Now the Czech republic is seduced by the dark side

 Czech Republic in the Footsteps of Russia? Jehovah’s Witnesses Threatened with Liquidation

The Ministry of Culture is about to start proceedings whose consequences would be draconian.

by Massimo Introvigne

When Petr Pavel was inaugurated as the new President of the Czech Republic in March 2023, he vowed to align the country with European Union human rights standards. He also emerged as a staunch critic of the human rights violations in Russia. Some developments with respect to small minority religions were in fact regarded by local human rights activists as hopeful.

However, these hopes have now been shattered by an unprecedented move by the Czech Ministry of Culture. It appears that the Czech Republic still maintains among its laws a statute on “religious freedom” dated January 7, 2002, which includes some draconian Russian-style, or perhaps Soviet-style, provisions on the “liquidation” of religious organizations. According to this law, “a church is formed as a legal entity by registration” (article 6.1). Registration can be denied and, once obtained, can be lost, including if the church’s activity are deemed to be “in violation of the law” (article 22.1.c).This is a vague provision, but the consequences are not vague at all. If it believes that a “violation of the law” has occurred, “the Ministry shall, prior to initiating de-registration proceedings, instruct the registered church or association of churches to cease and desist from engaging in such unauthorized activities. Should the registered church or association of churches continue to engage in said activities, the Ministry [of Culture] shall initiate its procedure for de-registration” (article 22.2).“The registration of a church or an association of churches is terminated when the Ministry’s decision to de-register becomes effective” (article 24.1). “Upon the de-registration of a church, the church and all of its recorded church legal entities shall be liquidated” (article 24.2). Liquidators will be appointed and they “shall notify the Ministry of the conclusion of liquidation proceedings within five business days of said conclusion” (article 24.5). Unless the liquidated church had previously indicated another church to which the proceeds of the liquidation should be transferred, “the net proceeds shall accrue to the State, which shall use the net proceeds for the benefit of other registered churches” (article 24.6).Happily, these draconian provisions are rarely applied. However, on September 5, 2024, the Ministry of Culture sent to the Czech Religious Association of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (RAJW) the cease and desist letter mentioned in article 22.2. The Ministry gave to the RAJW three months for ceasing and desisting from certain “activities,” warning them that if they do not comply within the term the de-registration proceedings will be initiated. Various meetings between representatives of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Ministry failed to resolve the issue. On November 26, the Jehovah’s Witnesses received confirmation that the cease and desist letter stands. Since on December 5, the three-month period ended, they are currently waiting for an official communication from the Ministry about the initiation of the deregistration proceedings.In 2023, the Jehovah’s Witnesses celebrated 100 years of publication of “The Watchtower” in Czech language. Source: JW.org.The “activities” the Ministry regards as illegal are all features of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ teachings and lifestyles that have been examined by courts of law throughout the world and regarded as lawful and protected by domestic and international principles of freedom of religion or belief, with the exception of Russia and partially of Norway. In the latter country, however, a court decision is under appeal and does not threaten the Jehovah’s Witnesses with liquidation but “only” (between brackets, because these are serious limitations of their religious liberty) with the loss of state subsidies and certain other faculties, including the possibly of celebrating legally valid marriages.The first and second objections of the Czech Ministry deal with the same matter being litigated in Norway. It is alleged that by teaching the practice of counseling members not to associate with ex-members (except cohabiting relatives) who have been expelled as guilty and unrepentant of serious sins or have publicly disassociated themselves from the organization, the Jehovah’s Witnesses violate the right of their members to change their religious beliefs. The fear, it is argued, compels members who would like to leave to remain in the organization.The second objection adds that this is even more dangerous when “children” (meaning minors) are expelled, or they remain within the Jehovah’s Witnesses but are prevented from associating with friends and relatives who have been expelled or have publicly left the organization. The Czech Ministry’s letter does not clarify whether any minor was expelled in the Czech Republic. Cases of expulsion of minors are indeed extremely rare.This matter has been litigated in a good dozen of countries, resulting in decisions unanimously favorable to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, except (as mentioned earlier) in Russia and in a non-final decision in Norway. Courts have observed that in fact nobody can be compelled to associate with persons, including relatives, they no longer want to associate with, and that suspending relationships is a common fact in our societies as a consequence of all sorts of quarrels. Former spouses and other relatives often cease relationships with divorced ex-spouses. In fact, opponents do not ask courts to compel Jehovah’s Witnesses to associate with expelled or apostate ex-members, which would be practically impossible, but to prohibit the Jehovah’s Witnesses from teaching that relationships should be suspended.However, in some form, that relationships should cease is clearly taught in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 5:13 (“Expel the wicked person from among you”) and 5:11 (“Do not even eat with such people”), and 2 John:10–11 (“Do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work”: all quotes from the New International Version). How to read these passages is a matter of Biblical interpretation that cannot be adjudicated by secular courts without a gross violation of freedom of religion.The third charge is that the Jehovah’s Witnesses use “psychological coercion to create dependency, which leads to psychological harm to individuals or their family members or damage to their social relationships.” By reading the explanatory part of the cease and desist letter, it seems that “psychological coercion” is allegedly practiced by avoiding relationships with expelled or apostate ex-members, which would make the third charge a duplicate of the first. On the other hand, the charge itself uses the language of the discredited theory of “brainwashing” or “psychological subjection” allegedly used by religious movements, debunked since the past century by mainline academic scholars of religion and rejected by courts of law in most democratic countries (with the exception of France, whose campaigns against “cults” have received widespread international criticism).The fourth charge relates to the question of blood transfusions to minors, including in cases when they are “necessary to save the child’s life.” Again, the letter does not mention whether specific incidents happened in the Czech Republic.The Czech Ministry failed to consider that in most democratic and medically advanced countries the issue is becoming moot as hospitals can provide appropriate care that does not involve a blood transfusion. On their official website, Jehovah’s Witnesses refer to various medical studies showing that “patients, including children, who do not receive transfusions usually fare as well as or better than those who do accept transfusions.” When Jehovah’s Witnesses wish to receive assistance in finding doctors who can provide bloodless treatment, they can seek the help of Hospital Liaison Committees, which have been established for this purpose.In most democratic countries, courts—including the European Court of Human Rights in 2010 (“Jehovah’s Witnesses of Moscow and Others v. Russia,” June 10) and 2022 (“Taganrog LRO and Others v. Russia,” November 22), and the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation in 2020 (3rd Civil Session, decision of 4–23 December 2020, no. 29469)—have ruled that adult patients have a right to refuse any medical treatment and protected the right of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to refuse blood transfusions. In several jurisdictions, this also applies to “mature minors.”

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Home / From the World / News Global

Czech Republic in the Footsteps of Russia? Jehovah’s Witnesses Threatened with Liquidation

01/02/2025MASSIMO INTROVIGNEA+ | A-

The Ministry of Culture is about to start proceedings whose consequences would be draconian.

by Massimo Introvigne

The Czech Ministry of Culture, Prague. Credits.

The Czech Ministry of Culture, Prague. Credits.

When Petr Pavel was inaugurated as the new President of the Czech Republic in March 2023, he vowed to align the country with European Union human rights standards. He also emerged as a staunch critic of the human rights violations in Russia. Some developments with respect to small minority religions were in fact regarded by local human rights activists as hopeful.

However, these hopes have now been shattered by an unprecedented move by the Czech Ministry of Culture. It appears that the Czech Republic still maintains among its laws a statute on “religious freedom” dated January 7, 2002, which includes some draconian Russian-style, or perhaps Soviet-style, provisions on the “liquidation” of religious organizations. According to this law, “a church is formed as a legal entity by registration” (article 6.1). Registration can be denied and, once obtained, can be lost, including if the church’s activity are deemed to be “in violation of the law” (article 22.1.c).

This is a vague provision, but the consequences are not vague at all. If it believes that a “violation of the law” has occurred, “the Ministry shall, prior to initiating de-registration proceedings, instruct the registered church or association of churches to cease and desist from engaging in such unauthorized activities. Should the registered church or association of churches continue to engage in said activities, the Ministry [of Culture] shall initiate its procedure for de-registration” (article 22.2).

