Civil War III

Has The Skeptical Zone Finally Earned its Name
November 23, 2015 Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design

Perhaps.  Its founder is preaching materialist heresy.

In a post over at The Skeptical Zone Elizabeth Liddle joins the ranks of our opponents who are finally admiting that biological design inferences are not invalid in principle.  She writes:

Has Barry finally realised that those of us who oppose the ideas of Intelligent Design proponents do not dispute that it is possible, in principle, to make a reasonable inference of design?  That rather our opposition is based on the evidence and argument advanced, not on some principled (or unprincipled!) objection to the entire project?

EL, welcome to the ranks of biological design theorists, by which I mean that group of people willing to follow the evidence for (or against) design in biology wherever it leads.

There is more good news.  EL quoted me when I set forth the following objection ID proponents often get:  “All scientific claims must employ methodological naturalism, and you violate the principle of methodological naturalism when you make a design inference in biology.”

EL writes:

Yes, indeed, Barry.  It is not a valid objection . . . There is nothing wrong with making a design inference in principle. We do it all the time, as IDists like to point out.  And there’s nothing wrong with making it in biology, at least in principle.  There is certainly nothing that violates the “principle of methodological naturalism when you make a design inference in biology”

There is even more good news.  EL rejects the idea that one most know who the designer is before one can infer design:

The objection to ID by people like me . . .  is not that it is impossible that terrestrial life was designed by an intelligent agent, nor that it would be necessarily impossible to discover that it was, nor even, I suggest, impossible to infer a designer even if we had no clue as to who the designer might be (although that might make it trickier).

She even agrees that biological design inferences can be made without invoking any supernatural agent:

If Barry means that we can only infer natural, not supernatural, design, he is absolutely correct

I have been saying biological ID infers merely “design” and not supernatural design for several years.  I am glad it has finally sunk it.

More good news.  EL quotes me again:  “You agree with us that it is the EVIDENCE that is important, and objections thrown up for the purpose of ruling that evidence out of court before it is even considered are invalid.”

And she agrees:

Yes, it is the EVIDENCE that is important,

Then she runs of the rails:

Of course, by the same token, nobody can claim that ID is false – it may well be true that life was designed by a supernatural designer

EL writes this sentence as if biological ID theory posits a supernatural designer.  Sigh.  Every prominent ID theorist has always (when speaking qua ID) said that it is a project to detect design, not supernatural design.

Then back to good news:

EL says she does not object to the broader ID project

. . . as stated in the UD FAQ:  In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection — how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. Design detection is used in a number of scientific fields, including anthropology, forensic sciences that seek to explain the cause of events such as a death or fire, cryptanalysis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). An inference that certain biological information may be the product of an intelligent cause can be tested or evaluated in the same manner as scientists daily test for design in other sciences.

Wow.  Yes, that is EL folks.  Don’t believe me, follow the link and check it out yourself.

As I write this her post has gotten over 750 comments, some of which are very interesting.

The first one is EL’s own:

And that’s my point, really – that it’s perfectly possible to test ID hypotheses (small case id I guess) because you can test specific predictions arising from specific hypothesised scenarios.

ID opponent Glen Davidson joins the bandwagon and even adds an area of biological design that has received too little attention:

It is done in biology in fact as well as in principle. Genetic engineering can often be detected, and certainly would be searched for in the case of any biologic warfare. I wouldn’t particularly disagree with Allan Miller so long as there is no context, but, within known context, we can find telltale evidence of genetic tampering or of domestication.

Our William J. Murray jumps in with this zinger:

REC and Moran say they can detect convincing indications of design by intelligence …. what are their definitions and methodology? I mean, isn’t that what you guys always ask ID advocates?

A heaping helping of hypocrisy anyone?  :-)

Our old foe Kantian Naturalist agrees with EL!

I concur with the general sentiments expressed here.

EL even comes up with a not-half-bad definition of “intelligence” for the “I” in ID.

an entity with a human-like type capacity to invent things

EL then writes:

I absolutely agree that inferring design does not require a supernatural hypothesis. That was one of the points I was making in the OP.

I am not quite sure how she squares that with what she wrote before (which seemed to imply that she believes the “D” in ID is always posited to be supernatural agent even though all ID proponents say otherwise):

Of course, by the same token, nobody can claim that ID is false – it may well be true that life was designed by a supernatural designer

KN makes an astute observation:


I also think, quite frankly, that Dembski and Behe are also methodological naturalists (on my suggestion of what that concept means), and this comes out in their refusal to identify the putative designer(s) with any deity or deities. ID is consistent with methodological naturalism — as well as consistent with metaphysical naturalism.

Curtains for Darwinism? II

Why Darwinism is failing II:
November 21, 2015 Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, News


In “Why Darwinism is failing,” I noted that genome mapping changed the way we look at evolution: We are now much closer to the world of mechanism, not theory—closer to Popular Mechanics than to Philosophical Quarterly. The “single greatest idea anyone ever had” gives way to descriptions of mechanisms few expected or predicted—each of which might account for some evolution, though most of the picture is still missing.

Darwin’s defenders, apart from endless terminology quibbles, respond by insisting that natural selection acting on random mutation (Darwinism) can find room for all of it somehow. They seem not to have noticed that all useful theories are bounded. A theory that explains everything explains nothing.

By contrast, no one claims that horizontal gene transfer is so vast as to include epigenetics, genome doubling, and endosymbiosis. Each is a distinct, demonstrable mechanism in its own right.

But there is something else: Evolution has become a history. Histories are specific, and resilient in the long run to grand theories of the sort that produce accolades like ”most influential academic book” ever.

As noted here:

The more we learn about the history of life on earth, the less evolution is theory and the more it is history. It is less like Epicureanism and more like World War II. That cannot be good for Darwinian thinking, which fills in large gaps in history by the exercise of theory. Things that “must have” happened if the theory is correct are assumed to have happened.

But history is not like that. Consider, for example, Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese crippled the U.S. Pacific fleet in a surprise attack, though the United States was not at war with Japan. Assume that the account broke off there. Maybe a theory can fill in the blanks for us and tell us what “had to” happen.

But then, what if we later discover more and more evidence for what actually happened? It will be bad news Tuesday for some theories developed in the absence of evidence — maybe for quite a few theories. More.

After a while, gerrymandering a grand theory to “account for” unexpected evidence seems like a waste of time to anyone but true believers.

Darwinism is not, of course, failing in the popular imagination, or at least, not yet. Bimbette’s vast TV audience still believes, as does the “breath of fresh air” theology prof, and Zack Kopplin. But increasingly, the impetus comes less and less from keen minds like Collins and Venter, more and more from celebs, zealots, and lobbyists.


The history of life just cannot sustain the weight of so grand a theory.

