Brand New Study on the Evolution of Photosynthesis

A “Very Advanced Capability”

How exactly is evolution a fact when, as the number two science journal in the world put it, “How and when Cyanobacteria evolved the ability to produce oxygen through photosynthesis is poorly understood”? Or as evolutionist Robert Blankenship admitted, “The whole question of the origin of cyanobacteria has long been a mystery because they kind of just appeared out of the tree of life with this very advanced capability to do oxygenic photosynthesis without any apparent forebears.”

If the cyanobacteria that do photosynthesis “just appeared” with this “very advanced capability” and “without any apparent forebears,” and if how and when they evolved photosynthesis “is poorly understood,” then just how is it that evolutionists are so certain that evolution is a fact?

What am I missing here?

It is not as though photosynthesis is a tangential capability or a minor event in the so-called “evolutionary history” of life. As the leading science writer Charles Q. Choi put it, “One of the most pivotal moments in Earth’s history was the evolution of the photosynthetic life that suffused air with the oxygen on which virtually all complex life on the planet now depends.”

Nor is it as though photosynthesis is a simple capability, in no need of explanation for how it possibly could have arisen by random mutations. Anyone who has studied photosynthesis even superficially knows it is incredibly complex. And for those who have studied in greater detail, it only gets worse. The molecular machines and their exquisite, finely-tuned, functions are truly amazing. It doesn’t “just happen.”

Even evolutionists, who are always trying to explain how easy it would be for biology’s wonders to arise by happenstance, admit to the complexity of photosynthesis. As Blankenship put it, photosynthesis is a “very advanced capability.” Similarly, Woodward Fischer agreed that the evolution of photosynthesis would be “very challenging”:

It took a substantial unfolding of evolutionary time before oxygenic photosynthesis developed, perhaps because, as we know, it was a very challenging biochemistry to develop.

Nor is it as though the evidence we do have suggests any kind of a straightforward evolutionary development of photosynthesis.

If evolution is true, then we must fire up fresh rounds of evolution’s fake news, including incredible convergences and massive horizontal, or lateral, gene transfer and fusion. Round up the usual suspects:

The phylogenetic relationships of these prokaryotes suggest that the evolution of aerobic respiration likely occurred multiple times. This, along with evidence that the modern photosynthetic system apparently arose through the lateral gene transfer and fusion of two photosynthetic systems

This is absurd. Convergence, horizontal gene transfer, and fusion are all made up mechanisms to fix the problem that the scientific evidence contradicts evolutionary theory. This isn’t making sense.

But it gets worse.

Not only are evolutionists forced to draw from their army of phony explanatory mechanisms, but they are left with the proverbial “missing link.” The problem is, from where did the photosynthesis come? It couldn’t have come from the purported common ancestor via descent, and it “just appeared” with this “very advanced capability.”  So evolutionists have to usher in their horizontal gene transfer story.

But from where?

From where did the incredible battery of genes—that would just happen to team up and create the all-time incredible capability of photosynthesis—come? Conveniently for evolutionists—and here’s one of the beauties of being an evolutionist—they can never know. Like Flew’s gardener, evolutionists are certain that some “missing link” organism somehow had photosynthesis up and running, or just happened to have the crucial genes just lying around, but we likely will never observe that organism because it has long since become extinct.

Oh how convenient. Some mysterious organism did it. We’ll never know just how photosynthesis evolved because the organism where it happened has long since gone extinct, billions of years ago. Since then, it just luckily passed the technology around for other organisms to have, such as the cyanobacteria. Choi and Fischer explain:

The fact that Oxyphotobacteria possess the complex apparatus for oxygenic photosynthesis while their closest relatives do not suggests that Oxyphotobacteria may have imported the genes for photosynthesis from another organism via a process known as lateral gene transfer. It remains a mystery what the source of these genes was, “and because it happened long ago, it's pretty likely that the group may actually have gone extinct,” Fischer said.

Can I be an evolutionist too?

Photosynthesis is crucial to life and incredibly complex, evolutionists haven’t a clue how it could have evolved, it doesn’t fit the evolutionary common descent model and “just appeared” without a hint of where it came from, evolutionists are forced to make up a long just-so story to try to explain it, their story can’t be falsified because the origin of photosynthesis has long since disappeared, and on top of all this, evolutionists insist their theory is a fact, beyond all reasonable doubt.

This is hilarious. It is like something out of a Monte Python skit. Evolution loses every battle, but manages to win the war because, after all, it’s right.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Current Biology: RNA-Only Life Coming Soon

It Fills “A Gaping Hole”

Here is a trade secret: Evolutionists acknowledge scientific problems only after they find solutions. We have seen this repeatedly. Evolutionists evade the science, and ridicule their critics, only later to confess readily that the problem was real. The difference is they have found what they think is a solution to the problem they once so steadfastly denied. To wit, our latest example comes from Michael Gross’s recent article in Current Biology on the RNA world praising the progress made in developing the on-again / off-again RNA World hypothesis. Gross is sufficiently confident that the hypothesis is “on-again” that he can now agree with critics that the origin of life was once a big problem:

Just how the transition from non-life to life may have happened was indeed a gaping hole in our understanding of evolution in the 20th century, which a few inspired experiments like Stanley Miller’s famous 1952 primordial soup kitchen couldn’t quite bridge.

Indeed a gaping hole? Couldn’t quite bridge?

You would never know this from the evolutionist’s rosy assessments, and ridicule of anyone suggesting the science indicated otherwise. As Carl Zimmer wrote more than 15 years ago, scientists “have found compelling evidence that life could have evolved into a DNA-based microbe in a series of steps.” Perhaps he had read the National Academy of Science’s 1999 claim that

For those who are studying the origin of life, the question is no longer whether life could have originated by chemical processes involving nonbiological components. The question instead has become which of many pathways might have been followed to produce the first cells? [1]

Of course for the Mother of all such absurd, non scientific, statements we can go back to Alexander Oparin’s 1924 prediction that origin of life research would be solved “very, very soon.”

But now, almost a century after Oparin’s slightly premature forecast, the evolutionists feel they have finally arrived. And so now Gross can admit to what we have been inconveniently pointing out all along: There has been “a gaping hole in our understanding of evolution.”

Evolutionists can finally admit to this because they are rather confident that they are on the cusp of a profound break-through: A compelling demonstration of the feasibility of the origin and operation of RNA-based life. That is, the RNA World hypothesis:

it appears conceivable that a working model of RNA-only life could be synthesized soon.