“The registration of a church or an association of churches is terminated when the Ministry’s decision to de-register becomes effective” (article 24.1). “Upon the de-registration of a church, the church and all of its recorded church legal entities shall be liquidated” (article 24.2). Liquidators will be appointed and they “shall notify the Ministry of the conclusion of liquidation proceedings within five business days of said conclusion” (article 24.5). Unless the liquidated church had previously indicated another church to which the proceeds of the liquidation should be transferred, “the net proceeds shall accrue to the State, which shall use the net proceeds for the benefit of other registered churches” (article 24.6).

Happily, these draconian provisions are rarely applied. However, on September 5, 2024, the Ministry of Culture sent to the Czech Religious Association of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (RAJW) the cease and desist letter mentioned in article 22.2. The Ministry gave to the RAJW three months for ceasing and desisting from certain “activities,” warning them that if they do not comply within the term the de-registration proceedings will be initiated. Various meetings between representatives of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Ministry failed to resolve the issue. On November 26, the Jehovah’s Witnesses received confirmation that the cease and desist letter stands. Since on December 5, the three-month period ended, they are currently waiting for an official communication from the Ministry about the initiation of the deregistration proceedings.

In 2023, the Jehovah’s Witnesses celebrated 100 years of publication of “The Watchtower” in Czech language. Source: JW.org.

In 2023, the Jehovah’s Witnesses celebrated 100 years of publication of “The Watchtower” in Czech language. Source: JW.org.

The “activities” the Ministry regards as illegal are all features of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ teachings and lifestyles that have been examined by courts of law throughout the world and regarded as lawful and protected by domestic and international principles of freedom of religion or belief, with the exception of Russia and partially of Norway. In the latter country, however, a court decision is under appeal and does not threaten the Jehovah’s Witnesses with liquidation but “only” (between brackets, because these are serious limitations of their religious liberty) with the loss of state subsidies and certain other faculties, including the possibly of celebrating legally valid marriages.

The first and second objections of the Czech Ministry deal with the same matter being litigated in Norway. It is alleged that by teaching the practice of counseling members not to associate with ex-members (except cohabiting relatives) who have been expelled as guilty and unrepentant of serious sins or have publicly disassociated themselves from the organization, the Jehovah’s Witnesses violate the right of their members to change their religious beliefs. The fear, it is argued, compels members who would like to leave to remain in the organization.

The second objection adds that this is even more dangerous when “children” (meaning minors) are expelled, or they remain within the Jehovah’s Witnesses but are prevented from associating with friends and relatives who have been expelled or have publicly left the organization. The Czech Ministry’s letter does not clarify whether any minor was expelled in the Czech Republic. Cases of expulsion of minors are indeed extremely rare.

This matter has been litigated in a good dozen of countries, resulting in decisions unanimously favorable to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, except (as mentioned earlier) in Russia and in a non-final decision in Norway. Courts have observed that in fact nobody can be compelled to associate with persons, including relatives, they no longer want to associate with, and that suspending relationships is a common fact in our societies as a consequence of all sorts of quarrels. Former spouses and other relatives often cease relationships with divorced ex-spouses. In fact, opponents do not ask courts to compel Jehovah’s Witnesses to associate with expelled or apostate ex-members, which would be practically impossible, but to prohibit the Jehovah’s Witnesses from teaching that relationships should be suspended.

However, in some form, that relationships should cease is clearly taught in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 5:13 (“Expel the wicked person from among you”) and 5:11 (“Do not even eat with such people”), and 2 John:10–11 (“Do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work”: all quotes from the New International Version). How to read these passages is a matter of Biblical interpretation that cannot be adjudicated by secular courts without a gross violation of freedom of religion.

The third charge is that the Jehovah’s Witnesses use “psychological coercion to create dependency, which leads to psychological harm to individuals or their family members or damage to their social relationships.” By reading the explanatory part of the cease and desist letter, it seems that “psychological coercion” is allegedly practiced by avoiding relationships with expelled or apostate ex-members, which would make the third charge a duplicate of the first. On the other hand, the charge itself uses the language of the discredited theory of “brainwashing” or “psychological subjection” allegedly used by religious movements, debunked since the past century by mainline academic scholars of religion and rejected by courts of law in most democratic countries (with the exception of France, whose campaigns against “cults” have received widespread international criticism).

The fourth charge relates to the question of blood transfusions to minors, including in cases when they are “necessary to save the child’s life.” Again, the letter does not mention whether specific incidents happened in the Czech Republic.

The Czech Ministry failed to consider that in most democratic and medically advanced countries the issue is becoming moot as hospitals can provide appropriate care that does not involve a blood transfusion. On their official website, Jehovah’s Witnesses refer to various medical studies showing that “patients, including children, who do not receive transfusions usually fare as well as or better than those who do accept transfusions.” When Jehovah’s Witnesses wish to receive assistance in finding doctors who can provide bloodless treatment, they can seek the help of Hospital Liaison Committees, which have been established for this purpose.

In most democratic countries, courts—including the European Court of Human Rights in 2010 (“Jehovah’s Witnesses of Moscow and Others v. Russia,” June 10) and 2022 (“Taganrog LRO and Others v. Russia,” November 22), and the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation in 2020 (3rd Civil Session, decision of 4–23 December 2020, no. 29469)—have ruled that adult patients have a right to refuse any medical treatment and protected the right of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to refuse blood transfusions. In several jurisdictions, this also applies to “mature minors.”

As for minors who are not “mature,” in the rare cases when doctors believe a blood transfusion is absolutely necessary, and parents or guardians would not authorize it, that dispute can be resolved by a court. In such a case, a parent who is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses will respect the decision made by the court. Courts in democratic countries have also recommended that such measures are adopted only exceptionally. As stated in the Canadian appeal court decision of “M. (J.) v. Alberta (Director of Child Welfare)” (2004 ABQB 512, para. 43), the State “must be careful not to presume that the doctor has always recommended the only acceptable treatment and that Jehovah’s Witness parents are always wrong in denying their consent for treatment by way of blood products. Such a paternalistic attitude impairs the parents’ [constitutional] rights…” In Italy, one of the countries with the largest per capita population of Jehovah’s Witnesses, courts have held that by choosing medical alternatives to blood transfusions, parents who are Jehovah’s Witnesses are not displaying “parental inadequacy,” but are instead conscientiously exercisingbut are instead conscientiously exercising constitutional rights afforded to all parents (Minors Court of Genoa, no. 1109/19, 6 May 2019; Minors Court of Milan, no. 1110/2014, 15 January 2014).

Undisputed champions in the longevity stakes.

The longest-living plants, based on scientific records, include:

Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva): Individual trees can live up to 5,000 years. The oldest known, "Methuselah," is around 4,850 years old.

Pando (Populus tremuloides): A clonal colony of quaking aspen in Utah, estimated at 14,000–80,000 years old, though individual stems live about 130 years.

Norway Spruce (Picea abies): A clonal colony in Sweden, "Old Tjikko," has a root system dated to ~9,500 years.

Lomatia tasmanica (King’s Lomatia): A clonal shrub in Tasmania, with colonies estimated at 43,600 years old.

Yew (Taxus baccata): Individual trees, like the Fortingall Yew in Scotland, may live 2,000–5,000 years.Clonal colonies often outlast individual plants due to their ability to regenerate. Ages are estimated via radiocarbon dating and growth records.

Isaiah ch.65:22NIV"No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands."

Man is not even an also ran in the longevity stakes according to GROK.

The Greenland shark has an estimated life expectancy of at least 250–500 years, making it one of the longest-living vertebrates on Earth. Studies using radiocarbon dating of their eye lenses suggest some individuals may live over 400 years, with sexual maturity reached around 150 years. Their slow metabolism and cold, deep-water habitat contribute to this extreme longevity.

Bowhead Whale: Up to 200+ years. Radiocarbon dating of harpoon points in blubber suggests some live over two centuries.

Galápagos Tortoise: Around 150–200 years. Famous examples like Harriet lived over 170 years in captivity.

Ocean Quahog Clam: Over 500 years. One specimen, "Ming," was dated to 507 years via shell ring counting.

Galápagos Tortoise: Around 150–200 years. Famous examples like Harriet lived over 170 years in captivity.

