The end of the line?

Sepp Blatter: Swiss open criminal proceedings against FIFA president
By James Masters, CNN

CNN)Sepp Blatter's tenure as FIFA president suffered a new blow after the Swiss Attorney General opened criminal proceedings against him on "suspicion of criminal mismanagement."

A statement released by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) of Switzerland confirmed it was examining a contract signed by Blatter with the Caribbean Football Union and an alleged "disloyal payment" of $2 million to UEFA president Michel Platini.

Former senior FIFA official Warner was indicted in the wide-ranging bribery scandal, while Platini entered the race to succeed Blatter as FIFA president in July.

The statement was released after Blatter, who has been in charge of soccer's world governing body since 1998, was interrogated by OAG representatives Friday following a meeting of the FIFA Executive committee in Zurich.


Blatter's lawyer Richard Cullen, said that "no mismanagement occurred."

In a statement sent to CNN, Cullen said: "We're confident that when the Swiss authorities have a chance to review the documents and the evidence they will see that the contract was properly prepared and negotiated by the appropriate staff members of FIFA."

The OAG confirmed that it had conducted a search at FIFA headquarters with the help of the police -- including Blatter's office -- and "data seized."

"The OAG suspects that on 12 September 2005 Mr. Joseph Blatter has signed a contract with the Caribbean Football Union (with Jack Warner as the President at this time); this contract was unfavorable for FIFA," said the statement.

"On the other hand, there is as suspicion that, in the implementation of this agreement, Joseph Blatter also violated his fiduciary duties and acted against the interest of FIFA and/or FIFA Marketing & TV AG.

"Additionally, Mr. Joseph Blatter is suspected of a disloyal payment of two million Swiss Francs to Michel Platini, President of Union of European Football Association (UEFA), at the expense of FIFA, which was allegedly made for work performed between January 1999 and June 2002 ; this payment was executed in February 2011," added the statement.


UEFA was not immediately available for comment after the OAG said that Platini had been "heard as a person asked to provide information," while one of Warner's officials told CNN "he wouldn't be saying anything."

Platini, who became president of Uefa -- the European governing body in 2007 -- is also a vice-president of FIFA.


The 60-year-old became a member of FIFA's executive committee in 2002 as well as chairman of the technical development committee and worked on the 2006 World Cup organizing committee.In a statement, FIFA said it had been "cooperating" and has "complied with all requests for documents, date and other information."

It added: "We will continue this level of cooperation throughout the investigation. We will have no further comment on the matter as it is an active investigation."

The incident comes eight days after Secretary General Jerome Valcke was suspended by FIFA, while the organization investigates allegations he participated in a scheme to profit off the sale of World Cup tickets on the black market.

Valcke has been relieved of his duties until further notice.FIFA was plunged into crisis in late May when seven officials were charged for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering by the FBI.

The charges are part of a U.S. prosecution that indicted a total of 14 people from around the globe.

Meanwhile, a separate probe by Swiss authorities is investigating potential corruption into the bidding process for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which will be hosted by Russia and Qatar.

Qatar's controversial bid for the latter was backed by Platini, and the tournament has since been switched from the emirate's summer months to the winter following concerns over unsafe temperatures.

Platini, South Korea billionaire Chung Mong-Joon, Jordan's Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein, ex-Brazil player Zico and Liberian FA chairman Musa Bility have all announced their intention to run for president.

To stand in the February 2016 presidential election, candidates will need letters of support from at least five FIFA member nations.

U.S investigation:

Meanwhile, a U.S. law enforcement official says the U.S. Justice Department is coordinating and sharing information with the OAG on the ongoing FIFA investigation.

Blatter is among the senior FIFA officials who remain under investigation, U.S. law enforcement officials told CNN.

The importance of the Swiss investigation against Blatter is that while the FBI has been focusing on his possible role in FIFA corruption, there are limits to U.S. jurisdiction.

U.S. prosecutors have claimed jurisdiction based on the fact financial transactions that are part of the alleged bribery schemes used U.S. banks or occurred in the U.S.


The U.S. investigators have had some trouble directly linking Blatter to those U.S. transactions, according to a U.S. official familiar with the investigation. Swiss investigators may have an easier time making those links, if they exist, since Blatter is based there.

In Russia:Justice delayed again

Decision in Retrial Postponed for 16 of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog:

The retrial of 16 of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog, Russia, is in its ninth month. Over 20 hearings have been held this summer, with more planned through October. If convicted, the Witnesses face imprisonment and fines merely for attending religious services, reading the Bible, and associating with fellow believers.

Lengthy Proceedings Affect the Defendants:
Since the beginning of the retrial earlier this year, the defendants have spent nearly 50 days in court. The defendants have been in court for over two years, including the time spent in the original trial. This makes it the longest-running criminal trial of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia.

The amount of time consumed by the hearings has taken a toll on the defendants. One of them, Kirill Kravchenko, explains: “We cannot work; we cannot spend enough time with our family or get sufficient rest.” Several of the defendants have been fired or pressured to quit their job because of the time the trial consumes or because they are publicly maligned for being Jehovah’s Witnesses. For the past two years, the court has prohibited them from leaving Taganrog without first obtaining official permission.


