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Tuesday, 17 November 2020

The Divided States of America?

 Time for red America and blue America to part ways?



How to split the USA into two countries: Red and Blue

Progressive America would be half as big, but twice as populated as its conservative twin.

FRANK JACOBS
14 November, 2018
How to split the USA into two countries: Red and Blue
Image: Dicken Schrader
  • America's two political tribes have consolidated into 'red' and 'blue' nations, with seemingly irreconcilable differences.
  • Perhaps the best way to stop the infighting is to go for a divorce and give the two nations a country each
  • Based on the UN's partition plan for Israel/Palestine, this proposal provides territorial contiguity and sea access to both 'red' and 'blue' America

If more proof were needed that the U.S. is two nations in one, it was offered by the recent mid-term elections. Democrats swept the House, but Republicans managed to increase their Senate majority. There is less middle ground, and less appetite for compromise, than ever.

To oversimplify America's electoral divide: Democrats win votes in urban, coastal areas; Republicans gain seats in the rural middle of the country. Those opposing blocs have consolidated into 'red' and 'blue' states decades ago.

Occasionally, and often after tight-run presidential elections, that divide is translated into a cartographic meme that reflects the state of the nation.

Jesusland vs. the U.S. of Canada

Canada annexes the entire West Coast and borders Mexico.

Image: Strange Maps

In 2004, this cartoon saw the states that had voted for Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry join America's northern neighbor to form the United States of Canada. The states re-electing George W. Bush were dubbed Jesusland.

Trumpistan vs. Clintonesia

Trumpistan is a perforated continent, Clintonesia is a disjointed archipelago.

Image: The New York Times.

In 2016, these two maps disassembled the U.S. into Trumpistan, a vast, largely empty and severely punctuated land mass; and Clintonesia, a much smaller but more densely populated archipelago whose biggest bits of dry land were at the edges, with a huge, empty sea in the middle.

Soyland vs. the FSA

Following state borders, a line separates 'red' America (in the south) from the 'blue' half of the country.

Image: Jesse Kelly

Writing in The Federalist, Jesse Kelly in April this year likened America to a couple that can't stop fighting and should get a divorce. Literally. His proposal was to split the country into two new ones: a 'red' state and a 'blue' state.

On a map accompanying the article, he proposed a division of the U.S. into the People's Republic of Soyland and the Federalist States of America (no prizes for guessing Mr Kelly's politics).

It's a fairly crude map. For example, it includes Republican-leaning states such as Montana and the Dakotas in the 'blue' state for seemingly no other reason than to provide a corridor between the blue zones in the west and east of the country.

Mr Kelly admitted that his demarcational talents left some room for improvement: "We can and will draw the map and argue over it a million different ways for a million different reasons but draw it we must," he wrote. "I suspect the final draft would look similar (to mine)."

Partition, Palestine-style

A county-level division between red and blue, with contiguous territories for both.

Image: Dicken Schrader.

"No, this map won't do," comments reader Dicken Schrader. "It's too crude and would leave too many members of the 'blue' tribe in the 'red' nation, and too much 'red' in the 'blue' state."

Agreeing with the basic premise behind Mr Kelly's map but not with its crude execution, Mr Schrader took it upon himself to propose a better border between red and blue.

Analyzing election maps from the past 12 years, he devised his own map of America's two nations, "inspired by the original UN partition map for Israel and Palestine from 1947." Some notes on the map:

  • To avoid the distortions of gerrymandering, it is based on electoral majorities in counties, rather than electoral districts.
  • As with the UN partition plan for Israel/Palestine, all territories of both states are contiguous. There are no enclaves. Citizens of either state can travel around their nation without having to cross a border.
  • The intersections between both nations are placed at actual interstate overpasses, so both states have frictionless access to their own territory.
  • In order to avoid enclaves, some 'blue' islands had to be transferred to 'red', and some 'red' zones were granted to the 'blue' nation. "This exchange is fair to both sides, in terms of area and population".
  • Both nations have access to the East, West and Gulf Coasts, and each has a portion of Alaska.

​Red vs. blue

Washington DC would remain part of 'blue' America, and its capital.

Image: Dicken Schrader

Some interesting stats on these two new nations:

Progressive America (blue)

  • Area: 1.44 million sq. mi (3.74 million km2), 38% of the total U.S.
  • Population: 210 million, 64.5% of the total U.S.
  • Pop. Density: 146 inhabitants/sq mi (56/km2), similar to Mexico
  • Capital: Washington DC
  • Ten Largest Cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, San Jose, Jacksonville

Conservative America (red)

  • Area: 2.35 million sq. mi (6.08 million km2), 62% of the total
  • Population: 115.4 million, 35.5% of the total
  • Pop. Density: 49 inhabitants/sq mi (19/km2), similar to Sudan
  • Capital: Dallas
  • Ten Largest Cities: Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, Charlotte, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Louisville, Kansas City, Omaha, Colorado Springs.

What about the nukes?

The partition would not create enclaves, but allow citizens of either nation frictionless access to the entire territory of their state.

Image: Dicken Schrader

'Blue' America would be roughly half the size of 'red' America but have almost double the population.

In terms of area, 'blue' America would be the 13th-largest country in the world, larger than Mexico but smaller than Saudi Arabia. 'Red' America would be the 6th-largest country in the world, larger than India but smaller than Australia.

In terms of population, 'blue' America would now be the 5th-most populous county in the world, with more population than Brazil but less than Indonesia. 'Red' America would be the 12th, with more population than Ethiopia but less than Japan.

For those who think this divorce would end the argument between both tribes, consider that both countries would still have to live next to each other. And then there's the question of the kids. Or, in Mr Schrader's translation to geopolitics: "Who gets the nukes?"