Ocean Quahog Clam: Over 500 years. One specimen, "Ming," was dated to 507 years via shell ring counting.

Rougeye Rockfish: Up to 205 years. Age determined by otolith (ear bone) analysis.

Tuatara: Around 100–150 years. These reptiles have slow metabolisms and can live over a century in the wild.Hydra: Potentially immortal. These simple freshwater organisms can regenerate cells indefinitely under ideal conditions.

Parrot (e.g., Macaws): Up to 80–100 years. Some captive parrots, like Cookie the cockatoo, lived nearly a century.

Longevity often correlates with slow metabolisms, stable environments, or regenerative abilities. Deep-sea or cold-climate species, like the Greenland shark, tend to dominate the upper ranges.

The future of refridgeration?

 

Sabine Hossenfelder does not work and play well with others?

 

The fall of reductionism?

 Are “Mind” and “Brain” the Same Thing?

Evolution News

In a thought-provoking interview hosted by Wesley J. Smith for the Humanize podcast, three scholars — philosopher Angus Menuge, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, and engineer Brian Krouse — explore the relationship between the mind and the brain, a subject of the recent book Minding the Brain. The conversation revolves around some of the most profound questions in science and philosophy: What is the mind? Is it reducible to the brain? Do we have free will? And how do humans differ from machines and animals? Download the podcast or listen to it here.

The Mind Beyond Measurement

Menuge begins by addressing a fundamental limitation in neuroscience: while brain activity can be correlated with emotional or cognitive states, thoughts themselves cannot be localized in space the way physical objects can. This distinction leads naturally into the concept of dualism — the philosophical view that the mind is distinct from the physical brain.

As host, Smith raises a common question: must dualists also be theists? Menuge clarifies the fact that one can embrace dualism from a purely secular standpoint. Many philosophers have concluded from experience and introspection that mental phenomena cannot be reduced to neural mechanisms — regardless of their theological commitments.

The Free Will Debate

Much of the discussion centers on free will, which the participants see as a defining trait of human beings. Dr. Egnor delves into the famous experiments by Benjamin Libet (1916–2007), which suggested that the brain initiates actions before we become consciously aware of our decisions. But he also found that people could veto actions their brains had already initiated, a phenomenon he termed “free won’t.”

Egnor passionately argues that denying free will undermines moral responsibility and paves the way for totalitarian ideologies. He lists five reasons to affirm free will, including its universality in human experience, the logical inconsistency of denying it, and new physics that disproves classical determinism.  

Are We Just Fancy Computers?

Brian Krouse and Angus Menuge tackle the increasingly popular notion that the brain is merely a computer, and that the mind is nothing more than information processing. They say no. Despite massive advances in computational neuroscience, even simple organisms like the worm C. elegans, with just a few hundred neurons, resist complete computational modeling. If we can’t fully understand a nematode, how much less can we claim mastery over the human brain, which contains trillions of connections?

Egnor, who is author along with Denyse O’Leary of The Immortal Mind (June 3, 2025), adds a philosophical dimension to this critique. Drawing on the concept of intentionality — the “aboutness” of thought — he argues that the mind is categorically unlike computation. Thoughts carry meaning, while computation is blind to meaning. A word processor doesn’t care what you type; it just processes symbols. This, he claims, shows the mind is not only distinct from computation but its opposite.

Human Uniqueness and the Limits of AI

The discussion also touches on the rise of large language models like ChatGPT. While these systems appear intelligent, Krouse emphasizes that their “hallucinations” (errors) reveal their lack of true understanding. They do not grasp meaning; they merely complete patterns. Menuge underscores the danger of forgetting the fundamental distinction between machines and human creativity. The capacity for abstraction, purpose, and moral reasoning sets humans apart from both animals and AI.

Egnor illustrates this difference through a humorous but profound observation: his dog finds deep meaning in the smell of bacon, but she doesn’t reflect on nutrition or ethics. Human cognition, by contrast, includes abstract thought, moral deliberation, and metaphysical inquiry.

Why It Matters

As the conversation concludes, Menuge insists that these philosophical debates are not merely academic. Understanding the mind’s immaterial nature opens up new horizons for science and human flourishing. Our ability to transcend our biological limitations — to think about universal truths, moral ideals, and the cosmos itself — is central to what makes us human.

The guests all stress that a recent book on these themes, Minding the Brain, is not dogmatic but exploratory. The book presents diverse perspectives and invites open-minded inquiry. As Smith remarks, this is precisely what science and philosophy ought to be: a generous dialogue among differing views in pursuit of deeper truth.

Finally, the end of the fermi paradox?

 Fact Check: Did Scientists Really Detect Evidence of Life on Exoplanet K2-18b?

Casey Luskin

The Internet is buzzing right now with the headlines that “Scientists find strongest evidence yet of life on an alien planet” (CBC news), “Scientists detect signature of life on a distant planet, study suggests” (CNN), “Astronomers have found the ‘most promising signs yet’ of alien life on a planet beyond our Solar System” (Sky at Night Magazine), or “Tantalising sign of possible life on faraway world” (BBC). But wait, that last headline isn’t from this week — it’s from 2023, and it’s about precisely the same story. That’s because this is not a new discovery — it’s been reported before — and all that happened recently is that the results got published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Carl Zimmer described the finding this week in the New York Times: 

[A] team of researchers is offering what it contends is the strongest indication yet of extraterrestrial life, not in our solar system but on a massive planet, known as K2-18b, that orbits a star 120 light-years from Earth. A repeated analysis of the exoplanet’s atmosphere suggests an abundance of a molecule that on Earth has only one known source: living organisms such as marine algae.

The molecule is called dimethyl sulfide (DMS) or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS), and on Earth its sole known source is life (specifically, marine phytoplankton algae). But there are a few problems with the claim. Ars Technica has a very nice framing of the problems, and explains:

So why are many astronomers unconvinced? To be compelling, a biosignature from an exoplanet has to clear several hurdles that can be broken down into three key questions:

Is the planet what we think it is?

Is the signal real?

Is life the only way to produce that signal?

At present, none of those questions can be answered with a definitive yes.

We’ll discuss each of these problems briefly.

The  authors of the current study claim that K2-18b could be a Hyacean ocean planet — a very large rocky planet with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere surrounding and sustaining a liquid water ocean that could be filled with life. But many are skeptical of this interpretation, and are suggesting the findings are also consistent with a planet covered in molten magma ocean and a greenhouse-inducing hydrogen atmosphere — a planet highly inhospitable to life. CNN quotes a scientist explaining this possibility:

Astrophysicist Sara Seager, a professor of physics, planetary science, aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said independent teams have completely different interpretations of the planet itself. Seager was not involved in the new research.

“Some propose a Hycean world, others suggest a hot magma ocean — a planet with molten rock beneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, which is about as inhospitable as it gets — and still others see it as a mini-Neptune,” Seager said, referring to worlds that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. For reference, K2-18b is 8.6 times as massive and 2.6 times as large as Earth.

Likewise, Science reports:

Christopher Glein, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, posted a preprint on arXiv on Sunday suggesting K2-18b may host a vast magma ocean wrapped around a large rocky core — a very different beast from the water-world idea that Madhusudhan’s team advocates. Glein told The New York Times it would take a lot to persuade him there’s life on the planet: “Unless we see E.T. waving at us, it’s not going to be a smoking gun.”

Glein’s preprint paper explains problems with the interpretation that K2-18b is a Hycean exoplanet:

The atmospheric composition determined by transmission spectroscopy in the near-infrared (H2/He atmosphere with ~1% abundances of CH4 and CO2 and no detectable NH3 or CO) seemed to suggest that K2-18 b is a Hycean world. However, a reanalysis of those data found no statistically significant evidence for the detection of CO2. This finding may cast doubt on the occurrence of Hycean conditions. Moreover, updated photochemical modeling underscores the difficulty of producing sufficient methane on a Hycean world. It has been emphasized that K2-18 b is too close to its star to support liquid water at its surface due to greenhouse heating, inhibited atmospheric convection, and patchy cloud cover around the substellar point. 

The  point that K2-18b is too close to its host star was also a problem raised by Sky at Night Magazine: “The planet is also very close to its star, meaning it is bombarded with a great deal of high-energy radiation, which any organisms on its surface would have to be able to survive.”

