Past the hand waving at the engineering of the nuclear membrane

What It Takes to Build a Nuclear Membrane
Evolution News & Views

In the cartoon depictions of cells we often see, the nucleus looks about as complicated as a balloon. It's drawn as a thin membrane bubble surrounding the chromosomes. The balloon pops when the cell divides, then the cell blows new balloons around each daughter cell's DNA. What could be simpler?

Authors in Current Biology give a reality check by describing in detail the structure of the nuclear membrane. It's mind-boggling how sophisticated it is -- and they don't even get into the most mind-boggling part: the nuclear pore complexes that let cargo in and out. (At the risk of redlining the boggle-meter, we'll save that subject for another time.)

In their "Quick Guide to Lamins," Wei Xie and Brian Burke introduce us to the complexities of the critically important proteins that make up the nuclear membrane. First of all, what are lamins?

Lamins are structural proteins of the nuclear envelope that are unique to metazoans. Coelenterates, such as hydra, and the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans contain only a single lamin gene. Drosophila has two lamin genes and mammals have three. The lamin genes encode a repertoire of proteins that is augmented by alternative splicing. [Emphasis added.]
So right off the bat, only multicellular animals have lamin genes and proteins. Lamins are among the numerous new cell products, tissues, and organs that appeared without ancestors at the Cambrian explosion. This is confirmed by a 2012 paper that tries to describe the "Evolution of the lamin protein family":

The lamin/IF protein family seems to be restricted to the metazoans. In general, invertebrate genomes harbor only a single lamin gene encoding a B-type lamin. The archetypal lamin gene structure found in basal metazoans is conserved up to the vertebrate lineage.
This distinction with metazoans is curious, since all eukaryotes have a nucleus. Another 2012 paper claims to have found a "lamin-like" protein in a slime mold, but here in 2016, Xie and Burke make no mention of it, suggesting it isn't commonly thought of as an evolutionary precursor (and it just pushes the question further back: where did the slime mold get it?).

Development

The lamins represent the founding members of the intermediate filament (IF) superfamily, and are classed as type V IF proteins. Like all IF proteins, each of the lamins features a globular aminoterminal head domain followed by a central alpha-helical coiled-coil domain. This terminates in a second globular region that has at its core an immunoglobulin fold. In contrast to cytoplasmic IF proteins, each of the lamins contains a nuclear localization sequence that lies just downstream of the coiled-coil domain and is essential for directing the lamins into the nucleus, where they assemble into the nuclear lamina, a protein meshwork that is intimately associated with the nuclear face of the inner nuclear membrane (INM).
They have a zip-code tag that directs them to the nucleus, where they assemble into a meshwork. The membrane has layers: an inner membrane, an outer membrane, and an inter-membrane space. But that is only the beginning. Since mammal lamins are much more complicated and poorly understood, the authors talk about frog lamins, where scientists have been able to tease out some of the details.

Structure

Lamins "spontaneously assemble" into an "orthogonal network" of half-staggered filaments. At least that's what they do in a petri dish. Undoubtedly the process is more involved in the living cell, because "Numerous nuclear pore complexes are associated with this filament meshwork."

Function

Lamins provide both strength and flexibility to the nuclear membrane, and are responsive to the environment. If your lamins are working, be thankful. Bad things happen when they don't.

Forming a 10-20 nm filamentous layer beneath the INM, the mammalian nuclear lamina provides mechanical strength to the nuclear envelope. The nuclei of fibroblasts deficient in A-type lamins lose their normally smooth and round shape; instead irregularities, often severe, are observed. These irregularities are frequently associated with the appearance of nuclear membrane blebs and transient ruptures of the nuclear envelope (Figure 1). Intriguingly, motile cells and cells growing on rigid substrates upregulate A-type lamin expression. Conversely, cells on deformable substrates have reduced A-type lamin expression. It is likely that these differences represent a mechanism by which cells can adapt to changes in mechanical forces transmitted to the nucleus via the cytoskeleton....
It turns out that lamins are in communication with the cytoplasm and the outside world. And that's not all; they communicate with the inside of the nucleus as well:

In addition to their direct structural supporting functions, lamins associate with a number of other nuclear envelope components, including nuclear pore complexes and LINC (linker of the nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton) complexes. The latter are composed of SUN domain proteins in the INM and the KASH proteins in the outer nuclear membrane (ONM). These proteins establish transluminal interactions within the perinuclear space, the gap that separates the INM and ONM. Through this interaction, SUN-KASH pairs represent links in a molecular chain that spans both nuclear membranes and physically couples the lamina and other nuclear structures to the cytoskeleton. In this way, LINC complexes may have essential roles in nuclear migration/ positioning and mechanotransduction in both health and disease.
The whole "balloon" that appeared so simple at the beginning is composed of several complexes in three layers, with parts that communicate longitudinally and parts that communicate transversely. All of this communicates with the meshwork outside the nucleus, the cytoskeleton. And besides all that, lamins are important players in what goes on inside the nucleus: so much so, that your lifespan might depend on what these proteins do.

It is clear that perturbations in nuclear lamina structure can strongly influence chromatin organization. This may lead to genome-wide changes in replication and transcription activities. As an example, 3D-SIM has revealed that 50% or more of telomeres are associated with the nuclear lamina. The interplay between telomeres and A-type lamins, in conjunction with lamina-associated polypeptide 2-alpha (LAP2-alpha), is thought to regulate cell proliferation and longevity.
Speaking of longevity, there's a strange and highly upsetting genetic disease called progeria. It turns kids old before their time; often they die of "old age" in their teens. That is an example of a laminopathy, one of two dozen lamin disorders that cause severe disability or death. A single point mutation in one lamin gene can cause progeria. Others cause muscular dystrophy or nerve damage, if the individual even survives to birth.

Final Thoughts

We've taken a brief look at proteins that appeared abruptly in the animal kingdom and remain highly conserved throughout life. Their amino acid sequences cannot tolerate mutations. They perform vital functions, both structurally and in interaction with other complexes. They have important roles in cell division and longevity. And these authors did not even get into the fantastic operation at mitosis, when this highly integrated membrane is systematically torn down and rebuilt in the two daughter cells in a matter of minutes.


In other words, one solution to simplistic speculation about evolution is to look closely at a particular phenomenon, with all its intricacies. The design is in the details.

Plankton takes the stand for design.

Oceans Full of Design
Evolution News & Views

Some look like miniature spaceships. Some look like tiny jewel boxes. Others look like miniature versions of shrimp. They constitute most of the biomass on the planet, regulate earth's carbon and oxygen, and provide food for fish, birds, and blue whales -- the largest animals to ever grace the earth. What are they? Collectively, we call them "plankton," a word meaning drifters. Such a catch-all term hardly does justice to their incredible diversity and importance to us all. A few recent papers are opening wider the black box of these wonderful plants (phytoplankton) and animals (zooplankton).