At least Gross did not say “very, very soon.” Nonetheless, we think evolutionists are, yet again, speaking a bit prematurely.

That, however, is neither here nor there. For our purposes what is important about Gross’ article is not his proclamation of imminent success—which until it actually happens carries no more weight than the boatload of other failed evolutionary expectations—but rather the delayed admission of “a gaping hole in our understanding of evolution.”

Now that we have that cleared up, we can apparently all agree that until the RNA World, or some other miracle breakthrough, is demonstrated, evolutionary theory has “a gaping hole.” That’s progress.

1. National Academy of Sciences, Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1999) 6.

The Trichodesmium Genome “defies common evolutionary dogma”

More Junk Science

A new study has found that Trichodesmium or “sea sawdust,” a genus of oceanic bacteria described by Captain Cook in the eighteenth century and so prolific it can be seen from space, has a unique, lineage-specific genome. Less than two-thirds of the genome of this crucial ammonium-producing bacteria codes for proteins. No other such bacteria has such a low value, and conversely such a large percentage of the genome that is non coding. This lineage-specific genome, as one report explains, “defies common evolutionary dogma.”

Indeed, but it is no mistake as different Trichodesmium species, in different corners of the world, show the same anomaly. Furthermore most of the non coding segments are expressed, suggesting they perform some function. Nonetheless, evolutionists believe that selfish or “junk” DNA is an important factor in the evolution of the Trichodesmium genome. Such explanations are gratuitous and add nothing to the science, but are commonly used in evolutionary theory which holds that the biological world spontaneously arose.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Here’s a Typical Example of Evolutionary Story-Telling

Maybe, Could Have, Would Have …

Evolutionary events are, as Theodosius Dobzhansky put it, “unique, unrepeatable, and irreversible.” And so evolution is an idea with more theorizing than hard facts. It is more of a narrative than a theory. Here is a typical example:

It is often assumed that eukarya originated from archaea. This view has been recently supported by phylogenetic analyses in which eukarya are nested within archaea. Here, I argue that these analyses are not reliable, and I critically discuss archaeal ancestor scenarios, as well as fusion scenarios for the origin of eukaryotes. Based on recognized evolutionary trends toward reduction in archaea and toward complexity in eukarya, I suggest that their last common ancestor was more complex than modern archaea but simpler than modern eukaryotes (the bug in-between scenario). I propose that the ancestors of archaea (and bacteria) escaped protoeukaryotic predators by invading high temperature biotopes, triggering their reductive evolution toward the "prokaryotic" phenotype (the thermoreduction hypothesis). Intriguingly, whereas archaea and eukarya share many basic features at the molecular level, the archaeal mobilome resembles more the bacterial than the eukaryotic one. I suggest that selection of different parts of the ancestral virosphere at the onset of the three domains played a critical role in shaping their respective biology. Eukarya probably evolved toward complexity with the help of retroviruses and large DNA viruses, whereas similar selection pressure (thermoreduction) could explain why the archaeal and bacterial mobilomes somehow resemble each other.

I suggest?
The bug in-between scenario?
Escaped protoeukaryotic predators?
Invading high temperature biotopes?
Triggering their reductive evolution?
The thermoreduction hypothesis?
Probably evolved toward complexity with the help of retroviruses and large DNA viruses?
Thermoreduction?
The archaeal and bacterial mobilomes?

Kipling would be proud.

Here is How the Cytoskeleton Evolved

Not Easy to Explain

Though illustrations of the cell often depict it as a bag full of various organelles and folded membranes, this fundamental unit of life is actually organized upon a highly-structured three-dimensional truss structure known as the cytoskeleton. Until the early 1990s the cytoskeleton had been observed only in the more complex eukaryotic cells. But a series of detailed studies emerged indicating that the other two domains of life (bacteria and archaea) also have cytoskeletons. The wikipedia entry gives a good introduction to this subject:

The cytoskeleton is a network of fibers composed of proteins contained within a cell's cytoplasm. Although the name implies the cytoskeleton to be stable, it is a dynamic structure, parts of which are constantly destroyed, renewed or newly constructed.

In most cells of all domains of life (archaea, bacteria, eukaryotes) a cytoskeleton is found (notably in all eukaryotic cells which includes human, animal and plant cells). The cytoskeletal systems of different organisms are composed by similar proteins. However, structure, function and dynamic behaviour of the cytoskeleton can be very different, depending on organism and cell type. Similarly, within the same cell type the structure, dynamic behaviour, and function of the cytoskeleton can change through association with other proteins and the previous history of the network.

The cytoskeleton of eukaryotes (including human and all animals cells) has three major components: microfilaments composed of the protein actin and microtubules composed of the protein tubulin are present in all eukaryotic cells. By contrast intermediate filaments, which have more that 60 different building block proteins have so far only been found in animal cells (apart from one non-eukaryotic bacterial intermediate filament crescentin). The complexity of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton emerges from the interaction with hundreds of associated proteins like molecular motors, crosslinkers, capping proteins and nucleation promoting factors.

There is a multitude of functions the cytoskeleton can perform: It gives the cell shape and mechanical resistance to deformation; through association with extracellular connective tissue and other cells it stabilizes entire tissues; it can actively contract, thereby deforming the cell and the cell's environment and allowing cells to migrate; it is involved in many cell signaling pathways; it is involved in the uptake of extracellular material (endocytosis); it segregates chromosomes during cellular division; it is involved in cytokinesis - the division of a mother cell into two daughter cells; it provides a scaffold to organize the contents of the cell in space and for intracellular transport (for example, the movement of vesicles and organelles within the cell); it can be a template for the construction of a cell wall. Furthermore, it forms specialized structures such as flagella, cilia, lamellipodia and podosomes.

A large scale example of an action performed by the cytoskeleton is muscle contraction. During contraction of a muscle, within each muscle cell, myosin molecular motors collectively excert forces on parallel actin filaments. This action contracts the muscle cell, and through the synchronous process in many muscle cells, the entire muscle.

Evolutionary theory predicts there to be an evolutionary progression of cytoskeleton designs, as this key aspect of the cell design evolved. But this is not what the science reveals.

For example, in eukaryotes, the proteins actin and tubulin are the building blocks for the microfilament and microtubule structures, respectively. In bacteria and archaea these roles are performed by proteins such as MreB and FtsZ, respectively. But these cousin proteins do not reveals signs of an evolutionary progression. The actin and tubulin proteins show very few changes between different species. In fact they are among the most highly conserved proteins in the eukaryotes.