Ars Technica pushes this argument further, noting that without clouds on K2-18b (which have not been detected), it would be impossible to sustain an ocean:

The first question is whether we’re actually looking at a hycean world. As the researchers acknowledge in their paper, the presence of an ocean on K2-18b depends very strongly on its weather: “A cloud-/haze-free atmosphere would render the surface too hot to be habitable and/or have water in a supercritical state.” And, as they later acknowledge, the data obtained from the JWST shows no signs of clouds. That doesn’t mean they’re not there, but it certainly doesn’t help the case.

And, in fact, a different research group has already found evidence that the planet isn’t reflecting enough light back into space to keep from boiling away any oceans it tries to form. That manuscript suggests that K2-18b is more likely to be a magma-ocean or gas-dwarf world. And a modeling paper suggests that most potential hycean worlds would suffer from a runaway greenhouse effect unless they receive significantly less illumination than Earth does. Then there’s a draft paper from Glein and his collaborators, which suggests you can get many of the same properties seen in K2-18b from a planet with a deep atmosphere sitting above a magma ocean.

A 2023 article at Big Think by astrophysicist Ethan Siegel argued that K2-18b is “massive, puffy, and more Neptune-like than Earth-like” and thus simply cannot be covered by a liquid-water ocean:

And for large, massive planets that are more like Neptune/Uranus than Earth/Mars/Venus, their stronger gravitational pull makes it easy for them to hold onto the lightest gases of all: hydrogen and helium, whereas for a small, low-mass planet like our own, our gravity is insufficient to prevent solar radiation from boiling those atoms/molecules away.

A recent study has shown that any planet that’s more than about 1.75 times the radius of Earth must be Neptune-like, not Earth-like, and that same study showed that if a hydrogen/helium atmosphere reaches even half-a-percent of the planet’s overall mass, the surface pressure will be tens of thousands of times as great as it is on Earth’s surface, while the temperature will reach into the thousands of degrees. K2-18b, therefore, cannot be an ocean-covered, Earth-analogue world.

With all this skepticism that K2-18b has a liquid-water ocean, I think Zimmer’s article at the New York Times summarized the situation nicely: “Other researchers emphasized that much research remained to be done. One question yet to be resolved is whether K2-18b is in fact a habitable, Hycean world.”

Did They Really Detect DMS/DMDS?

Multiple articles have noted that the detection of DMS/DMDS on K2-18b needs to be independently verified and brought to a higher level of statistical significance before it can be accepted by the scientific community. CNN quotes astrobiologist Eddie Schwieterman of UC Riverside explaining this point:

But Schwieterman said that first, scientists need to confirm that dimethyl sulfide is really present in the atmosphere of K2-18b, which will require validation from multiple independent groups who study the same data and analyze it for the chemical signature of the molecules. Madhusudhan said the data the study team analyzed will be released next week, so other astronomers can do just that.

Next, Schwieterman wants to see additional Webb observations with a higher level of statistical significance to see whether the interpretation of dimethyl sulfide being present holds. Searching for the signatures of these molecules in atmospheres of other similarly sized planets within the habitable zones of their stars would also help, although it’s a process that will take years.

“I do have at (least) one reason to be skeptical, which is that I’d anticipate the presence of ethane (C2H6) to accompany DMS/DMDS if those gases were present,” he said. “This is because UV rays from the star would break apart the DMS/DMDS into components we’d predict would react to form ethane. The absence of ethane makes me think we’ve missed something. Perhaps our models are wrong, or perhaps the DMS/DMDS isn’t there.”

The insightful analysis at Ars Technica further notes that the spectral signature that is being claimed to indicate dimethyl sulfide could easily also indicate other molecules instead:

For its specific identity as dimethyl sulfide, we only know that it’s the best fit out of the 20 chemicals considered in this paper. There are a whole host of other chemicals that could plausibly be produced on a planet like this that weren’t included in this analysis. The potential presence of a dimethyl sulfide signal at other wavelengths in earlier work may seem to solidify this identification, but a reanalysis of that data found no evidence of a statistically significant signal.

But even if they did find DMS/DMDS, there’s still another crucial question which must be addressed…

Can DMS/DMDS Be Produced Abiotically

The answer to this question is yes — it is well-established that dimethyl sulfide can be produced from nonbiological sources. In 2024, DMS was detected on what the journal Science described as a “cold, lifeless comet.” That article stated:

Scientists have discovered dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a molecule thought to have only living sources, on a cold, lifeless comet. The finding calls into question the molecule’s usefulness as a biosignature and the significance of an earlier hint of it in the atmosphere of an alien planet.

“This is the first sign of an abiotic source,” says Nora Hänni, a chemist at the University of Bern who presented the discovery last week at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union.

That same year a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters reported: “Through laboratory photochemical experiments, we show the abiotic production of organosulfur gases, including DMS…” They caution that “H2S-influenced organic haze chemistry may be an overlooked abiotic source of organosulfur compounds” and conclude:

We have shown that DMS, OCS, CS2, and simple thiols, species previously considered potentially robust biosignatures in exoplanetary atmospheres, have possible abiotic production pathways via planetary organic haze chemistry. Thus, each organosulfur gas presented here is at risk of being a false-positive biosignature if the abiotic pathways proposed are neglected.

he current study proposing life on K2-18b acknowledges these abiotic mechanisms of producing DMS, but dismisses them, claiming that the don’t produce dimethyl sulfide in high enough amounts to allow them to reach observed concentrations observed on K2-18b before being destroyed. That may be true — but it’s also true for observed biotic production of DSM on Earth. So something else must be going on here. 

Sky at Night Magazine acknowledges the possibility of other processes at work: “Another unknown chemical process could be the source of the molecules detected in K2-18b’s atmosphere.” Indeed, there are good reasons to suspect that something else might be going on: The concentrations of DMS and DMDS on K2-18b are orders of magnitude higher than they are for biotic production here on Earth. Sky at Night explains:

Yet the concentrations of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in K2-18b’s atmosphere are different from those on Earth. On Earth, dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide are below one part per billion by volume. On K2-18b, they’re thought to be thousands of times stronger, over ten parts per million.

So if dimethyl sulfide is in fact present on K2-18b in concentrations 1,000+ times greater than on Earth, then something very different is happening there — and we still don’t know what that is. This possibility of non-Earthlike processes has been acknowledged by multiple sources, and further study is needed to rule out abiotic production, as the technical paper says:

Future laboratory experiments and/or theoretical modeling are also needed to fully explore the possible photochemical mechanisms for producing DMS and DMDS in dry, methane-rich, reduced environments, to address potential abiotic sources of these molecules.

Again, the New York Times provides a good summary: “Scientists will also need to run laboratory experiments to make sense of the new study — to recreate the possible conditions on sub-Neptunes, for instance, to see whether dimethyl sulfide behaves there as it does on Earth.” Whatever is happening on K2-18b, it seems unlikely to be similar to what happens on Earth. 

Little Data to Go On

At the end of the day, we must bear in mind that all the data we have from these exoplanets is a small amount of light that is reflected coming from their host star that is reflected off the planet. A news story in the journal Science reminds us just how little information we have to go on: 

Even then, researchers say there should be a very high bar for claiming the presence of life based solely on the gases in a planet’s upper atmosphere. “Everything we know about planets orbiting other stars comes from the tiny amounts of light that glance off their atmospheres,” Oliver Shorttle of Cambridge told BBC. “So it is an incredibly tenuous signal that we are having to read, not only for signs of life, but everything else.”

Researchers would prefer a more thorough knowledge of the planet’s atmosphere and surface to exclude other possibilities. “On Earth [DMS] is produced by microorganisms in the ocean, but even with perfect data we can’t say for sure that this is of a biological origin on an alien world because loads of strange things happen in the Universe,” Catherine Heymans of the University of Edinburgh and Scotland’s Astronomer Royal told BBC. “We don’t know what other geological activity could be happening on this planet that might produce the molecules.”

There are other examples in recent memory where detection of a molecule in an exoplanet led to premature declarations of alien life. A 2023 BBC story recounts:

It is the first time astronomers have detected the possibility of DMS in a planet orbiting a distant star. But they are treating the results with caution, noting that a claim made in 2020 about the presence of another molecule, called phosphine, that could be produced by living organisms in the clouds of Venus was disputed a year later.

