Some more truth and reconciliation?

 To Restore Faith in Public Health, We Need Truth Commissions

Wesley J Smith 

Two blazing political controversies are destroying our trust in the integrity of medicine. One is, thankfully, mostly in the past — the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. The second is ongoing and growing increasingly bitter: How to best care for children who “feel” that they aren’t the sex they were born.

These are different debates, but they share certain commonalities. Both issues involve the suspicion that officially preferred policies are more ideological than scientific. Both involve intense efforts by the establishment institutions to squelch heterodox opinions. Both have seen the erosion of the scientific method through the suppression of dissenting points of view. Both controversies have become so mired in partisan politics and culture war argumentation that it’s difficult to separate the wheat of truth from the chaff of propaganda.

A Vexing Question

But how to reverse course and restore societal comity is a vexing question. How do we find accord in an atmosphere of intense factionalism when even the most basic facts can’t be agreed upon?

On the COVID front, a group of medical notables known as the Norfolk Group — which includes two co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, along with others — have issued a public call for the creation of a national commission to dispassionately investigate the nation’s response to the pandemic. Importantly, the Norfolk Group isn’t calling for a stacked deck inquiry that’s primarily about pointing fingers, but rather, an objective fact-finding process to learn what was done right during COVID, what was mistaken, and how to best prepare policies to deploy next time. Among the questions they want explored are:

“What could have been done to better protect older high-risk Americans, so that fewer of them died or were hospitalized due to COVID-19?”

“Why was there widespread questioning of infection-acquired immunity,” aka “natural immunity,” by government officials and some prominent scientists?

Why were schools closed despite early data showing that they weren’t “major sources of spread and early evidence that school closures would cause enormous collateral damage to the education and mental health of children”?

“Why was there an almost exclusive focus on COVID-19 to the detriment of recognizing and mitigating collateral damage on other aspects of public health,” such as cancer screening and treatment, diabetes, and mental health?

“How did certain drugs become heavily politicized?”

“Why did vaccine randomized trials not evaluate mortality, hospitalization, and transmission as primary endpoints?”

“Why was the United States slow to approve and roll out critical COVID-19 testing capacity?”

“Why was there an emphasis on community masking and mask mandates, which had weak or no data to support them?”

Were Mandates Ever Justified?

These are important questions worthy of public exploration. Nor do they represent a complete list of issues that should be explored. For example, here’s one I want to know: Since we know that vaccination doesn’t prevent COVID transmission, were mandates ever justified?

Organizing a formal inquiry into official responses to COVID will take heavy lifting. It will require lawmakers to create the panel and craft its parameters: Not easy in this age of partisan distrust. It should grant the committee subpoena power to ensure that recalcitrant witnesses can’t just refuse to cooperate. And then the President will have to sign off. It will also have to be created in such a way that fairness and transparency rather than score-settling are controlling.

As one of the Great Barrington Declaration authors and Norfolk Group member Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told me in a recent podcast interview for Humanize, “The only way you get trust back is asking these questions, answering them honestly, and just essentially saying mea culpa in areas where we need reform so that we don’t have this problem again.”

Heterodoxy Suppressed

The same approach could be deployed to explore the efficacy of “gender-affirming care” because trust in the orthodox one-size fits all, “go for it” policy currently pushed by the medical establishment, politicians, liberal journalists, on social media, and among heavyweight LGBT advocacy groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, hasn’t been earned. Indeed, just as we saw during the darkest days of COVID, heterodox views on how to best care for gender dysphoric children are being actively suppressed as argumentation against vaccine and mask mandates were during the pandemic. Worse, those expressing substantial concerns about transitioning adolescents are accused of “transphobic” bigotry and intentional harm-causing. That’s hardly a path to achieving consensus.

Moreover, the argument that “the science is settled” about the propriety of gender-affirming care is hard to believe when the mass numbers of young people — particularly girls — deciding they’re transgender, non-binary, or some other non-conforming gender identification is unprecedented. Moreover, public health officials in other countries are reviewing the same available data as U.S. medical experts and coming to opposite conclusions.

If we’re going to fully understand what’s going on — is this a case of moral panic, or people feeling more free in a less judgmental age to reveal their true selves? — and determine a trustworthy methodology for treating underage patients, an honest and dispassionate investigation is essential. Here are just a few of the questions such a public inquiry should pose:

Why do organizations such as the American Association of Pediatrics and World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) claim that it’s science denialism to oppose gender-affirming care when public health officials in the UK, Norway, Sweden, France, and Finland have concluded that scientific evidence doesn’t demonstrate that the benefits of medical affirmation are real or worth the attendant risks of physical and emotional harm?

Is the risk of suicide higher for children with gender dysphoria if they don’t receive social and medical affirmation, or is that an ideological scare tactic?

Why are so many young people who have previous histories of mental illness being diagnosed as trans?

Why provide body-altering medical affirmation to underaged patients when the data appears to indicate that transgender ideation in the young is often transitory?

How many transgender patients “de-transition,” i.e., return to identifying as their own sex?

Do the parents of children receiving gender-affirming care receive sufficient information to fully give their informed consent to transitioning their children?

To Earn Our Trust

Trust can’t be imposed. It must be earned. The formal investigation the Norfolk Group proposes around COVID and the less formal investigation that I’m suggesting about gender dysphoria in youth could achieve that end. But they will have to be scientifically, rather than ideologically, oriented. Their aim should be to learn, explore, debate, and share data, not dictate, punish, castigate, or exclude heterodox thought.

We’d better get to it. Another pandemic could threaten us at any time. Children’s bodies are daily being impacted in potentially catastrophic ways. Only dispassionate inquiries can forge a consensus that will allow us to find commonality in these contentious arenas of health policy conflict.

How do I know that JEHOVAH is the only true God?

 Exodus ch.33:11ASV"And Moses besought JEHOVAH his God, and said, JEHOVAH, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, that thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?"  

Exodus ch.8:19ASV"Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as JEHOVAH had spoken." 

Daniel ch.2:27,28ASV"Daniel answered before the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded can neither wise men, enchanters, magicians, nor soothsayers, show unto the king; 28but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and he hath made known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these: "

In bible times the Lord JEHOVAH demonstrated his superiority over the so called Gods of the nations with majestic displays of wisdom and power that humiliated them and their priests. 

In these end times JEHOVAH continues to distinguish himself from the 'competition'

through the accomplishment of wonders predicted centuries in advance. For instance :

Micah ch.4:3,4ASV"3and he will judge between many peoples, and will decide concerning strong nations afar off: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

4But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of JEHOVAH of hosts hath spoken it. 