Even between species as different as yeast and rabbits there is only about a 12% difference in the respective actin proteins. Therefore there is no sign of how a gradual progression of protein evolution could have arrived at the actin and tubulin building block proteins. Importantly, this includes the MreB and FtsZ proteins. The sequence relationships between actin and MreB, and between tubulin and FtsZ, are essentially what we find between any two randomly selected proteins. With evolution we must believe that molecular evolution traversed an enormous gap without leaving a trace of sequence evidence.

This finding is not restricted to the molecular sequence data. The function and distribution of the bacterial components vary dramatically from what we find in the eukaryotes. As one review paper admitted,

it has become clear that there is no simple relationship between the cytoskeletons of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Moreover, there is considerable diversity in both composition and function between cytoskeletons in different lines of prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

In fact the bacterial designs are highly divergent amongst themselves. Molecular sequences, proteins used, lateral interactions within the filament, polarity (left-handed versus right-handed filaments), and so forth, are all inconsistent across the bacteria. It is not a story of an evolutionary progression.

Another surprise for evolutionists is much of the eukaryotic cytoskeletal functionality must trace back to the first eukaryotic cell—the so-called LECA or Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor. It is yet another case of complexity pushed farther and farther back in history, to the era of early evolution where the supposed evolution of such complexity is hidden in evolutionary gaps. Here is a particularly candid admission from our review paper:

One of the most surprising results of our increasing ability to probe the characteristics of the LECA has been how much of the biological complexity in extant cells can be traced back to this ancestral cell. The LECA possessed much of the complexity now seen in the replisome, the spliceosome, and the endocytic system, as well as the machineries necessary for meiosis and phagotrophy. Moreover, comparative analysis of the genome of the free-living excavate Naegleria gruberi identified ∼4,000 protein groups that probably were present in the LECA.

This “complexity early” model of eukaryotic evolution is mirrored in the cytoskeleton (Fig. 2 D). Somewhere in the evolutionary space between prokaryotes and the LECA, single proto-tubulin and proto-actin molecules diversified into multiple specialized forms. Three classes of motors arose independently, and evolved to include at least nine classes of dynein, eleven classes of kinesin, and three classes of myosin. As well as these, the axoneme formed, with 100–200 associated proteins, many of which have no prokaryotic orthologues. Between the prokaryotes and the LECA, a revolution occurred in cytoskeletal biology.

Such complexity cannot have appeared fully formed, but arose by stepwise elaborations of cell structure (and genetic repertoire). However, the large number of simpler intermediate forms that must have existed appear to have left no descendants. This is perhaps because a great many of these changes occurred in a relatively short time, with one innovation creating a favorable landscape for the evolution of the next. Alternatively, all descendants of these intermediate forms have been simply out-competed by the arrival of the LECA, with its mitochondrial endosymbiont, endomembrane system, and sophisticated cytoskeleton. What is clear is that since this complex LECA, the diversification into many eukaryotic lineages has often been accompanied not by the addition of further classes, but by loss of ancestral ones. Some of these losses are associated with loss of specific structures or functions (such as axonemal motility), but there appears to be a remarkable flexibility in the precise repertoire of many of these ancient families that is required for eukaryotic cell function.

From a scientific perspective, it would be difficult to imagine a more absurd narrative. Evolutionary explanations, such as this one, are the height of creative story-telling, contorting the theory to try and fit awkward facts.

h/t: La Victoria

Guess the Evidence for Early Evolution

A Complicated Narrative

As Aaron David Goldman summarized this month, the evolution of early life was a complicated affair. First of all there was the origin of life (OOL) events that produced the first living organism. Then there was a tremendous amount of evolutionary progress leading to the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) of today’s extant species. LUCA probably had DNA, an impermeable phospholipid membrane with much the same small army of proteins that attend to today’s cell membranes, the famed ATPase turbine-driven enzyme for ATP construction, protein synthesis machinery like today’s cells, the universal DNA code and DNA repair mechanisms. In short, LUCA was, as Goldman explains, a “sophisticated cellular organism that, if alive today, would probably be difficult to distinguish from other extant bacteria or archaea.”

Strangely enough DNA replication that we see in today’s cells was not present in LUCA. Instead RNA polymerases performed that job. Later in evolutionary history, today’s complex and circuitous DNA replication incredibly evolved independently several times. Also the aminoacyl tRNA synthetases underwent considerable horizontal gene transfer (HGT).

This is but a small sampling of the complicated evolutionary narrative of early life. And what exactly is the evidence for this Darwinian choreography leading from OOL to LUCA and finally to the three cell domains? Well actually there is, err, none.

In fact, not only is there no evidence for this narrative, evolutionists have repeatedly been stymied in their attempts to demonstrate how it would work in the laboratory. In fact, they can’t even demonstrate how it would work outside of the laboratory. Even when evolutionists are free to speculate and hypothesize with computer models or cartoon renditions, the problem still resists solution because it is too unlikely.

And so why do evolutionists believe all these things about early evolution? Because this circuitous narrative is required if evolution is true. In other words, the evidence for all these things is the fact of evolution. If the species spontaneously arose, as evolutionists insist is a fact, then this early life narrative, in one form or another must have occurred.

They are forced to believe that the OOL somehow occurred, in spite of the science. They are forced to believe that incredible complexity evolved early in evolutionary history because today’s extant species have too much in common. From an evolutionary perspective, those similarities must have been present in LUCA. Likewise DNA replication must not have been present in LUCA because the DNA replication machinery in today’s species reveals too many differences.

Furthermore the aminoacyl tRNA synthetases fail to form an evolutionary tree. So evolutionists must believe HGT caused the confusion. There is no independent evidence that HGT changed around the aminoacyl tRNA synthetases. The evidence simply is the failure to find an adequate evolutionary tree to explain these enzymes.

Similarly there is no evidence that today’s complex and circuitous DNA replication evolved independently several times. Again it is a result of believing in evolution. If the species spontaneously arose then, yes, DNA replication must have evolved independently several times.

Early evolution is an example of how evolution violates Occam’s Razor. Science seeks parsimonious solutions, but evolution leads to circuitous narratives. Religion drives science, and it matters.