Could something similar be happening right now? When the possibility of dimethyl sulfide on K2-18b was first reported in 2023, an article at Big Think said, “I’m betting that you don’t want hype and exaggeration; you want the scientific truth” and concluded we “see no evidence that K2-18b has water; we see no evidence for water there at all. And, most importantly, there is no detection of any biosignature on this world.” I think perhaps Sara Seager, a planetary scientist at MIT, put it best when she said: “When it comes to K2-18 b, enthusiasm is outpacing evidence.” 

Not so fast!

 

The word rendered worship is "proskuneo" and while JEHOVAH  receives absolute proskuneo/worship the bible clearly shows that holy messengers of God both human and superhuman can also lawfully receive a kind relative proskuneo/worship for instance,

Daniel ch.2:46KJV"Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and WORSHIPPED Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him."

1Chronicles 29:20KJV"And David said to all the congregation, Now bless the LORD your God. And all the congregation blessed the LORD God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and WORSHIPPED the LORD, and the king."

Note that king David is worshiped alongside the Lord JEHOVAH

What about this:

Luke ch.4:8KJV"And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the LORD thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."

To help us reason scripturally on this matter lets consider another caution Jesus gave us.

Matthew ch.23:9,10NIV"And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah."

A careless investigator of God's word might conclude that Paul is in violation of Jesus's command based on such texts as:

  Romans ch.4:1NKJV"What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?"

1corinthians ch.4:15NIV"Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel."

Clearly our Lord was cautioning against the use of honorific titles especially those that might obscure JEHOVAH'S Unique fatherhood and Christ's unique teaching authority

So JEHOVAH Recieves absolute worship but his divinely appointed and empowered prophet can also lawfully receive relative worship out of regard for the God who selected and empowered him see Daniel ch.2:46 but Luke ch.4:8b uses the Greek word Latreo only the God and Father of Jesus is ever depicted as receiving Latreo in the Holy scriptures and no one else, so it is interesting that Jesus takes pains to spell out that only the Lord JEHOVAH is entitled to this absolutely sacred form of worship.

Using AI to give ourselves superpowers?

 

The king of titans lays the smackdown on all comers.

 

Matthew Henry re: Daniel ch.10:10-21

"10:10-21 Whenever we enter into communion with God, it becomes us to have a due sense of the infinite distance between us and the holy God. How shall we, that are dust and ashes, speak to the Lord of glory? Nothing is more likely, nothing more effectual to revive the drooping spirits of the saints, than to be assured of God's love to them. From the very first day we begin to look toward God in a way of duty, he is ready to meet us in the way of mercy. Thus ready is God to hear prayer. When the angel had told the prophet of the things to come, he was to return, and oppose the decrees of the Persian kings against the Jews. The angels are employed as God's ministering servants, Heb 1:14. Though much was done against the Jews by the kings of Persia, God permitting it, much more mischief would have been done if God had not prevented it. He would now more fully show what were God's purposes, of which the prophecies form an outline; and we are concerned to study what is written in these Scriptures of truth, for they belong to our everlasting peace. While Satan and his angels, and evil counsellors, excite princes to mischief against the church, we may rejoice that Christ our Prince, and all his mighty angels, act against our enemies; but we ought not to expect many to favour us in this evil world. Yet the whole counsel of God shall be established; and let each one pray, Lord Jesus, be our righteousness now, and thou wilt be our everlasting confidence, through life, in death, at the day of judgment, and for evermore."

https://biblehub.com/commentaries/mhcw/daniel/10.htm

John Calvin in his own words on Michael the great prince.

"On Daniel 10:13:

“He adds next, Behold! Michael, one of the chief leaders or princes, came to strengthen me. Some think the word Michael represents Christ, and I do not object to this opinion.”

Criticism of Misinterpretation

 (Daniel 12:1):

“That foul hypocrite, Servetus, has dared to appropriate this passage to himself; for he has inscribed it as a frontispiece on his horrible comments, because he was called Michael! … But this was a proof of his impudence and sacrilegious madness — to adorn himself with this epithet of Christ without blushing, and to elevate himself into Christ’s place, by boasting himself to be Michael, the guardian of the Church, and the mighty prince of the people!

https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom25.vii.i.html

https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom25/calcom25.v.xiv.html

I found this pair of quotes from protestant reformer John calvin most interesting.

GROK quotes tertullian on the seventy weeks of the book of Daniel.

 Tertullian discusses the seventy weeks prophecy from Daniel 9:24-27, arguing it was fulfilled in the coming of Christ. Here is the relevant quote from Chapter VIII:against the Jews.

"For the prophet Daniel, in the vision of the seventy weeks, speaks thus: 'Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to seal up sins, and to wipe out iniquities, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Holy of Holies; and thou shalt know and understand, from the going forth of the word to answer and to build Jerusalem, unto Christ the Leader, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks.' Now, from the going forth of the word to rebuild Jerusalem, which was given through Cyrus, king of the Persians, unto the advent of Christ, are computed seventy weeks, which make four hundred and ninety years, since each week contains seven years. In these weeks, therefore, Christ came and suffered, and the city was destroyed, and the sacrifices ceased."

This passage reflects Tertullian’s interpretation that the seventy weeks (490 years) prophesied by Daniel were fulfilled with the coming of Christ, His death, and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem."

Note the use of the day for a year formula in calculating prophetic time.

Ex nihilo = Design?

 Why the “Universe from Nothing” Model Points to Intelligent Design

Andrew McDiarmid

Did our universe come from nothing, as some physicists have proposed? On a new episode of ID the Future, I critique the audacious claim that our universe popped into existence out of nothing. What is nothing? What isn’t nothing? And how does the universe from nothing claim actually imply the necessity for intelligent design? I share audio from the Science Uprising video series, as well a portion of an interview with Dr. Stephen Meyer, to help answer these questions. 

This episode is built around a suggestion I recently received from an ID the Future listener. Timothy in South Australia wants to know where the theory that the universe was created from nothing came from, how old the idea is, and why some would accept the premise over intelligent design. Says Timothy: “When they say that ‘nothing’ is responsible for the creation of the universe, do they literally mean nothing at all? Or are they referring to something? If so, why do they say that ‘nothing’ created the universe? Doesn’t that phrasing mislead us to believe that ‘nothing’ has creative powers?”

To sort it out, we hear audio from Dr. Stephen Meyer and Dr. Brian Miller as they describe how scientists discovered that the universe had a beginning, and why some scientists have proposed exotic theories to get around the evidence of fine-tuning that has been discovered in recent decades. The “universe from nothing” idea, popularized by physicists like Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss, is one of those exotic ideas. But rather than explain the origin of the universe in materialistic terms, the “universe from nothing” proposal actually bolsters the case for intelligent design, as Dr. Meyer explains. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

Now bird brain for the win?

 High Bird Intelligence Is Consistent with Design, Not Evolution

Denyse O Leary

Editor’s note: Pre-order The Immortal Mind by Michael Egnor and Denyse O’Leary and get a sneak peek exclusive excerpt from the book as well as the full digital book anthology Minding the Brain.

At Quanta, science writer Yasemin Saplakoglu explores the thesis that intelligence evolved at least twice in vertebrate animals. We’ll get to the specifics but first I’d like to focus on the opening paragraph:

Humans tend to put our own intelligence on a pedestal. Our brains can do math, employ logic, explore abstractions and think critically. But we can’t claim a monopoly on thought. Among a variety of nonhuman species known to display intelligent behavior, birds have been shown time and again to have advanced cognitive abilities. Ravens plan for the future, crows count and use tools, cockatoos open and pillage booby-trapped garbage cans, and chickadees keep track of tens of thousands of seeds cached across a landscape. Notably, birds achieve such feats with brains that look completely different from ours: They’re smaller and lack the highly organized structures that scientists associate with mammalian intelligence.

“INTELLIGENCE EVOLVED AT LEAST TWICE IN VERTEBRATE ANIMALS,” APRIL 7, 

Putting Our Intelligence on a Pedestal?