John ch.17:22ASV"And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one;" 

The facts of history reveal that only JEHOVAH of all professing Gods has been able to fulfill these prophecies which (given the fallen nature of humanity) are as amazing as any miracle reported in scripture. Christendom's nameless three headed God and her false Christ have failed spectacularly in this regard, and we need not go to the pages of history for examples. 

JEHOVAH'S people have kept this peace with JEHOVAH and each other despite official opposition from the elites of the present age.

Revelation ch.6:10,11ASV"and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11And there was given them to each one a white robe; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little time, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, who should be killed even as they were, should have fulfilled their course ." 

So contrary to the false gospel of post millenialists the state will remain in an adversarial relationship with the true church until the the true kingdom of JEHOVAH asserts its lawful claim over the earth. Note true Christians do not retaliate or pursue political power over their religious rivals unlike the fake churches of Christendom. They rest as commanded until the highest bench in the universe takes up their cause. How could imperfect men retain such patience and fidelity to divine law under such intense and unrelenting trial. Only by power of the one true God JEHOVAH through his only true Christ.

John ch.17:33NIV"“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”" 

The same God that raised our Lord from the dead enables us to resist every attempt to get us to compromise with this dying world individually and collectively. 

Indeed the Lord JEHOVAH continues to exalt himself as the one true God via signs and wonders.

From contenders to counterparts?

 How Faith Can Improve Rigor and Creativity in Scientific Research

Evolution News 

On a new episode of ID the Future, plant geneticist Richard Buggs speaks to the hosts of the Table Talk podcast about the long-standing claim that science and religion are at odds. Buggs is a professor and Senior Research Leader at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, one of the UK’s largest plant science research institutes. He is also Professor of Evolutionary Genomics at Queen Mary University of London. Contrary to the prevailing view, Buggs says his Christian faith motivates his research, giving him the ability not only to think with different perspectives but also better understand the people groups stewarding natural resources around the world as well as more adequately explain certain processes he studies in nature. Buggs explains why the term “evolution” can vary between scientists and the public, and he reminds listeners of the current debate among evolutionary biologists themselves about the sufficiency of the current Darwinian mechanism to account for the origin and diversity of life. Along the way, Buggs points out the unconscious bias within his field that favors atheistic assumptions, noting that more cognitive diversity would improve the scientific landscape and bring more rigor and creativity to the scientific process. For their kind permission to post this informative exchange, we thank Table Talk hosts Jack Timpany and Graeme Johnstone. Download the podcast or listen to it Here.

Postimpressionism : a brief history.

How is the resurrection at revelation ch.20 the first.

 Revelation ch.20:4,5NASB "Then I saw thrones,and they sat on them,and judgment wad 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 or on their hands;and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection."  

Now if the mere temporary restoring of the imperfect human life that we currently endure counts as a resurrection in the sense being employed in the book of revelation, this certainly cannot be called the first resurrection. There being a number of such resurrections previously see John ch.11:43,44 Hebrews ch.11:35. Thus in the book of revelation sense a resurrection must mean(at least) a restoration of the life our father Adam lost. For it is only in this sense that the resurrection mentioned at revelation ch.20:4,5 could possibly be the first. And if this resurrection is truly the first of such resurrections is expecting that one of like manner (say, the one mentioned as following the millennium ch.5b) unreasonable? 

Granville's(not so sharp,) rule and trinitarian's lack of self awareness.

 In an attempt to prove the trinity doctrine, Granville Sharp made up a rule in 1798. It is often called “Sharp’s Rule” by trinitarians. It says, in effect, that when two or more words (nouns) are joined by the word “and” they all refer to the same PERSON if the word “the” (the article) comes before the first noun and not before the other noun(s): “THE king AND _master of the castle.” 

That trinitarians ,even presently , imagine that this "rule", even if we grant that it is not suspect, could possibly be of any use as evidence of their doctrine says volumes about their total lack of self awareness. All of the creeds go to great lengths to state that no person of the trinity is numerically identical to any other person of the trinity. Thus at best ,Sharp's "rule" can be used to make a weak case for modalism which is denounced as the blackest heresy by Trinitarians.

An uprising in physics?

Clement of Rome on the supremacy of the Father.

    

Clement of Rome (AD 45-101) : "The apostles received the gospel for us from Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was sent from God. So Christ is from God, and the apostles are from Christ: thus both came in proper order by the will of God."[4] Also, "Let all the heathen know that thou [the Father] art God alone, and that Jesus Christ is thy Servant..."[5] 

What about when midway is the cursed earth?

 Will This Proposal “Fix Science”?

Rob Sheldon 

Cory Clark and Philip Tetlock, both at the University of Pennsylvania, explain, “In Bed with the Enemy: How to Fix Science.” They advocate “adversarial collaborations.”

Adversarial collaborations (henceforth, adcollab), is a methodological procedure in which disagreeing scholars work with each other rather than against each other to resolve their empirical dispute.

First, adversaries must articulate their disagreement in terms that both sides find accurate. This eliminates the use of wishy-washy disagreement language that scholars use to make big claims with little accountability. This also prevents scholars from only confronting the strawman version of their opponent’s perspective. In our experience, these initial conversations often cause adversaries to retreat from the bailey to their motte, to realize that their opponent’s views are much more nuanced than they previously thought, and consequently, to discover that the disagreement is much smaller than previously thought.

Second, adversaries must mutually design methods that both sides consider a fair and unbiased test of their competing hypotheses. This eliminates cherry-picking of methodological procedures designed to confirm preferred hypotheses. And this eliminates the ability for scholars to design methods that can only confirm preferred hypotheses while writing off failed tests as studies that simply did not “work”. Scholars must commit a priori to the diagnosticity of the study and agree that contradictory findings would at least cast some doubt on their preferred hypothesis. In our experience, this step leads scholars to develop far more rigorous methods as each side vetoes the blatantly rigged procedures that their opponents prefer. And this leads to more efficient tests because the results are informative no matter how they turn out.

Third, adversaries must mutually write and publish the results. This eliminates the possibility of excessively broad claims. Each adversary serves as a check on their opponent to make sure the claims are duly circumspect. Such reports will be less likely to forward unwarranted promises that lead other scholars, policymakers, and interventionists down expensive dead ends.

There are many, many ways that science has stopped functioning. Certainly, one of them is that it incentivizes the wrong things. But after reading this article, and considering their proposal, ask yourself if any Darwinist would co-write an article with an ID person. In fact, in our woke culture, ask yourself whether merely talking politely to an adversary would not taint one’s career. I have seen events cancelled because the speaker knew somebody who knew somebody on the black list. 

The reasons they give for “adcollabs” apply to people with a few scientific disagreements, but an overall philosophical agreement. Once the gulf gets too wide, I’m afraid that diplomacy doesn’t work too well. Right now, ID is the disenfranchised minority, and for a mainstream Darwinist to submit to an “adcollab” would damage their career while enhancing the ID proponent’s career. Until that perception is removed, until ID has enough clout, until ID isn’t culturally despised, diplomacy will never occur. 

