The spectre of homochirality continues to loom over OOL science.

 Origin of Life: The Challenge of Achieving Homochirality in a Prebiotic World

Carl Linnaeus

 It's  a challenge crucial for research on the origin of life. Among the many obstacles to generating biologically relevant polymers abiotically, achieving homochirality is perhaps the most difficult impediment to overcome. What is homochirality? Well, all macromolecules in life are composed of building blocks that exist as mirror images. The analogy of left and right hands is most commonly used to convey this chemical concept. With very few exceptions, life only uses one of these forms. 

The chemical properties of mirror imaged compounds are equivalent for all practical purposes. The production of these building blocks in a prebiotic world, using very simple compounds as starting material, would therefore be expected to result in a racemic mixture, or 50/50 distribution, of these building blocks. This has already been confirmed from analysis of organic compounds retrieved from an asteroid, as I wrote here back in May. 

Producing polymers consisting of only one configuration from this mixture is obligatory if a prebiotic origin of life on Earth is be convincingly explained to the scientific community. Proposing chemical schemes that produce polypeptides (proteins) or RNA using homochiral building blocks is the task at hand. Performing such a feat in solution appears unfeasible, so the prebiotic soup approach has been abandoned by many origin of life (OOL) scientists. A better alternative, widely investigated, is the use of mineral surfaces where adsorption of organic chemicals could theoretically select preferentially one configuration of a pair of chiral molecules. 

Here I will briefly discuss this experimental approach, noting where the relevant studies have led. I’ll first consider polymerization of amino acids to form proteins, followed by attempts to achieve this feat using RNA precursors.

From Racemic Amino Acids to Homochiral Proteins

Among studies showing efficacy in obtaining short lengths of amino acids to form oligopeptides, one of earliest was reported in 1978 (Lahav N., White D., and Chang S. (1978) Science 201: 67-69). The system employed, to facilitate the condensation reaction to form peptide bonds between amino acids, was the use of clay minerals (kaolinite and bentonite). Repeated cycles of heating, evaporation, and rehydration were invoked, which are conditions likely present on a prebiotic Earth. Using the simplest amino acid, glycine (having no chiral center), diglycine was found to be produced at low levels with progressively lower amounts up to pentapeptide lengths. Notably the heating-drying phase of this cycle apparently facilitates the condensation reaction, enabling peptide bond formation. 

A Long Way from the Goal

was a start, but still a long way from producing polypeptide lengths of any biological relevance. Small proteins should reach at a minimum 100-200 amino acids to effectively contribute to biological function. After this initial glimmer of hope, many other laboratories undertook similar approaches, testing out different mineral surfaces and a variety of reaction conditions. The highest achievers managed to produce polypeptides up to decamers. It became clear from these studies that the longer the polypeptide produced, the harder it was to retrieve it from the mineral surface, as it was tightly bound via a multitude of chemical bonding forces spread over a long chain of amino acids. Success at making long polypeptides seemingly dooms the polymer to remain fixed to the surface instead of being released into solution as needed by life.

A major flaw with the studies described above is that they did not attempt to account for how homochiral selectivity could be enforced by this route. Synthesizing polypeptides with a racemic mixture of amino acids offers prebiotic life nothing in terms of functionality. For proteins to assume specific and reproducible structures, a homochiral set of amino acids must be used. With this goal in mind, one laboratory reported that enantiomeric pairs of aspartic acid preferentially adsorb to opposing faces with mirror symmetry of calcite (calcium carbonate). It was proposed that aspartic acid, having three functional groups (two carboxylic acids and one amine group), orients itself with homochiral selectivity to the exposed chemical groups of calcite. This follows logically to account for the ~90 percent chiral enrichment observed. 

It works for aspartic acid in this case, but what about glutamic acid? It has the same functional groups but they are spaced apart a little differently. There is no guarantee that the corresponding chiral glutamic acid also binds selectively to the same surface. Sadly, this was not reported. Among the 20 amino acids, only 11 possess at least three functional groups required for appropriate spatial positioning to the mineral interface. The remaining nine have only two, one carboxyl and one amine group. This leaves little room for attaining homochirality for all amino acids as needed to construct proteins. 

To give this laboratory credit, they did mention that alanine, valine, and lysine do not exhibit chiral selection on calcite. The lack of data for most remaining amino acids leads one to believe minerals in general are another dead end for the homochirality problem that OOL protein researchers are trying to solve. In contrast to the conclusions I draw from these observations, the authors were not dissuaded from making bold claims about how this model might help account for homochiral polymerization of amino acids on mineral surfaces in general.

Mineral Models to Select Ribose for RNA

The carbohydrate ribose, required to make RNA, presents a highly problematic situation. Ribose has four chiral centers, unlike amino acids with just one. Therefore, D-ribose found in RNA has seven other chemical partners differing in their spatial arrangement of atoms. Ribose has one advantage to assist the OOL researchers. It most often exists as six- or five-membered ring structures where the functional hydroxyl groups are positioned geometrically to one side of this chemical framework. Minerals such as rutile can accommodate hydrogen bonding, presenting an opportunity to preferentially bind ribose over its other carbohydrate competitors. Such a model has been proposed with the caveat that a third dimensional force must be applied to effect separation of ribose from the other sugars. 

The first two dimensions are accounted for by quasi-planar interactions of sugar rings to the mineral interface. In simpler terms, this mineral needs to be applied to a separation technique called chromatography. The tighter binding of ribose, by virtue of its hydroxyl groups all pointing to the mineral surface, would permit tighter retention where the other sugars would proceed more rapidly through this chromatographic separation. 

There are several problems with this innovative proposal. Setting up a chromatographic separation does not happen naturally. It requires a specific design where all molecules must enter the chromatographic medium simultaneously. In other words, an external agent is required to carry out this exercise. Assuming that chromatography proceeds as hoped, the last 5-carbon sugar eluting from the chromatographic medium will be D- and L-ribose. There is still a racemic mixture of ribose that must be contended with. Finally, as discussed in my earlier article, appropriately linking a nucleobase and finally phosphate to D-ribose is an extremely difficult task without the use of specifically engineered catalysts, e.g., enzymes. This is highly unlikely to happen in a prebiotic scenario. 

The Task at Hand

I have addressed here the potential minerals proposed by OOL researchers to abiotically synthesize the first functional biopolymers. Simple principles discounting these proposals can be applied to other comparable scenarios in this area, but that would require a much longer and more technical article. Suffice it to say there are sound counterarguments to the plethora of schemes that OOL researchers devise in trying to account for how life could have emerged abiotically. Critically examining these schemes is the job with which scientists on the other side of the field are tasked.

Science as one party state?

 Andrew Klavan, Casey Luskin: Displaced Authority and Progressive Censorship

Andrew Mcdiarmid

On  a new episode of ID the Future, we’re pleased to share Daily Wire host Andrew Klavan’s recent interview with Dr. Casey Luskin. Klavan loves science, but he smells a rat when famous scientists like Richard Dawkins use displaced authority to make proclamations about science’s relationship with religion. So after reading Luskin’s recent Daily Wire article about progressives and their long history of banning intelligent design from the classroom, Klavan invited Luskin on his show to help his viewers better understand the theory of intelligent design and the reality of the evolutionary paradigm. 