Curtains for Darwinism?

Why Darwinism is failing:
November 20, 2015 Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, News, Philosophy




Further to Barry Arrington’s post, “Zachriel goes into insane denial mode,” which has garnered so far 170 comments, and doubtless counting:

The biggest problem for Darwin’s supporters (paleo, neo, extended, whatever) today has nothing to do with Uncommon Descent or with any design hypothesis.

The problem is genome mapping. Blame people like Francis Collins and Craig Venter.

Darwinian evolution was always a theory, by which Darwinism (natural selection acting on random mutation generates huge levels of information, not noise) .

It was the single greatest idea anyone ever had, and could be believed without evidence because “Darwinism is the only known theory that is in principle capable of explaining certain aspects of life.” (p. 287, Blind Watchmaker, 1986)

And it has been believed without evidence. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is considered by a broad swathe of lay people to be the most influential academic book they know, with very little evidence backing it.

It is a theory that is in constant search for evidence, which results in masses of Darwinian fairy-tales about everything from why stressed mares miscarry through why insects kill their moms, or how people vote and why they tip at restaurants.

One need only map some circumstance in life onto the theory, chop off the inconvenient bits, and there we are: More “science” at work.

Loud crash is heard, some time around 2000.

Today, we know much more than we used to about how life forms change over time. Evolution has become a history, not a theory. Like all histories, it is messy. It only indifferently supports a theory.

Mechanism differs from theory in that it answers Behe’s question, “How, exactly?”: For example, one mechanism of the evolution of some life forms is simply absorbing genes from another organism (horizontal gene transfer):

Bacteria that grow on crustaceans can absorb fragments containing more than 40 genes, using a small “spear.” Researcher Melanie Blokesch describes that number as “an enormous amount of new genetic information.” That may explain why antibiotic resistance sets in so quickly. More.

Jut think of all the Darwinian fairy tales that could have been, and maybe were, told about how natural selection acting on random mutation caused the antibiotic resistance, when they were, for practical purposes of explanation, caused by bacterium equipped with a small spear.

We are now much closer to the world of Popular Mechanics than the world of Philosophical Quarterly.

Mechanism doesn’t answer the kinds of questions “science vs. religion” types or “God-and-science” types explore. But it does answer questions about how evolution happens.

It happens in a variety of ways.  Sometimes it doesn’t happen (stasis). Sometimes it reverses (devolution). Sometimes there are patterns. Other times, that’s unclear.

It has become a history.

Nowhere is there any reason to believe that Darwin’s claimed mechanism, that massive increases in information somehow happen just because the “fittest” at any given time survive and reproduce, explains anything in particular. And the claimed random creation of high levels of information just does not fit with what we know about the universe we live in.

Darwin’s faithful are thus reduced to endless terminological squabbles about what “stasis” or “primitive” mean.

It keeps us on our toes, and keeps up our site numbers.

Note: Francis Collins has had to walk back his earlier enthusiasm for junk DNA, to support some kind of Christian Darwinism, and Craig Venter doesn’t even put much faith in common descent.


And these guys still have jobs! Goodness! Darwin’s lobby must start calling on Top People for support more often, not?

JEHOVAH'S suboptimal beats man's optimal

Engineering a Bionic Eye
David Klinghoffer August 31, 2012 5:22 AM

Richard Dawkins is fond of citing the German phyisologist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) who complained of the eye that if a human engineer designed such an organ -- with its counterintuitive wiring and virtually unnoticeable blind spot -- he'd have sent the engineer away, disgusted with the incompetence of the plan.

With 40 million blind people in the world today, it would be a wonderful thing if some modern bioengineer were to come up with a design for a bionic eye capable of restoring vision and replacing, as needed, our own natural organ of sight. Yet as a bioengineering problem, developing a bionic eye has proved to be frustratingly difficult, as I noted here earlier.

In this context a headline out of Australia this week -- "'World-first' bionic eye implanted in human patient" (Agençe France-Presse) -- catches your attention. It sounds like scientists have finally solved the problem of designing a working visual prosthesis. Great! How exciting, right? Um, not so fast. Unfortunately as you read the article the impressiveness of the achievement, and the hope it holds out to the blind, have to be adjusted sharply downward with almost every paragraph.

The lucky recipient of the bionic eye is Dianne Ashworth, who suffers from degenerative retinitis pigmentosa. The article first calls it the "'world-first' bionic eye prototype." In the next paragraph it's demoted to an "early prototype." We then learn that what's called an "incredible experience" for Ms. Ashworth was no more than perceiving some flashing lights.

"I didn't know what to expect, but all of a sudden, I could see a little flash -- it was amazing," she said in a statement.
"Every time there was stimulation there was a different shape that appeared in front of my eye."

You read on and find that even this can be done for her only in a lab, so outside the lab Ms. Ashworth is back to being blind.
The team with government-funded Bionic Vision Australia hopes to improve on the current model, which employs 24 electrodes. They are

working towards a "wide-view" 98-electrode device that will provide users with the ability to perceive large objects such as buildings and cars, and a "high-acuity" 1,024-electrode device.
Patients with the high-acuity device are expected to be able to recognise faces and read large print, and BVA said it would be suitable for people with retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.

So anything remotely like achieving normal vision lies far in the future. The article concludes by quoting researcher David Penington who says the device so far has "fulfilled our best expectations, giving us confidence that with further development we can achieve useful vision." Meaning that Ms. Ashworth, when she can swing by the lab, currently enjoys vision that is not "useful" to her.

That is strange since Hermann von Helmholtz, going back more than a century and a half, talked like he could have done a better job in designing an eye than nature or nature's designer actually did. Despite Dawkins's admiration, maybe the guy was just an arrogant ass, after all.

Reductionism takes another hit

A Philosopher Chastises Reductionist Myopia
Evolution News & Views August 29, 2012 5:14 PM

"Through their thorough arguments, the essays in Processes of Life challenge widely held assumptions about biology and evolution. Dupré provides a view of life grounded in recent research and current understanding. His perspective also reminds us how much we do not know."

This is how Christian Julian Villabona-Arenas ends his review in Science of John Dupré's new collection of essays, Processes of Life: Essays in the Philosophy of Biology (Oxford University Press, 2012). We've mentioned Dupré before here, here and here. He's a philosopher of biology who describes himself as a philosophical naturalist, but is critical of reductionism. Based on Villabona-Arenas's review, the book offers more criticisms of Darwinism than supports for it.

As philosophers are wont to be, Dupré is a gadfly raising doubts about all the things scientists take for granted: What is life? What is a species? What is an organism? What is a gene?

