Darwinists are disappointed at our insistence on doing our own thinking.

Politics Professors: How to Reduce Evolution Denial

Jonathan Wells March 9, 2015 4:46 AM | 

Despite several generations of relentless indoctrination, funded by hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, some high school students -- and even some college graduates -- still doubt evolution.

They don't doubt evolution in the sense of minor changes within existing species. In the 1930s, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky called this "microevolution," and nobody doubts it. But many people doubt what Dobzhansky called "macroevolution" -- the evolution of all living things from common ancestors by unguided processes such as random mutations and survival of the fittest.

The American educational establishment is dominated by people who not only believe in macroevolution but also bemoan the fact that they have failed to instill their belief in all of their students and teachers. From time to time, someone proposes ways to remedy this failure.

The latest proposals come from two professors of political science at Penn State University, Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer, who want to reduce the persistence of "evolution deniers." Quoted by Science Daily, Berkman said that "evolution is fundamental to biology, but more importantly we think that when you are communicating a skepticism about evolution you're communicating a skepticism about science generally."

Berkman and Plutzer held focus group sessions with 35 teacher trainees from four colleges and concluded that -- instead of avoiding controversy -- teachers should openly discuss the difference between religious faith and the science of evolution. First, however, teacher trainees should become better grounded in the science of evolution by taking more science courses.

Berkman and Plutzer's findings were reported in the March 6 issue of Science. The report was accompanied by a photo of a biology classroom, with the caption "Poorly prepared science teachers often leave U.S. high school students with a shaky grounding in evolution." In the foreground of the photo are several copies of the textbook being used in the classroom: Kenneth R. Miller and Joseph Levine's widely used "elephant cover" book, Biology.

I have a copy of the 2000 "elephant cover" textbook, which features (1) a drawing of the 1953 apparatus used by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, accompanied by a caption stating that their experiment "first demonstrated how organic matter may have formed in Earth's primitive atmosphere" (p. 344); (2) drawings of vertebrate embryos that look most similar in their early stages, showing that they evolved from common ancestors (p. 283); and (3) photographs of light- and dark-colored peppered moths resting on light- and dark-colored tree trunks, illustrating a story about natural selection in action (p. 297).

But these icons of evolution misrepresent the evidence. Among other things, the "atmosphere" used in the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment was almost certainly unlike that of the early Earth; vertebrate embryos actually look very different from each other in their early stages; and peppered moths rarely rest on tree trunks in the wild. The moth photographs were staged.

The Miller-Levine textbook misrepresented other evidence for evolution, as well. Maybe teachers and students continue to doubt evolution because they know more than Berkman and Plutzer think they do...

The Book of Jude NWT(2013 Edition)

1  Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, but a brother of James,+ to the called ones+ who are loved by God the Father and preserved for Jesus Christ:+

2  May mercy and peace and love be increased to you.

3  Beloved ones, although I was making every effort to write you about the salvation we hold in common,+ I found it necessary to write you to urge you to put up a hard fight for the faith+ that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones. 4  My reason is that certain men have slipped in among you who were long ago appointed to this judgment by the Scriptures; they are ungodly men who turn the undeserved kindness of our God into an excuse for brazen conduct*+ and who prove false to our only owner* and Lord, Jesus Christ.+

5  Although you are fully aware of all of this, I want to remind you that Jehovah,* having saved a people out of the land of Egypt,+ afterward destroyed those not showing faith.+ 6  And the angels who did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place,+ he has reserved with eternal bonds in dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.+ 7  In the same manner, Sod′om and Go·mor′rah and the cities around them also gave themselves over to gross sexual immorality* and pursued unnatural fleshly desires;+ they are placed before us as a warning example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire.+

8  Despite this, these men too are indulging in dreams, defiling the flesh, despising authority, and speaking abusively of glorious ones.+ 9  But when Mi′cha·el+ the archangel+ had a difference with the Devil and was disputing about Moses’ body,+ he did not dare to bring a judgment against him in abusive terms,+ but said: “May Jehovah* rebuke you.”+ 10  But these men are speaking abusively about all the things they really do not understand.+ And in all the things that they do understand by instinct like unreasoning animals,+ they go on corrupting themselves.

