Now why didn't I think of that?

An Open Letter to the Amazing Randi

David Berlinski
Discovery Institute

Dear Amazing Randi:

I just read your widely publicized letter to the Smithsonian about its decision to air The Privileged Planet, Discovery Institute's film on intelligent design. You find it "impossible to comprehend" why the Smithsonian has chosen to screen such a film. And, I see that you are willing to pay the Smithsonian Institute $20,000 so that they don't do it. 

I want you to know, you're doing the right thing. I figure the American people are dumb as posts. Who knows what ideas a film like that could put into their heads? You haven't seen the film either, am I right? See no evil, see no evil is what I always say.

But here's the thing, Randi. I was sort of planning to screen the film right here in my apartment in Paris. I've got a little screening room I call The Smithsonian right between the bathroom and the kitchen, I sort of figured I'd invite some friends over, open a couple cans of suds, sort of kick back and enjoy. Now you fork over $20,000 to the Smithsonian not to show the film and right away I'm showing the film here in Paris — that's just not going to work for you, if you catch my drift.

But hey, what are friends for? I mean for $20,000, I can make my screening of the The Privileged Planet go away too. An extra $10,000 and we spend the evening reading aloud from Daniel Dennett's autobiography. I hear it's a real snoozer, no chance at all that anyone's going to walk away from an evening like that with poor thoughts about the cosmos or anything like that. You handle the refreshments — nothing much, some cocktail franks maybe, a few kegs of French beer — and I knock ten percent off the price. What do you say?

Now I know what you're thinking, Randi, because to tell you the truth, I've been thinking the same thing. You;re thinking, hey, I'm out forty thousand seminolas to can this film in Washington DC and Paris, and right away, some yutz is going to figure it's show time in Oklahoma or Nebraska or even in New York, and what do I do then? I'm way ahead of you on this one. I've talked with my buddies at the Discovery Institute and for the right kind of donation, we poleax the film completely. That's right. It disappears itself, if you catch my drift. You get to keep the negatives, we keep the director's cut in our safe for insurance. Is this some sort of deal, or what? Now I know what you're thinking because I've been there myself. I know what you're thinking, the Discovery Institute? Bunch of right-wing weirdoes, am I right? Hey, it's not like that at all, Randi, I got to tell you. We here at the Discovery Institute, we're businessmen, if you catch my drift. We want to do the right thing and we want to do it at the right price. Look at it this way. The right kind of donation gets you total peace of mind. You really can't buy that kind of protection, only in this case you can. 

So give me a ring, or send me a note. I'd like to tell you we take checks, but you're a businessmen, too, am I right? It's got to be cash. More than you've got lying around? Not a problem. Just give George Soros a call. Tell him it's for a friend. Do it now. 

You'll sleep better at night.

Your admirer,

David Berlinski

PS: I write a lot of stuff for Commentary, too. For the right price, I don't have to write anything at all. Think it over. Let me know.

David Berlinski received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and was later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University.

Darwinists v. The real world?

Here Is How Evolutionists Respond to the Evidence
Cornelius Hunter

Mutations are rare and good ones are even more rare. One reason mutations are rare is because there are sophisticated error correction mechanisms in cells. So according to evolution, random mutations created correction mechanisms to suppress random mutations. And that paradox is only the beginning. That is because error correction mechanisms, as with pretty much everything else in biology, require many, many mutations to be created.

If one mutation is rare, a lot of mutations are astronomically rare. For instance, if a particular mutation has a one-in-a-million (one in 10^6) chance of occurring in a new individual, then a hundred such particular mutations have a one in 10^600 chance of occurring. It’s not going to happen. How do evolutionists reckon with this scientific problem?

First, one common response is to dismiss the question altogether. Evolution is a fact, don’t worry about the details. Obviously this is not very compelling.

Second, another common answer is to cast the problem as a straw man argument against evolution, and appeal to gradualism. Evolutionists going back to Darwin have never described the process as “poof.” They do not, and never have, understood the process as the simultaneous origin of tens or hundreds, or more mutations. Instead, it is a long, slow, gradual process, as Darwin explained:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case […] Although the belief that an organ so perfect as the eye could have been formed by natural selection, is enough to stagger any one; yet in the case of any organ, if we know of a long series of gradations in complexity, each good for its possessor, then, under changing conditions of life, there is no logical impossibility in the acquirement of any conceivable degree of perfection through natural selection

The Sage of Kent could find “no such case”? That’s strange, because they are ubiquitous. And with the inexorable march of science, it is just getting worse. Error correcting mechanisms are just one example of many. Gradualism is not indicated.

What if computer manufacturers were required to have a useful, functional electronic device at each step in the manufacturing process? With each new wire or solder, what must emerge is a “long series of gradations in complexity, each good for its possessor.”

That, of course, is absurd (as Darwin freely confessed). From clothing to jet aircraft, the manufacturing process is one of parts, tools, and raw materials strewn about in a useless array, until everything comes together at the end.

The idea that every single biological structure and design can be constructed by one or two mutations at a time, not only has not been demonstrated, it has no correspondence to the real world. It is just silly.

What evolution requires is that biology is different, but there is no reason to believe such a heroic claim. The response that multiple mutations is a “straw man” argument does not reckon with the reality of the science.

