File under well said LXXXI

 Every nation gets the government it deserves. 

Joseph de Maistre 

Ps. Generally speaking. 

And still yet even more primeval tech v. Darwin.

 RuvAB: Another Elegant Molecular Motor Visualized 

David Coppedge 

Admirers of molecular machines will love RuvAB. This machine looks like something out of a CAD/CAM project, but it’s found in bacteria. And it plays an essential role in maintaining this “primitive” microbe’s genomic integrity. 

A picture is worth a thousand words. Before we talk about it, look at the 30-second animation of RuvAB modeled by scientists at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), a research center of the Helmholtz Association in Hamburg, Germany.

That’s an eye-popping example of irreducible complexity if there ever was one. Are those gears, rotors, and clutches operating in a detailed sequence of moving parts? The scientists must have thought so; a graphic in the press release portrays the operation as a set of twenty gears operating on DNA strands, with the caption, “Artistic representation of the Holliday junction and the RuvB motors.” 

A Minor Correction 

One little correction to the animation should be noted. They show it in slow motion. The actual movements are “very fast and highly dynamic,” they say — so much so that they “provided the … motor with a slower burning fuel which allowed us to capture the biochemical reactions as they occur.” They took “over ten million images” of the motor in action.  

Using the high-performance computing facility at DESY, the scientists were then able to put all the puzzle pieces together to generate a high-resolution movie detailing how the RuvAB complex functions on the molecular scale.  

Is this molecular machine important? 

DNA recombination is one of the most fundamental biological processes in living organisms. It is the process by which chromosomes “swap” DNA either to generate genetic diversity, by creating new offspring, or to maintain genetic integrity, by repairing breaks in existing chromosomes. During DNA recombination, four DNA arms separate from their double-helix formations and join together at an intersection known as a Holliday junction. Here the DNA arms exchange strands in a process called active branch migration. 

RuvA is the stator and RuvB is the motor. The two form the “RuvAB branch migration complex” that handles DNA recombination and repair. 

The essential energy needed for this branch migration to occur comes from a molecular machinery that scientists have tagged as the RuvAB branch migration complex. This complex assembles around the Holliday junction and is made of two motors labelled RuvB AAA+ ATPases, that fuel the reaction, and a RuvA stator. The research team has now provided an intricate blueprint that explains how the RuvB AAA+ motors work under the regulation of the RuvA protein to perform synchronized DNA movement. 

The AAA+ family of molecular machines deserves attention from ID researchers, because they move things in elaborate ways and take part in diverse cellular activities (see another example reported here in 2019). 

AAA+ motors are often used in other biological systems, such as protein transport, therefore this detailed model of the RuvB AAA+ motor can be used as a blueprint for similar molecular motors. “We understand how the motor works and now we can put this motor into another system with some minor adaptations,” explains Marlovits. “We are essentially presenting core principles for AAA+ motors.” 

More detail is given in an open-access paper in Nature by Wald et al. , “Mechanism of AAA+ ATPase-mediated RuvAB–Holliday junction branch migration.” 

Coordinated motions in a converter formed by DNA-disengaged RuvB subunits stimulate hydrolysis and nucleotide exchange. Immobilization of the converter enables RuvB to convert the ATP-contained energy into a lever motion, which generates the pulling force driving the branch migration. We show that RuvB motors rotate together with the DNA substrate, which, together with a progressing nucleotide cycle, forms the mechanistic basis for DNA recombination by continuous branch migration. 

A Feast for the Eyes 

The figures in the paper are worth feasting your eyes on. Hmmm; I wonder why they didn’t say anything about how it evolved? Look for the word “mutation” and you will find that “mutational studies markedly compromised branch migration activity, and mutation of trans-Glu128 resulted in a bacterial growth defect.”

Here is another biological wonder that needs little verbiage to convince readers of intelligent design. It certainly spoke to the researchers: 

“We were able to visualize seven distinct states of the motor and demonstrate how the interconnected elements work together in a cyclical manner,” explains Wald. “We also demonstrated that the RuvB motor converts energy into a lever motion which generates the force that drives branch migration. We were amazed by the discovery that the motors use a basic lever mechanism to move the DNA substrate. Overall, the sequential mechanism, coordination and force generation manner of the RuvAB motor share conceptual similarities with combustion engines.” 

I would love to see this motor star in an expanded animation documentary with dramatic music. 

Politics poisons everything.

 Here is Wikipedia's impartial introduction to their article re: signature in the cell author Stephen Meyer: 

Stephen C. Meyer: (/ˈmaɪ.ər/; born 1958) is an American author and former educator. He is an advocate of the pseudoscience of intelligent design and helped found the Center for Science and Culture  

Just one example sort of thing that has led me to conclude that politics causes  brain damage.

The design debate down under.

 Report from Australia: Sharing Design Evidence Down Under 

Thomas E. Woodward 

Timing is everything! In late June, while I packed for my July/August speaking tour of Queensland, Australia, science writer Stephen Buranyi dropped an 11-page bombshell in London on the failures of Darwinism. Buranyi’s article appeared in The Guardian under the title, “Do We Need a New Theory of Evolution?” 

Bingo! This brilliantly written exposé on dissent in biology, which Evolution News covered here, became the perfect lead-in for my twenty Aussie lectures, as I teamed up with my Trinity College colleague John Lingelbach. 

Following the Evidence 

Our theme was “A Designed Cosmos? Follow the Evidence,” and the tour included two days of talks at Griffith University and a day speaking at Emmanuel College in the Gold Coast area, with five hundred in attendance. We summarized the evidence for design from cosmic fine-tuning, DNA’s sophisticated codes, and exquisitely integrated molecular machines. We discussed new fossil findings that have expanded the Cambrian Explosion, and we detailed how the origin of the first life through a “mindless Darwinian process” is an idea pummeled today even by many secular academicians. 

One student at Griffith University was amazed at “how atheists are beginning to reject natural selection as an insufficient explanation for the diversity of life.” He found the lecture series “an exciting experience to share at our overly secularized university.” 

Science, C. S. Lewis, and Pizza 

Twice, we combined the evidence of science with insights from C. S. Lewis, who in his writings articulated a substantial series of clues about God. This lively group, seen here in Southport, “ate up the clues” and then feasted on pizza! 

Finally, we partnered with the website DNA and Beyond to equip 25 high schools across Queensland with sets of DNA models that display the high-tech worlds of genetics and epigenetics, including genes’ elegant on/off switches.  

Forty six theological questions I'd love to get a straight answer To:

   1)Genesis2:7KJV"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."    

If the human soul is by definition alive (indeed immortal) why was it necessary to describe it as living?

2) Genesis3:15 KJV "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Who is this woman that (with Jehovah's blessing) wages war against the deceiver of men and angels?

3)If the seed of above mentioned woman is God why would it be wrong to call her the mother of God?

4) Where are the expressions God the son and God the spirit located in the scriptures?

5) Why is the God the Father never ever referred to as the father of God in scripture( After all the Son is always referred to as the Son of God/the Spirit as the spirit of God)?

6) john8:50"And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth." If our lord taught his disciples that he is in fact Almighty God how could he truthfully claim to not be seeking his own glory?

7) John14:1KJV "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me" If Jesus is indeed the almighty God how are we to make sense of the above cited scripture?

8) From our catholic friends comes the following: if Jesus is truly God and Mary is his mother then Mary is the mother of God;Makes complete sense to me what specific objection could any trinitarian or modalists/oneness advocate possibly have against this reasoning?

9)Acts17:30NASB "“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,"

Those who had their sins overlooked by reason of their involuntary ignorance are they in heaven?

10)If it is possible to get to heaven by being ignorant why then would a loving God command that the Gospel be preached?

11) How could the loss of Jesus flesh for parts of three days possibly be a fit substitute for eternal conscious torment?

12) In as much as the Father is a spirit and is holy and his son is a spirit and is holy and their angels are spirits and are holy how could it be sensible to identify the third person of a supposed holy trinity of such holy spirits as simply the holy spirit?

13) John14;19NASB "“After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also." Why do many of Christendom's theologians insist that Christ will return in the same flesh which he was supposed to have sacrificed for our sins to literally be seen by all the world?

14) John3:17 NASB"“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him."

 John5:22NASB "Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgement to the Son,"

 Will the Son of God Judge the world or not?

15)Do aborted infants go to heaven?

16)If all aborted infants go heaven would that not falsify Jesus'statement at John3:3

17) At John3:3 Jesus indicates that to attain a heavenly resurrection one must be "born from above" in as much as john1:12 links this new birth to acceptance of the gospel should we not then conclude that the door to heaven was closed to all who died prior to Christ's death and resurrection?

