Molecular machines in their natural habitat.

 

Molecular Machine Safari

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC

From the safety of our imaginary tour vehicle, we drive inside a cell, looking at some of the elaborate robotic machines at work.

The Nano-Muscle Ratchet

Our tour starts by riding a vesicle into the cell. Behind us is a dynamin machine closing the vesicle. Dynamin is a molecular motor that plays a central role in clathrin-mediated endocytosis, a means of importing cargo from outside the membrane. As the vesicle forms, clathrin molecules interlock around our vesicle, creating what looks like a geodesic dome. We watch as dynamin grabs the neck of the vesicle behind us and tightens it like a balloon. Dynamin has 100,000 atoms! Oleg Ganichkin tells us why we humans rely on this motor working properly:

Dynamin is a mechanochemical GTPase that plays a central role in clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME). The 100-kDa protein polymerizes into helical filaments that coil around the necks of vesicles budding from the membrane. In the presence of guanosine-5’-triphosphate (GTP), such filaments constrict, whereas GTP hydrolysis is necessary to cut the neck, thus allowing the vesicle to separate. This process is crucial for cellular nutrient uptake and for synaptic transmission. Mutations in dynamin are associated with severe neurodegenerative disease and muscular disorders. [Emphasis added.]

Using linkers between domains, dynamin wraps around the neck of the vesicle like a boa constrictor and tightens it. In their paper “Quantification and demonstration of the collective constriction-by-ratchet mechanism in the dynamin molecular motor,” in PNAS, Ganichkin et al. found that the constriction ratchet really puts the squeeze on the neck: “we quantitatively validate the prevailing constriction-by-ratchet model for nature’s strongest torque-generating motor: the dynamin ‘nanomuscle.’”

The Splicer

As our safari vehicle exits the vesicle, we watch the clathrin molecules dissociate for re-use. The tour now continues into the nucleus. The driver inserts our ticket into the nuclear pore complex for validation, then we enter a world of dazzling activity. He drives us to a gene being transcribed on a DNA strand. He points to a huge molecular machine called the spliceosome. It is grabbing the nascent messenger RNA (mRNA) at several points, cutting out segments. What’s going on? Karan Bedi, a narrator from the Center for RNA Biomedicine at the University of Michigan, comes over and explains:

Several processes take place to produce mature mRNAs that then can be exported to the cytoplasm and used as a template for protein synthesis. After initiation of transcription and the go-ahead of elongation to produce the pre-mRNA, introns need to be spliced out and the protein-coding exons connected.   At first, pre-mRNA is made as a complementary sequence of the DNA but with slightly different chemistry and includes all the introns. Then the spliceosome machinery, made up of about 300 proteins, assembles “co-transcriptionally” at each intron junction as the RNA emerges from its synthesis. “Splicing is an incredibly complex process because of the great number of proteins involved that repeatedly need to assemble and disassemble at each junction. Also, the speed at which transcription generates RNA is quite fast so the splicing process has to be well organized. Many steps can go wrong and lead to various pathologies, which is why it is so important to have a better understanding of how splicing happens and how it is regulated,” said Bedi.

Bedi’s team found even more regulating factors that participate in this complex splicing process beyond the 300 protein parts of the spliceosome itself.

Fishing Expedition

While in the nucleus, the driver takes us to the management office, where researchers from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) are inquiring about how the transcription factors work. A team member comes over and explains,

If the human genome were a company, transcription factors would be the top-level managers, controlling when and how much genes are turned on in specific cells. These proteins typically bind short strings of DNA called ‘motifs’. Scientists estimate that there are up to 2,800 transcription factors, but binding motifs have been identified for only about 800 of them.

The Swiss team learns that the transcription factors act like switches that bind to specific motifs. With that knowledge, they go “fishing” for one, using a CGCG motif as bait. They get a strike! They “detected the Btg3-associated nuclear protein (BANP) as the only protein bound to the CGCG motif.” 

“This protein has been known before, but it was thought to repress gene activity at the periphery of the nucleus,” Grand says. “We show that it does quite the opposite: it’s a very potent activator of gene expression.”

“Why hasn’t this fish been caught before?” someone asks.