--

Many thanks to Mr Schrader for sending in this map.

Strange Maps #948

Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.

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Yes, more and more young adults are living with their parents – but is that necessarily bad?

Having grown kids still at home is not likely to do you, or them, any permanent harm.

 
Photo by Parker Gibbons on Unsplash

When the Pew Research Center recently reported that the proportion of 18-to-29-year-old Americans who live with their parents has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps you saw some of the breathless headlines hyping how it's higher than at any time since the Great Depression.

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What ended the Black Death, history's worst pandemic

The bubonic plague ravaged the world for centuries, killing up to 200 million people.

 

A man dresses as a plague doctor at the Bannockburn Live event on June 28, 2014 in Stirling, Scotland.

Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
  • The Plague was the worst pandemic in history, killing up to 200 million people.
  • The disease spread through air, rats and fleas, and decimated Europe for several centuries.
  • The pandemic eased with better sanitation, hygiene, and medical advancements but never completely disappeared.
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    Saturday, 1 August 2020

    Prophet of the new gods?

    How Much of Today’s Anarchic Nihilism Can Be Laid at Darwin’s Feet?

     David Klinghoffer

     

     

    There’s a pervasive sense afoot that something has gone wrong, in a very serious way, in our culture. Just in 2020, problems that were of, let’s say, an outpatient nature in their gravity have gone to full-scale emergency — a cytokine storm of trouble, is one way of putting it. But why? I’ve watched the once-beautiful city where I live, Seattle, pummeled by violent protests, the police undermined by those above them in the government. The city watches endless chaos as the mob rampages, and no one in authority seems willing to stop it. Neighboring Portland is worse. Such things are happening across the country. It is anguishing. 

    What Is Going On?

    We’ve seen things that were previously unheard of. A random example: as others have pointed out, you may have noticed from the videos of urban anarchy that it’s now women, not just young men, who are assaulting police officers and otherwise creating mayhem. It used to be that males had a monopoly on protest violence. Not anymore. What drives the astonishing anarchism, the nihilism of the young? What has drained the confidence of the adults, who should be the ones acting to assert order?
    That there might be something unique, exalted, and worth defending about human lives, about our traditions of moral and spiritual belief, about institutions like marriage or the family or about property, about our freedom or our equal dignity, about our privileged place in the cosmos — all these ideas, once agreed on across the culture, are eroding, with a gathering speed, before our eyes.

    A Powerful Myth that Shapes Us

    Of course I’m not saying everything can be laid to Darwin’s feet. But see how much nihilism has been justified and advocated by some very smart and influential people in the name of evolutionary theory. This is not just a scientific theory of biological origins. It’s a powerful myth. That observation alone doesn’t make Darwinism false science. A myth could be true. It only means that Darwinism conveys a vision of reality that can’t help but shape us deep within. The malignancy of it has been building for more than a century and a half. Something wrong in the way Americans are shaped reached a critical threshold this year.
    If you want to understand how that happened, because you want to know how it could be reversed, it’s not possible without considering the role of evolution advocacy, which begins in school and continues to bombard us into adulthood. Take three minutes and see if you agree with me.


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    Friday, 17 July 2020

    The death of higher Ed.?


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    Mining red gold?


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    Wednesday, 8 July 2020

    On the boundaries of evolution.

    Mistakes Our Critics Make: Limits of Evolutionary Processes

     Brian Miller

     

     

    In previous articles, I demonstrated how substantial quantities of biological information cannot emerge through any natural process (see here and here), and I described how such information points to intelligent design. Now, I am addressing the mistakes typically made by critics who challenge these claims (see here, here, here, and here). See my post from Wednesday, here, on misapplying information theory; and yesterday, here, on misinterpreting research related to protein rarity.
    Another very common error is to assume that evolutionary processes can generate large quantities of new information. Often evolutionists appeal to such mechanisms as gene duplication, lateral gene transfer, gene fusion, gene fission, and de novo origination. Unfortunately, no hard evidence exists that either these or any other mechanism can produce more than inconsequential amounts. In contrast, all experiments and all studies on the genetic variation in species demonstrate that natural processes either degrade information or only make trivial modifications to it, and arguments to the contrary consistently rely on circular reasoning (see here, here, here, and here). 

    Small Targets in an Immense Space

    The fundamental challenge is that viable proteins and other biological structures represent fantastically small targets in an immense space of possibilities. And, no mechanism or search strategy can substantially increase the efficiency of finding a target above that of a random search. This conclusion has been proven by the No Free Lunch theorems and the research I described in my previous article (see here and here). 
    To fully appreciate the challenge, imagine taking the text of Macbeth and attempting to rearrange and duplicate sentences and randomly change letters until the first few sentences of the book Lord of the Flies appears. Generating such a large quantity of new information would be impossible by any undirected means. For the same reason, the chance of any novel protein evolving with a complexity comparable to or greater than β-lactamase is beyond remote. 
    Moreover, the evolution of many novel complex traits, such as echo location in whales, requires the modification or creation of numerous proteins, physical structures, and neural connections. Such a feat is only possible through intelligent design.
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    Monday, 29 June 2020

    On the origin of information.

    The Information Enigma: A Closer Look

     Brian Miller

     

     

    The first video in our Intelligent Design YouTube Festival, “The Information Enigma,” consolidates the research and writing of Stephen Meyer and Douglas Axe into a 21-minute video. The presentation demonstrates how the information present in life points unambiguously to intelligent design. This topic is central to intelligent design arguments and the ID research program. Here I will flesh out in greater detail the concept of biological information, and I will explain why significant quantities of it cannot be generated through natural processes. 