18) To all who insists that it is impossible for someone in a saved condition to lose their salvation:Were Satan,Adam and Eve in a saved or unsaved condition when created by God?

19)If all are destined for a place in heaven regardless of belief or conduct why must the gospel be preached first?

20) Hebrews11:39,40 "And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect." If we are all going to end up in heaven How is what God promised anointed Christians better than the reward the ancient worthies mentioned in Hebrews ch.11 received?

21) Revelation20:6NASB "Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years."

 Revelation5:9,10DBT "And they sing a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open its seals; because thou hast been slain, and hast redeemed to God, by thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, 10and made them to our God kings and priests; and they shall reign over the earth." If the earth is to be devoid of human life,as many insists, during the millennium over whom are these ruling as kings and to whom are they ministering as priest?

22) Revelation21:4"and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” Would this not be a false prophecy if in fact the vast majority of humankind is destined to suffer eternally by divine decree?

23) If only those who share in the first resurrection (see rev 20:6) go on to receive eternal life how could it be said that 'death' is the last enemy defeated by Christ? (see 1Corinthians15:26)

24)In as much as Christendom's theologians invoke Occam's razor as their reason for rejecting polytheism,in what way can a triune Godhead in which one member is fully human be considered a simpler explanation than the position of unitarian Christians that the God and Father of our lord is the only true God ?See John17:3

25) For argument sake let us go along with the notion that only a multipersonal deity could fulfil 1John4:8 can someone please provide a scriptural reason for limiting the number of persons constituting this godhead to three?

26) To those who deny the historicity of the man Jesus Christ.Why did the enemies of Christianity wait for eighteen centuries to raise what should have been their very first objection?

27) Galations1:1 HCSB "Paul,a an apostle — not from men or by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Fatherb who raised Him from the dead"

Does the above cited scripture not suggest that Christ was raised to a superhuman life rather than having his human life restored?

28) If the human soul is indestructible and distinct from the body why do drugs,bodily fatigue and physical injuries affect consciousness?

29) Revelation14:1 KJV"And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads" If the holy spirit is a person who is equally God as Jesus' Father why is his name not also on the foreheads of these servants of Jehovah?

30) Can anyone show from scripture the personal name of the holy spirit? 

31) John17:3NASB "“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. " How can the God and Father of Jesus be the only true God if there are two others who are God in the same sense and to the same degree?

32) Matthew 11:11NASB"Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" Does the above cited scripture not indicate that John the baptizer and all the faithful who died prior to him will not be in heaven?

33) How could the loss of Christ body for parts of three days be equated with eternal conscious torment? Isaiah53:5 NASB"But He was pierced through for our transgressions,

            He was crushed for our iniquities;

            The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,

            And by His scourging we are healed."

34) 1Corinthians8:6 NASB"yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him." Christendom's theologians claim that the Father is not a distinct God merely a distinct person,does not the above cited text not contradict that assertion?

35) Matthew10:28 NASB"“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. " According to the above quoted scripture Jehovah God will do to his enemies What those enemies can merely do to his followers' bodies.Can Christendom's theologians please tell us who among Jehovah's enemies can inflict eternal torment on our bodies?

36) For those trinitarian apologists who insists that every God mentioned in the bible must either be a member of the trinity or a false god where would you place the prophet Moses member of the Christendom's Godhead or false god see exodus7:1

37) Luke23:43NASB"And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”" Now in as much as Christendom's translators insist that Christ meant that he would go to paradise immediately upon dying as a substitute for sinners,how can it be logically denied that the penalty for sin must be a translation to paradise upon death,in which case why would sinners need a ramsom?

38) Revelation20:1-3NASB"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time." For post millenialists when was Satan rendered incapable of deceiving the nations.

39)When do post millenialists believe that Satan would again be allowed to deceive the nations.

40) Luke11:18NASB "“If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. "

Revelation 12:3NASB"Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems."

Revelation12:9NASB"And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him."

If Jesus' being called God or even Jehovah is sufficient to establish as true that he is a member of a polypersonal God how can anyone deny that the above quoted scriptures must mean that Satan is part of polypersonal Devil/Devilhead?

41) Several men other than Jesus of nazareth are mentioned in scripture as having the name Jesus/Joshua as a personal name See Exodus17:9,1Samuel 6:14,colossians4:11. If the name 'Jesus' is the personal name of the most high God how can any creature be permitted use it as a personal name?

42) For those who claim that Jesus Christ is the only true God:Hebrews2:3,4 "how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?e It was first spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him.f 4At the same time, God also testified by signs and wonders, various miracles, and distributions of gifts from the Holy Spirit according to His will.g" How can God's testimony be considered additional to Jesus's

43) Can anyone direct me to that passage of scripture that says that the virtuous dead go to heaven?

44) Why is it that though trinitarians and modalists denounce each other's doctrine as unscriptural they nevertheless use the very same prooftext in there apologetics?

45) In as much as the Jehovah is repeatedly call the God the Father (Theon Patros) in scripture Why is Jesus NEVER referred to as God the Son ?

46) Revelation20:6 NASB "Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. " 

 If the human soul is truly immortal why the need to restore it to life?

It takes an engineer to know an engineer?

 Burgess: Claims of “Poor Design” in Skeletal Joints Are Based on Critics’ Lack of Training in Engineering 

Brian Miller 

As an engineering professor at Bristol University and Cambridge, Stuart Burgess has researched biomechanics for nearly thirty years. He is one of the leading engineers in the UK. Earlier this year, he presented a talk at the Westminster Conference on Science and Faith titled, “Why Human Skeletal Joints Are Masterpieces of Human Engineering: And a Rebuttal to the ‘Bad Design’ Arguments.” He demonstrated that human skeletal joints are marvels of engineering and optimally designed. In particular, he refuted claims by biologist Nathan Lents, in his book Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes, that the wrist and ankle contain useless bones.  

The Abuse of Science 

Burgess’s lecture confronts one of the most common abuses of science aimed at suppressing the evidence for design in biology. Atheists such as Lents have grossly misrepresented the scientific evidence related to biological systems to claim that life often displays clumsy and incompetent engineering. Most of the examples of allegedly poor design listed by Lents, or in other books such as The Language of God, were known to be false when the books were written or have since been discredited. Such disinformation resulting from sloppy scholarship has derailed the faith of religious adherents and robbed atheists and agnostics of the opportunity to pursue belief in a Creator.

In relation to wrists and ankles, Lents makes the follower assertions in his book:          

“The small area that is just the wrist itself has eight fully formed and distinct bones tucked in there like a pile of rocks — which is about how useful they are to anyone.” (p. 28)

“We have examples of superbly designed joints in our bodies; the shoulder and hip joints come to mind. Not the wrist, though. No sane engineer would design a joint with so many individual moving parts. It clutters up the space and restricts the range of motion.” (p. 28)

“The human ankle suffers from the same clutter of bones that we find in the wrist. The ankle contains seven bones, most of them pointless.” (p. 29)

Yet none of these claims has any basis. 

The Optimality of Skeletal Joints 

Dr. Burgess demonstrated how Lents’s assertion that the wrist and foot joints are poorly designed results from Lents’s lack of training in engineering. He did not recognize that living systems must meet multiple competing constraints. Burgess analyzed the joints’ different motions and functions. He then demonstrated how the wrists and ankles are exquisitely designed to optimally achieve a diversity of functions in a wide variety of environments.

As one example, Lents failed to understand the engineering principles behind the four bones adjacent to the toe bones. He claimed that a better design would have been to replace these bones with a single composite bone. The key error is that the multiple bones provide far greater load bearing strength. 

In a previous lecture, Burgess also addressed false claims about allegedly poor design in the human knee joint, while in the technical literature he detailed the optimality of the knee (here, here). Many have argued that the ease with which the knee’s anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears reflects poor design resulting from humans’ evolutionary past. This conclusion fails to recognize a key design principle: engineers often deliberately construct the least critical components in a complex system to fail first. 

The bumper of a car, for example, is designed to crumple long before the passenger compartment since the former is far more expendable. Similarly, a person can still walk with a torn ACL, but serious trauma to other knee tissues and bones could permanently cripple the individual. The initial failure of the ACL could prevent much more severe damage. In addition, the rate at which ACLs tear is lower than the rate at which bones such as the femur fracture (here, here). Claims about the ACL’s flimsy design are clearly misguided.  

The Central Lesson 

Burgess could have spoken for many more hours about false claims of poor design in such structures as the wiring of the retina, the human appendix, and wisdom teeth. He could have provided countless examples of biology demonstrating the pinnacle of engineering brilliance. 