Despite its key role in regulating gene expression, BANP had been hiding in plain sight. “We believe that is because BANP is so essential: you touch it, and the cell dies,” Schübeler says. “This made it hard to identify it by any kind of genetic screening approach, which makes us wonder whether there are more of these factors out there that are invisible to us for the same reasons,” he adds.

The Translator

The safari minivan follows the spliced mRNA out the nuclear pore into the cytoplasm. It drives on a microtubule to a working ribosome. There, we see a team from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital observing and taking notes. They know that this is another crucial machine for life.

Expression of the information encoded in DNA makes life possible. DNA is first transcribed into RNA; RNA is then translated into protein. The ribosome is the molecular machine responsible for this second step. It decodes messenger RNA and makes proteins. Importantly, the ribosome is responsible for the synthesis of cellular proteins in all forms of life.

As they watch the mRNA chugging along through the ribosome at up to 20 bases per second, they marvel at the low error rate: one typo in 1,000 to 100,000 at this stage. Proofreaders down the line will reduce that error rate to one in ten million. The ribosome, furthermore, keeps that accuracy rate that high over thousands of cycles. The team moves their cryo-EM machines to take pictures of six new structures not previously described. They publish their findings in Nature, “Structural basis of early translocation events on the ribosome.”

The cadence and fidelity of ribosome transit through mRNA templates in discrete codon increments is a paradigm for movement in biological systems that must hold for diverse mRNA and tRNA substrates across domains of life.

“Any references to Darwinian evolution in your paper?”, we ask. “Are you kidding?” one laughs.

The Fail-Safe Powerhouse

A tourist wants to visit the powerhouse of the cell, the mitochondrion. She saw Discovery Institute’s animation of ATP synthase and wants to see it in real life. Inside the double membrane, the passengers find a team from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology investigating the organelle’s fail-safe mechanism. What happens, for instance, if the pH rises and all that power in the proton motive force goes into producing more reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are toxic to the cell?

Mitochondria are double membraned, with genetic information and functional units contained within its internal matrix. Mitochondria convert chemical energy into power for the cell by moving protons from outside to inside the matrix with the help of an enzyme responsible for energy conversion. But mitochondria also appear to impulsively and temporarily take up protons through another protein through a process called spontaneous transient depolarization.

Aha, the Japanese team found: increasing the pH increases the depolarization transients, and thus increases the number of ROS. And yet they know that “mitochondria have a mechanism to spontaneously avoid the production of excess reactive oxygen species,” so they want to figure that out. We leave them to their work as we marvel at the rotary engines in pairs spinning at 5,000 rpm up and down the cristae, generating fantastic amounts of ATP molecules. We watch as these energetic molecules are carefully ferried out the double membrane of the mitochondrion by automated robot-guarded gates, out to the cytoplasm to wherever they are needed. “This is amazing,” the female passenger exclaims. “It’s more wonderful than I had imagined!”

The driver must get back for the next group, so the passengers reluctantly take their seats and ride a microtubule out the exit. They chat about how terrific the tour was; they had no idea the cell was so complicated and yet orderly, too. They each vow to come back again for more. There is so much to see!

File under "well said," LXXIV

 "If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed."

Marcus aurelius.

Marcus Aurelius: an overview.

 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors (a term coined some 13 centuries later by Niccolò Machiavelli), and the last emperor of the Pax Romana (27 BC to 180 AD), an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.

Marcus was born during the reign of Hadrian to the emperor's nephew, the praetor Marcus Annius Verus, and the heiress Domitia Calvilla. His father died when he was three, and his mother and grandfather raised Marcus. After Hadrian's adoptive son, Aelius Caesar, died in 138, the emperor adopted Marcus' uncle Antoninus Pius as his new heir. In turn, Antoninus adopted Marcus and Lucius, the son of Aelius. Hadrian died that year and Antoninus became emperor. Now heir to the throne, Marcus studied Greek and Latin under tutors such as Herodes Atticus and Marcus Cornelius Fronto. Marcus married Antoninus' daughter Faustina in 145. After Antoninus died in 161, Marcus acceded to the throne alongside his adoptive brother, who took the name Lucius Verus.