One fundamental argument Dupré offers against reductionism is that biology works with concepts that depend not only on their constituents but also on the larger systems of which they are part. Debates over the nature of species have generated a substantial fraction of the evolutionary biology literature; less attention has been placed on the definition of genes. In addition to the concerns around such issues, there is the central question of what constitutes the individual organism. (Emphasis added.)
Inherent in these questions are questions about evolution. At several points in his review, Villabona-Arenas, a molecular evolutionist at the University of São Paulo, indicates that Dupré is critical of standard evolutionary theory to the point of chastising evolutionists for their pretensions. But at no point in the review does the reviewer show the author granting neo-Darwinism evidentiary support, even though he is clearly an evolutionist himself.
For instance, the title of his review, "Ending Microbial Myopia," alludes to Dupré's contention that microbes are far more significant than "macrobes" (anything not a microbe) as units of evolution. For most of earth history, they were it:

Although their scientific importance remains generally unappreciated, microbes surpass macrobes (a term Dupré advocates for those organisms that are not bacteria, archaea, or protists) in their contribution to evolutionary history: the first three billion years of life on Earth were overwhelmingly microbial. Even today, they include most living things, exhibit a greater metabolic diversity, and inhabit a wider range of environments (including extremely harsh ones); their collaborative enterprise is so extensive that at the heart of every interface between multicellular eukaryotes and the external environment lies a complex multispecies microbial community. In three essays, Dupré and coauthor Maureen A. O'Malley (University of Sydney) present a strong case for ending the myopia that leads us to undervalue microbes.
That being said, does Dupré show how they came to be? On the contrary, in describing the complexity and variety of microbes, and their interactions, he leaves the door wide open for reassessment of basic evolutionary concepts:
As Dupré and O'Malley note, paying proper attention to microbes has already yielded observations that may force us to rethink fundamental ideas about evolution. In light of the extent of lateral gene transfer, the "tree of life" seems better considered as a net. Studies of cooperation, development, competition, and communication among unicellular organisms have revealed that they can possess many of the characteristics used to define multicellularity. Given that the entities that form lineages are not always the same as those that form metabolic wholes, collaboration may be the central characteristic of living matter. Traditional organisms cannot be seen as "'the' biological individuals on which selection operates." Abandoning some theoretical commitments will open the way for further understanding nature.
Looking at a few finch beaks, in other words, puts the focus on irrelevant details but misses the big picture. It's myopic, Dupré is saying, to see an individual bird or moth as a unit of selection when the living world is a complex, interacting, cooperative, dynamic whole. We might even treat our own microbial travelers (that comprise 90% of the cells we carry with us) as one big "single composite entity." Dupré's view of the biosphere recalls a kind of Heraclitan flux that defies simplistic evolutionary principles. Villabona-Arenas writes,
A living world where none of the entities that constitute an organism are static implies an interactive flux subtly different in every iteration but similar enough to be a distinctive process. Because biological concepts are static abstractions from life processes and different abstractions provide different perspectives on these processes, we face considerable difficulties in reconciling satisfactory general concepts.
So far, they've taken away Darwin's tree and replaced it with a net. They've questioned the unit of selection. They've elevated microbes to collaborative, communicating entities on par with multicellular organisms. They've undermined the ability to describe satisfactory general concepts of evolution. Will they provide something to rescue Darwin from obsolescence? No. They turn on the heat with epigenetics, undermining the Central Dogma:
The author's reasons for recognizing the importance of the environment accentuate the relevance of epigenetics and developmental systems theory, areas that for a long time attracted little interest but have now become very active. Beyond doubt, Dupré emphasizes, the perpetuation of life from one generation to the next requires much more than simply the passage of DNA. He concludes that genomes do not merely store information. Because of their constant dynamic interaction with other constituents of the cell, their capacities depend not only on their sequence of base pairs. More important, those capacities are determined by the systems of which the DNA molecules are only part.
That's not all. Dupré continues by chastising evolutionary psychology, claiming that "evolution has had ample time since the Stone Age to shift our behavior" and "the complexity of the developmental interactions between a wide variety of internal and external factors" (such as epigenetics) discounts the evo-psych claim that we are as we are because we were as we were: e.g., we are obese because our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to store fat for periods of famine. "He applies similar reasoning in rejecting claims of genes for race, highlighting the mistake made in thinking of strings of DNA as having specific functions defined only in terms of phenotypic outcomes. For such reasons, he rejects genetic determinism."
Readers are undoubtedly finding implicit support in all these statements for intelligent design theory, while neo-Darwinism is getting a whipping. Don't look for a last-minute rescue. In his last paragraph, Villabona-Arenas ends the review with one last rebuke:


Through their thorough arguments, the essays in Processes of Life challenge widely held assumptions about biology and evolution. Dupré provides a view of life grounded in recent research and current understanding. His perspective also reminds us how much we do not know.

A line in the sand XXV

Paris attacks: UN backs 'all necessary measures' against IS:

The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution to "redouble" action against Islamic State, following last week's deadly attacks in Paris.
The French-drafted document urges UN members to "take all necessary measures" in the fight against IS.
IS said it carried out the Paris attacks, in which 130 people died.
It also claimed deadly bombings in Lebanon this month, while an IS-linked group said it downed a Russian passenger plane in October.

The UN resolution 2249 also condemns recent attacks in Sousse, Tunisia, and Ankara, Turkey.

Aristotle on body and soul

Aristotle's Theory of Soul:

Aristotle's theory, as it is presented primarily in the De Anima (for a complete account, see Aristotle's Psychology), comes very close to providing a comprehensive, fully developed account of the soul in all its aspects and functions, an account that articulates the ways in which all of the vital functions of all animate organisms are related to the soul. In doing so, the theory comes very close to offering a comprehensive answer to a question that arises from the ordinary Greek notion of soul, namely how precisely it is that the soul, which is agreed to be in some way or other responsible for a variety of things living creatures (especially humans) do and experience, also is the distinguishing mark of the animate. According to Aristotle's theory, a soul is a particular kind of nature, a principle that accounts for change and rest in the particular case of living bodies, i.e. plants, nonhuman animals and human beings. The relation between soul and body, on Aristotle's view, is also an instance of the more general relation between form and matter: thus an ensouled, living body is a particular kind of in-formed matter. Slightly simplifying things by limiting ourselves to the sublunary world (cf. De Anima 2.2, 413a32; 2.3, 415a9), we can describe the theory as furnishing a unified explanatory framework within which all vital functions alike, from metabolism to reasoning, are treated as functions performed by natural organisms of suitable structure and complexity. The soul of an animate organism, in this framework, is nothing other than its system of active abilities to perform the vital functions that organisms of its kind naturally perform, so that when an organism engages in the relevant activities (e.g., nutrition, movement or thought) it does so in virtue of the system of abilities that is its soul.