Yet the two examples he presented were sufficient to drive home a clear lesson. Evolutionary assumptions consistently lead biologists to falsely claim that features in life reflect incompetent engineering, and those assumptions bias them to undervalue biological systems’ ingenuity and optimality. One hopes that the consistent track record of falsely identifying poor design will result in researchers’ applying greater caution in the future before questioning the wisdom of a feature in life that they do not initially fully understand. 

   

Have you accepted the multiverse as your Lord and savior?

 Is the Multiverse Science or Religion? 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

Some science controversies arise in disputes over findings. The current flap over the James Webb Space Telescope data, for one. Others sound like clashes over philosophy — claims about the multiverse (countless universes out there) are a good example.

Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder takes on the multiverse in in her new book, Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions (2022). She also addresses the topic concisely — and wittily — in a short video and a blog post at Back(Re)Action. She looks at three popular multiverse models: Many Worlds, Eternal Inflation, and String Theory Landscape. 

“Maybe We Will Never Know”

Here’s her take on Eternal Inflation:

We don’t know how our universe began and maybe we will never know. We just talked about this the other week. But according to a presently popular idea called “inflation,” our universe was created from a quantum fluctuation of a field called the “inflaton”. This field supposedly fills an infinitely large space and our universe was created from only a tiny patch of that, the patch where the fluctuation happened.

But the field keeps on fluctuating, so there are infinitely many other universes fluctuating into existence. This universe-creation goes on forever, which is why it’s called eternal inflation. Eternal inflation, by the way lasts forever into the future, but still requires a beginning in the past, so it doesn’t do away with the Big Bang issue.

In Eternal Inflation, the other universes may contain the same matter as ours, but in slightly different arrangements, so there may be copies of you in them. In some versions you became a professional ballet dancer. In some you won a Nobel Prize. In yet another one another you are a professional ballet dancer who won a Nobel Prize and dated Elon Musk. And they’re all as real as this one.

Where did this inflaton field go that allegedly created our universe? Well, physicists say it has fallen apart into the particles that we observe now, so it’s gone and that’s why we can’t measure it. Yeah, that is a little sketchy. 

SABINE HOSSENFELDER, “THE MULTIVERSE: SCIENCE, RELIGION, OR PSEUDOSCIENCE?” AT BACKRE(ACTION) (SEPTEMBER 10, 2022) 

Don’t miss her take on Many Worlds and the String Theory Landscape, especially if you wish to experience “elephants in the room which you coincidentally can’t see” — oh, and getting married to Elon Musk (but maybe only in that universe). On a serious note, she later addresses specific claims from physicists who defend the idea.

The concept of a multiverse arises from an alternative interpretation of the movement of elementary particles in quantum mechanics — alternative, that is, to the more widely accepted Copenhagen interpretation. In the Copenhagen interpretation, if the particle goes left rather than right, the universe just updates. In the alternative Many Worlds interpretation, a new universe is created in which the particle goes right. There are other versions but that’s the best known.

Read the rest at Mind Matters News, published by Discovery Institute’s Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

Darwin's design Inference?

 Charles Darwin’s Freudian Slip 

Robert F. Shedinger 

Last April, I wrote a post for Evolution News about the reception of Darwin’s book dealing with fertilization methods in orchids. Darwin, rather than following up the Origin of Species with the publication of his big book on species, which was three-quarters complete, instead turned to botanical concerns and published his orchid monograph in 1862. Darwin confessed to Asa Gray that his orchid book would serve as a “flank movement on the enemy.” 

Darwin clearly hoped that readers of the orchid book would be so overwhelmed with the variety of contrivances (his word) found in orchids to assure fertilization by insects that they would marvel at the power of natural selection to produce them. I argued previously that the orchid book was Darwin’s stealth attempt to provide the evidence of natural selection missing from the Origin, which was a mere abstract of his theory, and missing from the big book, which he never published.

A Grand Intelligent Designer

Darwin’s strategy, however, failed miserably. When reviews of the orchid book appeared in the British press, reviewers almost unanimously hailed it as one of the great books of natural theology. The amazing variety of contrivances by which orchids assure their fertilization by insects testified, in the opinion of these reviewers, to the existence of a grand intelligent designer. 

M. J. Berkeley, for example, in the London Review, opined:

Most certainly, so far from justifying anyone in considering the author as heretofore as a heathen man or an heretic for the annunciation of his theory, the whole series of the Bridgewater Treatises will not afford so striking a set of arguments in favour of natural theology as those which he has displayed. 

The Bridgewater Treatises, of course, were a series of writings commissioned by Francis Henry Egerton, the eighth Earl of Bridgewater, designed to demonstrate the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested in creation. One would think that Darwin would be livid at someone comparing his orchid book to the Bridgewater Treatises. I thought so myself until I did additional research. 

A Surprising Discovery 

I recently discovered a letter by Darwin that I had originally overlooked. When writing up his orchid research, Darwin initially planned to publish it as a paper in the Linnean. But it became too long for a journal article, so he decided to publish it as a book instead. In September 1861, Darwin contacted his publisher, John Murray, to gauge Murray’s interest in potentially publishing this technical monograph on orchids. Darwin wrote: 

Will you have the kindness to give me your opinion, which I shall implicitly follow. — I have just finished a very long paper for Linnean Society and yesterday for the first time it occurred to me that possibly it might be worth publishing separately, which would save me trouble and delay. — The facts are new & have been collected during 20 years & strike me as curious. Like a Bridgewater Treatise the chief object is to show the perfection of the many contrivances in Orchids. 

Darwin could hardly complain about others comparing his orchid book to the Bridgewater Treatises when he himself had done the very same thing (though not publicly)! 

When one considers Darwin’s use of the word “contrivances” in his orchid book, the very word William Paley had used throughout his Natural Theology, and his own comparing of his orchid book to a Bridgewater Treatise in his letter to Murray, it looks like Darwin was as impressed as everyone else by the amazing ingenuity in orchids and could not ignore the evidence for design. 

If Sigmund Freud were alive today, he might well say that Darwin slipped!

File under "Well said" LXXX.

Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.

Euripides 

Ps.ecclesiastes7:13NIV"Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked?"

The journey from is to ought without a bridge?

 Atheists Who Scold Us on Morality Unwittingly Acknowledge God’s Existence 

Michael Egnor 

Biologist P. Z. Myers detests challenges to his atheism based on the reality of Objective Moral Law:

There is a common line of attack Christians use in debates with atheists, and I genuinely detest it. It’s to ask the question, “where do your morals come from?” I detest it because it is not a sincere question at all — they don’t care about your answer, they’re just trying to get you to say that you do not accept the authority of a deity, so that they can then declare that you are an evil person because you do not derive your morals from the same source they do, and therefore you are amoral. It is, of course, false to declare that someone with a different morality than yours is amoral, but that doesn’t stop those sleazebags. 

Actually, Christians don’t ask, “Where do your morals come from?” in order to call atheists evil. We do it to point out that objective morality is powerful evidence for God’s existence. 

Subjective and Objective 

How so? From our human perspective, moral law can have two origins — subjective and objective.

Subjective moral law is based on human opinion. It may just be one man’s opinion, or it may be the collective opinion of a group of people. If our standards are wholly subjective, dislike of strawberry ice cream and dislike of genocide are not qualitatively different. The dislike is just human opinion.

Objective moral law, by contrast, is outside of human opinion. It is something that we humans discover. We do not create it. Thus, objective moral law exists beyond mere human opinion.

Now a distinction emerges. Personal preferences (e.g., about ice cream) are qualitatively different from personal opinions about genocide — we oppose genocide because it is objectively wrong, not just because it is not quite to our taste.

Of course, if a value judgement prevails over other human value judgements, there must be Someone whose opinion is Objective Moral Law. There must be a Law-Giver.

Please note that this argument is ontological, not epistemological. It is not an argument about how well we can know what the Moral Law is. It is an argument that Objective Moral Law exists, regardless of how well we can or do know it.

Change my mind.

AntiJW  bigots: You're in a cult!

Me: aren't we all?

Ps. Are all cults created equal?

The thumb print of JEHOVAH :hummingbird edition.

 A Closer Look at Hummingbird Tongue Design 

David Coppedge 

One of the memorable moments in Illustra Media’s documentary Flight: The Genius of Birds is the hummingbird tongue animation (see it below). The unique nectar-trapping mechanism of unfurling flaps (lamellae) on supporting rods that automatically fold over to seal in the nectar was discovered by two biologists at the University of Connecticut (see the paper in PNAS). This was cutting-edge science, because most biologists previously had assumed the tongue worked by simple capillary action. 

The two biologists have continued their work since then, filming hummingbirds in the wild. Along with a mechanical engineer who is an expert in fluid mechanics, they published a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B that should increase our admiration for the design of this structure. It’s not only a nectar trap; the hummingbird tongue is a micropump!