11  Too bad for them, for they have followed the path of Cain+and have rushed into the erroneous course of Ba′laam+ for reward, and they have perished in the rebellious talk+ of Kor′ah!+ 12  These are the rocks hidden below water at your love feasts+ while they feast with you, shepherds who feed themselves without fear;+ waterless clouds carried here and there by the wind;+ fruitless trees in late autumn, having died twice* and having been uprooted; 13  wild waves of the sea that cast up the foam of their own shame;+ stars with no set course, for which the blackest darkness stands reserved forever.+

14  Yes, the seventh one in line from Adam, E′noch,+ also prophesied about them when he said: “Look! Jehovah* came with his holy myriads*+ 15  to execute judgment against all,+ and to convict all the ungodly concerning all their ungodly deeds that they did in an ungodly way, and concerning all the shocking things that ungodly sinners spoke against him.”+

16  These men are murmurers,+ complainers about their lot in life, following their own desires,+ and their mouths make grandiose boasts, while they are flattering others* for their own benefit.+

17  As for you, beloved ones, call to mind the sayings that have been previously spoken* by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,18  how they used to say to you: “In the last time there will be ridiculers, following their own desires for ungodly things.”+19  These are the ones who cause divisions,+ animalistic men,*not having spirituality.* 20  But you, beloved ones, build yourselves up on your most holy faith, and pray with holy spirit,+21  in order to keep yourselves in God’s love,+ while you await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ with everlasting life in view.+22  Also, continue showing mercy+ to some who have doubts;+23  save them+ by snatching them out of the fire. But continue showing mercy to others, doing so with fear, while you hate even the garment that has been stained by the flesh.+

24  Now to the one who is able to guard you from stumbling and to make you stand unblemished+ in the sight of his glory* with great joy, 25  to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority for all past eternity and now and into all eternity. Amen.

A formula one racer without a steering wheel.

How to Solve the Cambrian Explosion: Turn Up the Evolutionary Speed Dial

Evolution News & Views September 20, 2013 5:05 AM

 Among the scientific papers out there that try to refute Stephen Meyer without naming him, here's one that makes it all so simple: evolution just ran faster in the Cambrian, that's all.

It's amazing how the news media flocked to a new paper in Current Biology by Lee, Soubrier and Edgecombe, "Rates of Phenotypic and Genomic Evolution during the Cambrian Explosion." It's as if they were breathing a collective sigh of relief: now we don't have to deal with Meyer's new book Darwin's Doubt; why? Because the doubt has been replaced with certainty. The paper announces confidently, "The Cambrian explosion (evolution's "big bang") is compatible with Darwinian evolution." (Emphasis added.)

In a nutshell, the paper asserts that evolution ran 4 to 5.5 times faster during the Cambrian than its usual slow-and-gradual speed. To come up with that measure, Lee and Soubrier from Australia and Edgecombe from London's Natural History Museum compared 395 phenotypic characters and 62 genes from living arthropods, "the most diverse phylum in the Cambrian and today." Since evolution ran faster, all the "major phenotypic innovations" were able to "suddenly appear" in a shorter time interval. (They assume that whatever sped up evolution for arthropods also accelerated the other phyla that "appeared" in a geological instant: "This study concerns arthropods, but the results are likely applicable to most of life.")

Like magic, the problem is solved. "The findings, published online today in the journal Current Biology, resolve 'Darwin's dilemma': the sudden appearance of a plethora of modern animal groups in the fossil record during the early Cambrian period," a press release from the University of Adelaide announced proudly, their Associate Professor Michael Lee standing in the limelight. The Cambrian explosion was nothing more than standard evolution running in time-lapse.

A look into the paper reveals damaging admissions, glaring omissions, and lapses in logic. Let's look at these in turn.

Damaging Admissions

The authors admit that the Cambrian explosion was sudden. They know it gave Charles Darwin grave doubts: "Darwin famously considered that the sudden appearance of complex morphologies in the lower Cambrian was at odds with normal evolutionary processes." They also know that subsequent studies concluded the same thing:

Many subsequent workers have reasonably contended that this pulse of diverse fossils is not explicable without either positing a lengthy cryptic Precambrian prelude or invoking "unknown evolutionary mechanisms." Similarly, initial molecular analyses concluded that the extensive molecular divergences between arthropods, echinoderms, and chordates could not be fully reconciled with the abrupt Cambrian fossil record, assuming even the fastest modern rates of molecular evolution.

They also know that critics of Darwinism are waving these facts in their faces: "These legitimate reservations have predictably been exploited by opponents of evolution."

Another fact they acknowledge is the lack of evidence for a long Precambian "fuse" leading up to the explosion. Their own work, in fact, supports the "emerging consensus" that any Precambian lead-up to the explosion had to be short, not only because there's no fossil record of it, but also because it doesn't solve the problem that animals "acquired many novelties simultaneously across the early Cambrian." The Ediacaran fossils, therefore, do not help.