    A Primer on Information

    A pioneer in the field of information theory was Claude Shannon⁠ who connected the concept of information to the reduction in uncertainty and to probability. As an example, knowing the five-digit ZIP Code for an address eliminates uncertainty about a building’s location. And, the four-digit extension to the ZIP Code provides additional information that reduces the uncertainty even further. Conversely, randomly generating the correct five-digit ZIP Code corresponds to a probability of 1 in 100,000, while generating the correct nine-digit ZIP Code corresponds to a probability of 1 in a billion. The latter is much less probable, so the nine-digit code contains more information. 

    Shannon quantified the amount of information in a pattern in what he defined as the Shannon measure of information. In the simplest case, the quantity is proportional to the log of 1/p, where p is the probability of a pattern occurring by chance.⁠ For the five-digit code, p would be 1/100,000, and 1/p would be 100,000. This measure can be thought of as the minimal number of answers to Yes-No questions that would be required to identify 1 out of N choices. To illustrate, imagine attempting to identify a pre-chosen famous actor out of eight possible people. If the answer to each question about the mystery individual eliminated half of the options, the correct answer could be determined with three questions. Therefore, learning the answer corresponds to acquiring 3 bits of information. Note that 2 to the power of 3 is 8, or conversely, log (base 2) of 8 is 3. 

    Information and Biology

    Information theory has been applied to biology by such figures as Hubert Yockey. In this context, Shannon’s definition had to be modified to distinguish between arbitrary patterns and those that performed some function.⁠ Shannon’s measure was modified to quantify “functional information.” The measure of functional information corresponds to the probability of a random pattern achieving some target goal. For instance, if 1 in 1024 amino acid sequences formed a structure that accelerated a specific reaction, the functional information associated with that sequence would equate to 10 bits since 10 Yes-No questions would have to be asked to select 1 entity out of 1024 possibilities. 

    Mathematically, 2 to the power of 10 is 1024, or log (base 2) of 1024 is 10. More advanced measures for functional information have been developed including algorithmic specified complexity and the more generalized canonical specified complexity. They follow the same basic logic. These measures help relate the information content of biological molecules and structures to their functional capacities. 

    Information and Proteins

    The information content of a protein’s amino acid sequence directly relates to its ability to control chemical reactions or other processes. In general, the higher the information content, the higher the level of fine-grained control over outcomes and the greater the capacity for elaborate molecular manipulations. For amino acid sequences with higher information content are more specified, so they can fold into three-dimensional shapes of greater precision and complexity. In turn, the higher specificity requirement corresponds to proteins being more susceptible to mutations — a few amino acid changes will often completely disable them. Functional sequences are consequently less probable, which is another signature of greater information content. This connection between information, sequence rarity, and complexity of function has profound implications for Doug Axe’s protein research. 
    Axe demonstrated that the probability for a random amino acid sequence to fold into one section (domain) of a functional β-lactamase protein is far too small for it to ever occur by chance. Therefore, the information content is too great to originate through a random search. Yet β-lactamase performs the relatively simple task of breaking apart an antibiotic molecule. In contrast, many of the proteins required for the origin of life perform much more complex operations (see here, here, and here). 

     The same holds true for many proteins required in the construction of new groups of organisms (e.g., animal phyla). Therefore, these proteins’ information content must be even greater. So the probability of their originating through a random search is even smaller. 

    Information and Design

    This conclusion is deeply problematic for evolutionary theory since no natural process can generate quantities of information substantially larger than what could result from a random search. 
    The limitation results from No Free Lunch theorems as demonstrated by the research of Robert J. Marks, Winston Ewert, and William Dembski (see here and here). It is further supported by theorems derived from research in computer science. For instance, computer scientist Leonid Levin demonstrated the “conservation of independence” in information-bearing systems. He stated the following: 
    The information I(x:y) has a remarkable invariance; it cannot be increased by random or deterministic (recursive) processing of x or y. This is natural, since if x contains no information about y then there is little hope to find out something about y by processing x. (Torturing an uninformed witness cannot give information about the crime!)
    The conservation law simply means that the information, I(x:y), present in one system, x, coinciding with another, y, cannot increase through any natural process. A nearly identical conclusion comes from information theory in what is known as the data processing inequality. It states that the information content of a signal cannot be increased by any local physical operation. 

    In terms of evolution, the first system (the signal) could be a duplicated gene or a nonfunctional section of DNA freely mutating, and the second could be any functional protein sequence into which the gene/section could potentially evolve. The theorems mandate that a DNA sequence (x) could never appreciably increase in functional information, such as more greatly resembling a new enzyme (y). This constraint makes the evolution of most novel proteins entirely implausible. 

    In the video, Stephen Meyer 6explains how information points to intelligent design by the same logic used in the historical sciences. In addition, the information processing machinery of life demonstrates unmistakable evidence of foresight, coordination, and goal direction. And, these signatures unambiguously point to intelligent agency. The same arguments hold true to an even greater degree for the origin of life. 
    The only pressing question is to what extent critics can continue to allow their philosophical bias to override biological information’s clear design implications.
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    Primeval tech v. Darwin again.

    Intricate, Optimized Designs in Insects Beg a Question

     Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

     

     

    The pesky housefly buzzing around your head as you reach for the swatter didn’t design its own aeronautical expertise. The ants trailing into your kitchen as you reach for the spray didn’t design their own navigational systems. And the brilliant butterfly you see in the garden as you reach for the camera didn’t design its own structural colors. Insects, the most numerous and diverse of all animal groups, frustrate people and arouse their admiration. We can’t eliminate them; we might as well understand them.

