Rehabilitating a fallen icon?

Peppered Moths, an Evolutionary Icon, Are Back

Jonathan Wells

Readers of Evolution News are probably familiar with -- perhaps even bored with -- the classic story of peppered moths. The story lay dormant for several years, but now it's in the news again.

In brief, the classic story is that peppered moths went from being mostly light-colored to being mostly dark-colored ("melanic") during the industrialization of 19th-century England. The shift was called "industrial melanism," and it was attributed to natural selection: Dark-colored moths were supposedly better camouflaged on pollution-darkened tree trunks and thus more likely to survive predatory birds. After air quality legislation was passed in the mid-20th century, light-colored moths became more common again, consistent with the story.

Darwin himself had no evidence for natural selection, but peppered moths were said to provide it. The story was called

 "Darwin's missing evidence,"

and it was used for years in biology textbooks to teach Darwinian evolution -- usually accompanied by photographs of light- and dark-colored moths resting on light- and dark-colored tree trunks.

The story had various problems, but the most serious emerged in the 1980s when biologists discovered that peppered moths don't normally rest on tree trunks. Instead, the vast majority of them probably rest high up in trees where they can't be seen. Almost all of the textbook photographs had been staged, many with dead moths pinned to tree trunks.

After the publication of  

Icons of Evolution 

in 2000, many textbooks stopped using the classic story. It enjoyed a brief resurgence in 2007, but then it mostly dropped from sight again.

Of course, even if the classic story were true, it would not demonstrate Darwinian evolution. Darwin didn't write a book titled How Existing Species Change Over Time. He wrote a book titledThe Origin of Species. His argument was that natural selection produces entirely new species, organs, and body plans. A temporary shift in the proportions of light- and dark-colored peppered moths is irrelevant to that argument.

Now peppered moths are back. Some 

scientists in England 

have identified a mutation that may explain why some peppered moths are dark-colored. The scientists found a transposable element, or "jumping gene," that is present in 105 of the 110 dark-colored moths they studied, but absent from 283 light-colored moths. Although it is not clear how the stretch of DNA where the transposable element was found affects wing color, the scientists concluded that this was "the mutation event giving rise to industrial melanism in Britain," and that their findings "fill a substantial knowledge gap in the iconic example of microevolutionary change."

(In the 1930s, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky distinguished between minor changes within existing species, which he called "microevolution," and the origin of new species, organs and body plans, which he called "macroevolution.")

This discovery was based on some impressive experimental work. Now it is accompanied by some impressive hype.

According to the journal 

Nature 

(in which the study was published), "there is perhaps no better example of natural selection in action than the case of the peppered moth." Unfortunately, some "technical criticisms" of the classic story "have leaked, out of context, into the propaganda of creationists. In response, some textbooks have -- heaven forbid -- evolved to not include the peppered moth story at all." But "there is enough in the pages that follow to update those textbooks."

The Science Daily 

news service quotes one of the scientists involved in the study to the effect that "this discovery fills a fundamental gap in the peppered moth story," which

Science Daily calls the "iconic textbook example of evolution by natural selection." Another scientist involved in the study says, "These findings provide an opportunity to further develop peppered moth industrial melanism as a tool for teaching evolutionary biology."

Repeating the discredited classic story, 

 BBC News 

reports that "peppered moths are nocturnal and spend their days dozing on tree trunks or walls," so the newly identified mutation "gave them a much better chance of hiding from hungry birds in the smoke-stained world of industrial England."

According to the 

Washington Post 

just as peppered moths "once helped illuminate the macro process of natural selection, the researchers hope their studies will illuminate how evolution happens at a microscopic level." But peppered moths never illuminated macroevolution. The Post continues by quoting one of the scientists involved in the study:

My hope is that by adding more scientific evidence, more modernscientific evidence, to this case study that eventually it will kind of make it easier for people to appreciate at different levels this isn't a made up story. There's more and more layers of evidence.

But how relevant is that evidence? These reports (and the scientists quoted in them) assume that the main problem with the classic story was that the genetic basis of melanism was unknown. But that was never the main problem. The fact that peppered moths don't normally rest on tree trunks makes it doubtful that industrial melanism was due to camouflage and bird predation, and the fact that a temporary shift occurred in the proportions of light- and dark-colored moths provides no evidence for Darwin's theory of the origin of species.

Maybe it's time for the peppered moth story to drop from sight once again.

Darwinian apologists well behind on their homework

This is embarrassing: “Darwin’s Doubt” debunker is 14 years behind the times
Posted by vjtorley under Intelligent Design

Over at The Skeptical Zone, Mikkel “Rumraket” Rasmussen has written a post critical of Dr. Stephen Meyer, titled, Beating a dead horse (Darwin’s Doubt), which is basically a rehash of comments he made on a thread on Larry Moran’s Sandwalk blog last year. The author’s aim is to expose Dr. Stephen Meyer’s “extremely shoddy scholarship,” but as we’ll see, Rasmussen’s own research skills leave a lot to be desired.

Did Dr. Meyer fail to document his sources?

Rasmussen focuses his attack on chapter 10 of Dr. Meyer’s book, “Darwin’s Doubt.” He writes:

Having read the book, a recurring phenomenon is that Meyer time and again makes claims without providing any references for them. Take for instance the claim that the Cambrian explosion requires lots of new protein folds, from Chapter 10 The Origin of Genes and Proteins:

(Rasmussen proceeds to quote from Meyer’s book, on which he comments below – VJT.)