The proceedings have also placed an undue emotional strain on the defendants. “It affects my health,” says Tatyana Kravchenko. “I cannot fall asleep, or I wake up in the middle of the night. I’m always thinking about the trial, mulling it over in my mind, worrying.” Nikolay Trotsyuk, also a defendant, has been hospitalized several times because of the stress of the trial.
Events Leading to the Retrial in Taganrog:
In 2011, police conducted a covert criminal investigation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog. Sixteen Witnesses were indicted in 2012, and their initial criminal trial began in May 2013. After 15 months of hearings, the Taganrog City Court convicted seven of them for alleged extremist activity. The judge heavily fined all seven and sentenced four of them to lengthy prison terms, but he immediately waived the fines and suspended the prison sentences. The judge acquitted the other nine Witnesses on technical grounds but nevertheless held that they had engaged in extremist activity.

The 16 Witnesses appealed the decision to the Rostov Regional Court, asking that they be acquitted of all criminal charges. The prosecutor also appealed, arguing that the suspended sentences were too lenient.


On December 12, 2014, the Rostov Regional Court considered the appeals and reversed the decision of the Taganrog City Court. However, instead of acquitting the Witnesses, the Rostov Regional Court granted the prosecutor’s demands Should the Extremism Law Restrict Peaceful Worship?and sent the case back to the Taganrog City Court for a full retrial with a different judge. The retrial began on January 22, 2015, and the Witnesses expected a judgment in June 2015. Now that the judge has scheduled hearings through October, it appears that he will decide the case late in 2015.
Should the Extremism Law Restrict Peaceful Worship?:
Russia’s Federal Law on Counteracting Extremist Activity was originally intended to fight terrorism, but some Russian officials are misapplying it to restrict peaceful, lawful worship. Authorities throughout the country have disrupted Witness meetings, searched their homes, and banned and confiscated literature, using the extremism law as a pretext to justify these actions. In Taganrog, the authorities misused this law to liquidate the Witnesses’ local legal entity and to confiscate their Kingdom Hall. More recently, authorities in Samara and Abinsk have followed suit by liquidating the Witnesses’ legal entities and confiscating their property.


As a result of the heavy-handed actions of the Russian authorities, Jehovah’s Witnesses have submitted 28 applications to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to seek redress. Since 22 of these applications involve similar human rights violations, the ECHR is currently reviewing them together. According to an attorney for the Witnesses, the ECHR may issue its judgment on these cases as early as the end of 2015.

International Call to Revise Extremism Law:
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has called on Russian authorities to “refrain from applying the law on extremist activities against all religious communities, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses.” *


The UN Human Rights Committee has also expressed “concern at numerous reports that the law [on Combating Extremist Activity] is increasingly used to curtail freedom of expression, . . . targeting, inter alia, Jehovah’s Witnesses.” On March 31, 2015, it repeated its previous recommendations that Russia “revise without undue delay the Federal Law on Combating Extremist Activity with a view to clarifying the vague and open-ended definition of ‘extremist activity’ . . . . It should take all necessary measures to prevent the arbitrary use of the law and revise the Federal List of Extremist Materials.” *
Threat of Growing Religious Intolerance:

Russia now stands at a crossroads regarding freedom of religion. If those being prosecuted in Taganrog are convicted, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia expect that their fellow Witnesses could be prosecuted in Samara, Abinsk, and other places. They hope that the Russian government will end this persecution and uphold freedom of religion for all of its citizens.

   Time Line:
June 9, 2008:
Rostov Regional Prosecutor’s Office files a claim against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog for alleged extremist activity.

September 11, 2009:
The Rostov Regional Court declares 34 religious publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses to be extremist and bans the Local Religious Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog (LRO).

December 8, 2009:
The Russian Federation Supreme Court upholds the September 2009 ruling of the Rostov Regional Court.

March 1, 2010:
The Ministry of Justice posts on the Federal List of Extremist Materials the 34 publications declared extremist by the Rostov Regional Court. Authorities confiscate the Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall in Taganrog.

June 1, 2010:
Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog file the application Taganrog LRO and Others v. Russia with the European Court of Human Rights.

April 30, 2011:
Intelligence agencies begin secretly video recording the Witnesses’ religious services in Taganrog.


July 6, 2011:
Authorities add the Taganrog LRO to the Federal List of Extremist Organizations.

August 2011:
Local authorities initiate a criminal case against Witnesses in Taganrog and search 19 homes.

May 31, 2012:
Investigators issue the first indictments to Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog for their religious activity.

May 2013:
The trial of 16 Witnesses on criminal charges of extremism begins in the Taganrog City Court.

July 29-30, 2014:
On appeal, the Rostov Regional Court rules to remand the case for retrial by a different judge.

January 22, 2015:
Retrial of the 16 Witnesses begins in the Taganrog City Court.

The Watchtower Society's commentary on the new birth.

Why is it necessary for any Christians to be “born again”?

God has purposed to associate a limited number of faithful humans with Jesus Christ in the heavenly Kingdom:
Luke 12:32: “Have no fear, little flock, because your Father has approved of giving you the kingdom.”

Rev. 14:1-3: “I saw, and, look! the Lamb [Jesus Christ] standing upon the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand . . . who have been bought from the earth.” 
Humans cannot go to heaven with bodies of flesh and blood:
1 Cor. 15:50: “This I say, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom, neither does corruption inherit incorruption.”