Given that the soul is, according to Aristotle's theory, a system of abilities possessed and manifested by animate bodies of suitable structure, it is clear that the soul is, according to Aristotle, not itself a body or a corporeal thing. Thus Aristotle agrees with the Phaedo's claim that souls are very different from bodies. Moreover, Aristotle seems to think that all the abilities that are constitutive of the souls of plants, beasts and humans are such that their exercise involves and requires bodily parts and organs. This is obviously so with, for instance, the abilities for movement in respect of place (e.g., by walking or flying), and for sense-perception, which requires sense-organs. Aristotle does not, however, think that there is an organ of thought, and so he also does not think that the exercise of the ability to think involves the use of a bodily part or organ that exists specifically for this use. Nevertheless, he does seem to take the view that the activity of the human intellect always involves some activity of the perceptual apparatus, and hence requires the presence, and proper arrangement, of suitable bodily parts and organs; for he seems to think that sensory impressions [phantasmata] are somehow involved in every occurrent act of thought, at least as far as human beings are concerned (De Anima 3.7, 431a14-7; 3.8, 432a7-10; cf. De Memoria 1, 449b31ff.). If so, Aristotle in fact seems to be committed to the view that, contrary to the Platonic position, even human souls are not capable of existence and (perhaps as importantly) activity apart from the body (cf. De Anima 1.1, 403a3-25, esp. 5-16).

It is noteworthy that Aristotle's theory does not mark off those vital functions that are mental by relating them to the soul in some special way that differs from and goes beyond the way in which vital functions in general are so related. It is certainly not part of Aristotle's theory that the soul is specially and directly responsible for mental functions by performing them on its own, whereas it is less directly responsible for the performance by the living organism of other vital functions such as growth. As this aspect of his theory suggests, Aristotle is confident that once one has a proper understanding of how to explain natural phenomena in general, there is no reason to suppose that mental functions like perception, desire and at least some forms of thinking cannot be explained simply by appealing to the principles in terms of which natural phenomena in general are properly understood and explained (cf. Frede 1992, 97).


It might be thought that since Aristotle's theory treats mental functions and other vital functions exactly alike, it obscures a crucial distinction. This worry, however, turns out to be unjustified. The theory treats mental and other vital functions alike only in that it views both kinds of functions as performed by natural organisms of the right kind of structure and complexity. Viewing mental and other vital functions in this way is perfectly compatible with introducing a distinction between mental and other functions if concerns of some kind or other call for such a distinction. Aristotle is perfectly capable, for instance, of setting aside non-mental vital functions as irrelevant for the purposes of practical philosophy (NE 1.13, 1102b11-12).

Animal navigation turns mount improbable into an inaccessible plateau for Darwinism.

Animal Magnetism Comes to Light
Evolution News & Views November 20, 2015 11:44 AM

Perhaps you saw them in Living Waters: sea turtles navigating alone for thousands of miles in the open sea, then returning to the exact beach where they had hatched; salmon swimming from Canada halfway to Japan, then finding their way back to the mouth of their natal stream.

The only global force available to make long-distance migration possible for sea creatures is the Earth's magnetic field -- something humans cannot sense. A compass can point a hiker north, but it cannot tell her the intensity of the field at any given point. A map can tell her companion where he is, but cannot tell him which bearing to take. Both tools are necessary, and both are available to many animals with input from the magnetic field.

At long last, Chinese investigators recently reported in Nature Materials the putative discovery of the physical basis of the magnetic sense in animals: "A Magnetic Protein Biocompass." If their findings are correct, the capability resides in a rod-shaped complex of iron-rich proteins inside particular cells. The abstract explains:

Here, we report a putative magnetic receptor (Drosophila CG8198, here named MagR) and a multimeric magnetosensing rod-like protein complex, identified by theoretical postulation and genome-wide screening, and validated with cellular, biochemical, structural and biophysical methods. The magnetosensing complex consists of the identified putative magnetoreceptor and known magnetoreception-related photoreceptor cryptochromes (Cry), has the attributes of both Cry- and iron-based systems, and exhibits spontaneous alignment in magnetic fields, including that of the Earth. Such a protein complex may form the basis of magnetoreception in animals, and may lead to applications across multiple fields. [Emphasis added.]

"It's an extraordinary paper," one biochemist remarked in Nature News. It may settle long-standing debates about the source of this incredibly accurate sense. David Cyranoski describes the system as "a biological compass needle: a rod-shaped complex of proteins that can align with Earth's weak magnetic field." The Nature News piece includes a diagram of the proposed magnetic receptor (MagR), looking like a rod of ring-shaped proteins rich in iron surrounded by cryptochromes. The Chinese researchers watched these rods orient themselves to magnetic fields. New Scientist takes us into the lab:

The researchers then identified and isolated this protein complex from pigeons and monarch butterflies.

In the lab, the proteins snapped into alignment in response to a magnetic field. They were so strongly magnetic that they flew up and stuck to the researchers' tools, which contained iron. So the team had to use custom tools made of plastic.

The solution looks intriguing, but Cyranoski writes that other scientists remain skeptical. Controversies have gone on for years about the roles of cryptochromes v. particles of magnetite. New Scientist reviews the history of the debate:

There used to be two competing theories about magnetic sense: some thought it came from iron-binding molecules, others thought it came from a protein called cryptochrome, which senses light and has been linked to magnetic sense in birds.

Xie's group was the first to guess these two were part of the same system, and has now figured out how they fit together.

Some skeptics are not convinced that such small amounts of iron in MagR can respond to magnetic fields. Some want to see the magnets work in vivo. Others doubt that the team's research was free of contamination. At best, this may represent "a major step forward towards unravelling the molecular basis of magnetoreception."

What the articles fail to address is the bigger picture of stimulus and programmed response. A compass is useless without eyes to read it and a brain to interpret it. If MagR is a compass needle, how does the animal sense its orientation and respond appropriately? The response mechanism must be able to discern not only the direction of the needle, but the angle of inclination of the field line at a given point as well as its intensity. Even with all this equipment, the animal must have a map inherited at birth to tell it where to go. Magnetosensation is networked with other senses, such as olfaction, proprioception and biological clocks. Without doubt, years of additional work will be required to put all the pieces together.

It immediately becomes apparent that we have here an astonishing example of convergence:

The biocompass -- whose constituent proteins exist in related forms in other species, including humans -- could explain a long-standing puzzle: how animals such as birds and insects sense magnetism....

Many organisms -- ranging from whales to butterflies, and termites to pigeons -- use Earth's magnetic field to navigate or orient themselves in space.

Animals known to have magnetoreception skills range from worms to mammals, insects to fish, bacteria to reptiles. Cows have been observed to prefer to stand in a north-south direction. Even humans appear to possess these protein complexes, suggesting we could develop the skill to a degree. Don't some people have a keener sense of direction than others?