In the whole section Meyer dedicates to the origin of novel folds, he makes zero references that actually substantiate [his assertion] that the [C]ambrian diversification, or indeed any kind of speciation, or the [appearance of] new cells types or organs, require[d] new protein folds. ZERO. Not one single reference that supports these claims. At first it reads like what I quote[d] above, lots of claims, no references. Later on he eventually cites the work of Douglas Axe that atte[m]pts to address how hard it is to evolve new folds (and that work has its own set of problems, but never mind that). Axe makes the same claim in his ID-journal Bio-complexity papers (which eventually Meyers cites), but in Axe’s papers, that claim is not supported by any reference either. It’s simply asserted as fact. In other words, Meyer makes a claim, then cites Axe making the same claim. Neither of them give a reference.

(N.B. For ease of readability, I have used square brackets to correct Rasmussen’s spelling and punctuation errors, and I have also inserted four extra words, without which his meaning would have been obscure to readers, in the preceding paragraph – VJT.)

Rasmussen repeats his accusation that Dr. Meyer frequently makes claims in his book without providing any references for them, at the very end of his post:

Later Meyer gets a ID-complexitygasm when he asserts, again without any support, that:

“The Cambrian animals exhibit structures that would have required many new types of cells, each requiring many novel proteins to perform their specialized functions. But new cell types require not just one or two new proteins, but coordinated systems of proteins to perform their distinctive cellular functions.”

Where does he get this? His ass, that’s where.

Do new cell types require new kinds of proteins?

I find it quite astonishing that Rasmussen would require documentation for Dr. Meyer’s claim that new cell types would require new types of proteins, for three reasons. First, it’s a well-known fact that each different cell type has different cluster of differentiation proteins. Bojidar Kojouharov, a Ph.D. Student in Cancer Immunology, describes these proteins as follows:

Clusters of Differentiation (CD) are cell surface proteins used to differentiate one cell type from another. Each CD marker is a different surface protein from the others. As such, it will likely have different functions and may be expressed on different cells. Technically, different CD markers don’t really have to have anything in common, other than the fact that they are on the cell’s surface. Usually, it’s safe to assume any Clusters of Differentiation is a protein.

Second, it is widely admitted by authors in the field that the complex organisms which appeared in the Cambrian would have required a host of new cell types. Here, for instance, is what P. V. Sukumaran, of the Geological Society of India, says in his paper, Cambrian Explosion of Life: the Big Bang in Metazoan Evolution (RESONANCE, September 2004, pp. 38-50):

Yet another feature of the Cambrian explosion is the quantum jump in biological complexity. The early Cambrian animals had roughly 50 cell types while the sponges that appeared a little earlier had only 5… (p. 44, sidebar)

Unicellular life is relatively simple; there is little division of labour and the single cell performs all functions of life. Obviously the genetic information content of unicellular organisms is relatively meagre. Multicellular life, on the other hand, requires more genetic information to carry out myriads of cellular functions as their cells are differentiated into different cell types, tissues and organs. But new cell types themselves require specialised proteins, and novel proteins arise from novel gene sequences, that is new genetic information. As the organisms that appeared in the Cambrian explosion had many more novel and specialised cell types than their prokaryotic ancestors, the amount of new genetic information that arose in the Cambrian explosion represents a large increase in biological information. (p. 47)

Third, it turns out that Dr. Meyer provided the very references that Rasmussen chides him for failing to supply, over 14 years ago, in his 2001 paper, The Cambrian Explosion: Biology’s Big Bang, which he co-authored with Paul Nelson and Paul Chien, which is listed on page 471 of the bibliography of Dr. Meyer’s book, Darwin’s Doubt. (Actually, the bibliography cites a later and slightly more polished 2003 version of the same paper.) Allow me to quote from pages 32-33 of the 2001 paper (emphases mine – VJT):

As noted, the new animals of the Cambrian explosion would have required many new cell types and, with them, many new types of proteins acting in close coordination. It follows, therefore, that if the neo-Darwinian mechanism cannot explain the origin of new cell types (and the systems of proteins they require), it cannot explain the origin of the Cambrian animals. Yet given the number of novel proteins required by even the most basic evolutionary transformations, this now seems to be precisely the case.

Consider, for example, the transition from a prokaryotic cell to a eukaryotic cell. This transition would have produced the first appearance of a novel cell type in the history of life. Compared to prokaryotes, eukaryotes have a more complex structure including a nucleus, a nuclear membrane, organelles (such as mitocondria, the endoplasmic recticulum, and the golgi apparatus), a complex cytoskeloton (with microtubulues, actin microfilaments117 and intermediate filaments) and motor molecules.118 Each of these features requires new proteins to build or service, and thus, as a consequence, more genetic information. (For example, the spooled chromosome in a modern eukaryotic yeast [Saccharomyces] cell has about 12.5 million base pairs, compared to about 580,000 base pairs in the prokaryote Mycoplasma.)119 The need for more genetic information in eukaryotic cells in turn requires a more efficient means of storing genetic information. Thus, unlike prokaryotic cells which store their genetic information on relatively simple circular chromosomes, the much more complex eukaryotic cells store information via a sophisticated spooling mechanism.120 Yet this single requirement — the need for a more efficient means of storing information — necessitates a host of other functional changes each of which requires new specialized proteins (and yet more genetic information) to maintain the integrity of the eukaryotic cellular system.

