Thursday 7 December 2023
Specified complexity squared?
The Interactome Multiplies Specified Complexity
One aspect of the “Unknome” is starting to become clearer: the interactome. If the Unknome refers to the set of components in a cell we know nothing about, the Interactome refers to “the whole set of molecular interactions in a particular cell.” A recent paper has created a “wow moment” about the interactome. It found that there are far more interactions between proteins than previously thought.
A New Method
Publishing in Nature, seven researchers from Germany and Denmark explored the “social and structural architecture” of proteins in a eukaryotic organism. Michaelis et al. created a new method for investigating interactions between proteins. The interactome, they say, has been studied for two decades, but work has been tediously slow due to procedural challenges.
The large-scale study of cellular interactomes using mass spectrometry-based proteomics dates back over 20 years, culminating in 2 studies in which nearly half the expressed yeast proteome was successfully purified with identified interactors. These datasets have been mined extensively, leading to a network-based view of the cellular proteome. Given the importance of the interactome for functional understanding and the substantial improvements in mass spectrometry technology during the past decade, we set out to generate a substantially complete interactome of all proteins present in an organism in a given state. We made use of an endogenously GFP-tagged yeast library containing the 4,159 proteins that are detectable by fluorescence under standard growth conditions.
They used a refined “pull-down” method to “bait” known proteins tagged with green fluorescent protein (GFP) and then observe what other “prey” proteins connected to them.
Miniaturization and standardization of the workflow in combination with an ultra-robust liquid chromatography system with minimal overhead time coupled to a sensitive trapped ion mobility mass spectrometer utilizing the PASEF scan mode resulted in very high data completeness across pull-downs. This workflow required only 1.5 ml instead of litres of yeast culture, provided a constant throughput of 60 pull-downs per day and enabled the use of the same conditions for soluble or membrane proteins of vastly different abundances
The new work doubles the number of proteins studied and triples the number of interactions found “compared with existing interactome maps.” They checked and cross-checked the data for accuracy. The results were startling.
The replicate GFP pull-down measurement in the 4,147 yeast strains resulted in the enrichment of 82% of the baits (Extended Data Fig. 1). Our mass spectrometry data provided statistically significant evidence for more than 30,000 physical interactions, corresponding to an average of 15.8 interactions per protein. Most were supported by forward pull-down (35%), followed by forward pull-down and significant prey correlation (29%), whereas nearly all interactions with both forward and reverse evidence also had significant correlation z-scores (95%)
More than two-thirds of the interactions discovered were novel, they said, not previously reported. While a small percentage of the baits did not retrieve “prey” proteins, that doesn’t mean they do not interact.
Altogether, based on the total of 4,403 identified yeast proteins, with 74.1% having at least two interactors, 15.1% had one and only 10.8% had no discernable interaction partner. To investigate whether the latter set is truly ‘non-social’ or is an artefact of expression level or its tag position, we performed our workflow on a subset of the proteins using N-terminal tagged strains with identical promoters (Extended Data Fig. 5). This yielded additional interactors for about half of the proteins. Notably, the overall average of identified interactors in this set was around 2, compared with 16 in the main dataset, indicating that this set of proteins was indeed poorly connected (Supplementary Fig. 2). Although reciprocal tagging was beneficial, complexes with higher numbers of interactions would already be picked up by the redundancy effect of our screen. Given that some of our baits will have context-dependent interactions that are not captured here, our estimates are conservative and we conclude that almost all yeast proteins are ‘social’.
Remember, This Is Just Yeast
Keep in mind that all these 30,000+ interactions between 4,159 proteins are taking place in yeast — the smallest and simplest of eukaryotes! One can only imagine the enormous number of interactions taking place in the cells of higher organisms possessing tens of thousands of proteins. In complex multicellular organisms like us, furthermore, interactions extend upward into additional dimensions: between cells, between tissues, between organs, and between organisms.
This nearly saturated interactome reveals that the vast majority of yeast proteins are highly connected, with an average of 16 interactors. Similar to social networks between humans, the average shortest distance between proteins is 4.2 interactions.
The findings from Michaelis et al. blow the lid off any notion of “simple” cells. Stationary diagrams of cells tend to depict the parts as loners: a mitochondrion here, a ribosome there, a vacuole over yonder. This work shows that the parts are in a buzzing hive of activity, with everything communicating, touching, releasing, migrating, and reconnecting. By analogy, think of a still picture of a city compared to a time-lapse video of the scene, with cars and people moving about in a multitude of ways to talk, work and accomplish individual and collective goals.
The Social Network
This paper also blows the lid off notions of cellular “junk.” If so-called “junk DNA” were generating “junk proteins,” much of the cell would be like hordes of the jobless on the streets taking up space and wasting resources. Instead, these proteins all have places to go and things to do. Everyone is contributing to the success of the social network. The unemployment rate in a cell is so low, it may not even be measurable. “The high connectivity of most proteins organizes almost all of them (3,839) into a single giant connected component,” the authors state, “accompanied by 41 small components (88 proteins)” acting, we might portray, like subcontractors.
If so, there are no unemployed proteins. The situation recalls to mind the ENCODE project that found over 80 percent of the genome was transcribed. And the closer they looked, the more they found function in what was considered genetic junk.
The Design Inference
The interactome can be added to the huge list of biological phenomena exhibiting the two requirements for the design inference: specification and low probability. Explained in the newly expanded and revised edition of The Design Inference by William Dembski and Winston Ewert, those two qualities in every phenomenon — as evidenced by each case in which we have access to its history — rule out chance and natural law, leaving intelligent design as the inference to the best explanation. The “interactome” in a large company making jets or cars, for instance, would never come about by the law of electrodynamics or by random groups of people finding themselves in the same building. The purpose preceded the parts and actors.
Critics of ID try to carve out biology as a special case due to the presumed stepwise gains of natural selection. In the Introduction their book, Dembski and Ewert face the claim that natural selection is a designer substitute, a blind watchmaker that can climb Mount Improbable
Since the publication of the first edition of this book, the debate over the design inference and its applicability to evolution has centered on whether such gradual winding paths exist and how their existence or non-existence would affect the probabilities by which Darwinian processes could originate living forms. Design theorists have identified a variety of biological systems that resist Darwinian explanations and argued that the probability of such systems evolving by Darwinian means is vanishingly small. They thus conclude that these systems are effectively unevolvable by Darwinian means and that their existence warrants a design inference. In this book, we recap that debate and contend that intelligent design has the stronger argument.
The interactome adds more real-world evidence for the stronger argument.
Wednesday 6 December 2023
21st Century alchemy.
Maybe if We Throw Enough Models at the Origin of Life..
So one and a half centuries of research have not yet turned up a single entity that, like Thomas Huxley's hoped-for Bathybius haeckelii, is on its way to becoming life? Hardly for lack of trying! Here is a whirlwind tour of the waterfront:
Arsenic world: In December 2010, NASA researchers reported that they had taught microbes to metabolize arsenic instead of phosphorus, demonstrating that life could arise from unexpected chemicals, perhaps elsewhere in the galaxy. (Some researchers have suggested chlorine life instead.) Most researchers were unconvinced. In 2011, Science published eight articles questioning NASA's study in a single edition and arsenic-based life featured as one of The Scientist's top ten scandals of 2011.
Clay world: Some theorists argue that clay (or clay hydrogels)
can select for molecules that can self-organize. The Scriptural
associations of clay were a gift to science writers; the details did not
impress researchers. Information theorist Hubert Yockey pointed out
that clay crystal structures just repeat the same information
indefinitely. By contrast, life's minimum information density
is somewhere around the level of DNA. OOL theorist Leslie Orgel
(1927-2007) said it wouldn't work for RNA either: If clay had the
structural irregularities needed to enable RNA to emerge, it probably
wouldn't reproduce it accurately.
Lagoons on the early Earth: Stanley Miller (1930-2007) of the textbooks' Miller-Urey experiment believed
that the conditions on early Earth's beaches could foster pre-life
reactions because chemicals would concentrate more there than out at
sea. But Robert Shapiro, proponent of the "metabolism first" model,
complained that "a large lagoon would have to be evaporated to the size
of a puddle, without loss of its contents, to achieve that
concentration. This process is not thought to occur today." He added, with an apparent touch of impatience,
The drying lagoon claim is not unique. In a similar spirit, other prebiotic chemists have invoked freezing glacial lakes, mountainside freshwater ponds, flowing streams, beaches, dry deserts, volcanic aquifers and the entire global ocean (frozen or warm as needed) to support their requirement that the "nucleotide soup" necessary for RNA synthesis would somehow have come into existence on the early Earth.
Metabolism first: Robert Shapiro (1935-2011) questioned Leslie Orgel's RNA world because of "the extreme improbability" that such a long, complex molecule as RNA would spontaneously arise and initiate life. His doubts earned him the title, Dr. No. Aspiring to somehow become Dr. Yes, he offered a model that life began via small molecules with a simple metabolism and progressed from there, hence "metabolism first." He hoped, among other things, to vindicatethe idea that "There's nothing freaky about life; it's a normal consequence of the laws of the universe."
Researcher Eric Smith, a physicist at the Santa Fe Institute, offers a more recent model
of early metabolism: "It seems likely that the earliest cells were
rickety assemblies whose parts were constantly malfunctioning and
breaking down. ... How can any metabolism be sustained with such shaky
support? The key is concurrent and constant redundancy." Or "millions of years of a poor replicator", as a summary article in Science put it, leaving unclear how hits could have mattered in those days but misses didn't.
"RNA first" proponent Leslie Orgel responded
irritably to Shapiro's metabolism first model, "solutions ... dependent
on 'if pigs could fly' hypothetical chemistry are unlikely to help."
Near the end of his life, Orgel had perhaps forgotten that he himself once co-authored a paper with Francis Crick speculating that extraterrestrials might have started life.
Numerous less publicized models wallop through the science press, on
the hope, perhaps, of a lucky strike: For example,
not-obviously-promising substances such as hydrogen, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, or peptides, possibly kick started life. Maybe metals acted as catalysts. Or mica sheets. Otherwise, cold temperatures or ice helped life get started, despite the fact that cold reduces chemical reaction speed. Or a high salt environment. Or hot springs. No surprise that science writer Colin Barras observes that origin of life is "a highly polarised field of research." Most fields have only two poles, not twenty.
One model is noteworthy for the fact that it is the closest that
origin of life theorists have come so far to an ancient pagan creation
myth. Yet it was published in a popular science magazine (New Scientist):
Once upon a time, 3 billion years ago, there lived a single organism called LUCA. It was enormous: a mega-organism like none seen since, it filled the planet's oceans before splitting into three and giving birth to the ancestors of all living things on Earth today. ... LUCA was the result of early life's fight to survive, attempts at which turned the ocean into a global genetic swap shop for hundreds of millions of years. Cells struggling to survive on their own exchanged useful parts with each other without competition -- effectively creating a global mega-organism.
How did it all work? "It was more important to keep the living system in place than to compete with other systems."
Really? More important for whom? Who then existed for life to be more important to?
The mega-organism itself? But that would imply selfhood and purpose. If
selfhood and purpose were present at the origin of life, why is design a
problem and not a solution?