The Jewel Boxes: Diatoms

We discussed the diatoms and their delicate silica shells a couple of months ago, so we won't go into detail here. Suffice it to say that one of the papers we will look at confirms that these single-celled algae are useful as well as ornamental. "Among autotrophs, diatoms are commonly attributed to being important in carbon flux because of their large size and fast sinking rates."

The Spaceships: Rhizaria

Diatoms are not the only Baroque artists. Other microbes in the plankton community build even more elaborate 3-D shapes, notably the radiolarians and foraminifera. Not your ordinary amoebas, the Rhizaria share characteristics with the familiar blob-like protists, including pseudopodia, but they also construct "intricate mineral skeletal structures of opal (SiO2), celestite (SrSO4) or calcite (CaCO3)," David A. Caron says in Nature. Classification of these organisms continues to the present day.

Do you know the name and evolutionary affiliation of any of the most conspicuous groups of single-celled organisms in the world's oceans? Did you guess the Rhizaria, or one of the more familiar groups of plankton that make up this supergroup, such as the Radiolaria, Acantharia or Foraminifera? If you didn't, you're not alone -- until recently, neither did the vast majority of biological oceanographers. Biard et al. report on page 504 of this issue that the abundance and biomass of these enigmatic species in the ocean are much greater than previously recognized. In addition, Guidi et al. (page 465) reveal the extent of the Rhizaria's involvement in the export of carbon from the atmosphere to the ocean depths. [Emphasis added.]
Ernst Haeckel had many faults, but he provided one worthy achievement that continues to grace textbooks today. No, it's not his infamous embryos; it's a series of detailed drawings of Rhizarians he made from samples collected by the oceanic Challenger expedition of 1872-1876. The fantastic skeletons of these creatures have to be seen to be believed (searching on rhizaria+Haeckel quickly brings up the drawings). Caron shows a few of the colonial forms in his article. By "holding hands" with their pseudopodia, these animals can form large colonies. "Some species can even form cylindrical colonies approximately 1 cm in diameter and greater than 1 m in length," Caron notes.

While over-designed for Baroque symmetry and detail, Rhizarians are also useful. That's what Caron and the two papers he references focus on: "the vital export of carbon from upper ocean layers to the deep ocean." Without the help of these organisms reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide, where would the earth be today? And do they have to be so doggone beautiful to carry on that task? None of the papers explain how these amazing spaceships, cathedrals and geodesic domes evolved. To fill that gap, design scientists could take leadership over this vast research opportunity.

One of the reasons for their anonymity to oceanographers is the delicate morphologies of living specimens. These structures deteriorate badly as a result of the methods and preservatives that have routinely been used for collection and species identification. Some species contain no skeletal material, and in plankton samples their remains are often not recognizable. Substantial abundances of Rhizaria were detected by divers in the open ocean more than two decades ago, and are visible in earlier underwater images. However, truly global surveys have never been conducted.
The Mighty Migrating Micro-Shrimp

Illustra Media's documentary Flight: The Genius of Birds briefly mentions the annual bloom of plankton in the Weddell Sea that coincides with the arrival of the Arctic terns. In the bloom, the phytoplankton feed the zooplankton which set the table for birds, fish and mammals. Blue whales migrate to this Antarctic sea to scoop up the krill in their gigantic mouths.

Illustra's Design of Life films showcased the amazing animal migrations of butterflies, birds, salmon and sea turtles, but there are microscopic migrators you probably didn't know about. That's because scientists didn't know much about them, either. Among them are tiny shrimp-like crustaceans like copepods, amphipods and krill. Scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute discovered something amazing about these little guys. They migrate hundreds of meters almost every day. The scientists spent three years studying this phenomenon.

The daily vertical migration of zooplankton -- often crustaceans with body lengths ranging from millimetres to centimetres -- is mainly triggered by the day-night cycle. In order to escape potential predators, they dive into the dark depths at sunrise and stay there during the day. After sunset, they once again rise to the upper layers to feed where the sunlight has allowed planktonic algae to grow. Until now, only short time snippets of the migration pattern of the zooplankton in the Southern Ocean existed. Because of its seasonal sea ice cover, many areas are not accessible by ship during the southern winter. At this time of year, biological network samples can only be taken intermittently.
The current study is based on data that was collected during three Polarstern expeditions and with deep-sea moorings deployed in the Southern Ocean between 2005 and 2008 within the framework of the LAKRIS project (Lazarev Sea Krill Study). As part of this study ADCPs were moored at three different geographical locations along the Greenwich meridian; the ADCPs send out sound waves at fixed intervals and cover an up to 500 metres deep water layer under the surface. While the strength of the echo provides information about the concentration of the zooplankton, the migration velocity can be calculated based on the Doppler shift of the sound frequency.

It was a pretty clever method of data collection. The only times crustaceans don't make the daily trip is during the spring bloom when their algae prey are so abundant, they need not worry about predators; or else, possibly, the predators can't see them as well at that season. Regardless, they don't seem to be passively riding currents, because the migration is timed to the threat and can be switched off.

As the Illustra films demonstrated, any migration requires navigation, energy planning and timing. To migrate 500 meters every day is a big task for a 5-millimeter animal. That's roughly 100,000 body lengths, like swimming 10 marathons a day. How do they do it? Is there an ID researcher that would like to explore these uncharted waters?

Final Thoughts

We've taken a brief look at microscopic organisms with a big job: regulating the carbon and oxygen cycles of the whole planet. They're implicated in nitrogen and phosphorus regulation as well. How did the earth get along before these amazing creatures "evolved"? Don't ask the evolutionists, because they didn't say.


Here's what makes earth stand out from all the exoplanets that the Kepler spacecraft is finding. It's not just water. It's not just air. Only the earth, as far as we know, is filled with functioning creatures that do what they do because of complex specified information -- the hallmark of intelligent design.

In defense of commonsense re:the design debate

Book by Douglas Axe Shows the Key to Understanding Origins Is the "Design Intuition" -- Pre-Order Now!
Evolution News & Views 

A remarkable thing about evolutionary theory is the way it demands that we deny our intuition at almost every step. Evolutionists then assure us that the science is all figured out, so we needn't trouble our silly heads about the relevant biology.

In a new book, Douglas Axe of Biologic Institute turns this standard assurance on its head. In Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed, Dr. Axe restores the place of intuition alongside intellect in considering the question of life's origins.