David Berlinski tries to teach an old dog a new trick(i.e self-awareness)

 Science After Babel: An Exercise in Self-Criticism

David Berlinski 

Editor’s note: We are delighted to welcome Science After Babel, the latest book from mathematician and philosopher David Berlinski. This article is adapted from the book’s Introduction.

The scientific revolution began in the 16th century, and it began in Europe. No one knows why it happened nor why it happened where it happened, but when it happened, everything changed. 

Until the day before yesterday, the imperial architects of the scientific revolution were well satisfied and sleek as seals. An immense tower was going up before their very eyes. The physicists imagined that shortly it would reach the sky; the biologists were satisfied that it had left the ground; and only the theologians were heard to observe that it would soon collapse. 

The Tower is still there. It is, in fact, larger than ever. But it has neither reached the sky nor left the ground. It resembles Bruegel’s Tower of Babel far more than the Chrysler Building, and if it suggests anything at all, it suggests that its original plans have somehow been lost. Some parts of the Tower are sound and sturdy; but, my goodness, the balustrade devoted to the multiverse — what were they thinking?

Who Knows? 

In looking at the Tower, if we are moved to admire its size, we are also bound to acknowledge its faults. The algorithm and the calculus are the two great ideas of the scientific revolution. They are radically different. Algorithms belong to the world of things. The creation of numbers, Thierry of Chartres observed, was the creation of things. In the theory of recursive functions, some part of thinginess has been brought under rational control. 

It is the continuum, on the other hand, that is essential to the calculus. If an algorithm is a part of the world of things, in war, Lewis Fry Richardson once remarked, thinginess fails. In quantum field theory, too. A quantum field is not a thing. The true continuum, René Thom once remarked to me, has no points: it reflects at a distance Freud’s oceanic feeling — what Meister Eckhardt described as pure formlessness. And these, too, are ideas deep in human experience. In the calculus, and mathematical analysis generally, some part of the continuum has been brought under rational control. 

Mathematical analysis and the theory of recursive functions are great achievements, but they are different; they answer to different imperatives; they are the work of different architects.

No wonder the Tower looks as it does. It is a miracle that it remains standing.

The result has been a popular culture littered with ideological detritus: atheism, of course, or naturalism, or materialism, or physicalism, or scientism, or even, God help us, transhumanism. These are not very precise terms, nor do they denote very precise ideas. Naturalists can rarely say of naturalism anything beyond that it is natural. 

“I come from a scientific background,” David Chalmers modestly remarked. “I want everything to be natural,” he added at once, “reduced to the simplest possible set of laws and entities.”1

A Foundation for Belief

On this view, it is hard to see why stuff happens should not be considered a foundation for belief, the declaration requiring only two words and one substance. 

Materialism has just a bit more by way of oomph. From a material base, as Marxists might say ominously, everything. Within contemporary physics, the deduction of everything from something is by no means complete and remains in that empyrean of assurances of which your check is in the mail is a notable example. Nor is the requisite something persuasively a material object. On current physical theories, that material base is occupied by various quantum fields, where, like so many electric eels, they occupy themselves in quivering with energy. Leptons and bosons emerge as field excitations, and so does everything else. 

The great merit of materialism has always been its apparent sobriety. A world of matter? Look around! Bang the table, if necessary. Quantum fields do not encourage a look-around. There is no banging them beyond banging on about them. And for the most obvious of reasons. “Quantum field theory,” Lisa Randall writes, “the tool with which we study particles, is based upon eternal, omnipresent objects that can create and destroy those particles.”2

This is an account that suggests the dominion of Vishnu as much as metaphysical materialism, a point not lost on Indian physicists. And it may well change, that account, those infernal quantum fields vanishing tomorrow in favor of otherwise unexpected entelechies. 

What Everyone Accepts

There remains the curious fact that no one much likes what everyone accepts. What everyone accepts is something like the scientific system of belief. It is to this system that every knee must bend, with trust the science functioning both as an inducement and an admonition. If contemporary scientists are not voyaging strange seas alone, to recall Wordsworth’s epitaph for Isaac Newton, they are yet determined to put as much distance as possible between themselves and dry land. That quantum mechanics makes no sense is widely celebrated as one of its virtues. Not a day passes in which its weirdness is not extolled. As much might be said of the Eucharist, but with this considerable difference: scientific weirdness tends inexorably toward a kind of bleakness. “Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie,” Pascal remarked3; and had he been acquainted with contemporary cosmologies in which the universe is destined to gutter out into something barren, formless, flaccid, lightless, and large, his anxieties may well have been proportionally increased.

Implacable and Unavoidable

The scientific system of belief remains what it was: implacable and unavoidable. There is no getting around it and so no getting out of it. The notes, incidental remarks, essays, and reviews that comprise this book represent an inside job, and it is in the nature of inside jobs that the inside jobber cannot expect outside help. It is an irony of any imperial enterprise, whether political, social, or intellectual, that it determines the conditions under which it may be criticized. 

For this reason, what I have written in this book is an exercise in self-criticism as much as anything else. I often wish that things were otherwise. “The Shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a Native of the Rocks.”4 No one quite gets what he wants — not in life, nor in love, nor, as it happens, in writing critical essays. 

Notes

David Chalmers, “Is the Soul Immortal?,” interview by Robert Kuhn, Closer to the Truth, YouTube, May 4, 2021, video, 9:06, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bejm1mYsr5s&t=34s.

Lisa Randall, Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), 158.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1670).

Samuel Johnson to Lord Chesterfield (Philip Dormer Stanhope), February 7, 1755,

JEHOVAH has made the truth easily available

  Luke ch.10:21 "At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do." 

If we would simply allow JEHOVAH'S word to speak for itself. The truth would fairly leap off the page and command our allegiance.

John ch.1:18Douay Version "No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son who is in the Bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." 

First the text does not say that no man has seen the Father. Mainly because it does not need to. This being prior to the confusion introduced by Christendom it was common knowledge that the Father was the God. As it was that God was immutably invisible. 

Romans ch.1:20NIV"For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made(including the Son of Man), so that people are without excuse." 

From the creation onward the Lord JEHOVAH has been continuously invisible to Man. His virtues could be discerned however through his creation, especially his first and foremost creation his Logos.

My 2 cents re:reductive materialism.

 Here's my beef with reductive materialists ,as they themselves doubtless know, matter itself is not reducible to matter. A quantum(i.e an atom) of matter does not consists of matter.