    Bed of Nails

    A daredevil lying down on a bed of nails doesn’t suffer harm, because the weight is distributed over a large number of nails spaced close together. Spreading them farther apart and making them bigger would definitely hurt! Some species of flying insects, like cicadas and dragonflies, use this strategy against bacteria. The photo above shows an unfortunate bacterium lying dead on the nano-nails of a biomimetic cicada wing, like a scene from a horror movie. 
    Interestingly, the nano-nails do not always split the bacteria open and make their innards fall out, scientists at the University of Bristol found (see also independent findings from the University of Illinois). Instead, they deform and penetrate the membrane, and also “inhibit bacterial cell division, and trigger production of reactive oxygen species and increased abundance of oxidative stress proteins.” In other words, they turn the microbe’s own stress signals against it, suspending the germ above the wing and preventing it from dividing. The scientists were able to mimic this behavior using titanium nanopillars, and found that it also combats biofilm formation.
    Now we understand the mechanisms by which nanopillars damage bacteria, the next step is to apply this knowledge to the rational design and fabrication of nanopatterned surfaces with enhanced antimicrobial properties. [Emphasis added.]
    See the open-access paper by Jenkins et al. in Nature Communications, “Antibacterial effects of nanopillar surfaces are mediated by cell impedance, penetration and induction of oxidative stress.” Killing bacteria structurally without antibiotics, sprays, or hand sanitizers would be a desirable strategy in many medical situations. It’s not likely a bacterium will develop resistance to this method of defense. The Bristol team believes it may also be possible for the pillars to discriminate between bacteria and stem cells, allowing therapeutic implants to work without infection.

    Armored Butterflies

    The paper-thin wings of butterflies don’t conjure up images of combat, but these delicate creatures face battles of their own: projectiles in the form of raindrops. To butterflies, raindrops are like cannonballs coming at them at 10 meters per second, threatening to shred their wings. What if a soldier could hold up a shield that instantly shatters an incoming missile into tiny pieces? That’s like what butterfly “armor” does to raindrops, researchers at Cornell University found. Scientists knew that wing scales are covered with microscopic bumps. In the Cornell Chronicle, Krishna Ramanujan describes what they saw in high-speed films of water droplets landing on the wing surface.
    “[Getting hit with] raindrops is the most dangerous event for this kind of small animal,” he said, noting the relative weight of a raindrop hitting a butterfly wing would be analogous to a bowling ball falling from the sky on a human….
    In analyzing the film, they found that when a drop hits the surface, it ripples and spreads. A nanoscale wax layer repels the water, while larger microscale bumps on the surface creates holes in the spreading raindrop.
    The micro-bumps are like needles to a balloon. A shattered raindrop instantly spreads out, providing more than one benefit to the delicate insect.
    This shattering action reduces the amount of time the drop is in contact with the surface, which limits momentum and lowers the impact force on a delicate wing or leaf. It also reduces heat transfer from a cold drop. This is important because the muscles of an insect wing, for example, need to be warm enough to fly.
    It’s not hard to think of ways this kind of two-tiered structure could improve artificial armor both against rain and against impacts of other kinds. For the physics details, see the paper by Kim et al. in PNAS, “How a raindrop gets shattered on biological surfaces.” The authors note that bird feathers, insect wings, and plant spores all make use of this trick. Some fungi can use those raindrop ‘cannonballs’ to launch their spores out into the environment.

    Fruit Fly Sensing

    “Can you imagine looking for a destination without a GPS, visual landmarks, or even street signs?” So asks Drexel University about how fruit flies find food. Consider the hardware and software packed into these tiny insects that are hardly visible except in swarms. First, they have olfactory sensory neurons, as do most animals, both vertebrates and invertebrates. The data from those neurons must be translated into actions. Drexel researchers determined that the flies have a primary system and a backup system. They can use their internal compass for path integration, but they can also measure the effect of hard turns and velocity changes on signal quality.
    Tracking fly movement in these zones, the team measured the interplay between orienting, non-orienting, and the ‘internal compass’ used by flies to get to their destination.
    “This study shows how non-orienting movement can be an effective mechanism for finding resources when directional cues are absent,” said senior author Vikas Bhandawat, PhD, an associate professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems. “Non-orienting movements are also found in expert navigators, such as desert ants. Once they are near their home, they depend on these movements to get there. Using fruit flies, we are finally gaining ground on tracking these movements alongside other techniques used and how environments and information can alter them.”

    Sea Skaters

    One of the few insects that has made the open ocean its habitat is the “sea skater,” a type of water strider that walks on sea water and can even leap and somersault off the surface. Phys.org brings news from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, where researchers find sea skaters to be “a super source of inspiration” for improving water repellant materials. Contributing to the research were scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography  in Southern California.
    A combination of waxy surface, small body size and shape in the legs and feet contribute to keeping these insects high and dry. When wet, they can leap high above the surface to shake off extra water droplets. The team had difficulty recording their movements in the lab; “We spent hours trying to capture their natural behaviors on film because they jump around a lot.” 
    The researchers used high-resolution imaging equipment, including electron microscopy and ultrafast videography, to study the insects’ varied body hairs, grooming behavior and movements as they evaded simulated rain drops and predators. The insect’s body is covered in hairs of different shapes, lengths and diameters, and it secretes a highly water-repellant waxy cocktail that it uses to groom itself.
    “The tiniest hairs are shaped like golf clubs and are packed tightly to prevent water from entering between them. This hairy layer, if the insect is submerged accidentally, encases it in an air bubble, helping it to breathe and resurface quickly,” says co-author Lanna Cheng, from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.
    Further investigation showed that only 5 percent of the leg touches the water surface, meaning that the bug is “practically hovering on air.” The scientists were also amazed at how fast it can jump. 
    “While taking off from the water surface, we observed H. germanus accelerate at around 400 m/s2,” says Thoroddsen. “Compare this with a cheetah or Usain Bolt, whose top accelerations taper off at 13 m/s2 and 3 m/s2, respectively. This extraordinary acceleration is due to the insect’s tiny size and the way it presses down on the water surface, rather like using a trampoline, to boost its jump.”
    Studying the hairs, waxy coating, and body shape is giving scientists plenty of inspiration for designing “greener and low-cost technologies for reducing frictional drag and membrane fouling” in artificial water-repellant materials. 