John 3:6: “What has been born from the flesh is flesh, and what has been born from the spirit is spirit.”
Only persons who have been “born again,” thus becoming God’s sons, can share in the heavenly Kingdom:
John 1:12, 13: “As many as did receive him [Jesus Christ], to them he gave authority to become God’s children, because they were exercising faith in his name; and they were born, not from blood or from a fleshly will or from man’s will, but from God.” (“As many as did receive him” does not mean all humans who have put faith in Christ. Notice who is being referred to, as indicated by verse 11 [“his own people,” the Jews]. The same privilege has been extended to others of mankind, but only to a “little flock.”)
Rom. 8:16, 17: “The spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s children. If, then, we are children, we are also heirs: heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ, provided we suffer together that we may also be glorified together.”

1 Pet. 1:3, 4: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for according to his great mercy he gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an incorruptible and undefiled and unfading inheritance. It is reserved in the heavens for you.”
What will they do in heaven?:
Rev. 20:6: “They will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years.”

1 Cor. 6:2: “Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world?”
Can a person who is not “born again” be saved?:
Rev. 7:9, 10, 17: “After these things [after the apostle John heard the number of those who would be “born again,” those who would make up spiritual Israel and would be with Christ in heaven; compare Romans 2:28, 29 and Galatians 3:26-29] I saw, and, look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes; and there were palm branches in their hands. And they keep on crying with a loud voice, saying: ‘Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ . . . ‘The Lamb [Jesus Christ], who is in the midst of the throne, will shepherd them, and will guide them to fountains of waters of life.’”

After listing many pre-Christian persons of faith, Hebrews 11:39, 40 says: “All these, although they had witness borne to them through their faith, did not get the fulfillment of the promise, as God foresaw something better for us, in order that they might not be made perfect apart from us.” (Who are here meant by “us”? Hebrews 3:1 shows that they are “partakers of the heavenly calling.” The pre-Christian persons who had faith, then, must have a hope for perfect life somewhere other than in heaven.)

Ps. 37:29: “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.”


Rev. 21:3, 4: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”
Is it possible for a person to have God’s spirit and yet not be “born again”?:
Regarding John the baptizer, Jehovah’s angel said: “He will be filled with holy spirit right from his mother’s womb.” (Luke 1:15) And Jesus later said: “Among those born of women there has not been raised up a greater than John the Baptist; but a person that is a lesser one in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than he is [Why? Because John will not be in the heavens and so there was no need for him to be “born again”]. But from the days of John the Baptist until now [when Jesus stated this] the kingdom of the heavens is the goal toward which men press.”—Matt. 11:11, 12.


The spirit of Jehovah was “operative” upon David and “spoke” by him (1 Sam. 16:13; 2 Sam. 23:2), but nowhere does the Bible say that he was “born again.” There was no need for him to be “born again,” because, as Acts 2:34 says: “David did not ascend to the heavens.”

Civil War or Darwinists laundering their dirty linen.

The (Texas) Tree of Life: "Every Scientific Test To-Date" Supports "Darwin's Basic Ideas"
Casey Luskin January 24, 2014 6:01 AM

As I said earlier, in 2009 Texas adopted science standards that require students to "analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing, including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations, so as to encourage critical thinking by the student." Enter biologist Ken Miller, who in 2013 submitted for adoption in Texas his textbook Biology, which promotes the opposite of critical thinking on evolution. Instead, we see statements in the book like this: "Astonishingly, every scientific test has supported Darwin's basic ideas about evolution." (p. 465)

Also astonishingly, when the reviewer pressed Pearson to change this sentence, the publisher agreed -- the only instance out of all the alleged errors where Pearson agreed to do so. But most astonishing of all is the language that Pearson proposed in its place:

Although it is clear that a great deal about evolution remains to be learned, every scientific test to-date has supported Darwin's basic ideas.
The new wording is equally dogmatic -- and equally false. In fact, the fossil record shows a pattern of abrupt appearance that is the opposite of Darwin's ideas. In embryology we now know that Darwin's ideas about similarities in early vertebrate embryos were wrong.1 We know that the tree of life concept is flawed, challenging a core tenet of neo-Darwinian theory. Indeed, neo-Darwinian theory2 itself is thought to be highly flawed.

An article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution from 2008 acknowledges that there is a "healthy debate concerning the sufficiency of neo-Darwinian theory to explain macroevolution."3 Also in 2008, William Provine, a Cornell University historian of science and evolutionary biologist, gave a talk before the History of Science Society arguing that "[e]very assertion of the evolutionary synthesis below is false":

1. Natural selection was the primary mechanism at every level of the evolutionary process. Natural selection caused genetic adaptation . . . . 4. Evolution of phenotypic characters such as eyes and ears, etc, was a good guide to protein evolution: or, protein evolution was expected to mimic phenotypic evolution. 5. Protein evolution was a good guide to DNA sequence evolution. Even Lewontin and Hubby thought, at first, that understanding protein evolution was the key to understanding DNA evolution. 6. Recombination was far more important than mutation in evolution. 7. Macroevolution was a simple extension of microevolution. 8. Definition of "species" was clear[--]the biological species concept of Dobzhansky and Mayr. 9. Speciation was understood in principle. 10. Evolution is a process of sharing common ancestors back to the origin of life, or in other words, evolution produces a tree of life. 11. Inheritance of acquired characters was impossible in biological organisms. 12. Random genetic drift was a clear concept and invoked constantly whenever population sizes were small, including fossil organisms. 13. The evolutionary synthesis was actually a synthesis.4
Just for the record, many of these claims that Provine calls "false" (e.g., "Natural selection was the primary mechanism at every level of the evolutionary process" or "evolution produces a tree of life") are Darwin's basic ideas.