Monday 4 December 2023
Acts chapter 17 New King James version.
17.Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.” 4And some of them were persuaded; and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas.
5But the Jews [a]who were not persuaded, [b]becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. 6But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. 7Jason has [c]harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus.” 8And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. 9So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
10Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11These were more [d]fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. 12Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men. 13But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds. 14Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away, to go to the sea; but both Silas and Timothy remained there. 15So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed.
16Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was [e]given over to idols. 17Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. 18[f]Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this [g]babbler want to say?”
Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.
19And they took him and brought him to the [h]Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? 20For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” 21For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
22Then Paul stood in the midst of the [i]Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:
Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 24God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26And He has made from one [j]blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
32And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” 33So Paul departed from among them. 34However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
In our own words.
JEHOVAH ’s Witnesses—Who Are We?
We come from hundreds of ethnic and language backgrounds, yet we are united by common goals. Above all, we want to honor JEHOVAH, the God of the Bible and the Creator of all things. We do our best to imitate Jesus Christ and are proud to be called Christians. Each of us regularly spends time helping people learn about the Bible and God’s Kingdom. Because we witness, or talk, about JEHOVAH God and his Kingdom, we are known as JEHOVAH'S Witnesses.
Sunday 3 December 2023
Revelation20:10 and annihilationism.
A Primer on Revelation 20:10
by Joseph Dear
Of all the passages used to defend the traditional view of final punishment, one stands out as by far the most difficult for the conditionalist.1 As you might imagine, I don’t consider the challenge to be insurmountable. However, it is a challenge. This is the one passage in the entire Bible that actually says, on its face, that anyone will be tormented for eternity.2
The explanation I would give, which many other conditionalists would give (in varying forms), is itself simple: John sees a vision where three beings are thrown into a lake of fire to be tormented for ever and ever, but the vision itself symbolizes the destruction of the things the images represent in real life.
Of course, while this idea itself is fairly simple, to really give a satisfactory explanation of and defense of it would be lengthy. Fortunately, this has been done by myself and other Rethinking Hell contributors (for free!).345 The goal in this article is to set the stage for those who are interested in conditionalism and would want to read further about this passage.
For many traditionalists, I imagine this passage is a big reason to deny annihilation and hold to the traditional view of final punishment. This was certainly the case for me. And although this article is not meant to be the full explanation and defense of my conditionalist interpretation of Revelation 20:10, it will nonetheless present a number of points worth considering. After all, other than for its use in proving the doctrine of eternal torment, how often is Revelation 20:10 ever really cited or looked at for anything? A number of factors that you might not have ever even had reason to think of will come into play. This verse doesn’t stand alone, but is part of a larger scene, and remembering this can change everything.
Some (Largely Rhetorical) Questions to Consider
Why shouldn’t we take Revelation 20:10 as a straightforward text that teaches that, at the very least, the devil will be tormented day and night for ever and ever? Well, aside from the case that can be made from the rest of the Bible for annihilationism,6 there are a number of questions that one must ask, and a number of points to consider, about what is going on in this particular passage itself.
- How literally are we to take something that John sees in his vision? After all, earlier he saw a woman dressed with the sun and chased by a dragon (12:1-4), a monster with seven heads taking over the world and being worshiped by people (13:1-4), stars falling into multiple bodies of water (8:10-11), a resurrected lamb with seven eyes (5:6), and many more highly symbolic images.7
- How literal is the lake of fire? Presumably, a literal lake of burning sulfur couldn’t affect a spiritual being like the devil. Furthermore, how literal can we really expect this lake to be when the abstract entity of death is thrown in, as is the clearly symbolic beast?8
- If the lake of fire is symbolic, what is it symbolic for?
- If the lake of fire is symbolic, why must we assume that the statement “they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever” is not also part of the symbolism? After all, the scene takes place in a symbolic lake of fire, so why must the reference to torment refer to a literal event to occur in real life?9
- What about when death is thrown into the lake of fire? What happens to death in real life? It is taken for granted that the devil, beast, and false prophet are tormented for eternity for real life because Revelation 20:10 shows the three being thrown into a lake of fire and condemned to eternal torment in John’s vision. But death is thrown into the same lake of fire just four verses later. Is death tormented for eternity? How could that even be? But if death is not tormented for eternity in real life, yet it is thrown into the lake of fire, what does that say about what it means in real life to be thrown into the lake of fire within John’s vision?10
- Does the beast even represent a person who can be tormented for eternity? Some argue that the beast really is symbolic not of a person or a demonic being, but an entire kingdom (or even an abstract entity).11 If the latter, how could eternal torment make sense in real life? Given the ubiquity of Old Testament imagery in the book of Revelation, Daniel 7 plays a big role in interpreting who/what the beast of Revelation is. And Daniel also shows us a fate that is not compatible with eternal torment.
- If the beast is not a person who can be tormented, but is shown as tormented in Revelation 20:10, what does that mean for the fate of the three beings seen in Revelation 20:10? The nature of the beast is especially important because if the beast represents something that cannot be subject to eternal torment in real life, then the whole case for traditionalism from this passage falls apart. Even though the devil is a real living being who could theoretically be tormented, it would not matter to understanding the passage. The beast is subject to eternal torment in the vision, but what it represents in real life is not an individual able to be tormented (and what could be its fate but destruction?). In the same words of the same sentence, the devil and false prophet are said to suffer the same exact symbolic fate. Why should their real-life fate be any different from whatever the beast represents?
- What is to be made of the connection between torment and destruction that we see with the symbolic whore of Babylon in Revelation 18? The city that she represents is destroyed, yet multiple mentions are made of the torment of the symbolic woman (18:7, 16).12
- Should the vision in Revelation 20:10 really define the angel’s earlier declaration in Revelation 17:11 that what the beast represents is headed for “destruction,” or should we take the opposite approach? In Revelation 17:11, an angel explains the meaning of the beast to John, and says that it is headed for destruction.13 Some could argue that in light of Revelation 20:10, “destruction” in Revelation 17:11 (and perhaps other parts of scripture) must be compatible with eternal torment. Traditionalist scholar Robert Peterson, for example, does just that.14 However, aside from the fact that the angel is not speaking of the beast that John sees in the vision but rather what that beast represents,15 one could argue that Peterson has it backwards. The vision that John sees in 20:10 is a symbolic vision. When the angel says that king(dom) that the beast represents is going to “destruction,” it is in an explanation of divine imagery (albeit a different vision). If anything, the explanation the angel gives, and its declaration of destruction, should influence how we interpret the symbolic vision of Revelation 20:10, and not the other way around. And what do we normally interpret “destruction” to mean? This is something we at least ought to consider.
- If being cast into the lake of fire is called “the second death,” and the lake of fire is symbolic, would it not make sense to see the lake of fire as symbolic of the humans cast into the fire suffering death a second time?16
- Being cast into the lake of fire is symbolic for ‘the second death“;17 what does this mean for all of the various things and beings that John sees thrown into the fire? Although only humans can properly be said to die a second time, if the lake of fire is symbolic of death for humans in real life, shouldn’t that shed some light on what being cast into the lake of fire really means for all involved?
Does This Sound Overly Complex?
I understand how this can all sound overly complex to a traditionalist. After all, in instances where one’s own view appears to be the simplest interpretation of Scripture, any attempt at giving an explanation by those who hold an opposing view is prone to sound like “verbal gymnastics” and avoiding a clear teaching. It’s a (twisted) theological variant of Occam’s razor that we all run up against at one time or another.
However, the points I have raised and the questions I have asked above should make a fair-minded reader question just how clear and simple any traditionalist view of this verse is. There is a lot of messy stuff happening in this passage. You have symbolic entities like the beast and false prophet. You have images of a real, personal entities (the devil, as well as the people cast into the lake of fire in verse 15). You also have the abstract entities of death and hades. And all of these entities are shown thrown into the same lake of fire! Beyond that, all of this is wrapped up in apocalyptic symbolism and the Old Testament imagery and prophecies which it draws from. And all of this is then wrapped up in what is, at least for us today, the most complex and difficult book of the Bible to interpret with any certainty.
Both the traditionalist interpretation and the conditionalist interpetation require the interpreter to put all the pieces together like a puzzle, and as I have only hinted above, putting all the pieces together for the traditional view is hardly simple and straightforward.
Does It Seem Absurd to Say that Eternal Torment Could Represent Annihilation?
If it seems absurd to suggest that eternal torment in a vision might be symbolic of destruction in real life, then I must counter with the following: why is it not absurd to see the many passages that warn of death and destruction and burning up as actually symbolizing eternal torment?
Traditionalists in glass houses should not throw stones.
Conditionalists have this one problem passage. In one passage, describing an unabashedly symbolic vision of monsters in a lake of molten sulfur, we have to deal with a symbolic description of final punishment that seems contradictory to what we believe actually happens. But if it is absurd that in one passage, in the book of Revelation of all places, the Bible would use eternal torment to symbolize destruction, then why is the traditionalist view not all the more ridiculous for saying that in many passages, death and destruction symbolize eternal torment?
Every traditionalist, for example, has to reconcile Isaiah 66:24 with eternal torment. Taken literally, it cannot be referring to eternal torment because it is speaking of corpses.18 Many traditionalists outright admit that they are taking it as symbolic imagery meant to convey eternal torment.192021 Even those who don’t say so in as many words nonetheless ultimately take the scene as symbolic by nature of them interpreting this passage as speaking of eternal torment of sentient beings.222324 Anyone who says that this passage is describing eternal torment needs to explain how a scene of corpses, being eaten by worms and fires (which are normally consuming agents), is somehow symbolic of sentient beings (the opposite of corpses) living in a state of suffering but never actually being consumed by anything. Just think about that.
Aside from numerous passages that are translated as “destruction” and “destroy” (and use words that mean those very things), imagery and even straightforward descriptions of the unsaved are given that are contrary to the doctrine of eternal torment. Malachi describes the end of the world where God consumes the wicked in fire (Malachi 4:1-3), leaving neither root nor branch but only ashes under the feet of the redeemed. Peter describes the incineration of Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of what comes to the ungodly (2 Peter 2:6). Jesus, in explaining the meaning of a parable (and not in the parable itself), describes the fate of the unsaved as being burned up like weeds (Matthew 13:40) – not unlike John the Baptist in Matthew 3:12.25
Furthermore, the unsaved are repeatedly described as facing death, in contrast to life. The contrast is made especially clear in one of the most popular passages in evangelism, Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (NASB, emphasis mine). James 5:20 notably tells us that the soul is in danger of death for sin.26 In Luke 20:36, Jesus tells us that the saved (i.e. the “sons of the resurrection”) do not die because they are like angels (implying that in contrast, the unsaved do die again).27 Even when death is not mentioned per se, the repeated references to “life” for the saved leave an obvious implication: not everyone lives forever.28
And despite the unfortunate and counterintuitive idea of “spiritual death” as a conscious, living state of separation from God, death on its face certainly isn’t anything like eternal torment. We know what death is and what it looks like. If using eternal torment in one highly symbolic place to symbolize death and destruction is absurd, why does no one bat an eyelash at the traditionalist claim that the Bible authors warn of “death” in numerous non-symbolic places as a Bible-specific metaphor for a state where one never actually dies?293031
I am not necessarily saying that this all disproves the doctrine of eternal torment; that would be a much more extensive discussion. But if it is unreasonable to suggest that in one passage, in the context of apocalyptic imagery and vivid symbols, eternal torment might be symbolic of annihilation, how is it reasonable to say that every passage that speaks of things we would normally associate with annihilation actually means eternal torment?