Undeniable will be published on July 12 by HarperOne, but you can pre-order before then and participate in an exclusive, private conference call with Dr. Axe and talk- show host Michael Medved. You'll also receive digital versions of three complete books from Discovery Institute Press: Debating Darwin's Doubt, The Unofficial Guide to Cosmos, and Science & Human Origins. See here for easy instructions.Throughout his distinguished and unconventional career, engineer-turned-molecular-biologist Axe has been asking the questions that much of the scientific community would rather silence. Now, he presents his conclusions in this brave and pioneering book. Axe argues that the key to understanding our origin is the "design intuition" -- the innate belief held by all humans that tasks we would need knowledge to accomplish can only be accomplished by someone who has that knowledge. For the ingenious task of inventing life, this knower can only be God.

Starting with the hallowed halls of academic science, Axe dismantles the widespread belief that Darwin's theory of evolution is indisputably true, showing instead that a gaping hole has been at its center from the beginning. He then explains in plain English the science that proves our design intuition scientifically valid. Lastly, he uses everyday experience to empower ordinary people to defend their design intuition, giving them the confidence and courage to explain why it has to be true and the vision to imagine what biology will become when people stand up for this truth.

Armed with that confidence, readers will affirm what once seemed obvious to all of us -- that living creatures, from single-celled cyanobacteria to orca whales and human beings, are brilliantly conceived, utterly beyond the reach of accident.

Our intuition was right all along.

Douglas Axe is the director of Biologic Institute. His research uses both experiments and computer simulations to examine the functional and structural constraints on the evolution of proteins and protein systems. After a Caltech PhD he held postdoctoral and research scientist positions at the University of Cambridge, the Cambridge Medical Research Council Centre, and the Babraham Institute in Cambridge.

His work and ideas have been featured in many scientific journals, including the Journal of Molecular Biology, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Nature, and in such books as Signature in the Cell and Darwin's Doubt by Stephen Meyer and Life's Solution by Simon Conway Morris.

On surviving the Darwinian inquisition.

World Magazine Tells David Coppedge's Powerful Story

David Klinghoffer 

I had the privilege of getting to know David Coppedge a few years ago, leading up to the shameful resolution of his 2012 discrimination case against NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. His story is among those that remind us intelligence design isn't only a scientific issue but one with serious civil rights implications as well.

See here for more background on the Coppedge case. In brief, the mild-mannered team lead computer administrator on the Cassini Mission to Saturn was viciously punished by JPL supervisors. His offense? Sharing information about ID, all in the most respectful, appropriate manner. Now his persecution and its aftermath are recounted in a moving article in World Magazine ("After a fiery trial").

Take a moment and read it. I'm glad to have stayed in touch with Coppedge since the court case in Los Angeles, so I'm familiar with some of what's related here. To call his experiences dramatic is an understatement. Here's how it began:

When JPL hired Coppedge in 1996 as a computer system administrator to help with the Cassini mission to Saturn (described by NASA as "the most ambitious effort in planetary space exploration ever mounted"), he was thrilled to land his dream job: Here he was, at the heart of cutting-edge science -- probing the heavens, discovering the great unknown, making history. As team lead, he constantly tried to excite his team members with the awareness they were part of something extraordinary.

He also occasionally offered DVDs about intelligent design to co-workers whom he knew. His goal wasn't to proselytize, he says, but to stir conversations, because "if the Darwinian picture is flawed, people ought to know the facts." He had one co-worker who would talk frequently about his interest in photography -- so why not share his own interest in the origin of life? If anyone expressed disinterest, he says, he immediately backed down. So Coppedge was flabbergasted when his supervisor told him "a number of people" had complained that he was "pushing religion" during work hours. His demotion came a month later.

There ensues the court battle, punctuated by mysterious debilitating headaches, a struggle with cancer, spiritual trial and renewal, even a near-deadly encounter with a flying insect. This is a remarkably resilient man. On top of everything else, his Facebook feed, which I follow, demonstrates his remarkable gifts as a nature photographer and his daring as an outdoorsman and adventurer across the wildernesses of the West.

His story has a happy ending, but then so does the Book of Job.

The thumb print of Jehovah II

The thumb print of Jehovah III

The thumb print of jehovah IV

File under "well said" XXV

God said: you must teach, as I taught, without a fee.
The Talmud

A clash of titans XVII

Modi's India at the edge of fascism?Pros and Cons.

On not getting carried away by science hype.

Has Craig Venter Produced Artificial Life?
Jonathan Wells 


"Artificial life, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, has arrived." So proclaimed The Economist on May 20th, after a team of scientists headed by J. Craig Venter [2] announced that it had replaced the natural DNA in a bacterial cell with DNA they had artificially synthesized.

According to University of Pennsylvania philosopher and bioethicist Arthur Caplan, "Venter and his colleagues have shown that the material world can be manipulated to produce what we recognize as life. In doing so they bring to an end a debate about the nature of life that has lasted thousands of years. Their achievement undermines a fundamental belief about the nature of life that is likely to prove as momentous to our view of ourselves and our place in the Universe as the discoveries of Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein."

Whoa! Wait a minute!

What Venter and his team did was to determine the sequence of the DNA in one of the world's simplest bacteria, use the sequence information to synthesize a copy of that DNA from subunits sold by a biological supply company, then put the synthetic copy of DNA into a living bacterial cell from which the natural DNA had been removed.

As Nicholas Wade pointed out in The New York Times, Eckard Wimmer and his colleagues did something similar in 2002 by synthesizing poliovirus RNA. Wimmer and his colleagues then used that synthetic RNA to make functioning polioviruses. But viruses are not living cells. No one has ever been able to make a living cell from its DNA--not even Craig Venter.

A virus is just RNA or DNA in a protein capsule. The viral RNA or DNA can't make more of itself, nor can it make the capsule. Viral RNA or DNA must first be put into a living cell (or, in the case of Wimmer's experiment, into an extract carefully prepared from living cells), because only the cell (or its extract) contains the complex molecular machinery needed to make more RNA or DNA and to manufacture the protein capsule.

By themselves, however, RNA and DNA are biologically inert. Only a living cell is alive, and in our experience, life always comes from life. That's why spontaneous generation doesn't happen. That's why origin-of-life researchers have not even come close to solving their problem. And that's why Venter and his team couldn't create life; they had to start with it. There is much more to living cells--even relatively simple cells--than is dreamt of in Arthur Caplan's philosophy.

In contrast to Caplan's exaggerated claims, CalTech biologist and Nobel laureate David Baltimore said that Venter has "overplayed the importance" of his results, which represent "a technical tour de force" rather than a scientific breakthrough. Venter "has not created life, only mimicked it," Baltimore said.