Third, some evolutionists recognize this undeniable evidence and how impossible evolution is. Their solution is to call upon a multiverse to overcome the evidence. If an event is so unlikely it would never occur in our universe, just create a multitude of universes. And how many universes are there? The answer is, as many as are needed. In other words, when confronted with an impossibility, evolutionist simply contrive a mythical solution.

Fourth, another common response from evolutionists is to appeal to the fitness of the structure in question. Biological designs, after all, generally work pretty well, and therefore have high fitness. Is this not enough to prove that it evolved? For evolutionists, if something helps, then it evolves. Presto.

To summarize, evolutionists have four different types of responses to the evidence, and none of the responses do the job.

Sons of Adam and Eve?

Adam and the Genome and Neanderthal Cave Art
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

As if on cue, science news today reports a remarkable discovery: cave art in Spain from upwards of 64,000 years ago, apparently by Neanderthals. The  Wall Street Journal  aptly summarizes the takeaway:

Neanderthals, once considered the low-brows of human evolution, may have been among the world’s first artists, creating cave paintings long before modern humanity arrived on the scene…

“Once considered”? This is timely because in the book  Adam and the Genome, which we’ve been reviewing here, theistic evolutionist and biologist Dennis Venema discusses DNA that has been extracted from fossils of extinct members of the genus Homo, including Neanderthals and the recently discovered Denisovans. He claims these groups were “not members of our own species” (p. 62). Yet apparently, they were so genetically similar to humans that we could interbreed with them.

And Neanderthals, as the journal Science now reports, had the capacity to create art. In the photo above, that is what looks like a ladder, suggesting that the artist was capable of “a much richer symbolic behavior than previously assumed.” The paintings, in three separate caves, are evidently not by “modern humans” since the latter would not reach Europe for another 20,000 years.

Very interesting. We have virtually no fossil evidence for Denisovans, so it cannot be said that they represent a non-human-like form. As for Neanderthals, here we have plenty of fossil evidence, and what we know shows that they were virtually indistinguishable from modern humans. Dennis Venema notwithstanding, some would consider Neanderthals to be members of our own species.

Casey Luskin explains in “The Genus Homo: All in the Family”:

Though Neanderthals have been stereotyped as bungling, primitive precursors to modern humans, in reality they were so similar to us that if a Neanderthal walked past you on the street, you probably wouldn’t notice many differences. Wood and Collard make this same point in drier, more technical language: “The numerous associated skeletons of H. neanderthalensis indicate that their body shape was within the range of variation seen in modern humans.”

He concludes:

We saw earlier that Leslie Aiello said “Australopithecines are like apes, and the Homo group are like humans.” This is consistent with what we see in the major groups of Homo like H. erectus and Neanderthals. According to Siegrid Hartwig-Scherer, the differences between these humanlike members of the genus Homo can be explained as microevolutionary effects of “size variation, climatic stress, genetic drift and differential expression of [common] genes.” These small differences do not supply evidence of the evolution of humans from earlier ape-like creatures.

Now exactly what the DNA evidence of Neanderthals and Denisovans means for Adam and Eve is still not completely clear. Here’s how Ann Gauger, Ola Hössjer, and Colin Reeves interpret Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA in their chapter “An Alternative Population Genetics Model” in the book Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique:

Archaic Populations, Humans or Not? As mentioned in Section 4, significant fragments of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA have been found among present day humans, so researchers suggested that some interbreeding took place between archaic populations and the ancient humans that supposedly emigrated out of Africa. This admixture is believed to have happened at least 50 000 years ago, and probably later on as well. It is in fact well known that gene flow between closely related populations is helpful in order to increase genetic variability and to avoid inbreeding, and indeed, the archaic introgression is believed to have had positive effects, like helping the Tibetans to adapt to high altitudes, and the non-Africans in general to adapt to colder temperature and to ward off infections. But the common descent model predicts a split between humans and archaic hominins more than 500 000 years ago. It would therefore be remarkable if two populations, after such a long time of separation, were still able to have fertile offspring.  But even if this were possible, because of the long separation, it is reasonable to believe that the offspring had low fitness, since our archaic ancestors had, most likely, accumulated many alleles which were deleterious for humans, before the admixture took place.

In view of this, it seems that the large fraction of archaic DNA among present-day humans is more reconcilable with a unique origin model, in which Neanderthals and Denisovans are descendants of Adam and Eve and hence our fully human relatives.

Even if they did exist as groups that were distinct from our own species, Homo sapiens, that in no way precludes the possibility that Adam and Eve were real people who were the progenitors of all modern humans.

Baby boomers v.millenials?:Pros and Cons.

We live in a theistic universe?:Pros and cons.

Earth in the scriptures:The Watchtower society's commentary.

EARTH

The fifth-largest planet of the solar system and the third in order of position from the sun. It is an oblate spheroid, being slightly flattened at the poles. Satellite observations have indicated other slight irregularities in the shape of the earth. Its mass is approximately 5.98 × 1024 kg (13.18 × 1024 lb). Its area is about 510,000,000 sq km (197,000,000 sq mi). Earth’s measurements are (approximately): circumference at the equator, just over 40,000 km (24,900 mi); diameter at the equator, 12,750 km (7,920 mi). Oceans and seas cover approximately 71 percent of its surface, leaving about 149,000,000 sq km (57,500,000 sq mi) of land surface.