If in didactic teachings “death” really means “being alive,” if being reduced to ash is symbolic of a totally conscious state, if burning like weeds that immediately disintegrate means being in fire in pain but never actually burning up,32 and if “destruction” means ruin but in a state of not actually having been destroyed, then it is hardly a worthy response to my conditionalist interpretation that it is grasping at straws to say that eternal torment in a symbolic vision might ultimately mean annihilation!
At some point, both traditionalists and conditionalists have to interpret some descriptions of hell as speaking of a fate that is very different from what is immediately presented to the reader. In our case, conditionalists just have to do it less often.
Concluding Thoughts
In all areas of theology, not just the topic of hell, things can seem so simple and clear until one looks deeper. It seems to me that the more deeply entrenched a tradition is, the more this seems to be the case. And the traditional view of hell, as a place of eternal life in a state of misery for the unsaved is, in the twenty-first century, one of the most deeply entrenched traditions of all.
And so we see this principle play out in this discussion. It seems easy to point to “tormented day and night for ever and ever” as proof of eternal torment – until one starts looking deeper and sees all the challenging factors of Revelation 20:10 (of which we have only scratched the surface). It seems so easy to write off the idea that scripture would ever use eternal torment to symbolize the contradictory fate of annihilation – until one starts looking deeper and thinks about what words and images traditionalists must interpret as not literal or not straight-forward.
I certainly can’t blame someone for finding Revelation 20:10 to be quite convincing upon first glance. For me, it was possibly the most significant stumbling block to accepting annihilationism – until someone pointed out that it wasn’t so simple.
Theology, even when it is true and correct, is not always straightforward. This is especially true when it comes to a doctrine that many of us were taught as far back as we can remember. And that is okay. It can be a bit scary, but it is okay. You don’t have to give up your entire sense of orthodoxy in order to keep an open mind and to understand that not everything that seems so simple really is. You just have to be willing to sometimes rethink things – even if that means rethinking hell.
Notes:
Some would point to Revelation 14:9-11 as being equally or more difficult. However, this is only true if one is not aware of Isaiah 34:9-10. Revelation 14:9-11 doesn’t actually say anyone is eternally tormented. Rather it is inferred that smoke rising forever means that the fire burns forever and thus everyone being burned is eternally tormented in an ever-burning fire. However, Isaiah 34:10 uses the idiom of smoke rising forever to speak of the destruction of a city, not of anyone or anything actually burning and producing smoke. The resources in the footnotes for Revelation 20:10 can also give more explanation of this passage.↩
Some passages mention torment (e.g. Luke 16:19-31), some mention eternity (e.g. Matthew 25:46), and some say things that one who has been told from childhood that hell is a place of eternal torment will understandably assume is referring to eternal torment (e.g. Mark 9:48). Revelation 20:10, however, actually outright says, of the devil, beast, and false prophet, that “they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”↩
Joseph Dear. The Bible Teaches Annihilationism (n.d.), http://www.3ringbinder.org/uploads/1/9/1/0/1910989/the_bible_teaches_annihilationism_1st_edition_pdf_version.pdf (accessed on December 19, 2015).↩
Glenn Peoples, “Why I Am an Annihilationist,” Right Reason, n.d., http://www.rightreason.org/articles/theology/annihilationist.pdf (accessed August 17th, 2015).↩
Rethinking Hell Podcast, Episode 7.↩
Some also argue that the fate of humans isn’t even separable from that of the devil, and that if this passage proves eternal torment for anyone, it proves it for all who oppose God.↩
For more on the ubiquitous use of symbolic imagery in Revelation, see Chris Date’s “Annihilation in Revelation” Part 1 and Part 2.↩
See Revelation 17:7-18 for more on the symbolism of the beast.↩
William Robert West (Westbow 2011), 439.↩
The one out a traditionalist would have here is to say that, in real life, death is a living creature that will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. That said, I can’t imagine most traditionalists would be willing to make that argument in any serious manner.↩
For example, see Peoples, “Why I Am an Annihilationist,” 41-42.↩
There is not a perfect correspondence to the whore of Babylon and the devil, beast, and false prophet, since they are said to be tormented forever, and there is reason to believe that the symbolic woman at some point dies, in light of Revelation 17:16. If this were not the case, and she were said to be eternally tormented, it would make my job a lot easier, but the Bible says what it says. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that in this highly symbolic context, we see a connection made between the torment of a personalized symbol and the destruction of the entity (in this case a city) that the symbol represents.↩
For an explanation of why calling the beast a “king” is still consistent with the beast representing a kingdom and not a tormentable individual, see Dear, Section XIII, Subsection J, Page 154.↩
Robert Peterson, “The Case for Traditionalism,” Two Views of Hell: A Biblical and Theological Dialogue, by Edward Fudge and Robert Peterson (Intervarsity, 2000), 425.↩
For the significance of this to related issues, see Dear, Section XL, Subsection I, Pages 425-427.↩
For more on the second death and problems with common traditionalist conceptions of it, see Chris Date’s article on the topic here.↩
Some argue that the lake of fire does not symbolize the second death, but rather, “second death” means being cast into the lake of fire. Of course, this assumes that there is a literal lake of fire for “second death” to describe, and I will let the reader decide if they still think there is going to be a literal lake of fire for people (and the devil and death and hades) to burn in…↩
For this reason, some traditionalists may argue that the passage is not speaking of hell at all, which is at least a valid option.↩
John Gill, “Commentary on Isaiah 66:24,” The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible (1999), reproduced at Studylight.org Commentaries, n.d., http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/geb/view.cgi?bk=22&ch=66 (accessed December 19, 2015).↩
“Some of the most harrowing of the Bible’s language about hell comes when it speaks of a worm constantly gnawing at those who are condemned to spend eternity there. In a passage that we noted earlier in this chapter God says of those in hell that ‘Their worm shall not die’ (Isaiah 66:24).”
John Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell, (EP books, 2014), kindle edition, location 2507.↩
Robert Peterson, Hell on Trial (P&R, 1995), 32-33.↩
Christopher Morgan, “Biblical Theology: Three Pictures of Hell,” Hell under Fire (Zondervan, 2004), 137.↩
Bill Wiese, 23 minutes in Hell (Charisma house, 2006), 142.↩
John Gerstner has an especially novel take when defending the view that this passage speaks of eternal torment while apparently trying to (unsuccessfully) remain literal in his interpretation: “But when one looks at the scene Isaiah presents, the whole point is that these are no ordinary ‘carcasses,” but ‘carcasses’ that do not die.”
John Gerstner, Repent or Perish, (Soli deo Gloria, 1990), 121.↩
Although some do consider Matthew 3:12 as referring to the fall of Jerusalem and not final judgment.↩
Notwithstanding less literal translations that translate the Greek psuche as soul when convenient but do not do so here.↩
For more on why “angels” does not likely include the devil and demons in this context, see Dear, Section XXVIII, pages 328-331.↩
Examples: John 3:16, 5:28-29, Romans 2:7-8, Galatians 6:8, 2 Timothy 1:10, 1 John 2:17↩
I suppose one might argue that no metaphor or symbolism is being used when “death” is equated to separation from God, and that in the Bible, death just simply and literally means “separation.” Although addressing that claim would take up more space than we have (I have addressed it before, however), one must wonder how legitimate it is to say that you are not being symbolic or metaphorical when you say that a word has a special, Bible-specific meaning that literally contradicts how it is normally used. After all, if you said a person was dead, the idea that they were conscious and able to feel pain would hardly be what comes to mind!↩
For more on the twisting of language in regard to “death” and “life, see Chris Date’s article “Obfuscating Traditionalism: no Eternal Life in Hell?“↩
For an interesting look at how even traditionalists usually are aware that eternal torment requires one to continue living (as well as have immortality, not be destroyed, never die, etc.), see Episode 58 with guest contributor Ronnie Demler.↩
Or for many traditionalists today, if burning like weeds that immediately disintegrate means not burning and never disintegrating…I have written about that topic as well.↩
Henry Grew reasons from the scriptures on the trinity dogma
AN APPEAL TO PIOUS TRINITARIANS
By Henry Grew (1857)
DEAR BRETHREN, - We acknowledge our fallibility. Truth will endure the closest investigation. I bear you record that you have a zeal for God. Is it, or is it not according to knowledge? Is it in the holy word, which you declare is the ONLY rule of faith, that you have found the declaration, that the one God is three persons? Have you been taught it by Jesus Christ, or by fallible men?
You admit that it is a subject of vast importance to understand correctly, what person, or being in the universe, has the rightful claim to the supreme worship of all intelligences, and the glory of being, exclusively, the one great and infinite source, "OF whom are all things." If one person rightfully claims this unrivaled glory, it must certainly be an error of no ordinary magnitude to give it to another.
No proposition is to be rejected because it cannot be perfectly comprehended by a finite mind. Yet a revelation to the human mind of anything, necessarily implies some intelligent understanding of it. The first question, however, for our serious consideration, is, Is the doctrine that God exists in three equal and infinite persons, a doctrine of divine revelation, or of human imagination?
Christian brother; can you open your bible and read, God is three; or that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are one God; or any words of equivalent import? Even the interpolation of 1Jo 5:7, does not affirm that the three are one God. What do we read in the Word of the Lord on this important subject? "Hear, O Israel? The LORD our God is ONE LORD." De 6:4. "God is ONE." Ga 3:20. "There is but one God, the Father." 1Co 8:6.
What is the testimony of "The faithful Witness" of the Truth? Addressing his "Father," Joh 17:1-3, he plainly and positively declares THE FATHER TO BE "THE ONLY TRUE GOD." You believe that the Father is one person. If then you believe that "the only true God" is three persons, does not your faith stand in the wisdom of men," which denies the testimony of Jesus Christ, that ONE person is "the ONLY true God?" Please to consider the testimony of the inspired apostle, 1Co 8:6. It is not only that "there is but one God," but that this one God is "THE FATHER." He plainly distinguishes the Father as the "one God" "or whom are all things." The Father the PRINCIPAL, the Son the AGENT. Now behold the harmony of divine truth. "God created all things BY Jesus Christ." Eph 3:9. "By whom also he made the worlds." Heb 1:2. All his works of love and power, were what "God did BY him." Ac 2:22. "God our Saviour" SAVES US BY, or "through, Jesus Christ our Saviour." Tit 3:4-6. He "shall raise us up also (from the grave) BY Jesus." 2Co 4:14. "God will judge the world in righteousness BY" him. Ac 17:31. All this the Saviour confirms in his own declaration, "I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." Joh 6:38. The humanity did not come down from heaven. The divine and "only begotten Son of God" came down, and took the body "prepared" for him. Heb 10:5. Does not this prove the inferiority of his highest nature to the supreme God? Does not the supreme God seek to do the will of another rather than his own?