Luskin starts with the meanings of evolution and the questions that guide intelligent design researchers. He cites plenty of examples of design from biology and cosmology. Klavan asks how badly people get censored for considering design perspectives in their work. Luskin explains, using the case of physicist Eric Hedin and his treatment at Ball State University as an example. Luskin rounds out the conversation by explaining how intelligent design uses the scientific method to detect the hallmarks of design in both living systems and the universe at large. “Science never gives us, under any conditions, absolute certainty,” Luskin notes. “What it can allow us to do, though, is use the methods of historical sciences to infer the best explanation for a given situation given what we know about how the world works.” Download the podcast or listen to it here.

On Darwin's unresolved doubt?

 In Resolving Darwin’s Doubt, These Cambrian Fossils Are No Help

David Coppedge

More complexity in the earliest multicellular animals has only intensified what Stephen Meyer calls “Darwin’s Doubt.” Some examples follow.

Euarthropods

A paper in Current Biology comes closest to demonstrating “the deep homology between exoskeletal features in an evolutionary continuum of taxa with distinct types of body organization.” Author Javier Ortega-Hernández takes on “the euarthropod head problem” by finding similarities between two specimens from the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian). His analysis, though, only compares positions of complex tissues, not how they originated. Amid various controversies, he focuses on a relatively simple structure, the anterior sclerite (a front plate of cuticle) within one phylum, the true arthropods.

Despite its ubiquitous nature, the significance of the anterior sclerite remains controversial, as there is little agreement on the correspondence of this structure among stem- and crown-group euarthropods. 

His attempt at finding phylogenetic relationships, given such a trifling structure in a narrow range of animals, is less than convincing. Worse, he ignores the weightier matters of the explosive origin of the complex body plans of these animals.

Collinsium

Science media were excited to report on a “spiky monster worm” from China, named Collinsium ciliosum (original paper is in PNAS). If this is supposedly an ancestor of modern velvet worms, as researchers at the University of Cambridge claim, it was already complex, with spikes, a mouth with teeth, antennae, and filter feeding appendages. Its 72 spikes in rows down its back are particularly noteworthy. If anything, it looks more complex than “Today’s 180 or so species of velvet worms [that] all look and act pretty much the same” (Science Magazine). “This isn’t the first time that an ancestral group has displayed more diversity than its modern-day relatives,” Live Science comments. If this is evolution, it’s going backwards.

The critter is one of the first known animals on Earth to develop protective armor and to sport specialized limbs that likely helped it catch food, the researchers said. This newfound species lived during the Cambrian explosion, a time of rapid evolutionary development, they said.

Abrupt appearance? Rapid development? How this helps the evolutionary story is not clear. The Cambridge news item offers word salad as a distraction from the issues raised by Dr. Meyer, which they simply ignore.

Animals during the Cambrian were incredibly diverse, with lots of interesting behaviours and modes of living,” said Ortega-Hernández. “The Chinese Collins’ Monster was one of these evolutionary ‘experiments’ — one which ultimately failed as they have no living direct ancestors — but it’s amazing to see how specialised many animals were hundreds of millions of years ago. At its core, the study of the fossil record seeks answers about the evolution of life on Earth that can only be found in deep time. All the major biological events responsible for shaping the world we inhabit, such as the origin of life, the early diversification of animals, or the establishment of the modern biosphere, are intimately linked to the complex geological history of our planet.” 

Anomalocaris

The apex predator Anomalocaris was mentioned in connection with a more recently discovered member of its family. This one, a giant named Aegirocassis benmoulae, was found in Morocco, indicating the global extent of the anomalocaridids. Unlike its more famous relative, “this anomalocaridid from the Ordovician exposes a second set of body flaps and reopens the question of how the two branches of arthropod legs evolved,” Gregory Edgecombe notes in Current Biology. The authors of the paper in Nature are not much help to Darwin, having to invoke “convergent evolution” again:

Among arthropods, the size of A. benmoulae (over 2 m in length) is paralleled only by some pterygotid eurypterids and terrestrial arthropleurids. The evolution of gigantic filter-feeders within clades of nektic macrophagous predators is well documented in Mesozoic pachycormid fish and Cenozoic sharks and whales. The huge size of A. benmoulaerepresents a much earlier example of a filter-feeding lifestyle correlating to gigantism. The abundance of gigantic anomalocaridid filter-feeders in the high palaeolatitude Fezouata Biota points to a complex planktic ecosystem. Early Cambrian anomalocaridid filter-feeders also fed on zooplankton, but they remained relatively small. Although the Cambrian Explosion saw the establishment of the first complex planktic ecosystems, the convergent (Supplementary Text) rise of giant filter-feeding anomalocaridids during the Ordovician followed an increase in the abundance and diversity of phytoplankton and a consequent zooplankton radiation as part of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.

Once again: abrupt appearance of complex body plans, complex ecosystems, and convergent evolution. None of this helps the evolutionary story or answers the key issue: where did the genetic information come from to build complex body plans with hierarchical structures and functional organs composed of new tissues and cell types? 

Hallucigenia

When Hallucigenia (pictured above) was first found in the Burgess Shale a century ago, paleontologists couldn’t tell top from bottom or front from back. The bizarre creature with paired spines pointing away from its paired legs was missing an important part: its head. Since then, the head has been found. It’s complex, with a pair of eyes and rows of teeth. This requires explaining more cell types and tissue types than before, exacerbating the problem Stephen Meyer identifies.

Martin R. Smith from Cambridge, with Jean-Bernard Caron from the Toronto Museum of Natural History, announced the discovery in Nature. Other sites, like Phys.prg and New Scientist, picked up the story and showcased the new artwork. For BBC News, Smith described his initial reaction:

By delicately chipping away at the rock, scientists found a spoon-shaped head with some surprising features.

“When we put it into the electron microscope, we were delighted to see not just a tiny pair of eyes looking back at us, but also beneath them a really cheeky semi-circular smile.

“It was as if the fossil was grinning at us at the secrets it had been hiding,” explained Dr Smith.

Inside the creature’s mouth, the researchers found a ring of teeth and then another set of teeth running from its throat down towards its stomach. 

Most of the chatter is preoccupied with where to put this creature in a Darwinian phylogenetic tree. For a long time, animals were lumped together by their type of body cavity (coelom). That’s changed; in 1997, Aguinaldo invented the category “ecdysozoa” (“molting animals”) based on ribosomal RNA comparisons. This lumped together everything from butterflies to roundworms, from tardigrades (“water bears”) to centipedes, from velvet worms to spiders. But is such a clade meaningful? “These disparate phyla are united by their means of molting, but otherwise share few morphological characters — none of which has a meaningful fossilization potential.” Smith and Caron note. “As such, the early evolutionary history of the group as a whole is largely uncharted.” 