The earth rotates on its axis, bringing about day and night. (Ge 1:4, 5) A solar day or an apparent day is a period of 24 hours, the time taken for an observer at any one point on the earth to be again in the same position relative to the sun. The tropical year, which concerns the return of the seasons, the interval between two consecutive returns of the sun to the vernal equinox, is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, on the average. This figure is the one used in solar-year calendar reckoning, and its fractional nature has caused much difficulty in accurate calendar making.

The axis of the earth tilts 23° 27ʹ away from a perpendicular to the earth’s orbit. The gyroscopic effect of rotation holds the earth’s axis in basically the same direction relative to the stars regardless of its location in its orbit around the sun. This tilt of the axis brings about the seasons.

The earth’s atmosphere, composed principally of nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, and other gases, extends over 960 km (600 mi) above the earth’s surface. Beyond this is what is termed “outer space.”

Bible Terms and Significance. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the word used for earth as a planet is ʼeʹrets. ʼEʹrets refers to (1) earth, as opposed to heaven, or sky (Ge 1:2); (2) land, country, territory (Ge 10:10); (3) ground, surface of the ground (Ge 1:26); (4) people of all the globe (Ge 18:25).

The word ʼadha·mahʹ is translated “ground,” “soil,” or “land.” ʼAdha·mahʹ refers to (1) ground as tilled, yielding sustenance (Ge 3:23); (2) piece of ground, landed property (Ge 47:18); (3) earth as material substance, soil, dirt (Jer 14:4; 1Sa 4:12); (4) ground as earth’s visible surface (Ge 1:25); (5) land, territory, country (Le 20:24); (6) whole earth, inhabited earth (Ge 12:3). ʼAdha·mahʹ seems to be related etymologically to the word ʼa·dhamʹ, the first man Adam having been made from the dust of the ground.​—Ge 2:7.

In the Greek Scriptures, ge denotes earth as arable land or soil. (Mt 13:5, 8) It is used to designate the material from which Adam was made, the earth (1Co 15:47); the earthly globe (Mt 5:18, 35; 6:19); earth as a habitation for human creatures and animals (Lu 21:35; Ac 1:8; 8:33; 10:12; 11:6; 17:26); land, country, territory (Lu 4:25; Joh 3:22); ground (Mt 10:29; Mr 4:26); land, shore, as contrasted with seas or waters. (Joh 21:8, 9, 11; Mr 4:1).

Oi·kou·meʹne, translated “world” in the King James Version, denotes “inhabited earth.”​—Mt 24:14; Lu 2:1; Ac 17:6; Re 12:9.

In each case of all the above senses in which these words are used, the form of the word in the original language, and more particularly the setting or context, determine which sense is meant.

The Hebrews divided the earth into four quarters or regions corresponding to the four points of the compass. In the Hebrew Scriptures the words “before” and “in front of” designate and are translated “east” (Ge 12:8); “behind” may mean “west” (Isa 9:12); “the right side” may denote “south” (1Sa 23:24); and “the left” may be translated “north” (Job 23:8, 9; compare Ro). East was also (in Heb.) sometimes called the sunrising, as for example, at Joshua 4:19. West (in Heb.) was the setting of the sun. (2Ch 32:30) Also, physical characteristics were used. Being almost the total western boundary of Palestine, the “Sea” (the Mediterranean) was sometimes used for west.​—Nu 34:6.

Creation. The planet’s coming into existence is recounted in the Bible with the simple statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Ge 1:1) Just how long ago the starry heavens and the earth were created is not stated in the Bible. Therefore, there is no basis for Bible scholars to take issue with scientific calculations of the age of the planet. Scientists estimate the age of some rocks as being three and a half billion years, and the earth itself as being about four to four and a half billion or more years.

As to time, the Scriptures are more definite about the six creative days of the Genesis account. These days have to do, not with the creation of earth’s matter or material, but with the arranging and preparing of it for man’s habitation.

The Bible does not reveal whether God created life on any of the other planets in the universe. However, astronomers today have not found proof that life exists on any of these planets and, in fact, know of no planet besides the earth that is at present capable of supporting the life of fleshly creatures.

Purpose. Like all other created things, the earth was brought into existence because of Jehovah’s will (“pleasure,” KJ). (Re 4:11) It was created to remain forever. (Ps 78:69; 104:5; 119:90; Ec 1:4) God speaks of himself as a God of purpose and declares that his purposes are certain to come to fruition. (Isa 46:10; 55:11) He made his purpose for the earth very clear when he said to the first human pair: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” (Ge 1:28) There were no flaws in earth or the things on it. Having created all necessary things, Jehovah saw that they were “very good” and “proceeded to rest” or desist from other earthly creative works.​—Ge 1:31–2:2.