But let's continue.

A 2011 paper in the journal Biological Theory stated, "Darwinism in its current scientific incarnation has pretty much reached the end of its rope."5 In 2009, Eugene Koonin of the National Center for Biotechnology Information stated in Trends in Genetics that there are major problems in core neo-Darwinian tenets, such as the "traditional concept of the tree of life" and the view that "natural selection is the main driving force of evolution." Said Koonin, "the modern synthesis has crumbled, apparently, beyond repair" and "all major tenets of the modern synthesis have been, if not outright overturned, replaced by a new and incomparably more complex vision of the key aspects of evolution."6 Koonin concludes, "not to mince words, the modern synthesis is gone."7

Yet Pearson has the chutzpah to claim that its error is fixed by stating that "every scientific test to-date has supported Darwin's basic ideas." There are many scientists who would dispute this claim, which disregards both the letter and the spirit of TEKS.

Pearson never even offered to change its equally false and dogmatic language, such as a statement on page 447 that says: "Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is often called 'the most important scientific idea that anyone has ever had.' Evolutionary theory provides the best scientific explanation for the unity and diversity of life. It unites all living things in a single tree of life and reminds us that humans are part of nature." Since Miller mentions it, let's look briefly at the "tree of life."

Pearson's textbook asserts as a general truth that "use of DNA characters ... has helped to make evolutionary trees more accurate." (p. 521) In reality, controversies are rampant in the technical literature about the extent to which DNA data accurately show evolutionary relationships. At heart, the problem is that "evolutionary trees" based upon some "DNA characters" commonly conflict -- quite sharply in fact -- with "evolutionary trees" based upon other "DNA characters." This problem is pervasive in molecular phylogenetics, yet it is completely omitted from Ken Miller's textbook. Student readers are led to think DNA characters universally provide accurate, "tree"-like information about evolutionary relationships. But they don't.

In its rebuttal to the reviewer, Pearson notes that the text describes "a specific situation in which DNA characters were used to produce a more accurate taxonomy of American and African vultures." I doubt anyone would dispute the relatedness of American and African vultures. The notion that DNA can be used to construct an accurate tree in that case is uncontroversial. But the text fails to discuss the numerous instances where the DNA evidence could not be resolved into a tree, or where the data provided strong non-treelike signals that led to conflicting trees.

For example, a 2012 study in Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society discussed how DNA evidence has made it difficult to resolve relationships: "Incongruence between phylogenies derived from morphological versus molecular analyses, and between trees based on different subsets of molecular sequences has become pervasive as datasets have expanded rapidly in both characters and species."8 The paper observed that "phylogenetic conflict is common, and frequently the norm rather than the exception."9

Many other papers have made similar observations:

A paper in Genome Research observed "different proteins generate different phylogenetic tree[s]."10

A 2009 paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution acknowledged "evolutionary trees from different genes often have conflicting branching patterns."11

A 2006 study in PLoS Biology, "Bushes in the Tree of Life," offered striking conclusions. The authors acknowledge that "a large fraction of single genes produce phylogenies of poor quality," observing that one study "omitted 35% of single genes from their data matrix, because those genes produced phylogenies at odds with conventional wisdom."12

A June, 2012 article in Nature reported that short strands of RNA called microRNAs "are tearing apart traditional ideas about the animal family tree." Dartmouth biologist Kevin Peterson who studies microRNAs lamented, "I've looked at thousands of microRNA genes, and I can't find a single example that would support the traditional tree." According to the article, microRNAs yielded "a radically different diagram for mammals: one that aligns humans more closely with elephants than with rodents." Peterson put it bluntly: "The microRNAs are totally unambiguous ... they give a totally different tree from what everyone else wants."13

A 2011 paper in Genome Biology and Evolution noted, "[A]s the sequences from genome projects accumulate, molecular data sets become massive and messy, with the majority of gene alignments presenting odd (patchy) taxonomic distributions and conflicting evolutionary histories."14

A 2013 paper in Trends in Genetics reported that "the more we learn about genomes the less tree-like we find their evolutionary history to be."15
In 2009, the journal New Scientist published a cover story titled, "Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life." The article explained:

The problems began in the early 1990s when it became possible to sequence actual bacterial and archaeal genes rather than just RNA. Everybody expected these DNA sequences to confirm the RNA tree, and sometimes they did but, crucially, sometimes they did not. RNA, for example, might suggest that species A was more closely related to species B than species C, but a tree made from DNA would suggest the reverse.16
Such data led biochemist W. Ford Doolittle to explain that "Molecular phylogenists will have failed to find the 'true tree,' not because their methods are inadequate or because they have chosen the wrong genes, but because the history of life cannot properly be represented as a tree."17 New Scientist put it this way: "For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life ... But today the project lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence."18 The article explains what happened when microbiologist Michael Syvanen tried to create a tree showing evolutionary relationships using 2000 genes from a diverse group of animals:

He failed. The problem was that different genes told contradictory evolutionary stories. ... the genes were sending mixed signals. ... Roughly 50 per cent of its genes have one evolutionary history and 50 per cent another.19
The data were so difficult to resolve into a tree that Syvanen lamented, "We've just annihilated the tree of life."20 That's right: DNA data have "annihilated the tree of life." This is certainly in direct conflict with the language in the Pearson textbook -- that DNA "has helped to make evolutionary trees more accurate.'