Boston University bioengineer James Collins called Venter's work: 
an important advance in our ability to re-engineer organisms, not make new life from scratch. Frankly, scientists don't know enough about biology to create life. Although the Human Genome Project has expanded the parts list for cells, there is no instruction manual for putting them together to produce a living cell. It is like trying to assemble an operational jumbo jet from its parts list--impossible. Although some of us in synthetic biology have delusions of grandeur, our goals are much more modest.

These realistic assessments probably wouldn't impress the anonymous author of The Economist article. "Pedants may quibble," the writer complains, that "the researchers had to use the shell of an existing bug to get that DNA to do its stuff."

Shell? But oh, what an amazing shell it is! And from that shell of life, what discoveries may come? Ay, there's the rub.

On I.D and agreeing to disagree.

Debating Common Ancestry
John G. West 

As those of us at Discovery Institute have emphasized for a long time, intelligent design is not incompatible with the idea that living things share a common ancestor. In other words, one can believe that nature displays evidence of intentional design, and still believe in common descent.

Indeed, I would argue that one of the forebears of the modern intelligent design movement is none other than Alfred Russel Wallace, who is credited with Darwin as co-discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Wallace believed that nature displayed powerful evidence of design by an overruling intelligence. Today, Discovery Institute has a number of affiliated scholars who similarly affirm the idea of common descent, including biologist Michael Behe and geneticist Michael Denton. Denton makes his views clear in his book Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis, which Discovery Institute Press published earlier this year.

Of course, we have other affiliated scholars who are strongly critical of universal common descent, the claim that all living things are descended from one original primordial organism. I think that our diversity on this issue is a good thing.

You can see it on display in the recent, fascinating exchanges between ID proponents Cornelius Hunter (a biologist and Discovery Institute Fellow) and ID-supporter Vincent Torley, a gifted philosopher who writes at Uncommon Dissent. This type of robust exchange on the evidence for common descent is the sort of thing you would be hard pressed to find among supporters of modern Darwinism, either atheist or religious.

Although supporters of Darwinism typically try to claim the mantle of being fearless free-thinkers, many of them appear to have an exceptionally narrow tolerance for genuine diversity of thought, especially when it comes to allowing any debate on the scientific evidence relating to evolution. In my experience, this narrow tolerance for scientific debate relating to evolution is just as true among religious supporters of Darwin's theory as it is among secularists.


Indeed, I have come across many religious supporters of Darwin's theory who make common descent a litmus test on whether one is "anti-science" and who won't entertain any discussion of the scientific evidence. On this and other topics, I think it's the ID community that is showing the way.

The Watchtower Society's commentary on 1st and 2nd Kings

KINGS, BOOKS OF:

Books of the Holy Scriptures relating the history of Israel from the last days of King David until the release of King Jehoiachin from prison in Babylon.

Originally the two books of Kings comprised one roll called Kings (Heb., Mela·khimʹ), and in the Hebrew Bible today they are still counted as one book, the fourth in the section known as the Former Prophets. In the Greek Septuagint the Books of the Kings were called Third and Fourth Kingdoms, the Books of Samuel having been designated First and Second Kingdoms. In the Latin Vulgate these books were together known as the four books of Kings because Jerome preferred the name Regum (Kings), in harmony with the Hebrew title, to the literal translation of the Septuagint title Regnorum (Kingdoms). Division into two books in the Septuagint became expedient because the Greek translation with vowels required almost twice as much space as did Hebrew, in which no vowels were used until the second half of the first millennium of the Common Era. The division between Second Samuel and First Kings has not always been at the same place in the Greek versions. Lucian, for one, in his recension of the Septuagint, made the division so that First Kings commenced with what is 1 Kings 2:12 in our present-day Bibles.

Writing of the Books. Although the name of the writer of the books of Kings is not given in the two accounts, Scriptural indications and Jewish tradition point to Jeremiah. Many Hebrew words and expressions found in these two books appear elsewhere in the Bible only in Jeremiah’s prophecy. The books of Kings and the book of Jeremiah complement each other; events, as a rule, are briefly covered in one if they are fully described in the other. Absence of any mention of Jeremiah in the books of Kings, although he was a very prominent prophet, could be expected if Jeremiah was the writer, because his activities were detailed in the book bearing his name. The books of Kings tell of conditions in Jerusalem after the exile had begun, indicating that the writer had not been taken to Babylon, even as Jeremiah was not.—Jer 40:5, 6.

Some scholars see in the books of Kings what they consider to be evidence of the work of more than one writer or compiler. However, except for variation because of the sources used, it must be observed that the language, style, vocabulary, and grammar are uniform throughout.

First Kings covers a period of about 129 years, commencing with the final days of King David, about 1040 B.C.E., and running through to the death of Judean King Jehoshaphat in about 911 B.C.E. (1Ki 22:50) Second Kings begins with Ahaziah’s reign (c. 920 B.C.E.) and carries through to the end of the 37th year of Jehoiachin’s exile, 580 B.C.E., a period of about 340 years. (2Ki 1:1, 2; 25:27-30) Hence the combined accounts of the books of Kings cover about four and a half centuries of Hebrew history. As the events recorded therein include those up to 580 B.C.E., these books could not have been completed before this date, and because there is no mention of the termination of the Babylonian exile, they, as one roll, were undoubtedly finished before that time.

The place of writing for both books appears to have been, for the most part, Judah, because most of the source material would be available there. However, Second Kings was logically completed in Egypt, where Jeremiah was taken after the assassination of Gedaliah at Mizpah.—Jer 41:1-3; 43:5-8.

The books of Kings have always had a place in the Jewish canon and are accepted as canonical. There is good reason for this, because these books carry forward the development of the foremost Bible theme, the vindication of Jehovah’s sovereignty and the ultimate fulfillment of his purpose for the earth, by means of his Kingdom under Christ, the promised Seed. Moreover, three leading prophets, Elijah, Elisha, and Isaiah, are given prominence, and their prophecies are shown to have had unerring fulfillments. Events recorded in the books of Kings are referred to and elucidated elsewhere in the Scriptures. Jesus refers to what is written in these books three times—regarding Solomon (Mt 6:29), the queen of the south (Mt 12:42; compare 1Ki 10:1-9), and the widow of Zarephath and Naaman (Lu 4:25-27; compare 1Ki 17:8-10; 2Ki 5:8-14). Paul mentions the account concerning Elijah and the 7,000 men who did not bend the knee to Baal. (Ro 11:2-4; compare 1Ki 19:14, 18.) James speaks of Elijah’s prayers for drought and rain. (Jas 5:17, 18; compare 1Ki 17:1; 18:45.) These references to the actions of individuals described in the books of Kings vouch for the canonicity of these writings.