Man’s habitation on earth is also permanent. When God gave man the law regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, he implied that man could live on earth forever. (Ge 2:17) We are assured by Jehovah’s own words that “all the days the earth continues, seed sowing and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, will never cease” (Ge 8:22) and that he will never destroy all flesh again by a flood. (Ge 9:12-16) Jehovah says that he did not make the earth for nothing but, rather, that he has given it to men as a home and that death will eventually be done away with. God’s purpose, therefore, is for the earth to be the habitation of man in perfection and happiness with eternal life.​—Ps 37:11; 115:16; Isa 45:18; Re 21:3, 4.

That this is the purpose of Jehovah God, sacred to him and not to be thwarted, is indicated when the Bible says: “And by the seventh day God came to the completion of his work that he had made . . . And God proceeded to bless the seventh day and make it sacred, because on it he has been resting from all his work that God has created for the purpose of making.” (Ge 2:2, 3) The seventh, or rest, day is not shown in the Genesis account as ending, as in the case of the other six days. The apostle Paul explained that the rest day of God had been continuous right through Israelite history down to his own time and had not yet ended. (Heb 3:7-11; 4:3-9) God says the seventh day was set aside as sacred to him. He would carry out his purpose toward the earth; it would be fully accomplished during that day, with no necessity of further creative works toward the earth during that time.

The Bible’s Harmony With Scientific Facts. The Bible, at Job 26:7, speaks of God as “hanging the earth upon nothing.” Science says that the earth remains in its orbit in space primarily because of the interaction of gravity and centrifugal force. These forces, of course, are invisible. Therefore the earth, like other heavenly bodies, is suspended in space as if hanging on nothing. Speaking from Jehovah’s viewpoint, the prophet Isaiah wrote under inspiration: “There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers.” (Isa 40:22) The Bible says: “He [God] has described a circle upon the face of the waters.” (Job 26:10) The waters are limited by his decree to their proper place. They do not come up and inundate the land; neither do they fly off into space. (Job 38:8-11) From the viewpoint of Jehovah, the earth’s face, or the surface of the waters, would, of course, have a circular form, just as the edge of the moon presents a circular appearance to us. Before land surfaces appeared, the surface of the entire globe was one circular (spherical) mass of surging waters.​—Ge 1:2.

Bible writers often speak from the standpoint of the observer on the earth, or from his particular position geographically, as we often naturally do today. For example, the Bible mentions “the sunrising.” (Nu 2:3; 34:15) Some have seized upon this as an opportunity to discredit the Bible as scientifically inaccurate, claiming that the Hebrews viewed earth as the center of things, with the sun revolving around it. But the Bible writers nowhere expressed such a belief. These same critics overlook the fact that they themselves use the identical expression and that it is in all of their almanacs. It is common to hear someone say, ‘it is sunrise,’ or ‘the sun has set,’ or ‘the sun traveled across the sky.’ The Bible also speaks of “the extremity of the earth” (Ps 46:9), “the ends of the earth” (Ps 22:27), “the four extremities of the earth” (Isa 11:12), “the four corners of the earth,” and “the four winds of the earth” (Re 7:1). These expressions cannot be taken to prove that the Hebrews understood the earth to be square. The number four is often used to denote that which is fully rounded out, as it were, just as we have four directions and sometimes employ the expressions “to the ends of the earth,” “to the four corners of the earth,” in the sense of embracing all the earth.​—Compare Eze 1:15-17; Lu 13:29.

Figurative and Symbolic Expressions. The earth is spoken of figuratively in several instances. It is likened to a building, at Job 38:4-6, when Jehovah asks Job questions concerning earth’s creation and Jehovah’s management of it that Job obviously cannot answer. Jehovah also uses a figurative expression describing the result of earth’s rotation. He says: “[The earth] transforms itself like clay under a seal.” (Job 38:14) In Bible times some seals for “signing” documents were in the form of a roller engraved with the writer’s emblem. It was rolled over the soft clay document or clay envelope, leaving behind it an impression in the clay. In similar manner, at the arrival of dawn, the portion of the earth coming from the blackness of night begins to show itself to have form and color as the sunlight moves progressively across its face. The heavens, the location of Jehovah’s throne, being higher than the earth, the earth is, figuratively, his footstool. (Ps 103:11; Isa 55:9; 66:1; Mt 5:35; Ac 7:49) Those who are in Sheol, or Hades, the common grave of mankind, are regarded as being under the earth.​—Re 5:3.

The apostle Peter compares the literal heavens and earth (2Pe 3:5) with the symbolic heavens and earth (2Pe 3:7). “The heavens” of verse 7 do not mean Jehovah’s own dwelling place, the place of his throne in the heavens. Jehovah’s heavens cannot be shaken. Neither is “the earth” in the same verse the literal planet earth, for Jehovah says that he has established the earth firmly. (Ps 78:69; 119:90) Yet, God says that he will shake both the heavens and the earth (Hag 2:21; Heb 12:26), that the heavens and earth will flee away before him, and that new heavens and a new earth will be established. (2Pe 3:13; Re 20:11; 21:1) It is evident that “heavens” is symbolic and that “earth” here has symbolic reference to a society of people living on the earth, just as at Psalm 96:1.​—See HEAVEN (New heavens and new earth).

Earth is also symbolically used to denote the firmer, more stable elements of mankind. The restless, unstable elements of mankind are illustrated by the characteristic restlessness of the sea.​—Isa 57:20; Jas 1:6; Jude 13; compare Re 12:16; 20:11; 21:1.