Indeed, a major review article in Nature reported on how "disparities between molecular and morphological trees" lead to "evolution wars" because "[e]volutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don't resemble those drawn up from morphology."21

Difficulties encountered in using DNA data to reconstruct evolutionary relationships are well documented. Pearson paints a rosy picture about the ease with which DNA can help us reconstruct phylogenetic trees, but this picture is false. Now that they've refused to correct the textbook, students will be badly misled.

References Cited:

[1.] See Alex T. Kalinka et al., "Gene expression divergence recapitulates the developmental hourglass model," Nature, Vol. 468: 811-814 (December 9, 2010); Brian K. Hall, "Phylotypic stage or phantom: is there a highly conserved embryonic stage in vertebrates?," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 12: 461-463 (December, 1997); Andres Collazo, "Developmental Variation, Homology, and the Pharyngula Stage," Systematic Biology, Vol. 49:3 (2000).

[2.] Oddly, Pearson protests that the "Neo-Darwinian Synthesis" is an "older understanding of the evolutionary process," and thus "not relevant" to discuss. This is a highly unorthodox position. University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne notes that, "The modern theory of evolution, called neo-Darwinism in light of 150 years of post-Darwin research, has four parts..." Jerry Coyne, "Intelligent Design: The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name," in John Brockman, ed., Intelligent Thought: Science Versus the Intelligent Design Movement (New York: Random House, 2007), p. 6. Coyne is far from an isolated example, as the usage of these terms is also commonplace in textbooks on evolution. Douglas Futuyma's 2005 textbook Evolution defines "neo-Darwinism" as "[t]he modern belief that natural selection, acting on randomly generated genetic variation, is a major, but not the sole, cause of evolution." Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolution (Sinaeur, 2005), p. 550. Strickberger's textbook Evolution defines "neo-Darwinism" as the "modern synthesis," which is "a change in the frequencies of genes introduced by mutation, with natural selection considered as the most important, although not the only, cause for such changes." Monroe, W. Strickberger, Evolution (Jones & Bartlett, 3d ed., 2000), p. 649. It's disturbing that Pearson is apparently not aware that neo-Darwinism remains the standard, leading paradigm of evolution today.

[3.] Michael A. Bell, "Gould's Most Cherished Concept," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 23: 121-122 (2008) (reviewing Stephen Jay Gould, Punctuated Equilibrium (2007)).

[4.] William Provine, Random Drift and the Evolutionary Synthesis, History of Science Society HSS Abstracts.

[5.] David J. Depew and Bruce H. Weber, "The Fate of Darwinism: Evolution After the Modern Synthesis," Biological Theory, Vol. 6: 89-102 (December, 2011).

[6.] Eugene V. Koonin, "The Origin at 150: Is a New Evolutionary Synthesis in Sight?," Trends in Genetics, Vol. 25: 473 (2009) (internal citations omitted).

[7.] Ibid.

[8.] Liliana M. Dávalos, Andrea L. Cirranello, Jonathan H. Geisler, and Nancy B. Simmons, "Understanding phylogenetic incongruence: lessons from phyllostomid bats," Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Vol. 87: 991-1024 (2012).

[9.] Ibid.

[10.] Mushegian et al., "Large-Scale Taxonomic Profiling of Eukaryotic Model Organisms: A Comparison of Orthologous Proteins Encoded by the Human, Fly, Nematode, and Yeast Genomes," Genome Research, Vol. 8: 590-98 (1998).

[11.] Degnan and Rosenberg, "Gene tree discordance, phylogenetic inference and the multispecies coalescent," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 24:332-40 (2009).

[12.] Antonis Rokas and Sean B. Carroll, "Bushes in the Tree of Life," PLoS Biology, Vol. 4(11): 1899-1904 (November, 2006) (internal citations and figures omitted).

[13.] Elie Dolgin, "Rewriting Evolution," Nature, Vol. 486: 460-462 (June 28, 2012).

[14.] Leigh et al., "Evaluating Phylogenetic Congruence in the Post-Genomic Era," Genome Biology and Evolution, Vol. 3: 571-587 (2011).

[15.] Bapteste et al., "Networks: expanding evolutionary thinking," Trends in Genetics, Vol. 29: 439-41 (2013).

[16.] Graham Lawton, "Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life," New Scientist (January 21, 2009).

[17.] W. Ford Doolittle, "Phylogenetic Classification and the Universal Tree," Science, Vol. 284: 2124-2128 (June 25, 1999).

[18.] Partly quoting Eric Bapteste, in Lawton, "Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life," (internal quotations omitted).

[19.] Partly quoting Michael Syvanen, in Lawton, "Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life," (internal quotations omitted).

[20.] Michael Syvanen, quoted in Lawton, "Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life."