The books of Kings were largely compiled from written sources, and the writer shows clearly that he referred to these outside sources for some of his information. He refers to “the book of the affairs of Solomon” (1Ki 11:41), “the book of the affairs of the days of the kings of Judah” (1Ki 15:7, 23), and “the book of the affairs of the days of the kings of Israel” (1Ki 14:19; 16:14).

One of the oldest extant Hebrew manuscripts containing the books of Kings in full is dated 1008 C.E. The Vatican No. 1209 and the Alexandrine Manuscript contain the books of Kings (in Greek), but the Sinaitic Manuscript does not. Fragments of the books of Kings evidently dating from the B.C.E. period have been found in the Qumran caves.

The framework of these books shows that the writer or compiler gave pertinent facts about each king for the purpose of chronology and to reveal God’s estimate, favorable or unfavorable, of each king. The relationship of their reigns to the worship of Jehovah stands out as the most important factor. After considering the reign of Solomon, there is, with some exceptions, a general set pattern for describing each reign, as two parallel lines of history are interwoven. For the kings of Judah there is usually given first an introductory synchronism with the contemporaneous king of Israel, then the age of the king, the length of his reign, the place of rule, and the name and home of his mother, the latter being an item of interest and importance because at least some of the kings of Judah were polygamous. In concluding the account for each king, the source of the information, the burial of the king, and the name of his successor are given. Some of the same details are provided for each king of Israel, but the king’s age at the time of his accession and the name and home of his mother are not given. Information supplied in First and Second Kings has been very useful in the study of Bible chronology.—See CHRONOLOGY.

The books of Kings are more than just annals or a recital of events as in a chronicle. They report the facts of history with an explanation of their significance. Eliminated from the account, it seems, is anything that does not have direct bearing on the developing purpose of God and that does not illustrate the principles by which Jehovah deals with his people. The faults of Solomon and the other kings of Judah and Israel are not disguised but are related with the utmost candor.

Archaeological Evidence. The discovery of numerous artifacts has furnished certain confirmation that the books of Kings are historically and geographically accurate. Archaeology, as well as living proof today, confirms the existence of the cedar forests of Lebanon, from which Solomon obtained timbers for his building projects in Jerusalem. (1Ki 5:6; 7:2) Evidence of industrial activity has been found in the basin of the Jordan, where Succoth and Zarethan once stood.—1Ki 7:45, 46.

Shishak’s invasion of Judah in Rehoboam’s time (1Ki 14:25, 26) is confirmed by the Pharaoh’s own record on the walls of the temple of Karnak in Egypt. A black limestone obelisk of Assyrian King Shalmaneser III found at Nimrud in 1846 depicts perhaps an emissary of Jehu bowing before Shalmaneser, an incident that, though not mentioned in the books of Kings, adds testimony to the historicity of Israel’s King Jehu. The extensive building works of Ahab, including “the house of ivory that he built” (1Ki 22:39), are well attested by the ruins found at Samaria.

The Moabite Stone relates some of the events involved in King Mesha’s revolt against Israel, giving the Moabite monarch’s version of what took place. (2Ki 3:4, 5) This alphabetic inscription also contains the Tetragrammaton.

The name Pekah is found in an annalistic text credited to Tiglath-pileser III. (2Ki 15:27) The campaign of Tiglath-pileser III against Israel is mentioned in his royal annals and in an Assyrian building inscription. (2Ki 15:29) The name Hoshea has also been deciphered from inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser’s campaign.—2Ki 15:30; Ancient Near Eastern Texts, edited by J. Pritchard, 1974, pp. 282-284.

While some of Assyrian King Sennacherib’s engagements are mentioned in his annals, the angelic destruction of his army of 185,000 when it threatened Jerusalem is not mentioned (2Ki 19:35), and we would not expect to find in his boastful records an account of this overwhelming setback. Notable archaeological confirmation of the last statement in the books of Kings has been found in cuneiform tablets excavated at Babylon. These indicate that Jaʼukinu (Jehoiachin) was imprisoned in Babylon and mention that he was provided with rations from the royal treasury.—2Ki 25:30; Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 308.

Fulfillments of Prophecy. The books of Kings contain various prophecies and point to striking fulfillments. For example, 1 Kings 2:27 shows the fulfillment of Jehovah’s word against the house of Eli. (1Sa 2:31-36; 3:11-14) Prophecies regarding Ahab and his house were fulfilled. (Compare 1Ki 21:19-21 with 1Ki 22:38 and 2Ki 10:17.) What was foretold concerning Jezebel and her remains came true. (Compare 1Ki 21:23 with 2Ki 9:30-36.) And the facts of history confirm the veracity of the prophesied destruction of Jerusalem.—2Ki 21:13.

Among the many points highlighted in the books of Kings is the importance of adherence to Jehovah’s requirements and the dire consequences of ignoring his just laws. The two books of Kings forcefully verify the predicted consequences of both obedience and disobedience to Jehovah God.

[Box on page 171]

HIGHLIGHTS OF FIRST KINGS

A concise summary of the history of both the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel from the last days of David until the death of Jehoshaphat

Originally the first book of Kings was part of one scroll with Second Kings

Solomon is known for outstanding wisdom at the start of his rule, but he ends up in apostasy

Nathan, by decisive action, blocks Adonijah’s attempt to be king in Israel; Solomon is enthroned (1:5–2:12)

Asked by Jehovah what he desires, Solomon requests wisdom; he is additionally granted riches and glory (3:5-15)

Divinely given wisdom is evident in Solomon’s handling of the case of two prostitutes, each claiming to be the mother of the same baby boy (3:16-28)

King Solomon and Israel under his rule prosper; the king’s unparalleled wisdom is world famous (4:1-34; 10:14-29)

Solomon builds Jehovah’s temple and later a palace complex; then all the older men of Israel gather for the inauguration (5:1–8:66)

Jehovah sanctifies the temple, assures Solomon of permanence of the royal line, but warns against unfaithfulness (9:1-9)

The queen of Sheba comes to see Solomon’s wisdom and prosperity for herself (10:1-13)

In old age, Solomon is influenced by his many foreign wives and goes after foreign gods (11:1-8)

The nation is split in two; calf worship is instituted to prevent those in the northern kingdom from going up to Jerusalem

Because of Solomon’s apostasy, Jehovah foretells division of the nation (11:11-13)

After Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam threatens to impose a heavier yoke on the people; ten tribes revolt and make Jeroboam king (12:1-20)

Jeroboam establishes worship of golden calves in the northern kingdom to prevent his subjects from going to Jerusalem for worship and possibly wanting to reunite the kingdom (12:26-33)