The Brittlestar’s Distributed and Multifunctional Vision System

“Optimized by Phototropic Chromatophores”

Biology is full of unique and exotic solutions that appear in only one or a few species and a good example of this the brittlestar’s vision system. “System” is a good word for the vision capability in this relative of the starfish, for its arms are covered with precisely aligned microscopic calcite domes—structures that also serve as lenses, focusing light before it reaches photoreceptors. Here is how a 2001 paper described this finding:

The lens array is designed to minimize spherical aberration and birefringence and to detect light from a particular direction. The optical performance is further optimized by phototropic chromatophores that regulate the dose of illumination reaching the receptors. These structures represent an example of a multifunctional biomaterial that fulfills both mechanical and optical functions.

Designed? Optimized? An example of a multifunctional material? As one researcher exclaimed, “It's astonishing that this organic creature can manipulate inorganic matter with such precision - and yet it's got no brain.” Another research explained just how unique this design is:

It's bizarre - there's nothing else that I know of that has lenses built into its general body surface.

Nothing in biology makes sense in the light of evolution.

[h/t uncommondescent]

Morphological Discontinuities Trouble Evolutionists

One of the Most Important Questions in Evolutionary Biology

NeoDarwinism expected a fine gradation of form from one species to the next but the distribution of morphologies is clumpy at virtually all scales. Appeals to gaps in the fossil record don’t solve the problem and now evolutionists are considering more complex explanations for how evolution could have produced such morphological discontinuities. They are also suggesting that the expectation of fine gradations between species may have been driven by Charles Lyell’s promotion of uniformitarianism in geology and by the desire to be physics-like. Darwin’s friend Thomas Huxley warned Darwin about his narrow focus on gradualism. As Douglas Erwin explains:

Lyell, however, deeply influenced Darwin, and just as Lyell invoked uniformitarianism as part of his efforts to make geology a science, I believe Darwin followed suit in his development of evolutionary thought. Huxley famously wrote to Darwin immediately before publication of The Origin, suggesting that Darwin had adopted a gradual view of evolution too unreservedly.

But what if Darwin had not cast his evolution as a gradual, law-like process? If he had allowed for saltations to explain the discontinuities, rather than gaps left by an imperfect fossil record, then his theory would have been less compelling. Now, 150 years later, we have yet another false prediction and evolutionists struggling to patch the theory. And if something as fundamental as this remains in question, then certainly evolution is not a scientific fact.

Hominin Fossils Yield Uncooperative DNA Data

“Now we have to rethink the whole story.”

Scientists continue to improve their amazing ability to recover microscopic DNA molecules from ancient fossils and this new source of old data is causing problems for evolution. The latest finding, published earlier this month, comes from hominin fossils found in caves in northern Spain. In recent decades fossils from a few dozen individuals have been found in these caves. According to evolution these fossils should have been ancestors of the Neanderthals but the recovered DNA have falsified this expectation. Instead the DNA is more closely related to the Denisovans, so named after the Siberian cave where their bones were discovered. This is not a minor problem and, once again, evolutionists struggle to reconcile their theory with the evidence as these quotes reveal:

“Right now, we’ve basically generated a big question mark.”

“Everybody had a hard time believing it at first.”

“Now we have to rethink the whole story.”

“It’s extremely hard to make sense of. We still are a bit lost here.”

As science writer Carl Zimmer put it, “The new finding is hard to reconcile with the picture of human evolution that has been emerging based on fossils and ancient DNA.” In other words, the data do not fit the theory.

Once again evolution must be patched up, and once again it takes on increasing levels of complexity to accommodate the uncooperative data.  As one evolutionist admitted, “The more we learn from the DNA extracted from these fossils, the more complicated the story becomes.”

In fact evolutionists are now considering several new stories. Perhaps the fossil species from the Spanish caves are not true Neanderthals, but belonged to the ancestors of both Denisovans and Neanderthals.

Or perhaps the newly discovered DNA was passed to both Neanderthals and Denisovans, but eventually disappeared from Neanderthals. On the other hand, perhaps the Spanish fossils belong to yet another branch of humans altogether—Homo erectus.

Scientific theories are supposed to be parsimonious. Geocentrism required dozens and dozens of epicycles, but with heliocentrism the data fell neatly into place according to the simple idea that the planets revolve about the Sun.

Evolution is far beyond geocentrism in its level of complexity. As new findings stream in evolutionary theory must be modified with so many of its own epicycles. Rather than explain the natural world, evolution is more often surprised by nature. Its predictions are routinely false and evolution appears to be more of an after-the-fact tautology than an insightful description of reality.

OOL and Science’s Blind Spot

Organic matter forms tar, biochemical bonds are unstable in water, pathways are entropically uphill, RNA enzymes tend to degrade

The problem with science is not that the naturalistic approach might occasionally be inadequate. The problem is that science would never know any better. Science’s blind spot is that it has no way of determining whether a phenomenon is naturalistic. You might think that scientific failures would provide a pretty good hint. If love defies logic then maybe there is something more to it. But for evolutionists failure merely indicates the problem is not yet solved. See the catch? Anything that defies explanation is automatically placed in the “Research Problem” category. So naturalism can never be false. It is untestable. Here is an example of this metaphysical mandate:

What God did is a matter for faith and not for scientific inquiry. The two fields are separate. If our scientific inquiry should lead eventually to God … that will be the time to stop science. [Maitland Edey and Donald Johanson, Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution, p. 291]

But how could their inquiries possibly lead to God if they make the assumption up front that “What God did is … not for scientific inquiry.”? If one is searching only for mechanistic solutions, then that is what one will find. God is ruled out from the beginning.

Evolution makes naturalistic explanations not simply the first choice, it makes them the only choice. And one can always contrive naturalistic explanations if one tries hard enough. The theory of evolution is an outstanding example of this. We are told that life must have arisen spontaneously, even though we don’t have any idea how it happened.

Consider, for example, the origin of life problem. Evolutionists say it is a fact that the most complex thing we know of—life—arose spontaneously. And yet from a scientific perspective this claim makes no sense. It is simply uncontroversial that science does not reveal the spontaneous origin of life to be a fact. Here is Steve Benner’s rundown of some of the basic problems:

We have failed in any continuous way to provide a recipe that gets from the simple molecules that we know were present on early Earth to RNA. There is a discontinuous model which has many pieces, many of which have experimental support, but we're up against these three or four paradoxes, which you and I have talked about in the past. The first paradox is the tendency of organic matter to devolve and to give tar. If you can avoid that, you can start to try to assemble things that are not tarry, but then you encounter the water problem, which is related to the fact that every interesting bond that you want to make is unstable, thermodynamically, with respect to water. If you can solve that problem, you have the problem of entropy, that any of the building blocks are going to be present in a low concentration; therefore, to assemble a large number of those building blocks, you get a gene-like RNA -- 100 nucleotides long -- that fights entropy. And the fourth problem is that even if you can solve the entropy problem, you have a paradox that RNA enzymes, which are may be catalytically active, are more likely to be active in the sense that destroys RNA rather than creates RNA.

