The skilled trades are not a consolation prize.

Reality is a computer program?

A clash of Titans. LII

The mathematics of escape.

Disinherited?

Science Magazine: Australopithecus sediba “Ousted from the Human Family”
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

A few years ago we wrote about Australopithecus sediba, a hominid fossil that was discovered in South Africa in 2008. There was a lot of hype about this hominid when it was first published in 2010. Its discoverer, Lee Berger, called  sediba  “possibly the best candidate ancestor for our genus.”

The original hope for sediba is that it would help fill a “gap” in the fossil record that pertains to the precise time when evolutionary paleoanthropologists believe our genus Homo evolved from some australopithecine ancestor. ABC News  made this point  when sediba was first announced, calling the fossil a “game-changer”:

Scientists have long talked about a “missing link” between very old fossils, more than 3 million years old, and much newer ones that they believe are clearly ancestors of today’s human beings. There is a gap in the fossil record, so far unexplained. Does Australopithecus sediba help fill the gap? Not on its own, say most researchers, but it helps.
The media touted sediba as a spectacular confirmation of this prediction. The Washington Post ran the headline, “Scientists identify ancestor that bridges gap in human evolution, a potential ‘game-changer,’” while the Associated Press quoted paleoanthropologist Darryl J. DeRuiter, stating:

This is what evolutionary theory would predict, this mixture of Australopithecene and Homo … It’s strong confirmation of evolutionary theory.
Now, things have changed radically. As the journal Science reports, “A famous ‘ancestor’ may be ousted from the human family,” explaining that Australopithecus sediba is far removed from the human portion of the hominid tree:

Instead of belonging to the human lineage, the new species of Australopithecus sediba is more closely related to other hominins from South Africa that are on a side branch of the human family tree, according to a new analysis of the fossil presented here last week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.
This isn’t exactly anything new. The article makes another point we’ve made here at Evolution News in the past, namely that “With its fossils dated to 1.98 million years ago, Au. sediba is too young to be directly ancestral to all members of the genus Homo.” However, this new study doesn’t argue against sediba as a human ancestor simply because the age of the species is wrong, but also on the basis of the fossil’s morphology:

In a talk here, though, paleoanthropologist Bill Kimbel of Arizona State University in Tempe analyzed the most complete skull of Au. sediba and systematically shot down the features claimed to link it to early Homo. Kimbel noted that the skull was that of a juvenile — a “7th grader” — whose face and skull were still developing. In his analysis, with paleoanthropologist Yoel Rak of Tel Aviv University in Israel, he concluded that the child already showed traits that linked it most closely to the South African australopithecine Au. africanus, a species that lived in South Africa 3 million to 2.3 million years ago. And had it survived to adulthood, its humanlike facial traits would have changed to become even more like those of Au. africanus.

For example, the breadth of the young Au. sediba’s cheekbones appears narrow, as in early Homo. But by studying other australopithecine, ape, and Homo fossils to see how features of the cheekbones change as individuals grow and chewing muscles develop, Kimbel and Rak could predict how the boy’s face and skull would have looked if he’d grown up to be an adult. The resemblance to Au. africanus is so striking, in fact, that Kimbel thinks Au. sediba is a closely related “sister species” of Au. africanus — and not a long-lost human relative. “We don’t believe … that Au. sediba has a unique relationship to the genus Homo,” says Kimbel.

Other researchers who have long been skeptical that Au. sediba was an ancestor of Homo found Kimbel’s talk persuasive: “Spot on,” says paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York agrees with Kimbel that Au. sediba is most closely related to Au. africanus and that neither species is ancestral to early Homo.
Those are some very big names who think that Au. sediba is merely an extinct side-branch of the hominid tree and not ancestral to Homo. So much for sediba being a human ancestor who is “what evolutionary theory would predict.”

But if not Au. sediba, from what did our genus Homo evolve? When Au. sediba was first reported, the science media admitted that we simply don’t know:

The oldest Homo specimens are scrappy and enigmatic, leaving researchers unsure about the evolutionary steps between the australopithecines and Homo. … “The transition to Homo continues to be almost totally confusing,” says paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson of ASU Tempe, who has seen the new fossils.

(Michael Balter, “Candidate Human Ancestor From South Africa Sparks Praise and Debate,” Science, Vol. 328:154-155 (April 9, 2010).)

With the fall of Australopithecus sediba, that confession of ignorance seems to be left firmly in place.

Need science be idolised to be of use.

Science as Cargo Cult – More Thoughts on the “March for Science”
David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

When even Slate  turns against a “progressive” event like this weekend’s March for Science, you know something’s wrong. Harvard Medical School instructor Jeremy Samuel Faust complains about the weird, mindless cult-like atmosphere infusing much of the adulation directed at “Science.”

Little of what I observed dissuades me from my baseline belief that, even among the sanctimonious elite who want to own science (and pwn anyone who questions it), most people have no idea how science actually works. The scientific method itself is already under constant attack from within the scientific community itself and is ceaselessly undermined by its so-called supporters, including during marches like those on Saturday. In the long run, such demonstrations will do little to resolve the myriad problems science faces and instead could continue to undermine our efforts to use science accurately and productively.

…Being “pro-science” has become a bizarre cultural phenomenon in which liberals (and other members of the cultural elite) engage in public displays of self-reckoned intelligence as a kind of performance art, while demonstrating zero evidence to justify it.
More:

[T]he march revealed the glaring dissonance of opposing that trough of ignorance by instead accepting a cringe-worthy hive-mind mentality that celebrates Science as a vague but wonderful entity, what Richard Feynman called “cargo cult science.” There was an uncomfortable dronelike fealty to the concept — an oxymoronic faith that information presented and packaged to us as Science need not be further scrutinized before being smugly celebrated en masse. That is not intellectually rigorous thought — instead, it’s another kind of religion, and it is perhaps as terrifying as the thing it is trying to fight.
This is…well, frankly it’s remarkably close to our own take on the event. Listen to Discovery Institute’s Stephen Meyer in an interview with  interview with Mike Opelka of The Blaze, explaining how the March for Science reflects a split in the way people think about what science means. There’s the conception we absorbed in school: science is a method of investigating the natural world by collecting facts and then posing and arguing over questions (“multiple competing hypotheses”) of how best to interpret those facts. When the debate stops, so does the science.

And then there’s the very different view that says science has closed all the books and figured out everything in need of being figured out. The debate is over, and properly so. Thus the public needs only to absorb a set of doctrines, while scientists themselves engage in a kind of apologetics campaign. The conclusions are preset and only need to be conveyed for the public’s benefit. In this perspective, that of many of the science marchers, science is rendered as a kind of religious faith.

That may explain why it treats rival religions the way it does. As our Senior Fellow Jay Richards explains in an  ID the Future podcast with Robert Crowther, advocates of materialist ideology habitually portray science as being in a state of perpetual warfare with Judeo-Christian faith.


In fact, the latter tradition was the “seedbed” of science, as Jay points out, not its persecutor. But the rival religion, Science as Cargo Cult, feels an imperative to compete with and blacken the reputation of its competitor. Hence the myth of unending warfare between the two.

Recognised as faithful stewards of our master's property.

Jehovah’s Witnesses Receive an Award for Protecting the Environment


The printing facilities operated by Jehovah’s Witnesses in Mexico received the Clean Enterprise certificate for the seventh year in a row.

On September 26, 2012, the government of Mexico awarded Jehovah’s Witnesses a special certificate of recognition “for [their] dedication to the care and protection of the environment.”

The Clean Enterprise program helps industries develop in ways that are safe for the environment. Jehovah’s Witnesses participate in it every year, though theirs is a not-for-profit organization. A spokesman for the Mexico printing facility said: “To receive the Clean Enterprise certificate, we have to give evidence that our procedures and emissions meet local environmental regulations in seven areas: air, water, urban waste, hazardous waste, safety, electrical energy, and environmental training. Industrial enterprises are not obligated to subscribe to this program. We participate voluntarily.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world do all they can to avoid damaging earth’s precious environment.

Before getting the right answers.