Likely you recall enough of your secondary (high) school chemistry to know that atoms are composed of immaterial subatomic "particles" in reality tiny packets of energy ,in other words wraiths. That's right matter which has weight and occupies space consists of ghosts which neither have weight nor occupy space. Also the cause of physical matter must doubtless be super physical if we are being logically consistent.

So the premise of reductive materialists i.e that there is no evidence of a superphysical reality that can affect physical matter is demonstrably false.

Everyone's favourite contrarian is at it again.

 New! Philosopher and Mathematician David Berlinski on “Science After Babel”

Evolution News 

Polymath and raconteur David Berlinski is at it again, challenging the shibboleths of contemporary science with his inimitable blend of deep learning, close reasoning, and rapier wit. His new book, Science After Babel, reflects on everything from Newton, Einstein, and Gödel to catastrophe theory, information theory, and the morass that is modern Darwinism. The scientific enterprise is unarguably impressive, but it shows no sign of reaching the empyrean heights it seemed to promise a century ago. “It resembles Bruegel’s Tower of Babel,” Berlinski says, “and if it suggests anything at all, it suggests that its original plans have somehow been lost.” Science endures. Scientism, it would seem, is guttering out.

We will be featuring excepts, commentary, and conversations with Dr. Berlinski in days to the come. Order your copy now. And enjoy some of the advance praise the book is already receiving!

Advance Praise

Many will read this book for the close, elegant reasoning, the astonishing erudition, or the mordant analysis. I confess I read it for the prose. “Vast sections of our experience might be so very rich in information” — I quote here from the discussion of our limited ability to define complexity — “that they stay forever outside the scope of theory and remain simply what they are: unique, ineffable, insubsumable, irreducible.” See what I mean? Nobody but David Berlinski has ever employed such sweet, gorgeous prose in writing about science.

PETER ROBINSON, MURDOCH DISTINGUISHED POLICY FELLOW AT THE HOOVER INSTITUTION AND FORMER SPEECHWRITER TO PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

Whether deconstructing the latest theory of everything or dishing on scientists and mathematicians he has known, whatever David Berlinski writes is delightful and profitable to read!

MICHAEL BEHE, PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, LEHIGH UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF DARWIN’S BLACK BOX, THE EDGE OF EVOLUTION, AND DARWIN DEVOLVES

If I were picking two books to be required reading for every college student in the United States, Science After Babel would be one. A striking and beautiful and absolutely necessary book. David Berlinski at his spectacular best.

DAVID GELERNTER, PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, YALE UNIVERSITY

Science After Babel is a literary triumph. In it, David Berlinski masterfully exposes the hubris of scientific pretensions with a wit that dances deftly between the lines, unveiling profound insights with a refreshing candor. This book testifies to the author’s penetrating intellect, inviting readers to reconsider the limits of scientific authority and reject facile invocations of science that demand assent at the expense of compelling evidence and rigorous thought.

WILLIAM DEMBSKI, MATHEMATICIAN, PHILOSOPHER, AND FORMER HEAD OF THE MICHAEL POLANYI CENTER AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY; AUTHOR OF MULTIPLE GROUNDBREAKING WORKS ON THE THEORY OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN, INCLUDING THE DESIGN INFERENCE (CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1998)

Berlinski speaks wittingly as an insider to the sciences and their recent history. As a historian-philosopher of science, I recognize numerous valuable insights in this collection of arguments and memories. He captures the wonder of scientific inquiry without misplaced worship of speculative pronouncements made in its name. Berlinski is the most enjoyable antidote to scientism I know.

MICHAEL KEAS, LECTURER IN THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, BIOLA UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF UNBELIEVABLE: 7 MYTHS ABOUT THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Dr. Berlinski explores everything from the complicated spawning behavior of salmon and the problems with the RNA World hypothesis to various acute challenges to modern evolutionary theory, including the Cambrian explosion, molecular machines, and the failure of punctuated equilibrium. As he shows, trouble is brewing for Darwin on other fronts as well — population genetics, taxonomy, behavioral psychology, and the philosophy of biology, to name just a few. In total, Science After Babel is a lively mix of deep scientific knowledge, literary skill, and humor. The work reveals why scientism’s contemporary tower of babel has failed to reach the heavens. I highly recommend the book and hope it is widely read.

OLA HÖSSJER, PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS, STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY

In Science After Babel David Berlinski takes critical scholarly aim at many current day “scientific truths” — more properly shibboleths — including Darwinism, reductionism, the Standard Model of particle physics, and “talking” chimpanzees; and he shows how much nonsense often passes as secure scientific knowledge. Neo-Darwinism he describes as “empty,” and in discussing the Standard Model he comments wryly, “Theories come and go.” He also takes aim at a vast constellation of recent authors, including cosmologists Brian Greene and Lawrence Krauss, biologist Stephen Jay Gould, and philosopher of biology Michael Ruse.

The book is a delightful read delivered with great wit and erudition. We are treated to unique recollections — of his drinking coffee in Paris with René Thom, the founder of catastrophe theory; of the insane driving, also in Paris, of his friend, the mathematician, polymath, and leading French anti-Darwinist Marcel Schützenberger; and of a conversation with Noam Chomsky. Altogether the book represents an extraordinary and absolutely fascinating tour de force touching on topics as diverse as medieval Islamic astronomy and the great twentieth-century mathematician John von Neumann’s reflections on the role of chance in evolution. The text is interspersed throughout with some beautiful descriptive writing — Mount Rainer’s snow glimpsed flying out of SeaTac was “silent, sweeping, silvery, still, serene.”

The book is a stunning intellectual achievement. Few authors could have written such a far-reaching, in-depth critique of so many current philosophical and scientific beliefs. Science After Babel is mandatory reading for anyone interested in a critical assessment of much current scientific thinking. No other recent publication comes close, and unquestionably this brilliant book establishes David Berlinski as one of the leading intellectuals of our time.

MICHAEL DENTON, PHD, MD, FORMER SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW IN THE BIOCHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO IN DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND, AUTHOR OF EVOLUTION: A THEORY IN CRISIS, NATURE’S DESTINY, AND THE MIRACLE OF MAN

Mathematically evaluating technology?

 Intelligence Metrics: Measuring the Degree of Intelligence in Design

William A Dembski 

A terrific conference just took place in Denton, Texas (June 1-3, 2023): the Conference on Engineering in Living Systems, or CELS. Its aim was to inspire cross-disciplinary research between biology and engineering by bringing together biologists, engineers, and some fellow travelers like me (a mathematician). I had the privilege of speaking on intelligence metrics. Here are my Slides. I hope soon to develop this talk into a proper peer-reviewed paper.

I want to thank Steve Laufmann and Eric Anderson especially for helping to make this conference happen.

On settling for not so free speech II

On settling for not so free speech.

Time for an extended extended synthesis?

Hopeful monsters of the deep vs. Darwinism.