Wait ,How did we lose track of the fact that humans are studying birds, using both abstractions and critical thinking (not to mention sophisticated equipment). Birds get on with their lives by cleverly solving problems. But they are not studying us that way — because they can’t.

A discussion of animal intelligence that refuses to acknowledge human exceptionalism becomes a script for suppressing discussions we need to have about our place in the world.

One of Saplakoglu’s interview subjects harps on the same theme:

The findings emerge in a world enraptured by artificial forms of intelligence, and they could teach us something about how complex circuits in our own brains evolved. Perhaps most importantly, they could help us step “away from the idea that we are the best creatures in the world,” said Niklas Kempynck, a graduate student at KU Leuven who led one of the studies. “We are not this optimal solution to intelligence.” 

“EVOLVED AT LEAST TWICE”

The Evolution of Nonsense

Kempynck is doubtless an intelligent man. But here he is talking nonsense. It is a nonsense imposed on him by the unquestioned philosophical commitments of evolutionary biology. If he started uttering common sense, he would be deplatformed.

He can’t think — let alone say — the obvious. So once again, I will: We are not “this optimal solution to intelligence.” We belong to a different order of intelligence from all other life forms. We fly — by building aircraft. We don’t howl at the moon; we go there.

Whatever the human difference is, it makes a huge difference, one in which all the contributors to “Evolved at Least Twice” participate, without being free to acknowledge it.

Whether we are the “best creatures” on the planet is a logical dead end. If several other species had the capacity for abstract thought and moral choice, we might have (one hopes) a friendly rivalry. Because we are all alone in this regard, we can vote ourselves whatever titles or putdowns we want — the drama changes nothing.

It is ironic that otherwise intelligent people must play the “we’re just another animal” game while demanding the attention to their work that only humans can give.

Leaving Humans Out of the Picture for a Moment…

The  question of whether birds developed intelligence separately from mammals hinges on how the various brain parts currently believed to be associated with intelligence formed. Recent papers delving into the matter offer some useful new insights:

A series of studies published in Science in February 2025 provides the best evidence yet that birds and mammals did not inherit the neural pathways that generate intelligence from a common ancestor, but rather evolved them independently. This suggests that vertebrate intelligence arose not once, but multiple times. Still, their neural complexity didn’t evolve in wildly different directions: Avian and mammalian brains display surprisingly similar circuits, the studies found. 

“EVOLVED AT LEAST TWICE”

As Saplakoglu notes, that pattern is consistent with convergent evolution. It’s also consistent with intelligent design in nature: achieving the same goal using quite different neural structures.

An article at Science introduces the topic, pointing to current papers:

On pages 733, 734, and 732 of this issue, Zaremba et al. (1), Hecker et al. (2), and Rueda-Alaña et al. (3), respectively, provide evidence for the convergent development and evolution of neurons and their connections in the bird and mammalian pallia, highlighting the need for multiple perspectives in brain comparative studies. 

GIACOMO GATTONI, MARIA ANTONIETTA TOSCHES, CONSTRAINED ROADS TO COMPLEX BRAINS. SCIENCE 387,716-717(2025). DOI:10.1126/SCIENCE.ADV2609

Saplakoglu’s article provides a valuable overview of the study of bird intelligence. She covers both the predominant view in the first half of the twentieth century — that birds are not as intelligent as mammals — and the successful challenges to that view. For example,

“A bird with a 10-gram brain is doing pretty much the same as a chimp with a 400-gram brain,” said Onur Güntürkün, who studies brain structures at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. “How is it possible?” 

“EVOLVED AT LEAST TWICE”

How indeed? It may be time for a rethink of what animal intelligence is.

Lizard brain for the win(again)

 Get Smart: Recognizing Reptile Intelligence

Denyse O Leary

Editor’s note: Pre-order The Immortal Mind by Michael Egnor and Denyse O’Leary and get a sneak peek exclusive excerpt from the book as well as the full digital book anthology Minding The Brain.

At JStor Daily,Matthew Wills, introducing a recent paper, tells us that reptiles are are smarter than we used to think. One reason that biologists used to think that reptiles are of uniformly low intelligence was a misunderstanding about their behavior in captivity:

Herpetologist Gilles De Meester and evolutionary ecologist Simon Baeckens write that, into the 1970s, researchers were dismissing reptiles as “reflex machines,” “intellectual dwarfs,” and creatures of “very small brain.” The latter description implies much — but those implications turn out to tell us more about researchers than the subjects of their studies.

The few earlier studies that seemed to confirm the dumb reptile stereotype had “inadequate and ecologically irrelevant experimental study designs, such as suboptimal room temperatures or insufficient reinforces,” write De Meester and Baeckens. For instance, food, which works well as a motivation for rodents and birds in cognitive tests, seems to have much less appeal to reptiles because of their low metabolic rate and irregular feeding habits. Snakes, as an example, may not want to eat for months after consuming large prey, so a new food source may not interest them at all.

“THE REPTILIAN RENAISSANCE,” APRIL 11, 2025

Clever Reptiles

It turns out that reptiles observed in the wild can be rather clever:

There’s even some evidence of reptilian tool-use: species of crocodiles and alligators “display sticks and twigs on their snout in order to lure nest-building birds.” This has only been observed in bird-breeding season, when the birds on the lookout for sticks to construct or repair their nests.

Once considered simple and “primitive,” the “reptilian brain is now recognized to govern complex behaviours,” write De Meester and Baeckens. They argue that reptiles show “immense potential” as model species for research into the “mechanisms, the development, and evolution of animal cognition.”

“THE REPTILIAN RENAISSANCE”

In  fairness, the fact that reptiles can afford to be torpid much of the time due to their low energy needs probably means that they don’t need to exercise intelligence as often as energy-burning mammals and birds do. But that’s a separate matter from not having intelligence.

The Reptile Brain

Mammals and birds have different types of brains from each others. But if reptiles can demonstrate intelligence similar to that of, say, mammals or birds, is it because they have similar types of brains to either?

At Neuroscience News, Irina Epstein reports that the Max Planck Institute looked at the question in a 2022 paper. They think that a basic ancestral brain developed 320 million years ago when reptiles, birds, and mammals (all tetrapods) moved to land. But the subsequent development of their brains was quite different:

Neuroscientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt tackled this question by generating a molecular atlas of the dragon [lizard] brain and comparing it with one from mice.

Their findings suggest that, contrary to popular belief that a mammalian brain consists of an ancient “reptilian” brain supplemented with new mammalian features, both reptilian and mammalian brains evolved their own clade-specific neuron types and circuits, from a common ancestral set. 

“DRAGONS AND BRAIN EVOLUTION,” SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

That suggests that mammals, birds, and reptiles all developed different smart survival strategies on their own. It sounds like convergent evolution or intelligent design.

Complicating the Picture: Evidence for Smart Fish and Invertebrates

The manta ray, which has a rather large brain, also has a reputation for intelligence: From the Daily Mail:

Their large brains are also believed to have engorged regions known to play a role in higher functions, such as intelligence, vision and motor coordination.

In addition, manta rays are known to repeatedly revisit the same feeding areas or so-called ‘cleaning stations’ on coral reefs — where cleaner fish will nibble away any parasitic organisms that have attached themselves to the manta.

This behaviour has led researchers to conclude that mantas are able to creative cognitive maps of their environment to help them navigate back to these preferred locations.

They are also known to be highly curious animals and often initiate play-like behaviour with human divers — a phenomenon otherwise really only seen to such an extent in intelligent social marine mammals like dolphins and whales.

Divers also report that mantas actively solicit help when tangled in lines or injured, rather than the fear response more typical of a vulnerable animal.

“HOW INTELLIGENT ARE MANTA RAYS?” JULY 12, 2019

Other fish can lay claim to intelligence too. So intelligence doesn’t seem to be just a feature of tetrapod evolution.

And then there’s the octopus… Scientists clash over why these invertebrates are smart, as smart as lab rats. And then there are the cuttlefish. And crabs and lobsters too.

But this takes us back be half a billion years. Maybe if we are looking for general principles underlying the development of intelligence, we would be wise to leave evolution out of it for a bit.

Finally earth 2.0?

 

Less is more?

 1Timothy ch.6:7,8NIV"For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. "

Higher ed. Is higher in name only?