For example, nucleosome spooling requires a complex of specialized histones proteins (with multiple recognition and initiation factors) to form the spool around which the double stranded DNA can wind.121 Spooled eukaryotic DNA in turn uses “intron spacers,” (dedicated sections of non-coding DNA), in part to ensure a tight electrostatic fit between the nucleosome spool and the cords of DNA.122 This different means of storing DNA in turn requires a new type of DNA polymerase to help access, “read,” and copy genetic information during DNA replication. (Indeed, recent sequence comparisons show that prokaryotic and eukaryotic polymerases exhibit stark differences).123 Further, eukaryotes also require a different type of RNA polymerase to facilitate transcription. They also require a massive complex of five jointly necessary enzymes to facilitate recognition of the promoter sequence on the spooled DNA molecule.124 The presence of intron spacers in turn requires editing enzymes (including endonucleases, exonucleases and splicesomes) to remove the non-coding sections of the genetic text and to reconnect coding regions during gene expression.125 Spooling also requires a special method of capping or extending the end of the DNA text in order to prevent degradation of the text on linear (non-circular) eukaryotic chromosomes.126 The system used by eukaryotes to accomplish this end also requires a complex and uniquely specialized enzyme called a telomerase.127

Thus, one of the “simplest” evolutionary transitions, that from one type of single-celled organism to another, requires the origin of many tens of specialized novel proteins, many of which (such as the polymerases) alone represent massively complex, and improbably specified molecules.128 Moreover, many, if not most, of these novel proteins play functionally necessary roles in the eukaryotic system as a whole. Without specialized polymerases cell division and protein synthesis will shut down. Yet polymerases have many protein subunits containing many thousands of precisely sequenced amino acids. Without editing enzymes, the cell would produce many nonfunctional polypeptides, wasting vital ATP energy and clogging the tight spaces within the cytoplasm with many large useless molecules. Without tubulin and actin the eukaryotic cytoskeloton would collapse (or would never have formed). Indeed, without the cytoskeleton the eukaryotic cell can not maintain its shape, divide, or transport vital materials (such as enzymes, nutrients, signal molecules, or structural proteins).129 Without telomerases the genetic text on a linear spooled chromosome would degrade, again, preventing accurate DNA replication and eventually causing the parent cell to die.130

Even a rudimentary analysis of eukaryotic cells suggests the need for, not just one, but many novel proteins acting in close coordination to maintain (or establish) the functional integrity of the eukaryotic system. Indeed, the most basic structural changes necessary to a eukaryotic cell produce a kind of cascade of functional necessity entailing many other innovations of design, each of which necessitates specialized proteins. Yet the functional integration of the proteins parts in the eukaryotic cell poses a severe set of probabilistic obstacles to the neo-Darwinian mechanism, since the suite of proteins necessary to eukaryotic function must, by definition, arise before natural selection can act to select them.

References:

117 Russell F. Doolittle, “The Origins and Evolution of Eukaryotic Proteins,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 349 (1995): 235-40.

118 Stephen L. Wolfe, Molecular and Cellular Biology (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1993), pp. 3, 6-19.

119 Rebecca A. Clayton, Owen White, Karen A. Ketchum, and J. Craig Ventner, “The First Genome from the Third Domain of Life,” Nature 387 (1997): 4459-62.

120 Stephen L. Wolfe, Molecular and Cellular Biology, pp. 546-50.

121 Ibid.

122 H. Lodish, D. Baltimore, et. al., Molecular Cell Biology (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1994), pp. 347-48. Stephen L. Wolfe, Molecular and Cellular Biology, pp. 546-47.

123 Edgell and Russell Doolittle, “Archaebacterial genomics: the complete genome sequence of Methanococcus jannaschii,” BioEssays 19 (no. 1, 1997): 1-4. Michael Y. Galperin, D. Roland Walker, and Eugene V. Coonin, “Analogous Enzymes: Independent Inventions in Enzyme Evolution,” Genome Research 8 (1998): 779-90.

124 Stephen L. Wolfe, Molecular and Cellular Biology, pp. 580-81, 597.

125 Ibid., pp. 581-82, 598-600, 894-96.

126 Ibid., p. 975.

127 Ibid., pp. 955-975.

128 Ibid., p. 580.

129 Ibid., pp. 17-19.

130 Ibid., pp. 955-975.

And here’s a highly pertinent quote from pages 5-6 of the paper:

Each new cell type requires many new and specialized proteins. New proteins in turn require new genetic information encoded in DNA. Thus, an increase in the number of cell types implies (at a minimum) a considerable increase in the amount of specified genetic information. For example, molecular biologists have recently estimated that a minimally complex cell would require between 318 to 562 kilobase pairs of DNA to produce the proteins necessary to maintain life.20 Yet to build the proteins necessary to sustain a complex arthropod such as a trilobite would require an amount of DNA greater by several orders of magnitude (e.g., the genome size of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans is approximately 97 million base pairs21 while that of the fly Drosophila melanogaster (an arthropod), is approximately 120 million base pairs.22 For this reason, transitions from a single cell to colonies of cells to complex animals represent significant (and in principle measurable) increases in complexity and information content. Even C. elegans, a tiny worm about one millimeter long, comprises several highly specialized cells organized into unique tissues and organs with functions as diverse as gathering, processing and digesting food, eliminating waste, external protection, internal absorption and integration, circulation of fluids, perception, locomotion and reproduction. The functions corresponding to these specialized cells in turn require many specialized proteins, genes and cellular regulatory systems, representing an enormous increase in specified biological complexity. Figure 5 shows the complexity increase involved as one moves upward from cellular grade to tissue grade to organ grade life forms. Note the jump in complexity required to build complex Cambrian animals starting from, say, sponges in the late Precambrian. As Figure 5 shows Cambrian animals required 50 or more different cell types to function, whereas sponges required only 5 cell types.