The purpose of the grouping was to try to unite all the creatures that supposedly had a common ancestor. A more meaningful designation would account for the complexity and unique features of each animal, without forcing it into preconceived notions of common ancestry. Hallucigenia is a prime example. This creature had eyes, a mouth, teeth, a throat, a foregut, a stomach, and an anus. It had appendages that could reach its mouth. It had seven pairs of spines, each emerging from “a buttress of soft tissue,” arranged with curvatures from front to back, protecting the entire animal. It had claws on the ends of the legs. 

It’s not just the cell types that need to be explained, but their arrangement into functional structures. These structures, moreover, need to be integrated into a functional animal in its ecosystem. And, they need software in some central nervous system that allowed the animal to use all of it. This is hierarchical organization, none of which is seen in the Precambrian layers beneath.

Just-So Storytelling

Live Science has a nice gallery of these and other Cambrian critters. Interesting animals, but nothing new here. More of the same complexity. More of the same just-so storytelling that assumes undirected evolution. More distraction from the main question: what is the source of complex specified information to build a complex animal? How could it emerge from a blind, unguided process?

John Locke on the Logos of the gospel

 

A brief history of the triune God?

 

Continuing to rethink the unrethinkable

 

The technology of life.

 Listen: The Innovative Cellular Engineering That Keeps Us Alive

Andrew Mcdiarmid

When left to their own devices, the laws of nature tend toward death, not life. So what does it take for life to exist? On a new episode of ID the Future, host Eric Anderson talks with physician Howard Glicksman about some of the remarkable engineering challenges that have to be solved to produce and maintain living organisms such as ourselves. Glicksman is co-author with systems engineer Steve Laufmann of the recent book Your Designed Body, an exploration of the extraordinary system of systems that encompasses thousands of ingenious and interdependent engineering solutions to keep us alive and ticking. In the “just so” stories of the Darwinian narrative, these engineering solutions simply evolved. They emerged and got conserved. Voila! But in this chat, Anderson and Glicksman explain that it takes more than the laws of nature to keep us from dying. “Chemicals on their own don’t have any desire or tendency to turn into living organisms,” says Anderson. “They tend to degrade, they tend to break down, they tend to go back to their basic constituents.” Glicksman and Anderson discuss examples, including how the human body handles friction, heat transfer, and the crucial task of maintaining chemical balance at the cellular level. And where does all this essential innovation come from? Glicksman points to an intelligent cause that transcends matter and energy. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

Luke's gospel on Rich and Poor.

 Luke ch.6:20-26KJV"20And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. 21Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. 22Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. 23Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

24But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. 25Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. 26Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets."

Here is strong's on the word rendered "poor": 

4434. ptóchos ►

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance

beggar, poor.

From ptosso (to crouch); akin to ptoeo and the alternate of pipto); a beggar (as cringing), i.e. Pauper (strictly denoting absolute or public mendicancy, although also used in a qualified or relative sense; whereas penes properly means only straitened circumstances in private), literally (often as noun) or figuratively (distressed) -- beggar(-ly), poor.:

Taken literally Jesus said happy/ blessed are you beggars. There were certainly no literal beggars among the twelve apostles that He had just chosen. So what kind of beggar does JEHOVAH bless ,the parallel account of Matthew is helpful. 

Matthew ch.5:3NIV"“Blessed are the poor in(Beggars for the) spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

The simple fact of the matter is that when it comes to the spiritual we are all poor. Some are aware of that critical poverty in their own particular case and are eagerly pursuing the one source that can alleviate it, our Lord promises that all such are due for a blessing.

Others imagine themselves to be "rich" but Paul warns that our evaluation of ourselves is of no consequence

1Corinthians ch.4:4NIV"My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me."

So the "rich" are "poor" in JEHOVAH'S eyes and the "poor" are "rich" in JEHOVAH'S eyes.

How Wikipedia became the Borg.

 

Our AI overlords will finally bring the revolution?

 

Actual design not merely apparent design.

No, Intelligent Design Doesn’t Reason by Analogy; Here’s Why

Evolution News

It's  time again to address some misunderstandings of intelligent design. First, is the inference to design in biology based on a mere analogy to other forms of design, by humans? 

Let’s consider the question. To start, let’s ask: Why can we make this inference in the first place? It’s because natural systems contain the type of information and complexity that in our experience come only from intelligence. This is not merely an “analogy” but derives instead from the sequence-based specified complexity that we see in living systems (e.g., DNA), which is precisely the same, at the mathematical level, as we see in written language. Hubert Yockey makes this clear:

               It is important to understand that we are not reasoning by analogy. The sequence hypothesis [that the exact order of symbols records the information] applies directly to the protein and the genetic text as well as to written language and therefore the treatment is mathematically identical.

HUBERT P. YOCKEY, “SELF ORGANIZATION ORIGIN OF LIFE SCENARIOS AND INFORMATION THEORY,” JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL BIOLOGY, VOL. 91:13-31 (1981).

                     So what we see in living systems has mathematical and informational properties that are identical to written language.

Aligned with Mainstream Science

We also see machines in living systems. That’s not to say that cells or living systems on the whole are “machines,” but they do contain machines. It’s not a stretch to say that calling these things a machine is more than an analogy — it’s an identity. This is because you see the same design logic in molecular machines within cells that you see in human-designed machines.

The classic example would be ATP synthase where you find a stator, a rotor, an energy source, and you are converting one form of energy into another (with ATP synthase you are converting the electrical potential of proton flow into mechanical energy and that mechanical energy is then converted into the chemical energy of ATP). You’d be hard pressed not to call these things machines, and the idea is not unaligned with mainstream science. As former President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Bruce Alberts stated:

                         The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines…. Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function protein machines? Precisely because, like machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts. 

BRUCE ALBERTS, “THE CELL AS A COLLECTION OF PROTEIN MACHINES: PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGISTS,” CELL, VOL. 92:291 (FEBRUARY 6, 1998).

                                        Likewise, in 2000, Marco Piccolini wrote in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology that “extraordinary biological machines realize the dream of the seventeenth-century scientists … that ‘machines will be eventually found not only unknown to us but also unimaginable by our mind.’” He notes that modern biological machines “surpass the expectations of the early life scientists.” (Marco Piccolino, “Biological machines: from mills to molecules,” Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Vol. 1:149-153 (November, 2000).)

So, is it just an analogy or is it an identity? Or perhaps both? When we look at the mathematics and physics behind what is going on, the similarities between biological machines and biological information and written language and human-designed machines go beyond mere analogy and become an identity. If it’s an identity then it’s more than just an analogy. 

                            

How Things Become Themselves

Other people (or sometimes the same people) label arguments for intelligent design as “theology” or “metaphysics.” Are they right?

Now science is in the business of explaining how things originate and form. This is done through the historical sciences. A historical science starts by observing causes at work in the world around us. Some of those causes include:

Random mutation

Natural selection

Intelligent agency

We can observe each of these causes and understand the kind of information and complexity they are capable of generating. Because we have observation-based experience with these causes we know what they can and cannot do. Because we can observe, study, and understand the causal powers of these causes in real time, they are therefore proper subjects of scientific study and are causes that we can potentially invoke to explain things in nature. Full stop.

