A line in the Sand X

Revelation17:16,17ASV"And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her utterly with fire.

17 For God did put in their hearts to do his mind, and to come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God should be accomplished."

Indiana's anti-LGBT law a preview for 2016?

By LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor

Updated 2259 GMT (0659 HKT) March 27, 2015

CNN)Barney Frank, to say the least, knows his way around politics. In a Chicago appearance recently, the retired congressman had the sold-out crowd at the Center on Halsted well entertained as he detailed his 45-year journey in public service.

Frank, you'll recall, was the first member of Congress to marry someone of the same-sex while in office, and among other things, he had some choice words for closeted politicians who vote against LGBT rights.

And when someone in the audience asked his thoughts about a current ballot proposal in California that would legalize killing gay people, he said he wasn't aware of the measure but told the young man not to "worry yourself about the crazy people.""We're winning," he said before joking that the name of the California proposal -- "The Sodomite Suppression Act" -- sounded like a porno.

"We're winning" is a phrase I've heard a lot recently as it pertains to LGBT rights. And I guess if you look at where the country was 10 years ago, we definitely are. That's assuming you are part of the "we" that believes LGBT people should have the same rights as their heterosexual/cisgender counterparts.

Or at least not "be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method" as the California proposal suggests. (It's unclear whether Matt McLaughlin, the Huntington Beach lawyer who submitted the proposal, is being sincere or just an ass, but the fact remains that if he collects enough signatures there appears to be no legal way of stopping it from going on the ballot.)Frank's "we're winning" declaration was oddly timed, too. Less than 24 hours after his talk, the governor in the next state over signed an anti-LGBT "religious freedom" bill into the law -- one that allows businesses to challenge in court local laws that forbid discriminating against customers based on sexual orientation.

"Many people of faith feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action," Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said. Not to be outdone, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he would sign a similar bill that is expected to reach his desk shortly.

So we have: A fledgling proposal to kill the gays out West, laws to deny us goods and services in the heartland, and if the rhetoric of 2016 hopeful Ted Cruz is a barometer, a federal ban on same-sex marriage still on the GOP table.

Like others, I had foolishly hoped the upcoming general election would be one defined by bold ideas.

Instead, it looks like it's going to be dragged down to a replay of Pat Buchanan's "cultural war" speech, during which he told the 1992 Republican National Convention: "We stand with (George H.W. Bush) against the amoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should have the same standing in law as married men and women" and later followed with "There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself. For this war is for the soul of America."

Progressives enjoyed poking fun at Cruz, the tea party darling when he announced his presidential bid, but according to the American Civil Liberties Union, "the Indiana RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] is one of 24 introduced in 15 states this year that could allow someone to use their religious beliefs to discriminate. Numerous other bills specifically single out the LGBT community for unequal treatment."It's not just lawmakers. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore made headlines for telling state officials and judges to disregard a federal court ruling that overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage.

And this week. a federal judge in Cruz's home state of Texas blocked a federal rule that would have granted married, same-sex couples access to the Family and Medical Leave Act, a law that helps employees stay home to take care of a severely ill spouse.

It seems clear that even if Cruz doesn't capture the GOP nomination, whoever does will undoubtedly make some concessions to appease LGBT rights backlash currently underway in conservative states.

That could include one of Cruz's agenda items: a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, usurping whatever ruling comes out of the Supreme Court in June, when the court is expected to rule on whether such marriage is constitutionally protected.

And the NCAA can issue strongly worded statements, as it did over Indiana's new anti-LGBT law, and -- along with others in corporate America -- can threaten financial repercussions for discriminatory laws.

But at the end of the day, it's about votes. Frank said when progressives get angry they march in the streets, and when conservatives get mad they march to the polls. If that holds true in 2016, "winning" is going to feel very strange.

Indeed, most 2016 hopefuls on the right have been reluctant to express support for same-sex marriage.

According to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, "it's like asking someone who's Jewish to start serving bacon-wrapped shrimp in their deli."

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said, "I certainly will support Ted Cruz and others that are talking about making ... a constitutional amendment to allow states to continue to define marriage."Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has a long history of fighting against same sex marriage and civil unions.

And Ben Carson said jail turns people gay, so there's that. (He later apologized)

Gallup polls may suggest voters nationwide are more gay-friendly, but the trend on the state level tells a different story. Perhaps we're witnessing the final gasp of a long-ago biases.

Or maybe those biases are having a rebirth we had underestimated.