There is an astonishing range of magnetosensing creatures that are unrelated according to Darwinian theory. Maybe that's why none of the articles tried to explain how this ability evolved. Will they say all these lineages hit upon the same systems independently? Or will they claim that bacterial ancestors developed it, but some descendent lineages lost it? Either answer seems dubious.


Intelligent design, on the other hand, predicts that organisms will be equipped with complex systems that can take advantage of environmental cues and respond with precision. That's exactly what we observe. We see similar equipment in our own remote sensing machines like spacecraft and weather instruments, so we are not surprised to find it in living creatures.

An unmistakable signature III

Denying the Signature: Methodological Naturalism and Materialism-of-the Gaps
Stephen C. Meyer November 21, 2015 6:13 AM

Editor's note: Readers of Evolution News likely know the central thesis of Stephen Meyer's bestseller, Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. Meyer argues that the functional biological information necessary to build the Cambrian animals is best explained by the activity of a designing intelligence, rather than an undirected, materialistic evolutionary process. Most reviews of Darwin's Doubt curiously omitted to address or even to accurately report this central claim. However, a review by philosophers Robert Bishop and Robert O'Connor in Books & Culture was a welcome exception. In this 6-part series, adapted from Debating Darwin's Doubt, edited by ENV's David Klinghoffer, Dr. Meyer responds to their critiques. 

Despite their multi-pronged critique, Robert O'Connor and Robert Bishop offer no evolutionary mechanism as an explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce novel forms of animal life. Neither do they think it necessary to defend the creative power of the natural selection/random mutation mechanism, even though many leading evolutionary theorists now question its ability to generate fundamental innovation in biological form and/or information. To Bishop and O'Connor, it is enough to affirm that God uses (or could use) the natural selection/mutation process, though, they hasten to add, He necessarily does so without leaving any trace of His handiwork behind. "On the evolutionary creationist account, the work is signed using invisible ink," they aver.

In truth, the "evolutionary creationist" account that Bishop and O'Connor articulate in their review, and that they critique me for not taking seriously enough, has no empirical content beyond neo-Darwinism -- although, of course, it can be accommodated to other versions of evolutionary theory as well. For example, in his BioLogos Forum review of Darwin's Doubt, Bishop (writing solo) acknowledges the incompleteness of the neo-Darwinian mechanism, but affirms, without much elaboration or explanation, that other unspecified evolutionary mechanisms have compensated (or, at least, will eventually compensate) for any deficiencies as part of an "extended synthesis."1

The biological details here seem unimportant to Bishop. What is important to proponents of evolutionary creation (EC) or theistic evolution (TE) such as Bishop and O'Connor is affirming that God works through, and only through, secondary causes. Whether there is presently any such evolutionary process that has demonstrated the capacity to generate functional digital information or biological novelty generally matters less than affirming that some such process will eventually account for the exquisite complexity of living things. However, in expressing this confidence in the inevitable success of some naturalistic explanation, proponents of EC (or TE) commit what one might justly characterize a kind of "materialism of the gaps" fallacy. Indeed, the great virtue of Bishop and O'Connor's Books & Culture review is precisely the way in which it reveals their a priori commitment to finding naturalistic explanations for all events and features of the natural world regardless of what the evidence itself might indicate.

The discovery of digital code, hierarchically-organized information processing systems, and functionally-integrated complex circuits and nano-machinery would in any other realm of experience immediately and properly trigger an awareness of the prior activity of a designing intelligence -- precisely because of what we know from experience about what it takes (i.e., what kind of cause is necessary) to produce such systems. But Bishop and O'Connor seem entirely unmoved by discoveries showing the existence of such informational and integrated complexity in living organisms, not because the existence of functional digital code or the nanotechnology in life is in any way in doubt, but because they have committed themselves to viewing the world as if it were the product of materialistic or naturalistic processes regardless of the evidence. (Of course, they conceptualize those processes as modes of divine action, that is, "secondary causes" in theological parlance, even when those same processes clearly lack the creative capacity necessary to explain the origin of the features of life that are attributed to them.)

Both Bishop and O'Connor are Christian defenders of the principle of "methodological naturalism" -- a principle that specifies that scientists must explain all events by reference to materialistic (non-intelligent) causes whatever the evidence.2 For this reason, their affirmation that God designed the universe, but signed His work in undetectable "invisible ink," should be taken with a grain of salt. True, the "signature" of design in nature can only be seen by those with eyes to see. But an a priori commitment to methodological naturalism ensures that we will never perceive (or at least acknowledge) design in nature whatever the evidence, and it codifies our innate tendency to avert our eyes from what is "clearly seen" -- and from what modern biology has made increasingly clear -- in "the things that are made."3

References:

(1) See my discussion of Bishop's ideas on this point in Chapter 40 of Debating Darwin's Doubt.

(2) Regarding Robert Bishop's commitment to methodological naturalism, see the discussion by Paul Nelson in Chapter 37 of Debating Darwin's Doubt; regarding Robert O'Connor's commitment to methodological naturalism, see Robert C. O'Connor, "Science on Trial: Exploring the Rationality of Methodological Naturalism," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 49 (March 1997): 15-30, http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1997/PSCF3-97OConnor.html.


(3) Romans 1:20.

File under 'well said' XIV

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
Abraham Lincoln

The Watchtower Society's commentary on biblical guidance re:images.

IMAGE:

Any representation or likeness of a person or thing.—Mt 22:20.

Whereas references to images in the Bible frequently relate to idolatry, this is not always the case. God, in creating man, said first, “Let us make man in our image [or, shadow, semblance], according to our likeness.” (Ge 1:26, 27, ftn) Since God’s Son stated that his Father is “a Spirit,” this rules out any physical likeness between God and man. (Joh 4:24) Rather, man has qualities reflecting, or mirroring, those of his heavenly Maker, qualities that positively distinguish man from the animal creation. (See ADAM No. 1.) Though in the image of his Creator, man was not made to be an object of worship, or veneration.

Even as Adam’s own son Seth (born to him in his imperfection, however) was in Adam’s “likeness, in his image” (Ge 5:3), Adam’s likeness to God originally identified him as God’s earthly son. (Lu 3:38) Despite man’s fall to imperfection, the fact of mankind’s originally having been made in God’s image was cited after the Noachian Flood as the basis for the divine law authorizing humans to serve as executioners in putting murderers to death. (Ge 9:5, 6; see AVENGER OF BLOOD.) In Christian instructions concerning feminine head covering, Christian men were told they ought not to wear such a covering, since the man “is God’s image and glory,” while the woman is man’s glory.—1Co 11:7.