And here is what some of those observations reveal, in simple terms:

Random mutation and/or natural selection does NOT generate high levels of complex and specified information.

Intelligent agency DOES generate high levels of complex and specified information.

Random mutation and/or natural selection does NOT generate machines.

Intelligent agency DOES generate machines.

In all of our experience, high levels of complex and specified information and machines have only one known source: intelligence. We know that intelligence can produce these things due to our experience-based observations of intelligent agents in the world around us. Thus, we have empirical grounds for inferring that an intelligent cause was at work.

So, it’s true that some label these arguments metaphysics or theology, or call it a “distortion” to say this type of reasoning is science. But no, everything above is based the methods of science. That’s all there is to it

Only by confusion can Trinitarians prevail.

 The ONLY Way that Trinitarians can appear to prevail in debate is by confusion. That is why it is so important to clarify definitions from the begining. Who/what is the most high God? Is this most high God triune? Is this trinity composed of three distinct Gods.

Is any of these three distinct persons/Gods the most high God?

This is especially the case when they attempt to use/misuse disputed scriptures like 

Romans ch.9:5NCB"to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah,[b] who is over all, God blessed for ever.[c] Amen."

Obviously Paul is glorifying the one and only most high God for favouring Israel spiritually. The greatest of these favours is that of having the saviour of mankind as a descendent of their patriarchs and prophets. Some Trinitarians in a desperate attempt to extract proof for their extra biblical claims of a triune most high God, claim that Paul is making the Messiah who sprang from Israel according to the flesh numerically identical to the most high God.

The problem of course is that if the very unipersonal Messiah is made to be the MOST HIGH GOD then the obvious result is a falsifying of the Nicene creed. Which plainly declares that the constituents of the trinity are merely distinct persons but not distinct Gods or Lords and certainly not that most distinct most high God and most high Lord who/which is tri-personal.

Romans ch.9:5CJB"the Patriarchs are theirs; and from them, as far as his physical descent is concerned, came the Messiah, who is over all. Praised be Adonai for ever! Amen."

Romans ch.9:5CEV"They have those famous ancestors, who were also the ancestors of the Christ.[a] I pray that God, who rules over all, will be praised forever![b] Amen."

Romans ch.9:5GNT"they are descended from the famous Hebrew ancestors; and Christ, as a human being, belongs to their race. May God, who rules over all, be praised forever![b] Amen."

Romans ch.9:5TLB"Great men of God were your fathers, and Christ himself was one of you, a Jew so far as his human nature is concerned, he who now rules over all things. Praise God forever!"

Romans ch.9:5NAB(RE)"They are Israelites; theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; 5 theirs the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Messiah. God who is over all[c] be blessed forever. Amen."

Romans ch.9:5NLV"The early preachers came from this family. Christ Himself was born of flesh from this family and He is over all things. May God be honored and thanked forever. Let it be so."

Romans ch.9:5RSV"to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever.[a] Amen."

Romans ch.9:5Goodspeed"and the patriarchs, and from them physically Christ came—God who is over all be blessed forever! Amen. "

Fall of the Republic and the rise of the empire.

 

The questioning brain?

 

Conditionalism vs. E.C.T

 

On relative identity and the one God.

 

Reason vs. the trinity?

 

On the council of nicea

 

Granville Sharp's rule is a Trinitarian own goal?

 

So what have you been up to?

 

Irenaeus on the monarchy of the one God and Father.

 Irenaeus "This is the rule of our faith, the foundation of the building, and what gives support to our behavior.

God the Father uncreated, who is uncontained, invisible, one God, creator of the universe; this is the first article of our faith.

And the second is: The Word of God, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who appeared to the prophets according to their way of prophesying and according to the dispensation of the Father. Through(Dia) him all things were created. Furthermore, in the fullness of time, in order to gather all things to himself, he became a human being amongst human beings, capable of being seen and touched, to destroy death, bring life, and restore fellowship between God and humanity.

And the third article is: The Holy Spirit, through whom the prophets prophesied, and our forebears learned of God and the righteous were led in the paths of justice, and who, in the fullness of time, was poured out in a new way on our human nature in order to renew humanity throughout the entire world in the sight of God."

          (The Christian Theology Reader, Blackwell, 1995, edited by Alister McGrath, p. 93) 

I don't doubt for the briefest instance that there is much that Irenaeus and myself would disagree about. However I note with interest that for Irenaeus the God and Father of Jesus is not merely THE distinct person but THE distinct God (1Corinthians ch.8:6 NIV"yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came.." the God and Father of Jesus is the only God out of (ex)whom all of the information and energy in creation proceeds.

,and why mention His being uncreated if this is not an exceptional trait  in the given context. I also note that as in scripture there is no God the Son or God the spirit only one God the Father. I further note that all things occur at the dispensation of that one God who is the one Father and none other ,clearly for Irenaeus The God and Father of Jesus is absolute monarch having no equals. Jesus is clearly subordinate to the one God who is the one Father of  himself and all of the intelligent creation. The creation is (ex) out of JEHOVAH But (Dia) through his Son. JEHOVAH is the one God his Son Jesus Christ is his instrument.

Is there an edge of physics or not

 

A congenital design filter?

 Douglas Axe: We Have an Eye For Detecting Design

Evolution News

On a classic episode of ID the Future, host Eric Metaxas continues his conversation with biologist and professor Dr. Douglas Axe. The subject is Axe’s book Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life is Designed and his account of how he lost his position at a Cambridge research lab because of the implications of his research findings. Axe discusses the polarized atmosphere in science today, driven by an unreasonable commitment to materialism. He describes the prevailing attitude: “Either you’re with us and on board on these issues or you are anti-science. That is a very unhelpful position for scientists to be taking.” Axe also talks about the reliability of our built-in design intuition and the implications of living in a designed universe. Metaxas notes that though many adopt a Darwinian narrative of life, few are prepared to follow the logic of an accidental cosmos all the way.

This is Part 2 of a two-episode interview. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Listen to Part 1 here.

Aspiring titan vs. aspiring titan

 

JEHOVAH is both a singular person and a singular God

 Genesis ch.6:6ASV"Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am JEHOVAH, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments:

I (first person SINGULAR) He is both the supreme person and the supreme God.

Exodus ch.18:11ASV"Now I know that Jehovah is greater than all gods; yea, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly against them." 

Deuteronomy ch.3:24ASV"O Lord JEHOVAH, THOU hast begun to show thy servant THY greatness, and THY strong hand: for what god is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to THY works, and according to THY mighty acts?"

He is always address in singular personal pronouns for a reason

Deuteronomy ch.6:10ASV"And it shall be, when JEHOVAH thy God shall bring thee into the land which HE sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee, great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not,"

1Samuel ch.12:17ASV"Is it not wheat harvest to-day? I will call unto JEHOVAH, that HE may send thunder and rain; and ye shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of JEHOVAH, in asking you a king."