News from UConn Today includes a video clip (below) of the tongue in action. The new findings debunk the notion that capillary action called “wicking” draws nectar up the tongue. 

Rico-Guevara explains that a hummingbird’s tongue, which can be stuck out about the same length as its beak, is tipped with two long skinny tubes, or grooves. Rather than wicking, he says, the nectar is drawn into the tongue by the elastic expansion of the grooves after they are squeezed flat by the beak.

The tongue structure is collapsed during the time it crosses the space between the bill tip and the nectar pool, but once the tip contacts the nectar surface, the supply of fluid allows the collapsed groove to gradually recover to a relaxed cylindrical shape as the nectar fills it.

When the hummingbird squeezes nectar off its tongue during protrusion, it is collapsing the grooves and loading elastic energy into the groove walls. That energy subsequently facilitates the pumping of more nectar. 

In Concert with the Lamellae 

This pumping action apparently works in concert with the lamellae (flaps) shown in the Illustra film. The cylinders are in a flattened shape when they enter the nectar. Having been compressed by the beak, they store elastic energy that makes them rapidly expand in the fluid as they unfurl. This expansion helps to pump the fluid into the cylindrical cavity upward from the lamellae. That way, more nectar can be delivered into the bird’s mouth.

Figure 1 shows the beak in cross-section from a CT scan. It looks beautifully designed to squeeze the tongue’s cylinders during protrusion, with the lower bill fitting into spaces in the upper bill that spread laterally to flatten the tongue as it exits the bill tip. This design probably also squeezes the previous load of nectar into the mouth at the same time. “After complete loading, the grooves filled with nectar were brought back inside the bill and squeezed for the next cycle, all in less than a tenth of a second,” they observe. The caption for Figure 1 explains how these two mechanisms (pumping and trapping) work together: 

The hummingbird tongue fills with nectar even when only the tip is immersed. (a) Hummingbirds can drink from flowers with corollas longer than their bills by extending their bifurcated, longitudinally grooved tongues to reach the nectar. During protrusion, the tongue is compressed as it passes through the bill tip, which results in a collapsed configuration of the grooves (cross-section). (b) Upon reaching the nectar, the tongue tips fringed with lamellae roll open and spread apart, but some of the grooved portions of the tongue will never contact the nectar pool. For the grooves to fill with nectar, they must return to their uncompressed, cylindrical configuration. 

Why doesn’t the collapsed tongue rebound immediately after it leaves the beak and enters the air? That would result in open tubes that would need to fill by capillary action when they enter the nectar. But capillary action is much slower than the observed filling. Apparently the tongue material is designed to expand upon contact with the nectar. “After contacting the surface, the grooves expanded and filled completely with nectar,” they found. 

Birds in the Wild 

All hummingbirds have this mechanism. They filmed 32 wild birds, representing 18 species (in 7 of the 9 main hummingbird clades), with a high-speed camera in natural wild habitats, undergoing hundreds of feeding cycles — all with the same results. This allowed them to falsify the “century-old paradigm” of the capillary hypothesis and shed new light on this rapid, dynamic process. 

All observed licks followed the same pattern: tongue thickness was stable during protrusion of the tongue, and rapidly increased after the tongue tips contacted the nectar… After complete loading, the grooves filled with nectar were brought back inside the bill and squeezed for the next cycle, all in less than a tenth of a second. 

Capillary action could not have filled the cylinders this rapidly. In addition, no meniscus (diagnostic of capillarity) was observed to form in any of the 96 video sessions. The pumping action, by contrast, fills the entire tongue in just 14 milliseconds. Here’s how it works, according to their new model: 

We suggest that while squeezing nectar off the tongue during protrusion, the bird is collapsing the grooves and loading elastic energy into the groove walls that will be subsequently used to pump nectar into the grooves. The collapsed configuration is conserved during the trip of the tongue across the space between the bill tip to the nectar pool. Once the tongue tips contact the nectar surface, the supply of fluid allows the collapsed groove to gradually recover to a relaxed cylindrical shape until the nectar has filled it completely; hereafter, we refer to this previously undocumented mechanism as ‘expansive filling’. 

Flattened and Sealed 

The tongue stays flattened and sealed, in short, until it hits the nectar pool. Then, inside the fluid, the tongue’s twin cylinders rapidly expand, pumping nectar up into the tongue as it darts into the flower at speeds of a meter per second. As the tongue is withdrawn, the lamellae then seal the cylinder tightly shut for delivery into the bird’s mouth. This is a wonderful dual mechanism that results in much more efficient food capture in far less time. 

Fluid trapping is the predominant process by which hummingbirds achieve nectar collection at small bill tip-to-nectar distances, wherein tongue grooves are wholly immersed in nectar, or when the nectar is found in very thin layers. Expansive filling accounts for nectar uptake by the portions of a hummingbird’s tongue that remain outside the nectar pool. The relative contributions of the two synergistic mechanisms(fluid trapping and expansive filling) to the rate and volume of nectar ultimately ingested are determined by the distance from the bill tip to the nectar surface during the licking process. 

In other words, these two “synergistic mechanisms” give the hummingbird the biggest possible nectar bang for the buck, regardless of how deep the nectar pool is. The new model explains how the tongue can fill up even in a short flower. Since hummingbirds already “have remarkably high metabolic rates, amazing speed and superb aeronautic control,” it is essential they get the optimum return on investment of feeding energy.  

All these traits result from the ability of hummingbirds to feed on nectar efficiently enough to fuel an extreme lifestyle out of a sparse, but energetically dense, resource. Therefore, the way in which they feed on nectar determines the peaks and span of their performance, and thus their behaviour (and evolutionary trajectory), across a range of environmental axes. 

How Did Evolution Contribute? 

But did evolutionary theory contribute anything to this study? The authors speculate briefly about “co-evolution” of flowers and their pollinators, but do not offer any “trajectory” by which a bird could evolve either of these mechanisms from ancestors lacking them. How useful is it to offer up evidence-free promissory notes like this? 

The new explanation of the mechanics of nectar uptake we provide here suggests that physical constraints are the main determinants of the relationship between pollinator type and nectar concentration, and can guide us through alternative hypotheses of hummingbird-flower coevolution. 

By contrast, they save their best lines for what might be termed (though not by the authors) intelligent design. The paper begins: 

Pumping is a vital natural process, imitated by humans for thousands of years. We demonstrate that a hitherto undocumented mechanism of fluid transport pumps nectar onto the hummingbird tongue. 

This implies a seamless connection between human design and biological design. They conclude on the design theme: 

Our discovery of this elastic tongue micropump could inspire applications, and the study of flow, in elastic-walled (flexible) tubes in both biological and artificial systems. 

You see, not only does a design focus inspire study of biological systems, it leads to better designed applications. Everyone can agree on this: hummingbirds are inspiring! 

The real world v. Darwin again.

 Stuart Burgess Informs Evolutionist Nathan Lents on the Design Genius of the Ankle and Wrist 

David Klinghoffer 

When engineers educate evolutionists about where their theory falls short, the results can be enlightening and entertaining. Sometimes they are spectacular. That’s the case with distinguished mechanical engineer Stuart Burgess and his presentation at the recent Westminster Conference on Science and Faith. Burgess addresses some claims of forensic scientist Nathan Lents in the latter’s 2018 book, Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes. As Burgess says, “It should be called Lents’s Errors.”

Professor Lents is a proponent of the “unintelligent design” hypothesis. He looks at engineering marvels like the human wrist and ankle and sees only “blunders,” “pointless bones,” “anatomical errors.” Burgess has studied those wonders of biology more closely than Lents has and explains in detail why they are, in fact, “ingenious” solutions to engineering problems that leave the genius of human engineers far behind. Burgess is simply on fire. 

A Certain Generosity 

Lents is like fellow evolutionist Jerry Coyne in that there’s a certain generosity to him: Coyne and Lent are so profuse in their blunders that they have both provided years of material for Darwin skeptics to work over. For example, in his book, Lents writes: “Humans have way too many bones.” Of the wrist, he says that “it is way more complicated than it needs to be….The small area that is just the wrist itself has eight fully formed and distinct bones tucked in there like a pile of rocks — which is about how useful they are to anyone.” Burgess tells exactly what functions depend on every one of those useless “rocks.” The design is supremely intelligent. And the same goes for ankle.

By the time you get to the end of the presentation, you won’t have any doubt that, in these cases — which can stand in for many others — Darwinists have been led by their philosophy to grossly misjudge human anatomy. Lents, in his ideological fervor, “ignores biomechanics research,” “ignores engineering research.” 