Consequently, they agree that the time of rapid innovation was brief, fitting within 40 million years (Meyer provides evidence it was as short as 5 million years, 1/10 of 1% of Earth's history, p. 72). Although they assume the generous evolutionary estimate of 40 million years, they recognize the period of rapid arthropod divergence is compressible to less than 10 million years in the Lower Cambrian.

They also admit that this period was unique: "evolution during the Cambrian explosion was unusual (compared to the subsequent Phanerozoic) in that fast rates were present across many lineages."

Glaring Omissions

The paper assumes that speeding up natural selection solves all the problems and brings the Cambrian diversification safely back into Darwin's fold. What they fail to acknowledge is that each phylum appears abruptly in the fossil record, with no transitional forms. The first trilobite is all trilobite. The first Anomalocaris is all Anomalocaris. The Cambrian explosion is not just a matter of brevity of time. It's a gap between microbes (or bland multicellular colonies, if one considers the Ediacaran animals) and fully integrated body plans with jointed legs, complex eyes, guts, brains, nervous systems, and a whole new ecology.

Speeding up the evolutionary clock, therefore, doesn't solve the real problem Meyer emphasized in his book: where did the information come from to build all these new body plans? If you doubled or tripled the time interval, it wouldn't change that issue. The absence of transitions and the sudden appearance of complex tissues, organs, and systems cry out for explanation, however one might quibble about the duration of the explosion.

At one point, after declaring that evolution ran 4 to 5.5 times faster than normal, the authors claim that their conclusions are robust, even when compressing the explosion to the briefest interval:

Surprisingly, these fast early rates do not change substantially even if the radiation of arthropods is compressed entirely into the Cambrian (∼542 mega-annum [Ma]) or telescoped into the Cryogenian (∼650 Ma). The fastest inferred rates are still consistent with evolution by natural selection and with data from living organisms, potentially resolving "Darwin's dilemma."

That assertion, however, relies on transitional forms that are not found in the fossil record. They need transitions to show that natural selection, even if running at high speed, built these animals piecemeal by selecting small variations. Even Lee and team would never assert that a microbe divided and a trilobite hatched out.

Let's take them up on compressed rates and see what it means. Suppose you are on MythBusters testing a new model of explosions. A mythmaker alleges that explosions are really slow and gradual, and occur by natural processes of sunlight hitting soil, instead of by someone assembling a bomb. The equipment measures the duration of an explosion at 20 milliseconds. Suppose that the mythmaker then claims that it was really 10 seconds, if you consider the lead-up and the aftermath. Then he boasts that he can even compress that interval by half to 5 seconds, and his natural model of the explosion still holds. Would the MythBusters accept that story? No; they would laugh the guy off the set. The essence of the explosion was its suddenness. It wouldn't matter if you "telescoped" or "compressed" the time around the explosion; the explosion itself was abrupt. In the same way, when you find a whole trilobite in a layer of rock with no precursors, that's the issue! Quibbling about how many million years passed before and after it "suddenly appeared" adds nothing to our understanding.

Lapses in Logic

Lee and team play with the "speed dials" of natural selection, assuming that evolution can run up to 5.5 times faster than normal and still fit within a Darwinian paradigm. They've already abandoned the "slow Precambian fuse" explanation, so the only other option is "unknown evolutionary mechanisms" that some have suggested. By asserting that ordinary evolutionary mechanisms, running faster, are sufficient, they feel they have solved "Darwin's dilemma" and answered the "opponents of evolution" who "predictably exploit" the "legitimate reservations" that the Cambrian explosion presents.

They're answering the wrong question. It's not a question of slow evolution vs. fast evolution. It's not a question of evolution by unknown mechanisms vs. known mechanisms. Evolution itself is the issue! The Cambrian explosion poses the question of Darwinian evolution vs. intelligent design, because the sudden appearance of some two dozen distinct body plans without precursors challenges any naturalistic explanation, no matter how fast it runs.

In essence, Lee and team are simply saying, "They evolved because they evolved faster." That's not the challenge the fossil record poses. It's a circular answer that assumes evolution to argue for evolution. Here's another example: "Clades characterized by major phenotypic innovations often exhibit higher rates of evolution initially...."

Meyer's books pose fundamental challenges to evolution and other naturalistic explanations, not just "exploiting" the "legitimate reservations" about the rate of evolution but about evolution itself as a scientific explanation. He's not just poking holes in evolutionary theory. He's making a positive case for design: whenever you find information-rich systems with integrated parts contributing to function, whether it be a computer or a trilobite, we know from our uniform experience that intelligence played a role in its origin. They need to stop attacking straw men and face these issues.