The southern kingdom, Judah, has both good kings and bad ones

Rehoboam and Abijam after him allow detestable false worship (14:21-24; 15:1-3)

Abijam’s son Asa and his son Jehoshaphat actively promote true worship (15:9-15; 22:41-43)

The northern kingdom, Israel, is marred by power struggles, assassinations, and idolatry

Jeroboam’s son Nadab becomes king; Baasha assassinates him and seizes the throne (15:25-30)

Baasha’s son Elah succeeds to the throne and is assassinated by Zimri; Zimri commits suicide when facing defeat by Omri (16:6-20)

Omri’s victory leads to civil war; Omri finally triumphs, becomes king, and later builds Samaria; his sins are even worse than those of earlier kings (16:21-28)

Ahab becomes king and marries the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians; he introduces Baal worship into Israel (16:29-33)

Wars between Judah and Israel end with an alliance

Wars take place between Jeroboam and both Rehoboam and Abijam; Baasha fights against Asa (15:6, 7, 16-22)

Jehoshaphat makes an alliance with Ahab (22:1-4, 44)

Jehoshaphat and Ahab battle together against Ramoth-gilead; Ahab is killed (22:29-40)

Prophetic activity in Israel and Judah

Ahijah foretells ripping of ten tribes away from David’s house; later he proclaims Jehovah’s judgment against Jeroboam (11:29-39; 14:7-16)

Shemaiah conveys Jehovah’s word that Rehoboam and his subjects should not fight against the rebellious ten tribes (12:22-24)

A man of God announces Jehovah’s judgment against the altar for calf worship at Bethel (13:1-3)

Jehu the son of Hanani pronounces Jehovah’s judgment against Baasha (16:1-4)

Elijah foretells a prolonged drought in Israel; during the drought, he miraculously extends the food supply of a widow and resurrects her son (17:1-24)

Elijah proposes a test on Mount Carmel to determine who is the true God; when Jehovah is proved true, the Baal prophets are killed; Elijah flees for his life from Ahab’s wife Jezebel, but Jehovah sends Elijah to anoint Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha (18:17–19:21)

Micaiah foretells Ahab’s defeat in battle (22:13-28)

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HIGHLIGHTS OF SECOND KINGS

Continuation of the history of Judah and of Israel begun in First Kings; it reaches to the destruction of Samaria and then of Jerusalem, due to unfaithfulness

The writing of it was likely completed in Egypt about 27 years after Jerusalem’s destruction by Babylon

After Elijah, Elisha serves as Jehovah’s prophet

Elijah predicts Ahaziah’s death; he also calls down fire upon two disrespectful military chiefs and their companies of 50 sent to get the prophet (1:2-17)

Elijah is taken away in a windstorm; Elisha receives his official garment (2:1-13)

Elisha divides the Jordan and heals water in Jericho; his inspired advice saves the allied armies of Israel, Judah, and Edom from perishing for lack of water and results in defeat of Moabites; he increases a widow’s oil supply, resurrects a Shunammite woman’s son, renders poisonous stew harmless, multiplies a gift of bread and grain, heals Naaman of leprosy, announces that Naaman’s leprosy would come upon greedy Gehazi and his offspring, and causes a borrowed axhead to float (2:14–6:7)

Elisha warns the king of Israel in advance of surprise attacks by the Syrians; a Syrian force comes to seize him but is stricken with temporary mental blindness; the Syrians besiege Samaria, and Elisha is blamed for the resulting famine; he foretells the end of the famine (6:8–7:2)

The commission given to Elijah is completed when Elisha tells Hazael that he will become king of Syria and sends a messenger to anoint Jehu as king over Israel (8:7-13; 9:1-13)

Jehu acts against Ahab’s house, eradicating Baal worship from Israel (9:14–10:28)

Elisha, on his deathbed, is visited by Jehu’s grandson King Jehoash; he foretells three victories over Syria (13:14-19)

Israel’s disrespect for Jehovah leads to exile in Assyria

The calf worship started by Jeroboam continues during the reigns of Jehu and his offspring—Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, and Zechariah (10:29, 31; 13:6, 10, 11; 14:23, 24; 15:8, 9)

During Israel’s final days, King Zechariah is assassinated by Shallum, Shallum by Menahem, Menahem’s son Pekahiah by Pekah, and Pekah by Hoshea (15:8-30)

During Pekah’s reign, Tiglath-pileser III, king of Assyria, exiles many Israelites; in the ninth year of Hoshea, Samaria is destroyed and Israel is taken into exile because of disrespecting Jehovah; Israel’s territory is populated by other peoples (15:29; 17:1-41)

Religious reforms in Judah bring no lasting change; Babylon destroys Jerusalem and takes God’s people into exile

Jehoram of Judah marries Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel; Jehoram apostatizes, as does his son Ahaziah after him (8:16-27)

When Ahaziah dies, Athaliah tries to kill off the seed of David so that she herself can rule; Jehoash, son of Ahaziah, is rescued by his aunt and eventually made king; Athaliah is killed (11:1-16)

As long as High Priest Jehoiada lives and advises him, Jehoash restores true worship, but ‘sacrificing on the high places’ persists during his reign and that of his successors—Amaziah, Azariah (Uzziah), and Jotham (12:1-16; 14:1-4; 15:1-4, 32-35)

Jotham’s son Ahaz practices idolatry; Ahaz’ son Hezekiah makes good reforms, but these are undone by the subsequent bad reigns of Manasseh and Amon (16:1-4; 18:1-6; 21:1-22)

Amon’s son Josiah undertakes firm measures to rid the land of idolatry; he is killed in a battle with Pharaoh Nechoh (22:1–23:30)


Judah’s last four kings are unfaithful: Josiah’s son Jehoahaz dies in captivity in Egypt; Jehoahaz’ brother Jehoiakim reigns after him; Jehoiakim’s son and successor Jehoiachin is carried into Babylonian exile; Jehoiakim’s brother Zedekiah reigns until Jerusalem is conquered by the Babylonians and most survivors of the conquest are taken into exile (23:31–25:21)

The real world continues to school scientists.

Why Does Biology Still Have the Ability to Surprise Us?
Ann Gauger 

About forty years ago, a biochemistry professor told my class that now that the genetic code had been worked out and the lac operon discovered, the only thing left for us students was to work out the details. Boy, was he wrong!

If there's one thing I've learned over the last forty years, it is that every ten years or so the biological apple cart is upset, and a long-established "fact," an assumption based on incomplete knowledge, is proven to be wrong.

I am sure you can find textbooks that still include some of these old "facts." Below is a partial list of those assumptions that have had to be revised, and some that are still under discussion.