The reign of Marcus Aurelius was marked by military conflict. In the East, the Roman Empire fought successfully with a revitalized Parthian Empire and the rebel Kingdom of Armenia. Marcus defeated the Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatian Iazyges in the Marcomannic Wars; however, these and other Germanic peoples began to represent a troubling reality for the Empire. He modified the silver purity of the Roman currency, the denarius. The persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire appears to have increased during Marcus' reign, but his involvement in this is unknown. The Antonine Plague broke out in 165 or 166 and devastated the population of the Roman Empire, causing the deaths of five million people. Lucius Verus may have died from the plague in 169.

Unlike some of his predecessors, Marcus chose not to adopt an heir. His children included Lucilla, who married Lucius, and Commodus, whose succession after Marcus has been a subject of debate among both contemporary and modern historians. The Column and Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius still stand in Rome, where they were erected in celebration of his military victories. Meditations, the writings of "the philosopher" – as contemporary biographers called Marcus, are a significant source of the modern understanding of ancient Stoic philosophy. They have been praised by fellow writers, philosophers, monarchs, and politicians centuries after his death.

Yet more on why less is more.

 

What Is Minimalism?

WRITTEN by JOSHUA BECKER

am often asked the question, “So what is minimalism anyway?” It is a question I receive from people I have just met and from people I have known for many years.

I typically answer them with a short, simple explanation:

MINIMALISM IS OWNING FEWER POSSESSIONS.

Like I mentioned before, minimalism is intentionally living with only the things I really need—those items that support my purpose. I am removing the distraction of excess possessions so I can focus more on those things that matter most.

That is my short, elevator-pitch answer.

But oftentimes I desire to answer more in-depth. When people ask follow-up questions that allow me to explain simple living further, I like to add:

IT IS INTENTIONALITY.

It is marked by clarity, purpose, and intentionality. At its core, being a minimalist means intentionally promoting the things we most value and removing everything that distracts us from it.

It is a life that forces intentionality upon us. As a result, it forces improvements in almost all aspects of your life.

Intentionality looks different for everybody, as no two individuals are the same, but it requires each of us to dive deeper and become more introspective about our values and passions.

IT IS FREEDOM FROM THE PASSION TO POSSESS.

Modern culture has bought into the lie that the good life is found in accumulating things—in possessing as much as possible. They believe that more is better and have inadvertently subscribed to the idea that happiness can be purchased at a department store.

But they are wrong. Embracing minimalism brings freedom from the all-consuming passion to possess. It steps off the treadmill of consumerism and dares to seek happiness elsewhere. It values relationships, experiences, and soul-care. It lets us see all that we already have and reminds us to be grateful.

In doing so, we find a more abundant life.

IT IS FREEDOM FROM MODERN MANIA.

Our world runs at a feverish pace. We are too hurried, too rushed, and too stressed. We work long, passionate hours to pay the bills, but fall deeper into debt every day. We rush from one activity to another—even multitasking along the way—but never seem to get anything done. We remain in constant connection with others through our cell phones, but true life-changing relationships continue to elude us.

Becoming a minimalist slows down life and frees us from this modern hysteria to live faster. It offers freedom to disengage. It seeks to keep only the essentials. It aims to remove the frivolous and keep the significant. It values the intentional endeavors that add value to life.

IT IS FREEDOM FROM DUPLICITY.

Although nobody intentionally chooses it, most people live in duplicity. They live one life around their family, one life around their co-workers, and another life around their neighbors. The lifestyle they have chosen requires them to portray a certain external image dependent upon their circumstances. They are tossed and turned by the most recent advertising campaign or the demands of their employer.

On the other hand, a simple life is united and consistent. It has learned a lifestyle that is completely transferable no matter the situation. It is the same life on Friday evening as it is on Sunday morning… as it is on Monday morning. It is reliable, dependable and unfluctuating. It works in all circumstances. It is honest and transparent.

IT IS COUNTER-CULTURAL.

We live in a world that idolizes celebrities. They are photographed for magazines, interviewed on the radio, and recorded for television. Their lives are held up as the golden standard and are envied by many. People who live simple lives are not championed by the media in the same way. They don‘t fit into the consumerist culture that is promoted by corporations and politicians. Yet, they live a life that is attractive and inviting.

While most people are chasing after success, glamour, and fame, minimalism calls out to us with a smaller, quieter, calmer voice. It invites us to slow down, consume less, but enjoy more. And when we meet someone living a simplified life, we often recognize that we have been chasing after the wrong things all along.

IT IS NOT EXTERNAL, BUT INTERNAL.