Lee and team also commit a common evolutionary fallacy we might call the "opportunity knocks" theory of evolution. They assume that natural selection, filled with creative power and desire to invent endless forms most beautiful, will rush to fill new environmental opportunities. Here's how they dress this idea up in jargon: they speak of "ecological opportunism coupled with a more complex fitness landscape, which might have unleashed latent evolutionary capabilities" -- a complicated way of saying, "vacant space brings entrepreneurs." While that may work in economics with intelligent human beings, microbes are under no obligation to become trilobites, just because of "ecological opportunism." This talk of "latent evolutionary capabilities" personifies the simple organisms before the Cambrian explosion, making them out to be contestants in an invention challenge, chomping at the bit to innovate.

Media Hype

Of the papers we've examined that try to answer the Cambrian explosion, this one be Lee et al. must surely rank as one of the silliest. They dodge the important issues. They argue in a circle, using evolutionary assumptions to defend evolution. They employ ad hoc reasoning to avoid falsification of evolutionary theory. They fight straw men. Despite the jargon, their conclusions are vapid, evasive, and illogical.

Yet the hype-to-data ratio has been off the charts: the media trumpeted this as the answer to all the critics, the scientific "findings" to finally rescue Darwin from his dilemma. At Live Science, in an article echoed around the Internet, Tia Ghose wrote, "Lightning-Fast Evolution Clocked During Cambrian Explosion" as if Lee was holding a stopwatch.

A crustacean with 3,000 lenses in its eyes, 6-foot-long shrimplike creatures and organisms that looked like tulips emerged hastily (from an evolutionary perspective) on the scene some 520 million to 540 million years ago. And now scientists have figured out just how quickly evolution was occurring during evolution's "big bang."

Acknowledging that the Cambrian explosion saw the "sudden emergence" of "most of the planet's modern animal groups," including creatures with eyes, antennae, biting jaws, jointed legs and much more, Ghose triumphantly announced that Lee and his colleagues have stood up to those pesky creationists:

Researchers have long debated exactly how animals could have evolved so quickly during the period. Creationists have even used the Cambrian explosion to raise doubts about the theory of evolution, suggesting some divine hand must have played a role....

Why are we not surprised at that red herring?

The team found that the emergence of many sea creatures during the Cambrian explosion could be explained by an accelerated -- but not unrealistic -- evolution by way of natural selection, or the process in which organisms change over time due to changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits.

Giving lead author Michael Lee the pulpit for the benediction, her article ends,

"In this study we've estimated that rates of both morphological and genetic evolution during the Cambrian explosion were five times faster than today -- quite rapid, but perfectly consistent with Darwin's theory of evolution," Lee said.

At least Science Magazine offers a hint of caution in its otherwise gushing praise:

"It's an excellent first step," says Douglas Erwin, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., but the exact rates of evolution in the study might not be reliable. He points out that while the study uses fossil data to determine when a given arthropod branch emerged, it doesn't include the known characteristics of these extinct ancestors in its comparisons of physical traits, which involve only living creatures.

Some of the assumptions the authors make in estimating these emergence dates are also problematic, says Philip Donoghue, a paleobiologist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.

That coverage led to a lot of lively comments from readers, many mocking intelligent design with the usual ad hominems and conflation with creationism, plus some well-meaning but misguided responses misrepresenting ID. Won't one of these people just get a copy of Darwin's Doubt and read it?

On the bright side, the lack of substantive responses to the arguments of Meyer and others provides tacit admission that the case for intelligent design remains robust.

Should the West make do with a less manifest destiny?Pros and Cons.

An unending winter.

It's design all the way down II:The micropolis.

Each Cell in Your Body Is a Walled City Besieged by Enemies

Howard Glicksman March 2, 2015 3:53 AM 

Editor's note: Engineers and physicians have a special place in the community of thinkers and scholars who have elaborated the argument for intelligent design. Perhaps that's because, more than evolutionary biologists, they are familiar in very practical ways with the challenges of designing or maintaining a functioning complex system on the order of a jet airplane, or the human body. With that in mind, Evolution News & Views is delighted to present this new series, "The Designed Body," and to welcome Howard Glicksman MD as a contributor. A graduate of the University of Toronto (1978), he presently practices palliative medicine for a hospice organization. Find Dr. Glicksman's introduction to the series here.

Just as a brick is the basic building block of a wall, the human cell is the basic functioning unit of the human body. Our body has about a hundred trillion of them. And just as with a brick wall, the requirement that it not collapse means being sturdy enough to stand up to the forces of nature, our cells likewise need to stand up to nature. For this reason, and others, the two hundred different types of cells in the body have common features that allow them to follow the rules to live, grow, and work properly.