    All the Buzz

    That’s all the buzz for today. But consider the fact that none of these insects designed their own engineering marvels. They use them, but they did not invent them or “evolve” them. Bringing together the components of complex, integrated systems requires foresight and planning. Biological designs are supplied to organisms big and small by an intelligent cause, so that each being can flourish in its respective habitat, contributing to our rich and diverse biosphere.

     

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    Saturday, 27 June 2020

    Darwinism as secular spellbinding.

    Evolutionary Theorizing Depends on Magic Words

     Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

     

     

    Here is a quick tale about the evolution of the automobile.
    1. Billions of years ago, a chassis appeared.
    2. The chassis acquired an engine.
    3. The crankshaft found a side gig as a steering wheel.
    4. The steering wheel linked up with the brake pedal to form a universal joint.
    5. Seats developed. They probably arose when the first hood evolved.
    Now consider leading journals publishing this account after it has whisked through peer review. Is this not exactly what goes on in evolutionary theorizing? Darwinians have mastered the use of magic words that replace rigor with imagination. And they get away with it; nobody ever blows the whistle on what should be tagged a major scientific foul.
     
     New Findings About Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases
     
     Here is an example in The Scientist, a news magazine for working scientists who should know better. In the article, “Protein Synthesis Enzymes Have Evolved Additional Jobs,” writer Amber Dance explains new findings about aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, abbreviated AARS, the enzymes that attach amino acids to transfer RNAs. This important family of 20 enzymes stands between the DNA code, written in triplet nucleotide codons, and the protein code, written in amino acids. Ms. Dance recounts new findings that show several of these enzymes “moonlight” as workers with other functions. 
    Finding additional functions for these enzymes is a worthwhile discovery. Some of the additional functions involve angiogenesis, meaning they can be considered as targets for cancer treatments. But the article seeks to explain how these additional functions originated, especially in the sidebar, “When these functions arose in evolution” [emphasis added]. Magic words will be shown in bold type.
    • “For as long as living things have been building proteins based on the code carried by messenger RNA molecules, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases have been there.” (Where did they come from?)
    • “AARSs picked up additional domains that allow them to do much more.”
    • “While other proteins have adopted secondary functions…”
    • “These particular synthetases have been present and available for evolution to modify since protein-based life began.”
    • “But in the hundreds of millions of years that they’ve existed, these synthetases (AARSs) have picked up several side jobs.”
    • “The first blood vascular system, which lacked the endothelium present in modern vertebrates, probably arose in a common ancestor of vertebrates and arthropods around 700 million to 600 million years ago.”
    • “Around this same time, TyrRS acquired a glutamic acid–lysine–arginine motif that today is thought to promote angiogenesis.”
    • “Then, around 540 million to 510 million years ago, an ancestral vertebrate evolved a closed vascular system….”
    • “At some point around that same time period half a billion years ago, the TrpRS picked up a WHEP domain….”
    • “In addition, SerRS acquired a domain unique to this enzyme, which now prevents over-vascularization in developing zebrafish, and likely other vertebrates.”
    In this magic show, rabbits appear out of hats. Sleeves acquire pigeons. Scarfs arise out of tubes, and cards evolve and develop into the specific cards the magician needs.
    In fairness to Ms. Dance, her article focuses primarily on the science of discovery: how these functions were discovered, and what they might mean for medical treatments to help people. But it’s pretty clear that she is using magic words as placeholders for scientists’ ignorance. They add nothing to our understanding. They serve, rather, as statements of faith in the assumed power of natural selection.

    On the Origin of AARS by Magic-Word Selection

    Another example comes from the Tokyo Institute of Science. They offer “A Glimpse into Archaic Protein Synthesis Systems,” specifically, the origin of the AARS enzymes. “The study highlights the possible mechanisms of evolution” that led to these essential translators of the genetic code. This team favors the magic word “appear”:
    • “The evolution of this complex tRNA-aaRS system is a fascinating enigma, as the existing evolutionary evidence suggests that the upper half of the tRNA containing this operational code appeared earlier in evolutionary history than the lower half part that binds to the triplet code of mRNA.”
    • “Our data indicate the existence of a simplified process of alanine addition to tRNA by AlaRS early in the evolutionary process, before the appearance of the G3:U70 base pair.”
    • “Furthermore, using ‘RNA minihelix’ molecules, which are considered to be the primitive form of tRNA, we could also illuminate the ‘morphology’ of tRNA before the evolutionary appearance of the G3:U70 base pair.”