(Note: Figure 5 can be viewed in this later version of the paper, where it is labeled as Figure 10 – VJT.)

References:

20 Mitsuhiro Itaya, “An estimation of the minimal genome size required for life,” FEBS Letters 362

(1995): 257-60. Claire Fraser, Jeannine D. Gocayne, Owen White, et. al., “The Minimal Gene Complement of Mycoplasma genitalium,” Science 270 (1995): 397-403. Arcady R. Mushegian and Eugene V. Koonin, “A minimal gene set for cellular life derived by comparison of complete bacterial genomes,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 93 (1996): 10268-73.

21 The C. elegans Sequencing Consortium, “Genome Sequence of the Nematode C. elegans: A Platform for Investigating Biology,” Science 282 (1998): 2012-18.

22 John Gerhart and Marc Kirschner, Cells, Embryos, and Evolution (London: Blackwell Science, 1997), p.

121

Did Dr. Meyer distort the words of geneticist Susumu Ohno?

Rasmussen also accuses Dr. Meyer of distorting the words of Susumu Ohno, a geneticist and evolutionary biologist whose work he discussed in chapter 10 of his book, Darwin’s Doubt:

It gets much worse, turns out Meyer is making assertions diametrically opposite to what his very very few references say. Remember what Meyer wrote above?

“The late geneticist and evolutionary biologist Susumu Ohno noted that Cambrian animals required complex new proteins such as, for example, lysyl oxidase in order to support their stout body structures.”

Well, much later in the same chapter, Meyer finally references Ohno:

“Third, building new animal forms requires generating far more than just one protein of modest length. New Cambrian animals would have required proteins much longer than 150 amino acids to perform necessary, specialized functions.21″

What is reference 21? It’s “21. Ohno, “The Notion of the Cambrian Pananimalia Genome.””

What does that reference say? Let’s look:

“Reasons for Invoking the Presence of the Cambrian Pananimalia Genome.

Assuming the spontaneous mutation rate to be generous 10^-9 per base pair per year and also assuming no negative interference by natural selection, it still takes 10 million years to undergo 1% change in DNA base sequences. It follows that 6-10 million years in the evolutionary time scale is but a blink of an eye. The Cambrian explosion denoting the almost simultaneous emergence of nearly all the extant phyla of the kingdom Animalia within the time span of 6-10 million years can’t possibly be explained by mutational divergence of individual gene functions. Rather, it is more likely that all the animals involved in the Cambrian explosion were endowed with nearly the identical genome, with enormous morphological diversities displayed by multitudes of animal phyla being due to differential usages of the identical set of genes. This is the very reason for my proposal of the Cambrian pananimalia genome. This genome must have necessarily been related to those of Ediacarian predecessors, representing the phyla Porifera and Coelenterata, and possibly Annelida. Being related to the genome – possessed by the first set of multicellular organisms to emerge on this earth, it had to be rather modest in size. It should be recalled that the genome of modern day tunicates, representing subphylum Urochordata, is made of 1.8 x 10^8 DNA base pairs, which amounts to only 6% of the mammalian genome (9). The following are the more pertinent of the genes that were certain to have been included in the Cambrian pananimalia genome.”

The bold is my emphasis. I trust you can see the problem here. So, Meyer makes a single goddamn reference to support the claim that the Cambrian explosion required a lot of innovation of new proteins, folds, cell-types and so on. What do we find in that references? That Ohno is suggesting the direct opposite, that he is in fact supporting the standard evo-devo view that few regulatory changes were what happened, that the genes and proteins were already present and had long preceding evolutionary histories.

Once again, Rasmussen hasn’t done his homework. A little digging on my part revealed that Dr. Meyer had previously discussed the Dr. Ohno’s claims at considerable length and responded to those claims, in his 2001 paper, The Cambrian Explosion: Biology’s Big Bang, which he co-authored with Paul Nelson and Paul Chien (bolding mine – VJT):

Ironically, even attempts to avoid the difficulty posed by the Cambrian explosion often presuppose the need for such foresight. As noted, Susumo Uno, the originator of the hypothesis of macroevolution by gene duplication, has argued that mutation rates of extant genes are not sufficiently rapid to account for the amount of genetic information that arose suddenly in the Cambrian.114 Hence he posits the existence of a prior “pananimalian genome” that would have contained all the genetic information necessary to build every protein needed to build the Cambrian animals. His hypothesis envisions this genome arising in a hypothetical common ancestor well before the Cambrian explosion began. On this hypothesis, the differing expression of separate genes on the same master genome would explain the great variety of new animal forms found in the Cambrian strata.

While Ohno’s hypothesis does preserve the core evolutionary commitment to common descent (or monophyly), it nevertheless has a curious feature from the standpoint of neo-Darwinism. In particular, it envisions the pananimalian genome arising well before its expression in individual animals.115 Specific genes would have arisen well before they were used, needed or functionally advantageous. Hence, the individual genes within the pananimalian genome would have arisen in a way that, again, would have made them imperceptible to natural selection. This not only creates a problem for the neo-Darwinian mechanism, but it also seems to suggest, as Simon Conway Morris has recently intimated,116 the need for foresight or teleology to explain the Cambrian explosion. Indeed, the origin of a massive, unexpressed pre-Cambrian genome containing all the information necessary to build the proteins required by not-yet-existent Cambrian animals, would strongly suggest intelligent foresight or design at work in whatever process gave rise to the pananimalian genome. (pp. 31-32)

In short: Dr. Meyer was not only aware that Dr. Ohno had proposed the existence of a pananimalian genome; he also explicitly referred to it in his 2001 paper, in order to demonstrate that Intelligent Design would be the best explanation of such a genome.