2Samuel ch.7:22ASV"Wherefore THOU art great, O JEHOVAH God: for there is none like THEE, neither is there any God besides THEE, according to all that we have heard with our ears." 

JEHOVAH is both the greatest person and the greatest God.

1Chronicles ch.16:25ASV"For great is JEHOVAH, and greatly to be praised: He also is to be feared above all gods."

Psalms ch 83:18ASV"That they may know that [d]THOU ALONE, whose name is JEHOVAH,

Art the Most High over all the earth."

The name JEHOVAH is not Just another name as some disrespectfully claim it is the only name deservedly and exclusively borne by the greatest person in all of reality and is the only name ever described as Holy in all of scripture. It occurs more frequently in the bible than the the next five most common names/titles combined.

JEHOVAH Has the greatest zeal for his name.

Malachi ch.1:11ASV "For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name [j]shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place [k]incense [l]shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name [m]shall be great among the Gentiles, saith JEHOVAH of hosts."

But who is this Greatest person who worthily bears this hallowed and greatest of names.

Luke ch.1:32ASV"He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High: and the LORD God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: "

The God and Father of Jesus Christ is the most high GOD. Logically if there are two other people who are as great as the God and Father of Jesus he is simply not the most high. The God And Father of Jesus is the lone owner of the sacred name,the Lord JEHOVAH.

On logic and exegesis.

 

The thing about language ,or to be more specific the meaning intended by its use, is that it is context driven. Every single word has a semantic range, also words can be used literally or figuratively. If we want to extract the logos (the speaker/writer's intent) from speech or script we must carefully factor in the context of said writer/speaker's words. This would certainly be the case with the pursuit of an accurate understanding of the Holy Bible. The logos that we seek to apprehend from the sacred text is JEHOVAH'S ,The divine author. We believe the text to be a single work from a single mind meant to communicate a single intelligible Logos.

Acts ch.17:11NIV" Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."

The Bereans approach to determining sacred truth is recommended to us by JEHOVAH Through the apostle Paul. The inspired scriptures are to be viewed as the sole touchstone for separating truth from error. There is no mention of any comparison with religious oral tradition although there were certainly voluminous amounts of same available. Another consideration is logic and commonsense. Wisdom is a cardinal attribute of JEHOVAH.

Romans ch.16:27GWT"God alone is wise. Glory belongs to him through Jesus Christ forever! Amen"

JEHOVAH'S Wisdom is flawless and so we rightly expect his communications to be characterized by transcendent Wisdom. Logic is a key component of wisdom. Any communication that invokes or requires the embrace of logical contradictions can be dismissed out of hand as originating from JEHOVAH. So in addition to paying careful attention to the immediate and the overall context of the scriptures, we also reject interpretations that require the embrace of logical fallacy/contradiction. Certainly one way that a conclusion would be shown to be illogical is if said conclusion failed on its own terms. 

For instance: John ch.1:1NIV"1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was WITH (the) God, and the Word was God."

Some conclude that the word is as much God as the God he is with. On just what basis is difficult to know . The God he was with was a distinct God and not merely a distinct person so he would himself need to be a distinct God to have a chance of being as divine as the distinct God he was with if this God is the Father and the Son is a distinct God in the same sense that the Father is a distinct God, well then we have bi-theism. And yet those who invoke this conclusion claim to have an ironclad commitment to monotheism.

Strong's 2316 on Theos"the supreme Divinity, God, godly.

Of uncertain affinity; a deity, especially (with ho) the supreme Divinity; figuratively, a magistrate; by Hebraism, very -- X exceeding, God, god(-ly, -ward)".

Note the semantic range of Theos with the definite article it likely refers to the supreme divinity it is therefore interesting that only the The God and Father of Jesus is ever referred to by the unqualified ho Theos ( not a possessive) without the definite article it may refer to a divinely appointed ruler i.e those made to resemble the supreme God at his pleasure. Thus Father and Son are not merely distinct persons but distinct Gods the God that Logos was with is the supreme divinity thus by definition he has NO Equals

Supreme as defined by Merriam Webster :2)greatest in degree, quality, or intensity 1): highest in rank or authority

the supreme commander

especially : in a position of unquestioned authority, dominance, or influence"

So Logically no other person or God is equal in any positive sense to the God and Father of Jesus i.e the Lord JEHOVAH.

Acts ch.3:13KJV"The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob(i.e JEHOVAH), the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. "

Materialism's lack of self awareness?

 Self-Referential Absurdity in a Theory of Consciousness.

David Coppedge

Would you have a rational discussion with a zombie? Materialists are forced into the position of discussing philosophy and science with the walking dead, since under their terms we are all that. Unless rationality is a mindful concept — unless we are more than atoms in motion — that’s the logical result of denying mind and intelligence.

To deny that we are mindful creatures, the materialist also has to deny the existence of any realm of abstract concepts that a mind can access. Yet materialism itself is an abstract concept.

This seems intuitively obvious, but it’s amazing how often materialists ignore the self-refuting nature of their assumptions. Nancy Pearcey wrote about this, noting ways in which materialist claims commit the self-referential absurdity: “Applied to itself, the theory commits suicide.” 

An example is a theory of consciousness from Ezequiel Morsella, a psychology professor at San Francisco State University. Morsella relegates consciousness to a minor, passive role as an interpreter of sensory data rather than a free agent of choice and deliberate thought.

“The interpreter presents the information but is not the one making any arguments or acting upon the knowledge that is shared,” Morsella said. “Similarly, the information we perceive in our consciousness is not created by conscious processes, nor is it reacted to by conscious processes. Consciousness is the middle-man, and it doesn’t do as much work as you think.”

So Did Morsella Think About This?

Here’s how you uncover a self-referential fallacy: you apply the claim to itself to see if it short circuits. Morsella made an argument, but said consciousness doesn’t make arguments. He said consciousness can’t create information, but he attempted to create information from his own theory. He said we don’t really think, but told his readers “you think.” 

Consciousness, per Morsella’s theory, is more reflexive and less purposeful than conventional wisdom would dictate. Because the human mind experiences its own consciousness as sifting through urges, thoughts, feelings and physical actions, people understand their consciousness to be in control of these myriad impulses. But in reality, Morsella argues, consciousness does the same simple task over and over, giving the impression that it is doing more than it actually is.

“We have long thought consciousness solved problems and had many moving parts, but it’s much more basic and static,” Morsella said. “This theory is very counterintuitive. It goes against our everyday way of thinking.”

Some ideas are counterintuitive because they are wrong. Self-referential fallacies permeate these comments like white on rice. If “conventional wisdom” is not mindful, it is not wise — nor is Morsella’s alternative. If the human mind experiences its own consciousness but has no control, did Morsella have control when he chose to write this statement? If consciousness can’t think, why does he keep referring to thinking? And what is “reality” if our minds are incapable of apprehending such a concept?

The theory, which took Morsella and his team more than 10 years to develop, can be difficult to accept at first, he said.