Once again the science contradicts the dogma. Evolution is scientifically absurd but then again, it never was about the science in the first place. As Oxford professor and Anglican priest Baden Powell explained a century and a half ago, there are certain ground rules that science must obey:

So strong is the inductive assurance of this, that we may safely allow any such apparent exceptions to await their solution without in the least influencing our opinion of the soundness of the broad principle of the continuity of physical causes: a principle of that truly philosophical character which no exception in detail can subvert, or render, in some form, inapplicable or unfruitful. No inductive inquirer can bring himself to believe in the existence of any real hiatus in the continuity of physical laws in past eras more than in the existing order of things; or to imagine that changes, however seemingly abrupt, can have been brought about except by the gradual agency of some regular causes. On such principles the whole superstructure of rational geology entirely reposes; to deny them in any instance would be to endanger all science.

[…]

But however little we know of the laws or causes of these changes, one thing is perfectly clear, the introduction of new species was a regular, not a casual phenomenon; it was not one preceding or transcending the order of nature; it was a case occurring in the midst of ordinary operations going on in accordance with ordinary causes. The introduction of a new species (however marvellous and inexplicable some theorists may choose to imagine it) is not a solitary occurrence. It reappears constantly in the lapse of geological ages. It recurs regularly in connexion with those changes which determined the peculiar characters we now distinguish in different formations. It is part of a series. But a series indicates a principle of regularity and law, as much in organic as in inorganic changes. The event is part of a regularly ordained mechanism of the evolution of the existing world out of former conditions, and as much subject to regular laws as any changes now taking place.

In other words, not only does science lack the tools to test its assumption that all causes are strictly naturalistic, it consciously rejects any such possibility from the beginning. So it doesn’t matter how many scientific paradoxes and absurdities come with evolution, it must be a fact.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Minor Spliceosomes as Real Time Sensors In Gene Regulation

More Theoretical Complexity

New research out of the University of Pennsylvania reveals yet another fascinating aspect of gene expression regulation. In the higher species genes are not one continuous DNA segment. Instead there are intervening segments within genes known as introns (intervening regions). Many introns are quite long and some are short. After a gene is copied by the transcription machinery (known as RNA polymerase), resulting in an mRNA transcript, these major and minor introns are spliced out of the mRNA by the major and minor spliceosomes, respectively. The new research shows that the minor spliceosomes can be turned off, thus turning off the expression of that gene.

When introns were first discovered, evolutionist figured they were yet more junk DNA. After all, why should genes have intervening regions which are simply removed from the gene copy? But introns are found throughout the genome. If they were junk why would they be so prevalent? Furthermore, how is it that spliceosomes can edit introns so precisely? If there were no introns then there would be no need for spliceosomes and so they would never evolve. And even if they did evolve there would be nothing for them to do and so evolution would discard them. On the other hand, if introns evolved first, then there would be no spliceosome to remove them. The resulting proteins would not function and the organism would quickly die. Either way, it is yet another conundrum for evolutionists.

In fact spliceosomes are incredibly complicated and perform sophisticated functions. The new research has found another function, and it presents yet another problem for evolution. The research discovered that the abundance of one of the key parts of the minor spliceosome can vary dramatically. Its abundance is controlled by a special protein and its abundance, in turn, controls whether the minor spliceosome is turned on or off. And this, in turn, controls whether or not a large number of very important genes are expressed.

Thus one single action has severe consequences for the cell. It is not a design that is gradually implemented. So not only are separate and independent structures and mechanisms simultaneously required for successful splicing, and not only are those structures and mechanisms incredibly complex, but the design space is highly nonlinear and discontinuous. This is yet another conundrum for evolution, the theory that calls for slow gradual change. Here is how one report described the findings:

The investigators found that a scarce, small RNA, called U6atac, controls the expression of hundreds of genes that have critical functions in cell growth, cell-cycle control, and global control of physiology. … These genes encode proteins that play essential roles in cell physiology such as several transcription regulators, ion channels, signaling proteins, and DNA damage-repair proteins. Their levels in cells are regulated by the activity of the splicing machinery, which acts as a valve to control essential regulators of cell growth and response to external stimuli. Dreyfuss, who studies RNA-binding proteins and their role in such diseases as spinal muscular atrophy and other motor neuron degenerative diseases, describes the findings as “completely unanticipated.”

The theory of evolution attempts to explain how the species arose. With the inexorable march of science, that explanation is becoming increasingly complex.

Here’s That New Fossil Study That Found a Crack in Evolution

It Will Only Get Bigger

Animal groups do not evolve greater and greater new designs as time goes by, but rather are at their maximum level of diversity early in their history. And species must be constrained in how much they can change. The ignorant babblings of creationists? Ridiculous criticisms of IDs? True they have been making such claims for years, but this time it comes from evolutionists at the University of Bath who performed a massive fossil study. As one of the evolutionists explained:

This pattern, known as “early high disparity,” turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years.

Early high disparity? And another one of the evolutionists explained that species must be constrained in how much they can change:

Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on. The only exceptions to the rule are groups that were wiped out at times of mass extinction.

In their paper they explained that there are few putative macroevolutionary trends or rules that withstand scrutiny. Funny, we’ve been saying that for years. The difference is we don’t carry a theological mandate for evolution.

Now we find such talk in evolution papers. These findings join the thousands of other scientific problems with evolution, slowly eating away at the foundation.

Religion drives science and it matters.