Asking the Right Questions about the Evolutionary Origin of New Biological Information
Casey Luskin February 24, 2010 9:04 AM


As we've seen, it's easy to duplicate a gene, but the key missing ingredient in many neo-Darwinian explanations of the origin of new genetic information is how a gene duplicate then acquires some new optimized function. Evolutionists have not demonstrated, except in rare cases, that step-wise paths to new function for duplicate genes exist.

As we saw in an earlier post, Austin Hughes cautions against making "statistically based claim[s] of evidence for positive selection divorced from any biological mechanism."26 In other words, natural selection is invoked to explain the evolution of genes where we do not even know the functional effect of the mutations being asserted. In this regard, Hughes observes that even in one of the more sophisticated studies, "there was no direct evidence that natural selection was actually involved in fixing adaptive changes."27

Hughes also acknowledges a problem inherent in many appeals to natural selection, namely that required mutations may not give any selective advantage when they first arise. He thus writes regarding one study:

For example, a rhodopsin from the Japanese conger eel with λmax ≈ 480 nm achieved this sensitivity through the interaction of three different amino acid replacements (at sites 195, 195, and 292). There does not seem to be any way that natural selection could favor an amino acid replacement that would be of adaptive value only if two other replacements were to occur as well.28
In this case, there was no stepwise advantage gained with each successive mutation. Because no advantage could have been gained until all three mutations were present, Hughes finds it more "plausible" to believe that the first two mutations were "selectively neutral" and became fixed due to random, non-adaptive processes such as genetic drift. Once the third mutation arose it might have provided an advantage, but to paraphrase Scott Gilbert, at best this really only explains the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest.29

But Hughes' explanation has deep deficiencies: it requires that two mutations become fixed before any selective advantage for the third mutation is gained. This implies that there must be three specific mutations to gain any selective advantage. A key question is thus, Are multiple specific mutational changes likely to appear in the same individual through unguided chance mutations given known mutation rates and population sizes? Even Hughes, despite his exhortations to fellow evolutionary biologists to employ more rigor in their studies, does not address this fundamental question.

A similar example is found when leading paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood critiqued a simplistic model of human cranial evolution on the grounds that too many mutations would be required to gain any functional advantage:

The mutation would have reduced the Darwinian fitness of those individuals. . . . It only would've become fixed if it coincided with mutations that reduced tooth size, jaw size and increased brain size. What are the chances of that? 30
Similarly, Jerry Coyne writes that "It is indeed true that natural selection cannot build any feature in which intermediate steps do not confer a net benefit on the organism."31 This highlights a key deficiency in many neo-Darwinian accounts of the evolution of genes. Namely, they fail to demonstrate that the processes necessary to generate new functionally advantageous genetic information are plausible. As with Hughes's or Wood's examples above, multiple mutations might be necessary to gain any functional advantage. Any account invoking blind, unguided, random mutations to evolve a gene from Function A to Function B must address at least these three questions:

Question 1: Is there a step-wise adaptive pathway to mutate from A to B, with a selective advantage gained at each small step of the pathway?
Question 2: If not, are multiple specific mutations ever necessary to gain or improve function?
Question 3: If so, are such multi-mutation events likely to occur given the available probabilistic resources?
Mathematician David Berlinski considers such questions when critiquing evolutionary accounts of eye evolution. Darwinian processes fail because multiple changes are required for a new function to appear:

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. 32
Again, the key question is therefore, how hard is it for new functional biological information to arise? Answering this question requires assessing the ability of random mutation and natural selection to generate new functional biological information. But when most evolutionary biologists play the Gene Evolution Game, they do not make such assessments and rarely consider these questions. Instead they typically invoke processes such as gene duplication, natural selection, and rearrangement, without demonstrating that random and unguided mutations are sufficient to produce the information needed. Any explanation that at base is little more complicated than "duplication, rearrangement, and natural selection" is not a demonstration that new functional genes can arise by unguided processes.

Thankfully, some scientists are willing to consider these key questions. They have performed research providing data that offers strong reasons to be skeptical of the ability of mutation and selection to form new functional genetic sequences.

A. Asking Questions 1 and 2:
Molecular biologist Doug Axe has performed mutational sensitivity tests on enzymes and found that functional protein folds may be as rare as 1 in 1077.33 His research shows that the fitness landscape for many enzymes looks like this, making it very unlikely that neo-Darwinian processes will find the specific amino acid sequences that yield functional protein folds:


To put the matter in perspective, these results indicate that the odds of Darwinian processes generating a functional protein fold are less than the odds of someone closing his eyes and firing an arrow into the Milky Way galaxy, and hitting one pre-selected atom.34 To say the least, this exhausts the probabilistic resources available. Such data help us answer the first question: it's not likely that there will be a functional stepwise mutational pathway leading from Function A to Function B.

Douglas Axe is by no means the only biologist to make this observation. A leading college-level biology textbook, Campbell's Biology, observes that "Even a slight change in primary structure can affect a protein's conformation and ability to function."35 Likewise, David S. Goodsell, an evolutionist biologist, writes:

As you might imagine, only a small fraction of the possible combinations of amino acids will fold spontaneously into a stable structure. If you make a protein with a random sequence of amino acids, chances are that it will only form a gooey tangle when placed in water. Cells have perfected the sequences of amino acids over many years of evolutionary selection...36
What Goodsell does not mention is that if "perfected" amino acid sequences and functional protein folds are rare and slight changes can disrupt function, then selection will be highly unlikely to take proteins from one functional fold to the next without traversing some non-functional stage. So how do new functional protein folds evolve? This effectively answers question two, implying that many specific mutations would be necessary for evolving genes to pass through non-functional stages while evolving some new function. Question 3 assesses whether this is likely to happen.

B. Asking Question 3:
In 2004, Michael Behe and physicist David Snoke published a paper in the journal Protein Science reporting results of computer simulations and theoretical calculations. They showed that the Darwinian evolution of a simple functional bond between two proteins would be highly unlikely to occur in populations of multicellular organisms. The reason, simply put, is because too many amino acids would have to be fixed by non-adaptive mutations before gaining any functional binding interaction. They found:

The fact that very large population sizes--109 or greater--are required to build even a minimal [multi-residue] feature requiring two nucleotide alterations within 108 generations by the processes described in our model, and that enormous population sizes are required for more complex features or shorter times, seems to indicate that the mechanism of gene duplication and point mutation alone would be ineffective, at least for multicellular diploid species, because few multicellular species reach the required population sizes.37
According to this data, chance mutations are unlikely to produce even two required non-adaptive mutations in multicellular diploid species within any reasonable timescale. This answers the third question: getting multiple specific non-adaptive mutations in one individual is extremely difficult, and more than two required but non-adaptive mutations are likely beyond the reach of multi-cellular organisms. Studies like this show that the actual ability of random mutation and unguided selection to produce even modestly complex new genetic functions is insufficient.

In 2008, Behe and Snoke's would-be critics tried to refute them in the journal Genetics, but found that to obtain only two specific mutations via Darwinian evolution "for humans with a much smaller effective population size, this type of change would take > 100 million years." The critics admitted this was "very unlikely to occur on a reasonable timescale." 38 In other words, there is too much complex and specified information in many proteins and enzymes to be generated in humans by Darwinian processes on a reasonable evolutionary timescale.

As noted in the comments on the Gene Evolution Game, when neo-Darwinists try to explain the evolution of genes, mere point mutations often are insufficient to account for the gene's sequence. They must therefore appeal to genetic rearrangements such as insertions, deletions, or an alleged process called "domain shuffling" where segments of proteins become shuffled to new positions in the genome. In his book The Edge of Evolution, Michael Behe reviews research that engineered new protein function by swapping domains to change protein function, and found that the intelligently engineered changes required multiple modifications that, in nature, would require too many simultaneous mutational events to yield functional changes:

[Protein engineering research] does not mimic random mutation. It is the exact opposite of random mutation. ... What do the lab results tell us about whether random-yet-productive shuffling of domains "occurs with significant frequency under conditions that are likely to occur in nature"? About whether that is biologically reasonable? Nothing at all. When a scientist intentionally arranges fragments of genes in order to maximize the chances of their interacting productively, he has left Darwin far, far behind. ... [Experiments that engineered proteins by shuffling domains] didn't just splice two genes together in a single step; they took several additional steps as well. ... Remember the more steps that have to occur between beneficial states, the much less plausible are Darwinian explanations. ... Domain shuffling would be an instance of the "natural genetic engineering" championed by James Shapiro where evolution by big random changes is hoped to do what evolution by small random changes can't. But random is random. No matter if a monkey is rearranging single letters or whole chapters, incoherence plagues every step. ... One step might luckily be helpful on occasion, maybe rarely a second step might build on it. But Darwinian processes in particular and unintelligent ones in general don't build coherent systems. So it is biologically most reasonable to conclude that, like multiple brand new protein-protein binding sites, the arrangement of multiple genetic elements into sophisticated logic circuits similar to those of computers is also well beyond the edge of Darwinian evolution. 39
As Behe observes, "No matter if a monkey is rearranging single letters or whole chapters, incoherence plagues every step." Thus, when multiple mutational events--whether point mutations, "domain shuffling," or other types of rearrangements--are required to gain some functional advantage, it seems unlikely that blind neo-Darwinian processes can produce the new biological function.