In my first book, Simplify, I outline 7 guiding principles to help anyone declutter their home and life. The principles outlined in the book have helped hundreds of thousands find freedom by removing much of the physical clutter in their homes. The book concentrates almost exclusively on the externals of life. And while it helps people find freedom from external clutter, it does not take the next step of helping people find freedom and unity in their heart and soul.

I have learned embracing this lifestyle is always a matter of the heart. After the external clutter has been removed, we create the space to address the deepest heart issues that impact our relationships and life.

IT IS COMPLETELY ACHIEVABLE.

Becoming a minimalist is completely achievable. My family stands as living proof. We were just your typical family of four living in the suburbs accumulating as much stuff as our income and credit cards would allow. Then, we found minimalism. We have embraced minimalist living and will never go back to the way life was before. We stand as living proof that simple living is completely achievable (and unique) to anyone who seeks it.

Typically, I find that those who are generally interested in knowing more and take the time to ask the follow-up questions are drawn to the principles of a minimalist lifestyle. After all, it offers almost everything our heart has been asking for all along.

If this perspective is completely foreign and you need more guidance on how to become a minimalist, you can find a list of our most popular posts here.

Josephus on Jesus of Nazareth.

 The extant manuscripts of the book Antiquities of the Jews, written by the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus around 93–94 AD, contain two references to Jesus of Nazareth and one reference to John the Baptist.

The first and most extensive reference to Jesus in the Antiquities, found in Book 18, states that Jesus was the Messiah and a wise teacher who was crucified by Pontius Pilate. It is commonly called the Testimonium Flavianum. Almost all modern scholars reject the authenticity of this passage in its present form, while most scholars nevertheless hold that it contains an authentic nucleus referencing the life and execution of Jesus by Pilate, which was then subject to Christian interpolation or alteration. However, the exact nature and extent of the Christian redaction remains unclear.

Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the second reference to Jesus in the Antiquities, found in Book 20, Chapter 9, which mentions "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James." This reference is considered to be more authentic than the Testimonium.

Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter 5 of the Antiquities to the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist also to be authentic and not a Christian interpolation. A number of differences exist between the statements by Josephus regarding the death of John the Baptist and the New Testament accounts. Scholars generally view these variations as indications that the Josephus passages are not interpolations, since a Christian interpolator would likely have made them correspond to the New Testament accounts, not differ from them. Scholars have provided explanations for their inclusion in Josephus' later works.

Flavius Josephus:an overview.

 Titus Flavius Josephus , born Yosef ben Matityahu (Hebrew: יוסף בן מתתיהו‎ Yōsef ben Matiṯyāhu; Greek: Ἰώσηπος Ματθίου παῖς Iṓsēpos Matthíou paîs), was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry.

He initially fought against the Romans during the First Jewish–Roman War as head of Jewish forces in Galilee, until surrendering in 67 CE to Roman forces led by Vespasian after the six-week siege of Jotapata. Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Jewish–Roman War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and presumably interpreter. After Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperor's family name of Flavius.

Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship. He became an advisor and friend of Vespasian's son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt, the city's pillaging and the looting and destruction of Herod's Temple (Second Temple) soon followed.

Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century CE and the First Jewish–Roman War (66–70 CE), including the siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War (c. 75) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94). The Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Greek and Roman audience. These works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity, although not specifically mentioned by Josephus. Josephus's works are the chief source next to the Bible for the history and antiquity of ancient Palestine, and provide a significant and independent extra-Biblical account of such figures as Pontius Pilate, Herod the Great, John the Baptist, and - possibly - Jesus of Nazareth

Living art by design.

 

Living Murals: Wall Art Made by Photosynthetic Bacteria

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC

Familiar to every desert explorer, certain dark shiny walls stand out from the normally red cliffs of mesas and canyons in the southwestern United States. Native Americans for centuries etched drawings into them. The ubiquitous desert varnish that coats sunlit walls of sandstone in Utah and other desert environments around the world, though, has long been an enigma to scientists. How does it form? Why does it form? Now, they believe they have the answer: the artists are photosynthetic bacteria.

In their commentary in PNAS, “Shining light on photosynthetic microbes and manganese-enriched rock varnish,” Valeria C. Culotta and Asia S. Wildeman are glad that a comprehensive explanation has finally arrived.

