escape.

Disinherited?

Science Magazine: Australopithecus sediba “Ousted from the Human Family”
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

A few years ago we wrote about Australopithecus sediba, a hominid fossil that was discovered in South Africa in 2008. There was a lot of hype about this hominid when it was first published in 2010. Its discoverer, Lee Berger, called  sediba  “possibly the best candidate ancestor for our genus.”

The original hope for sediba is that it would help fill a “gap” in the fossil record that pertains to the precise time when evolutionary paleoanthropologists believe our genus Homo evolved from some australopithecine ancestor. ABC News  made this point  when sediba was first announced, calling the fossil a “game-changer”:

Scientists have long talked about a “missing link” between very old fossils, more than 3 million years old, and much newer ones that they believe are clearly ancestors of today’s human beings. There is a gap in the fossil record, so far unexplained. Does Australopithecus sediba help fill the gap? Not on its own, say most researchers, but it helps.
The media touted sediba as a spectacular confirmation of this prediction. The Washington Post ran the headline, “Scientists identify ancestor that bridges gap in human evolution, a potential ‘game-changer,’” while the Associated Press quoted paleoanthropologist Darryl J. DeRuiter, stating:

This is what evolutionary theory would predict, this mixture of Australopithecene and Homo … It’s strong confirmation of evolutionary theory.
Now, things have changed radically. As the journal Science reports, “A famous ‘ancestor’ may be ousted from the human family,” explaining that Australopithecus sediba is far removed from the human portion of the hominid tree:

Instead of belonging to the human lineage, the new species of Australopithecus sediba is more closely related to other hominins from South Africa that are on a side branch of the human family tree, according to a new analysis of the fossil presented here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.
This isn’t exactly anything new. The article makes another point we’ve made here at Evolution News in the past, namely that “With its fossils dated to 1.98 million years ago, Au. sediba is too young to be directly ancestral to all members of the genus Homo.” However, this new study doesn’t argue against sediba as a human ancestor simply because the age of the species is wrong, but also on the basis of the fossil’s morphology:

In a talk here, though, paleoanthropologist Bill Kimbel of Arizona State University in Tempe analyzed the most complete skull of Au. sediba and systematically shot down the features claimed to link it to early Homo. Kimbel noted that the skull was that of a juvenile — a “7th grader” — whose face and skull were still developing. In his analysis, with paleoanthropologist Yoel Rak of Tel Aviv University in Israel, he concluded that the child already showed traits that linked it most closely to the South African australopithecine Au. africanus, a species that lived in South Africa 3 million to 2.3 million years ago. And had it survived to adulthood, its humanlike facial traits would have changed to become even more like those of Au. africanus.

For example, the breadth of the young Au. sediba’s cheekbones appears narrow, as in early Homo. But by studying other australopithecine, ape, and Homo fossils to see how features of the cheekbones change as individuals grow and chewing muscles develop, Kimbel and Rak could predict how the boy’s face and skull would have looked if he’d grown up to be an adult. The resemblance to Au. africanus is so striking, in fact, that Kimbel thinks Au. sediba is a closely related “sister species” of Au. africanus — and not a long-lost human relative. “We don’t believe … that Au. sediba has a unique relationship to the genus Homo,” says Kimbel.

Other researchers who have long been skeptical that Au. sediba was an ancestor of Homo found Kimbel’s talk persuasive: “Spot on,” says paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York agrees with Kimbel that Au. sediba is most closely related to Au. africanus and that neither species is ancestral to early Homo.
Those are some very big names who think that Au. sediba is merely an extinct side-branch of the hominid tree and not ancestral to Homo. So much for sediba being a human ancestor who is “what evolutionary theory would predict.”

But if not Au. sediba, from what did our genus Homo evolve? When Au. sediba was first reported, the science media admitted that we simply don’t know:

The oldest Homo specimens are scrappy and enigmatic, leaving researchers unsure about the evolutionary steps between the australopithecines and Homo. … “The transition to Homo continues to be almost totally confusing,” says paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson of ASU Tempe, who has seen the new fossils.

(Michael Balter, “Candidate Human Ancestor From South Africa Sparks Praise and Debate,” Science, Vol. 328:154-155 (April 9, 2010).)

With the fall of Australopithecus sediba, that confession of ignorance seems to be left firmly in place.