 

Maximum commercialising of the ideological divide?

 

The invincible fortress?

 

Why origin of life science continues to flounder.

 

TERF island indeed.

 

The thinking microbe vs. Darwin.

 A Cell Makes “Decisions” — But if It’s Following a Material Blueprint, How Does It Do That?

David Coppedge

Editor’s note: For more on the “immaterial” aspect of the cell’s blueprint, see the new book describing the thought of biologist Richard Sternberg, Plato’s Revenge: The New Science of the Immaterial Genome (Discovery Institute Press), by David Klinghoffer. To be published on April 28, it is available for preorder now.

Watch an entertaining video in a press release from the University of Massachusetts (UMass) called “Rules of Engagement,” set to the Strauss waltz “Voices of Spring.” We see four varieties of enzymes deciding what to do when traveling along DNA strands and running into each other. We sympathize with these molecular actors, envisioning construction workers trying to work past each other in a narrow corridor. Somehow, they figure out the challenge and carry on. 

Later in the video, we zoom out and see that all these interactions blend into a magnificent ballet, resulting in precise folding of DNA into the familiar X-shaped chromosomes. If a cell is merely a “fortuitous concourse of atoms,” how is this possible?

Abiotic matter can self-organize in some circumstances. Tornadoes and hurricanes form spirals. Cooling lava forms hexagonal columns. Elements combine into geometric crystals. In those cases, though, the atoms simply follow physical laws without regard to consequences or function. Life is different. It solves problems for a purpose. It makes decisions.

Decisions to Cooperate

The condensins and cohesins in the video are not drawn into their interactions by gravity or electrostatics. Multiple levels of programming are involved, including: (1) genetic instructions to build the molecular machines, (2) “rules of engagement” to govern their interactions, (3) an overarching design plan to compact DNA into chromosomes, and (4) a need to separate the chromosome pairs into daughter cells in mitosis. To these programs could be added monitoring systems, repair mechanisms, and the astonishingly complex DNA replication process.

Programming makes the difference. Crystals, lava, and tornadoes do not follow a code telling them what to do. Philosophers and theologians may argue about whether the laws are designed and finely tuned for life, but once established, the laws generate predictable outcomes that can be described mathematically. The actions of molecules in the cell are not predictable from the laws, nor are the paths that electrons take in a silicon chip unless directed by a mind with a plan. 

The press release from UMass highlights a new paper in Science by Samejima et al., explaining that the plan for chromosome construction succeeds despite stochastic interactions at lower levels:

                             

Given the dynamic interactions and stochastic nature of binding and loop extrusion processes, mitotic chromosomes do not adopt a single, fixed three-dimensional structure. Instead, they are disorderly structures with a common defined architecture.

By analogy, construction workers at a building project, each with their specialties and skills, have leeway in the exact locations where they hammer nails or string wires, as long as they follow the overarching site plan shown in the blueprint.

Here are additional examples of decision-making by cells to reinforce the point that material cells can only make decisions if specifically structured to follow a blueprint with rules of engagement.

Decisions to Organize: Another “-ome”

paper in Science by Waltz et al. adds to the growing vocabulary of “-omes” (genome, proteome, lipidome, etc.) with the term “respirasome” — a supercomplex that enables respiration in mitochondria. The individual complexes comprising oxidative phosphorylation, culminating in the wondrous rotary engine ATP synthase, are organized in a way that maximizes function. The authors note how precise the arrangement appears under cryo-electron microscopy:

Mitochondria regenerate adenosine triphosphate (ATP) through oxidative phosphorylation. This process is carried out by five membrane-bound complexes collectively known as the respiratory chain, working in concert to transfer electrons and pump protons. The precise organization of these complexes in native cells is debated. We used in situ cryo–electron tomography to visualize the native structures and organization of several major mitochondrial complexes in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells. ATP synthases and respiratory complexes segregate into curved and flat crista membrane domains, respectively. Respiratory complexes I, III, and IV assemble into a respirasome supercomplex, from which we determined a native 5-angstrom (Å) resolution structure showing binding of electron carrier cytochrome c. Combined with single-particle cryo–electron microscopy at 2.4-Å resolution, we model how the respiratory complexes organize inside native mitochondria.

The authors advance some hypotheses about why the complexes organize into these supercomplexes, noting that not all respirasomes have identical stoichiometry in different species. They speculate that “evolution appears to have repeatedly selected for respirasomes,” which is the Darwinian way of admitting that the patterns are functionally important (otherwise they wouldn’t exist now, would they?).

As visualized by in situ cryo-ET, this membrane architecture creates a narrow luminal space and lateral heterogeneity with the cristae, thereby enabling proton flux from respirasome source to ATP synthase sink…. In such a manner, respirasomes would enable efficient respiration through the indirect mechanism of establishing crista architecture and molecular organization. The native respirasome structure presented in our study provides a blueprint to specifically disrupt supercomplex formation in vivo and mechanistically dissect the physiological relevance of these enigmatic molecular machines.

The respirasome, therefore, appears as another decision-making structure that solves the problem of how best to organize machines in a factory for efficiency. Solutions like this are not predictable from the laws of nature alone.

Decisions to Prevent Problems

Another kind of decision-making seen in cells involves not just solving puzzles but preventing foreseeable problems. A paper in the EMBO Journal by Fagunloye et al. provides a case in point. The Shu complex is an “evolutionarily conserved” (unevolved) “heterotetramer composed of three Rad51 paralogs, Csm2, Psy3, Shu1, and a SWIM-domain containing protein, Shu2.”

Homologous recombination (HR) is important for DNA damage tolerance during replication. The yeast Shu complex, a conserved homologous recombination factor, prevents replication-associated mutagenesis. Here we examine how yeast cells require the Shu complex for coping with MMS-induced lesions during DNA replication. We find that Csm2, a subunit of the Shu complex, binds to autonomous-replicating sequences (ARS) in yeast…. Lastly, we show interactions between the Shu complex and the replication initiation complexes are essential for resistance to DNA damage, to prevent mutations and aberrant recombination events. In our model, the Shu complex interacts with the replication machinery to enable error-free bypass of DNA damage.

Note the irreducible complexity in this complex that they attribute to evolution. They claim this wonder of the cell evolved on the basis of finding differences between the Shu complexes in yeast and humans. They should instead ask on what basis they could expect material processes to sense, repair, and prevent damage: to go from mindless atoms to decision-making machines.

The Shu complex, they say, can repair “bulky DNA damage” and even bypass lesions, yielding a thousand-fold increase in replication accuracy (see the endnote for the impressive details1). Aren’t mutations thought to be the seed-plot of progress in Darwinism? Without the proofreading accuracy of the Shu complex, a cell would likely suffer error catastrophe long before it could emerge.

Moreover, the Shu complex interacts with other complexes — facts that the authors call “intriguing” and “interesting.”2

Skinner’s Constant

Material entities can make decisions, but only when they are guided to do so by an intelligent cause capable of foresight. Attributing decision-making to matter by invoking a nebulous concept of “selection pressure” — a synonym for Skinner’s Constant, the factor which, “when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you got, gives you the answer you should have gotten” — requires magical thinking under the spell of an overactive imagination. The credibility of the Darwinian mechanism is inversely proportional to the details observed operating in living cells.

Notes

"During DNA replication, DNA damage can be bypassed using a template switching mechanism that is facilitated by the recombinase, Rad51. The yeast Shu complex facilitates the formation of Rad51 filaments in this replicative context where its function is restricted. This is unique to other HR factors that repair direct DSBs [double-stranded breaks] outside of DNA replication. How the Shu complex function is limited to facilitatebypass of replicative DNA damage is enigmatic. However, hints come from its DNA damage sensitivity, where the loss of any Shu complex members results in sensitivity to the alkylating agent, methyl methanesulfonate (MMS). Partially explaining this specificity for replicative repair, the Shu complex DNA binding subunits, the Rad51 paralogs Csm2-Psy3, preferentially bind to double-flap substrates and have increased affinity for a double-flap containing an abasic site, which forms during repair of alkylation damage. Loss of Shu complex function results in translesion synthesis-induced mutations and the mutation rate increases over 1000-fold when abasic sites accumulate.” (External citations omitted.)