The varnish is a metal coating several hundred microns deep, composed largely of black oxides of manganeseor orange-colored iron oxides. Many ancient petroglyphs of Native Americans were created by etching into the black or orange coat of varnish, exposing the lighter rock underneath. The blackened manganese-rich varnish contains Mn3+ or Mn4+ oxides at concentrations two to three orders of magnitude higher than manganese levels in neighboring soils or rock. These varnishes develop very slowly over time, requiring thousands of years in the making. In a paper by Lingappa et al. the secrets of rock varnish genesis are unveiled by the discovery of microbes that inhabit desert rock and deposit manganese footprints as their legacy. [Emphasis added.]

Desert varnish, it turns out, is a product of generations of microbes stacking their work, like stromatolites, on top of the work of previous generations. Varnish increases in thickness over time. But it doesn’t take inordinately long, either, because new varnish can be found on top of earlier etchings. The bacteria utilize doubly ionized manganese (Mn2+) while alive. After they die, other bacteria or abiotic processes convert that to Mn3+ or Mn4+ oxides. This explains the earlier observations.

About Manganese

Manganese (atomic number 25, molecular weight 55) is the 12th most abundant element on earth, and the 5th must abundant metal; even so, that amounts to only 0.1 percent of earth’s crust. It is far less abundant in the solar system at large (360 ppm on Earth, 0.2 ppm elsewhere). According to the Chemicool website that documents such things, manganese was identified as a separate element in 1740. The Romans had used black manganese dioxide to make colorless glass — a function still in practice today. It’s used primarily in alloys now and finds its way into plastic bottles and aluminum cans, giving them stiffness. In life, it is an essential trace element for photosynthesis. All living things, including humans, need to ingest manganese:

In the human body several manganese-containing enzymes are need[ed] to metabolize carbohydrates, cholesterol, and amino acids. Typically our bodies have about 10 – 20 mg manganese. This needs to be topped up frequently because our bodies cannot store it. About a quarter of the manganese in our bodies is in bone, while the rest is evenly distributed through our tissues.

Michael Denton includes a section on manganese in his short book The Miracle of the Cell, where he describes the element’s crucial role in chloroplasts for oxidizing water. The compound Mn4Ca resides at the heart of an enzyme that enables plants to release oxygen to the atmosphere and use the spare electrons for the manufacture of biomolecules. Without that compound, life as we know it would be rare to nonexistent. Last year, Evolution News discussed how manganese and other trace metals are delivered in usable form to the surface of the earth by glaciers — one of several geological processes that ensure that essential elements are available for living organisms.

Microbes Involved in Desert Varnish

Having five free electrons, manganese can take on multiple redox states in various oxides which, like iron oxides, can be colorful. The manganese oxides on desert walls take on a shiny dark purple color. Scientists had discovered microbes in the varnish but they lacked an explanation for how the microbes deposited manganese on the rock in such high concentrations. Culotta and Wildeman explain the breakthrough made by the Lingappa team:

What was missing from these initial analyses of varnish microbes was an explanation for the origin of manganese. Regardless of its redox state, how does manganese in such abundance get there in the first place? A breakthrough was obtained by Lingappa et al. through analyses of the physical, microbiological, and bioinorganic properties of diverse samples of desert varnish. A principal finding was the strong enrichment of the Xenococcaceae family of Cynanobacteria at all sites of desert varnish examined. The evidence shows these photosynthetic bacteria are not a mere passenger but rather a driver of desert varnish, responsible for depositing manganese in high concentrations at varnish locales.

In short, desert varnish is a product of photosynthetic cyanobacteria! On those dry desert cliffs, living cells are growing and releasing oxygen to breathe. This explains why the material is favored on sunlit walls. Not only that, the bacteria also convert the much-discussed greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into forms of carbon that neighboring cells can use for their Calvin cycle, “thereby promoting microbial growth in the otherwise nutrient-sparse environment of the desert.” The astonishing result is an “invisible intricate ecosystem that over thousands of years created [these] beautiful glittering rocks.” Climatologists will undoubtedly be glad for the natural carbon-capture process, too.

Concentrated Defense

How do microbes concentrate manganese at levels hundreds or thousands of times higher than the surrounding environment? Apparently, the answer is blowing in the wind. Dust carried by wind delivers this trace element to the cyanobacteria, which are able to import it and put it to use. Surprisingly, the Mn is “not bound to proteins or other macromolecules but rather to small organic or inorganic compounds.” 