Please to observe in what character our blessed Mediator presented himself to a sinful and dying world as the object of faith. To the healed man he said, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" Joh 9:35. When he asked his disciples-"Whom say ye that I am?" what did the apostle reply, to whom our "Father in heaven" had revealed the truth one this important subject? Did he reply, thou art the second person in the adorable trinity, or thou art the supreme God? He replied, "Thou are the Christ, the SON of the living God." Mt 16:16,17. Is it a significant fact that our Lord never claimed any higher title than this? When the captious Jews charged him with making himself equal with God, did he not immediately repel the charge by the solemn asseveration, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do?" Joh 5:19. The omnipotent Jehovah cannot be thus dependent on another. "I live by the Father," Joh 6:57. "My Father is greater than I", Joh 14:28. The connection proves that this refers to his highest nature. His prayer, Joh 17:5, for the glory of his divine nature which he had with the Father "before the world was" proves the dependence of his nature.
The scriptural doctrine of the divine Sonship is essential to the true doctrine of atonement or reconciliation. The inspired testimony on this great doctrine is, that God gave HIS OWN SON to be a "sacrifice" or "propitiation" for the sins of the world. Joh 3:16,1Jo 2:2 4:10 Ro 3:25, &c. He made the "soul" of his son "an offering for sin." Isa 53. Trinitarianism admits of no such offering. It supposes that the human body only died, and that the union to supreme deity gave efficacy to the sufferings and death of humanity. It should be considered, that it is the dignity of the nature and character of the real sufferer and dying Lamb, as "the first" and "only begotten of the Father," which gives virtue to the offering. "We have a great High Priest, Jesus, THE SON OF GOD." His soul was in sheol [the grave in Hebrew] until "God raised him from the death state," and in sheol" there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge." Ec 9:10, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." "He offered HIMSELF without spot to God." Heb 9:14. It was not for the death of humanity only, that the sun withdrew its shining, the earth shook to its center, and the curtain of the Holy of Holies in the Temple was rent in twain. "Surely this was the Son of God."
Please to consider candidly, whether or not you can truthfully reconcile his constant declarations of dependence on the Father, with his supposed supreme deity, by referring those declarations to his human nature. If this nature was united to the second infinite person, how could it be dependent on the first? The dependence must necessarily have been on the second person and not on the Father.
You ask, Is not our dear Lord "the Word" which John declares "was with God and was God?" Certainly; but is not the term God, used (like the term Lord,) in different senses in the sacred scriptures? Is it not applied to the rulers of Israel, Ps 82:6?, "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." Moses was a god to Aaron, Ex 4:16, "And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.". Satan is "the god of this world." 2Co 4:4. The Son of the Blessed is "God over all." Is he God or ruler over all, independently, or by appointment of the Father, "the only true God?" Joh 17:1-3. Let the holy scriptures answer. 1Co 15:24-28, "God, even the Father-hath put all things under him." This is equivalent to his being "over all;" -"it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subjected unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God (not the Trinity, but "THE FATHER," as verse 24 proves) may be ALL in ALL." Is not this divine testimony fatal to trinitarianism? Our blessed Lord as God, has a GOD. Heb 1:8,9. The Father has no god above him. You believe that the God with whom the Word was, is the supreme God. If then the Word was also supreme God, is it not a truth of divine revelation, that there are two supreme Gods? Scripture is its own best interpreter. See the context (verse 14) where the Word is defined to be "the only begotten (Son) of the Father, full of grace and truth." Mr. Andrew Fuller has well observed, that "the glory of the Word, and the glory of the only begotten of the Father, is one and the same." The Word was "begotten" and not self-existent. Again we read, that he is "the first born of every creature." Col 1:15, which must refer to his pre-existent state; for the apostle argues that he is so, from the fact of all things being "created by him." He is "the beginning of the creating power, that the intelligent universe will ever behold; "being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person." The universe gains nothing, but sustains an inconceivable loss by substituting an infinite person for the matchless Son of God. To infinity you cannot add. One infinite person is equal to any number. The Father is "the alone (monou) God." Joh 5:44.
It is affirmed, that the same infinite attributes are ascribed to the Son as to the Father. Let us see. Peter said, "Lord, thou knowest all things." John said to his brethren, "ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things," 1Jo 2:20. Let us allow the sacred word to determine the source of the knowledge of our blessed Jesus. "God GIVETH not the Spirit by measure unto him," Joh 3:34. Will you not allow that, if thee is any thing unknown to the Son, in any nature, that he cannot be omniscient? He himself plainly declares that there is. He affirms that his "Father ONLY knows of the day of his second coming, Mt 24:30-36. He assures us that all the power he has "in heaven and in earth," "over all flesh," for the gracious purpose of giving eternal life to God’s elect, is GIVEN him by the Father, Mt 28:18 Joh 17:2. I ask, for Jehovah’s honor, if it is not contemning the divine wisdom, and charging God foolishly, if we say that an "given" power is inadequate for this purpose? Is it not the plainly revealed fact that "God our Saviour" hath "saved us, through (or by) Jesus Christ our Saviour?" Tit 3:4-6. The context of Re 1:8, does not require its application to the Son; it refers to the Father. -"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." See verses 4, 5, "John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; 5: And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood". If the spirit of Paul could be present with his absent brethren in their assembly, 1Co 5:4, cannot the spirit of Jesus Christ be present, in a more effective sense, with "two or three" who assemble in his name?
We have too little conception of the capacity of the Infinite to delegate "treasures of wisdom, and knowledge," and power, as he pleases. Infinite perfections are indeed incommunicable; but what a vast amount may be possessed within this boundary! It pleased the Father that in him (Jesus Christ) should all the fullness dwell," Col 1:19. "I and my Father are one." He did not say one God. He prayed that his disciples may be one with him and his Father," even as" he and the Father "are one," Joh 17:21-23 Php 2:5-11. "Christ Jesus-thought it not robbery to be equal with God." Doddridge and Macknight (both trinitarians) consider the word "equal" an incorrect translation, rendering the Greek word "like," or "as." As an example of humility, the apostle presents to the consideration of his brethren, a real and great change of condition of the pre-existing Son of God, which can never be predicated of immutable deity, being totally incompatible therewith.
Joh 5:22,23. "The Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father." Observe the ground of this great honor; it is judgment committed to him by the Father. We honor the Father, not on the ground of any thing committed to him by another, but as the independent source of all things, 1Co 8:6. Joseph was honored "even as Pharaoh," Ge 44:18. Yet Pharaoh was greater "in the throne" then Jos#Eph 41:40. So our Saviour affirms, "my Father is greater than I" Isa 6:1-5, compared with Joh 12:41, is supposed to prove that Jesus is Jehovah. In the Hebrew the first word Adonai, and not Jehovah occurs. In the 5th it is Jehovah. Compare this passage with Ps 110:1, and it appears that Isaiah saw both Christ and Jehovah. Now it is declared that "no man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him," Joh 1:18. Must we not then understand that Isaiah saw the glory of God "in the face of Jesus Christ," who is "the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of his person," see 2Co 4:6. Jesus said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." How? "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works," Joh 14:10. He doth not say the second person in the Trinity, of my own deity that dwelleth in me, doeth the works; but THE FATHER. In respect to his power to forgive sins, see Joh 20:23, " Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." [Editor: I like the comparison someone used to express this thought: He said, "One cannot look at the sun with his eyes, but one can see the effects of the sun by looking at the world," likewise with God; one cannot look at Jehovah, but one can see the effects of Him by looking at the effects of Jesus.]
Re 5:13. "Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." 1Ch 29:20. "And all the congregation worshiped the LORD (Jehovah) and the king," i.e., David. Jehovah is worshipped as "the only true God," Jesus Christ as "his first begotten" Son, as Heb 1:6 proves, and as the Lamb that was slain. Re 5:12. David was worshiped as the King of Israel. Each in his true station. It is in the highest sense only, that we are forbidden to worship any but the Supreme. See Lu 14:10, "But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.".
Mr. MacWhorter of Yale College has published a volume, to prove two things. First, That the Hebrew word Jehovah signifying "I AM," should be Yahveh, signifying, "I will be." Second, that Yahveh or Jehovah is Christ.
To test the correctness of the term Jehovah, he proposes to "substitute the English I AM, as an equivalent for Lord" where "the latter occurs in the Old Testament." "This (he affirms) is a perfectly valid test, and should such a rendering seem unmeaning or unworthy, in any connection in which it is made to stand, this fact of itself, would afford a strong presumption that we have not arrived at the true significance of the term." Page 14.
Let us now apply this "perfectly valid test" to determine, whether or not the learned author is correct, in affirming that Yahweh or Jehovah is Christ, and substitute the word Christ where the word Lord in capitals occurs, which, in the Hebrew, is usually, Jehovah or Yahveh.
Ps 110:1 "The Christ said unto my Lord, (Adonai, i.e., Christ,) sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies they footstool." Here we see the rendering is "unmeaning and unworthy;" and that the Father, and not Christ, is Yahveh or Jehovah. The dying martyr saw Jesus Christ, "on the right hand of God." Ac 7:56. Did he see two Jehovah, or is the Father not Jehovah? Isa 42:6. "I the Christ have called thee in righteousness, -and will give thee (Christ) for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles."
Isa 53:6-10. The Christ hath laid on him (Christ) the iniquities of us all." Ps 40. "I (Christ) have preached righteousness in the great congregation, O Christ thou knowest." Isa 53:10. "It pleased the Christ to bruise him," i.e., Christ. Ps 2:2. "The rulers take counsel against the Christ and against his anointed" (Christ.) See also verse #6, Isa 61:1. "The Christ hath anointed me (Christ) to preach good tidings to the meek," &c. See also Mic 5:4. He of Bethlehem (i.e., Christ) "shall stand and feed in the name of the Christ HIS GOD." See also Isa 55:5, and other passages.
This we see is all "unmeaning and unworthy," according to the learned author’s own "perfectly valid test;" demonstrating that Christ is not Jehovah or Yahveh. Isa 63:16, positively declares; "O Jehovah (or Yahveh) thou art our Father."
The fallacious impression that we dishonor the Savior, if we withhold from him the highest possible divine nature, presents many from believing his testimony, that the Father is "the only true God." Joh 17:1,3. The writer was, for a tine, the subject of such an impression. Having found at the Cross that deliverance from the guilt and dominion of sin, which reading, prayer, and resolutions had failed to remove; his love abounded towards his precious Redeemer; but not "in all knowledge." Php 1:9. He has since learned, like Peter, that all regard for "the Son of the Blessed," (who delights to honor his Father) which is contrary to truth, will only meet his rebuke. Mt 16:22.
It plainly appears from 1Co 2:11, that "the Spirit of God" is no more a distinct person from God, than the spirit of a man is a distinct person from the man. It would be an anomaly of a most extraordinary character; if there was an infinite intelligent person in the universe, to whom no prophet, priest, apostle, or saint of the sacred Scriptures, ever offered any direct prayer or praise See the true doxology, Re 5:13. The Spirit of God is "poured out" or "shed forth," Ac 2:17,33; terms inapplicable to personality.
For the honor and glory of the ever blessed God, our Father; "the GOD and FATHER of our Lord Jesus Christ;" I submit this brief essay to your serious candid consideration.