Barney Frank said he believes Republicans want the Supreme Court to rule in favor of same-sex marriage to provide political cover in the GOP primary. That may be true, but it's doubtful that will allow a candidate to avoid taking a position on the wave of so-called "religious freedom" bills currently snaking through red-state legislatures.

Or to sidestep the topic of a constitutional amendment when it's raised in a debate or at a campaign stop -- especially with Republicans controlling both the House and the Senate.

Once again, our democracy is vexed by a woefully inadequate two-party system. Socially liberal, fiscally conservative independent voters may want to consider the full depth of a candidate's policies before making a decision, but ultimately it may come down to a single-question: to discriminate against LGBT people or not.

Unfortunately, the pending 2016 "cultural war" does not allow for much wiggle room beyond that.

I know Frank and others have said "we're winning" but sitting here, watching the life being sucked out of democracy year in and year out feels more like a defeat than a victory.

Plagiarising the original technologist.

Nature Credits Evolution for Biomimetics Revolution

Evolution News & Views March 27, 2015 11:35 AM | 

If you could just strip out the superfluous evolution-talk in Nature's special Outlook feature on biomimetics, you'd be left with a showcase of intelligent design. The series, "Biomaterials: inspired by the natural world," focuses on amazing traits of various living things that inspire scientists and engineers, but evolution keeps trying to steal the credit. Herb Brody begins the overview:

Millions of years of evolution have made the biological world into a supremely effective materials-development laboratory. This Outlook examines the ways in which substances found in the natural world are inspiring imitations that might eventually endow humans with superhuman powers. [Emphasis added.]

Each of the nine articles except the last mentions evolution at least once, but evolution contributes nothing to the scientific substance. The word is used just as a narrative gloss, as Dr. Philip Skell used to say: such-and-such "has evolved" to do this-or-that.

Setting evolution aside, look at the biomaterials listed in the series that are inspiring imitators, and see what applications are coming from these natural designs. (Brody's lead article contains links to the other articles.) Some of the plants and animals are already the stars in biomimetics, but others are new, providing more inspiration for "practical and durable" materials.

Spider silk is inspiring strong, durable materials. "The silk that these arthropods use to spin webs is extraordinarily tough," Brody says. "Indeed, the scene from Spider Man 2 in which a New York City subway train is stopped by a spiderweb is not far removed from the realms of reality. Scientists are learning how to fabricate synthetic versions of these fibres." Applications: artificial tendons, fighter pilot helmets, Spiderman-like climbing ropes, and anything that needs to be lightweight but strong.

Silkworm silk, though not as tough as spider silk, is simpler and easier to work with. Applications: medical devices and biodegradable sutures; drug-releasing implants, artificial corneas, "silk orthopaedic hardware strong enough to screw into bone and then degrade over time, and squishy scaffolds for growing neurons from the brain's cerebral cortex."

Shark skin is made of V-shaped scales called denticles. Aligned with the local water flow, they reduce drag. Application: swimsuits that allow a swimmer to go 7 percent faster.

Pine cones are made of two layers that respond differently to temperature and humidity (like a bimetallic strip in a thermostat). This allows them to drop their seeds after a fire. Applications: smart clothing fabric that responds by "breathing" with the humidity and temperature.

Lotus leaves are super-waterproof due to two layers that trap air. The layer of papillae traps air under a waxy secretion, such that water rolls off, catching dust on the way. Application: waterproof clothing that is stain resistant.

Hydrogels are common in nature. They are "materials comprising networks of polymer chains that can absorb or release water as conditions change." Applications: high-absorbency diapers, medical devices that avoid rejection and help wounds heal.

Gecko toes are covered with microscopic setae that can cling to almost any surface by atomic forces. "Geckos' feet are so sticky that, in theory, they could support the weight of a 130 kg person hanging from the ceiling." Application: Hand pads that allow a man to walk up glass.

Ivy stems produce "one of nature's strongest adhesives," combining strength with elasticity. Applications: surgical glue, new type of sunscreen, tissue that regenerates. "And the veins onnasturtium leaves have led to the development of a synthetic surface that could prevent rain from freezing on aeroplane wings or keep grimy fingerprints off smartphone screens."

Green tea, cacao and red wine contain polyphenols that resist oxidants and bacteria. Applications: coatings for medical instruments or food-preparation surfaces.

Morpho butterfly wings shine bright blue not from pigment, but from "structural color" made by nanoscopic patterns that intensify reflected light at certain wavelengths. Application: unfading fabric colors.

Squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses rapidly change skin color. Application: the US military is looking into this for more effective camouflage techniques.

Mussel shells create adhesives from protein that fasten underwater and cling tightly in the waves. Similar waterproof adhesives have been found in starfish and barnacles. Applications: marine adhesives, spacecraft glues, filters for wastewater treatment and desalination plants, and new ways to target cancer cells.

Sea cucumber skin is soft and pliable but can stiffen in less than a second when a predator is near. The reaction is reversible. Applications: better microelectrodes for brain implants.

Capadona explains that fine control over the changes in stiffness and degree of swelling is crucial, rather than just a simple issue of changing between soft and stiff states. "This is why we looked to nature for a unique design to inspire ours," he says.

Pitcher plant interior walls are extremely slippery. Application: SLIPS technologies, imitating the pitcher plant's properties, has made stain-resistant lab coats.

Nacre, or mother-of-pearl found in oysters, is "extraordinarily fracture-resistant." So is the dentinin teeth. Application: shatterproof glass.

Armadillo skin's armored plates are "models of materials that are flexible, puncture-proof, and water-resistant." Graphene is an up-and-coming super-material that can substitute for some proteins, but "The difficult part is to first understand nature."

Fish scales offer "tough armour for the animal even as it is flexing, flipping and squirming." Application: protective clothing, body armor for vulnerable joints.

Bone is made up of two weak materials: hydroxyapatite, a chalky substance, and collagen, "very similar to gelatin." Yet "from these weak raw materials, nature produces a strong, flexible, self-healing structure." Applications: bone and joint replacements.

Living cells guide the growth of a complex, rigid frame that houses blood vessels and supports the entire body. Trying to better understand this complex structureand how it works has kept teams of scientists busy for many years.

What Has Evolution Done for You Lately?

Design inspiration comes from all over the animal and plant kingdoms. The focus here is on design-- a word used more often in the articles than evolution. Perhaps the most instructive reference to evolution is in Katherine Bourzac's article, "Spiders: Web of Intrigue." Following six useless references to evolution, we learn that "bioinformatics" is where the action is:

Tara Sutherland, a bioengineer at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Canberra, Australia, is looking to silks that are less well known than those from spiders and silkworms. Sutherland's analysis has uncovered 23 groups of independently evolved types of silk in 100,000 different insect species. [Note the lateral pass to "convergent evolution."] In common with Kaplan, Sutherland has medical applications in mind. She zeroed in on one insect from thousands of options: the honeybee. Honeybees use silk to provide thermal insulation and structural support for their hives.

Sutherland approached the problem of picking the right silk from a bioinformatics point of view, not an evolutionary one. She wanted to make the most of what biopolymers offer. Unlike plastics and other materials, proteins can sense and respond to the environment. Sutherland wants to make tissue-engineering scaffolds that release cell-attracting signals on cue, or silk bandages that release antibiotics when they sense an infection. She has funding from the clothing firm Nike and NASA, among others....

For Sutherland and others, the fibres produced by silk makers in the wild areendlessly fascinating and full of design ideas. "Silk is the best stuff on Earth," says Kaplan. "There's nothing like it."

A narrative gloss to fit the Darwinian worldview inspires no one. "Design ideas": that's what the world needs. What has intelligent design done for you lately? The list above is just a taste of the useful knowledge a focus on design provides.

John11 ESV

1Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

5Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6So, when he heard that Lazarus^a was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” 12The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. 14Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, 15and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16So Thomas, called the Twin,^b said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

17Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles^c off, 19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.^d Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

Jesus Weeps

28When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved^e in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35Jesus wept. 36So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus Raises Lazarus

38Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

The Plot to Kill Jesus

45Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, 46but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. 48If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” 49But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. 50Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” 51He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, 52and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. 53So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.

54Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples.

55Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. 56They were looking for^f Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?” 57Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.

---

Ecclesiastes 3 ESV

1For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

2a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

3a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

The God-Given Task

9What gain has the worker from his toil? 10I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

14I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.^a

From Dust to Dust

16Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. 17I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. 18I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. 19For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity.^b 20All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. 21Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? 22So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?

Further reason to reconsider the skilled trades.

casualties in christendom's war on common sense.

The tragedy is of course that true Christianity has NEVER required belief in any such nonsense.

John8:50NASB"But I do not deek my glory;there is one who seeks and judges

On the Darwinian thought police.