So did he think about his theory for all those years? Did he choose to “develop” it? Does he want our minds to “accept” it? We’re watching a poor professor’s theory implode. To take him seriously, we would have to treat him as a zombie going through motions and mouthing syllables. Nobody’s home.

Here Comes Evolution

We see next that he builds his ideas on the theory of evolution.

The study of consciousness is complicated, Morsella added, because of the inherent difficulty of applying the conscious mind to study itself.

“For the vast majority of human history, we were hunting and gathering and had more pressing concerns that required rapidly executed voluntary actions,” Morsella said. “Consciousness seems to have evolved for these types of actions rather than to understand itself.”

In other words, Morsella’s theory is just a new way of hunting and gathering to pass on his genes. It has no more significance than that. It’s not about making rational arguments in abstract realms of logic and understanding. Pearcey showed the suicidal inevitability of so-called “evolutionary epistemology.”

By contrast, intelligent design is not self-refuting. If we truly are rational creatures with consciousness and free will, then we can talk about those concepts in a meaningful way. Our own awareness of our rationality and choice makes it reasonable to assume that our fellow humans experience consciousness like we do. When we bounce ideas off them, and analyze arguments, we can judge which are true or false by weighing their logical coherence or comparing their correspondence with reality.

Animals have ways of “making sense” of the world through their inputs and brains, as researchers at the University of Buffalo describe. But this does not mean that humans are just “more of the same” in terms of information processing. Four times the news item uses the word “understand” or “understanding” how animals do it. Understanding is superfluous to survival. For a bird, it is sufficient to know that a sound signifies a mate or a threat. Humans share that ability, but are exceptional in caring how or why sounds represent things. 

Recalling Euler’s Identity

Consider this on Live Science about Euler’s Identity, named for Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (pictured above) and called “The most beautiful equation in mathematics.” The simplicity of this relationship, eiπ + 1 = 0, is indeed profound and beautiful. It brings together five mathematical entities in a purely abstract way, one of them being the “imaginary” number i. It is purely conceptual, the result of a long process of logical reasoning, using theorems of calculus. Yet its truth can be checked out against the real world by seeing how it works in applications as diverse as wave mechanics, half-lives, and compound interest. 

One must also presuppose consciousness and free will to determine if a statement commits the self-referential fallacy. To prove this, I leave you with a choice to work the following logical exercise. You can quit now, or proceed. (Is that choice yours, or is your hunter-gatherer instinct controlling you?) If you choose to continue, look at any or all of the following statements and decide if they are self-refuting by posing a question referring back to the claim. We’ll do the first three as examples. Have fun!

Everything is relative. (Is that absolutely true?)

Question everything. (Should we question the advice to question everything?) 

Only particles and forces exist. (Is that statement made of particles and forces?)

All is illusion. 

Name-callers are idiots. 

People are really zombies.

It’s impossible to know anything.

Only statements derived empirically are valid. 

Everything evolves.

Morality is just an evolutionary strategy.

Tolerate everyone.

Co-exist.

“They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.” (Richard Dawkins)

“Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly… [including the idea that] human free will is nonexistent… Free will is a disastrous and mean social myth.” (William Provine).

Darwinism is like “a universal acid; it eats through just about every traditional concept and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view.” (Daniel Dennett)

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” (Theodosius Dobzhansky)

“But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” (Charles Darwin)

We must take control of our own evolution.

By the way, Leonhard Euler was known to work out complex derivations in his head while blind. Of what possible use was this ability for survival?

How life's big bang continues to complicate the Darwinian narrative.

 Fossil Friday: Fossil Tunicate Confirms Cambrian Explosion

Gunter Bechly

The so-called Cambrian Explosion is an iconic event in the history of life about 520 million years ago, marked the sudden appearance of more than 20 bilaterian animal phyla with all their different body plans. However, body plans are not restricted to the phylum level. For example within the phylum Chordata we find three different subphyla (i.e., lancelets, tunicates, and vertebrates) with very different body plans and different life cycles. All three subphyla appear abruptly and together in the Lower Cambrian Stage 3, about 518 milion years ago, including the oldest putative tunicates such as Shankouclava anningense from the famous Maotianshan shales in South China (Shu et al. 2001, Chen et al. 2003).

Even within tunicates we find quite different body plans such as free living salps and larvaceans as well as sessile sea grapes and sea squirts. Of course, this raises the interesting question of the origin and antiquity of these tunicate body plans, especially because tunicates are nowadays considered to be the closest relatives of vertebrates. Unfortunately, tunicates are generally very rare in the fossil record and previously only one early tunicate showed anatomical details with soft-tissue preservation.

Confirming Life’s Big Bang

Recently, a new study was published by Nanglu et al. (2023) about a fossil tunicate from the mid-Cambrian Marjum Formation of Utah, which is dated to an age of about 500 million years. The remarkably well-preserved animal was named Megasiphon thylakos and documents an early biphasic life cycle, with a planktonic larva and a sessile epibenthic adult. The authors consider that Megasiphon could even be a modern crown group tunicate, which would place the basal divergence into free living and sessile tunicates “50 million years earlier than currently estimated based on molecular clocks.” Of course, the phylogenetic analysis was, as all too often is the case, not conclusive and could not decide between two alternative scenarios. But even if Megasiphon were to fall only within the stem group of all tunicates, the authors emphasize that it clearly “demonstrates that fundamental components of the modern tunicate body plan were already established shortly after the Cambrian Explosion.” In commentary for the journal Science, Heidt (2023) even claims that the discovery could “push back origins of vertebrates, including humans,” which would agree with equally ancient fishlike animals such as Metaspriggina.

Almost on a monthly basis new fossil evidence corroborates the abruptness of the Cambrian Explosion as a genuine “Big Bang” of life and a fatal problem for Darwinian evolution. Far from solving the enigma of the Cambrian Explosion and other such abrupt events in the history of life, our exponentially growing knowledge of the fossil record instead makes the problems bigger and bigger, which clearly shows that they are not based on mere artifacts of preservation or sampling bias.

References

Heidt A 2023. Half-billion-year-old sea squirt could push back origins of vertebrates, including humans. Science 381(6653). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adj5955

Nanglu K, Lerosey-Aubril R, Weever JC & Ortega-Hernández J 2023. A mid-Cambrian tunicate and the deep origin of the ascidiacean body plan. Nature Communications 14:3832, 1–9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39012-4

Shu D-G, Chen L, Han J & Zhang X-L 2001. An early Cambrian tunicate from China. Nature 411(6836), 472–473. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35078069

Chen J-Y, Huang D-Y, Peng Q-Q, Chi H-M, Wang X-Q & Feng M 2003. The first tunicate from the early Cambrian of South China. PNAS 100(14), 8314–8318. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas

Ultra Titan schools the opposition.

 

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Loaded dice?

 A Debate on the “Randomness” of Mutation 

Paul Nelson

Biologist Greg Monroe at UC Davis started a Twitter thread, beginning with the question:

Are mutations random?

Here is a brief survey of groundbreaking mechanistic work that all evolutionary biologists should be familiar with.