Unfortunately, few if any advocates of the neo-Darwinian just-so stories investigate whether mutation and natural selection are sufficient to produce new functional genetic information. Instead they believe that finding similarities and differences between genes demonstrates that neo-Darwinian evolution has occurred, and they assume that "positive selection" is a sufficient explanation.

As Hughes cautions, they engage in "use of certain poorly conceived statistical methods to test for positive selection," causing "the literature of evolutionary biology [to become] glutted with extravagant claims of positive selection" resulting in a "vast outpouring of pseudo-Darwinian hype [that] has been genuinely harmful to the credibility of evolutionary biology as a science." 40 Or, as Michael Behe cautions, they confuse mere sequence similarity with evidence of neo-Darwinian evolution. Finally, Michael Lynch warns his colleagues that "Evolutionary biology is not a story-telling exercise, and the goal of population genetics is not to be inspiring, but to be explanatory." 41

With these principles in mind, in the next installment we will assess about a dozen of the just-so stories concerning the origin of genes offered in studies cited by the NCSE.

References Cited:

[26.] Austin L. Hughes, "Looking for Darwin in all the wrong places: the misguided quest for positive selection at the nucleotide sequence level," Heredity, Vol. 99:364--373 (2007).

[27.] Id.

[28.] Id.

[29.] "The modern synthesis is good at modeling the survival of the fittest, but not the arrival of the fittest." Scott Gilbert, quoted in John Whitfield, "Biological Theory: Postmodern evolution?," Nature, Vol. 455:281-284 (2008).

[30.] Bernard Wood, quoted in Joseph B. Verrengia, "Gene Mutation Said Linked to Evolution," Associated Press, found in San Diego Union Tribune, March 24, 2004.

[31.] Jerry Coyne, "The Great Mutator," The New Republic (June 14, 2007). Coyne asserts he knows of no example where this is the case.

[32.] David Berlinski, "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)," in The Globe & Mail (November 2, 1996) at http://www.discovery.org/a/132

[33.] Douglas D. Axe, "Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds," Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 341: 1295-1315 (2004); Douglas D. Axe, "Extreme Functional Sensitivity to Conservative Amino Acid Changes on Enzyme Exteriors," Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 301: 585-595 (2000).

[34.] See Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, pg. 211 (Harper One, 2009).

[35.] Neil A. Campbell and Jane B. Reece, Biology, pg. 84 (7th ed, 2005).

[36.] David S. Goodsell, The Machinery of Life, pg. 17, 19 (2nd ed, Springer, 2009).

[37.] Michael J. Behe & David W. Snoke, "Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Features That Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues," Protein Science, Vol 13:2651-2664 (2004).

[38.] Rick Durrett and Deena Schmidt, "Waiting for Two Mutations: With Applications to Regulatory Sequence Evolution and the Limits of Darwinian Evolution," Genetics, Vol. 180: 1501--1509 (November 2008).

[39.] Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, Appendix D, pgs. 272-275 (Free Press, 2007) (emphasis added).

[40.] Austin L. Hughes, "The origin of adaptive phenotypes," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 105(36):13193--13194 (Sept. 9, 2008) (internal citations removed).

[41.] Michael Lynch, "The frailty of adaptive hypotheses for the origins of organismal complexity," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 104:8597--8604 (May 15, 2007). 

And still yet more on reality's antiDarwinian bias

“Shared Error” Argument: Olfactory Receptor Genes Prove Common Descent?
Cornelius Hunter

We have seen that a new book, Adam and the Genome, co-authored by theistic evolutionists Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight is influenced by the mythical Warfare Thesis (here and here) and makes erroneous arguments that the fossils and echolocation support evolution (here and here). I’ll now move on to another topic: broken genes, or pseudogenes.

This is a popular argument amongst evolutionists and Venema uses as his example the olfactory receptor genes. The idea here is that, in different species (such as the human and chimpanzee), the same damaging mutation can be found in the same pseudogenes. When we find the same strange spelling mistake in the homework of different students we conclude that plagiarism occurred. It is more likely that the mistake had one source, rather than occurred twice, independently.

Likewise, the same mutation in different species points to a single source in a common ancestor — common descent. Furthermore, we don’t see mutations that violate the expected pattern. Clearly common descent is the obvious, most parsimonious explanation. As Venema concludes, common descent is “overwhelmingly supported.”

This is a powerful argument for evolution that has influenced many people. There’s only one problem: It fails historically, philosophically, and scientifically.

First, the olfactory system is profoundly complex. Odors entering the nose interact with finely tuned receptor proteins (created from the olfactory receptor genes), setting off an incredible cascade of events in the cell, resulting in an electrical signal sent to the brain. Studies have found that each cell expresses only a single olfactory receptor gene, and so is sensitive to a particular odor. At the brain, the signals are grouped and organized by odor. In other words, for all the cells in the nose expressing the same olfactory receptor gene (and thus sensitive to the same odor), their signals spatially converge as they feed into the brain area.

And of course, as with all the senses, these incoming signals are providing mere electrical information. There is no odor, or light, or sound entering the brain via these nerve cells. Instead, a bunch of electrical signals are entering the brain via these nerve cells. The brain, by itself, has no way of knowing what these electrical signals mean. It must somehow be given the source and meaning of these incoming signals. It then processes and interprets these signals and the end result is that we are conscious of images reported by our eyes, sounds reported by our ears, smells reported by our nose, and so forth. All of this defies evolution, and should give us pause.

Second, the evolutionist’s contention that common descent is needed to explain those shared mutations in different species contradicts the most basic biology. Simply put, similarities across species that cannot be explained by common descent are rampant in biology. The olfactory system is no exception. Its several fundamental components, if evolution is true, must have evolved several times independently. The level of independent origin that evolutionists must admit to (variously referred to as convergent evolution, parallel evolution, recurrent evolution, cascades of convergence, and so forth depending on the pattern) is staggering and dwarfs the levels of similarities in the olfactory receptor genes. To cast those relatively few similarities as mandates for common descent, while ignoring the volumes of similarities that violate common descent, constitutes the mother of all confirmation biases.

Third, the strength of this evolution argument is lack of function, but that renders it fallacious. As lawyers know, if you can’t convict the defendant on the facts, you decry how horrifying the crime is. In this case, the entire argument hinges on the utter uselessness of the broken genes. As Venema explains, they are “damaged,” “defective,” “mess[ed] up,” “wrong,” and “ruin[ed].” Clearly, according to Venema, these genes are useless — that’s why they are called pseudogenes. This is crucial because, for evolutionists, it means they would only arise by chance (what designer would implement useless designs?).

All of which means that evolutionists have a very simple formulation: Either those crippling mutations arose once in a common ancestor, or they just happened to arise by chance, coincidentally, multiple times. Clearly the former is much more likely, and this points to common descent. It is, as Venema concludes, “overwhelmingly supported.”

However, this powerful argument comes at a cost. There is no free lunch.

The conclusion that common descent is “overwhelmingly supported” utterly depends on our knowing the pseudogenes are useless. Disutility underwrites the assumption of chance as the only alternative to common descent. And chance as the only alternative is crucial. It is why the argument is so powerful, because the chance hypothesis is so unlikely.

Restricting the problem to a contest between evolution and chance makes evolution the obvious winner, but amidst the celebration we forget the weak link. We forget that the entire edifice resides on our certainty of disutility. This, it turns out, is a very weak link.