But questions remained; why do these microbes need so much manganese? Cyanobacteria need about 100,000 atoms of Mn per cell to run photosynthesis, but these species were found to contain 100 million atoms per cell. Why? Chroococcidiopsis, the most abundant species on rock walls, uses the manganese clusters for sunscreen!

Although the nature of the Mn2+ complex(es) is still unknown, its redox activity is likely to bestow Chroococcidiopsis with extreme resistance to the damaging ROS [reactive oxygen species] effects of excessive desiccation, heat, and ionizing radiation.

A Bio-Geosphere Modulated by Microbes

What a remarkable thing to learn: what were once considered “primitive” cells are creating vast murals of living art on cliff walls around the world — not just for show, but for oxygen effusion and carbon capture, processes that benefit the entire biosphere. And they do this in some of the driest, hottest, and exposed habitats on earth!

The role of microbes involved in massive geophysical processes is becoming more evident. Bacteria are found in biocrusts, helping higher organisms establish a foothold in sandy deserts. They are implicated the formation of cave speleothems. And now we see them setting up shop on desert cliffs, creating ecological murals showing off biochemical wizardry. Bacteria travel the world in winds and clouds, bringing their expertise to some of the most inhospitable parts of the planet. Unlike the abiotic dust that carries them, microbes all operate on encoded information that directs molecular machines to perform work that is both functional and beautiful. In the original paper in PNAS, Lingappa et al. say,

The understanding that varnish is the residue of life using manganese to thrive in the desert illustrates that, even in extremely stark environments, the imprint of life is omnipresent on the landscape.

Rock Art Palimpsests

There’s an enthusiastic subculture of desert hikers and off-roaders — scientists, too — who understandably delight in finding rock art on canyon walls. It’s like a treasure hunt. They go to great lengths sometimes to find these silent messages left by former human societies who chipped figures of themselves and their animals and deities into the desert varnish down to the sandstone underneath. The artwork reveals something beyond nature: something about the minds of intelligent agents who took the time to leave their marks for posterity. If the hobbyists knew that the artwork in the chipped-away material was even more fascinating, what would be the reaction? Would it be like peeling away scratch paper containing stick figures to discover a masterwork underneath?

The tools of science are permitting us to peel away the surfaces of commonly encountered environments to reveal palimpsests of design that were always there but never seen before. Some of them are real wall-hangers. 

5 ways less is more.

 

The Benefits of a Minimalist Life

If you told a person they had to give up everything and only get by with the bare necessities of life they would probably ask why. They would wonder why not take advantage of the inventions and the luxuries that are available.

They will say they have earned the right to live their life the way they want to. They are right about this. What they do not know is minimalist living can be extremely humbling, and it will benefit them in many ways they may not be aware of.

1. Decluttering helps people breathe.

When you start to get rid of stuff from the drawers, closets, and attics, you are going to be opening up more space in your home. There will be more room to move around. More importantly, you will be letting go of things you were holding onto. This will give freedom and will make it easier for you to breathe without the burdens of the past weighing you down.

2. Minimalism allows for refocusing.

When you have a lot of material things, your focus can be all over the place. You worry about working enough to pay for all of the stuff and you spend your time trying to look for or put away all of the stuff in your home. When the stuff is gone and the bills of the home are lessened, it becomes possible to focus time and energy on the important things such as the people around you and the things you are doing.

3. Less stuff equals more money.

As you get rid of stuff and luxuries in the home, other things are opened up. The money spent buying stuff, maintaining stuff and making sure you have the best stuff will end up in the pocket instead of in the store. When you have fewer things you can use your money to pay off debt and that will eventually free up even more money. The dependency on money in a minimalist lifestyle is much lower.

4. You have more time.

When you need less money, you do not have to work as much. That frees up time. You are also not going to spend as much time dealing with all of the extra things in your life. You can focus your time on the things you need and use the extra time that is created on the things you enjoy.

5. You have more energy.

Without all of the clutter, all of the energy that is spent dealing with it will be available for other activities. People without the burden of a materialistic lifestyle are healthier and stronger as a result.

The great thing about minimalism is that it is a choice. People can choose whether they want to live this lifestyle or not. They can choose how far they want to go. There are no right or wrong ways to downsize a life.