Has Jesus always reflected his Father’s likeness to the same degree?

God’s firstborn Son, who later became the man Jesus, is in his Father’s image. (2Co 4:4) Inasmuch as that Son was obviously the one to whom God spoke in saying, “Let us make man in our image,” this likeness of the Son to his Father, the Creator, existed from when the Son was created. (Ge 1:26; Joh 1:1-3; Col 1:15, 16) When on earth as a perfect man, he reflected his Father’s qualities and personality to the fullest extent possible within human limitations, so he could say that “he that has seen me has seen the Father also.” (Joh 14:9; 5:17, 19, 30, 36; 8:28, 38, 42) This likeness, however, was certainly heightened at the time of Jesus’ resurrection to spirit life and his being granted “all authority . . . in heaven and on the earth” by his Father, Jehovah God. (1Pe 3:18; Mt 28:18) Since God then exalted Jesus to “a superior position,” God’s Son now reflected his Father’s glory to an even greater degree than he had before leaving the heavens to come to earth. (Php 2:9; Heb 2:9) He is now “the exact representation of [God’s] very being.”—Heb 1:2-4.

All anointed members of the Christian congregation are foreordained by God to be “patterned after the image of his Son.” (Ro 8:29) Christ Jesus is their model not only in their life pattern, as they follow in his footsteps and imitate his course and ways, but also in their death and resurrection. (1Pe 2:21-24; 1Co 11:1; Ro 6:5) Having borne the earthly “image of the one made of dust [Adam],” as spirit creatures they thereafter bear “the image of the heavenly one [the last Adam, Christ Jesus].” (1Co 15:45, 49) During their earthly life, they are privileged to “reflect like mirrors the glory of Jehovah” that shines to them from God’s Son, being progressively transformed into the image conveyed by that glory-reflecting Son. (2Co 3:18; 4:6) God thereby creates in them a new personality, one that is a reflection, or image, of his own divine qualities.—Eph 4:24; Col 3:10.

Improper Use of Images. Whereas humans are to imitate and endeavor to mirror the qualities of their heavenly Father and model their lives after his Son, the veneration of physical images in worship is consistently condemned throughout the Scriptures. God’s detestation of such practice was clearly expressed in the Law given to Israel. Not only carved images but the making of the “form” of anything in heaven, on earth, or in the sea as an object of religious worship was prohibited. (Ex 20:4, 5; Le 26:1; Isa 42:8) Such objects might be made of any substance, in any form—wood, metal, stone; carved, cast, hammered, hewn; in the figure of humans, animals, birds, inanimate objects, or just symbolic forms—but none were approved by God for veneration. The making of them was a ‘ruinous act,’ the committing of evil in Jehovah’s eyes, a detestable and offensive thing bringing his curse upon those doing so. (De 4:16-19, 23-25; 27:15; Nu 33:52; Isa 40:19, 20; 44:12, 13; Eze 7:20) The decking of them with gold and silver would not make them less disgusting in God’s sight nor prevent their being defiled and discarded as “mere dirt!”—De 7:5, 25; Isa 30:22.

Such use of images is shown to be inexcusable before God, since it goes contrary to all reason and intelligence and betrays foolish, empty-headed reasoning as well as a refusal to acknowledge obvious facts. (Isa 44:14-20; Jer 10:14; Ro 1:20-23) The images would prove to be of no benefit; giving no knowledge, guidance, or protection; being speechless, helpless, and lifeless, an eventual cause for shame. (Isa 44:9-11; 45:20; 46:5-7; Hab 2:18-20) Jehovah’s prophetic declarations, accurately foretelling future events, thwarted any efforts of the unfaithful Israelites to attribute the outworking of such events to their idolatrous images.—Isa 48:3-7.

Despite God’s clear pronouncements, the Israelites and others foolishly attempted to combine the use of religious images with the worship of the true God, Jehovah. (Ex 32:1-8; 1Ki 12:26-28; 2Ki 17:41; 21:7) A woman in the time of the Judges even sanctified certain silver pieces to Jehovah and then used them in the making of a religious image. (Jg 17:3, 4; 18:14-20, 30, 31) Prior to Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonians, detestable religious images had been introduced into the temple area, and one such is described as a “symbol of jealousy,” evidently referring to the incitement of God’s jealousy by giving to an image the praise rightfully belonging to him.—Eze 8:3-12; Ex 20:5.

However, certain objects, formed in the image of plants, flowers, animals, and even cherubs, were made at Jehovah’s command and hence were proper. While serving as symbolic representations in connection with God’s worship, they themselves were given no veneration, or worship, as in the matter of prayer or sacrifice.—See IDOL, IDOLATRY.

Images in the Book of Daniel. In the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s kingship (evidently counting from the time of his conquest of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E.), the Babylonian king had a dream, the effect of which greatly disturbed him, producing insomnia. He apparently did not recall the full contents of the dream, for he demanded of his wise men and priests that they reveal both the dream and its interpretation. Despite their boasted ability as revealers of secret things, the Babylonian wise men were unable to fulfill the royal request. This brought upon them the decree of death, and the lives of Daniel and his companions were likewise endangered. By divine help Daniel was able to reveal not only the dream but also its meaning. Daniel’s expression of praise and thanksgiving upon receiving the revelation draws attention to Jehovah God as the Source of wisdom and might and as the one who is “changing times and seasons, removing kings and setting up kings.” (Da 2:1-23) The dream was clearly the result of God’s doing and served to illustrate in a prophetic way God’s irresistible dominion over earth’s affairs.

Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was of an immense image, in human form. The body parts were of metal; from top to bottom, they were made of progressively less valuable but harder metals, beginning with gold and terminating with iron; the feet and toes, however, had clay mixed with the iron. The entire image was crushed to powder by a stone cut out of a mountain, the stone thereafter filling the entire earth.—Da 2:31-35.

What is the meaning of the parts of the dream image seen by Nebuchadnezzar?

The image obviously relates to domination of the earth and Jehovah God’s purpose regarding such domination. This is made clear in Daniel’s inspired interpretation. The golden head represented Nebuchadnezzar, the one who, by divine permission, had gained power as the dominant world ruler and, more importantly, had overthrown the typical kingdom of Judah. However, in saying, “You yourself are the head of gold,” it does not seem that Daniel restricted the head’s significance to Nebuchadnezzar alone. Since the other body parts represented kingdoms, the head evidently represented the dynasty of Babylonian kings from Nebuchadnezzar down till Babylon’s fall in the time of King Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar.—Da 2:37, 38.