[21.] Trisha Gura, "Bones, Molecules or Both?," Nature, Vol. 406: 230-233 (July 20, 2000).

File under 'well said' IX

Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.
Booker T. Washington

For a steal of deal check your local Darwinian marketer.

ow to Make Your Theory of Evolution Look Amazing in 5 Days"

David Klinghoffer September 24, 2015 2:49 PM

Our friend the mathematician Granville Sewell noted here the other dayhow refreshing it would be if biology textbooks honestly granted that Darwinian theory, even if correct as a sufficient explanation of life's diversity and grandeur, nevertheless strains credibility at first glance. True, that would be a step in the right direction.

But I would add that, after all, evolution is not merely a subject of neutral, disinterested intellectual inquiry. It's a product that many advocates are out to sell to a public of largely unwilling buyers. Turning evolution into a must-have consumer good is a top priority. In that context, you don't admit up front that your theory, immediately upon hearing it, faces obvious problems of believability.

How can Darwin defenders up their game? Via the Internet, of course. A friend points out that there are actually a variety of sites that help web marketers find the best phrases to unload their merchandise. Over atTweakYourBiz.com, for example, I entered "theory of evolution" and got some outstanding results. Some are wonderful, others surprisingly dead on.

Try these on for size, National Center for Science Education:

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Remember, these are not intended as parodies. The scary thing is that some of them don't read that way, either. You'll find articles in high-end mainstream popular science media that say much the same things, to much the same ends, with just slightly more elegant headlines.

So much mutating/so little time

Waiting for Mutations: Why Darwinism Won't Work
Ann Gauger September 23, 2015 10:33 AM

Many scientists now recognize the insufficiency of the classic Darwinian story to account for the appearance of new features or innovations in the history of life. They focus on other theories to account for remarkable differences between genomes, the appearance of novel body plans, and genuine innovations like the bat's wing, the mammalian placenta, the vertebrate eye, or insect flight, for example. They realize that the traditional story of population genetics (changes in allele frequencies in populations due to mutation, selection, and drift) cannot account for "the arrival of the fittest" and not just the "survival of the fittest." (Hugo DeVries, 1904).

One of the reasons many scientists acknowledge the insufficiency of Darwinism is because they know the accounting won't work. The mutation rate, the generation times, the strength of selection versus genetic drift, the population sizes, and the time available don't match up.

For example, supposedly humans last shared common ancestry with chimps about six million years ago. Since that time, we have accumulated significant differences with chimps -- genetic, anatomical, physiological, behavioral, and intellectual differences, among others. The genetic differences between humans and chimps are much more than the (shrinking) 1.2 percent difference in base pairs that is so often quoted in the media. Add small insertions and deletions and the differences climb to about 3-5 percent, depending on whose estimate is used. Add another 2.7 percent for large scale duplications or deletions, another 6 percent for new Alu elements (a kind of mobile genetic element) and some unknown number for rearrangements of the DNA, other insertions of mobile genetic elements, or new genes, we have more than 11.7 percent of our genome with unique features not present in chimps.

There is only so much time for these differences to have accumulated. Mutations arise and are propagated from generation to generation, so the number of generations limits how many mutations can accumulate. The estimated mutation rate is about 10-8 per base pairs per generation, and we have an average generation time of somewhere between 10 and 25 years. Our estimated breeding population size six million years ago is thought to have been about 10,000 (these are all rough estimates based on numbers currently in use -- see the papers cited below). Based on these numbers, one can estimate how many years it would take to acquire all those mutations, assuming every mutation that occurred was saved, and stored up.

But there's a difficulty -- it's called genetic drift. In small populations, like the 10,000 estimate above, mutations are likely to be lost and have to reoccur many times before they actually stick. Just because of random effects (failure to reproduce due to accidental death, infertility, not finding a mate, or the death of all one's progeny), a particular neutral mutation may have to arise many times before it becomes established in the population, and then many more years before it finally becomes fixed (that is, before it takes over the population and replaces all other versions).

How long before a single, new mutation appears and becomes fixed? An estimate from a recent paper using numerical simulations is 1.5 million years. That is within the range of possibility. But what if two specific mutations are needed to effect a beneficial change? Their estimate is 84 million years. Other scientists have done this calculation using analytical methods, but their numbers are even worse. One report calculates 6 million years for one specific base change in an eight base target typical of the size of a DNA binding site to fix, and 100 million years to get two specific mutations. (That work was later amended to 216 million years.) Extrapolating from other published data merely confirms the problem.

Another paper came up with much shorter time frames by assuming that any 5 to 10 base pair binding site could arise anywhere within 1 Kb of any promoter within the genome.

Yet in all likelihood many more than two binding sites would be required to change anything significant, and those binding sites must be appropriate in location and in sequence to accomplish the necessary changes. They must work together in order for a specific adaptive change to happen.

Genes operate in networks, and to shift a gene regulatory network would require many mutations, and not just random ones. Remember there are anatomical physiological, behavioral, and intellectual differences to explain, multiple traits each requiring multiple coordinated mutations. Unless one invokes luck on a large scale, those traits would not have come to be.


I'm not betting on luck.