    The Power of Suggestion

    The word “appear” also appears frequently, along with accessory magical terms, in the Tokyo Institute’s paper in the Journal of Molecular Evolution by Arutaki et al., promising “An Insight into the Evolution of Aminoacyl‑tRNA Synthetases.” Like all good magicians, these Darwinians use the power of suggestion to make the origin of the genetic code sound possible.
    This suggests that the G3:U70 pair appeared early during genetic code evolution and used as a “second genetic code” (Chong et al. 2018). However, before the appearance of the specific G3:U70, minimalist RNA–protein interactions may have resulted in requisite aminoacylation activities. The activity of AlaRS-α shown in the present study may reflect a vestige of such a primordial aminoacylation of an RNA comprising a small number of nucleotides, including the NCCA-3ʹ (Fig. 6c). In related to this hypothesis, it is suggested that the G3:U70 base pair recognition is actually a later addition to the original operational code (Carter and Wills 2018), as it is likely implemented by segments of the enzyme that were not accessible to the earliest ancestral aaRS forms (Carter 2014). Furthermore, the genomic tag model proposes that ancient linear RNA genomes possessed tRNA-like structures with a 3ʹ-terminal CCA (Weiner and Maizels 1987). A hairpin RNA with NCCA-3ʹ has also been proposed as the origin of homochiral aminoacylation in the RNA world….
    The paragraph makes no sense unless you already believe that Evolution the Magician is doing real magic. If, instead, you are watching carefully to see how the trick is done, it becomes clear that the wizard is importing his own beliefs by sleight of mind, distracting the viewer with empty words. He is showing us a crystal ball with an artificial picture of a line of descent from simple to complex. He knows that the current observable genetic code is highly complex and specified, but he wants us to see a possible path by which blind molecules leaped over all the hurdles to get AARS enzymes where they are today. Some parts of the aaRS molecule, therefore, need to be named “primitive” so that they line up in their proper place in the story.

    Tell Him to Sit Quietly

    To understand the extent of illusion in evolutionary writing, one needs to take the magician out of it entirely, tell him to sit quietly, and watch the props move on their own. That’s what the “scenario” is all about, right? No magician was there to coax them along, telling them where to be and what to do. Robert Shapiro had a good way to describe this. Back in 2007, in Scientific American, he said this about the “appearance” of RNA in the RNA-World scenario:
    The analogy that comes to mind is that of a golfer, who having played a golf ball through an 18-hole course, then assumed that the ball could also play itself around the course in his absence. He had demonstrated the possibility of the event; it was only necessary to presume that some combination of natural forces (earthquakes, winds, tornadoes and floods, for example) could produce the same result, given enough time. No physical law need be broken for spontaneous RNA formation to happen, but the chances against it are so immense, that the suggestion implies that the non-living world had an innate desire to generate RNA. The majority of origin-of-life scientists who still support the RNA-first theory either accept this concept (implicitly, if not explicitly) or feel that the immensely unfavorable odds were simply overcome by good luck.
    To combine the two analogies, we could picture a golf course instead of a magic stage. An audience at the course is seated, but no golfer is out there playing. A ball is shown inside the 18th cup. The magician whispers, “See that ball? It played the course all by itself!”
    Keep an eye out for the magic words in Darwin literature. Richard Dawkins said, “The living results of natural selection … impress us with the illusion of design and planning.” That’s backwards. Those who know how to interpret illusions say, “The magic words of Darwinians about how actually designed organisms came to be impress us with the illusion of scientific explanation.” Good show. Bad science.
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    Wednesday, 4 March 2020

    John Public:Discount Socrates?

    Is Joe Blow “Anti-Intellectual”?

    Michael Egnor

    It’s a common claim among Darwinists that people who question “expert” scientific opinion on such topics as evolution, global warming, and the mind-brain relationship are “anti-intellectual” science deniers. Steven Novella, a Yale neurologist and credulous Darwinist and materialist makes the claim in a recent post:
    As science-communicators and skeptics we are trying to understand the phenomenon of rejection of evidence, logic, and the consensus of expert scientific opinion. 
    Ironically, Novella, who considers himself a skeptic, decries the skepticism of people who don’t agree with him.



    Purity and Consensus

     
    How can it be, scientific experts ask, that so many people doubt scientific experts? Novella:

     There is, of course, no one explanation — complex psychological phenomena are likely to be multifactorial. Decades ago the blame was placed mostly on scientific illiteracy, a knowledge deficit problem, and the prescription was science education. Many studies over the last 20 years or so have found a host of factors — including moral purity, religious identity, ideology, political identity, intuitive (as opposed to analytical) thinking style, and a tendency toward conspiratorial thinking. And yes, knowledge deficit also plays a role. These many factors contribute to varying degrees on different issues and with different groups. They are also not independent variables, as they interact with each other. Religious and political identity, for example, may be partially linked, and may contribute to a desire for moral purity.

     “Moral purity” plays a big role in Novella’s theory. A want of moral purity puts you in tune with the latest science consensus. Novella may have a point. He rambles about several scientific studies that cast aspersion on people who don’t sufficiently esteem scientific studies, and he concludes:

     [The] alternative [to science credulity] is populist rejection of not only experts, but the institutions of expertise and the concept of expertise itself. This leads to intellectual anarchy (often justified by portraying it as intellectual freedom, but that is not the issue and entirely misses the point). The populist view is mostly about believing what feels good, going along with an explanatory narrative that makes some kind of sense of a complex and scary world and organizes that understanding around vilifying an enemy, who is to blame for our problems. What’s scary is that our political and media institutions may favor such simplistic and appealing populist narratives, and disadvantage more nuanced approaches.

     To Novella’s chagrin, the rubes don’t fall in line with science experts nearly as often as scientific experts think they ought to. Why so?

    Joe Knows a Few Things

     Consider Joe Blow. Joe has no scientific education. He’s a truck driver. He works a couple of jobs to support his family, he pays his taxes, coaches his son’s little league team, and goes to church on Sundays. He is anything but a scientific expert, but he does know a few things. 