John 3:31 contrasts one that comes from above as being higher than one who comes from the earth (ge). The Greek word e·piʹgei·os, “earthly,” is used to denote earthly, physical things, especially as contrasted with heavenly things, and as being lower and of coarser material. Man is made of earth’s material. (2Co 5:1; compare 1Co 15:46-49.) Nevertheless, he can please God by living a “spiritual” life, a life directed by God’s Word and spirit. (1Co 2:12, 15, 16; Heb 12:9) Because of mankind’s fall into sin and their tendency toward material things to the neglect or exclusion of spiritual things (Ge 8:21; 1Co 2:14), “earthly” can have an undesirable connotation, meaning “corrupt,” or “in opposition to the spirit.”​—Php 3:19; Jas 3:15.

Yet more Darwinian storytelling.

Did Fish as Flotsam Conquer Land?
Günter Bechly


In evolutionary biology, the great transitions from one habitat to a totally different way of life have long proved to be the stuff of good storytelling. Based on an old idea from the eminent vertebrate paleontologist Alfred Romer (1933), Balbus (2014) suggested that tidal modulation influenced the evolution from “fish” to tetrapods in the Devonian period. This was supposed to be thanks to a much smaller distance from the Moon to the Earth, causing greater tidal ranges. Balbus (2014) speculated:

The two earliest known tetrapods with more than fragmentary remains, Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, are thought to have been fully (perhaps only predominantly in the case of Ichthyostega) aquatic creatures. The coastal and estuarial waters such organisms and their immediate ancestors are believed to have inhabited would have been subject to sizeable and irregular tides, leaving an inland network of pools. The farthest inland of these pools would on occasion have been left exposed weeks at time, ultimately evaporating. A creature caught in one of these isolated inland pools would consequently have faced dehydration or suffocation.

Now, Witze (2018) reports in Nature News on new results from simulations of the tides in the Devonian by two researchers from Bangor University.

They studied two time periods: 430 million years ago, around the time the first animal lungs evolved, and 400 million years ago, roughly the time of the first known land tetrapods.

What they found were tidal cycles that would have left fish stranded in tidal pools for two weeks.

The team speculates that fish that could have made their way out of the tide pool, and back to the water, would have been more likely to survive. Fossils of some of the earliest known terrestrial tetrapods, such as the Tiktaalik lobe-finned fish from Canada’s Ellesmere Island and trackways in Poland’s Holy Cross mountains, have been found in places that had these high tidal variations.

Well, that sounds interesting, but there are some tiny problems that might spoil this cute hypothesis: Acanthostega and Ichthyostega were actually not marine creatures at all, but strictly confined to freshwater habitats far from the coastline. Balbus (2014) recognized this problem but trivialized it by calling their association with a non-marine inland basin “a more ambiguous tidal zone.” You can’t make such stuff up. What about the famous “missing link,” Tiktaalik? The name Tiktaalik means “big river fish” in the Inuit language and indeed indicates its true provenance. Here is what its discoverer, Neil Shubin, wrote on the official Tiktaalik website:

We know that lobe-finned fish and the first tetrapods lived in freshwater streams because of the sediments we find them in. So we look for freshwater deposits, not marine.

Hmm, but fortunately there are still the Zachelmie trackways discovered a few years ago (Niedźwiedzki et al. 2010) in Poland and dated as not only older than Tiktaalik, but actually older than all other lobe-finned ancestors of tetrapods (the so-called elpistostegids).

These Zachelmie tracks were originally attributed to a marine intertidal depositional environment. So apparently, we have a perfect match of the oldest evidence with the new (old) theory. Indeed, the describers of these tracks also speculated “that the origin of tetrapods occurred, not in the vegetated margins or surrounding seasonal ‘flooded forest’ environments of rivers, as has frequently been argued, but in the marine intertidal and/or lagoonal zone.”

But again, we must spoil the fun: A brand new study by Qvarnström et al. (2018) demonstrates that the Zachelmie locality was misinterpreted in the original description of the tracks and indeed “represents a succession of ephemeral lakes with a restricted and non-marine biota, rather than a marginal marine environment as originally thought.” These tidal pools evaporate in totally unexpected ways, don’t they?

It is true that some elpistostegid lobe-finned fish, which are supposed to belong to the stem of tetrapods and were originally all interpreted as freshwater dwellers, have meanwhile been attributed to brackish estuarine habitats that may have been exposed to tidal influences (Clack 2012). However, the Zachelmie tetrapod tracks are distinctly older than all known elpistostegid fossils and thus cast considerable doubt on the hypothesis that tetrapods really evolved from this group of lobe-finned fish. It’s an inconvenient temporal paradox that is frequently encountered in the fossil record (compare the alleged origin of birds and feathers).

No wonder that Jennifer Clack, a renowned specialist on early tetrapodomorph fossils, remains skeptical about the tidal pool idea: “It’s only one of a plethora of ideas for the origin of land-dwelling tetrapods, any or all of which may have been a part of the answer.” You will not be too far off if you interpret this as meaning: We have no clue!