The history of evolutionary thought, going back to the Epicureans, is full of predictions of disutility gone wrong. It is, quite literally, a theory of gaps. When gaps in our scientific knowledge leave us with ignorance about function, evolutionists routinely assume there is no function. After all, if the world arose by chance, it should be full of aimless, useless “designs,” if they can even be called that.

But as those gaps close with the inexorable march of scientific progress, it seems we inevitably learn of function. Evolutionists claim disutility at brand new findings, only to be proved wrong, again and again. Look no further than the seemingly endless parade of “We thought it was junk, but now…” stories.

Ultimately, the long history of disutility claims is informed by the theory rather than the evidence. This is a classic example of what philosophers refer to as theory-laden observations.

None of this means there are no truly useless structures in biology. There may well be plenty of them. But the supposition has a terrible history.

Furthermore, regardless of the history, disutility is very difficult to know. As with the proverbial “proving a negative,” proving that a pseudogene, or anything else in biology for that matter, actually is useless, is a very difficult undertaking.

From introns to transposons, initial claims of uselessness have given way to a steady stream of findings of function. And, yes, the olfactory receptor “pseudo”-genes are no exception. They are now being called pseudo-pseudogenes because all those evolutionary claims of uselessness are rapidly fading. As one recent paper concluded, “such ‘pseudo-pseudogenes’ could represent a widespread phenomenon.”

This is yet another example in a long history of failed disutility predictions. Clearly, the assumption that we know that olfactory receptor pseudogenes are useless is unfounded. Even the name (pseudogenes) will serve future generations of scientists as a constant reminder of this evolutionary foible.

The story does not end here, though, for even if something like pseudogenes could somehow be proven useless, this would not justify the evolutionary formulation of random chance origin as the only other alternative.

Evolution fails to explain how even a single gene could evolve, let alone the entire olfactory system. In fact the presence of supposedly useless structures, such as pseudogenes, is hardly a plus for evolution. As Elliott Sober has pointed out, there is nothing about this story that provides a positivistic argument for evolution.

The argument, with all its strength, hinges entirely on the refutation of the alternative. This is a proof by the process of elimination. Hence it becomes utterly crucial that the alternatives be carefully and exhaustively considered. In particular, all possible alternatives must be known, understood, evaluated, and disproved.

Do you see a pattern here?

This powerful evolutionary argument not only crucially depends on knowing that the pseudogenes are useless, it also crucially depends on knowing that a simple random chance model is the only alternative to evolution for their origin.

Not only is this philosophically problematic (how do we know that the random chance model is the only alternative?), historically it has a terrible track record. As Kyle Stanford has shown, the history of science is full of theories that were advocated with this type of contrastive reasoning (disproving a perceived alternative), only later to fail because the assumed alternative was wrong.


To summarize, this highly influential and popular argument, from similar structures that appear to be useless, lies in ruins. It is a disaster. It should never have been used in the first place, for its scientific failure was entirely predictable from both the history and philosophy of science.

Yet more on Venezuela's meltdown

An altruistic society is a pipe dream?:Pros and cons.

Russia's international reputation re:religious liberty left in tatters.

State Dept. Condemns Russian Religious Clampdown
By Curt Mills, 

The U.S. State Department has condemned the Russian ban on Jehovah's Witnesses.


"The United States is extremely concerned by the Russian government's actions targeting and repressing members of religious minorities, including Jehovah's Witnesses, under the pretense of combating extremism," Acting State Department spokesman Mark C. Toner told U.S. News by email late Thursday night.Earlier Thursday, the Russian Supreme Court called the pacifist religious sect extremist and ordered the shuttering of more than 300 chapters in the country.

"We call on the Russian authorities to ensure that Russia's anti-terrorism and anti-extremism legislation is not misused to target members of peaceful religious minorities, including the Jehovah's Witnesses," Toner said. "The prosecution of peaceful religious minority groups for 'extremism' creates a climate of fear which itself undermines efforts to combat the threat of radicalization."

Russian prosecutors had argued in court that the group is "a threat to the rights of the citizens, public order and public security." 
The Justice Ministry showed pamphlets from the group that it argued posed "a threat to health."

But the U.S. questioned the legal underpinning of such a ban.

"Freedom of religion is critical to a peaceful, inclusive, stable, and thriving society. All religious minorities should be able to enjoy freedom of religion and assembly without interference, as guaranteed by the Russian Federation's constitution," Toner said.The Jehovah's Witnesses say they will appeal, within the appellate division of the Russian Supreme Court, and possibly to the European Court of Human Rights. 

Stalinism redux? II

Russia Bans Jehovah’s Witnesses, Calling It an Extremist Group
By ANDREW HIGGINS

MOSCOW — Russia’s  Supreme Court on Thursday declared Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination that rejects violence, an extremist organization, banning the group from operating on Russian territory and putting its more than 170,000 Russian worshipers in the same category as Islamic State militants.

The ruling, which confirmed an order last month by the Justice Ministry that the denomination be “liquidated” — essentially eliminated or disbanded — had been widely expected. Russian courts rarely challenge government decisions, no matter what the evidence.

Viktor Zhenkov, a lawyer for the denomination, said Jehovah’s Witnesses would appeal the ruling. He said it had focused on the activities of the organization’s so-called administrative center, a complex of offices outside St. Petersburg, but also branded all of its nearly 400 regional branches as extremist.

“We consider this decision an act of political repression that is impermissible in contemporary Russia,” Mr. Zhenkov said in a telephone interview. “We will, of course, appeal.”

An initial appeal will be made to the Supreme Court’s appellate division, Mr. Zhenkov said, and if that fails, Jehovah’s Witnesses will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, France.

Hard-line followers of Russia’s dominant faith, the Orthodox Church, have lobbied for years to have Jehovah’s Witnesses outlawed or at least curbed as a heretical sect, but the main impetus for the current campaign to crush a Christian group active in Russia for more than a century seems to have come from the country’s increasingly assertive security apparatus.


Founded in the United States in the 19th century, Jehovah’s Witnesses has its worldwide headquarters in the United States and, along with all foreign-led groups outside the control of the state, is viewed with deep suspicion by Russia’s post-Soviet version of the KGB: the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B.Summing up the Justice Ministry’s case against the denomination, the ministry’s representative, Svetlana Borisova, told the Supreme Court on Thursday that Jehovah’s Witnesses had shown “signs of extremist activity that represent a threat to the rights of citizens, social order and the security of society.”

During six days of hearings over two weeks, lawyers and witnesses for the religious group repeatedly dismissed the extremist allegation as absurd, arguing that reading the Bible and promoting its nonviolent message could in no way be construed as extremist.

Human Rights Watch, in a statement issued in Moscow, condemned the court ruling as “a serious breach of Russia’s obligations to respect and protect religious freedom.”

Rachel Denber, the human rights group’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, said the decision delivered “a terrible blow to freedom of religion and association in Russia.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses shuns political activity and has no record of even peaceful — never mind violent — hostility to the Russian authorities. But it has faced growing hostility from the state since President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia began his third term in 2012 and put the Orthodox Church at the center of his push to assert Russia as a great military and moral power.

The denomination suffered relentless persecution by the KGB during the Soviet era, and after more than a decade of relative peace following the collapse of Communism in 1991, it again became a target for official harassment under a 2002 anti-extremism law. That law makes it illegal for any group, other than the Orthodox Church and other traditional religious institutions, to proclaim itself as offering a true path to religious or political salvation.

Stalinism Redux?

Russia’s Supreme Court Rules Against Jehovah’s Witnesses

NEW YORK—After six days of hearings over the last two weeks, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation today upheld the claim submitted by the Ministry of Justice to liquidate the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and 395 Local Religious Organizations (LROs) used by Witnesses throughout Russia. The ruling goes into effect immediately.

“We are greatly disappointed by this development and deeply concerned about how this will affect our religious activity,” states Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. “We will appeal this decision, and we hope that our legal rights and protections as a peaceful religious group will be fully restored as soon as possible.”


Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia have 30 days to submit their appeal for consideration by a three-person panel.

Media Contacts:

International: David A. Semonian, Office of Public Information, +1-845-524-3000


Russia: Yaroslav Sivulskiy, +7-911-087-8009

The Watchtower Society's commentary on Jehovah's Temple.