 Okeanos Explorer Searches The Deep Sea

            Cornelius G Hunter

There is a reason why explorers have always gone forth—they are rewarded. And so not surprisingly there have been many rewards for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Okeanos Explorer which is exploring the ocean floor, several miles beneath the surface, near the Marianas Trench. In this far away land the mission has found all manner of strange life forms never before seen. You can watch the Video live and, as one report put it, “The video makes for strangely addicting viewing. There's a constant cliffhanger: What will they find next?”

What they have found is an array of incredible, and lowly (pun intended), creatures. Surely Ralph Cudworth and John Ray would have, by this point, doubled down on their infra-dignitatem argument that such creatures are beneath the Creator’s dignity. There must have been an intermediate creative force to account for the muck and its inhabitants, not to mention those bungles and errors we find in creation.

Isn't it amazing what those random mutations will come up with? (And no, natural selection doesn’t help).

On pronouns: the view from the radical center.

The amazing Randi on academia

 A word on PhDs

On the classic architecture of the American diner

Molecular biology vs. Darwinism again.

On confirmation bias re: genetic evidence for Darwinism

 BioLogos and Vitellogenin Genes

Cornelius G Hunter

Recently I have been responding to several articles by evolutionist Dennis Venema. Venema has made various arguments about how genetic evidences strongly support evolution and I have provided rebuttals to those claims. For instance, I explained Here that while Venema discusses evidences that are consistent with evolutionary expectations, he does not list or mention the substantial body of scientific findings that are inconsistent with evolution. This is a problem with the evolution literature: the scientific evidence is too often selectively presented. In fact, I have often seen evolutionists claim that there are no contrary evidences, and that the science fully backs evolution. This sort of confirmation bias presents a roadblock to meaningful discourse on the topic of origins.

Next Venema focused his claim on the specific case of human evolution, and the similarity between the human and chimpanzee genomes. Again, Venema made high claims about the evidence. He concluded: “These observations strongly support the hypothesis that our species arose through an evolutionary process.”

But, in fact, as I explainqed Here, there are several significant problems with this claim. For example, the chimpanzee and human genomes have differing patterns that do not fit evolutionary expectations. There is also a big difference between viruses in the genomes of humans and the other primates. Again, these differences do not fit the expected evolutionary pattern. Furthermore, the chimp-human genome beneficial differences are few and appeals to alternate splicing differences (another big difference between the genomes of humans and the other primates) to evolve humans lead to astronomically improbable pathways.

As always, I explained that the point is not that evolutionary explanations are not possible. Speculative explanations are always possible. Perhaps evolution did this, perhaps it did that. But that does not change the fact that the primate genomes do not “strongly support the hypothesis that our species arose through an evolutionary process,” as Venema and the evolutionists claim.

Next Venema focused even more narrowly on a particular genetic detail: human chromosome two, which he presented as a powerful example of an evolutionary confirmation. And yet as I explained here, not only did Venema not mention several scientific problems with his claim but the claim, even if true, would not demonstrate evolution as evolutionists claim. There is no evolutionary relationship revealed. Even if evolution were true, these data would give us no evidence for it. What was disturbing about this example was Venema’s recounting of a deceptive lecturing strategy he uses in presenting this topic in his class.

Next Venema presented pseudogenes which Venema argued are powerful and compelling evidences for common descent. It is, explained Venema, “one of the strongest pieces of evidence in favor of common ancestry between humans and chimpanzees (and other organisms).” And again, I explained, here and here, that there are several, fundamental, problems with this evolutionary claim.

In this case, however, Venema discussed his underlying religious belief that this evidence is a problem for creationism type theories. Venema was highlighting one of the important beliefs at the foundation of evolutionary thought. This belief, if true, does indeed require evolution to be true. But of course it is not falsifiable.

Vitellogenin genes

Now we move on to Venema’s next Topic , the vitellogenins. Vitellogenin genes are found in a wide range of species and, like most genes, perform multiple functions including helping to provide the nutrients in egg yolks. Also like most genes, the pattern they form amongst the species does not always correspond very well to the expected evolutionary pattern. Of course there are always explanations, and evolutionists draw upon a variety of mechanisms, including lineage-specific events, to explain the vitellogenin genes.

For example, this paper focuses on mosquito vitellogenin genes. It concludes that the genes arose by a series of duplication events, and that the pattern of duplication was different in each mosquito genus. The Paper also uses purifying selection, gene conversion, unequal crossover, and concerted evolution to explain the observed pattern of the mosquito vitellogenin genes, and concludes that these mechanisms must have also worked, independently, in other invertebrate species, and vertebrate organisms as well.

Similarly, this Paper examines the evolution of vertebrate vitellogenins and also draws upon a variety of events and lineage-specific mechanisms. As I have discussed many times, while the basic idea of evolution is that the species share common designs as a consequence of common ancestry, in fact biology is loaded with unique, one-off designs for which evolutionists need to appeal to “lineage-specific” evolution. Consequently evolution can explain a wide variety of observations and patterns, and this applies equally well to the vitellogenins.

Clearly evolutionary theory is fine with a range of patterns when it comes to the vitellogenins. Of course this is true for molecular, and morphological, designs in general, as we have seen many times. Designs can fall into an evolutionary common descent pattern, or not.

The advantage of this flexibility is that evolutionary theory can explain a wide range of observables. The disadvantages, however, are many. The theory becomes less parsimonious. It becomes more resistant to falsification. And it loses its evidential arguments. If a theory can explain A, and B, and C, … and so forth, then the finding of A is hardly compelling evidence for the theory.

Yet this is what Venema argues. The vitellogenin genes in chickens share a weak similarity with corresponding genetic segments in humans. Evolutionists view the human segments as pseudogenes—broken versions of vitellogenin genes inherited from their egg-laying ancestors. Given this vitellogenin similarity between humans and chickens, for example, evolutionists such as Venema incredibly conclude that, therefore, humans and chickens evolved by random mutations from a common ancestor. Not only does that not follow, but it takes Venema to the unlikely solution of random mutations creating humans and chickens, and of course all the other species.

Venema also argues that the similarity of the vitellogenin genes between humans and chickens extends to, and is all the more confirmed by, their positioning within their respective genomes. But this argument from synteny is no different from what we saw above. When there is a loss of synteny evolution is not harmed, and the theory has another set of explanatory mechanisms available for just about any outcome. If the vitellogenin genes had been in a different order, evolution could have explained it just fine.

Affirming the consequent 

In spite of these problems with his argument, Venema is enthusiastic about this evidence. In fact his enthusiasm leads to the fallacy of affirming the consequent, as he equates shared synteny (genes with similar positioning in the genomes of different species) with common descent 

This evidence increases our confidence that we are indeed looking at regions with shared synteny: in other words, a region in two present-day species that was once a region in the genome of their common ancestral population. 