Literature:

• Balbus SA 2014. “Dynamical, biological, and anthropic consequences of equal lunar and solar angular radii.” Proceedings of the Royal Society A 470: 20140263.
• Clack JA 2012. Gaining Ground: The Origin and Evolution of Tetrapods. Indiana University Press, 523 pp.
• Niedźwiedzki G, Szrek P, Narkiewicz K, Narkiewicz M, Ahlberg PE 2010. “Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland.” Nature 463: 43-48.
• Qvarnström M, Szrek P, Ahlberg PE, Niedźwiedzki G 2018. “Non-marine palaeoenvironment associated to the earliest tetrapod tracks.” Scientific Reports 8: 1074.
• Romer AS 1933. Man and the Vertebrates. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
• Shubin N 2009. The Search for Tiktaalik. Website by the University of Chicago.
• Witze A 2018. “Ocean tides could have driven ancient fish to walk.” Nature News 15 February 2018.

The state religion?

American Lysenkoism, and the Darwinists Who Embrace It
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

On a new episode of ID the Future, Tod Butterfield interviews Michael Egnor, pediatric neurosurgeon at Stony Brook University, about the science-destroying practice of Lysenkoism. Dr. Egnor discusses Trofim Lysenko, a Soviet agronomist who for several decades in the 20th century was allowed to use the power of the state to enforce belief in Lamarckism in the Soviet Union.

The government punished people who questioned the reigning view, and the results were catastrophic. Today the term Lysenkoism applies to any use of government power to enforce scientific orthodoxy. It need not mean the Gulag; it could involve, for instance, the denial of federal grants to quietly enforce Darwinian orthodoxy. Lysenkoism punishes dissenters from politically favored ideas, and holds science back. How?  Download the podcast or listen to it here, and find out.

On Materialism of the gaps.

Mind the Gaps – Before Progressing Toward ID, Leisola Recounts Clearing Away Materialist Myths
David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

In the new book Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design , co-written with Jonathan Witt, bioengineer Matti Leisola tells the story of his intellectual and scientific journey from Darwinist to Darwin critic and proponent of intelligent design. On a new episode of ID the Future, Todd Butterfield reads the opening pages of the book.

Dr. Leisola explains how before he was able to look at the question of biological origins objectively, he first had to overcome biases and assumptions, built into his previous considerations, that guaranteed conclusions in line with materialism. One bias dictated that design thinking alone could be guilty of “gaps” (as in “God of the gaps”) thinking. Leisola found that, looked at with open eyes, science in fact discovers more and more anomalies, more mysteries, as it progresses. He realized that materialism at every stage inserts its own “gaps” explanations into growing fissures in what we thought we understood.

The Finnish scientist, as we’ve noted before, is not supposed to exist. His book itself, simply by existing, refutes a Darwinist myth. As you’ll hear from the excerpts, he also writes like a dream, which is a plus. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

A pair of twentieth century oracles examined.

Conservation of information v. Materialism.

The echo chamber fights back?

Education or Obfuscation? Avida in Science Class
Sarah Chaffee

What is a mark of a great teacher? One is the ability to take complex subject matter and explain it in a way that your audience can relate to. The opposite would be confusing students with high-tech equipment — for example, a computer program that supposedly demonstrates evolution.

A  paper in The American Biology Teacher this month recommends a student version of the program Avida for classrooms, Avida-ED. The authors note:

[I]t can be difficult to engage students in authentic scientific practice around the topic of evolution, mainly because biological evolution can be difficult to observe. An option that overcomes limitations posed by biological model organisms is digital evolution. Populations of digital organisms — mini-programs similar to computer viruses capable of self-replication — evolve in minutes and can produce large quantities of data in a short time. An example of digital evolution software is Avida, a research platform that was developed to model and test hypotheses about evolutionary mechanisms in a highly controlled and fast system. Avida allows biologists to investigate evolutionary questions that are difficult or impossible to test in organic systems (Adami, 2006), and has been used as a model system in well over a hundred experimental evolution studies for many kinds of evolutionary hypotheses (e.g., Clune et al., 2010; Grabowski etal., 2013).

So the idea is that Avida speeds up speciation. The paper goes on:

Software that simulates evolution is available for educators (e.g., SimBio’s EvoBeaker), but Avida goes further in allowing teachers to incorporate authentic research experiences on evolution in the classroom. Chief among the many advantages of using Avida to study evolutionary processes is that it constitutes a true instance of evolution rather than a simulation of it (Pennock, 2007b). We will not repeat the argument here, but the key point is that Avida implements the causal mechanisms of evolution, producing outcomes that are not predetermined but can be studied experimentally. Digital organisms in Avida (aka “Avidians”) replicate, mutate, and compete with other organisms for resources in their computational environment (Fig. 1). The system possesses all of the requirements necessary for evolution by natural selection to occur (Dennett, 1995). This is why it is especially useful to evolutionary biologists for basic research, but it is also compelling to teachers who want their students to actually observe evolutionary change in the classroom in real time. 

Let’s see here. A “true instance of evolution,” without true organisms. A computer simulation is not a “simulation.” Students can “actually observe evolutionary change in the classroom.”

Strong statements! But perhaps inaccurate? Yes, way off the mark.

Is it true that the program “implements the causal mechanisms of evolution, producing outcomes that are not predetermined but can be studied experimentally”? Of course not. In their recent book Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, Robert Marks, William Dembski, and Winston Ewert, of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, offer a more sober perspective.