TEMPLE:

A divine habitation, sacred place or sanctuary, either physical or spiritual, that is employed for worship. The Hebrew word heh·khalʹ, translated “temple,” also means “palace.” The Greek hi·e·ronʹ and na·osʹ are both rendered “temple” and may refer to the entire temple complex or to its central edifice; na·osʹ, meaning “sanctuary” or “divine habitation (dwelling),” at times refers specifically to the sacred inner rooms of the temple.—See HOLY PLACE.

Solomon’s Temple. King David entertained a strong desire to build a house for Jehovah, to contain the ark of the covenant, which was “dwelling in the middle of tent cloths.” Jehovah was pleased with David’s proposal but told him that, because he had shed much blood in warfare, his son (Solomon) would be privileged to do the building. This was not to say that God did not approve David’s wars fought in behalf of Jehovah’s name and His people. But the temple was to be built in peace by a man of peace.—2Sa 7:1-16; 1Ki 5:3-5; 8:17; 1Ch 17:1-14; 22:6-10.

Cost. Later David purchased the threshing floor of Ornan (Araunah) the Jebusite on Mount Moriah as the temple site. (2Sa 24:24, 25; 1Ch 21:24, 25) He amassed 100,000 talents of gold, 1,000,000 talents of silver, and copper and iron in great abundance, besides contributing from his personal fortune 3,000 talents of gold and 7,000 talents of silver. He also received as contributions from the princes, gold worth 5,000 talents and 10,000 darics and silver worth 10,000 talents, as well as much iron and copper. (1Ch 22:14; 29:3-7) This total, amounting to 108,000 talents and 10,000 darics of gold and 1,017,000 talents of silver, would be worth $48,337,047,000 at current values. His son Solomon did not spend the entire amount in building the temple; the remainder he put in the temple treasury.—1Ki 7:51; 2Ch 5:1.

Workmen. King Solomon began building the temple for Jehovah in the fourth year of his reign (1034 B.C.E.), in the second month, Ziv, following the architectural plan that David had received by inspiration. (1Ki 6:1; 1Ch 28:11-19) The work continued over a seven-year period. (1Ki 6:37, 38) In exchange for wheat, barley, oil, and wine, Hiram king of Tyre supplied timbers from Lebanon along with skilled workers in wood and stone, and one special expert, also named Hiram, whose father was a Tyrian and his mother an Israelitess of the tribe of Naphtali. This man was a fine workman in gold, silver, copper, iron, wood, stones, and fabrics.—1Ki 5:8-11, 18; 7:13, 14, 40, 45; 2Ch 2:13-16.

In organizing the work, Solomon conscripted 30,000 men out of Israel, sending them to Lebanon in shifts of 10,000 for a month, with a two-month stay at home between shifts. (1Ki 5:13, 14) As burden bearers, he conscripted 70,000 from among the “alien residents” in the land, and as cutters, 80,000. (1Ki 5:15; 9:20, 21; 2Ch 2:2) As foremen over the work, Solomon appointed 550 men and apparently 3,300 as assistants. (1Ki 5:16; 9:22, 23) It appears that, of these, 250 were Israelites and 3,600 were “alien residents” in Israel.—2Ch 2:17, 18.

Length of “cubit” used. In the following discussion of the measurements of the three temples—built by Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod—we shall calculate them on the basis of the cubit of 44.5 cm (17.5 in.). However, it is possible that they used the longer cubit of about 51.8 cm (20.4 in.).—Compare 2Ch 3:3 (which mentions a “length in cubits by the former measurement,” this perhaps being a longer measure than the cubit that came to be commonly in use) and Eze 40:5; see CUBIT.

Plan and materials. The temple, a most magnificent structure, followed the general plan of the tabernacle. However, the inside dimensions of the Holy and Most Holy were greater than those of the tabernacle. The Holy was 40 cubits (17.8 m; 58.3 ft) long, 20 cubits (8.9 m; 29.2 ft) wide, and evidently 30 cubits (13.4 m; 43.7 ft) high. (1Ki 6:2, 17) The Most Holy was a cube 20 cubits on a side. (1Ki 6:20; 2Ch 3:8) Additionally, there were roof chambers over the Most Holy that were approximately 10 cubits (4.5 m; 14.6 ft) high. (1Ch 28:11) There was also a side structure around the temple on three sides, containing storage chambers, and so forth.—1Ki 6:4-6, 10.

Materials used were primarily stone and wood. The floors of these rooms were overlaid with juniper wood; the inside walls were of cedar engraved with carvings of cherubs, palm trees, and blossoms; the walls and ceiling were entirely overlaid with gold. (1Ki 6:15, 18, 21, 22, 29) The doors of the Holy (at the temple entrance) were made of juniper—carved and overlaid with gold foil. (1Ki 6:34, 35) Doors of oil-tree wood, likewise carved and overlaid with gold, provided entrance between the Holy and Most Holy. Whatever their exact position, these doors did not fully replace the curtain arrangement that had been in effect in the tabernacle. (Compare 2Ch 3:14.) Two gigantic cherubs of oil-tree wood, gold overlaid, occupied the Most Holy. Under these the ark of the covenant was placed.—1Ki 6:23-28, 31-33; 8:6; see CHERUB No. 1.

All the utensils of the Holy were of gold: the altar of incense, the ten tables of showbread, and the ten lampstands, together with their appurtenances. Beside the entrance to the Holy (the first compartment) stood two copper pillars, called “Jachin” and “Boaz.” (1Ki 7:15-22, 48-50; 1Ch 28:16; 2Ch 4:8; see BOAZ, II.) The inner courtyard was constructed of fine stone and cedarwood. (1Ki 6:36) The courtyard furnishings, the altar of sacrifice, the great “molten sea,” ten carriages for water basins, and other utensils were of copper. (1Ki 7:23-47) Dining rooms were provided around the perimeter of the courtyards.—1Ch 28:12.

An outstanding feature of the construction of this temple was the fact that all the stone was cut at the quarry, so that it fit perfectly at the temple site. “As for hammers and axes or any tools of iron, they were not heard in the house while it was being built.” (1Ki 6:7) The work was completed in seven and a half years (from spring 1034 B.C.E. to fall [Bul, the eighth month] 1027 B.C.E.).—1Ki 6:1, 38.

Inauguration. In the seventh month, Ethanim, apparently in the 12th year of Solomon’s reign (1026 B.C.E.), Solomon congregated the men of Israel to Jerusalem for the temple inauguration and the Festival of Booths. The tabernacle with its holy furniture was brought up, and the ark of the covenant was placed in the Most Holy. (See MOST HOLY.) At this Jehovah’s cloud filled the temple. Solomon then blessed Jehovah and the congregation of Israel and, standing on a special platform before the copper altar of sacrifice (see ALTAR), offered a long prayer praising Jehovah and asking for his loving-kindness and mercy in behalf of those who turned toward Him to fear and to serve Him, both the Israelite and the foreigner. A grand sacrifice of 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep was offered. The inauguration occupied 7 days, and the Festival of Booths 7 days, after which, on the 23rd day of the month, Solomon sent the people home joyful and thankful for Jehovah’s goodness and bountifulness.—1Ki 8; 2Ch 5:1–7:10; see SOLOMON (Inauguration of the temple).

History. This temple existed until 607 B.C.E., when it was destroyed by the Babylonian army under King Nebuchadnezzar. (2Ki 25:9; 2Ch 36:19; Jer 52:13) Because of the falling away of Israel to false religion, God permitted the nations to harass Judah and Jerusalem, at times stripping the temple of its treasures. The temple also suffered periods of neglect. King Shishak of Egypt robbed it of its treasures (993 B.C.E.) in the days of Rehoboam the son of Solomon, only about 33 years after its inauguration. (1Ki 14:25, 26; 2Ch 12:9) King Asa (977-937 B.C.E.) had respect for Jehovah’s house, but to protect Jerusalem he foolishly bribed King Ben-hadad I of Syria, with silver and gold from the treasures of the temple, to break his covenant with Baasha king of Israel.—1Ki 15:18, 19; 2Ch 15:17, 18; 16:2, 3.