    Joe has been told since the 1980s that the world is going to end due to global warming. It sounds like those crazy guys with the placards who say the world is gonna end tomorrow. The earth’s sell-by-date keeps getting pushed forward — polar ice caps were supposed to melt, but didn’t, polar bears were supposed to go extinct, but didn’t, sea levels were supposed to inundate coastal cities, but didn’t, and tens of millions of climate refugees were supposed to perish fleeing the catastrophic heat. Joe’s still waiting. He is also still waiting for the apocalyptic global cooling he was told about in the 1970s (Joe ain’t no scientist, but he has a good memory). He remembers watching Paul Ehrlich on TV in the late 1960s warning that overpopulation was going to cause billions of people to die of starvation and cause nations to disintegrate over the next couple of decades. Joe wonders how a scientist could be so wrong and still keep his job and even get elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
    The Rules Don’t Apply to Scientists

     Joe knows that if he screwed up his own job like that, he’d be fired before the day was out. But those rules don’t apply to scientists. Joe remembers hearing that DDT and other pesticides was going to kill all birds and give us all cancer. DDT was banned, and lots of people started (again) dying of malaria, and scientists were pretty proud of themselves for getting DDT banned and told people who didn’t want to get malaria to sleep with nets.  
    Joe remembers being told by scientists in the 1990s that AIDS was going to spread to the heterosexual community and kill millions of Americans. He remembers the panic over Y2K, when nothing happened except that some scientists got big grants to study it. Joe has heard a lot about the science replication crisis — he doesn’t fully understand it, but he knows that it means that a whole lot of science is basically made up.
    Joe remembers his father talking about when the U.S. government sterilized tens of thousands of innocent people against their will because scientific experts insisted that humanity was degenerating due to poor breeding. Joe isn’t exactly sure what eugenics was, but he knows that nearly all scientific institutions embraced it for nearly a century, and Joe suspects that it was just a way to make sure there weren’t too many people like Joe.
    Thinking About Evolution

    Joe doesn’t know what to think about evolution. He believes in God, and knows that it’s obvious that a Higher Power made this beautiful and vastly complex world. He doesn’t have a problem with the claim that animals change over time, but he doesn’t think that scientists should drag his son’s teachers into federal court to force them to teach his boy that there’s no purpose in life. He thinks we should be able to question science, especially in schools. And he wonders why Darwin’s theory is so certain, since it can’t even stand up to questions from schoolchildren. 
    Joe wonders why scientists say that babies aren’t really human before they’re born, when it’s obvious that life starts at conception. Joe wonders why scientists say that there are lots of genders besides men and women, when it’s pretty obvious that men are men and women are women, and saying otherwise doesn’t make otherwise true. Joe thinks that if scientists don’t like fossil fuels, they’re free to stop using them. Why do scientists fly to global warming conferences in big jets, Joe wonders? Why do billionaires who preach about climate change own so many houses? And Joe wonders why no scientists objected to taking money from a known child molester like Jeffrey Epstein. Heck, if they didn’t speak up about that, why would anyone expect them to speak up for scientific truth?


    Joe Is No Scientist

    But he knows that time and time again scientists have lied and cheated and said stupid things and they’ve even sterilized and killed people, and they never seem to be held to account. Heck, they even seem to prosper when they’re wrong. 
    And Joe knows that he’s an expert on one thing: his own money. He pays his taxes, and when scientists call him stupid, what they always mean is that he doesn’t want his own tax money spent on what scientists want just because scientists want it. Joe thinks that scientists should explain why they screwed up so much in the past before we believe everything they say today. 
    In a democracy, Joe says, the ultimate expert is the people, and scientists have done little over the past century to earn people’s trust. Unaccountability is the name of the game in the scientific world. Again and again scientists screw up, and then they insult the people who pay their salaries and they insult the people who point out that they’ve screwed up. Joe thinks that employees should be polite to their employers.
    Joe may be anti-intellectual, but he’s no fool.

     

     

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    Tuesday, 4 February 2020

    The cell: Pandora's box for Darwin?

    Coming on Darwin Day, a New Video Series — Secrets of the Cell with Michael Behe

    Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC


    The cell is what biochemist Michael Behe has called evolution’s “black box,” its spectacularly complex, superbly designed contents unknown to Charles Darwin. When the box was opened by modern science, it was a turning-point moment for the articulation of the modern theory of intelligent design. A revolution followed, fundamentally challenging how scientists discuss the history of life.

    Of course that revolution remains ongoing. To reach ever-wider audiences of the skeptical and the unconvinced, whether in academia or the general culture, is the central mission of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. What better occasion for that could there be than February 12, also known as Darwin Day? The birthday of the great man is an occasion each year for atheists and materialists to promote once again the theory of purposeless, unguided evolution.

    Revolutionary Behe

    With that in mind, this coming Darwin Day, Wednesday of next week, we will be launching an exciting new way to introduce your friends and family to the revolutionary work of Professor Behe. It’s Secrets of the Cell with Michael Behe, a five-part YouTube series that will provide a non-technical and beautifully produced introduction to Behe’s key ideas. Look for it here at Evolution News.

    The series is the brainchild of filmmaker Cal Covert, President of Silver Ridge Productions, a media production company based in Virginia. Covert has more than 30 years of experience in television and video production. As a bonus, he graduated from Lehigh University, where Dr. Behe is a professor.

    Cal approached us in 2019 with an idea for a series that could reach a broad viewership with Behe’s ideas, and things developed from there.

    “I’m a big fan of Discovery Institute,” says Cal. “I’ve been a subscriber to Nota Bene for many years, and I read every edition. Dr. Behe and others have shown that good science points to intelligent design. I’d like to make videos that will go on the offensive and challenge people’s thinking with Behe’s findings in a way accessible to a broad audience.”