On evolutionary simulations (Avida and others):

When software engineers perform a computer search, they are always looking for ways to improve the results of the search and how to better incorporate knowledge about the program being solved into the search algorithm. Evolution computer programs written by Darwinists, on the other hand, are aimed at demonstrating the Darwinian evolutionary process. The efficiency of the search is of secondary importance.

Despite these differences, the fundamentals of evolutionary models offered by Darwinists and those used by engineers and computer scientists are the same. There is always a teleological goal imposed by an omnipotent programmer, a fitness associated with the goal, a source of active information (e.g. an oracle), and stochastic updates.

On Avida in particular:

Avida is a computer program which, its creators say, “show[s] how complex functions can originate by random mutation and natural selection.” …[C]ontrary to the claims of the authors, the source of the success of Avida is not due to the evolutionary algorithm, but to sources of information embedded in the computer program. A strong contribution to the success of Avida is [a] stairstep information source embedded in the computer program….[T]he sources of information can be mined more efficiently using other search algorithms.

At the Evolutionary Informatics Lab website, you can try out an Avida-like program, Minivida, and test for yourself how preprogramed information affects outcomes.

It’s time for a bit of honesty in evolution education! Avida shows that evolutionary processes require intelligent design to hit predetermined targets. That’s the candid takeaway from a lesson about this software. Since we don’t recommend trying to bring ID into public school classrooms, there are undoubtedly more effective uses of class time than playing with Avida-ED.

Breaking out of the echo chamber.

Toward Self-Scrutiny in Science
Sarah Chaffee

An article at Phys.org recognizes a problem in science that we know a bit about. It shows up often in the evolution controversy: lack of self-scrutiny. In his article, “On unconscious bias in science,” Dr. Jaboury Ghazoul of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, describes issues in his own field, environmental science.

He notes the tendency of science towards “‘shoehorning’ observations to fit the theory.” This, he states, is a weakness of the system and not due to fraudulent behavior. Then, he writes:

None of this matters much in my field of plant ecology, beyond taxing the pride of the researchers concerned. It is more serious when derived conclusions have applied relevance, by influencing resource management or environmental policies. In applied fields of research, there is more pressure to deliver evidence, and more to be gained in doing so — which can increase the likelihood of unconscious bias. This might explain contrasting conclusions on, for example, toxicity of pesticides on bees from studies funded by corporations or environmental organisations.

This brings us to value-laden sciences such as conservation. Conservation scientists have an agenda. Our science provides an evidence base for conservation action, set within the value that global biodiversity ought to be protected. Conservation science aims to justify this value by demonstrating the benefits of biodiversity to local and global communities. But how credible can these claims be if research serves a normative conservation agenda? We are not dispassionate observers. If we question the veracity of studies funded by agrichemical industries, then shouldn’t the objectivity of research by avowed conservationists be subject to similar scrutiny?

Think about how this kind of reasoning relates to the intelligent design and evolution debate. If scientists come with the presupposition that there will be a naturalistic explanation for the origins of the universe and life, can they be “dispassionate observers”?

Some scientists have decided to speak out against those presuppositions. Those who are willing to buck the trend are a small but growing minority. Take a look at this list of 950+ scientists who dissent from Darwinian evolution.

One of them is James Tour of Rice University, who was ranked by Thomson Reuter as one of the top 10 chemists in the world, looking at citations per publication, in 2009. Tour has noted:

Those who think scientists understand the issues of prebiotic chemistry are wholly misinformed. Nobody understands them. Maybe one day we will. But that day is far from today. It would be far more helpful (and hopeful) to expose students to the massive gaps in our understanding. They may find a firmer — and possibly a radically different — scientific theory. The basis upon which we as scientists are relying is so shaky that we must openly state the situation for what it is: it is a mystery.

Let us hope that unassuming attitudes — like those of Ghazoul and Tour — will continue to impact science.

Debunking the junk DNA myth.

More Secret Codes in “Junk DNA”
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

Scientists find the most interesting things when they suspect function in poorly understood parts of the genome, rather than relegating them to the junk pile as useless. Here are two recent examples.

Silent Code in Action in Actin

“Actin is an essential and abundant intracellular protein that plays a major role in developmental morphogenesis, muscle contraction, cell migration, and cellular homeostasis,” say Vedula et al. in a paper in the journal eLife. A protein this vital commands our attention. How does it perform so many different functions? What governs the destination and activity of the different forms of actin?

The paper reads like a scientific detective story. A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the National Institutes of Health wanted to know why two forms of actin (isoforms) are nearly indistinguishable in terms of their sequence (except for four amino acids at one end), but perform very different functions in the cell. They also found it intriguing that these isoforms, β-actin and γ-actin, are coded by different genes, but end up looking very similar.

Let’s divulge the conclusion in the title of the paper: “Diverse functions of homologous actin isoforms are defined by their nucleotide, rather than their amino acid sequence.” Do you hear the word “code” coming? How about “silent code”?