Now here’s an interesting question. Lents likes to hang out at computational biologist Joshua Swamidass’s online community Peaceful Science. Swamidass is another ID critic, though a Christian one rather than an atheist like Lents. Will the folks over there watch the video and prod their friend Nathan Lents to respond to the exceptional case it makes that Nathan doesn’t know what he’s talking about? Let’s find out. 

What would the prophet of the new Gods make of his modern day disciples.

 Would His Theory’s Cultural Impact Dismay Darwin? 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

A classic ID the Future episode features another chapter from Nickell John Romjue’s fascinating short novel I, Charles Darwin, in which Darwin experiences the future and is shocked to learn about the impact his theory has had on areas outside of science. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Part 1 of the audio series is here. Part 2 is here. To learn more and to purchase the book, visit www.icharlesdarwin.com. 

If not I, who then is the thinker of these thoughts?

 Can Red Have “Redness” if No Self Perceives It? 

Denyse O'Leary 

Yesterday, I looked at philosopher Julian Baggini’s argument that the unified self is an illusion. He spoke about this in the context of a discussion with Closer to Truth’s Robert Lawrence Kuhn. Kuhn, nearly midway through, steers the conversation toward qualia, that is, the inner experience we have of things. 

Red, an often-used example, is a color in the spectrum but it is also, for many, an experience. Serious and influential books have been written (2005 and 2017) about the history of the color and the experiences it evokes. Questions are interspersed between exchanges in the transcribed dialogue: 

Robert Lawrence Kuhn: (3:23) Let’s distinguish two factors that are flying around here. One is the concept of self — what it means to be yourself — the other is what does it mean to have these inner feelings, this sense of the red of redness and the sweetness of chocolate or whatever, where, whatever we’re feeling at the time, there’s this inner perception, so-called qualia as psychologists and philosophers call it. How do you differentiate those and how does your explanation fit either one well?

Julian Baggini: (3:57) To be honest, I mean there are lots of levels of detail here which I think we just don’t understand yet. I mean how it is that this sludgy stuff in our skulls gives rise to actual feelings and sensations, tastes, colors, we don’t understand properly yet. There’s no point pretending that we do.

Kuhn: (4:16) So if we are not able to understand things, of course, science always progresses. The problem with qualia, the inner feeling, is that even neuroscientists don’t have a concept of what an explanation might even be like, because you have this brain, neurons, electrical activity in the brain and these internal feelings — and, in linking the two, no one even has a theory of what a theory could be.

Baggini: (4:47) Well, you know I think that could be right. I mean, our state of knowledge about these things is very limited. But I think what we have to remember is, if we look back at past mysteries, what counts as an explanation in the end? Now think about electricity or something like that. (5:03)

I think about life as a good example. People wanted, you know, you need something to explain life. You need some kind of life force or life principle. It turns out that when you have a sufficiently rich understanding of how cells, atoms, and everything, you reach enough of an understanding about how things can replicate and so forth that there doesn’t seem to be a mystery anymore. 

Question: Wait. Origin of life (“things can replicate”) is up there with origin of consciousness (of which qualia are a part) as a topic for which there are many contested hypotheses. True, we have a clear idea what life is. That is, we can say with confidence that lichens are alive and rocks are not. We can clearly identify the “living” qualities that distinguish lichens from rocks. But origin of life is a historical event, a moment in time, and we really don’t know what happened then. If “there doesn’t seem to be a mystery anymore,” you would not know it from the vast literature on the topic. 

Baggini: Go dig deep enough, there still is a mystery. You know, I mean electricity (5:28) … I know people who are scientists who say, actually, if I think about it I don’t really understand how electricity works. Like, you know, we have equations which tell us which forces are operating and so forth. (5:49) We have models but how? Why? You can only dig so deep. 

Question: Dr. Baggini’s thoughts on electricity respond to Kuhn’s comment at 4:16: With subjects like qualia, “no one even has a theory of what a theory could be.”

We think we know what a theory of electricity could be. Yet scientists have been willing to tell Dr. Baggini, “I don’t really understand how electricity works.”

That is hardly due to their ignorance of the topic! To the extent that electricity depends on quantum mechanics, it originates in a world that we perhaps can’t know. That is, it may be that we can’t make how electricity works coincide with our expectations for a proper explanation. We must then be content to merely say what it is.

But shouldn’t this level of uncertainty even about electricity (by which neurons communicate) cause us to wonder whether we are looking in the right places for answers to more complex questions like how we should understand qualia? 

Baggini: So my suspicion is that as we get a richer understanding of how the different systems of the brain work and so forth we’ll reach a level of understanding and explanation which will do. And if people want to then insist that there is still a deep mystery (“Yes, but how is it that we feel these things?”), you could say the same things of “Yes but this is there still a deep mystery about how things can be alive, how something can replicate and so forth.” 

Question: But does Dr. Baggini really want to be where this takes us? As noted earlier, we are deadlocked about the origin of life. And electricity takes us down into the world of quantum mechanics where certainties are not even an aspiration. Why do we think we will reach “a level of understanding and explanation which will do” when we are talking about much less certain topics like qualia? 

Kuhn: (6:07) So do you have every confidence that there will be a physical explanation for the inner sense of awareness, this concept of qualia in consciousness?

Baggini: (6:16) I’m agnostic about how we’re going to go with being able to explain feeling, sensation, qualia, scientifically. I just don’t think we know. I think a lot of people are being too confident in saying science can never explain this or science will explain it. You know there are going to be limits to our knowledge. I think that’s something we all have to accept. (6:36)

I think what’s quite curious here in these kind of debates — particularly about people who will point to the absence of an explanation, a scientific explanation, of qualia as some kind of evidence for the need to plug that gap with the religious truth — is that, you know people will appeal to the ineffability of certain things or the mystery of things to suit them. So, you know, people who are happy with God being mysterious in all sorts of ways are not happy with consciousness being mysterious in all sorts of ways. 

Question: God — whether people believe in him or not — is, by definition, a supernatural being. What we can’t understand about God may then be outside of nature. If we simply can’t come up with a scientific explanation of qualia, why isn’t the best explanation this: that some elements of consciousness also lie outside of nature? 

Baggini: (7:04) And similarly, you know, there are some sort of materialists who sort of don’t accept the fact there might be limits to our knowledge. There are bound to be limits to our knowledge. Look at us, we’re just overgrown apes or undergrown apes, actually. 

Question: Is not the fact that we are having these discussions the best available evidence that we are not “just overgrown apes or undergrown apes”?

And if it is true — as the Smithsonian advises — that our genomes differ from those of chimpanzees by a mere 1.2 percent, why is it not reasonable to assume that the explanation for the difference humanity makes lies outside the material world? 

Read the rest at Mind Matters News, published by Discovery Institute’s Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

Primeval tech v. OOL science.

 Energy Harnessing: Achilles Heel for the Origin of Life 

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

Origin-of-life specialist Rob Stadler joins a new ID the Future episode to discuss the latest Long Story Short science video. The cheeky video (below) investigates a problem that faces all materialist origin-of-life scenarios: To be viable, a cell must have sophisticated machinery, including ATP synthase, to turn raw energy into constructive energy. But how could prebiotic chemicals harness raw energy on the way to evolving into a viable self-reproducing cell without first having the sophisticated machinery to harness raw energy and convert it to useful work? Are the energy sources that have been proposed for chemical evolution realistic? In his conversation with host Eric Anderson, Dr. Stadler argues that, no, they aren’t. This isn’t the sort of hurdle that mindless natural processes can overcome, but it is precisely the sort of problem that a designing mind could solve. Download the podcast or listen to it here. 

Scientism v. Science scepticism?

 Stephen Meyer: No, the Big Bang Hasn’t Been “Disproven” 

David Klinghoffer 

As soon as I see multiple uses of scare words like “denial,” “disinformation,” and “pseudoscience,” my eyebrow goes up. Today, the mark of genuine disinformation is, often, the repeated, robotic use of the word “disinformation.” A piece at Space.com seems to be competing to see how densely it can sprinkle such terms across a short article. Keith Cooper writes, “The James Webb Space Telescope never disproved the Big Bang. Here’s how that falsehood spread.” He’s referring to “an article about a pseudoscientific theory that went viral in August, and which mischaracterized quotes from an astrophysicist to create a false narrative that the Big Bang didn’t happen.”

We’ve addressed that already here. And Cooper is correct that the original story was highly misleading. But count the number of variations on the phrase “science denial” in just two paragraphs. This is verging on hysteria: 

Science denial is a growing problem. While science denial has existed for as long as science, in recent years it seems to have grown more pervasive, perhaps encouraged by social media. And although somebody choosing not to believe in the Big Bang won’t cause society to unravel, other examples of science denial are not so benign: not believing in vaccines, for example, saw millions of people around the world die unnecessarily from COVID-19, while climate denial has stymied efforts to bring in legislation to combat the planet’s rising global temperatures.