Darwinism Vs. the real world XIII

Controlling Blood Pressure Requires an Irreducibly Complex System:
Howard Glicksman September 22, 2015 12:32 PM

Editor's note: Physicians have a special place among the thinkers who have elaborated the argument for intelligent design. Perhaps that's because, more than evolutionary biologists, they are familiar with the challenges of maintaining a functioning complex system, the human body. With that in mind, Evolution News & Views is delighted to present this series, "The Designed Body." Dr. Glicksman practices palliative medicine for a hospice organization.

The body is a multi-cellular organism that requires the circulation of blood within its cardiovascular system to give its cells what they need to live, grow, and work properly.

In the last article in this series, I explained what blood pressure is -- the force that blood exerts against the walls of the large systemic arteries as it flows through them.

Since blood has mass, its flow within the body is prevented by natural forces such as inertia, vascular resistance and gravity. The heart pumps the blood throughout the circulatory system and it is the blood pressure that represents the driving force for blood flow. When the left ventricle contracts, it pumps more blood into the systemic arteries, which causes the blood pressure to rise to a maximum, called the systolic pressure.

During diastole, while the heart is relaxed, the blood in the large systemic arteries rebounds back and forth between the arterioles and the closed aortic valve as some of it makes its way into the capillaries within the tissues. This causes the blood pressure to slowly drop, reaching its nadir just before systole and is called the diastolic pressure.

The three main factors that affect the blood pressure are the cardiac output, the blood volume and its distribution within the cardiovascular system, and the peripheral vascular resistance of the arterioles. In general, the more cardiac output, blood in the arteries, and peripheral vascular resistance, the higher the blood pressure and the less cardiac output, blood in the arteries and peripheral vascular resistance, the lower the blood pressure.

Life is a dynamic process in which the physiological functions of the body are always in a state of flux. Evolutionary biologists claim to have explained how human life has come about, but they only describe how it looks. What about how it actually works within the laws of nature to survive? Think about it. You are always on the move: going from lying down to sitting and standing up, from walking to running and jumping, from crouching and crawling to kneeling. All of these changes in position affect the blood pressure and how effective the cardiovascular system is in giving the tissues what they need to live and work properly. That's what the bodies of our earliest ancestors would need to have been able to do to survive. I will now look at some of the ways that the body takes control to maintain an adequate blood pressure.

Three of the most important chemicals involved in blood pressure control have already been mentioned within another context in previous articles. Norepinephrine and epinephrine, the neurohormones of the sympathetic nervous system, act quickly, within a split second. Angiotensin II, a hormone that comes about from the action of renin, secreted by the kidneys, and Anti-Diuretic Hormone, sent out by the posterior pituitary gland, are slower and usually act within a few minutes. It is important to realize that the effects of these chemicals is limited to only several minutes which allows the body to maintain moment to moment control of its blood pressure. The sensors, integrators and effectors that make up each of the systems for these chemicals to affect blood pressure will be looked at one at a time below.

There are sensors located in the main arteries directly supplying blood to the brain, which can detect wall distension. These are the baroreceptors, which by sensing the stretching within the arterial walls are able to detect the arterial blood pressure. They are a type of mechanoreceptor that senses movement, in contrast to the chemoreceptors which detect chemicals like oxygen, carbon dioxide and hydrogen ion. The baroreceptors send their data on the blood pressure by way of nerves to the brain. The brain integrates this information, and if the blood pressure is too low, it causes the release of more norepinephrine and epinephrine from the sympathetic nerves. By attaching to specific receptors, increased sympathetic stimulation affects all three of the factors mentioned above, which makes the blood pressure rise.

As noted previously, it makes the heart pump harder and faster, which increases the cardiac output. In addition, it causes the kidneys to absorb more Na+ ions and more water by the release of more ADH, which increases the blood volume. It also stimulates the systemic veins to send more blood back into the systemic arteries. Finally, it tells the muscles surrounding the arterioles to contract more which increases the peripheral vascular resistance. All of these actions combine to increase the blood pressure. However, if the blood pressure is where it should be or higher than normal, the sympathetic system releases less of these neurohormones, usually at only a basal rate.

As we've already seen, there are wall motion sensors located within specialized cells within the kidneys where the blood enters to be filtered. These sensory cells release a hormone, called renin, in an amount that is inversely related to how much wall motion they detect. The more the walls stretch, the less renin is sent out, and the less the walls stretch, the more renin is sent out. Renin is an enzyme that starts a chemical reaction which results in the formation of a hormone called angiotensin II. By attaching to specific receptors, angiotensin II affects two of the three factors that make blood pressure rise.

First, it causes the body to take in more salt and water and the kidneys to hold onto more as well. All of these actions increase the blood volume. And second, as its name denotes, angiotensin II makes the muscles surrounding the arterioles constrict, causing a rise in the peripheral vascular resistance. In fact, it is the most powerful vasconstrictor in the body, even more than norepinephine. Both of these actions make the blood pressure rise.

The osmoreceptors in the hypothalamus, which detect the water content of the body, are shrink sensitive and affect the release of ADH. The less water in the body, the more they shrink, and the more ADH they cause to be sent out by the posterior pituitary gland. And the more water in the body, the less they shrink and the less ADH is sent out. By attaching to specific receptors ADH affects two of the three factors that impact the blood pressure. More ADH causes the body to take in more water and the kidneys to bring back more from the urine in production, all of which increases blood volume. Another name for ADH is, vasopressin, which like norepinephrine and angiotensin II increases the peripheral vascular resistance by making the muscles surrounding the arterioles contract more as well. Both of these actions increase the blood pressure.