The historical wellspring of randomness in evolutionary theory is Darwin’s own insistence on “chance” at the causal foundations of life. This passage, from a May 1860 Letter to Asa Gray, can hardly be improved upon as an expression of his metaphysical commitments 

There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other hand I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe & especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope & believe what he can.

Note the entanglement with theology here — or rather, not “entanglement,” but full embedding.

My challenge to nincsnevem

 Don't hide behind anonymity Nincsnevem. If you coming here demonstrate you putative superior understanding scriptures why hide your hide your identity. Surely you'd want to claim the fame of your marvelous beat down of this JW upstart. But remember sola Scriptura.

The thumb print of JEHOVAH: Embryonic edition

 The Genius of the Fetal Circulatory System

Jonathan McLatchie

Last week, my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world. It is difficult to imagine a more profound testimony to design than the delivery of a fully developed baby that, only nine months ago, was a single cell. The degree of regulatory control and informational complexity of the process that drives embryonic development is far beyond human comprehension. Few biological phenomena are as gripping and awe-inspiring as the process of reproduction and the development of a baby in utero. The signature of design here is unmistakable, for so much of the process — from conception to delivery — depends on foresight and planning.

Up until birth when our son took his first breath, he was fully dependent for his oxygen supply upon the flow of maternal blood through the placenta and umbilical cord. Following his delivery, I was handed a pair of scissors by the midwife and invited to cut the umbilical cord. By doing so, I was severing our son’s connection to his mother’s blood and thus to his supply of oxygen. The placenta was also delivered momentarily after his birth, having served its task. As he made the transition from dependence on the placenta and umbilical cord for gas exchange to breathing outside of the uterus, he needed oxygen — and quickly. Moreover, the flow of blood in the umbilical vein must immediately be turned off. The changes that have to take place in the baby’s lungs and heart must happen rapidly, or the consequence will be fatal. Here, I will review the differences between the circulatory systems of the fetus and infant, describe the changes that must rapidly take place, and offer an evaluation of the respective merits of evolution and design. The information that follows is well-established and can be found in any decent textbook on anatomy and physiology. This material is also covered by medical physician and president of the UK Centre for Intelligent Design Dr. David Galloway, in his book, Design Dissected — Is the Design Real? A Clinical Look at Life’s Complexity, Design, and Ultimate Causation, a book that I highly recommend.1 Dr. Galloway also discusses it in this episode of the ID the Future podcast.

The Circulatory System After Birth

After birth, the circulatory system follows a recognized pathway, memorized by every biomedical student. If this is unfamiliar territory, than I suggest consulting the following diagram of the heart as you read.

Deoxygenated blood enters the right side of the heart through two veins — the superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava. The superior vena cava brings deoxygenated blood from the upper body, and the inferior vena cava brings deoxygenated blood from the lower body. The deoxygenated blood from both veins enters the right atrium, which is the upper-right chamber of the heart. As the right atrium contracts, it pushes the deoxygenated blood through the tricuspid valve and into the right ventricle, which is the lower-right chamber of the heart. The purpose of these valves is to prevent the backflow of blood, ensuring that it flows in only one direction. Upon contraction of the right ventricle, deoxygenated blood is forced through the pulmonary valve and into the pulmonary artery, where it is carried away from the heart towards the lungs. In the lungs, the blood travels through the capillaries surrounding tiny air sacs called alveoli. Oxygen diffuses from the alveoli into the blood, while carbon dioxide moves from the blood into the alveoli for eventual exhalation. 

The oxygenated blood from the lungs returns to the heart via four pulmonary veins and enters the left atrium. The left atrium contracts, pushing the oxygenated blood through the mitral valve into the left ventricle, the lower-left chamber of the heart. Forceful contraction of the left ventricle pumps the oxygenated blood through the aortic valve and into the aorta, the main artery of the body. The aorta carries the oxygenated blood away from the heart and distributes it to various organs and tissues throughout the body through small arteries, where it deposits oxygen and nutrients. As the oxygen is used up and waste products like carbon dioxide are produced, the blood becomes deoxygenated again and returns to the heart to repeat the cycle.

The State of the Fetal Lungs

What are the main differences between the circulatory system possessed by the infant (and adult), reviewed above, and that of the fetus in the uterus? Most importantly, the lungs are not yet active in gas exchange, and in fact are filled with fluid known as fetal lung fluid. This fluid helps the growth and development of the lungs, and also prevents the air sacs (alveoli) from collapsing due to the external pressure in the womb. Around the 24th to 28th week of gestation, the fetal lungs begin producing a substance called surfactant, a complex mixture of lipids and proteins that reduce surface tension in the alveoli, preventing them from collapsing during each breath. The production of surfactant is essential for the lungs to become functional after birth. The fetal lungs also contribute to the production and maintenance of amniotic fluid. As the fetus swallows amniotic fluid, some of it is taken up by the fetal lungs. This fluid is then processed and excreted back into the amniotic sac. This process helps in the development of the digestive and respiratory systems and maintains the appropriate volume of amniotic fluid for the fetus to move and grow.

Supplying the Fetus with Oxygen

Since the lungs are not active in gas exchange during pregnancy, how is the fetus supplied with oxygen? The fetus is connected to the mother’s circulatory system through the placenta, a specialized organ that forms inside the uterus and serves as the interface between the maternal and fetal blood supplies. Oxygen-rich blood from the mother’s circulatory system enters the placenta through the maternal arteries. The fetus’s blood and that of the mother never mix. The placenta contains numerous small blood vessels called villous capillaries, which have thin walls that allow for efficient gas exchange. Oxygen molecules diffuse from the maternal blood into the placental villous capillaries due to the concentration gradient. Once oxygen diffuses into the villous capillaries, it binds to hemoglobin in the fetal blood, causing the fetal blood to become oxygenated. The oxygenated blood from the placenta is carried back to the fetus through the umbilical vein, one of the three blood vessels present in the umbilical cord. The umbilical vein carries oxygenated blood rich in nutrients from the placenta to the fetal liver. A portion of the oxygenated blood in the umbilical vein bypasses the fetal liver through a short blood vessel called the ductus venosus. The ductus venosus directs this oxygenated blood to the inferior vena cava which carries blood to the right atrium of the fetal heart.

In the fetal heart, there is a temporary opening between the right and left atria called the foramen ovale. This opening allows a portion of the oxygenated blood from the right atrium to pass directly into the left atrium. By bypassing the non-functional fetal lungs, the foramen ovale helps to direct oxygenated blood to the rest of the body more efficiently. The oxygenated blood that flows into the right ventricle is pumped into the pulmonary artery. However, since the fetal lungs are non-functional, a shunt called the ductus arteriosus diverts this oxygenated blood away from the pulmonary circulation and directly into the descending aorta, which supplies oxygenated blood to the lower body. Deoxygenated blood from the fetal organs and tissues is collected in the two umbilical arteries, which carry it back to the placenta for reoxygenation and removal of waste products.