That is a fallacy. Ignoring the problems discussed above for the moment, even if evolution did make a hard prediction of shared synteny, and even if it was universally observed, that would not prove evolution. In that case, you would have a confirmed prediction. That is good, but it is not equivalent to a finding of evolution. Venema violates this scientific fundamental when he defines shared synteny as “a region in two present-day species that was once a region in the genome of their common ancestral population.” Unfortunately, affirming the consequent is not uncommon in the evolution literature.

Primeval tech continues to troll Darwinism.

 Engineering and Evolution in the Microbial World

Evolution News 

This year’s Conference on Engineering in Living Systems (CELS) is going on right now, exploring design principles at work in living things. In case you couldn’t be there, we pulled this classic ID the Future episode from the archive. Host Jonathan Witt gives us a behind-the-scenes interview with Dustin Van Hofwegen, a biology professor at Azusa Pacific University in California. The occasion was a previous Conference on Engineering in Living Systems. The two discuss the event, which brought together biologists and engineers to study how engineering principles and a design perspective can and are being applied to biology — to plants and animals but also to Van Hofwegen’s area of focus, the realm of microbial biology. The two move into a conversation about Van Hofwegen’s article in the Journal of Bacteriology, co-authored with Carolyn Hovde and Scott Minnich, based on research they did at the University of Idaho.

As Van Hofwegen explains, the research focused on one of the most ballyhooed evolutionary changes to come out of Richard Lenski’s long-term evolution experiment, a decades-long study of many thousands of generations of E. coli bacteria. Perhaps the biggest evolutionary development in the course of the experiment involved some bacteria beginning to feed on citric acid. Interesting, to be sure, but as Van Hofwegen explains, E. coli already has this capacity; it’s just a matter of switching it on. Van Hofwegen, Hovde, and Minnich demonstrated this through do-or-die experiments with E. coli, which led to the bacteria developing the capacity not in years or decades, as in the Lenski experiment, but in 14 days, that is, in as little as 100 generations. Van Hofwegen explains why this is an embarrassing result for neo-Darwinism. The pair conclude with a discussion of another study on antibiotic resistance with a similar result, that the resistance observed came not by evolving anything new but by tweaking something already present. Download the podcast or listen to it Here

The ecosystem vs. Darwin.

 The Phosphorus Cycle: Cause or Effects

David Coppedge 

 Life would be impossible without phosphorus,” begins an editorial in Nature.

Present in molecules from DNA to membrane lipids to the compounds that shuttle energy in cells, it acts as an essential nutrient alongside nitrogen. Phosphorus moves through the environment in vigorous biogeochemical cycles, reflecting its chemical reactivity and intense competition by hungry organisms. 

How did this bio-geo-chemical cycle begin? Scientists at the University of Cambridge are perplexed about “How life and geology worked together to forge Earth’s nutrient rich crust.” In their analysis, they see that the element phosphorus appears to have increased in the crust around the same time as the Cambrian explosion. Was one the cause or the effect of the other? It didn’t seem coincidental.

Around 500 million years ago life in the oceans rapidly diversified. In the blink of an eye — at least in geological terms — life transformed from simple, soft-bodied creatures to complex multicellular organisms with shells and skeletons.

Now, research led by the University of Cambridge has shown that the diversification of life at this time also led to a drastic change in the chemistry of Earth’s crust — the uppermost layer we walk on and, crucially, the layer which provides many of the nutrients essential to life.

They reiterate, as we’ve discussed before, that phosphorus (P) is a limiting factor on biological productivity. Unlike the other most abundant vital elements (C, H, O, N, S), P must be extracted from rocks by chemical weathering — not in its pure form, which is explosive, but as PO43- (phosphate). Microbes and plants can utilize inorganic phosphate (Pi). Then other organisms can use the phosphate-containing molecules made by them (organic phosphate, or Po). 

A Biogeochemical Cycle Triggered

Craig Walton of Cambridge points out that once life became abundant in the oceans, a phosphorus recycling program could begin.

When these organisms die, most of the phosphorus is returned back into the oceans. This efficient recycling process is a key control on the amount of total phosphorus in the ocean, which in turn supports life, “It enables us to have all the life we see around us today, so understanding when this process started is really key,” said Walton.

The Oxygen Theory for the Cambrian Explosion plays into his model, although he does not explicitly say he believes oxygen caused the sudden increase in animal life. He only points out the interesting correlation.

But, all of this biological reprocessing power relies on oxygen. This is what fuels the bacteria responsible for the breakdown of dead organic material that returns phosphorus back into the oceans.

The researchers think that a surge in oxygen at around the time of the Cambrian explosion might explain why phosphorus increased in rocks. “If oxygen did increase at that time, then more oxygen may have been available to break down deep sea biomass and recycle phosphorus to shallow coastal regions,” said Walton. Moving this phosphorus back towards the land meant it was better preserved in rocks that make up the continents.“That series of changes were ultimately responsible for fuelling the activity of complex life as we know it,” said Walton.

Oxygen, therefore, is a third essential component in the phosphorus cycle. 

“It’s tricky to unravel the sequence of events — whether complex life evolved in part because of increased supplies of oxygen and phosphorus to start with, or if they were in fact fully responsible for increasing availability of both, is still a controversial topic.” Walton and the team now looking to investigate the trigger for and timing of this phosphorus enrichment in the crust in more detail.

Summing up, there is a remarkable interplay of biology with two abiotic elements (oxygen and phosphorus) that sustains life on our planet. The Cambridge scientists were unable to decide which came first, how the cycle was triggered, and how things stayed in balance once the cycle was initiated.

Phosphate Balance and Management

Organisms have remarkable mechanisms for dealing with phosphate limitation, as noted here. The Nature editorial blames man for messing up the cycle by mining phosphorus for fertilizer, which often drains into the oceans, causing toxic algal blooms. 

The modern phosphorus cycle has been profoundly meddled with by humans to overcome phosphorus limitation. Half of the phosphorus available to crops in agricultural soils may come from fertilizer application. Fertilizer is a limited resource — often derived from ancient rocks composed of detritus deposited beneath marine upwelling zones — and its depletion will eventually lead to problems for agriculture and other organisms that rely upon it.

In March, Science Magazine featured Dan Egan’s book about phosphorus, The Devil’s Element and a World Out of Balance, “an enjoyable, lively, and thought-provoking read” according to reviewer Robert W. Haworth, an expert on phosphorus and the environment. Wise management of this critical element will be essential, as phosphate runoff can pollute waterways and deplete soils if handled carelessly. Yet its automatic recycling through the crust and biosphere is not mentioned in the review. If the world is “out of balance” now due to human activities, how did it get into balance in the first place?