Everyone is different. What most people will find is once they begin a journey towards minimalism, the experience will grow and the benefits will get larger and they will want more — and that is one thing a minimalist can want more of.

Detecting design in the origins of the cosmos/life.

Answering an Objection: “You Can’t Measure Intelligent Design”

Casey Luskin

An objection to intelligent design (ID) that I’ve heard for many years claims that ID can’t be considered science because “you can’t measure intelligent design.” Former director of the anti-ID National Center for Science Education Eugenie Scott used to say that without a hypothetical device she called a “theo-meter,” she did not know how to detect if God was at work. Even some scientists who are sympathetic to design arguments have wondered how we can detect design if we can’t “measure design like we measure the amount of some substance in a test tube.” 

The answer to these objections is that we test intelligent design in the same way that we test all historical scientific theories: by looking in nature for known effects of the cause in question (in this case, intelligent agency), and showing that this cause (again, intelligent agency) is the best explanation for the observed data. If that answer seemed a little bit technical or unclear, let me explain so that it makes more sense. We’ll see how precise quantitative measurements can in fact help us to detect design.

How Historical Sciences Work

Historical scientists who study fields like geology, evolutionary biology, cosmology, or intelligent design can’t put history into a test tube. They can’t measure what happened in the past like we might directly chemically measure the amount of some substance in a solution in the present. That doesn’t mean we can’t use scientific methods to study the past. It just means we have to use different methods in the historical sciences (which study what happened in the past) than we use in the empirical sciences (which study how things operate in the present). To claim that intelligent design isn’t science because we can’t directly “measure it in a test tube” is to misunderstand how historical science work, and to apply an unfair standard to intelligent design.

Stephen Jay Gould observed that historical sciences “infer history from its results.” Historical sciences (like Darwinian evolution and intelligent design) rely on the principle of uniformitarianism, which holds that “the present is the key to the past.” Under this methodology, scientists study causes at work in the present-day world in order, as the famous early geologist Charles Lyell put it, to explain “the former changes of the Earth’s surface” by reference “to causes now in operation.” 

Historical scientific theories thus begin by studying causes at work in the present-day natural world and understanding their known effects. They then examine the historical record as preserved in nature to find those known effects. When those known effects are found in the historical record, and those effects can only be explained by a given cause we’ve studied in the present day, then we infer that the cause was at work in the past. 

An Everyday Example

Imagine that you took your 4×4 truck off-roading and it comes back covered in mud. You drop the truck off at a carwash, and an hour later return to pick it up. How could you apply the scientific method of historical sciences to determine if the car was washed? Well, you could make predictions about what you’d expect to find if the car was washed, and then you could test those predictions. 

For example, if the car was washed then you might predict that there will be no major chunks of mud left on the exterior. This prediction could be tested by a simple visual analysis. If you see many chunks of mud remaining, that would refute your hypothesis that the car was washed. You could also undertake a more technical analysis, predicting that if the car was washed then there should be small amounts of soap residue left on the paint surface. You could scrape material off the surface of the car and perform a chemical analysis to confirm or refute this hypothesis. If you find that there are no chunks of mud on the car, and soap residue is present on the car’s paint, you would have positive evidence that the car was washed. 

As a historical scientific theory, intelligent design works in much the same way.

Detecting Design

The theory of intelligent design employs scientific methods commonly used by other historical sciences to conclude that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Intelligent agency is a cause “now in operation” which can be studied in the world around us. Thus, as a historical science, ID employs the principle of uniformitarianism. It begins with present-day observations of how intelligent agents operate, and then converts those observations into positive predictions of what scientists should expect to find if a natural object arose by intelligent design. 

For example, mathematician and philosopher William Dembski observes that “[t]he principal characteristic of intelligent agency is directed contingency, or what we call choice.” According to Dembski, when an intelligent agent acts, “it chooses from a range of competing possibilities” to create some complex and specified event. Thus, the type of information that reliably indicates intelligent design is called “specified complexity” or “complex and specified information,” “CSI” for short. 

In brief, something is complex if it’s unlikely, and specified if it matches an independently derived pattern. In using CSI to detect design, Dembski calls ID “a theory of information” where “information becomes a reliable indicator of design as well as a proper object for scientific investigation.” ID theorists positively infer design by studying natural objects to determine if they bear the type of information that in our experience arises from an intelligent cause.