Finally, "forbearing one another in love;" let our chief concern be to possess the holy, the humble, the benevolent spirit of Him who has loved us and given himself for us, walking daily in his imitable footsteps; "that when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming."
Yours for the truth, in Christian love.
HENRY GREW (1857)
Saturday 2 December 2023
Ancient arachnids=a modern day headache for Darwinists?
Fossil Friday: The Mess of Arachnid Phylogeny, and Why I’ve Become More Skeptical of Common Descent
This Fossil Friday features the primitive spider Chimerarachne yingi from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber (about 100 million years old). Its discovery and description by Wang et al. (2018) and Huang et al. (2018) was a major scientific sensation and celebrated as an alleged confirmation of evolutionary predictions (University of Kansas 2018). I will use this opportunity to discuss some problems of arachnid phylogeny and their implications for the assumed support of the common descent hypothesis. Anybody who has watched my lectures online or read my previous articles should know that I always emphasize that my main critique of Darwinian evolution concerns the unguided process, not the age of the Earth or common descent, which I have explicitly affirmed as the most elegant explanation of the total body of evidence. However, I have recently come to realize that the assumed evidence for common descent becomes much less convincing the closer you look into the details. I even discovered that I have to give up one of my very favorite arguments for common descent. Since this case is cumulative and somewhat complicated, please bear with me if this article gets a bit lengthy. However, I promise you will learn something important from it, even if you should be an evolutionist and skeptical of my anti-Darwinian conclusions
What Is an Arachnid?
Arachnids are a group of land-living arthropods that many lay people find disgusting rather than interesting, even though the stunning capabilities of orb-weaving spiders certainly are fascinating. Together with the marine sea spiders (Pycnogonida or Pantopoda), marine horseshoe crabs (Xiphosura), and extinct sea scorpions (Eurypterida), the terrestrial Arachnida belong to an ancient group of arthropods called Chelicerata because of their shared chelate mouth parts that resemble a pair of scissors (Weygoldt & Paulus 1979, Shultz 1990, 2007, Dunlop 1997, 2010, Dunlop & Selden 1998, Selden & Dunlop 1998, Dunlop & Arango 2004, Paulus 2004, Lamsdell 2012, 2016, Legg et al. 2013, Dunlop et al. 2014, Lamsdell et al. 2015, Giribet 2018, Bicknell et al 2019, Giribet & Edgecombe 2019, Howard et al. 2019, 2020). Arachnids include more than 110,500 described living and fossil species that are classified in several quite different orders such as scorpions (Sorpiones), mites (Acariformes and Parasitiformes incl. Opilioacarida), pseudoscorpions (Pseudoscorpiones), harvestmen (Opiliones), micro-whip scorpions (Palpigradi), sun spiders or camel spiders (Solifugae or Solpugida), hooded tickspiders (Ricinulei), whip scorpions (Thelyphonida: Uropygi and Schizomida), whip spiders (Amblypygi), and true spiders (Araneae), as well as the four extinct Paleozoic orders Haptopoda, Phalangiotarbida, Trigonotarbida, and Uraraneida.
The phylogenetic relationships and evolutionary history of arachnids has been a highly contentious issue for many decades, and is a prime example of the failure of evolutionary biology to find a congruent pattern of nested similarities. The latter is often postulated as major evidence in favor of evolution by popularizers of Darwinism such as Richard Dawkins, who has even claimed that the reconstructed patterns of relationship from different sources of evidence are all perfectly matching (Luskin 2023). We will see that nothing could be further from the truth and that this alleged major evidence for common descent does not stand up to scrutiny.
Arachnid Monophyly and Terrestrialisation
The first and most basic problem of arachnid phylogeny is the question of whether arachnids are monophyletic at all, and if an adaptation to terrestrial life originated only once or multiple times independently within arachnids. In spite of a few early dissenters (e.g., Kraus 1976, van der Hammen 1986, 1989, Selden & Jeram 1989, Selden & Dunlop 1998), the prevailing textbook wisdom has been for decades that terrestrial arachnids constitute a monophyletic group, based on a single terrestrialization of their common ancestor (e.g., Weygoldt & Paulus 1979, Shultz 1990, 2007, Weygoldt 1998, 1999, Regier & Shultz 1998, Paulus 2004, Scholtz & Kamenz 2006, Dunlop 2010, Regier et al. 2010, Legg et al. 2013, Garwood & Dunlop 2014, Selden et al. 2015, Garwood et al. 2017, Giribet 2018, Huang et al. 2018, Wang et al. 2018, Howard et al. 2019, 2020, Lozano-Fernandez et al. 2019, 2020). Meanwhile, horseshoe crabs (Xiphosura) and the extinct eurypterids retained a marine way of life and fully developed compound eyes (Miether & Dunlop 2016, Schoenemann et al. 2019) as outgroups to Arachnida.
Ballesteros & Sharma (2019) commented that
the dominant hypothesis has been that horseshoe crabs represent the sister lineage to the terrestrial chelicerates, the highly diverse Arachnida (Snodgrass 1938; Weygoldt and Paulus 1979; Shultz 1990, 2007). In this scenario, extinct marine chelicerate groups like Eurypterida (sea scorpions) and Chasmataspidida are inferred to constitute a grade subtending Arachnida (Dunlop and Webster 1999). Implicit in this hypothesis of a monophyletic Arachnida is the notion of a single transition to the terrestrial environment by the common ancestor of arachnids. This hypothesis is supported in part by the morphological correspondence between the respiratory organs of horseshoe crabs (the book gills) and the counterparts of some arachnid groups such as spiders and scorpions (the book lungs, which resemble internalized gills; Scholtz and Kamenz, 2006; Kamenz et al., 2008).
Molecular clock dating has suggested a Cambrian-Ordovician terrestrialization event for arachnids [Lozano-Fernandez et al. 2020], some 60 Ma before their first fossils in the Silurian” (Lamsdell et al. 2020). Such a mismatch of molecular clock datings and the actual fossil record is a well-known and ubiquitous problem in paleobiology and evolutionary biology. It is yet another piece of evidence that is unexpected under Darwinism and arguably counts as good evidence against common descent. After all, if common descent holds, different lines of evidence should converge to one true history of life.
The above-mentioned standard view of monophyletic arachnids has been questioned by more recent phylogenomic studies (see Schwager et al. 2015). Sharma et al. (2014) therefore commented that
the monophyly of Arachnida, the terrestrial chelicerates, is generally accepted, but has garnered little support from molecular data” (also see this webpage of Sharma on chelicerate phylogenomics). Similarly, Ballesteros et al. (2022) admitted that “although conflicting hypotheses prevail in morphological and molecular data sets alike, the monophyly of Arachnida is nearly universally accepted, despite historical lack of support in molecular data sets.
But the problem lies not just in conflicting molecular data, but even in the morphological adaptations to a terrestrial life, which often show a high degree of convergence. In their study of water-to-land transitions in arthropods, Dunlop et al. (2013) casually remarked that it “may seem trivial, but for the major terrestrial lineages of arthropods, there are surprisingly few unambiguous examples of anatomical terrestrial adaptations defining monophyletic groups.” Sorry, but this is certainly not trivial at all, but rather represents the polar opposite of what a Darwinian theory would predict to find.
Some experts considered an assumed marine life of Paleozoic scorpions as primitive state (Kjellesvig-Waering 1986, Selden & Jeram 1989, Selden & Dunlop 1998, Dunlop & Webster 1999), which arguably could support a sister group relationship of scorpions and all other arachnids and/or suggest an independent terrestrialisation from other arachnids (Dunlop 1997, Dunlop & Selden 1998, Paulus 2004, Lamsdell et al. 2015, Lamsdell 2016, Selden et al. 2015, Aria & Caron 2019 SI, Bicknell et al. 2019 SI). However such a marine lifestyle of early scorpions turned out to be highly contentious and mainly based on the depositional environment, while morphological evidence (especially from the book lungs) rather suggests a terrestrial adaptation (Scholtz & Kamenz 2006, Dunlop et al. 2008, 2013, 2014, Kamenz et al. 2008, Kamenz 2009, Kühl et al. 2012, Waddington et al. 2015, Howard et al. 2019). Dunlop et al. (2013, 2014) therefore found that “the trend seems to be shifting towards interpreting all fossil scorpions as potentially terrestrial animals” or “the trend is now to see most, if not all, fossil scorpions as terrestrial.”
Much Too Generous in My Assessment
Incidentally, a few years ago I wrote an article for Evolution News (Bechly 2020), in which I harshly critiqued the description of the alleged earliest scorpion Parioscorpio venator from the Lower Silurian of Wisconsin and the evolutionary speculations about arachnid terrestrialization that were boldly built upon this fossil discovery by Wendruff et al. (2020) and readily adopted by the pop science media (e.g. Neethling 2021). Just a year later a new study by Anderson et al. (2021) showed that I was even much too generous in my assessment, because these authors debunked any scorpion affinity of Parioscorpio and placed this fossil in an uncertain but much more basal position among the so-called great appendage arthropods. All the evolutionary speculations turned out to be junk science exactly as I had said. But, at that time my view was of course ignored as nothing but creationist bovine excrement. God forbid that intelligent design proponents might be correct with their critique of evolutionary speculations and are even making successful predictions.
Anyway, some experts had previously argued for a closer relationship of sea scorpions (Eurypterida) and true scorpions (e.g., Grasshoff 1978, Kjellesvig-Waering 1986, Smith 1990, Starobogatov 1990, Braddy et al. 1999, Dunlop & Webster 1999, Dunlop & Braddy 2001; also see discussion in Dunlop 1997), which would of course also question arachnid monophyly and a single terrestrialization. However, their views have been criticized by Shultz (1990) as based mainly on overall similarity instead of specific similarities (synapomorphies). Today a closer relationship of sea scorpions and scorpions is mostly obsolete and has few if any supporters.
Other experts made cladistic or phylogenomic analyses and recovered scorpions in a subordinated position within Arachnids. The majority of these studies suggested a sister group relationship of scorpions and Pedipalpi+Araneae within a clade Arachnopulmonata (Regier et al. 2010, Sharma et al. 2014, Giribet 2018, Starrett et al. 2016, Ballesteros et al. 2019, Ballesteros & Sharma 2019, Giribet & Edgecombe 2019, Howard et al. 2019, Lozano-Fernandez et al. 2019, 2020, Noah et al. 2020, Anderson et al. 2021), which share the same type of book lungs. However, other scientists disagreed and instead suggested scorpions as sister group of pseudoscorpions (Pepato et al. 2010, Dunlop et al. 2014, Garwood & Dunlop 2014, Garwood et al. 2016, 2017, Huang et al. 2018, Wang et al. 2018, Howard et al. 2020, Ontano et al. 2021, Ballesteros et al. 2022, Dunlop 2022), or as sister group of pseudoscorpions and camel spiders (Shultz 1989, 1990, Selden & Dunlop 1998, Wheeler & Hayashi 1998, Pollitt et al. 2004), or as sister group of harvestmen (Shultz 2007, Dunlop 2010, Legg et al. 2013, Wolfe 2017 SI, Ban et al. 2022), all of which lack book lungs. Some of the studies that proposed a clade of scorpions and pseudoscorpions still placed this clade within Arachnopulmonata, which would imply that pseudoscorpions secondarily lost any trace of the defining book lungs, in spite of retaining a terrestrial way of life, which hardly makes any sense.