After a period of turbulence and neglect of the temple, King Jehoash of Judah (898-859 B.C.E.) oversaw its repair. (2Ki 12:4-12; 2Ch 24:4-14) In the days of his son Amaziah, Jehoash king of Israel robbed it. (2Ki 14:13, 14) King Jotham (777-762 B.C.E.) did some construction work on the temple area, building “the upper gate.” (2Ki 15:32, 35; 2Ch 27:1, 3) King Ahaz of Judah (761-746 B.C.E.) not only sent the treasures of the temple to Tiglath-pileser III, king of Assyria, as a bribe but he also polluted the temple by building an altar patterned after one in Damascus and by replacing the copper altar of the temple with it. (2Ki 16:5-16) Finally he closed the doors of Jehovah’s house.—2Ch 28:24.

Ahaz’ son Hezekiah (745-717 B.C.E.) did what he could to undo the bad works of his father. At the very beginning of his reign, he reopened the temple and had it cleaned up. (2Ch 29:3, 15, 16) However, later on, for fear of Sennacherib king of Assyria, he cut off the doors and the doorposts of the temple that he himself had caused to be overlaid with gold and sent them to Sennacherib.—2Ki 18:15, 16.

But when Hezekiah died, the temple entered a half century of desecration and disrepair. His son Manasseh (716-662 B.C.E.) went beyond any of Judah’s previous kings in wickedness, setting up altars “to all the army of the heavens in two courtyards of the house of Jehovah.” (2Ki 21:1-5; 2Ch 33:1-4) By the time of Manasseh’s grandson Josiah (659-629 B.C.E.), the formerly magnificent edifice was in a state of disrepair. Evidently it was in a disorganized or cluttered condition, for High Priest Hilkiah’s finding the book of the Law (likely an original scroll written by Moses) was an exciting discovery. (2Ki 22:3-13; 2Ch 34:8-21) After the temple’s repair and cleansing, the greatest Passover since the days of Samuel the prophet was celebrated. (2Ki 23:21-23; 2Ch 35:17-19) This was during the ministry of the prophet Jeremiah. (Jer 1:1-3) From this time until the temple’s destruction, it remained open and in use by the priesthood, though many of the priests were corrupt.

The Temple Built by Zerubbabel. As foretold by Jehovah’s prophet Isaiah, God raised up Cyrus king of Persia as a liberator of Israel from the power of Babylon. (Isa 45:1) Jehovah also stirred up his own people under the leadership of Zerubbabel of the tribe of Judah to return to Jerusalem. This they did in 537 B.C.E., after 70 years of desolation, as Jeremiah had foretold, for the purpose of rebuilding the temple. (Ezr 1:1-6; 2:1, 2; Jer 29:10) This structure, though not nearly so glorious as Solomon’s temple, endured longer, standing for nearly 500 years, from 515 B.C.E. to very late in the first century B.C.E. (The temple built by Solomon had served about 420 years, from 1027 to 607 B.C.E.)

In Cyrus’ decree he ordered: “As for anyone that is left from all the places where he is residing as an alien, let the men of his place assist him with silver and with gold and with goods and with domestic animals along with the voluntary offering for the house of the true God, which was in Jerusalem.” (Ezr 1:1-4) Cyrus also returned 5,400 vessels of gold and silver that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Solomon’s temple.—Ezr 1:7-11.

In the seventh month (Ethanim, or Tishri) of the year 537 B.C.E., the altar was set up; and in the following year, the foundation of the new temple was laid. As Solomon had done, the builders hired Sidonians and Tyrians to bring cedar timbers from Lebanon. (Ezr 3:7) Opposition, particularly from the Samaritans, disheartened the builders, and after about 15 years those opposers even incited the king of Persia to ban the work.—Ezr 4.

The Jews had stopped their temple building work and had turned to other pursuits, so Jehovah sent his prophets Haggai and Zechariah to stir them to renew their efforts in the second year of Darius I (520 B.C.E.), and thereafter a decree was made upholding Cyrus’ original order and commanding that moneys be provided from the royal treasury, to supply what the builders and priests needed. (Ezr 5:1, 2; 6:1-12) The building work was carried on, and the house of Jehovah was completed on the third day of Adar in the sixth year of Darius (probably March 6 of 515 B.C.E.), after which the Jews inaugurated the rebuilt temple and held the Passover.—Ezr 6:13-22.

Little is known about the details of the architectural plan of this second temple. Cyrus’ decree authorized the building of a structure “its height being sixty cubits [c. 27 m; 88 ft], its width sixty cubits, with three layers of stones rolled into place and one layer of timbers.” The length is not stated. (Ezr 6:3, 4) It had dining rooms and storerooms (Ne 13:4, 5), and undoubtedly it had roof chambers, and possibly other buildings were associated with it, along the same lines as Solomon’s temple.

This second temple did not contain the ark of the covenant, which seems to have disappeared before Nebuchadnezzar captured and looted Solomon’s temple in 607 B.C.E. According to the account in the Apocryphal book of First Maccabees (1:21-24, 57; 4:38, 44-51), there was one lampstand instead of the ten that were in Solomon’s; the golden altar, the table of showbread, and the vessels are mentioned, as is the altar of burnt offering, which, instead of being of copper as was the altar in Solomon’s temple, is there described as being of stone. This altar, after being defiled by King Antiochus Epiphanes (in 168 B.C.E.), was rebuilt with new stones under the direction of Judas Maccabaeus.

The Temple Rebuilt by Herod. This temple is not described in any detail in the Scriptures. The primary source is Josephus, who personally saw the structure and who reports on its construction in The Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities. The Jewish Mishnah supplies some information, and a little is gained from archaeology. Therefore the description set forth here is from these sources, which in some instances may be open to question.—PICTURE, Vol. 2, p. 543.

In The Jewish War (I, 401 [xxi, 1]), Josephus says that Herod rebuilt the temple in the 15th year of his reign, but in Jewish Antiquities (XV, 380 [xi, 1]), he says it was in the 18th year. This latter date is generally accepted by scholars, although the beginning of Herod’s reign, or how Josephus calculated it, is not established with certainty. The sanctuary itself took 18 months to build, but the courtyards, and so forth, were under construction for eight years. When certain Jews approached Jesus Christ in 30 C.E., saying, “This temple was built in forty-six years” (Joh 2:20), these Jews were apparently talking about the work that continued on the complex of courts and buildings up until then. The work was not finished until about six years before the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E.

Because of hatred and distrust of Herod, the Jews would not permit him to rebuild the temple, as he proposed, until he had everything prepared for the new building. For the same reason they did not consider this temple as a third one, but only as a rebuilt one, speaking only of the first and second temples (Solomon’s and Zerubbabel’s).

As to Josephus’ measurements, Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible (1889, Vol. IV, p. 3203) says: “His horizontal dimensions are so minutely accurate that we almost suspect he had before his eyes, when writing, some ground-plan of the building prepared in the quartermaster-general’s department of Titus’s army. They form a strange contrast with his dimensions in height, which, with scarcely an exception, can be shown to be exaggerated, generally doubled. As the buildings were all thrown down during the siege, it was impossible to convict him of error in respect to elevations.”

Colonnades and gates. Josephus writes that Herod doubled the size of the temple area, building up the sides of Mount Moriah with great stone walls and leveling off an area on the top of the mountain. (The Jewish War, I, 401 [xxi, 1]; Jewish Antiquities, XV, 391-402 [xi, 3]) The Mishnah (Middot 2:1) says the Temple Mount measured 500 cubits (223 m; 729 ft) square. On the outer edge of the area were colonnades. The temple faced the E, as did the previous ones. Along this side was the colonnade of Solomon, consisting of three columns of marble pillars. On one occasion, in the wintertime, Jesus was approached here by certain Jews asking if he was the Christ. (Joh 10:22-24) In the N and W were also colonnades, dwarfed by the Royal Colonnade on the S, consisting of four rows of Corinthian pillars, 162 in all, with three aisles. The pillars’ circumferences were so great that it took three men with outstretched arms to reach around one of them, and they stood much higher than those of the other colonnades.

There were evidently eight gates leading into the temple area: four on the W side, two on the S, and one each on the E and N. (See GATE, GATEWAY [Temple Gates].) Because of these gates, the first court, the Court of the Gentiles, also served as a thoroughfare, travelers preferring to go through it instead of outside around the temple area.