All Those Darwinian Doubts

David Berlinski
Wichita Eagle
March 9, 2005

The defense of Darwin's theory of evolution has now fallen into the hands of biologists who believe in suppressing criticism when possible and ignoring it when not. It is not a strategy calculated in induce confidence in the scientific method. A paper published recently in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington concluded that the events taking place during the Cambrian era could best be understood in terms of an intelligent design—hardly a position unknown in the history of western science. The paper was, of course, peer-reviewed by three prominent evolutionary biologists. Wise men attend to the publication of every one of the Proceeding's papers, but in the case of Steven Meyer's "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," the Board of Editors was at once given to understand that they had done a bad thing. Their indecent capitulation followed at once. 

Publication of the paper, they confessed, was a mistake. It would never happen again. It had barely happened at all. And peer review?

The hell with it.

"If scientists do not oppose antievolutionism," Eugenie Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, remarked, "it will reach more people with the mistaken idea that evolution is scientifically weak." Scott's understanding of "opposition" had nothing to do with reasoned discussion. It had nothing to do with reason at all. Discussing the issue was out of the question. Her advice to her colleagues was considerably more to the point: "Avoid debates." 

Everyone else had better shut up. 

In this country, at least, no one is ever going to shut up, the more so since the case against Darwin's theory retains an almost lunatic vitality. 

Look — The suggestion that Darwin's theory of evolution is like theories in the serious sciences — quantum electrodynamics, say — is grotesque. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen unyielding decimal places. Darwin's theory makes no tight quantitative predictions at all.

Look — Field studies attempting to measure natural selection inevitably report weak to non-existent selection effects. 

Look — Darwin's theory is open at one end since there are no plausible account for the origins of life.

Look — The astonishing and irreducible complexity of various cellular structures has not yet successfully been described, let alone explained.

Look — A great many species enter the fossil record trailing no obvious ancestors and depart for Valhalla leaving no obvious descendents. 

Look — Where attempts to replicate Darwinian evolution on the computer have been successful, they have not used classical Darwinian principles, and where they have used such principles, they have not been successful. 

Look — Tens of thousands of fruit flies have come and gone in laboratory experiments, and every last one of them has remained a fruit fly to the end, all efforts to see the miracle of speciation unavailing. 

Look — The remarkable similarity in the genome of a great many organisms suggests that there is at bottom only one living system; but how then to account for the astonishing differences between human beings and their near relatives — differences that remain obvious to anyone who has visited a zoo?

But look again — If the differences between organisms are scientifically more interesting than their genomic similarities, of what use is Darwin's theory since its otherwise mysterious operations take place by genetic variations?

These are hardly trivial questions. Each suggests a dozen others. These are hardly circumstances that do much to support the view that there are "no valid criticisms of Darwin's theory," as so many recent editorials have suggested.

Serious biologists quite understand all this. They rather regard Darwin's theory as an elderly uncle invited to a family dinner. The old boy has no hair, he has no teeth, he is hard of hearing, and he often drools. Addressing even senior members at table as Sonny, he is inordinately eager to tell the same story over and over again.

But he's family. What can you do?

David Berlinski holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He is the author of On Systems Analysis, A Tour of the Calculus, The Advent of the Algorithm, Newton's Gift, The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky, and, most recently, Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics.

Where some see a canyon..

Keeping an Eye on Evolution: Richard Dawkins, a relentless Darwinian spear carrier, trips over Mount Improbable.

Review of Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins (W. H. Norton & Company, Inc. 1996)
David Berlinski


The theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought. It is large, almost entirely useless, and the object of superstitious awe. Richard Dawkins is widely known as the theory's uncompromising champion. Having made his case in The Blind Watchmaker and River out of Eden, Dawkins proposes to make it yet again in Climbing Mount Improbable. He is not a man given to tiring himself by repetition. 

Darwin's theory has a double aspect. The first is the doctrine of descent with modification; the second, the doctrine of random variation and natural selection. Descent with modification provides the pattern; random variation and natural selection, the mechanism. Dawkins' concern is with the mechanism; the pattern he takes for granted. 

Biological structures such as the mammalian eye are complex in the sense that they contain many parts arranged in specific ways. It is unlikely that such structures could have been discovered by chance. No one, the astrophysicist N. C. Wickramasinghe once observed with some asperity, expects a tornado touching on a junkyard to produce a Boeing 747. This may suggest--it has suggested to some physicists--a disturbing gap between what life has accomplished and what the theory of evolution can explain. The suggestion provokes Dawkins to indignation. "It is grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious," he writes, mixing three metaphors joyously, that the discovery by chance of a complex object is improbable; but the Darwinian mechanism, he adds, "acts by breaking the improbability up into small manageable parts, smearing out the luck needed, going round the back of Mount Improbable and crawling up the gentle slopes...." 