The recent discovery of air-breathing structures in an exceptionally preserved 340-million-year-old sea scorpion (Lamsdell et al. 2020), as well as the discovery “that respiratory organs of a new fossil eurypterid resemble arachnid book lungs, [are] supporting the hypothesis that eurypterids — and perhaps arachnid ancestors — were amphibious” (Dunlop 2020). Since the latter author recognized that “modern phylogenetic analyses do not support the hypothesis that eurypterids are specifically the closest relatives of scorpions,” the new finding could also call into question the status of book lungs as a putative synapomorphy of Arachnopulmonata (scorpions, whip scorpions, whip spiders, and spiders) that was suggested by Sharma et al (2014) and has been increasingly supported by modern studies (see Dunlop 2022).
Lamsdell et al. (2020) readily admitted that a considerable number of independent (convergent) losses and gains of complex characters would be implied either way, if Arachnida is monophyletic or polyphyletic (Lamsdell et al. 2020: fig. 3). They commented that
eurypterids were experimenting with modes of terrestrial respiration and were in the process of terrestrializing rather than returning to aquatic environments. This in turn suggests that horseshoe crabs evolved from fully aquatic ancestors. Assuming a single terrestrialization event for Arachnida therefore necessitates that non-pulmonate arachnids lost their book lungs (Figure 3B), with tracheae evolving multiple times among non-pulmonates, as indicated by their occurrence on different body segments in different groups [26]. Alternatively, arachnids may have invaded land multiple times [42]; however, this scenario still necessitates that non-pulmonates lost their respiratory lamellae and independently developed tracheae.
If you find this sounds confusing and wishy-washy, lacking any scientific rigor, you are certainly not alone. This is the typical “anything goes” just-so storytelling that dominates modern evolutionary biology and makes it such a frustrating discipline.
But It Gets Even Weirder
Van der Hammen (1986, 1989) recovered the aquatic horseshoe crabs and scorpions as sister group of harvestmen deeply nested within terrestrial arachnids. This fringe view was largely forgotten until recently, when Sharma et al. (2014, 2021), Ballesteros et al. (2019), and Ballesteros & Sharma (2019) recovered horseshoe crabs within Arachnida as sister group to the small order Ricinulei (also see Ontano et al. 2021). This was supported by a more comprehensive study by Ballesteros et al. (2022), which even suggested the “resurrection” of a marine clade Merostomata (Xiphosura, Synziphosurina, Chasmataspidida, and Eurypterida) in this subordinate position, contrary to the conventional modern view of these fossil groups as basal marine grade in the stem group of Arachnida (e.g., Cotton & Braddy 2004, Lamsdell et al. 2015, Lamsdell 2016, Selden et al. 2015). This would not just imply a non-monophyly of Arachnida and a multiple independent terrestrialization, but would also imply a convergence of the very similar breathing organs (book lungs) and the convergent reduction of the compound eyes, which appeared to be congruent with assumed aquatic Paleozoic scorpions with compound eyes (Selden & Jeram 1989, Selden & Dunlop 1998, Miether & Dunlop 2016, Schoenemann et al. 2019). The authors therefore concluded that:
Combined analyses recovered the clade Merostomata (the marine orders Xiphosura, Eurypterida, and Chasmataspidida), but merostomates appeared nested within Arachnida. Our results suggest that morphological convergence resulting from adaptations to life in terrestrial habitats has driven the historical perception of arachnid monophyly, paralleling the history of numerous other invertebrate terrestrial groups.
This study was by no means the work of a fringe group of maverick cranks, but included some of the most distinguished experts of arthropod phylogenetics as co-authors, such as Gonzalo Giribet, Mark Harvey, Prashant Sharma, and Ward Wheeler. Another recent cladistic analysis of mitochondrial genomes by Ban et al. (2022) came to a similar result, with horseshoe crabs subordinated within arachnids as sister group of camel spiders, while a supermatrix analysis of Noah et al. (2020) placed horseshoe crabs as sister group of a clade Scorpiones+Pedipalpi+Araneae. However, the latter authors differed from all others in suggesting that “the ancestor of Xiphosura and the extinct Eurypterida (sea scorpions, of which many later forms lived in brackish or freshwater) returned to the sea after the initial chelicerate invasion of land.” Obviously, nothing is forbidden in evolutionary fantasy land as long as the fundamental paradigm of common descent with unguided modification is not questioned.
Let this really sink in: According to the most recent and most comprehensive studies, the previous decades of phylogenetic trees, evolutionary scenarios, and reconstructed ancestors (ground plans) would all be utterly incorrect. Alternatively, if the most modern studies are wrong (as for example implied by the recent cladistic study of fossil evidence by Anderson et al. 2021, as well as phylogenomic studies of Lozano-Fernandez et al. 2019, 2020 and Shingate et al. 2020), then even the most advanced methodologies and most comprehensive data sets would lead to incorrect evolutionary hypotheses. Either way, you cannot ignore that evolutionary biology is a state of disarray. Something is clearly and profoundly off the mark and conflicting with any expectations from Darwinian theory. I can only urge my colleagues to stop closing their eyes, only because of world view blinders, and recognize the obvious need for a paradigm change, because we have just scratched the surface of the problems. There is more — much more.
The Enigma of Arachnid Interordinal Relationships
Also, the phylogenetic reconstructions of the interrelationships of the different arachnid orders are a total mess as different studies (e.g., Weygoldt & Paulus 1979, van der Hammen 1986, 1989, Schultz 1989, 1990, 2007, Smith 1990, Selden & Dunlop 1998, Weygoldt 1998, 1999, Wheeler & Hayashi 1998, Dunlop & Webster 1999, Giribet et al. 2002, Harvey 2002, Paulus 2004, Pollitt et al. 2004, Dunlop 2010, 2022, Pepato et al. 2010, Regier et al. 2010, Legg et al. 2013, Dunlop et al. 2014, Garwood & Dunlop 2014, Sharma et al. 2014, 2021, Lamsdell et al. 2015, Schwager et al. 2015, Selden et al. 2015, Garwood et al. 2016, 2017, Lamsdell 2016, Starrett et al. 2016, Wolfe 2017, Giribet 2018, Huang et al. 2018, Wang et al. 2018, Aria & Caron 2019, Ballesteros & Sharma 2019, Ballesteros et al. 2019, 2022, Bicknell et al 2019, Giribet & Edgecombe 2019, Howard et al. 2019, 2020, Lozano-Fernandez et al. 2019, 2020, Noah et al. 2020, Anderson et al. 2021, Ontano et al. 2021, 2022, Ban et al. 2022) produced very different trees with hardly any agreement on specific groupings (see Wheeler & Hayashi 1998, Giribet 2018 and Sharma). There is no wonderful consensus on a single tree of life, and people like Richard Dawkins are either utterly clueless or deliberately lying when they claim otherwise.
Actually, none of the suggested phylogenies can plausibly accommodate the very incongruent distribution of highly complex similarities in the circulatory system described by Göpel & Wirkner (2015: fig. 12) for horseshoe crabs and some arachnids. It is not just that morphological versus molecular data produce conflicting trees, or that different phylogenetic methods produce different trees, but even cladistic studies of traditional anatomy produced totally different trees (e.g., Weygoldt & Paulus 1979 vs Shultz 1990) that could not be resolved to this day. A strict consensus tree (think of a kind of lowest common denominator) of all the published phylogenies of arachnids would indeed result in an unresolved polytomy or lawn instead of a branching tree (Sharma et al. 2021: fig. 1). This is literally a collapse of phylogenetic theory and its predictions from common descent with modification.
Therefore, Sharma et al. (2014) admitted: “Attempts to resolve the internal phylogeny of chelicerates have achieved little consensus, due to marked discord in both morphological and molecular hypotheses of chelicerate phylogeny.” Sharma et al. (2021) commented that “the basal phylogeny of Chelicerata is one of the opaquest parts of the animal Tree of Life, defying resolution despite application of thousands of loci and millions of sites” and called this a “gordian knot in metazoan phylogeny.” Strikingly, Kuntner (2022) did not even bother to mention this crucial issue in his list of seven grand challenges in arachnid science, which is quite telling about the deplorable state of denial in evolutionary biology.
The uncertainty of the interordinal relationships of arachnids also holds for the putative closest relative (sister group) of spiders, which greatly influences all evolutionary speculations. Some earlier studies based on classical comparative morphology favoured whip spiders as closest relatives of spiders among living arachnids (Weygoldt & Paulus 1979, van der Hammen 1986, 1989, Wheeler & Hayashi 1998, Alberti & Michalik 2004, Paulus 2004), while a few outlier studies even suggested whip scorpions as sister group of spiders (Giribet et al. 2002, Pepato et al. 2010, Lamsdell et al. 2015 SI, Bicknell et al. 2019 SI). The majority of studies supported a clade (Pedipalpi) of whip scorpions plus whip spiders as sister group of spiders (Shultz 1989, 1990, 1999, 2007, Smith 1990, Selden et al. 1991, 2015, Selden & Dunlop 1998, Giribet et al. 2002, Pollitt et al. 2004, Dunlop 2010, 2022, Regier et al. 2010, Legg et al. 2013, Dunlop et al. 2014, Garwood & Dunlop 2014, Sharma et al. 2014, 2021, Garwood et al. 2016, 2017, Lamsdell 2016 SI, Starrett et al. 2016, Wheeler et al. 2016, Giribet 2018, Huang et al. 2018, Wang et al. 2018, Aria & Caron 2019 SI, Ballesteros & Sharma 2019, Ballesteros et al. 2019, 2022, Giribet & Edgecombe 2019, Howard et al. 2019, 2020, Lozano-Fernandez et al. 2019, 2020, Noah et al. 2020, Ontano et al. 2021, Ban et al. 2022). Of course, the phylogenetic framework makes a big difference for the ground plan reconstruction of spiders. We will come back to this point when we discuss the alleged confirmation of a predicted tail filament (flagellum) in primitive spiders.
The Origin of Spider Silk and Spinnerets
Another much-discussed problem for the evolution of spiders is the origin of spider silk and the spinnerets that are unique to spiders and a genuine engineering marvel (Vollrath & Selden 2007, Hilbrant 2008, Brunetta & Craig 2010, Mariano-Martins et al. 2020; also see Wikipedia).
The oldest uncontroversial spiders with preserved spinnerets belong to the genus Arthrolycosa of Carboniferous and Permian age (Selden & Penney 2010, Selden et al. 2014), while all supposed Devonian spiders were later shown to be based on misidentifications (Selden 2021).