I’ll leave it to my readers to decide whether it is Dr. Meyer or Rasmussen who is guilty of “extremely shoddy scholarship.” Let me conclude by recalling an old saying: “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

On Higher education V

On the firstfruits :The Watchtower Society's commentary.

FIRSTFRUITS

The earliest fruits of a season; the first results or products of anything. The Hebrew word reʼ·shithʹ (from a root meaning “head”) is used in the sense of first part, point of departure, or “beginning” (De 11:12; Ge 1:1; 10:10); the “best” (Ex 23:19, ftn); and “firstfruits” (Le 2:12). “First ripe fruits” is rendered from the Hebrew bik·ku·rimʹ, which is used especially with regard to grain and fruit. (Na 3:12) The Greek term for firstfruits (a·par·kheʹ) comes from a root having the basic meaning “primacy.”

Jehovah required of the nation of Israel that the firstfruits be offered to him, whether it be of man, animal, or the fruitage of the ground. (Ex 22:29, 30; 23:19; Pr 3:9) Devoting the firstfruits to Jehovah would be an evidence of the Israelites’ appreciation for Jehovah’s blessing and for their land and its harvest. It would be an expression of thankfulness to the Giver of “every good gift.”—De 8:6-10; Jas 1:17.

Jehovah commanded the nation, representatively, to offer firstfruits to him, especially at the time of the Festival of Unfermented Cakes. Then, on Nisan 16, at the sanctuary the high priest waved before Jehovah some of the firstfruits of the grain harvest, a sheaf of barley, which was the first crop of the year based on the sacred calendar. (Le 23:5-12) Again, at Pentecost, on the 50th day after the sheaf of barley was waved, the firstfruits of the wheat harvest in the form of two leavened loaves made of fine flour were presented as a wave offering.—Le 23:15-17; see FESTIVAL.

Besides these grain offerings by the high priest on behalf of the nation, the Israelites were required to bring the firstfruits of all their produce as offerings. Every firstborn male of man and beast was sanctified to Jehovah, being either offered or redeemed. (See FIRSTBORN, FIRSTLING.) The firstfruits of coarse meal were to be offered in the form of ring-shaped cakes. (Nu 15:20, 21) Fruitage of the soil was also put in baskets and taken by the Israelites to the sanctuary (De 26:1, 2), where they then recited certain words recorded at Deuteronomy 26:3-10. The words were actually an outline of the nation’s history from their entering into Egypt to their deliverance and their being brought into the Promised Land.

It is said that the custom arose whereby each locality would send a representative with the firstfruits contributed by the inhabitants of the district in order that not all would have to undergo the inconvenience of going up to Jerusalem each time that the firstfruits were ripe. The quantity of these firstfruits to be offered was not fixed by the Law; it apparently was left to the generosity and appreciative spirit of the giver. However, the choicest portions, the best of the firstfruits, were to be offered.—Nu 18:12; Ex 23:19; 34:26.

In the case of a newly planted tree, for the first three years it was considered impure as though uncircumcised. In the fourth year all its fruit became holy to Jehovah. Then, in the fifth year, the owner could gather in its fruit for himself.—Le 19:23-25.

Contributions of firstfruits to Jehovah by the 12 non-Levitical tribes of Israel were used by the priests and Levites, since they received no inheritance in the land. (Nu 18:8-13) The faithful offering of the firstfruits brought pleasure to Jehovah and a blessing to all parties involved. (Eze 44:30) A failure to bring them would be counted by God as robbing him of his due and would bring his displeasure. (Mal 3:8) In Israel’s history at times this practice was neglected, being restored in certain periods by rulers zealous for true worship. In King Hezekiah’s reformation work, he held an extended celebration of the Festival of the Unfermented Cakes, and on this occasion Hezekiah instructed the people to fulfill their duty with respect to the contribution of firstfruits and tithes. Cheerfully the people responded by bringing in great quantities of the firstfruits of the grain, new wine, oil, honey, and all the produce of the field, from the third month to the seventh. (2Ch 30:21, 23; 31:4-7) After the restoration from Babylon, Nehemiah led the people in taking an oath to walk in Jehovah’s law, including the bringing to him of firstfruits of every sort.—Ne 10:29, 34-37; see OFFERINGS.

Figurative and Symbolic Use. Jesus Christ was spiritually begotten at the time of his baptism and was resurrected from the dead to life in the spirit on Nisan 16, 33 C.E., the day of the year on which the firstfruits of the first grain crop were presented before Jehovah at the sanctuary. He is, therefore, called the firstfruits, being actually the first firstfruits to God. (1Co 15:20, 23; 1Pe 3:18) The faithful followers of Jesus Christ, his spiritual brothers, are also a firstfruits to God, but not the primary firstfruits, being similar to the second grain crop, the wheat, which was presented to Jehovah on the day of Pentecost. They number 144,000 and are called the ones “bought from among mankind as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb” and “certain firstfruits of his creatures.”—Re 14:1-4; Jas 1:18.