1. Old fact: DNA is stable and genes don't hop around.

New discovery: Mobile genetic elements can hop from place to place in the DNA, duplicating themselves and changing gene expression. Sometimes they carry surrounding genes with them.

2. New "old" fact: Mobile genetic elements are selfish DNA that replicate themselves without benefit to the organism, thus cluttering the genome with garbage.

New discovery: Mobile genetic elements appear to be involved in the regulation of many important genes, and their distribution in the genome is nonrandom.

3. Old fact: A gene is an uninterrupted stretch of DNA that encodes a single protein. Genes are arranged like beads on a string.

New discovery: Genes in eukaryotes are interrupted, sometimes multiple times, by non-coding sequences called introns. The introns get spliced out of the messenger RNA before the message is translated. Because of splicing, one gene can produce many different but related proteins.

New discovery: Genes can overlap one another on the same stretch of DNA, on the same strand or on opposite strands. Thus one piece of DNA can produce multiple different proteins.

Take home message: 1 stretch of DNA ? 1 gene ? 1 protein

4. Old fact: There are only 3 forms of RNA: messenger RNA, transfer RNA, and ribosomal RNA.

New discovery: New classes of short and long RNA transcripts serve to regulate gene expression.

5. Old fact: Pseudogenes are useless broken remnants of former genes.

New discovery: Not all pseudogenes are useless. Pseudogenes can be transcribed, and their products can be used to regulate the expression of their full-length sister genes. Related to #4.

6. Old fact: The genome is full of junk, the remnants of wasteful evolutionary processes and selfish DNA (see #1, #2 and #5 above).

New discovery: "Junk" DNA isn't junk after all. It has many important regulatory functions in the cell.

Revolutionary discoveries like these often happen when someone tries something new, stumbles across some contrary evidence, and begins to question the validity of an established "fact." The results have been astonishing -- and have even won the Nobel Prize. Because of these discoveries we have gained a new and better, though still imperfect understanding of biology.

Why should we still have the "facts" wrong? After all, we've been studying biology for sixty years after the discovery of DNA's structure, and 50 years after the code was worked out.

Perhaps a better question would be, "Why does biology have the ability to surprise us?" It's because life is much more sophisticated than anything we can imagine. We look at biology from our very limited perspective, and at almost every turn we are puzzled or amazed. You can even read it in the understated, carefully couched language of published articles, where words like "surprising" or "unexpected" appear often.

Remember that biochemistry professor who claimed that all the important work in biology was done? He also said we'd never find gears or wheels in biology. Poor guy!

You'd think that scientists would be more cautious about our pronouncements if we can be so wrong. But we are only human, like everyone else, and our accepted "facts" are often deeply entrenched in our thinking. In truth, though, only one rock solid "fact" exists -- that some time in the not too distant future a strongly held "fact" will be proven mistaken.


Like Darwinian evolution, perhaps?

Unhyped.

Richard Lenski and Citrate Hype -- Now Deflated
Michael Behe 

Dishonesty comes in degrees, from the white lie told to spare another's feelings to criminal fraud for one's own financial gain. Somewhere in the middle lies hype in science. Certainly a bit of innocent, accentuate-the-positive spinning of research results can help a scientist catch people's attention. Unfortunately, that can escalate into hucksterism that seriously exaggerates the importance of the work.

Most scientists aren't even tempted to try it, because most areas of research aren't sexy enough to pull it off. It is a problem, however, for those who work on topics that catch the news media's attention: cures for cancer; cloning; grand theories of the universe; and, of course, evolution.

Which brings us to Michigan State's Richard Lenski. As longtime readers of Evolution News and Views well know, to study evolution, for more than 25 years Lenski's lab has continuously grown a dozen lines of the bacterium E. coli in small culture flasks, letting them replicate for six or seven generations per day and then transferring a portion to fresh flasks for another round of growth. The carefully monitored cells have now gone through more than 60,000 generations, which is equivalent to over a million years for a large animal such as humans. (It's dubbed the Long Term Evolution Experiment -- LTEE.) As I've written before, the work itself is terrific. However, the implications of the work are often blown seriously out of proportion by a cheerleading science news media eager for stories to trumpet.

In 2008 Lenski's group reported that after more than 15 years and 30,000 generations of growth one of the E. coli cell lines suddenly developed the ability to consume citrate, which for technical reasons had been present in the liquid culture medium. Later work by the Michigan State team showed the ability was due to the duplication and rearrangement of a gene for a protein that normally imports citrate into the cell, but only when no oxygen is present. The mutation allowed the protein to work when oxygen was present, as it was throughout the LTEE.

It was an interesting, if modest, result -- a gene had been turned on under conditions where it was normally turned off. But the authors argued it might be pretty important. In their paper they wrote that the mutant's ability could be the result of "historical contingency" -- that is, a rare, serendipitous event that might alter the course of evolution. They also remarked that, since an inability to use citrate in the presence of oxygen had been a characteristic used to help define E. coli as a species, perhaps the mutation marked the beginning of the evolution of a brand new species.

One scientist who thought the results were seriously overblown was Scott Minnich, professor of microbiology at the University of Idaho and -- full disclosure -- a colleague of mine as a Fellow at Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture. Minnich knew that decades ago the microbiologist Barry Hall had isolated an E. coli mutant that could also use citrate after only a few weeks of growth (also cited in Lenski's paper), and that other studies had shown mutants could be isolated rapidly if they were selected directly -- that is, if they were grown where the only available food source was the selecting substrate such as citrate, rather than a mixture of the selecting substrate plus glucose, as in Lenski's experiment.

So Minnich's lab re-did the work under conditions he thought would be more effective. The bottom line is that they were able to repeatedly isolate the same mutants Lenski's lab did as easily as falling off a log -- within weeks, not decades. In an accompanying commentary highlighting the Idaho group's paper in the Journal of Bacteriology, the prominent UC Davis microbiologist John Roth and his colleague Sophie Maisnier-Patin agreed that Lenski's "idea of 'historical contingency' may require reinterpretation."

Richard Lenski was not pleased. Although in a response on his blog he acknowledged up front that the Idaho group's science was "fine and interesting," he insisted that yes the mutation was too historically contingent. Roth and Maisner-Patin's comments to the contrary supposedly represented "a false dichotomy." After all, historical contingency just "means that history matters," and whether Lenski's cells developed the mutation clearly depended on how they had been treated in his lab. Ipso facto, it was contingent.

But of course it's vacuous to say simply that "history matters." Any near-certain outcome can be prevented if necessary conditions for it to occur aren't present. A ball will always roll down a hill -- unless someone puts a barrier in front of it. The fact that the Minnich lab easily and repeatedly obtained the same results with multiple bacterial strains and growth conditions shows they are not some special example of historical contingency, if that phrase has any nontrivial meaning at all. Rather, under the right conditions it's a humdrum, repeatable result.