The kingdom represented by the silver breasts and arms would therefore be the Medo-Persian power, which overthrew Babylon in 539 B.C.E. It was “inferior” to the Babylonian dynasty but not in the sense of having a smaller area of dominion or of having less strength militarily or economically. Babylon’s superiority may therefore relate to its having been the overthrower of the typical kingdom of God at Jerusalem, a distinction not held by Medo-Persia. The Medo-Persian dynasty of world rulers ended with Darius III (Codommanus), whose forces were thoroughly defeated by Alexander the Macedonian in 331 B.C.E. Greece is thus the power depicted by the image’s belly and thighs of copper.—Da 2:39.

The Grecian, or Hellenic, dominion continued, though in divided form, until it was finally absorbed by the rising power of Rome. The Roman World Power thus appears in the image symbolized by the baser but harder metal, iron, found in the legs of the great image. Rome’s strength to break and crush opposing kingdoms, indicated in the prophecy, is well known in history. (Da 2:40) Yet Rome alone cannot fulfill the requirements of being represented by the image’s legs and feet, for the rule of the Roman Empire did not see the completion of the prophetic dream, namely, the coming of the symbolic stone cut out of the mountain as well as its crushing the entire image and thereafter filling the entire earth.

Thus, the expressions of some Bible commentators are much like those of M. F. Unger, who says: “Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, as unravelled by Daniel, describes the course and end of ‘the times of the Gentiles’ (Luke 21:24; Rev. 16:19); that is, of the Gentile world power to be destroyed at the Second Coming of Christ.” (Unger’s Bible Dictionary, 1965, p. 516) Daniel himself said to Nebuchadnezzar that the dream had to do with “what is to occur in the final part of the days” (Da 2:28), and since the symbolic stone is shown to represent the Kingdom of God, it may be expected that the domination pictured by the iron legs and feet of the image would extend down to the time of the establishment of that Kingdom and till the time it takes action to “crush and put an end to all these kingdoms.”—Da 2:44.

History shows that, although the Roman Empire enjoyed an extension of life in the form of the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic nation, it eventually gave way to the rising power of its onetime imperial subject, Britain. Because of their close affinity and general unity of action, Britain and the United States today are often referred to as the Anglo-American World Power, the present dominant power in world history.

The mixture of iron and clay in the feet of the great image graphically illustrates the condition due to be manifest in the final expression of political world domination. Clay is elsewhere used metaphorically in the Scriptures to stand for fleshly men, made of the dust of the earth. (Job 10:9; Isa 29:16; Ro 9:20, 21) Daniel’s interpretation thus appears to equate the clay with “the offspring of mankind,” the mixing in of which produces fragility in that which is symbolized by the image’s feet and toes. This points to a weakening and a lack of cohesion in the ironlike strength of the final form of world domination by earthly kingdoms. (Da 2:41-43) The common man would wield greater influence in affairs of government.

The golden image later set up by Nebuchadnezzar on the Plain of Dura is not directly related to the immense image of the dream. In view of its dimensions—60 cubits (27 m; 88 ft) high and only 6 cubits (2.7 m; 8.8 ft) broad (or a ratio of ten to one)—it does not seem likely to have been a statue in human form, unless it had a very high pedestal, one that was higher than the human statue itself. The human form has a ratio of only four to one as to height and breadth. So the image may have been more symbolic in nature, perhaps like the obelisks of ancient Egypt.—Da 3:1.

The Image of the Wild Beast. After a vision of a seven-headed wild beast that rises out of the sea, the apostle John saw the vision of a two-horned beast ascending out of the earth, speaking like a dragon and telling those who dwell on the earth “to make an image to the [seven-headed] wild beast.” (Re 13:1, 2, 11-14) Beasts are consistently used in the Bible as symbols of political governments. The image of the seven-headed wild beast must therefore be some agency reflecting the characteristics and will of the globe-dominating political system represented by the seven-headed wild beast. Logically, it should also have seven heads and ten horns like the wild beast out of the sea that it represents. It is of interest to note, then, that another seven-headed beast, distinct from the wild beast out of the sea, is described at Revelation chapter 17. Its significance, as well as that of both the seven-headed wild beast and the two-horned beast, is considered under BEASTS, SYMBOLIC.


After its first mention in Revelation chapter 13, the image of the beast is regularly referred to along with the wild beast, particularly in connection with the worship of that wild beast and the receiving of its mark. The image of the beast shares in these things.—Re 14:9-11; 15:2; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4; see MARK, II.

Yet more on life's antidarwiwinian bias V

An Inordinate Fondness for Confounding Darwinians
Evolution News & Views August 31, 2012 12:43 PM

Write FAIL by another Darwinian prediction: there's no relationship between the length of a branch on Darwin's "tree of life" and how many leaves it has. Evolutionists find this result of a massive study surprising and disconcerting.

The question is this: Shouldn't groups of organisms that have been evolving the longest have the most species? If neo-Darwinism could make any law-like predictions, this should be it: the inexorable pressure to evolve or perish should lead to the most species in the oldest groups:

the most fundamental expectation in macroevolutionary studies is simply that species richness in extant clades should be correlated with clade age: all things being equal, older clades will have had more time for diversity to accumulate than younger clades.
So say Rabosky, Slater and Alfaro, who have just published the most exhaustive study to date of species richness as a function of time. They examined species counts for 1,397 clades, representing 1.2 million species "for taxa as diverse as ferns, fungi, and flies" (emphasis added throughout). Here's what they expected, as reported in their paper in PLoS Biology:
The most general explanatory variable of all is clade age: clades vary in age, and this age variation should lead to differences in clade diversity, particularly if all clades have identical net rates of species diversification through time. If clade diversity is generally increasing through time, there is a strong theoretical expectation that species richness should be associated with their age (Figure S1). Even if individual clades are characterized by a "balanced" random walk in diversity, such that speciation and extinction rates are exactly equal, we may still observe a positive relationship between age and richness through time if clade diversity is conditioned on survival to the present day (Figure S1). Stochastic models of clade diversification through time consistently suggest that species richness and clade age should be correlated. These expectations differ from patterns observed for extinct clades, presumably because living clades have survived to the present to be observed. The expectation that age and diversity should be correlated does not minimize the importance of evolutionary "key innovations" and other factors as determinants of clade richness. In fact, to the extent that such factors influence net diversification rates, their effects should further accentuate differences in richness attributable to age variation alone.
Well, guess what. They aren't correlated. "Clade Age and Species Richness Are Decoupled Across the Eukaryotic Tree of Life," says he paper's title. "At the largest phylogenetic scales, contemporary patterns of species richness are inconsistent with unbounded diversity increase through time," the researchers found. "These results imply that a fundamentally different interpretative paradigm may be needed in the study of phylogenetic diversity patterns in many groups of organisms." Much to their consternation, they couldn't wiggle out of this result (readers can check the open-access paper for how many ways they tried).
The three biologists certainly are aware of complicating factors that might rule out a neat, clean graph. They know that "Some groups, like beetles and flowering plants, contain nearly incomprehensible species diversity, but the overwhelming majority of groups contain far fewer species." Only one species of tuatara, for example, remains after 200 million years on the planet. Sometimes extinction rate exceeds speciation rate; sometimes the ecological niche puts constraints on the ability to diversify. Or, species counts might be artifacts of our taxonomic system or the habits of collectors. Still, even when correcting for these factors, Rabosky et al. expected some remnant of a law-like trend between clade age and species diversity. Not only was no correlation found at the large scale, it was not found at finer scales either. When they authors examined beetles in more detail, for instance, age and diversity showed an even lower correlation than for the bigger picture.