In Darwin's day, a cell was considered to be just a bag of chemicals containing within it various structures of unknown function. During the last century it has been shown that the cell is a huge software-driven micro-sized city containing many different nano-sized buildings with programmed pico-sized machines that are able to use energy to build the structures and perform the functions necessary for life. Here is a brief summary of some of the aspects of the human cell which must first be understood to appreciate why it must take control to survive in the world.

A very thin wall, called the plasma membrane, surrounds the cell. The plasma membrane defines the limits of the cell and separates it from other cells and from the outside world. It serves to keep what is needed inside the cell and what is not needed outside the cell. The important chemicals and vital structures of the cell would not be very useful if they were not kept in one place.

The main substance of the cell, which fills up the space within the plasma membrane, is a fluid called the cytosol. The cytosol consists of water with different chemicals dissolved within it. The amount of water inside the cell is its volume and the total number of chemical particles dissolved within each unit volume of water is its concentration. The cytosol is said to be more concentrated when there are more chemical particles per unit volume of water and less concentrated when there are fewer chemical particles per unit volume of water. Also, for a given number of chemical particles in the cytosol, an increase in volume results in a decrease in concentration and a decrease in volume results in an increase in concentration.

Each cell not only consists of water, but is also surrounded by water. The water inside the cell has a high concentration of potassium and protein and a low concentration of sodium. The water outside the cell has a high concentration of sodium and a low concentration of potassium and protein. In other words, the chemical make-up of the water inside the cell is exactly the opposite of the water outside. The plasma membrane serves to separate the two different solutions from each other.

Since the water in the cell takes up space, it applies a certain amount of pressure against the plasma membrane. Think of a bicycle tire. The more it is pumped up, the more air pressure is applied against the tire wall. Since the plasma membrane is made up of matter with a specific structure, like the bicycle tire, it too has physical limits when it comes to remaining intact and functional under pressure.

Suspended within the cell are structures, called organelles, and important proteins which together perform functions that allow for life. These include the nucleus, which contains the genetic information the cell needs to live and reproduce, the mitochondria, where the energy for cell function is obtained, the rough endoplasmic reticulum and the golgi apparatus, which are the factories that produce proteins, the lysosomes, which are the recycling plants where used cellular material is broken down, and the microtubules and microfilaments, which are the supportive cytoskeleton that allows the cell to alter its shape in response to changes in its environment.

Now consider what some of the laws of nature demand for the cell to survive in the world. Real numbers have real consequences. If the cell can't take control to follow the rules, then life will quickly turn into death.

Whether it's a mountain, a molehill, or a molecule, all material objects have mass and so energy is needed to change them. Therefore, to produce, move, or control anything requires that the cell have enough energy. Like a light bulb short on electricity or a car short on gas, without enough energy the cell is as good as dead.

The chemical content in the cell must be kept relatively constant for it to live and work properly. This means that the fluid inside the cell must maintain its high level of potassium and protein and its low level of sodium. If the chemical content of the cell isn't in the right range, then the cell dies a quick death.

Finally, as noted above, the plasma membrane surrounding the cell has definite physical limitations and is therefore sensitive to changes in pressure. Think of blowing up a balloon. There is only so much air pressure the wall of the balloon can handle before it explodes. So too the volume of the cell must be kept within certain limits. If the water pressure against the plasma membrane rises too high, then, as with a balloon, cell death will take place, literally by explosion.

Note, too, that the cell is not self-sufficient. To survive it needs to constantly receive new supplies of chemicals, like glucose, for energy. It must also constantly rid itself of toxic chemicals, like carbon dioxide from the breakdown of glucose. However, to survive, the cell faces a major dilemma. In letting these chemicals pass through its plasma membrane, the cell is exposed to the chemical content of the water just outside its doorstep. And remember, the chemical content of the water outside is totally different from that of the water inside the cell. The cell, remember, must control its chemical content and volume to stay alive.

Think of a walled city besieged by enemies. The residents of the city are slowly running out of food and water and are in desperate need of new supplies to stay alive. They must somehow be able to open the gates wide enough to bring in what they need without at the same time being overrun by the enemy.

In allowing these chemicals to pass through its plasma membrane the cell comes up against a dilemma, a result of the laws of nature that govern chemical and fluid movement. In letting down its guard to allow some chemicals to come in and go out, the cell runs the risk of losing control of its chemical content and volume. If that happens, the cell will perish.

Which laws of nature are involved in the cell's dilemma and, if not resisted by some ingenious design, how do they bring about the catastrophe that is cell death? Come back next time and we'll find out.