A commentary by Senjie Lin in Nature Communications explores the complexities of biological responses to phosphorus limitation, including interactions with ocean acidification, climate, and nitrogen fixation. Lin leaves more questions than answers, but notes that phytoplankton differ in their responses to pH, so much more research is needed.

Just-in-Time Delivery

One particularly interesting finding about phosphorus comes from research on fruit flies. A new organelle was found in the intestinal cells of the flies that buffers phosphate to maintain homeostasis. Described by Gemma Conroy in Nature, this “previously unknown” organelle “acts like a reservoir of phosphate, helping to regulate levels of the nutrient inside cells and triggering processes that maintain tissues when it is in short supply.” 

Conroy tells how Charles Xu of Rockefeller University noticed some oval-shaped structures surrounded by multiple membranes that were being traversed by a phosphate-sensing transporter protein named PXo:

“These were quite visible, and we wondered what they were,” says Xu. When the scientists took a closer look at the mysterious structures, they saw they had several membrane layers, and the PXo protein was transporting phosphate across them. Once inside the unfamiliar organelles, the phosphate was converted to phospholipids, the main building blocks of cellular membranes.

When the fly cells were deprived of phosphate, the organelles broke apart and released the stored phospholipids into each cell, indicating that they function like reservoirs, says Xu.

His team’s paper in Nature shows microphotographs of these “PXo bodies” and describes how they store and release inorganic phosphate (Pi).

In unicellular organisms, Pi is indicative of environmental nutrient abundance and generally supports cell growth and division1. In metazoans, however, Pi availability is affected by nutrient uptake, systemic metabolism and local Pi usage, thus implicating more complex Pi signalling. In this study, we demonstrated that Pi starvation or PXo deficiency induces hyperproliferation and enterocyte differentiation in the epithelium of the Drosophila midgut, which might be a compensatory mechanism to produce more enterocytes capable of Pi absorption. Given the scarcity of knowledge about cytosolic Pi regulation in animal cells, our findings might have broad implications and open new avenues for studying Pi metabolism and signalling.

The system for just-in-time delivery of phosphates from a reservoir equipped with a sensor is reminiscent of our story about the way cells buffer and deliver heme.

Coincidences vs. Intentions 

The Cambridge article says that “life and geology worked together to forge Earth’s nutrient rich crust.” From a materialist perspective, that’s a fallacy of personification. Mindless entities do not work together to forge something like a Cambrian animal body plan or a cell organelle with a sensor able to buffer phosphate for just-in-time delivery. 

Scientists are generally wary of explanations that depend on lucky coincidences. In the phosphorus cycle, biology and geology are seen cooperating as to timing, triggers, balance, and homeostasis of essential parts for a functioning biosphere. These are concepts rich with purpose. If a functioning biosphere was intended, then these observational realities would make sense. 

    

It's finally happened

 Utah district bans Bible in elementary and middle schools

Associated press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Good Book is being treated like a bad book in Utah after a parent frustrated by efforts to ban materials from schools convinced a suburban district that some Bible verses were too vulgar or violent for younger children.

And the Book of Mormon could be next.

The 72,000-student Davis School District north of Salt Lake City removed the Bible from its elementary and middle schools while keeping it in high schools after a committee reviewed the scripture in response to a parental complaint. The district has removed other titles, including Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” and John Green’s “Looking for Alaska,” following a 2022 state law requiring districts to include parents in decisions over what constitutes “sensitive material.”

On Friday, a complaint was submitted about the signature scripture of the predominant faith in Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. District spokesperson Chris Williams confirmed that someone filed a review request for the Book of Mormon but would not say what reasons were listed. He also would not say whether it was from the same person who complained about the Bible, citing a school board privacy policy.

Representatives for the church declined to comment on the challenge. Members of the faith also read the Bible.

Williams said the district doesn’t differentiate between requests to review books and doesn’t consider whether complaints may be submitted as satire. The reviews are handled by a committee of made up of teachers, parents and administrators in the largely conservative community. The committee published its decision in an online database of review requests and did not elaborate on its reasoning or which passages of the Bible it found overly violent or vulgar.

The decision comes as conservative parent activists, including state-based chapters of the group Parents United, descend on school boards and statehouses throughout the United States, sowing alarm about how sex and violence are talked about in schools.

It’s unknown, however, who made the request for the Bible to be banned from Davis schools or if they are affiliated with any larger group because of the district’s privacy policy.

A copy of the complaint obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune through a public records request shows that the parent noted the Bible contains instances of incest, prostitution and rape. The complaint derided a “bad faith process” and said the district was “ceding our children’s education, First Amendment Rights, and library access” to Parents United.

“Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible,” the parent’s complaint, dated Dec. 11, said. It later went on to add, “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible (under state law) has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”

The review committee determined the Bible didn’t qualify under Utah’s definition of what’s pornographic or indecent, which is why it remains in high schools, Williams said. The committee can make its own decisions under the new 2022 state law and has applied different standards based on students’ ages in response to multiple challenges, he said.

An unnamed party filed an appeal on Wednesday.

The Bible has long found itself on the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books and was temporarily pulled off shelves last year in school districts in Texas and Missouri.

Concerns about new policies potentially ensnaring the Bible have routinely arisen in statehouses during debates over efforts to expand book banning procedures. That includes Arkansas — one of the states that enacted a law this year that would subject librarians to criminal penalties for providing “harmful” materials to minors, and creates a new process for the public to request materials be relocated in libraries.

“I don’t want people to be able to say, ‘I don’t want the Bible in the library,” Arkansas Democratic state Sen. Linda Chesterfield said during a hearing.

Parents who have pushed for more say in their children’s education and the curriculum and materials available in schools have argued that they should control how their children are taught about matters like gender, sexuality and race.

EveryLibrary, a national political action committee, told The Associated Press last month it was tracking at least 121 different proposals introduced in legislatures this year targeting libraries, librarians, educators and access to materials. The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years, according to the American Library Association.

“If folks are outraged about the Bible being banned, they should be outraged about all the books that are being censored in our public schools,” said Kasey Meehan, who directs the Freedom to Read program at the writers’ organization PEN America.

Why the trinity renders a definite answer to the question of JEHOVAH's identity impossible.

 Matthew ch.4:11PHB"Then Yeshua said to him, “Depart Satan, for it is written: 'You shall worship THE LORD JEHOVAH your God and him(note the singular personal pronoun) ALONE shall you serve.'" 

If  the the object of our devotion is a mystical union of co-equals obviously their would be no single person anywhere who is entitled to exclusive devotion even if ,as some have, we make the entire union a single person,thus adding a forth person to our supposed triad. Trinitarians insists that each member of the trinity is entitled  to the highest worship effectively meaning that no member of their mystifying concept including the trinity(quadrinity?) Himself is entitled to exclusive devotion 

John ch.1:18ASV"No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten [h]Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." 