    A Passion for Communication

    Cal has a passion for communicating science to the general public. “For the last ten years much of my work has been in medical production,” he explains. “I work with surgeons, researchers, scientists, and patients as they tell their stories. These are widely viewed on Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms. The success of these videos has come through taking technical material and making it both understandable and compelling. That’s what I want to do with Behe’s ideas.”

    Secrets of the Cell employs Behe himself as the onscreen host, showing him like you’ve never seen him before — out in the woods, in an auto shop, operating a drone, driving a jeep.

    Each 4-6 minute episode investigates some intriguing discovery in science — micro-machines inside the cell, gears in insects, or the evolution of polar bears, and more. Behe uses the examples to explain his concepts of irreducible complexity, the “edge” of evolution, and Darwinian devolution. A new episode of Secrets of the Cell will be released each week from February to early March.

    “We are grateful for Cal’s inspiration for this series, as well as how he donated his professional talents for the project and raised funds for new animation and on-location footage,” says John West, CSC Associate Director. “We are always looking for fresh ways to expand the impact of our scientists’ work.”

    Among ID scientists, Mike Behe is a superstar. If you missed his thoroughly delightful Socrates in the City interview with Eric Metaxas, see it here now:

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    Saturday, 1 February 2020

    Uncommon descent?

    A Forest, Not a Tree? Nelson Asks Why Universal Common Descent Needn’t “Pay” for Failures

    Philosopher of biology Paul Nelson recalls the expectation, a scientific standard when he was an undergrad, that all living things would turn out to share a universal genetic code. How could they not if, as Darwin argued, there is only a single, universal tree of life? On a classic ID the Future podcast with host Brian Miller, Dr. Nelson discusses the implications of this failed prediction. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

    The question is a weighty one since it has emerged that there is no universally shared code, but, instead, many variants. When evolutionists realized this, they performed a sidestep, supposing that since the prediction flopped, it must be the case that the code can itself evolve. But this deft move allows universal common ancestry a luxury that other scientific theories are not allowed: the freedom to fail without paying a price. Nelson suggests that this is a reason to revisit the options in the evolution debate. Maybe life is not a tree but, as biologists are finding to be increasingly likely, a forest or an orchard. But then what are the consequences for strict naturalism?

    Broadly, Paul notes, there are four possibilities, each populated with scientific advocates, past and present: no design with common ancestry, no design with no common ancestry, design with no common ancestry, and design with common ancestry. In the last category, he mentions leading intelligent design proponents (Behe, Denton) but perhaps also, and this really intrigued me, the French paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, more typically thought of as a theistic evolutionist. That’s something I’d like to hear more about.

    Paul Nelson is a great explainer, remarkably lucid in illuminating complex subjects. You will enjoy this conversation.
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    Thursday, 30 January 2020

    Why the origin of life remains the bane of design deniers.

    Mystery of Life’s Origin Authors Reunite for Dallas Conference on Science & Faith
    Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC
    There was a wonderful turnout this past Saturday for the 2020 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, with more than 1,400 in attendance. A highlight was the reunion of the three scientists who sparked the modern intelligent design revolution. That was in 1984 with the publication of The Mystery of Life’s Origin. The pioneering authors, biochemist Charles Thaxton, materials scientist Walter Bradley, and geochemist Roger Olsen, are pictured above (from right to left, Thaxton, Bradley, Olsen), being interviewed by Stephen Meyer about the paradox-filled intellectual world of origin-of-life researchers.

    To Carry On a Legacy

    The audience, which had already nearly filled the parking lot 45 minutes before the event began, were rewarded with a very entertaining conversation celebrating a new book from Discovery Institute Press. Mystery of Life’s Origin was republished today in a very substantially expanded, updated version that brings the origin-of-life controversy up to date, with new contributions by Meyer, biologist Jonathan Wells, chemist James Tour, physicist Brian Miller, and astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, and a historical introduction by Evolution News editor David Klinghoffer. The new book is graced by an updated title, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: The Continuing Controversy.


    Dr. Meyer is of course one of the foremost scholars and ID proponents who have carried on the intellectual legacy of Thaxton and his colleagues. A photo from a pre-conference barbecue, at the home of Pam Bailey who manages Discovery Institute Dallas, shows Thaxton (front), and Olsen, Bradley, and Meyer:A presentation by Dr. Bradley was introduced appropriately by the director of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence, Robert J. Marks. His comments included the observation that as a theist, Dr. Marks is grateful to have all possible scientific explanations of the natural world, including intelligent design, available to him whereas atheists and materialists have that option arbitrarily foreclosed to them.

    A Tour of Intelligent Design

    The Dallas Conference was thus a tour of the theory of intelligent design from its beginnings, to today, and looking forward to the next frontier, which Stephen Meyer discussed: his forthcoming book, The Return of the God Hypothesis. The book shows that theism is the one view of reality that is consistent with the relevant scientific evidence.Political scientist and Discovery Institute Vice President John West illuminated the cultural and worldview impact of Darwinism, with its explanations of life’s wonders all rooted in suffering and death. Try fashioning a life-affirming culture from that. Michael Behe (above) discussed irreducible complexity and the provocative argument of his new book, Darwin Devolves, showing that “adaptive” evolution favored by natural selection usually involves squandering genetic information for short-term gains. In a Q&A, Dr. Behe fielded a controversial question from an audience member. The gentleman demanded to know about Behe’s plans for his facial hair. Is he going to allow his beard to really grow out, or not!?

    Finally, protein chemist Douglas Axe (above) demonstrated why any modestly sophisticated system showing functional coherence sets off our design intuitions, and rightfully so. These are indicators of extremely specified, low-probability events, which justify the inference to design.

    In every way, this conference was an even bigger success than our 2019 Dallas Conference. We are building on many strengths, and looking forward to 2021!
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