The apostle Paul also speaks of the faithful Jewish remnant who became the first Christians as being “firstfruits.” (Ro 11:16) The Christian Epaenetus is called “a firstfruits of Asia for Christ” (Ro 16:5), and the household of Stephanas “the firstfruits of Achaia.”—1Co 16:15.

Since the anointed Christians are begotten by the spirit as sons of God with the hope of resurrection to immortality in the heavens, they are said during their lifetime on earth to “have the firstfruits, namely, the spirit . . . while we are earnestly waiting for adoption as sons, the release from our bodies by ransom.” (Ro 8:23, 24) Paul says that he and fellow Christians with hopes of life in the spirit have “the token of what is to come, that is, the spirit,” which he also says is “a token in advance of our inheritance.”—2Co 5:5; Eph 1:13, 14.

Darwinists still don't (won't?)get it.

Methinks This Robot Has Been, Like, Weaseled into a Darwinian Tale

Evolution News &Views 

It's been 29 years since Richard Dawkins committed the Weasel Blunder and 25 years since Tim Berra committed Berra's Blunder, but some evolutionists still don't get it. You can't design something for a purpose and call it Darwinism. Even if some randomness is thrown in, once a goal is specified in advance, that's not evolution; it's intelligent design.

The latest example comes from PLOS One: "Morphological Evolution of Physical Robots through Model-Free Phenotype Development," by Brodbeck, Hauser, and Iida. Look for the evidence of guidance by the investigators:

Artificial evolution of physical systems is a stochastic optimization method in which physical machines are iteratively adapted to a target function. The key for a meaningful design optimization is the capability to build variations of physical machines through the course of the evolutionary process. Theoptimization in turn no longer relies on complex physics models that are prone to the reality gap, a mismatch between simulated and real-world behavior. We report model-free development and evaluation of phenotypes in the artificial evolution of physical systems, in which a mother robot autonomously designs and assembles locomotion agents. The locomotion agents are automatically placed in the testing environment and their locomotion behavior is analyzed in the real world. This feedbackis used for the design of the next iteration. Through experiments with a total of 500 autonomously built locomotion agents, this article shows diversification of morphology and behavior of physical robots for the improvement of functionality with limited resources. [Emphasis added.]

These researchers from Switzerland carefully crafted a "mother robot" that could assemble pre-fab parts into blocks that could perform some simplified locomotion. The algorithm was set to reward "offspring" that performed faster. Despite employing Darwinian words like "fitness" and "selection," their work has "design" stamped all over it. Reporters, though, went ape attributing this to Darwinian evolution.

At PhysOrg, Sarah Collins titled her report, "On the origin of (robot) species" in tribute to the Great Bearded Guru. She's like a viewer of a magic show unaware of how the trick is done:

For each robot child, there is a unique 'genome' made up of a combination of between one and five different genes, which contains all of the information about the child's shape, construction and motor commands. As in nature, evolution in robots takes place through 'mutation', where components of one gene are modified or single genes are added or deleted, and'crossover', where a new genome is formed by merging genes from two individuals.

In order for the mother to determine which children were thefittest, each child was tested on how far it travelled from its starting position in a given amount of time. The most successfulindividuals in each generation remained unchanged in the next generation in order to preserve their abilities, while mutation and crossover were introduced in the less successful children.

In all fairness, Collins points out some differences between robots and natural organisms. Still, nowhere does she explain how the experiment clearly requires design instead of natural selection. She thinks the "mother" robot did the designing. And she takes on faith the opinion of one of the authors that they were watching Darwinian evolution happen before their eyes:

"Natural selection is basically reproduction, assessment, reproduction, assessment and so on," said lead researcher Dr Fumiya Iida of Cambridge's Department of Engineering, who worked in collaboration with researchers at ETH Zurich. "That's essentially what this robot is doing -- we can actually watch the improvement and diversification of the species."

At the BBC News, evolution reporter Pallab Ghosh titled his coverage, "Robots learn to evolve and improve." It's not clear how one could "learn to evolve" if evolution is an unguided natural process, but that's not the only conundrum in his article. Like Collins, he fails to make any distinction between intelligently designed robots and natural processes.

Engineers have developed a robotic system that can evolve and improve its performance.

A robot arm builds "babies" that get progressively better at moving without any human intervention.

The ultimate aim of the research project is to develop robots that adapt to their surroundings.

There's a second conundrum: if human minds are developing robots that evolve, isn't Ghosh making a case for intelligent design?

What the designers and reporters all seem to be missing is the fact that goals were determined from the outset. "Improvement" was defined as the ability to move faster. Yet in nature, not every successful animal is the speediest (consider the sloth, or the fabled tortoise and hare). Darwinian evolution cannot work toward a distant target. As Paul Nelson remarks in the film Living Waters, "Any evolutionary process you consider, any materialistic process you can consider has no foresight. It can't see five years, five seconds, five milliseconds into the future. For that, you need a mind."

The paper actually makes a powerful if unintended case for intelligent design when you think about it. Ghosh reports that Dr. Iida got into robotics because the ones he saw in real life were not as good as the ones he enjoyed in movies like Star Trek and Star Wars. "His aim was to change that," Ghosh says, "and his approach was to draw lessons from the natural world to improve the efficiency and flexibility of traditional robotic systems." He had an aim. He had an approach. He wanted to gain knowledge, or information. So he looked at the efficiency and flexibility of natural solutions, where he found efficient designs worth copying. In other words, he was motivated by biomimicry -- an approach saturated with design thinking.