“Importantly, these physical interactions with the replication initiation complexes occur independently of other HR machinery, including the recombinase Rad51 and the canonical Rad51 paralog, Rad55. Intriguingly, Csm2 enrichment at ARS sites is largely dependent on its interaction with Rad55. Interestingly, Rad55 is neededfor Csm2 enrichment at ARS sites while being dispensable for Shu complex interaction with Mcm4. These results are consistent with those from the Prado laboratory showing that Mcm4 interaction with Rad51 or Rad52 is also DNA-independent. Furthermore, we show that Csm2 and Psy3 DNA binding is largely dispensable for its interaction with members of the MCM or ORC complexes. Therefore, it is possible that Rad55 helps to stabilize or enrich the Shu complex to ARS sites but that the Shu complex alone is needed to interact with the replisome. Overall, our results delineate a model wherein the Shu complex interacts with the replication machinery to ensure an error-free bypass of DNA damage.”

File under "well said" CXVI

"It does not matter how far ahead you can see if you don't understand what you are looking at"

Gary kasparov

Independently recurring design logic vs. Darwin.

 Sporulation: Another Example of a Transcriptional Hierarchy

Jonathan McLatchie

Previously, I introduced the subject of transcriptional hierarchies in bacteria, which exhibit current design logic across various different systems. We reviewed the control of flagellar assembly in Salmonella and saw that the organization of flagellar genes along the chromosome, and their organization into different operons (collections of genes under control of a common promoter), is crucial to the assembly process. Here, I will discuss another example of a transcriptional hierarchy — the control of sporulation

What Is Sporulation?

Sporulation is a highly regulated process whereby a vegetative cell differentiates into an endospore, a highly resistant, dormant structure that can withstand extreme stress (such as heat, desiccation, and UV radiation). The process is triggered by nutrient starvation. Once sporulation has been initiated, the chromosomes align along the longitudinal axis of the cell — this is known as the axial filament.1 The cell then divides asymmetrically near one of the poles, forming the smaller forespore and the larger mother cell.2,3 The membrane of the mother cell subsequently engulfs the forespore such that it completely envelops it.4 A thick layer of peptidoglycan (known as the cortex) is then deposited between the forespore membranes (this Is crucial for dehydration and dormancy).5 Physical and chemical resistance is conferred by proteinaceous layers known as spore coats, which assemble around the cortex.6 Eventually the mother cell undergoes apoptosis, which releases the mature spore.7

The model system for studying sporulation is Bacillus subtilis (pictured at the top), which I will be focusing on here. 

Regulation of Endospore Formation

Similar to flagellar assembly, which we considered previously, sporulation is under the control of a transcriptional hierarchy, whereby sigma factors promote the expression of specific sets of genes.8

The master regulator of sporulation is Spo0A, which is activated by phosphorylation in response to stress, via a phosphorelay system.9,10 Environmental stress signals are detected by sensor histidine kinases (KinA, KinB, and KinC), which in response undergo autophosphorylation.11 The response regulator for this system is Spo0F, which receives the phosphate group from the histidine kinases. This phosphate group, in turn, is transferred to Spo0A by the phosphotransferase Spo0B. This represents a further example of the recurring design logic exhibited by two-component regulatory systems, which I discussed in a previous article.

Phosphorylated Spo0A deactivates abrB, a repressor of early sporulation genes.12 This facilitates expression of spoIIE, which encodes a phosphatase that dephosphorylates SpoIIAA, which otherwise binds and inhibits SpoIIAB (a protein which inactivates σF).13 σF is thereby released and promotes the transcription of a regulon (i.e., a collection of multiple operons that are transcribed in response to the same regulatory protein).14 These genes are primarily involved in the early stages of endospore formulation — in particular, in the forespore compartment.

Among the genes that are under the regulation of σF is a gene coding for a signaling protein called SpoIIR, which activates SpoIIGA, a protease that cleaves pro-σE into its active form, σE.15 σE, in turn, drives the expression of the genes needed for modification of the mother cell membrane to envelop the forespore.16 σE also drives expression of SpoIVB, which cleaves SpoIVFA, a protein which, along with another molecule called BofA, inhibits a membrane-associated protease called SpoIVFB.17,18 This cleavage releases the inhibitory complex, thereby rendering SpoIVB active. This protease, along with another protein called CtpB, cleaves pro-σK, converting it to active σK.19,20 This, in turn, directs the transcription of the genes that code for coat proteins and lytic enzymes that bring about the death of the mother cell.21

Recurring Design Logic

In my previous article, I surveyed the transcriptional hierarchy responsible for the assembly of bacterial flagella. We saw that the organization of genes into operons relates to the timing of their expression — in particular, whether they are expressed early, midway, or late in flagellar assembly. In the foregoing, we have seen a very similar design logic exhibited by the transcriptional hierarchy that is sporulation. And yet, nobody would argue that these systems are evolutionarily related to one another. Recurring design logic across multiple unrelated systems is surprising in an evolutionary perspective, whereas on the hypothesis of design it is what might be reasonably predicted. Examples like this, therefore, suggest the existence of a master-architect behind biological systems — particularly when we find many different examples of design logic that are found recurrently throughout life.

Notes

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Hosoya S, Lu Z, Ozaki Y, Takeuchi M, Sato T. Cytological analysis of the mother cell death process during sporulation in Bacillus subtilis. J Bacteriol. 2007 Mar;189(6):2561-5. doi: 10.1128/JB.01738-06. Epub 2007 Jan 5. PMID: 17209033; PMCID: PMC1899390.

Eichenberger P, Fujita M, Jensen ST, Conlon EM, Rudner DZ, Wang ST, Ferguson C, Haga K, Sato T, Liu JS, Losick R. The program of gene transcription for a single differentiating cell type during sporulation in Bacillus subtilis. PLoS Biol. 2004 Oct;2(10):e328. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0020328. Epub 2004 Sep 21. PMID: 15383836; PMCID: PMC517825.

Chastanet A, Losick R. Just-in-time control of Spo0A synthesis in Bacillus subtilis by multiple regulatory mechanisms. J Bacteriol. 2011 Nov;193(22):6366-74. doi: 10.1128/JB.06057-11. Epub 2011 Sep 23. PMID: 21949067; PMCID: PMC3209201.

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LeDeaux JR, Yu N, Grossman AD. Different roles for KinA, KinB, and KinC in the initiation of sporulation in Bacillus subtilis. J Bacteriol. 1995 Feb;177(3):861-3. doi: 10.1128/jb.177.3.861-863.1995. PMID: 7836330; PMCID: PMC176674.

Hahn J, Roggiani M, Dubnau D. The major role of Spo0A in genetic competence is to downregulate abrB, an essential competence gene. J Bacteriol. 1995 Jun;177(12):3601-5. doi: 10.1128/jb.177.12.3601-3605.1995. PMID: 7768874; PMCID: PMC177070Arigoni F, Duncan L, Alper S, Losick R, Stragier P. SpoIIE governs the phosphorylation state of a protein regulating transcription factor sigma F during sporulation in Bacillus subtilis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1996 Apr 16;93(8):3238-42. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.8.3238. PMID: 8622920; PMCID: PMC39589.

Yeak KYC, Boekhorst J, Wels M, Abee T, Wells-Bennik MHJ. Prediction and validation of novel SigB regulon members in Bacillus subtilis and regulon structure comparison to Bacillales members. BMC Microbiol. 2023 Jan 18;23(1):17. doi: 10.1186/s12866-022-02700-0. PMID: 36653740; PMCID: PMC9847131.

Imamura D, Zhou R, Feig M, Kroos L. Evidence that the Bacillus subtilis SpoIIGA protein is a novel type of signal-transducing aspartic protease. J Biol Chem. 2008 May 30;283(22):15287-99. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M708962200. Epub 2008 Mar 31. PMID: 18378688; PMCID: PMC2397457.

Illing N, Errington J. Genetic regulation of morphogenesis in Bacillus subtilis: roles of sigma E and sigma F in prespore engulfment. J Bacteriol. 1991 May;173(10):3159-69. doi: 10.1128/jb.173.10.3159-3169.1991. PMID: 1902463; PMCID: PMC207910.

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