Here we tested the hypothesis that β- and γ-actin functions are defined by their nucleotide, rather than their amino acid sequence, using targeted editing of the mouse genome. Although previous studies have shown that disruption of β-actin gene critically impacts cell migration and mouse embryogenesis, we demonstrate here that generation of a mouse lacking β-actin protein by editing β-actin gene to encode γ-actin protein, and vice versa, does not affect cell migration and/or organism survival. Our data suggest that the essential in vivo function of β-actin is provided by the gene sequence independent of the encoded protein isoform. We propose that this regulation constitutes a global ‘silent code’ mechanism that controls the functional diversity of protein isoforms. 

Good old controlled experimentation, using the CRISPR editing tool, showed that editing the gene for one form produced working copies of the other form. Mice that had defective genes for γ-actin could be rescued by editing the β-actin gene to produce γ-actin. All they had to do was edit five nucleotides to produce healthy mice with no β-actin at all, even though previous knockout experiments showed that mice without the β-actin gene die early in development. How could this be?

Further experiments suggested that it’s not the resulting amino acid sequence that determines the function, but “silent” substitutions in the gene. Something in the β-actin gene was regulating the outcome in a different way, even though it generated only γ-actin. The γ-actin isoform went to where β-actin normally went, and performed its function as if it were β-actin.

The researchers note that different isoforms of actin can have vastly different ribosome densities, differing up to a thousand-fold. In the cytoplasm, some isoforms can compensate for other ones. This arrangement provides flexibility to the cell in most cases:

These results suggest the actin isoform with similar ribosome density can plausibly compensate for the loss of one of the isoforms. In agreement, given the orders of magnitude difference in ribosome density between β-actin and other actin isoforms, none of the other actin isoforms can compensate for the loss of β-actin. We propose that changes in ribosome density arising from silent substitutions in nucleotide sequence, affect translation dynamics and protein accumulation rates, which in turn regulate functional diversity of actins.

The authors feel this kind of “silent code” may be at work in other protein families as well. The word “code” is ubiquitous throughout this paper. In another case, they describe the targeting of one actin isoform to the cell periphery by what they call “zipcode-mediated transport.” They have more to say about coding than evolution, in fact, except in one paragraph where they invoke the common Darwinian excuse that an essential gene tends to be conserved against alteration:

Despite the fact that non-muscle actin isoform genes have evolutionarily diverged > 100  million years ago, they have retained remarkable sequence conservation, far higher than what  would be expected if the synonymous substitutions in their coding sequence were completely randomized. (Erba et al., 1986). This is consistent with our idea that actin isoform coding  sequence exists under additional evolutionary pressure, over and above the conservation of  amino acid sequence. We propose that at least some of this pressure is aimed to maintain the divergent translation dynamics within the actin family, in order to drive their divergent functions.

It appears, however, that intelligent design research could be more productive in follow-up studies. They conclude, “Further systematic analysis of knockouts of homologous isoforms would enable establishing the universality of the ‘silent code.’”

Dark Matter in Your Brain

A more appropriate term for “junk DNA” might be “dark matter” — sequences that are not yet understood. Nature News illustrates a good use of this metaphor in an article, “‘Dark matter’ DNA influences brain development.” Amy Maxmen writes, “Researchers are finally figuring out the purpose behind some genome sequences that are nearly identical across vertebrates.”

A puzzle posed by segments of ‘dark matter’ in genomes — long, winding strands of DNA with no obvious functions — has teased scientists for more than a decade. Now, a team has finally solved the riddle.

The conundrum has centred on DNA sequences that do not encode proteins, and yet remain identical across a broad range of animals. By deleting some of these ‘ultraconserved elements’, researchers have found that these sequences guide brain development by fine-tuning the expression of protein-coding genes.

There’s no reason to suspect that any of the heroes of this article doubt evolutionary theory. But one lead researcher of a new paper did what a good design scientist would do: keep looking for function until you find it.

The results, published on 18 January in Cell, validate the hypotheses of scientists who have speculated that all ultraconserved elements are vital to life — despite the fact that researchers knew very little about their functions.

“People told us we should have waited to publish until we knew what they did. Now I’m like, dude, it took 14 years to figure this out,” says Gill Bejerano, a genomicist at Stanford University in California, who described ultraconserved elements in 2004.

What they found is the opposite of evolutionary expectations, even though the article assumes evolution:

Bejerano and his colleagues originally noticed ultraconserved elements when they compared the human genome to those of mice, rats and chickens, and found 481 stretches of DNA that were incredibly similar across the species. That was surprising, because DNA mutates from generation to generation — and these animal lineages have been evolving independently for up to 200 million years.

Genes that encode proteins tend to have relatively few mutations because if those changes disrupt the corresponding protein and the animal dies before reproducing, the mutated gene isn’t passed down to offspring. On the basis of this logic, some genomicists suspected that natural selection had similarly weeded out mutations in ultraconserved regions. Even though the sequences do not encode proteins, they thought, their functions must be so vital that they cannot tolerate imperfection.

You have to wonder what function Darwinian evolution had in this research. The expectations were wrong, the results were surprising, and the team found more design than was previously known — to the point of implying perfection. The only evolution-talk sounds like an after-the-fact gloss to keep the preferred narrative from being falsified.

For more on the tortured subject of supposed trash in the genome, see The Myth of Junk DNA, by Jonathan Wells.