Evolutionists Solve Eye Evolution (Again)

Recently we discussed a paper from 2008 in which evolutionists claimed to have solved the long-standing question of how the eye evolved. It is a problem that famously once made Darwin shudder but the evolutionists claimed that now, with our advanced scientific knowledge, “the gap in understanding of the molecular evolution of eye components is all but closed.” That was quite a claim and, not surprisingly, there was no such breakthrough. In fact, the “explanation” that the evolutionists provided was simply that the key cellular signal transduction pathway in our eyes came from a very similar pathway in yeast that senses certain types of signaling chemicals known as pheromones. The evolutionists had no explanation for how the yeast pathway arose in the first place or exactly how it could morph into the animal vision system. It was yet another example of evolution’s trivial, non scientific, solutions that do nothing but generate vacuous headlines. Well evolutionists have done it again. This month they “solved” the problem of eye evolution yet again. Apparently that 2008 solution didn’t take, but this new solution is no better.

You may have seen the Wall Street Journal article from earlier this month proclaiming the new discovery of how vision evolved. The headline read, “A Relief to Darwin: The Eyes Have It.” Or perhaps you saw the press release trumpeting the new “Breakthrough study” that “Pinpoints Evolutionary Origins of Sight.”

The paper itself was no less triumphant. It claimed to reveal “a simple route to animal vision.” But in fact the evolutionists discovered no such thing. It was all yet another abuse of science.

As with the earlier 2008 paper, the new study appeals to yet another signal transduction pathway as the progenitor of later vision systems. This time instead of yeast, the paper appeals to a pathway in placozoa. As with the yeast system, the placozoa system probably detects signaling chemicals.

As usual, the evolutionists “solve” the problem simply by pushing it back in time. The evolution narrative continues to push complexity to earlier stages where it somehow and fortuitously appears. As the evolutionists conclude: “Our results are compatible with the view that the last common neuralian ancestor might have been more complex than generally assumed.”

So the new study makes evolution even more heroic and implausible. What it does not show is precisely what the paper and the articles claim that it shows: how vision evolved.

Evolution is more ludicrous with each passing week. It is a religiously-motivated movement that force-fits scientific findings to its truth. Its unending trail of vacuous discoveries is nothing more than a reflection of the underlying religion. As John Ioannidis has put it, “claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.” That is a good description of evolutionary science.

Religion drives science and it matters.

Incredible: Evolutionists Have Now Solved Eye Evolution

Evolutionists now understand how the eye evolved. While skeptics have been claiming something doesn’t come from nothing, evolutionists have been busy tracking down the details. As one paper explains, “the gap in understanding of the molecular evolution of eye components is all but closed.” That is amazing. For understanding eye evolution at the molecular level is the holy grail, or at least a holy grail. As we have discussed before, vision is profoundly complicated and it is not clear how it could spontaneously arise as evolutionists believe it did. And vague speculation, with cartoon illustrations, of light sensitive patches magically morphing into a series of increasingly sophisticated eyes do not help much. What is needed is a plausible explanation of how such evolution could occur, and an account of how the eye evolved at the molecular level certainly does the job. It is terrific news that evolutionists have now achieved this incredible accomplishment.

The key in providing such an explanation, say evolutionists, is two-fold. First, they needed the detailed account of how vision works at the molecular level. These details have been increasingly elucidated in recent decades and they are crucial in understanding the evolutionary steps that led to the eye.

Second, they needed a better understanding of the evolutionary tree, telling them which species evolved from which. This provides the framework from which to derive the sequence of molecular changes that led to the eye.

With these two developments well in hand, evolutionists have now laid out what was once thought impossible. They have derived a detailed account, at the molecular level, of vision. They have discovered how chance mutations could spontaneously create the eye. They now have the holy grail.

And as is sometimes the case with the greatest scientific breakthroughs the answer turns out to be rather simple. Newton explained that F=ma and Einstein found that E=mc^2. Now we have an even more profound discovery. The incredible cellular signal transduction cascade at the heart of vision evolved from a similar system in yeast. Yes, believe it or not, it is that simple. As the evolutionists explain:

In yeast (a fungus), these receptors are sensitive to pheromones, and they even direct a signal through proteins homologous to non-opsin phototransduction proteins. As such, a signaling pathway exists outside animals, which is very similar to phototransduction, except that the receptor protein detects pheromones, not light. Receptors outside animals share some characteristics with opsin, like snaking through a cell membrane seven times. It is one of these serpentine proteins that served as the progenitor of the first opsin protein, as evidenced by the similarity of opsins and other serpentine proteins.

There you have it. The eye evolved from a signaling pathway outside of animals. The evolutionists triumphantly conclude that:

the gap in understanding of the molecular evolution of eye components is all but closed, highlighting the bankruptcy of the argument that design is required to explain the origins of biological features

What is perhaps most remarkable about this finding is the sheer genius of evolutionists. This is just the stuff of good solid scientific research and once again we’re reminded of why evolution is such an undeniable fact.

Now the evolutionists admit they haven’t figured out every last detail—such as how the yeast system arose in the first place or exactly which mutations morphed it to the animal vision system—but those are details. As you can see, they’ve answered the big questions.

The evolution of the eye, a problem that once made Darwin shudder, is now obviously solved.

You Won’t Believe How Evolutionists Say These Two Major Contradictions Cancel Each Other Out

Even before Darwin scientists knew that completely new kinds of species appeared rather abruptly in the fossil record. And a century later—when scientists uncovered the genomes of different species—they discovered that if evolution were true, then genes that build highly complex designs must have been around long before those complex designs appeared on the scene. Over and over, evolutionists have come to realize, very early life not only must have been extremely complex, but it even must have anticipated the later complexity by having the right genes all ready to go. Evolutionists even have a word for this. They call it “preadapted” genomes. Of course evolutionists insist all this must have spontaneously arisen, for no reason. It was just lucky.

Now these two problems with evolution—the abrupt appearance of new species and preadapted genomes—might seem to be unrelated. Of all the many falsifications and problems with evolution, and there are many, what do these two have to do with each other?

Well it turns out evolutionists have found a way to play the one against the other, so they cancel themselves out simultaneously, in their minds. In a clever argument, they say that the preadapted genomes paved the way for the abrupt appearance of fantastic designs that came later. Of course none of this actually solves the problems, but it sounds very scientific and impressive:

The genomes of taxa whose stem lineages branched early in metazoan history, and of allied protistan groups, provide a tantalizing outline of the morphological and genomic changes that accompanied the origin and early diversifications of animals. Genome comparisons show that the early clades increasingly contain genes that mediate development of complex features only seen in later metazoan branches. Peak additions of protein-coding regulatory genes occurred deep in the metazoan tree, evidently within stem groups of metazoans and eumetazoans. However, the bodyplans of these early-branching clades are relatively simple. The existence of major elements of the bilaterian developmental toolkit in these simpler organisms implies that these components evolved for functions other than the production of complex morphology, preadapting the genome for the morphological differentiation that occurred higher in metazoan phylogeny. Stem lineages of the bilaterian phyla apparently required few additional genes beyond their diploblastic ancestors. As disparate bodyplans appeared and diversified during the Cambrian explosion, increasing complexity was accommodated largely through changes in cis-regulatory networks, accompanied by some additional gene novelties. Subsequently, protein-coding genic richness appears to have essentially plateaued. Some genomic evidence suggests that similar stages of genomic evolution may have accompanied the rise of land plants

So for some reason all kinds of genes arose spontaneously for no known reason, and later all kinds of species with fantastic new designs appeared abruptly, but not to worry because the former made possible the latter.