“Science denial has gotten worse because it’s now more of a threat to the wellbeing of our society,” [How to Talk to a Science Denier author Lee] McIntyre said. “Denialism costs lives.” 

I was much more interested to hear what philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, author of Return of the God Hypothesis, had to say about the same viral story in a conversation with podcaster Frank Turek. The two ask, “Has the Big Bang Been Disproven?” 

The answer is no: observations so far from the Webb Space Telescope have strengthened the case for a cosmic beginning, as Meyer shows, not weakened it. He explains why science writer Eric Lerner and his “pet theory” about the Big Bang are wrong. It’s much more persuasive to say so, lucidly and soberly, without trashing other people as “serial deniers” or pushers of “pseudoscience.” I highly recommend Dr. Meyer’s detailed discussion of why, yes, the universe began with a “bang

 .”

The Amurru kingdom: a brief history.

 Amurru kingdom 

Amurru was an Amorite kingdom established c. 2000 BC,[1] in a region spanning present-day western and north-western Syria and northern Lebanon.[2][3][4] The inhabitants spoke the Amorite language, an extinct early Northwest Semitic language language classified as a westernmost or Amorite-specific dialect of Ugaritic.[5][6][7] The kingdom and its people were synonymous with their god Amurru, also known as Martu, a storm and weather deity and patron god of the unknown Mesopotamian city of Ninab, titled as bêl šadê and sometimes compared to the Canaanite and Mesopotamian god Hadad/Iškur.[8][9] 

Religion

Ancient Levantine religion

Government

Monarchy

• c. 14th century BC

Abdi-Ashirta

• c. 14th century BC

Aziru

Historical era

Bronze Age

• Established

c. 2000 BC

• Disestablished

c. 1200 BC

Today part of

Syria

Lebanon 

The first documented leader of Amurru was Abdi-Ashirta (14th century BC), under whose leadership Amurru was part of the Egyptian empire. His son Aziru made contact with the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I, and eventually defected to the Hittites.

The Amurru kingdom was destroyed around 1200 B.C.

Adrian Carton de Wiart: a brief history.

 Adrian Carton de Wiart 

Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart,[1] VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (/də ˈwaɪ.ərt/;[2] 5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963) was a British Army officer born of Belgian and Irish parents. He was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" in various Commonwealth countries.[3] He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; was blinded in his left eye; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly I had enjoyed the war."[4] 

Birth name

Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart

Born

5 May 1880

Brussels, Belgium

Died

5 June 1963 (aged 83)

Aghinagh House, Killinardrish, County Cork, Ireland

Buried

Killinardish Churchyard, County Cork, Ireland

Allegiance

United Kingdom

Service/branch

British Army

Years of service

1899–1923

1939–1947

Rank

Lieutenant-general

Service number

836

Commands held

61st Infantry Division

134th Brigade

12th Brigade

8th (Service) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment

Battles/wars

Second Boer War

First World War

Somaliland Campaign

Battle of the Somme

Battle of Passchendaele

Battle of Cambrai

Battle of Arras (1918)

Polish-Soviet War

Polish-Ukrainian War

Polish-Lithuanian War

Second World War

Invasion of Poland

Norwegian campaign

Second Sino-Japanese War

Awards

Victoria Cross

Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Companion of the Order of the Bath

Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George

Distinguished Service Order

Mentioned in Despatches

Virtuti Militari (Poland)

Croix de guerre (Belgium)

Legion of Honour (France)

Croix de Guerre (France) 

After returning home from service (including a period as a prisoner-of-war) in the Second World War, he was sent to China as Winston Churchill's personal representative. While en route he attended the Cairo Conference.

In his memoirs, Carton de Wiart wrote, "Governments may think and say as they like, but force cannot be eliminated, and it is the only real and unanswerable power. We are told that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these weapons I would choose."[5] Carton de Wiart was thought to be a model for the character of Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook in Evelyn Waugh's trilogy Sword of Honour.[6] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography described him thus: "With his black eyepatch and empty sleeve, Carton de Wiart looked like an elegant pirate, and became a figure of legend."[7] 

Carton de Wiart was born into an aristocratic family in Brussels, on 5 May 1880, eldest son of Léon Constant Ghislain Carton de Wiart (1854–1915) and Ernestine Wenzig (1860–1886). By his contemporaries, he was widely believed to be an illegitimate son of King Leopold II of the Belgians.[8] He spent his early days in Belgium and in England.[9] The 'loss of his mother' when he was six prompted his father to move the family to Cairo so his father could practise at Egypt's mixed courts. It was widely assumed by biographers that his mother had died in 1886; however, his parents had in fact divorced in that year and his mother remarried Demosthenes Gregory Cuppa later in 1886.[10] His father was a lawyer and magistrate, as well as a director of the Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopolis Oases Company and was well connected in Egyptian governmental circles. Adrian Carton de Wiart learned to speak Arabic.[11]

Carton de Wiart was a Roman Catholic. In 1891, his English stepmother sent him to a boarding school in England, the Roman Catholic Oratory School, founded by John Henry Newman. From there, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, but left to join the British Army at the time of the Second Boer War around 1899, where he entered under the false name of "Trooper Carton", claiming to be 25 years old. His real age was no more than 20.[12] 

Carton de Wiart was wounded in the stomach and groin in South Africa early in the Second Boer War and was invalided home. His father was furious when he learned his son had abandoned his studies, but allowed his son to remain in the army. After another brief period at Oxford, where Aubrey Herbert was among his friends, he was given a commission in the Second Imperial Light Horse. He saw action in South Africa again, and on 14 September 1901 was given a regular commission as a second lieutenant in the 4th Dragoon Guards.[13] Carton de Wiart was transferred to India in 1902. He enjoyed sports, especially shooting and pig sticking.[14] 

Carton de Wiart's serious wound in the Boer War instilled in him a strong desire for physical fitness and he ran, jogged, walked, and played sports on a regular basis. In male company he was "a delightful character and must hold the world record for bad language."[15]

After his regiment was transferred to South Africa he was promoted to supernumerary lieutenant on 16 July 1904 and appointed an aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Henry Hildyard, the following July.[16] He describes this period lasting up to 1914 as his "Heyday", the title of Chapter 3 of his autobiography. His light duties as aide-de-camp gave him time for polo, another of his interests.[14] By 1907, although Carton de Wiart had now served in the British Army for eight years, he had remained a Belgian subject. On 13 September of that year, he took the oath of allegiance to Edward VII and was formally naturalised as a British subject.[1]

In 1908 he married Countess Friederike Maria Karoline Henriette Rosa Sabina Franziska Fugger von Babenhausen (1887 Klagenfurt – 1949 Vienna), eldest daughter of Karl, 5th Fürst (Prince) von Fugger-Babenhausen and Princess Eleonora zu Hohenlohe-Bartenstein und Jagstberg of Klagenfurt, Austria. They had two daughters, the elder of whom Anita (born 1909, deceased) was the maternal grandmother of the war correspondent Anthony Loyd (born 1966).[17][18]

Carton de Wiart was already well connected in European circles, his two closest cousins being Count Henri Carton de Wiart, Prime Minister of Belgium from 1920 to 1921, and Baron Edmond Carton de Wiart, political secretary to the King of Belgium and director of La Société Générale de Belgique. While on leave, he travelled extensively throughout central Europe, using his Catholic aristocratic connections to shoot at country estates in Bohemia, Austria, Hungary, and Bavaria.[19] Following his return to England, he rode with the famous Duke of Beaufort's Hunt where he met, among others, the future field marshal, Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, and the future air marshal, Sir Edward Ellington. He was promoted to captain on 26 February 1910.[20] The Duke of Beaufort was the honorary colonel of the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars, and from 1 January 1912 until his departure for Somaliland in 1914 Carton de Wiart served as the regiment's adjutant.[21] 

When the First World War broke out, Carton de Wiart was en route to British Somaliland where a low-level war was underway against the followers of Dervish leader Mohammed bin Abdullah, called the "Mad Mullah" by the British. Carton de Wiart had been seconded to the Somaliland Camel Corps. A staff officer with the corps was Hastings Ismay, later Lord Ismay, Churchill's military advisor.[22] In an attack upon an enemy fort at Shimber Berris, Carton de Wiart was shot twice in the face, losing his eye and also a portion of his ear. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) on 15 May 1915.[23] 

In February 1915, he embarked on a steamer for France. Carton de Wiart took part in the fighting on the Western Front, commanding successively three infantry battalions and a brigade. He was wounded seven more times in the war, losing his left hand in 1915 and pulling off his fingers when a doctor declined to remove them.[24] He was shot through the skull and ankle at the Battle of the Somme, through the hip at the Battle of Passchendaele, through the leg at Cambrai, and through the ear at Arras. He went to the Sir Douglas Shield's Nursing Home to recover from his injuries.[25] 

Carton de Wiart received the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in combat that can be awarded to British Empire forces, in 1916. He was 36 years old, and a temporary lieutenant-colonel in the 4th Dragoon Guards (Royal Irish), British Army, attached to the Gloucestershire Regiment, commanding the 8th Battalion, when the following events took place on 2/3 July 1916 at La Boiselle, France, as recorded in the official citation:

Capt. (temp. Lt.-Col.) Adrian Carton de Wiart, D.S.O., Dn. Gds.