This is a fine image, one introduced originally by the American bio-mathematician Sewell Wright. Random variation offers the mountaineer an allowance of small changes. Chance is at work. Natural selection freezes the successful changes in place. And this process owes nothing to chance. In time, the successful changes form a connected path, a staircase to complexity. 

The example that Dawkins pursues in greatest detail is the eye. Darwin himself wondered at its complexity, remarking in a letter to an American colleague that "the eye...gives me a cold shudder." That shudder notwithstanding, Darwin resolved his doubts in his own favor; the eye, he concluded, was created by a single-step series of improvements, what he called 'fine gradations.' Where Darwin went, Dawkins follows. 

It is one thing, however, to appeal to a path up Mount Improbable, quite another to demonstrate its existence. Dawkins has persuaded himself that because such a path might exist, further argument is unnecessary. Impediments are simply directed to disappear: "There is no difficulty"; "there is a definite tendency in the right direction"; "It is easy to see that..."; "it is not at all difficult to imagine...." 

In fact, the difficulties are very considerable. A single retinal cell of the human eye consists of a nucleus, a mitochondrial rod, and a rectangular array containing discrete layers of photon-trapping pigment. The evolutionary development of the eye evidently required an increase in such layers. An inferential staircase being required, the thing virtually constructs itself, Dawkins believes, one layer at a time. "The point," he writes, "is that ninety-one membranes are more effective...than ninety, ninety are more effective that eighty-nine, and so on back to one membrane, which is more effective than zero." 

This is a plausible scheme only because Dawkins has considered a single feature of the eye in isolation. The parts of a complex artifact or object typically gain their usefulness as an ensemble. A Dixie Cup consists of a tube joined to a disk. Without the disk, the cup does not hold less water than it might; it cannot hold water at all. And ditto for the tube, the two items, disk and tube, forming an irreducibly complex system. 

What holds for the Dixie Cup holds for the eye as well. Light strikes the eye in the form of photons, but the optic nerve conveys electrical impulses to the brain. Acting as a sophisticated transducer, the eye must mediate between two different physical signals. The retinal cells that figure in Dawkins' account are connected to horizontal cells; these shuttle information laterally between photoreceptors in order to smooth the visual signal. Amacrine cells act to filter the signal. Bipolar cells convey visual information further to ganglion cells, which in turn conduct information to the optic nerve. The system gives every indication of being tightly integrated, its parts mutually dependent. 

The very problem that Darwin's theory was designed to evade now reappears. Like vibrations passing through a spider's web, changes to any part of the eye, if they are to improve vision, must bring about changes throughout the optical system. Without a correlative increase in the size and complexity of the optic nerve, an increase in the number of photoreceptive membranes can have no effect. A change in the optic nerve must in turn induce corresponding neurological changes in the brain. If these changes come about simultaneously, it makes no sense to talk of a gradual ascent of Mount Improbable. If they do not come about simultaneously, it is not clear why they should come about at all. 

The same problem reappears at the level of biochemistry. Dawkins has framed his discussion in terms of gross anatomy. Each anatomical change that he describes requires a number of coordinate biochemical steps. "[T]he anatomical steps and structures that Darwin thought were so simple," the biochemist Mike Behe remarks in a provocative new book (Darwin's Black Box), "actually involve staggeringly complicated biochemical processes." A number of separate biochemical events are required simply to begin the process of curving a layer of proteins to form a lens. What initiates the sequence? How is it coordinated? And how controlled? On these absolutely fundamental matters, Dawkins has nothing whatsoever to say. 

In addition to the eye, Dawkins discusses spiders and their webs, the origin of flight, and the nature of seashells. The natural history is charming. 

Dawkins is a capable if somewhat dry prose stylist, although such expressions as 'designoid' and 'wince-makingly' are themselves wince-making. The science throughout is primitive. Difficulties are resolved by sleight-of-hand. "In real life," Dawkins remarks in a representative passage, "there may be formidable complications of detail." Yes? What of them, those formidable complications? "These emerge simply and without fuss." 