Each of the three systems mentioned above have their own sensors, integrators, and specific receptors, while using the same effectors to affect blood pressure. Dr. Michael Behe would call each of these systems irreducibly complex because without any one component, each system would fail and life would be impossible. But to anyone who has ever had a momentary feeling of dizziness on standing up, this experience tells us that just trying to explain the simultaneous development of each of these systems, or all of them at once, as difficult as that may be, should not be enough. For, when it comes to life, and being able to stand up to gravity, real numbers have real consequences.

Evolutionary biologists seek to tell us how life came into being. Yet they only even purport to explain how the different parts of the body supposedly came together -- without considering how biological function must also meet specific numerical benchmarks to work within the laws of nature. Maybe that's why the famous British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge was quoted as saying, "I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has."


With that in mind, next time we'll look at how, where blood pressure is concerned, the numbers must be just right for us to stay standing.

The menace of 'settled science'.

From the Folks Who Brought You Camels and Lucky Strikes: "Consensus"
Bruce Chapman May 5, 2015 6:56 PM 

Spend some time with old issues of TimeMagazine or Look circa 1950 and you'll find ad after ad touting the doctors who smoke Camels or Lucky Strikes ("More Doctors Smoke Camels than Any Other Cigarette"). The PR agencies surveyed the doctors, sometimes counting hundreds of thousands of them, then advised readers that such and such brand was "not irritating on the throat," was "soothing," and other euphemisms for scientific approval of what turned out to be a deadly product.
Most doctors smoked in those days. There was a kind of consensus that smoking was okay, especially if you bought a particular brand, one with filters, perhaps. That the incidence of lung and throat cancer was rocketing didn't register fully on medical practitioners for a long while. The connection with heart disease also was missed.
All those doctors testifying on behalf of cigarettes didn't matter to the truth, did it? The cigarette makers did not exactly announce a scientific consensus, but they implied it.
History tells repeatedly of scientific consensus or implications of same that were driven by self-interest, expedience, groupthink, or just plain ignorance. As SUNY brain surgeon Michael Egnor notes, the consensus is for man-made global warming (aka, climate change), Darwinian evolution, and whatever the latest fad headline attests that "Scientists Say." In the case of forensic science and the FBI, it has turned into a scandal.
But such is the prestige of scientists that you will hunt hard for universities that tolerate contrarian views on politically delicate science issues, or will even allow debate. But the careful reader can find out for himself.

Figuratively speaking, put out that cigarette.

The menace of 'settled science'. II

"Ninety-five Percent of Forensic Scientists Agree..."
Michael Egnor May 5, 2015 3:12 PM



 Firedoglake, on the scandal involving forensic science and the FBI:

In a stunning revelation the FBI has admitted that it provided flawed forensic testimony on hundreds of cases in the two decades prior to the year 2000. The FBI forensic experts falsely stated forensic matches that favored prosecutors 95% of the time in the over 200 cases reviewed so far.
In 14 of the cases the FBI experts offered that flawed testimony in the defendants have either died in prison or been executed. Four previous defendants have been exonerated so far thanks to new reviews of FBI forensic testimony...
The misleading testimony of the forensic scientists was pervasive:
The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000. Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory's microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far...
This scandal is of extraordinary importance, yet I suggest that its importance is generally misunderstood.
It is clearly a scandal involving the criminal justice system; the false testimony of these scientists has sent innocent men to prison and possibly to death. Yet it is only secondarily a scandal of the criminal justice system.
It is primarily a scandal of the scientific community. The testimony clearly reflected a consensus within the community of forensic scientists who testify for the FBI. The fundamental scandal is that the FBI took scientists at their word --that their scientific findings were consensus science, and therefore good science.
In the courtroom, scientists favored the prosecution (their employer) 95 percent of the time. This echoes government-funded global warming scientists' claim that "97% of climate scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is occurring."
The parallel to the controversy about global warming and Darwinian biology is striking. Many climate scientists demand that we restructure the world economy and even world governance according to "consensus climate science," and many evolutionary biologists insist that it is the scientific consensus that Darwinian mechanisms explain all biological adaptation and that this consensus precludes discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory in schools.
No doubt the forensic scientists insisted, as climate scientists and evolutionary biologists still insist, that their findings were facts, and that there is a scientific consensus to support their proclamations. No doubt defense experts were labeled deniers (or the forensic equivalent) for questioning the consensus science, just as skeptical climate scientists and biologists are labeled "deniers" for asking probing questions about climate science and evolutionary biology.
Consensus climate science and consensus evolutionary biology are no more credible than consensus forensic science. If anything, forensic scientists' ethical standards are higher than those of climate scientists and evolutionary biologists, who don't proclaim their theories in situations in which life and freedom are immediately at stake, who are unaccountable to the justice system, and who aren't under oath when they make their proclamations about scientific unanimity.
This lesson is clear: consensus science isn't science. Consensus science is groupthink, ideology-mongering, and censorship masquerading as science. Science is a continuous process of inquiry. We should reject "consensus science" in the courtroom, in the classroom, and in the public square.