But he used an evolutionary algorithm, someone might complain. True, but it wasn't evolutionary in the Darwinian sense. There's no such thing as a Darwinian "algorithm" despite the use of familiar lingo like mutation, selectionand fitness in the paper. Algorithms are intelligently designed for function. Once an algorithm is defined, a mindless mechanism like a computer program or robot can use it, applying inputs and monitoring outputs, as in this case. But those mechanisms were also predesigned to implement the predetermined goal.

Animal and plant breeders use "evolutionary algorithms" of a sort; they know what they want; they use algorithms of sexual reproduction, and they monitor the output to decide what offspring get to breed in the next iteration. All this is under the guiding hand of the intelligent agent (the breeder). Artificial selection is intelligent design, not Darwinism.

If the authors and reporters really wanted to see materialistic Darwinian processes in action, they should have taken their hands off the equipment, shut the door, and let nature take its course. Most likely, nothing more interesting would happen than rust.

Dawkins set a goal of generating Shakespeare's phrase "Methinks it is like a weasel." Berra watched cars "evolve" but missed the role of designers. The designers of these robots (and their Darwin-friendly reporters) committed both blunders. They had a target, designed a way to reach it, yet presumed after the fact that their carefully engineered "mother robot" resembled a mindless, material entity working by Darwinian natural selection. We can at least thank them for providing another opportunity to show why they really made the case for design.

With apologies to Johnny cash.

Being Hated by the Right People

Jonathan Wells 

As Johnny Cash reputedly once said, "It's good to know who hates you, and it's good to be hated by the right people."

Darwinist bloggers P. Z. Myers and Ian Musgrave hate me. In fact, Myers writes, "My animus for Jonathan Wells knows no bounds." Well, at least he (unlike Musgrave) spells my name right.

The most recent outbursts by Myers and Musgrave were provoked bymy February 29 blog on Evolution News & Views, in which I predicted that Darwinists would try to take credit for a recent French discovery regarding antibiotic resistance. And indeed they did.

In the course of claiming credit for Darwinism, Musgrave claims that I completely misrepresent evolution, molecular biology, genetics and history. Wow. At least I get points for comprehensiveness. As proof of my misrepresentations, Musgrave cites Wikipedia, which everyone involved in this controversy knows is about as balanced and reliable on this issue as P.Z. Myers's Pharyngula or The National Center for Science Miseducation's Panda's Thumb.

The main points in my original blog post were these:

I. Darwinism provides no explanation for the origin of complex enzymes (such as the one described in the French study) except to invoke "imaginary mutations over unimaginable time scales." Musgrave counters that the enzyme in the French study "isn't particularly complex, it's a simple 201 amino acid long protein." Of course, it doesn't take much of a skeptic to doubt that a 201 amino acid enzyme could originate by random mutation and natural selection. But instead of tackling that problem Musgrave simply describes how single mutations have been demonstrated to alter the properties of existing enzymes.

Fine. Except that the issue is not how existing enzymes can be altered, but how they originated in the first place. As in the case of whole organisms, mutation and selection can explain minor changes in existing species, but not the origin of species. Yet that's what Darwin's theory was supposedly about.

II. Darwinism played no role in the current research. The principal researcher in the French study disagrees, and >wrote to Musgrave's blog that "we did indeed use Darwinian evolution within this work (something unusual in structural biology). In order to obtain an enzyme with increased stability (a critical point for structural studies), we used selective pressure to obtain mutants of the enzyme."

So the researchers used artificial selection to good advantage. But artificial selection is not Darwinism. People were using artificial selection for centuries before Darwin came along, and they didn't need Darwin to explain it to them. Darwin argued that an analogous process also operates in natural populations -- and so it does. But he and his devoted followers went much further and claimed that it also explains the origin of new species, organs and body plans, which it doesn't.

The question remains whether our understanding of antibiotic resistance would owe anything to Darwinian theory even in the limited (and true) sense that selection operates in natural populations. I don't think so. Antibiotic resistance arises in clinical situations that are anything but natural. In 1956 Selman Waksman, the discoverer of streptomycin, pointed out that the isolation, purification and clinical application of antibiotics is highly artificial and has no counterpart in nature. According to Waksman, the application of Darwinian theory to antibiotics in nature was "totally unjustified." (Waksman, "The Role of Antibiotics in Natural Processes," Giornale di Microbiologia 2 (1956): 1-14.)

So I repeat the question with which I concluded my original blog post: "How, exactly, is Darwinian evolution essential to understanding and overcoming antibiotic resistance -- as the Darwinists claim it is?"

On Quirinius :The Watchtower Society's commentary.

QUIRINIUS

Roman governor of Syria at the time of the “registration” ordered by Caesar Augustus that resulted in Jesus’ birth taking place in Bethlehem. (Lu 2:1, 2) His full name was Publius Sulpicius Quirinius.

In the Chronographus Anni CCCLIIII, a list of Roman consuls, the name of Quirinius appears in 12 B.C.E. along with that of Messala. (Chronica Minora, edited by T. Mommsen, Munich, 1981, Vol. I, p. 56) Roman historian Tacitus briefly recounts Quirinius’ history, saying: “[He] sprang from the municipality of Lanuvium—had no connection; but as an intrepid soldier and an active servant he won a consulate under the deified Augustus, and, a little later, by capturing the Homonadensian strongholds beyond the Cilician frontier, earned the insignia of triumph . . . , adviser to Gaius Caesar during his command in Armenia.” (The Annals, III, XLVIII) His death took place in 21 C.E.