For most conspicuous bravery, coolness and determination during severe operations of a prolonged nature. It was owing in a great measure to his dauntless courage and inspiring example that a serious reverse was averted. He displayed the utmost energy and courage in forcing our attack home. After three other battalion Commanders had become casualties, he controlled their commands, and ensured that the ground won was maintained at all costs. He frequently exposed himself in the organisation of positions and of supplies, passing unflinchingly through fire barrage of the most intense nature. His gallantry was inspiring to all.

— London Gazette, 9 September 1916.[26]

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the National Army Museum, Chelsea.[27] 

Carton de Wiart was promoted to temporary major in March 1916.[28] He subsequently attained the rank of temporary lieutenant colonel on 18 July, was brevetted to major on 1 January 1917 and was promoted to temporary brigadier general on 12 January 1917.[29][30][31] He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the Crown of Belgium in April 1917.[32] On 3 June 1917, Carton de Wiart was brevetted to lieutenant-colonel.[33] On 18 July, he was promoted to the substantive rank of major in the Dragoon Guards.[34] He was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre in March 1918,[35] and was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in the King's Birthday Honours List in June.[36]

Three days before the end of the war, on 8 November, Carton de Wiart was given command of a brigade with the rank of temporary brigadier general.[37] A S Bullock gives a vivid first-hand description of his arrival: 'Cold shivers went down the back of everyone in the brigade, for he had an unsurpassed record as a fire eater, missing no chance of throwing the men under his command into whatever fighting happened to be going.' Bullock recalls how the battalion looked 'very much the worse for wear' when they paraded for the brigadier general's inspection. He arrived 'on a lively cob with his cap tilted at a rakish angle, and a shade over the place where one of his eyes had been'. He was also missing two limbs and had eleven wound stripes. Bullock, the first man in line for the inspection, notes that Carton de Wiart, despite having only one eye, ordered him to get his bootlace changed.[38] 

At the end of the war Carton de Wiart was sent to Poland as second in command of the British-Poland Military Mission under General Louis Botha. Carton de Wiart was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1919 King's Birthday Honours List.[39] After a brief period, he replaced General Botha in the mission to Poland.[40]

Poland desperately needed support, as it was engaged with Bolshevik Russia in the Polish-Soviet War, the Ukrainians in the Polish-Ukrainian War, the Lithuanians in the Polish-Lithuanian War, and the Czechs in the Czech-Polish border conflicts. There he met Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the pianist and premier, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, the Chief of State and military commander, and General Maxime Weygand, head of the French military mission in mid-1920.[41] One of his tasks soon after his arrival was to attempt to make peace between the Poles and the Ukrainian nationalists under Simon Petlyura. The Ukrainians were besieging the city of Lwów (Lvov; Lemberg). The discussions were unsuccessful.[42]

From there he went on to Paris to report on Polish conditions to the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George and to General Sir Henry Wilson. Lloyd George was not sympathetic to Poland and, much to Carton de Wiart's annoyance, Britain sent next to no military supplies. Then he went back to Poland and many more front line adventures, this time in the Bolshevik zone, where the situation was grave and Warsaw threatened. During this time he had significant interaction with the nuntius (dean of the Vatican diplomatic corps) Cardinal Achille Ratti, later Pius XI, who wanted Carton de Wiart's advice as to whether to evacuate the diplomatic corps from Warsaw. The diplomats moved to Poznań, but the Italians remained in Warsaw along with Ratti.[43]

From all these affairs, Carton de Wiart developed a sympathy with the Poles and supported their claims to eastern Galicia. This caused disagreement with Lloyd George at their next meeting, but was appreciated by the Poles. At one time during his Warsaw stay he was a second in a duel between Polish members of the Mysliwski Club, the other second being Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, later commander-in-chief of Finnish armies in World War II and President of Finland. Norman Davies reports that he was "compromised in a gun-running operation from Budapest using stolen wagon-lits".[44]

He became close to the Polish leader, Marshal Piłsudski. After an aircraft crash occasioning a brief period in Lithuanian captivity, he went back to England to report, this time to the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill. He passed on to Churchill Piłsudski's prediction that the White Russian offensive under General Anton Denikin directed at Moscow would fail. It did shortly thereafter. Churchill was more sympathetic to Polish needs than Lloyd George and succeeded, over Lloyd George's objections, in sending some materiel to Poland.[45]

On 27 July 1920, Carton de Wiart was appointed an aide-de-camp to the king, and brevetted to colonel.[46] He was active in August 1920, when the Red Army were at the gates of Warsaw. While out on his observation train, he was attacked by a group of Red cavalry, and fought them off with his revolver from the footplate of his train, at one point falling on the track and re-boarding quickly.[47]

When the Poles won the war, the British Military Mission was wound up. Carton de Wiart was promoted to temporary brigadier general and also appointed to the local rank of major general on 1 January.[48] He was promoted to the substantive rank of colonel on 21 June 1922, with seniority from 27 July 1920 and relinquished his local rank of major general on 1 April 1923, going on half-pay as a colonel at the same time.[49][50] Carton de Wiart officially retired from the army on 19 December, with the honorary rank of major general.[51] 

His last Polish aide de camp was Prince Karol Mikołaj Radziwiłł, member of the Radziwiłł family who inherited a large 500,000-acre (200,000 ha) estate in eastern Poland when the communists killed his uncle. They became friends and Carton de Wiart was given the use of a large estate called Prostyń, in the Pripet Marshes, a wetland area larger than Ireland and surrounded by water and forests.[47] In this location Carton de Wiart spent the rest of the interwar years. In his memoirs he said "In my fifteen years in the marshes I did not waste one day without hunting".[47]

After 15 years, Carton de Wiart's peaceful Polish life was interrupted by the looming war, when he was recalled in July 1939 and appointed to his old job, as head of the British Military Mission to Poland. Poland was attacked by Nazi Germany on 1 September and on 17 September the Soviets allied with Germany attacked Poland from the east. Soon Soviet forces overran Prostyń and Carton de Wiart lost all his guns, fishing rods, clothing, and furniture. They were packed up by the Soviets and stored in the Minsk Museum, but destroyed by the Germans in later fighting. He never saw the area again, but as he said "they did not manage to take my memories".[47] 

Carton de Wiart met with the Polish commander-in-chief, Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły, in late August 1939 and formed a rather low opinion of his capabilities. He strongly urged Rydz-Śmigły to pull Polish forces back beyond the Vistula River, but was unsuccessful.[52] The other advice he offered, to have the seagoing units of the Polish fleet leave the Baltic Sea, was, after much argument, finally adopted. This fleet made a significant contribution to the Allied cause, especially the several modern destroyers and submarines.[53]

As Polish resistance weakened, Carton de Wiart evacuated his mission from Warsaw along with the Polish government. Together with the Polish commander Rydz-Śmigły, Carton de Wiart made his way with the rest of the British Mission to the Romanian border with both the Germans and the Soviets in pursuit. His car convoy was attacked by the Luftwaffe on the road, and the wife of one of his aides was killed. He was in danger of arrest in Romania and got out by aircraft on 21 September with a false passport, just in time as the pro-Allied Romanian prime minister, Armand Calinescu, was assassinated that day.[54] 

Recalled to a special appointment in the army in the autumn of 1939, Carton de Wiart reverted to his former rank of colonel. He was granted the rank of acting major general on 28 November.[55] After a brief stint in command of the 61st Division in the English Midlands, Carton de Wiart was summoned in April 1940 to take charge of a hastily drawn together Anglo-French force to occupy Namsos, a small town in middle Norway. His orders were to take the city of Trondheim, 125 miles (200 km) to the south, in conjunction with a naval attack and an advance from the south by troops landed at Åndalsnes.[56] He flew to Namsos to reconnoitre the location before the troops arrived. When his Short Sunderland flying boat landed, it was attacked by a German fighter and his aide was wounded and had to be evacuated. After the French Alpine troops landed[57] (without their transport mules and missing straps for their skis), the Luftwaffe bombed and destroyed the town of Namsos.[58] 