Lenski also tried to split hairs over the question of speciation. He faulted Minnich for writing skeptically of Lenski's citrate mutation, "This was interpreted as a speciation event." Lenski countered that in their initial paper his group had only been wondering out loud if the mutant would "eventually become" a distinct species. It's a process, not an event, you see. But Minnich's group had cited two publications in their paper that backed up their take on things. The first was a review paper where Lenski himself described the experiment and then remarked coyly, "That sounds a lot like the origin of species to me. What do you think?" (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

The second was Elizabeth Pennisi's puff piece in Scienceon the LTEE in 2013 where she wrote (presumably after consulting with Lenski) "because one of E. coli's defining characteristics is the inability to use citrate for energy in the presence of oxygen, the citrate-consuming bacteria could be seen as a new species." If Lenski plays fast and loose with the public's perceptions of his work, he shouldn't complain when he's called on it.

In a disgraceful move, Lenski impugned Scott Minnich's character. Since he's a "fellow of the Discovery Institute" sympathetic with intelligent design, the skeptical discussion in Minnich's paper (which underwent thorough peer review by an excellent journal that chose to highlight it with commentary from eminent scientists) "suggests an ulterior nonscientific motive." (Apparently Lenski himself can speculate about all sorts of grand possibilities, ulterior-motive free.) You see, the Idaho scientists had the temerity to write, "A more accurate, albeit controversial, interpretation of the LTEE is that E. coli's capacity to evolve is more limited than currently assumed."

Well, perhaps someone personally involved in the work might see unending possibilities. But what should an objective observer call a situation where the exact same mutations occur time and time again? -- Limitless? Where a problem has no other solution except the one found? -- Flexible? Where deletion of either of the genes (citT or dctA) involved in the mutation prevents citrate utilization, as Minnich's group showed? -- Resourceful? Where none of the other thousands of genes in the cell can substitute? -- Inventive? Where even the easily obtainable mutation has apparently been of little use in nature? Earth-shaking?

With regard to citrate evolution, the Minnich lab's results have revealed E. coli to be a one-trick pony. And, as I've written previously, in other respects Lenski's own work has shown that E. coli evolves in his lab overwhelmingly by damaging loss-of-function and decrease-of-function mutations.


If that isn't "more limited than currently assumed," it's close enough. The take-home lesson is that, although the unvarnished work itself is great, the hype surrounding the LTEE has seriously misled the public and the scientific community. It's far past time that a pin was stuck in its balloon.

On Darwinian storytelling re: The emergence of the human race.

Does the Evidence Point to Mankind's Fully Natural Origin?
Denyse O'Leary 

n 2009, Mayor Bloomberg of New York held a special ceremony to laud the recently discovered fossil Ida (pictured above), said to be the "missing link" between humans and other primates. Bloomberg was

standing beside Ida's glass box, his arm around the shoulders of a school girl who was wearing a T-shirt with the TV tie-in logo: "The Link. This changes everything."

The Guardian's correspondent quipped, "The main thing Bloomberg was presumably hoping this would change was his prospects of winning an unprecedented third term as New York mayor." Bloomberg did win, but the Ida fossil was not so lucky; claims for it were shortly retrSignificantly, Bloomberg thought Ida improved his re-election chances before the fossil experts had spoken. And that she wouldn't have harmed his career if she failed their tests. Real and imagined "human evolution" is now so integral to our culture that demand outpaces authenticity. The disappointing history of Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, and Ardi, all hailed in 2001 as human ancestors, attests to the frustrating search for "missing links." Sediba, another supposed ancestor, fared no better in 2013. A science writer at Wired, not known for intelligent-design sympathies, derides the ceaseless buzz as "ancestor worship."

If he's right, we worship what we do not know. Pop culture's Ascent of Man gives no hint of the disorganization and confusion of current human evolution studies.

Late last year, it was announced that the oldest assumed human sequence then published (400 kya) baffles experts because it belongs to an unknown group, one more like Denisovans (an extinct type of human) than Neanderthals. The DNA results from the "Pit of Bones" site in Spain were described as baffling (Nature), perplexing (BBC), hard to make sense of (The Scientist ), don't quite know what to make of it (New Scientist), and creating new mysteries (New York Times) instead of neatly clarifying human evolution. October of that year had already brought the news that the human remains found at Dmanisi, Georgia, showed that many "separate species of human ancestors" never really existed and "may now have to be wiped from the textbooks." "Separate species" of human ancestors (that nonetheless interbreed)? There are many definitions of "species," so the term can be flung around freely, if accompanied by suitable credentials.

One researcher in a discipline that tries to keep track of the general direction of findings (theoretical anthropogeny) recently found no consensus as to when the human race arose, after he offered colleagues a spread ranging from ~60,000 to ~500,000 years ago. In this context, it hardly seems worth mentioning that no known hominin (assumed human) is clearly an ancestor of both Neanderthals and current humans.

For all practical purposes, today's humans are orphans, seeking our roots via scraps and artifacts, many of unknown authenticity or significance. If we are convinced that any discovery we make is better than uncertainty, we are in a suitable frame of mind to explore the questions.

When interpreting accounts, we need to keep in mind several narrative biases that can become distortions. When it comes to us lay readers, the story already incorporates these distortions. Usually, we won't know what has been put in or left out in order to fit the narrative bias -- unless a new find provokes a crisis in which the facts just will not fit the mold. We saw several examples of that above, from 2013.

The controlling bias is fully natural evolution: Humans evolved over a long period of time from a shrew-like creature into our current state. There is much less evidence for this proposition than the TV documentaries would have us assume. Granted, the evidence is a bit better than for the multiverse (which obliterates the very idea of evidence). It's also a bit better than for origin of life by purely natural means, which is impossible in the known universe.

At least some parts of human evolution might have happened according to purely natural laws or the vagaries of circumstances. Put another way, we could assume so for the sake of argument, without immediately finding ourselves in trouble with the rules for logic or the evaluation of evidence. We will, however, find ourselves dealing with one very large problem indeed: Human evolution includes the origin of the human mind. Theoretical physicist Roger Penrose has said:

If you look at the entire physical cosmos, our brains are a tiny, tiny part of it. But they're the most perfectly organized part. Compared to the complexity of a brain, a galaxy is just an inert lump.
"Why aren't we more like chimps?," New Scientist asked plaintively in 2012, encapsulating the current perspective in six words, and implicitly ruling out alternative approaches to enquiry. Well, one way we are different is that we acquired a history, a history of choices made, skills learned, and insights passed on. Let us see what our found collection of scraps and artifacts can tell us.acted.