Court of the Gentiles. The colonnades surrounded the large area named the Court of the Gentiles, so called because Gentiles were permitted to enter it. It was from it that Jesus, on two occasions, once near the beginning and once at the close of his earthly ministry, expelled those who had made the house of his Father a house of merchandise.—Joh 2:13-17; Mt 21:12, 13; Mr 11:15-18.

There were several courts through which a person passed as he proceeded to the central building, the sanctuary itself. Each succeeding court was of a higher degree of sanctity. Passing through the Court of the Gentiles, one encountered a wall three cubits (1.3 m; 4.4 ft) high, with openings through which to pass. On its top were large stones bearing a warning in Greek and Latin. The Greek inscription read (according to one translation): “Let no foreigner enter inside of the barrier and the fence around the sanctuary. Whosoever is caught will be responsible for his death which will ensue.” (The New Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, edited by H. Gehman, 1970, p. 932) On the occasion when the apostle Paul was mobbed in the temple, it was because the Jews rumored that he had brought a Gentile within the forbidden area. We are reminded of this wall, though Paul was using the term “wall” symbolically, when we read that Christ “destroyed the wall” that fenced off Jew from Gentile.—Eph 2:14, ftn; Ac 21:20-32.

Court of Women. The Court of Women was 14 steps higher. Here women could enter for worship. Among other things, the Court of Women contained treasure chests, near one of which Jesus stood when he commended the widow for giving her all. (Lu 21:1-4) In this court were also several buildings.

Court of Israel and Court of Priests. Fifteen large semicircular steps led up to the Court of Israel, which could be entered by men who were ceremonially clean. Against the outside wall of this court were storage chambers.

Then came the Court of Priests, which corresponded to the courtyard of the tabernacle. In it was the altar, built of unhewn stones. According to the Mishnah, it was 32 cubits (14.2 m; 46.7 ft) square at the base. (Middot 3:1) Josephus gives a higher figure. (The Jewish War, V, 225 [v, 6]; see ALTAR [Postexilic Altars].) The priests reached the altar by an inclined plane. A “laver” was also in use, according to the Mishnah. (Middot 3:6) Around this court also were various buildings.

The temple building. As previously, the temple proper consisted primarily of two compartments, the Holy and the Most Holy. The floor of this building was 12 steps above the Court of Priests. Even as with Solomon’s temple, chambers were built on the sides of this building and there was an upper chamber. The entrance was closed by golden doors, each 55 cubits (24.5 m; 80.2 ft) high and 16 cubits (7.1 m; 23.3 ft) broad. The front of the building was wider than the back, having wings or “shoulders” that extended out 20 cubits (8.9 m; 29.2 ft) on each side. The inside of the Holy was 40 cubits (17.8 m; 58.3 ft) long and 20 cubits wide. In the Holy were the lampstand, the table of showbread, and the altar of incense—all of gold.

The entrance to the Most Holy was a beautifully ornamented thick curtain, or veil. At the time of Jesus’ death, this curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, exposing the Most Holy as containing no ark of the covenant. In place of the Ark was a stone slab upon which the high priest sprinkled the blood on the Day of Atonement. (Mt 27:51; Heb 6:19; 10:20) This room was 20 cubits long and 20 cubits wide.

The Jews used the temple area as a citadel, or fortress, during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. They themselves set fire to the colonnades, but a Roman soldier, contrary to the wishes of the Roman commander Titus, fired the temple itself, thereby fulfilling Jesus’ words regarding the temple buildings: “By no means will a stone be left here upon a stone and not be thrown down.”—Mt 24:2; The Jewish War, VI, 252-266 (iv, 5-7); VII, 3, 4 (i, 1).

Jehovah’s Great Spiritual Temple. The tabernacle constructed by Moses and the temples built by Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod were only typical, or pictorial. This was shown by the apostle Paul when he wrote that the tabernacle, the basic features of which were included in the later temples, was “a typical representation and a shadow of the heavenly things.” (Heb 8:1-5; see also 1Ki 8:27; Isa 66:1; Ac 7:48; 17:24.) The Christian Greek Scriptures disclose the reality represented by the type. These Scriptures show that the tabernacle and the temples built by Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod, along with their features, represented a greater, spiritual temple of Jehovah, “the true tent, which Jehovah put up, and not man.” (Heb 8:2) As revealed by its various features, that spiritual temple is the arrangement for approaching Jehovah in worship on the basis of the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ.—Heb 9:2-10, 23.

The inspired letter to the Hebrews states that in this spiritual temple the Most Holy is “heaven itself,” the area where the person of God is. (Heb 9:24) Since only the Most Holy is “heaven itself,” then the Holy and the priestly courtyard, as well as their features, must pertain to things on earth, those things having to do with Jesus Christ during his ministry on earth and his followers who are “partakers of the heavenly calling.”—Heb 3:1.

The curtain was a barrier separating the Holy from the Most Holy; in Jesus’ case it represented “his flesh,” which he had to lay down in sacrifice, giving it up forever, to be able to enter heaven, the antitypical Most Holy. (Heb 10:20) Anointed Christians must also pass the fleshly barrier that separates them from access to God’s presence in heaven. Consistently, the Holy represents their condition as spirit-begotten sons of God, with heavenly life in view, and they will attain to that heavenly reward when their fleshly bodies are laid aside in death.—1Co 15:50; Heb 2:10.

While still in the antitypical Holy, these who have been anointed with holy spirit and who serve as underpriests with Christ are able to enjoy spiritual enlightenment, as from the lampstand; to eat spiritual food, as from the table of showbread; and to offer up prayer, praise, and service to God, as if presenting sweet-smelling incense at the golden altar of incense. The Holy of the typical temple was screened off from the view of outsiders, and similarly, how a person knows that he is a spirit-begotten son of God and what he experiences as such cannot be fully appreciated by those who are not.—Re 14:3.

In the ancient temple courtyard was the altar for offering sacrifices. This foreshadowed God’s provision, according to his will, for a perfect human sacrifice to ransom the offspring of Adam. (Heb 10:1-10; 13:10-12; Ps 40:6-8) In the spiritual temple the courtyard itself must pertain to a condition related to that sacrifice. In the case of Jesus, it was his being a perfect human that made the sacrifice of his life acceptable. In the case of his anointed followers, all of these are declared righteous on the basis of their faith in Christ’s sacrifice, and thus they are viewed by God as sinless while in the flesh.—Ro 3:24-26; 5:1, 9; 8:1.

The features of “the true tent,” God’s great spiritual temple, already existed in the first century C.E. This is indicated by the fact that, with reference to the tabernacle constructed by Moses, Paul wrote that it was “an illustration for the appointed time that is now here,” that is, for something that existed when Paul was writing. (Heb 9:9) That temple certainly existed when Jesus presented the value of his sacrifice in its Most Holy, in heaven itself. It must actually have come into existence in 29 C.E., when Jesus was anointed with holy spirit to serve as Jehovah’s great High Priest.—Heb 4:14; 9:11, 12.

Jesus Christ promises the spirit-begotten Christians that the one who conquers, who endures faithfully to the end, will be made “a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will by no means go out from it anymore.” (Re 3:12) So, such a one is granted a permanent place in “heaven itself,” the antitypical Most Holy.

Revelation 7:9-15 reveals “a great crowd” of other worshipers of Jehovah sharing in pure worship at the spiritual temple. Those making up this “great crowd” are not described in terms that identify them as underpriests. The ones who make up this “great crowd” are said to have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Because of their faith in the sacrifice of Christ, they are credited with a righteous standing that makes possible their preservation through “the great tribulation,” so they are said to “come out of” it as survivors.

At Isaiah 2:1-4 and Micah 4:1-4, reference is made to a ‘lifting up’ of “the mountain of the house of Jehovah” in “the final part of the days,” and it is foretold that there would be a gathering of people of “all the nations” to that “house of Jehovah.” Since there has been no physical temple of Jehovah in Jerusalem since 70 C.E., this must refer, not to some physical structure, but to an elevating of true worship in the lives of Jehovah’s people during “the final part of the days” and a great gathering of people of all nations to share in worship at Jehovah’s great spiritual temple.