Evolutionists say without evolution nothing makes sense in biology, but it seems that with evolution nothing makes sense in biology. Religion drives science and it matters.

New Cambrian Arthropod Vision System: No More Shudders

Years ago physicist Riccardo Levi-Setti became fascinated with trilobites. He wrote a book about them and at one point called their 500 million year old eyes “an all-time feat of function optimization.” They were, as evolutionists admitted, “an impressive feat of early evolution.” But now a new finding shows evolution to be even more impressive.

Charles Darwin considered the eye to be an “organ of extreme perfection.” Even after writing Origins he confessed it gave him a cold shudder. He needed to focus on his theory’s fine gradations to give himself comfort. But one hundred and thirty four years later, in 1994, evolutionists laid the problem to rest. The evolution of the eye was finally understood. It turned out such evolution was no big deal after all. In fact the eye could rather easily evolve.

The only catch to the conclusion was that it was made by evolutionists. Remember that evolutionists insist evolution must be a fact for religious reasons. As such their objectivity is sometimes wanting, as in this case. With evolution taken as a fact, whether or not vision systems evolved was no longer in question—they did. The only question was how they have evolved. The 1994 paper explained that although Darwin “anticipated that the eye would become a favorite target for criticism,” the problem “has now almost become a historical curiosity” and “the question is now one of process rate rather than one of principle.” The evolutionists estimated this rate by first assuming that the eye indeed evolved. They wrote:

The evolution of complex structures, however, involves modifications of a large number of separate quantitative characters, and in addition there may be discrete innovations and an unknown number of hidden but necessary phenotypic changes. These complications seem effectively to prevent evolution rate estimates for entire organs and other complex structures. An eye is unique in this respect because the structures necessary for image formation, although there may be several, are all typically quantitative in their nature, and can be treated as local modifications of pre-existing tissues. Taking a patch of pigmented light-sensitive epithelium as the starting point, we avoid the more inaccessible problem of photoreceptor cell evolution. Thus, if the objective is limited to finding the number of generations required for the evolution of an eye’s optical geometry, then the problem becomes solvable.

The problem becomes solvable? The evolutionists skipped the entire evolution of cellular signal transduction and the vision cascade. That would be like saying you have showed how motorcycles evolved although you took the engine, drive train and wheels as your starting point.

The evolutionists then skipped all of the major problems that arise after you have a signal transduction system in place, such as the incredible post processing system and the creation of the machinery to construct the vision system. The problem they ended up solving is sometimes affectionately referred to as a “cartoon” version of the real world problem.

The research, if you can call it that, did not serve as evidence for evolution. Yet the paper became a favorite reference for evolutionists wanting to suppress scientific skepticism of evolution. Eye evolution, they insisted, was now known to be straightforward. Here, for instance, is how our tax dollars are used by PBS to promote this abuse of science:

Zoologist Dan-Erik Nilsson demonstrates how the complex human eye could have evolved through natural selection acting on small variations. Starting with a simple patch of light sensitive cells, Nilsson’s model “evolves” until a clear image is produced.

With such mythology now internalized in evolutionary lore, evolutionists will believe practically anything, including a new finding of even greater evolutionary wonders. The new paper reports on complex vision in early arthropods long predating most of the trilobites. But in order to properly “educate” the reader and prepare them for the findings, the paper begins with, yes, a reference to that 1994 Nilsson paper:

Despite the status of the eye as an “organ of extreme perfection,” theory suggests that complex eyes can evolve very rapidly. … Here we report exceptionally preserved fossil eyes from the Early Cambrian (~515 million years ago) Emu Bay Shale of South Australia, revealing that some of the earliest arthropods possessed highly advanced compound eyes, each with over 3,000 large ommatidial lenses and a specialized “bright zone.” … The eyes are more complex than those known from contemporaneous trilobites and are as advanced as those of many living forms. They provide further evidence that the Cambrian explosion involved rapid innovation in fine-scale anatomy as well as gross morphology, and are consistent with the concept that the development of advanced vision helped to drive this great evolutionary event.

With the mythological framework properly in place, the findings could then safely be presented as confirmations of evolution. As the journal’s editor added:

Charles Darwin thought that the eye, which he called an “organ of extreme perfection,” was a serious challenge to evolutionary theory — but he was mistaken. Theory predicts that eyes can evolve with great speed, and now there is support for this prediction from the fossil record.

Support for this prediction? You’ve got to be kidding. A cartoon version of reality, taking the myth of evolution as true, is considered a “prediction” and amazing early complexity in the fossils then becomes a “support for this prediction”?

What the new fossils revealed is an early Cambrian, highly advanced vision system more elaborate than any so far discovered. Its compound eyes have more then 3,000 lenses optimally arranged in the densest and most efficient packing pattern. As the paper explains:

The extremely regular arrangement of lenses seen here exceeds even that in certain modern taxa, such as the horseshoe crab Limulus, in which up to one-third of lenses deviate from hexagonal packing.

All of this is presented to the reader as merely another demonstration of how fantastic designs just happen spontaneously to arise:

The new fossils reveal that some of the earliest arthropods had already acquired visual systems similar to those of living forms, underscoring the speed and magnitude of the evolutionary innovation that occurred during the Cambrian explosion.

Ho-hum, yet more evolutionary innovation. For evolutionists it is just another day in the office. As PZ Myers explains, we already knew that complex animals appear rapidly. After all, that is why they call it the “Cambrian explosion.” Evolutionists have written “whole books on the subject.”