Shear et al. (1989) had described a 380-million-year-old assumed isolated spider spinneret from the Devonian of New York, but this was shown by Selden et al. (2008) to be a spigot of Attercopus that was described as a spider by Selden et al (1991) from the same locality, but later assigned by Selden et al. (2008) to a separate Paleozoic order Uraraneida, only including the genera Attercopus and Permarachne. A homology of the silk spigots of Uraraneida and the spinnerets of spiders was suggested by Selden et al. (2008) and supported by several subsequent studies such as Legg et al. (2013), Garwood & Dunlop (2014), and Dunlop (2022). It was because of these silk glands, that Attercopus was long accepted to be the oldest and most primitive spider (Vollrath & Selden 2007), which is still often repeated in popular sciences articles (e.g., Gray 2018). Wunderlich (2015) even included Uraraneida as a suborder in the spider order Araneae, but today Uraraneida is usually considered to be the fossil sister group of spiders, even more closely related to them than are the living whip scorpions and whip spiders.
Even though Uraraneida did indeed possess silk glands, these were definitely not arranged on spinnerets (Selden et al. 2008, Selden 2021), so that the postulated homology may be questionable. But it gets worse: uraraneids also did not possess any leg-like appendages at the place where spinnerets would be, even though spider spinnerets are segmented and believed to be modified leg appendages homologous to horseshoe crab gills (Damen et al. 2002, Selden et al. 2008, Wang et al. 2018) or walking legs (Hilbrant 2008, Pechmann & Prpic 2009, Shoemaker et al. 2017). The structure from which spinnerets are thought to have evolved is totally lacking in stem spiders that clearly should possess them as precursor organs. This is definitely not at all what Charles Darwin would have predicted.
Wang et al. (2018) recognized this problem and commented:
A previous study discussed a paradox in that spider spinnerets are modified opisthosomal appendages, probably representing the original telopod. Outgroup comparison implies that retaining these limbs should be plesiomorphic, but spider relatives such as uraraneids lack opisthosomal appendages. The authors postulated that there may be a genetic mechanism in spiders that reactivated the development of (lost) appendages, allowing the evolution of movable spinnerets that facilitate a more precise manipulation of silk strands.
I discussed the problem of such assumed genetic reactivation in a recent article on insect metamorphosis (Bechly 2023b). Spider spinnerets represent yet another case, where the evo-devo and genomic evidence are ambiguous and do not converge to one true evolutionary scenario and homology hypothesis, as should be expected if common descent is true.
Another problem is that Chimerarachne from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, which represents the supposed primitive sister group of all spiders, does not show the predicted ancestral pattern of spinnerets. Wang (2018) admitted:
Based on the anatomy of mesotheles, we would have expected a spider ancestor to have had four pairs of spinnerets, all positioned in the middle of the underside of the abdomen. Chimerarachne only has two pairs of well-developed spinnerets, towards the back of the abdomen, with another pair apparently in the process of formation.
More failed predictions. See any pattern yet?
The uncertainty of spinneret evolution also extends to the origin of orb weaving in spiders, as was shown in a study by Bond et al. (2014), who rejected the “prevailing paradigm for orb web evolution” (also see Penney & Ortuño 2006). The whole of evolutionary biology turns out to be a house of cards — wild speculations built upon further speculations with very weak and highly ambiguous circumstantial evidence. To sell any of these evolutionary speculations as scientifically established facts, and every rewriting of previous textbook wisdom as normal scientific progress, is nothing but a great deception of a gullible public, that is mostly ignorant of the true mess behind such bold scientific claims. The truth is that the emperor has no clothes.
Like many other transitions in the history of life, the origin of spider silk and spinnerets involves a de novo origin and/or re-engineering of these complex structures, which certainly required numerous codependent mutations. This implies a significant waiting time problem to accommodate the required genetic changes in the geologically available short window of time. I have discussed this fatal problem for neo-Darwinism in several previous articles.
Tailed Spiders — A Successful Prediction of Common Descent?
When asked why, in spite of my critique of neo-Darwinism and my endorsement of intelligent design, I still subscribe to common descent, I have often answered as follows: the hallmark of a good theory are very specific predictions that are unique to this theory and successfully confirmed by later discovery of empirical evidence. The hypothesis of common descent arguably allows for the prediction of very precise anatomical details of hypothetical transitional forms, that would not be predicted by the hypothesis of common design without the constraint of shared ancestry. Such predictions have been made in the published technical literature and have indeed been confirmed by later discovered fossils of such transitional forms with precisely the predicted anatomy, which was unknown to occur either in living or fossil representatives at the time of the prediction. This even happened in my own paleoentomological work on the origin of the secondary male genital apparatus in damselflies and dragonflies. However, since this personal example is quite esoteric and requires some elaborate explanation, I have usually referred instead to the much simpler example of tailed spiders (e.g., Bechly 2021, Bechly 2023a).
This virtually convincing story goes like this: Living and fossil spiders have paired spinnerets but no median tail filament (flagellum) on their hind body. Based on the reconstructed phylogenetic relationship and the character distribution of a tail filament in living and fossil arachnids, scientists predicted the existence of primitive spiders with a tail filament and spinnerets, even though no animals with such a combination of characters were known at the time of the prediction. Then, years later primitive fossil spiders with precisely the predicted combination of spinnerets and a median tail filament were discovered in 100-million-year-old Burmese amber.
Indeed, in 2018 the sensational fossil discovery was described from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber (Wang et al. 2018 and Huang et al. 2018; also see Wang 2018 and University of Kansas 2018). It was named Chimerarachne yingi, which shares with spiders the presence of spinnerets and of male pedipalps modified into sperm-transfer organs, but shares with uropygids and extinct uraraneids the presence of a tail filament (flagelliform telson). Apart from the latter trait, Chimerarachne could just be considered as a spider (Selden 2021). Consequently, Wunderlich (2019, 2022) had included Chimerarchne as distinct suborder Chimerarachnida within Araneida (accepted by Selden 2021 and Dunlop 2022) and described a second genus and species Parachimerarachne longiflagellum from Burmese amber. However, among the original describers there was considerable disagreement about the correct placement of the fossils, with Wang et al. (2018) including Chimerarachne among true spiders as earliest branch of the order Araneae, while Huang et al. (2018) considered it as a member of the extinct order Uraraneida (more closely related to Attercopus and Permarachne than to modern spiders). So, if Chimerarachne is a spider or not “all depends which palaeontologist you ask” (Economist 2018).
Anyway, a careful look at the actual evidence suggests that the above-mentioned successful prediction may not be as good as it sounds. To see why, let us first check if there really existed any precise prediction in the first place. Wang et al. (2018) wrote that “C. yingi preserves only part of the predicted ground pattern for spiders” but gave no reference where such a specific prediction was ever made. The press release from the University of Kansas (2018) claimed that the discovery confirmed a prediction made by Selden et al. (2008), when they described the Paleozoic order Uraraneida. However, such a specific prediction is nowhere found in this paper, but only a general statement that “the multisegmented flagellum may be a plesiomorphy of Pantetrapulmonata (13) that has been retained in Uropygi” and that:
The external mold of the London specimen of Palaeothele shows an anal tubercle, and to ascertain whether this continued into a flagellum (which could place Palaeothele as an intermediate between Araneae and the order), an X-ray computed tomography (CT) scan was performed on the specimen by M.D.S. (Fig. 3D). This showed without doubt that there is no flagellum, and therefore Palaeothele remains the earliest and only described fossil mesothele spider to date.
The authors even admitted that “It is possible that the flagellum was uniquely derived and not homologous with that of the pedipalp orders.” In other words: they “predicted” that whatever would be found would fit the evolutionary narrative. Not exactly a specific prediction at all.
So Much for That Myth
Anyway, even if the prediction was not explicitly made, was it maybe implicitly made, thus necessarily implied by the evidence? This would be the case if the most parsimonious interpretation of the evidence, based on the distribution of similarities and the reconstructed phylogenetic relationships, would place the existence of a tail filament in the ground plan of spiders. Let’s look if this is the case.
We first have to study the distribution of the crucial character of the flagellum in the assumed monophylum Tetrapulmonata, which includes whip scorpions, whip spiders, spiders, and their fossil relatives (see the tree of Tetrapulmonata in Wikipedia for a good visualization of the incongruent distribution of a tail filament in the closer spider relationship).
The only arachnids with a tail filament or flagellum are the living micro-whip scorpions (Palpigradi) and whip scorpions (Thelyphonida), as well as the extinct Uraraneida. They are neither most closely related to each other nor are they forming a basal grade of primitive arachnids. All other arachnids lack a tail filament, including whip spiders (Amblypygi) and true spiders (Araneae). Therefore, a tail filament cannot be reasonably attributed to the ground plan of arachnids, and indisputably has an incongruent distribution that suggest multiple independent gains and/or losses of the character.
So, where did the tail filament come from? The still marine horseshoe crabs, extinct chasmataspidids (and a few isolated horseshoe-crab-like families like Bunodidae and Pseudoniscidae, see Lamsdell 2012 and Selden et al. 2015), as well as Paleozoic sea scorpions (eurypterids), have a segmented hind body (metasoma) ending in a spine or sting. This terminal unsegmented element of the hind body is called telson (Snodgrass 1938; also see Lauterbach 1980) and has been universally homologized with the multisegmented tail filament, in spite of lacking any complex or specific similarity. Among terrestrial arachnids a fully developed segmented hind body with a terminal sting is only found in true scorpions (in whip scorpions the metasoma is reduced to only three short segments), but while early morphological studies recovered scorpions as the most basal branch of arachnids (Weygoldt & Paulus 1979), most modern studies of morphological and genetic data resolved scorpions in various deeply subordinated positions within arachnids (Wheeler & Hayashi 1998, Shultz 2007, Garwood & Dunlop 2014, Giribet et al. 2002, Regier et al. 2010, Sharma et al. 2014). This arguably suggests that a segmented hind body was independently reduced and the telson independently transformed into a tail filament multiple times within arachnids, so that no clear prediction can be made for the ground plan of spiders within the evolutionary paradigm. Indeed, a multiple convergent origin of a flagellum is also implied by the discovery of a Devonian sea spider with a multisegmented, flagelliform telson (Poschmann & Dunlop 2006), which belongs to marine pantopods and thus lies clearly outside of arachnids and their close relationship.
Even the oldest whip spiders from the Carboniferous lack any tail filament (Garwood et al. 2017, Dunlop 2018), and such a flagellum is also absent in the assumed fossil sister group Haptopoda of whip scorpions and whip spiders (Garwood & Dunlop 2014), which again suggests that the flagellum of whip scorpions is an autapomorphic convergence.
The fact that not just Haptopoda, but also other Paleozoic arachnid orders such as Phalangiotarbida and Trigonotarbida, which are considered as closely related to Uraraneida+Araneae and/or Pedipalpi within Tetrapulmonata, but lack any flagellum as well as any spinnerets (see Garwood & Dunlop 2014, Garwood et al. 2017, Huang et al. 2018, Wang et al. 2018, Dunlop 2022; also see Howard et al. 2019: fig. 1), further complicates the picture and even more strongly suggests a convergence.
As I have already mentioned, a tail filament has been documented for the uraraneid genera Attercopus and Permarachne by Selden et al. (2008). It is worth mentioning that “a flagellar structure was described in Permarachne (11), but because such a structure was previously unknown in spiders, yet all other morphological features suggested that Permarachne was a mesothele, the structure was interpreted as an elongate, multiarticled spinneret” (Selden et al. 2008). This revealing admission shows how much the interpretation of fossil anatomy is based on evolutionary bias and preconceived ideas. Ancient anatomy is often more hypothesis than data. But anyway, for our present purposes we can definitely code uraraneids as possessing a flagellum.