Detailed description of a temple of Jehovah is also found at Ezekiel chapters 40-47, but it is not a temple that was ever built on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, nor would it fit there. So, it must be another illustration of God’s great spiritual temple. Special consideration is given in the account to the provisions that emanate from the temple and to the fact that precautions are taken to keep out all who are unworthy to be among the worshipers in its courtyards.

Ezekiel’s temple vision. In 593 B.C.E., in the 14th year after the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple therein, the priest-prophet Ezekiel, transported in vision to a high mountaintop, beheld a great temple of Jehovah. (Eze 40:1, 2) To humiliate and bring about repentance of the exiled Jews, also doubtless to comfort faithful ones, Ezekiel was instructed to relate everything he saw to “the house of Israel.” (Eze 40:4; 43:10, 11) The vision gave careful attention to the details of measurement. The units of measure used were the “reed” (the long reed, 3.11 m; 10.2 ft) and the “cubit” (the long cubit, 51.8 cm; 20.4 in.). (Eze 40:5, ftn) This attention to measurement has led some to believe that this visionary temple was to serve as a model for the temple later constructed by Zerubbabel in the postexilic period. There is, however, no conclusive substantiation of this assumption.

The entire temple area was evidently a square 500 cubits to a side. It contained an outer courtyard, an elevated inner courtyard, the temple with its altar, various dining rooms, and a building to the W, or rear, of the temple. Providing access to the temple’s outer and inner courtyards were six huge gateways, three for the outer courtyard and three for the inner courtyard. These faced N, E, and S, each inner gate being directly behind (in line with) its corresponding outer gate. (Eze 40:6, 20, 23, 24, 27) Inside the outer wall was the lower pavement. It was 50 cubits (25.9 m; 85 ft) wide, the same as the length of the gateways. (Eze 40:18, 21) Thirty dining rooms, likely places for the people to eat their communion sacrifices, were located there. (Eze 40:17) At each of the four corners of this outer courtyard were locations where the people’s portions of their sacrifices were cooked by the priests, according to the Law’s requirement; then they were apparently consumed in the provided dining rooms. (Eze 46:21-24) The remainder of the outer courtyard between the lower pavement and the gates to the inner courtyard was apparently 100 cubits in width.—Eze 40:19, 23, 27.

The priests’ dining rooms were separated from the people’s, being placed closer to the temple. Two of these, along with two dining rooms for the temple singers, were in the inner courtyard beside the massive inner gateways. (Eze 40:38, 44-46) The priests also had dining-room blocks, to the N and S of the sanctuary itself. (Eze 42:1-12) These dining rooms, in addition to their most evident purpose, were places for the priests to change the linen garments used in temple service prior to their entering the outer courtyard. (Eze 42:13, 14; 44:19) Also in that area, to the rear of the dining-room blocks, were the boiling and baking places of the priests, intended for the same basic purpose as those in the outer courtyard, but these for only the priests.—Eze 46:19, 20.

Progressing across the outer courtyard and through the inner gateway, one entered the inner courtyard. The edge of the inner courtyard was 150 cubits (77.7 m; 255 ft) from the edge of the outer courtyard on the E, N, and S. The inner courtyard was 200 cubits (103.6 m; 340 ft) wide. (Ezekiel 40:47 says the inner courtyard was 100 cubits square. This evidently refers to just the area in front of the temple and into which the inner gateways led.) Prominent in the inner courtyard was the altar.—Eze 43:13-17; see ALTAR (Altar of Ezekiel’s Temple).

The sanctuary’s first room, 40 cubits (20.7 m; 68 ft) long and 20 cubits (10.4 m; 34 ft) wide, was entered by a doorway having two 2-leaved doors. (Eze 41:23, 24) Therein was “the table that is before Jehovah,” a wooden altar.—Eze 41:21, 22.

The outer walls of the sanctuary had side chambers four cubits (2 m; 6.8 ft) wide incorporated into and against them. Rising three stories, they covered the western, northern, and southern walls, 30 chambers to a story. (Eze 41:5, 6) To ascend the three stories, winding passages, seemingly circular staircases, were provided on the N and S. (Eze 41:7) To the rear, or W, of the temple, lying apparently lengthwise N to S, was a structure called bin·yanʹ, a ‘building to the west.’ (Eze 41:12) Although some scholars have attempted to identify this building with the temple or sanctuary itself, there appears no basis for such an identification in the book of Ezekiel; the ‘building to the west,’ for one thing, was of different shape and dimensions from those of the sanctuary. This structure doubtless served some function in connection with the services carried on at the sanctuary. There may have been a similar building or buildings W of Solomon’s temple.—Compare 2Ki 23:11 and 1Ch 26:18.

The Most Holy was of the same shape as that of Solomon’s temple, being 20 cubits square. In the vision, Ezekiel saw Jehovah’s glory come from the E, filling the temple. Jehovah described this temple as “the place of my throne.”—Eze 43:1-7.

Ezekiel describes a wall 500 reeds (1,555 m; 5,100 ft) on each side, around the temple. This has been understood by some scholars to be a wall at a distance of about 600 m (2,000 ft) from the courtyard, a space surrounded by the wall “to make a division between what is holy and what is profane.”—Eze 42:16-20.

Ezekiel also beheld a stream of water flowing “from under the threshold of the House eastward” and south of the altar, growing into a deep and mighty torrent as it flowed down through the Arabah into the north end of the Salt Sea. Here it healed the salt waters so that they became filled with fish.—Eze 47:1-12.

Anointed Christians—A Spiritual Temple. Anointed Christians on earth are likened to a number of things, including a temple. This comparison is fitting because God’s spirit dwells within the congregation of anointed ones. Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus “in union with Christ Jesus,” those who are “sealed with the promised holy spirit,” saying: “You have been built up upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, while Christ Jesus himself is the foundation cornerstone. In union with him the whole building, being harmoniously joined together, is growing into a holy temple for Jehovah. In union with him you, too, are being built up together into a place for God to inhabit by spirit.” (Eph 1:1, 13; 2:20-22) These “sealed” ones, laid upon Christ as Foundation, are shown to number 144,000. (Re 7:4; 14:1) The apostle Peter speaks of these as “living stones” being “built up a spiritual house for the purpose of a holy priesthood.”—1Pe 2:5.

Since these underpriests are “God’s building,” he will not let this spiritual temple suffer defilement. Paul emphasizes the holiness of this spiritual temple, and the danger to one who attempts to defile it, when he writes: “Do you not know that you people are God’s temple, and that the spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you people are.”—1Co 3:9, 16, 17; see also 2Co 6:16.

Jehovah God and the Lamb ‘Are Its Temple.’ When John sees New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, he remarks: “And I did not see a temple in it, for Jehovah God the Almighty is its temple, also the Lamb is.” (Re 21:2, 22) Since the members of New Jerusalem will have direct access to the face of Jehovah himself, they will not need a temple through which to approach God. (1Jo 3:2; Re 22:3, 4) Those who make up New Jerusalem will render sacred service to God directly under the high priesthood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. For this reason the Lamb shares with Jehovah in being, in effect, the temple of the New Jerusalem.

An Impostor. The apostle Paul, in warning of the apostasy to come, spoke of “the man of lawlessness” as setting himself up “so that he sits down in the temple of The God, publicly showing himself to be a god.” (2Th 2:3, 4) This “man of lawlessness” is an apostate, a false teacher, so he actually seats himself only in what he falsely claims to be that temple.—See MAN OF LAWLESSNESS.


An Illustrative Use. On one occasion, when the Jews demanded a sign from Jesus, he replied: “Break down this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews thought he was speaking of the temple building, but the apostle John explains: “He was talking about the temple of his body.” When he was resurrected by his Father Jehovah on the third day of his death, the disciples recalled and understood this saying and believed it. (Joh 2:18-22; Mt 27:40) He was resurrected, but not in his fleshly body, which was given as a ransom sacrifice; yet that fleshly body did not go into corruption, but was disposed of by God, just as a sacrifice was consumed on the altar. Jesus, when resurrected, was the same person, the same personality, in a new body made for his new dwelling place, the spiritual heavens.—Lu 24:1-7; 1Pe 3:18; Mt 20:28; Ac 2:31; Heb 13:8.