The coming to earth of our Heavenly Father's nearest and dearest Child was meant to make JEHOVAH plain to his people this is most certainly not the case with the logos of Christendom.

The fossil record trolls Darwinism some more?

 Fossil Friday: How an Austrian Scientist Concocted a New Domain of Life called Gabonionta

Gunter Bechly 

In 2008 the Moroccan-French geologist Prof. Abderrazak El Albani from the University of Poitiers discovered strange three-dimensionally preserved radial structures in Proterozoic rocks of the Francevillian Formation in the West African country Gabon, which are believed to be about 2.1 billion years old. The ear-shaped structures of up to 6.7 inch size were interpreted as the earliest fossil evidence for multicellular eukaryotic life and were published two years later in the prestigious journal Nature (El Albani et al. 2010, Maxmen 2010).

In 2014, these findings were first presented to the general public with a special exhibition titled “Experiment Life – The Gabonionta” which opened in March 2014 at the Natural History Museum in Vienna (NHM 2014), and also featured a 40-minute documentary film by the University of Poitiers about the discovery. This exhibition was accompanied by a sensationalist media campaign in Austria, which included fancy headlines such as: “Gabonionta: sensational discovery in Vienna“ (ORF 2014), “Gabonionta, the little revolutionaries of evolution“ (Vosatka 2014), and “Gabonionta: How multicellular organism tried to conquer the Earth“ (Anonymous 2014).

Remarkable and Highly Unusual

It is remarkable and highly unusual in bioscience that the new taxon Gabonionta was never formally described as scientific name, but only used informally in public presentations and press releases. While El Albani refrained from formally naming the fossils, the new name Gabonionta was first introduced by the head of the paleontology department Dr. Matthias Harzhauser on occasion of the mentioned special exhibition at the Natural History Museum of Vienna. Therefore, it is commonly thought that this name Gabonionta, which designates an independent and extinct branch of multicellular life, is not taxonomically valid because it was not properly described according to the international rules of nomenclature. However, this is not true, because these rules do not apply to higher taxa above the family group level. Even if this name was only used in popular science publications, it is as scientifically valid and available as other higher taxonomic names such as Eukaryota or Metazoa.

More Important Issues

Anyway, there are more important issues with this discovery: other experts such as the famous German paleontologist Prof. Adolf Seilacher remained highly sceptical about the interpretation and suggested that the structures rather represent only pseudo-fossils formed by abiotic pyrite crystals during the diagenesis of the rocks. El Albani et al. (2014) responded to this critique and objected that not all of the fossils are pyritized and that the fossils formed at the same time as the sediment and therefore could not have been produced later by metamorphic processes. However, the initial critique was later strongly corroborated by the discovery of very similar structures from 1.1 billion year old sediments of Lake Michigan that were described by the authors as inorganic concretions (Anderson et al. 2016). Therefore, Javaux & Lepot (2018) remarked that “the identity of these macrostructures remains unknown and their biogenicity is questionable.” Even more recently, Fakhraee et al. (2023) came to a similar devastating conclusion. It looks like the dubious name Gabonionta does not even refer to any organism that ever existed. The scientists simply made up a new domain of life, based on nothing but inorganic patterns in ancient rocks.

            Is there any other evidence that this sensational discovery was nothing but hype? Sure there is: after the 2014 media circus nobody ever published any primary research again about these “fossils” and the mysterious Gabonionta. Even in their newest paper about the Francevillian Biota, El Albani and his colleagues only described lenticular structures produced by agglutinated protists (Lekele Baghekema et al. 2017, Reynaud et al. 2017, El Albani et al. 2023), but no longer promoted the presence of multicellular organisms. The silence is deafening!

References

Anderson RP, Tarhan LG, Cummings KE, Planavsky NJ, Bjørnerud M 2016. Macroscopic structures in the 1.1 Ga continental Copper Harbor Formation: Concretions of fossils? Palaios 31(7), 327–338. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2110/palo.2016.013

Anonymous 2014. Gabonionta: Wie Mehrzeller versuchten, die Erde zu erobern. OÖNachrichten March 8, 2014. https://www.nachrichten.at/panorama/weltspiegel/Gabonionta-Wie-Mehrzeller-versuchten-die-Erde-zu-erobern;art17,1323424

Lekele Baghekema SG, Lepot K, Riboulleau A, Fadel A, Trentesaux A & El Albani A 2017. Nanoscale analysis of preservation of ca. 2.1 Ga old Francevillian microfossils, Gabon. Precambrian Research 301, 1–18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.precamres.2017.0

El Albani A, Bengtson S, Canfield DE et al. 2010. Large colonial organisms with coordinated growth in oxygenated environments 2.1 Gyr ago. Nature 466, 100–104. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09166

El Albani A, Bengtson S, Canfield DE et al. 2014. The 2.1 Ga Old Francevillian Biota: Biogenicity, Taphonomy and Biodiversity. PLoS ONE 9(6):e99438, 1–18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099438

El Albani A, Konhauser KO, Somogyi A et al. 2023. A search for life in Palaeoproterozoic marine sediments using Zn isotopes and geochemistry. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 612:118169, 1–13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2023.118169

Fakhraee M, Tarhan LG, Reinhard CT, Crowe SA, Lyons TW & Planavsky NJ 2023. Earth’s surface oxygenation and the rise of eukaryotic life: Relationships to the Lomagundi positive carbon isotope excursion revisited. Earth-Science Reviews 240:104398. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104398

Javaux EJ & Lepot K 2018. The Paleoproterozoic fossil record: Implications for the evolution of the biosphere during Earth’s middle-age. Earth-Science Reviews 176, 68–86. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2017.10.001

Maxmen A 2010. Ancient macrofossils unearthed in West Africa. Nature News June 30, 2010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/news

                       NHM 2014. Experiment Life – the Gabonionta. Press release March 7, 2014. https://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/presse/experiment_leben_-_die_gabonionta

ORF 2014. “Gabonionta“: Sensationsfund in Wien. ORF.at March 11, 2014. https://wien.orf.at/v2/news/stories/2635417/

Reynaud J-Y, Trentesaux A, El Albani A et al. 2017. Depositional setting of the 2·1 Ga Francevillian macrobiota (Gabon): Rapid mud settling in a shallow basin swept by high-density sand flows. Sedimentology 65(3), 670–701. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/sed.12398

Vosatka M 2014. Gabonionta, die kleinen Revolutionäre der Evolution. DerStandard March 11, 2014. https://www.derstandard.at/story/1392687847479/gabonionta-die-kleinen-revolutionaere-der-evolution