Garwood et al. (2016) described the genus Idmonarachne from the Late Carboniferous of Montceau-les-Mines in France, which is superficially similar to Uraraneida and shares their lack of spinnerets, but was proposed to be closer related to true spiders with whom it shares the lack of a flagellum as well as a similar leg segmentation and forward directed cheliceres (also see Pappas 2016). Nevertheless, other studies disagreed and recovered Idmonarachne as more distantly related to spiders than Uraraneida (Huang et al. 2018, Ballesteros et al. 2022), also because it shares divided opistosomal tergites with the extinct arachnid order Trigonotarbida (Wang et al. 2018). The incongruent pattern of similarities again and again disagrees with Darwinian expectations.
From the same Late Carboniferous locality in France the oldest known spider was described as Palaeothele montceauensis, which has no spinnerets preserved and clearly lacked a tail filament as well (Selden 1996, Selden et al. 2008).
This summer a 310–315-million-year-old fossil spider was described from the Carboniferous Piesberg locality in Germany by my colleague Jason Dunlop (2023). He is one of the leading experts on arachnid evolution, with whom I collaborated on fossil arachnids until my career-killing “coming out” as an ID proponent (Delclòs et al. 2008, Dunlop & Bechly 2015, Dunlop et al. 2015a). The fossil was named Arthrolycosa wolterbeeki and represents the oldest known true spider from Germany (see Funnell 2023). It has spinnerets but also lacks a tail filament, just like modern spiders.
For the sake of argument we will accept the current majority consensus view of the phylogeny of Tetrapulmonata. If we combine this phylogeny with the above described character distribution we arrive at the following picture: The tail filament has a highly incongruent distribution even within Tetrapulmonata. One sister group (Pedipalpi) includes a subclade (whip scorpions) with and one subclade (whip spiders) without a flagellum, while the other sister group would likewise include one subclade (Uraraneida) with and one subclade (Araneae) without flagellum. Haptopoda, the fossil sister group of Pedipalpi also lacks a flagellum. Idmonarachne, which is either the sister group of Uraraneida+Aranaeae or less likely the sister group of spiders also lacks a flagellum. Finally, all the earliest fossil spiders lack a flagellum. Given the otherwise homoplastic pattern of the occurrence of a tail filament, the hypothesis of a flagellum in the ground plan of Araneae would not be more parsimonious than a convergent origin of the flagellum in Thelyphonida and Uraraneida. Only after discovery of Chimerarachne, and if we follow its placement closer to Araneae than to Uraraneida (contra Huang et al. 2018), could we use parsimony to interpret the flagellum as plesiomorphy in the ground plan of Araneae. However, this interpretation would be a postdiction (retrodiction), not a prediction, let alone a successful prediction.
Given the above mentioned phylogenetic relationships and pattern of character distribution, and using the principle of parsimony (basically Ockham’s razor) to minimize the number of evolutionary steps (gains and losses) to optimally explain the character distribution on the given tree, we can now conclude that even within the evolutionary paradigm and applying the phylogenetic reasoning of mainstream cladistic methodology, a tail filament could not have been predicted for the ground plan of spiders. It is not just that the prediction was never made explicitly in practice, but it is not even implied by the data. No clear prediction would even have been possible based on these incongruent data, so that it would have been an unsupported and unreasonable prediction.
Consequently, we are faced with two major problems with the above-mentioned prediction:
There is a clear temporal paradox, because all the earliest true spiders as well as all modern spiders are lacking a tail filament, while only a single taxon of mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber spider featured such a tail. This represents a very poor stratigraphic fit, which implies a remarkably long ghost lineage between Permian Uraraneida and Cretaceous Chimerarachnida. The term stratigraphic fit refers to the agreement (or lack thereof) between the stratigraphic orders of appearance of certain taxa and features with the predicted phylogenetic order of appearance (see below).
The fact that neither the earliest true spiders nor some of the closest fossil relatives of spiders do possess a tail filament, makes the whole prediction of a tail filament in the ground plan of spiders highly questionable and actually refutes such a hypothesis as unparsimonious.
Maybe the tailed spider Chimerarachne from Burmese amber rather represents a highly derived reversal or convergence, than a preserved primitive state. In short: The alleged successful prediction turns out to be a mirage and a fluke, similar to the case of Tiktaalik (McLatchie 2012), where a confirmed prediction was later revealed to have been successful for the wrong reasons. I have to admit I fell for this erroneous example of tailed spiders, because I did not look deeply enough into the details to recognize the charade.
For this reason, I will no longer use this example without an explicit disclaimer that the case for common descent is not really strengthened by it at all. Of course, there may be other more solid examples of successful predictions from common descent, but they all have to be carefully evaluated and checked to determine if they are really supported by the evidence and do not represent other retrodictions parading as successful predictions. Also, the rare positive examples have to be weighed against the numerous failed examples, where such predictions have been decisively refuted by new fossil evidence, which is commonly indicated by media reports titled “New Fossil Discovery Rewrites the Story of [Fill in the Blank] Evolution.” Sounds familiar? Of course it does, as we regularly report about the latest rewritings at Evolution News. Given a plethora of failed predictions, a few successes are hardly surprising or noteworthy. As a German saying goes, “Even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while.”
Poor Stratigraphic Fit
Selden (1990) suggested that “a cladogram reflecting evolutionary events should concur with a complete fossil record in the sequence of events”. What he meant by this is the common sense view that stratigraphic order of appearance should more or less correspond to the phylogenetic order of branching in the reconstructed trees. This is called stratigraphic fit or stratigraphic congruence, and is a well-recognized concept in paleobiology (Norell & Novacek 1992, Clyde & Fisher 1997). However, stratigraphic fit is often poor, contrary to the expectation of Darwinian evolution. Unsurprisingly, this is also the case with fossil arachnids. Therefore, Shultz (1994) discussed this poor fit and simply dismissed “stratigraphic tests of phylogeny as unworkable, as they rest upon the questionable assumption that the origin of extant lineages and the origin of their diagnostic characters are coupled”. What a convenient (and unscientific) way to get rid of conflicting evidence that could refute your hypothesis! Moreover, Shultz was simply wrong, as demonstrated by botanist Armen Takhtajan’s principle of the heterobathmy of characters, which was popularized by Willi Hennig, the founder of modern phylogenetics. This principle of heterobathmy simply means that the full set of derived characters of a living group originated successively in its stem lineage, so that the only requirement is that early stem group representatives at least have to possess a single of the diagnostic characters to be identifiable as member of the group.
Therefore, in most taxonomic groups stratigraphic fit is still commonly used, and when fit is good it is of course cherished as strong support for the evolutionary hypothesis and thus common descent. However, if cases of good stratigraphic fit (Benton & Hitchin 1997) count as evidence in favor of common descent, then the many cases of poor stratigraphic fit must be counted as valid conflicting evidence, instead of being ignored or explained away with convenient ad hoc hypotheses like ghost lineages.
Misidentified Fossils
Since the seminal work of Pocock (1911), fossil arachnids from Late Carboniferous of England were believed to be the oldest araneomorph spiders and even had been classified in a distinct spider family Archaeometidae. A few years ago, these fossils were re-examined with micro-CT and turned out to be incorrectly identified, so that they had to be reinterpreted as harvestmen (Selden et al. 2016). For more than a century of modern arachnology the consensus view about the early origin of spiders was way off the mark. What else might be way off?
Well, another curious footnote is the fact that the presumed giant Carboniferous spider Megarachne, which was described by an Argentinian paleontologist (Hünicken 1980) and famously featured in the BBC documentary Walking with Monsters (2005), turned out to be nothing but the misidentified remains of a sea scorpion (Selden et al. 2005, Switek 2010). The same happened again with another supposed giant spider from the Cretaceous of China, which was described as Mongolarachne chaoyangensis by Cheng et al. (2019), but shortly after revealed with fluorescence microscopy to be a forgery that used a fossil crayfish as core (Selden et al. 2019, also see Starr 2019 and University of Kansas 2019). Embarrassing errors like these are rampant in paleontology, which would be unthinkable in hard sciences like physics. Of course, this is not by itself evidence against common descent, but rather a reminder to take any bold claims of paleontological support for common descent, such as “indisputable transitional fossils,” with a considerable grain of salt.
The Enigma of Spider Webs in Amber
Last but not least, here is another enigma, which has really bugged me as professional amber expert for a long time: In Cretaceous and Tertiary amber you can regularly find well-preserved spider webs of crisscrossed and tightly spanned threads (Saint Martin et al. 2014), sometimes even with glue droplets (Zschokke 2003, 2004, Peñalver et al. 2006, Brasier et al. 2009). Thus, it is not just plane orb-weaved webs attached to a flat inner amber surface (Schlaube), but complex 3D-networks of silk threads preserved within the amber matrix. How could such delicate structures have been preserved in sticky tree resin? Imagine you were to pore honey over such a spider web. It would of course immediately get crumbled and torn. The same applies to the dense hairs of bees and other hairy insects that are preserved upright and fluffy in amber. Nobody has ever documented experimentally how this could happen, even with the lowest viscosity tree resin known to science. Maybe some non-uniformitarian and non-actualistic processes were at work, which yet have to be identified. To be clear: I am not suggesting any miraculous stuff going on, but just want to highlight how much we simply do not know even about simple phenomena in the past.
Follow the Evidence
This should make scientists a bit humbler when they boldly propose alleged solutions to the bigger enigmas in the history of life, which will always remain highly speculative unless someone invents a time machine. We were not there to watch what happened and simply don’t know, so that every reconstruction of past events is a hypothetical inference to the best explanation based on circumstantial evidence and a lot of theoretical guesswork based on shaky assumptions. To claim that we more or less know the evolutionary history of life on Earth is a great untruth told to a gullible lay audience. We have no clue or at least no certain knowledge about almost anything in life’s history. This does not necessarily mean that “God diddit,” but it also means that nothing has been refuted and we should not a priori exclude alternative explanations like intelligent agency. Keeping an open mind is a wise approach that is unfortunately very much ignored by modern science. True skeptics should question everything, and not just everything apart from Darwinism and materialism. I wholeheartedly endorse the credo to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
For this reason, I currently and provisionally still think that the total evidence of all lines of data favors common descent as the most parsimonious and most elegant explanation. However, I definitely remain open (and now more sympathetic) to alternatives like progressive creation combined with other explanations for the pattern of biological similarities such as Winston Ewert’s dependency graph hypothesis (Ewert 2018, 2023, Miller 2018, 2023, Reeves 2022; also see this website), which is based on an analogy to objected oriented programming, or my own suggestion of a maximization of information content as a design principle based on pattern cladistic arguments (Bechly & Meyer 2017). Incidentally, my main quibble with Ewert’s interesting approach was that it does not allow for similarly precise successful predictions as the common descent hypothesis. Looks like I have to reconsider my stance. And if even more conflicting evidence should ultimately lead me away from the paradigm of common descent, then so be it. In any case, the accumulating anomalies, incongruences, conflicting data, and other problems certainly suggest that something very different has driven the history on life on Earth than the unguided process imagined by Charles Darwin and his modern followers.
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