Despite these handicaps, Carton de Wiart managed to move his forces over the mountains and down to Trondheimsfjord, where they were shelled by German destroyers. They had no artillery to challenge the German ships. It soon became apparent that the whole Norwegian campaign was fast becoming a failure. The naval attack on Trondheim, the reason for the Namsos landing, did not happen and his troops were exposed without guns, transport, air cover, or skis in a foot and a half of snow. They were being attacked by German ski troops, machine gunned and bombed from the air, and the German Navy was landing troops to his rear. He recommended withdrawal but was asked to hold his position for political reasons, which he did.[59]

After orders and counterorders from London, the decision to evacuate was made. However, on the date set to evacuate the troops, the ships did not appear. The next night a naval force finally arrived, led through the fog by Lord Louis Mountbatten. The transports successfully evacuated the entire force amid heavy bombardment by the Germans, resulting in the sinking of two destroyers: the French Bison and British HMS Afridi.[59] Carton de Wiart arrived back at the British naval base of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands on 5 May 1940, his 60th birthday.[59] 

Carton de Wiart was posted back to the command of the 61st Division, which was soon transferred to Northern Ireland as a defence against invasion.[60] However, following the arrival of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall as Commander-in-Chief in Northern Ireland, Carton de Wiart was told that he was too old to command a division on active duty.[61] 

Advanced to temporary major-general on 28 November 1940,[62] he remained inactive very briefly, as he was appointed as head of the British-Yugoslavian Military Mission on 5 April 1941. Hitler was preparing to invade the country and the Yugoslavs asked for British help. Carton de Wiart travelled in a Vickers Wellington bomber to Belgrade, Serbia to negotiate with the Yugoslavian government. After refuelling in Malta,[63] the aircraft left for Cairo with enemy territory to the north and south. Both engines failed off the coast of Italian-controlled Libya, and the plane crash-landed in the sea about a mile from land. Carton de Wiart was knocked unconscious, but the cold water made him regain consciousness. When the plane broke up and sank, he and the rest aboard were forced to swim to shore.[64] They were captured by the Italian authorities.[65] 

Carton de Wiart was a high-profile prisoner. After four months at the Villa Orsini at Sulmona, he was transferred to a special prison for senior officers at Castello di Vincigliata. There were a number of senior officer prisoners here due to the successes achieved by Rommel in North Africa early in 1941. Carton de Wiart made friends, especially with General Sir Richard O'Connor, The 6th Earl of Ranfurly and Lieutenant-General Philip Neame, VC. In letters to his wife, Lord Ranfurly described Carton de Wiart in captivity as "a delightful character" and said he "must hold the record for bad language." Ranfurly was "endlessly amused by him. He really is a nice person – superbly outspoken."[15] The four were committed to escaping. He made five attempts, including seven months tunnelling. Once Carton de Wiart evaded capture for eight days disguised as an Italian peasant (he was in northern Italy, could not speak Italian, and was 61 years old, with an eye patch, one empty sleeve and multiple injuries and scars).[66]

Then, in a surprising development, Carton de Wiart was taken from prison in August 1943 and driven to Rome. The Italian government was secretly planning to leave the war and wanted Carton de Wiart to send the message to the British Army about a peace treaty with the UK. Carton de Wiart was to accompany an Italian negotiator, General Giacomo Zanussi, to Lisbon to meet Allied contacts to negotiate the surrender. To keep the mission secret, Carton de Wiart was told he needed civilian clothes. Distrusting Italian tailors, he stated that "[he] had no objection provided [he] did not resemble a gigolo."[67] In Happy Odyssey, he described the resultant suit as being "as good as anything that ever came out of Savile Row."[67] When they reached Lisbon, Carton de Wiart was released and made his way to England, reaching there on 28 August 1943.[68] 

Within a month of his arrival back in England, Carton de Wiart was summoned to spend a night at the prime minister's country home at Chequers. Churchill informed him that he was to be sent to China as his personal representative. He was granted the rank of acting lieutenant-general on 9 October,[69] and left by air for India on 18 October 1943. Anglo-Chinese relations were difficult in World War II as the Kuomintang had long called for the end of British extraterritorial rights in China together with the return of Hong Kong, neither proposal being welcome to Churchill. In early 1942, Churchill had to ask Chiang Kai-shek to send Chinese troops to help the British hold Burma from the Japanese, and following the Japanese conquest of Burma the X Force of five Chinese divisions had ended up in eastern India.[70] Churchill was unhappy with having the X Force defend India as it weakened the prestige of the Raj, and in an attempt to improve relations with China, the prime minister felt a soldier with experience of diplomacy such as Carton de Wiart would be the best man to be his personal representative in China.[70]

As his accommodation in China was not ready, Carton de Wiart spent time in India gaining an understanding of the situation in China, especially being briefed by a genuine tai-pan, John Keswick, head of the great China trading empire Jardine Matheson. He met the Viceroy, Field Marshal Viscount Wavell and General Sir Claude Auchinleck, the Commander-in-Chief in India. He also met Orde Wingate."[71] Before arriving in China, Carton de Wiart attended the 1943 Cairo Conference organized by Churchill, U.S President Roosevelt and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek."[72]

When in Cairo, he took the opportunity to renew his acquaintance with Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly, the wife of his friend from prisoner-of-war days, Dan Ranfurly. Carton de Wiart was one of the few to be able to work with the notoriously difficult commander of US forces in the China-Burma-India Theatre, U.S Army General Joseph Stilwell."[73] He arrived in the headquarters of the Nationalist Chinese Government, Chungking (Chongqing), in early December 1943. For the next three years, he was to be involved in a host of reporting, diplomatic and administrative duties in the remote wartime capital. Carton de Wiart became a great admirer of the Chinese people. He wrote that, when he was appointed as Churchill's personal representative to Chiang Kai-shek in China, he imagined a country "full of whimsical little people with quaint customs who carved lovely jade ornaments and worshiped their grandmothers".[70] Once stationed in China, however, he wrote: 'Two things struck me forcibly: the first was the amount of sheer hard work the people were doing, and the second their cheerfulness in doing it.'[74] 

He regularly flew out to India to liaise with British officials. His old friend, Richard O'Connor, had escaped from the Italian prisoner-of-war camp and was now in command of British troops in eastern India. The Governor of Bengal, the Australian Richard Casey, became a good friend.[75]

On 9 October 1944, Carton de Wiart was promoted to temporary lieutenant-general and to the war substantive rank of major-general.[76] Carton de Wiart returned home in December 1944 to report to the War Cabinet on the Chinese situation. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1945 New Year Honours.[77] Clement Attlee, when he became head of the Labour Government in June 1945, asked Carton de Wiart to stay on in China.[78] 

A good part of Carton de Wiart's reporting had to do with the increasing power of the Chinese Communists. The journalist and historian Max Hastings writes: "De Wiart despised all Communists on principle, denounced Mao Zedong as 'a fanatic', and added: 'I cannot believe he means business'. He told the British cabinet that there was no conceivable alternative to Chiang as ruler of China."[80] He met Mao Zedong at dinner and had a memorable exchange with him, interrupting his propaganda speech to criticise him for holding back from fighting the Japanese for domestic political reasons. Mao was briefly stunned, and then laughed.[81]

After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Carton de Wiart flew to Singapore to participate in the formal surrender. After a visit to Peking, he moved to Nanking, the now-liberated Nationalist capital, accompanied by Julian Amery, the British Prime Minister's Personal Representative to Chiang.[82] A visit to Tokyo to meet General Douglas MacArthur came at the end of his tenure. He was now 66 and ready to retire, despite the offer of a job by Chiang. Carton de Wiart retired in October 1947, with the honorary rank of lieutenant-general.[83] 

En route home via French Indochina, Carton de Wiart stopped in Rangoon as a guest of the army commander. Coming down stairs, he slipped on coconut matting, fell down, broke several vertebrae, and knocked himself unconscious. He was admitted to Rangoon Hospital where he was treated.[84] His wife died in 1949. In 1951, at the age of 71, he married Ruth Myrtle Muriel Joan McKechnie, a divorcee known as Joan Sutherland, 23 years his junior (born in late 1903, she died 13 January 2006 at the age of 102.)[85] They settled at Aghinagh House, Killinardrish, County Cork, Ireland.[86]

Carton de Wiart died at the age of 83 on 5 June 1963. He left no papers.[87] He and his wife Joan are buried in Caum Churchyard just off the main Macroom road. The grave site is just outside the actual graveyard wall on the grounds of his own home, Aghinagh House. Carton de Wiart's will was valued at probate in Ireland at £4,158 and in England at £3,496.[88