This failure of expectations left them scrambling. It's important to understand the causes for this decoupling, they point out, because most phylogenetic models rely on the implicit assumption that clades should diversify over time at some kind of predictable evolutionary rate. "If age and richness truly are decoupled, then species richness in clades should not be modeled as the outcome of a simple time-constant diversification process, as is done in the overwhelming majority of evolutionary and biogeographic studies." Note that point: the "overwhelming majority of ... evolutionary studies" is based on an assumption that is demonstrably wrong!

Commentary by Harmon

When faced with contrary data this strong, evolutionists have to be immensely creative in coming up with ways to dodge the implications. Luke J. Harmon, for instance, commenting on this paper in the same issue of PLoS Biology, tries humor. He tinkers with an irrelevant joke by J. B. S. Haldane who, noting the 400,000-some-odd species of Coleoptera, quipped that "God has an inordinate fondness for beetles." Harmon titled his paper, therefore, "An Inordinate Fondness for Eukaryotic Diversity."

The point of his commentary is that this is not really a problem; sure, the study showed that it is "difficult or impossible to predict how many species will be found in a particular clade knowing how long a clade has been diversifying from a common ancestor" -- but one thing evolutionists can take heart about, he assures us: we're slowly becoming ever wiser and more knowledgeable about Darwin's world:

This pattern suggests complex dynamics of speciation and extinction in the history of eukaryotes. Rabosky et al.'s paper represents the latest development in our efforts to understand the Earth's biodiversity at the broadest scales.
Where is the understanding exactly? Evolutionists predicted a trend, and found none. Does labeling the situation "complex " help? Does a drunken sailor's staggering suddenly make sense simply by speaking of it as reflecting a "complex dynamic"?
Harmon praises Rabosky et al. for "the most ambitious study to date" saying, "This provides a remarkably complete view of what we currently know about the species diversity of clades across a huge section of the tree of life." He imagines an escape hatch in the future, saying that their "analysis is not the final chapter" because "the tree of life is still under construction, and the total number of species in some clades is best viewed as an educated guess." Maybe somebody else will find a pattern some day. With more genomes, or with improved species counts, who knows?

"Still, the results in Rabosky et al. are intriguing and will certainly inspire further study, which I expect will be focused on testing more sophisticated mathematical models, beyond the constant-rate birth-death models prevalent today, that might be able to explain patterns in the data." Yes, falsifying evidence is indeed "intriguing." After that, Harmon wanders off into a distracting diversion about another evolutionist's quip, this one by Huxley, who joked about "Santa Rosalia as the patroness of evolutionary studies." Pay no attention; there's no falsification here. Look at this nice shrine!

News Coverage

How did the science news media spin this result? Michael Alfaro, senior author of the paper, works at UCLA, where a press release written by Stuart Wolpert gave the official interpretation for public consumption (for instance, on PhysOrg). "Why evolution has produced 'winners' -- including mammals and many species of birds and fish -- and 'losers' is a major question in evolutionary biology," we're told.

Scientists have often posited that because some animal and plant lineages are much older than others, they have had more time to produce new species (the dearth of crocodiles notwithstanding). This idea -- that time is an important predictor of species number -- underlies many theoretical models used by biologists. However, it fails to explain species numbers across all multi-cellular life on the planet, a team of life scientists reports Aug. 28 in the online journal PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science.
"We found no evidence of that," said Michael Alfaro, a UCLA associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior author of the new study. "When we look across the tree of life, the age of the group tells us almost nothing about how many species we would expect to find. In most groups, it tells us nothing."

Another idea, that some groups are innately better or worse at producing species, similarly fails to explain differences in species number among all of the major living lineages of plants and animals, the life scientists found.

So far, this is a forthright statement of the findings. Wolpert gives significant space to Alfaro's favorite rescue strategy, that of "adaptive zone carrying capacity" -- the notion that speciation will proceed up to the point where an adaptive zone is filled to its carrying capacity, then will stop. "Most of the groups that we studied have hit their limits," Alfaro said. "Ecological limits can explain the data we see." This is, of course, not an explanation but a post-hoc rationalization.
So despite the despairing tone of the paper, Alfaro finds a little light in the darkness: "The ultimate goal in our field is to have a reconstruction of the entire evolutionary history of all species on the planet," he says. "Here we provide a piece of the puzzle. Our study sheds light on the causal factors of biodiversity across the tree of life."

But in the paper, the three authors jointly considered and rejected adaptive zone carrying capacity as a suitable explanation for the data. The idea of adaptive zones is not new; George Gaylord Simpson coined the phrase in 1953. Adaptive zone carrying capacity was one of several "diversity-dependent processes" the authors investigated that might result in the decoupling of time and diversity they found. The explanation would be that "ecological opportunity influences the tempo and mode of species diversification through time."

A fallacy in this explanation, though, is its assumption that carrying capacity is static: "We may not understand the ecological mechanisms underlying 'carrying capacity dynamics, but we must still wrestle with substantial neontological and paleontological evidence for their existence." The dynamics exist, they mean. Organisms have uncanny abilities to break out of the box and enter new niches, or to rebound after mass extinctions; the explanation, therefore, fails when considered in the long term. It certainly does not explain why one species of tuatara survives in the same adaptive zone as hundreds of species of beetles.

The authors would not have left time-richness decoupling as an unsolved problem if any number of explanations they considered were of any help: "we are not presently aware of any non-biological mechanism that can account for this lack of relationship," they conclude. Maybe in the future someone will find a law-like pattern; for now, it's a failed prediction of Darwin's tree of life that may require a "fundamentally different interpretive paradigm," as yet unknown.


Intelligent design theory holds no fixed view on common descent per se, with some in the ID camp being personally skeptical of the idea and other more accepting. Either way, from an ID perspective, there seems no reason to expect species richness to correlate with time. The data fit well with ID predictions, therefore, but represent a strong disconfirmation of neo-Darwinian predictions. Once again, nature seems to have an inordinate fondness for confounding Darwinians.