Is the elephant's large nose truly the result of an evolutionary progression? Then some demonstration is required showing that intermediate-sized noses are valuable as well. None is forthcoming. "If a medium sized trunk were always less efficient," Dawkins writes, "than either a small nose or a big trunk, the big trunk would never have evolved." Indeed. The emergence of powered flight is treated as an engaging fable, one in which either arboreal animals glided downward from the tree tops or a primitive dinosaur hopped upward toward the sky. "The beauty of this theory," Dawkins affirms, commending the hopping scenario, "is that the same nervous circuits that were used to control the center of gravity in the jumping ancestor would, rather effortlessly, have lent themselves to controlling the flight surfaces later in the evolutionary story." It is the phrase "rather effortlessly" that gives to this preposterous assertion its antic charm. 

A final note. In a book whose examples are chosen from natural history, it is important to get the details right. Hawks may soar or sail, but they cannot hover like helicopters. Not all organisms share precisely the same genetic code. And Gary Kasparov was defeated by IBM's Big Blue, and not a program entitled Genius 2. 

On teaching Darwinism:more education less indoctrination

How Should We Teach Evolution?

Casey Luskin March 16, 2015 3:38 AM 

In recent posts (here, here, and here), I've considered some of the misinformation directed at students from Darwin-lobbying groups like the National Center for Science Education. Having answered false claims by evolution advocates in the context of science education, it's fair to ask now: How should evolution be taught? Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture has made its position clear on many occasions in the past, but since media and advocacy groups continue to advance misunderstandings and distortions, it can't hurt to say it once more.

Darwinian evolution should be fully and completely taught in public schools, and schools need to teach more about evolution, not less. Unfortunately, most biology classrooms teach a one-sided, pro-Darwin-only curriculum that censors serious any scientific critique of neo-Darwinism. This makes for bad science education. It doesn't teach students how to think, just what to think. Instead, schools should teach about both the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinian and chemical evolutionary theories and let students critically evaluate the arguments and evidence in this debate.

Teaching students in such a balanced, objective manner turns classroom instruction away from indoctrination and toward genuine education. Critically analyzing Darwinian evolution teaches students more about the facts of biology and produces scientifically minded students with good critical thinking skills. As Charles Darwin himself wrote in the Origin of Species: "a fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."¹

Modern biology textbooks have a chronic habit of papering over scientific evidence that dissents from the standard lines of evidence --or "icons" -- that are used to support Darwinian evolution. For example, textbooks often present examples of small-scale "microevolution" and over-extrapolate from this evidence to make unwarranted claims about "macroevolution." They discuss minute changes in the sizes of beaks on the Galápagos finches or small changes in the colors of peppered moths to claim that fundamentally new types of organisms can evolve via Darwinian processes.²

But evolutionary biologist Robert L. Carroll asks: "Can changes in individual characters, such as the relative frequency of genes for light and dark wing color in moths adapting to industrial pollution, simply be multiplied over time to account for the origin of moths and butterflies within insects, the origin of insects from primitive arthropods, or the origin of arthropods from among primitive multicellular organisms?"³ Many scientists feel the answer is no. However, biology textbooks never inform students of this fact. Students need to have access to all of the evidence regarding Darwinian evolution so they can make up their own minds.

Science education theorists agree that students learn science best when they learn about arguments for and against a particular concept. A 2010 paper in the journal Science observes that "[c]ritique is not, therefore, some peripheral feature of science, but rather it is core to its practice." The paper found that students learn science best when they are asked "to discriminate between evidence that supports ... or does not support"⁴ a given scientific concept.

Science education is about teaching students the facts of biology, but also about teaching them how to think like scientists. When students are told that Darwinian evolution is a "settled theory" or that there "is no controversy over evolution," that not only misinforms them about debates taking place among scientists, but it fails to teach students how to use critical thinking on these important scientific questions. When evolution advocates demand that students should not learn about scientific weaknesses in evolution, the real losers are the students who are denied opportunities to learn about all of the evidence and are prevented from studying different legitimate scientific viewpoints regarding Darwinism.

There is a vibrant debate over Darwinian evolution taking place in the scientific community, and the scientists who have signed the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism List invite you to investigate it. As the 900 signers to the list agree: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

References:

[1.] Charles Darwin, Introduction, The Origin of Species (1859), Literature.org, accessed March 14, 2012, http://literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/introduction.html.

[2.] See Jonathan Wells, "Second Thoughts about Peppered Moths," The Scientist, Vol. 13(11):13 (1999).

[3.] Robert Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, pp. 8-10 (Cambridge University Press, 1997).

[4.] Jonathan Osborne, "Arguing to Learn in Science: The Role of Collaborative, Critical Discourse,"Science, Vol. 328: 463-466 (April 23, 2010).