Myers follows this circular reasoning with yet more question begging:

The sudden appearance of complexity is no surprise, either. We know that the fundamental mechanisms of eye function evolved long before the Cambrian, from the molecular evidence;

Of course there is no “molecular evidence” that gives us such knowledge. But if you assume evolution is true to begin with, as do evolutionists who analyze the molecular patterns, then Myers’ fictional, question begging, world makes sense.

Myers follows these circular arguments with a more subtle type of fallacy. He explains that these particular findings are no big deal because both this finding and the trilobite vision systems require cellular signal transduction, development machines and so forth:

It is also the case that the measure of complexity here is determined by a simple meristic trait, the number of ommatidia. This is not radical. The hard part in the evolution of the compound eye was the development of the signal transduction mechanism, followed by the developmental rules that governed the formation of a regular, repeating structure of the eye. The number of ommatidia is a reflection of the degree of commitment of tissues in the head to eye formation, and is a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one.

Setting aside the usual evolutionary speculation about how easily designs evolve, the problem here is that the cellular signal transduction, development machines and so forth are themselves problems for evolution. Indeed, even the simplest of light detection systems sport such incredible designs for which evolution has no explanation beyond vague speculation.

Next Myers is back to question-begging. In typical fashion he attempts to shore up the evolution position with the usual reference to the mythical 1994 Nilsson paper:

And finally, there’s nothing in the data from this paper that implies sudden origins; there can’t be. If it takes a few hundred thousand years for a complex eye to evolve from a simple light sensing organ, there is no way to determine that one sample of a set of fossils was the product of millions of years of evolution, or one day of magical creation.

Next is the fallacy of credulity. If you present an evolutionist with the scientific failures of his theory, he will accuse you of basing your skepticism on your own failure to imagine a solution. As Myers puts it:

It’s a logical error and a failure of the imagination to assume that these descriptions are of a population that spontaneously emerged nearly-instantaneously.

Failure of the imagination? Indeed, we just need to do more imagining, that’s the problem.

Finally Myers reiterates the flawed Darwinian argument that whatever abruptness you see in the fossil record is, after all, merely a consequence of all those gaps in the fossils:

Darwin himself explained in great detail how one should not expect fine-grained fossil series, due to the imperfection of the geological record.

When in doubt, doubt the data. Paleontologists agree that the fossil record reveals abrupt appearances, but when convenient evolutionists can always protect their theory with those gaps in the fossil record.

Evolutionary thinking is remarkable. I am reminded of John Earman’s remarks about Hume’s arguments. For it is astonishing how well evolution is treated, given how completely the confection collapses under a little probing. And yet evolutionists are supremely confident they are right.

Evolutionists such as Myers are very book smart, but the wisdom and common sense is lacking. The evolutionist’s confidence is exceeded only by the absurdity of his theory. Religion drives science and it matters.

How Evolutionists View Francis Collins

President Obama's nomination this week of Francis Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health was politically smart. Collins, an evolutionist and an evangelical Christian, has wide appeal. One day he can be speaking at an international gathering of leading scientists and the next at a suburban mega-church. In fact Collins is quite interested in maintaining the harmony between these two worlds. It is true that many Christians are evolutionists, but many others are not. Collins seeks to remedy the misconceptions he sees as motivating such skepticism.

All of this seems entirely politically correct. Do evolutionists have any grounds for complaint against the long-time NIH scientist and leader of the high-profile Human Genome Project? Yes they do.

Like the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, Collins gets stuck on the moral law within. Can evolution really describe altruism? Indeed the evolutionary explanations are rather silly, and for all of his promotion of evolution Collins cannot go the full distance. The moral law remains an enigma in the twenty first century.

For this breach of faith Collins is attacked by his fellow evolutionists. PZ Myers and others cannot tolerate such skepticism. Doesn't Collins know that evolution has plenty of just-so stories to explain behavior such as altruism?

Furthermore, Myers and other evolutionists point out that Collins' skepticism is a gods-of-the-gaps argument. This is yet another one of evolution's religious arguments. Dating back to certain seventeenth century Anglicans, it is a general-purpose religious argument that can be used to rebuke any and all scientific problems with evolution. The empirical evidence is inconsequential--no matter how contradictory are the data, evolutionists mandate naturalistic explanations. We may not know how altruism evolved, but it must have evolved. To think otherwise is to commit the sin of gap thinking.

So evolutionists such as Myers use non scientific concerns to mute the science. Their scientific "method" overrules the evidence. There is no option for contemplating possibilities; no allowance for tentatively considering alternatives. Evolution is a fact. As one evolutionist typically put it:

If a given problem appears to be merely unsolved, then he'll leave it to the realm of science; if, on the other hand, Collins deems a question to be unsolvable, it's fair game for inclusion in a spiritual interpretation of the universe.

And that's a no-no for evolutionists. They mandate that all phenomena can be accurately explained naturalistically. One need not be a philosopher to see that this claim to completeness, realism and naturalism does not come from science.

But the criticism of Collins ceases when he uses the standard religious arguments for evolution. For instance, appealing to the genetic data he is familiar with, Collins makes the usual "God wouldn't do it that way" arguments:

Most mammals, for example, do not need dietary sources of vitamin C because they can make their own using an enzyme encoded in their genomes. But primates, including humans, require vitamin C in their diet, or they will suffer a disease called scurvy. What happened here? Well, if you search through the human genome, you will find a degenerated copy of the gene for this vitamin C synthesizing enzyme. But it has sustained a knockout blow, losing more than half of its coding sequence. A claim that the human genome was created by God independently rather than being part of descent from a common ancestor would mean God intentionally inserted a nonfunctioning piece of DNA into our genomes to test our faith. Unless you are willing to contemplate the idea of God as a deceiver, this is not a comfortable explanation.

Collins' logic is faulty (common ancestry is not the only naturalistic explanation), but more importantly, as Elliott Sober has pointed out, the strength of the evolutionary argument comes not from its premises about common ancestry, but from its premises about separate ancestry. It always comes down to judgments about God.

This is a standard evolutionary argument and it is no surprise that evolutionists, though harsh in their criticism of Collins' skepticism of evolutionary explanations for altruism, stand mute as Collins promotes the usual religious arguments that mandate evolution.

It is the ultimate display of hypocrisy. Religion drives evolution, and yet evolutionists don the white lab coat and point fingers at anyone who dare make inferences from the data, castigating them as "religiously-driven." As evolutionist Jerry Coyne wrote, "I’d be much more comfortable with someone whose only agenda was science." Translation: "I’d be much more comfortable with someone whose only agenda was evolution."