Human intelligence provides a large empirical dataset for studying what is produced when intelligent agents design things. For example, language, codes, and machines are all structures containing high CSI. In our experience these things always derive from an intelligent mind. By studying the actions of humans we can understand what to expect to find when an intelligent agent has been at work, allowing us to construct positive, testable predictions about what we should find if intelligent design is present in nature. High CSI thus reliably indicate the prior action of intelligence.

Ruling Out Material Causes

Finding the known effects of intelligent agency (i.e., high CSI) fulfills a testable prediction of intelligent design and shows that ID can be positively supported by scientific evidence. But to shore up our conclusion that intelligent design is the best explanation for some feature we should also rule out other material causes and show that design alone can account for the data. ID theorists have developed methods for doing this. 

William Dembski proposed one way to rule out material causes; it is to show that the likelihood of an event happening mechanistically is below what he calls the “universal probability bound.” Essentially, the universal probability bound is an estimate of the maximum number of events that are possible in the history of the universe given all known probabilistic resources. It grants the overly generous assumption to material mechanisms that every elementary particle has been interacting at every unit of Planck time over the entire history of the universe. Dembski explains this concept with Jonathan Witt in their book Intelligent Design Uncensored:

Scientists have learned that within the known physical universe there are about 1080 elementary particles … Scientists also have learned that a change from one state of matter to another can’t happen faster than what physicists call the Planck time.  … The Planck time is 1 second divided by 1045 (1 followed by forty-five zeroes).  … Finally, scientists estimate that the universe is about fourteen billion years old, meaning the universe is itself is millions of times younger than 1025 seconds. If we now assume that any physical event in the universe requires the transition of at least one elementary particle (most events require far more, of course), then these limits on the universe suggest that the total number of events throughout cosmic history could not have exceed 1080 x 1045 x 1025 = 10150.   

This means that any specified event whose probability is less than 1 chance in 10150 will remain improbable even if we let every corner and every moment of the universe roll the proverbial dice.  The universe isn’t big enough, fast enough or old enough to roll the dice enough times to have a realistic chance of randomly generating specified events that are this improbable. 

WILLIAM DEMBSKI AND JONATHAN WITT, INTELLIGENT DESIGN UNCENSORED: AN EASY-TO-UNDERSTAND GUIDE TO THE CONTROVERSY, PP. 68-69 (INTERVARSITY PRESS, 2010)

Of course 10150 represents the “probability bound” for the entire universe, but when we consider the number of elementary particles and time available for different zones of the universe, we obtain the following probability bounds, as well as the information content they represent, measured in bits:

• Universal probability bound: 10-150 (or 498 bits)
• Galactic probability bound: 10-96 (or 319 bits)
• Solar System probability bound: 10-85 (or 282 bits)
• Earth probability bound: 10-70 (or 232 bits)

Using Measurements to Detect Design

Why are these probability bounds important? Well, we can measure the probability of various natural features arising through mechanistic causes alone, and then we can convert that probability into an amount of complex and specified information measured in bits. We can then compare that result with various probability bounds (as above). By applying the proper probability bound, we can determine if there are sufficient probabilistic resources for the structure to arise naturally. Or to put it another way, we can determine if the structure is likely to have originated by naturalistic means 

If the likelihood of the structure arising is below its relevant probability bound (or to put it another way, its CSI content is above the calculated limits of the information-generative power of natural processes), then a materialistic origin of that structure is effectively falsified. If the number of bits exceeds the relevant probability bound, we have a very good case for intelligent design.

A quick illustration: Douglas Axe’s research on proteins found that the likelihood of a random sequence of amino acids yielding a functional beta-lactamase enzyme is less than 1 in 1074. That is equivalent to 245 bits of CSI. Since this feature had to have arisen on Earth, the Earth probability bound is the relevant threshold for understanding what natural causes can do. And the Earth probability bound is 10-70 (or 232 bits). Thus, the amount of CSI in the beta-lactamase enzyme exceeds the Earth probability bound. The best explanation is design. 

So it’s true we don’t directly “measure” intelligent design in a test tube. But we can use measurements and calculations to detect design. If we calculate and measure that a structure contains more CSI than can arise by the relevant probabilistic resources available for a naturalistic origin of the structure, then we can detect design.