Changes in the Lungs

What changes must take place at birth to successfully make the switch from dependence upon the placenta to breathing air? The first major change pertains to the lungs, which remain collapsed and inactive until birth. The first breath that a baby takes after delivery triggers a series of physiological changes in the lungs, leading to the inflation of the alveoli and the initiation of respiratory function. As the baby passes through the birth canal, the chest is squeezed. This pressure change and compression of the chest help expel some of the fluid present in the airways and lungs. As the baby emerges into the outside world, there are significant changes in the level of carbon dioxide and oxygen in its bloodstream. During labor, the baby continues to receive oxygen from the mother’s placenta. After birth, however, the placental circulation is cut off, leading to a decrease in oxygen supply. This decrease in oxygen levels and the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream are sensed by specialized chemoreceptors in the baby’s body. As the baby comes into contact with the cold air and the environment, its skin and nerve endings are stimulated, leading to reflexive responses, including gasping and taking the first breath. Stretch receptors in the lungs send signals to the brainstem, which, in turn, inhibits the respiratory centers that control breathing. This reflex prevents excessive expansion of the lungs and maintains proper lung function. If these stretch receptors fail, the result can be overinflation of the alveoli during inhalation, resulting in alveolar rupture and collapse.

As the lungs expand, the fetal lung fluid is pushed out, and absorbed or expelled from the baby’s airways. After birth, the fetal lung fluid is gradually cleared from the lungs and, with the help of surfactant, the lungs begin to perform the essential function of gas exchange. The transition from the non-functional fetal lung state to the fully functional adult lung state is one of the most crucial physiological changes that occur during the birth process.

Closure of the Foramen Ovale

As previously mentioned, there is a temporary opening between the right and left atria called the foramen ovale, which allows a portion of the oxygenated blood from the right atrium to pass directly into the left atrium, bypassing the nonfunctional fetal lungs. As the baby takes its first breath, the lung expansion and the increased oxygenation of the blood trigger changes in the pressure dynamics of the heart. The increased oxygenated blood returning from the lungs to the left atrium increases the left atrial pressure, while the reduced flow of deoxygenated blood from the body to the right atrium decreases the right atrial pressure. These changes in pressure cause the flexible tissue flap that covers the foramen ovale, known as the septum primum, to close the opening. The septum primum fuses with the septum secundum, a rigid membrane-like structure, effectively sealing the foramen ovale and creating a solid partition between the two atria. This separation prevents the mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood, ensuring that all blood flows through the pulmonary circulation to be oxygenated by the lungs.

Closure of the Ductus Arteriosus

As described in the foregoing, the ductus arteriosus is a short blood vessel that connects the pulmonary artery to the descending aorta, bypassing the non-functional fetal lungs. This shunt allows a portion of the blood leaving the right ventricle to flow directly into the systemic circulation. After birth, as the baby takes its first breath and the lungs expand, the oxygen levels in the bloodstream increase significantly. The increased oxygen levels lead to the constriction and eventual closure of the ductus arteriosus. Within 12 to 24 hours following birth, the ductus arteriosus undergoes a process called functional closure, where the smooth muscle in the vessel wall contracts and closes off the passageway. Over the next two or three weeks, the ductus arteriosus undergoes permanent closure through fibrosis and eventually becomes a ligament called the ligamentum arteriosum.

The location of the foramen ovale and ductus arteriosus, and their state in the fetal and newborn heart respectively, are illustrated in the following figure.

Darwin or Design?

These changes in the lungs, valves, and vascular structures during the birth process are critical for the baby’s successful transition to the outside world and the establishment of a fully functional, non-shunted circulatory system. By effectively closing the foramen ovale and the ductus arteriosus, the baby’s heart and circulatory system are ready to assume the roles of efficient gas exchange through the lungs and the delivery of oxygenated blood to all organs and tissues, supporting the baby’s independent life outside the womb. 

Medical physician Dr. David Galloway remarks, 

Beyond the amazing physiology, we come to a second conundrum. Clearly a system like this has to work straight out of the blocks. If any significant component failed for whatever reason, anatomical anomaly, biochemical error or signaling failure, not only would the various changes be jeopardized, but the very survival of the newly-born infant would be seriously threatened. The amazing truth is that thousands of babies navigate this dangerous territory, every minute of every day. So, given our current understanding of the origin of complex systems in biology, how might such an exquisite arrangement have developed?2

This is a good question, and it does seem to be quite implausible that such a system could have arisen through a trial-and-error step-wise process such as that envisioned by neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. On the other hand, complex systems where multiple things have to work together simultaneously is precisely what we might expect on the supposition of design.

Notes

Galloway, D. Design Dissected — Is the Design Real? A Clinical Look at Life’s Complexity, Design, and Ultimate Causation (John Ritchie Publishing, 2021).

Ibid., 137-138.

Star devouring monsters

 

Teleology: A dirty word no more,?

 On the BBC, a New Openness to Teleology in Biology?

Gunter Bechly

Dr. Richard Buggs is a plant biologist and professor of evolutionary genomics at Queen Mary University of London. Writing for Ecology & Evolution, he reviews an episode on BBC Two of a science series, Earth, singling out the host, Chris Packham. It’s a great review on a very surprising new openness in nature documentaries like this to non-Darwinian processes and teleology in the history of life. 

As Buggs writes:

[Packham’s] view of evolution is non-Darwinian. He does not speak of evolution as a purposeless natural process with no end in mind. He speaks of it as a process that is intended and has direction. 

Packham consistently anthropomorphises plants, speaking of them as if they have agency and intention. “Plants aren’t the type to give up easily,” they “developed a new trick,” “they were ready to start conquering the world”. The first trees were “the epitome of everything that plants had learned.” They “even communicate with one another” through fungal networks. 

Initially I thought Packham’s anthropomorphising was just a figure of speech, but by the end of the episode it seemed more than this. I concluded that he must have a teleological, non-Darwinian, view of evolution, as no doubt many of his viewers also do. He does not view the greening of the planet as a purposeless, unintended process, but one that was striven for and aimed at. Though he ascribes the agency behind this to the plants, what he says could be consistent with a broader, more cosmic view of purpose in the universe.

Indeed, Packham goes further than ascribing purpose to plants. He describes the world around us as “This bountiful, blooming miracle.” Early photosynthesisers are described as “something miraculous”. A “wonder material led to the creation of biological machines”. Asteroid bombardment of earth is “a celestial intervention”. Plant-fungal interactions are “a match made in heaven”.  

The blurb for the episode on the BBC iPlayer website reads “Chris Packham tells the miraculous story of how plant life turned Earth from a barren rock into a vibrant green world”.

It is hard to tell if these references to miracles are just figures of speech, or deliberately suggestive of divine activity. At the very least, the BBC is leaving room for those viewers who do believe in God to see a divine hand in the events described. Packham is not imposing theism upon viewers, but neither is he advocating atheism. 

Read the rest here. I very much hope (but remain skeptical) that this will not remain a rare exception to the rule but will become a new trend that would feel like a breath of fresh air amidst all the materialist and atheist propaganda in popular science media.