Not mentioned by Tacitus is Quirinius’ relationship to Syria. Jewish historian Josephus relates Quirinius’ assignment to Syria as governor in connection with the simultaneous assignment of Coponius as the Roman ruler of Judea. He states: “Quirinius, a Roman senator who had proceeded through all the magistracies to the consulship and a man who was extremely distinguished in other respects, arrived in Syria, dispatched by Caesar to be governor of the nation and to make an assessment of their property. Coponius, a man of equestrian rank, was sent along with him to rule over the Jews with full authority.” Josephus goes on to relate that Quirinius came into Judea, to which his authority was extended, and ordered a taxation there. This brought much resentment and an unsuccessful attempt at revolt, led by “Judas, a Gaulanite.” (Jewish Antiquities, XVIII, 1, 2, 3, 4 [i, 1]) This is evidently the revolt referred to by Luke at Acts 5:37. According to Josephus’ account it took place in “the thirty-seventh year after Caesar’s defeat of Antony at Actium.” (Jewish Antiquities, XVIII, 26 [ii, 1]) That would indicate that Quirinius was governor of Syria in 6 C.E.

For a long time this was the only governorship of Syria by Quirinius for which secular history supplied confirmation. However, in the year 1764 an inscription known as the Lapis Tiburtinus was found in Rome, which, though not giving the name, contains information that most scholars acknowledge could apply only to Quirinius. (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, edited by H. Dessau, Berlin, 1887, Vol. 14, p. 397, No. 3613) It contains the statement that on going to Syria he became governor (or, legate) for ‘the second time.’ On the basis of inscriptions found in Antioch containing Quirinius’ name, many historians acknowledge that Quirinius was also governor of Syria in the B.C.E. period.

There is uncertainty on their part, however, as to where Quirinius fits among the secularly recorded governors of Syria. Josephus lists Quintilius Varus as governor of Syria at the time of, and subsequent to, the death of Herod the Great. (Jewish Antiquities, XVII, 89 [v, 2]; XVII, 221 [ix, 3]) Tacitus also refers to Varus as being governor at the time of Herod’s death. (The Histories, V, IX) Josephus states that Varus’ predecessor was Saturninus (C. Sentius Saturninus).

Many scholars, in view of the evidence of an earlier governorship by Quirinius, suggest the years 3-2 B.C.E. for his governorship. While these dates would harmonize satisfactorily with the Biblical record, the basis on which these scholars select them is in error. That is, they list Quirinius as governor during those years because they place his rule after that of Varus and hence after the death of Herod the Great, for which they use the popular but erroneous date of 4 B.C.E. (See CHRONOLOGY; HEROD No. 1 [Date of His Death].) (For the same reason, that is, their use of the unproved date 4 B.C.E. for Herod’s death, they give Varus’ governorship as from 6 to 4 B.C.E.; the length of his rule, however, is conjectural, for Josephus does not specify the date of its beginning or of its end.) The best evidence points to 2 B.C.E. for the birth of Jesus. Hence Quirinius’ governorship must have included this year or part thereof.

Some scholars call attention to the fact that the term used by Luke, and usually translated “governor,” is he·ge·monʹ. This Greek term is used to describe Roman legates, procurators, and proconsuls, and it means, basically, a “leader” or “high executive officer.” Some, therefore, suggest that, at the time of what Luke refers to as the “first registration,” Quirinius served in Syria in the capacity of a special legate of the emperor exercising extraordinary powers. A factor that may also aid in understanding the matter is Josephus’ clear reference to a dual rulership of Syria, since in his account he speaks of two persons, Saturninus and Volumnius, serving simultaneously as “governors of Syria.” (Jewish Antiquities, XVI, 277, 280 [ix, 1]; XVI, 344 [x, 8]) Thus, if Josephus is correct in his listing of Saturninus and Varus as successive presidents of Syria, it is possible that Quirinius served simultaneously either with Saturninus (as Volumnius had done) or with Varus prior to Herod’s death (which likely occurred in 1 B.C.E.). The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge presents this view: “Quirinius stood in exactly the same relation to Varus, the governor of Syria, as at a later time Vespasian did to Mucianus. Vespasian conducted the war in Palestine while Mucianus was governor of Syria; and Vespasian was legatus Augusti, holding precisely the same title and technical rank as Mucianus.”—1957, Vol. IX, pp. 375, 376.

An inscription found in Venice (Lapis Venetus) refers to a census conducted by Quirinius in Syria. However, it provides no means for determining whether this was in his earlier or his later governorship.—Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, edited by T. Mommsen, O. Hirschfeld, and A. Domaszewski, 1902, Vol. 3, p. 1222, No. 6687.


Luke’s proved accuracy in historical matters gives sound reason for accepting as factual his reference to Quirinius as governor of Syria around the time of Jesus’ birth. It may be remembered that Josephus, virtually the only other source of information, was not born until 37 C.E., hence nearly four decades after Jesus’ birth. Luke, on the other hand, was already a physician traveling with the apostle Paul by about 49 C.E. when Josephus was but a boy of 12. Of the two, Luke, even on ordinary grounds, is the more likely source for reliable information on the matter of the Syrian governorship just prior to Jesus’ birth. Justin Martyr, a Palestinian of the second century C.E., cited the Roman records as proof of Luke’s accuracy as regards Quirinius’ governorship at the time of Jesus’ birth. (A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, edited by B. Orchard, 1953, p. 943) There is no evidence that Luke’s account was ever challenged by early historians, even by early critics such as Celsus.