Here’s an Incredible Idea For How Memory Works

Do you remember Avogadro’s number, the acceleration due to gravity, pi or a Shakespearean Sonnet? The problem is that how the brain could store information long-term has been something of a mystery. But now researchers have developed a very interesting idea of how the brain’s neurons could store information using, believe it or not, a binary encoding scheme based on phosphorylation:

Memory is attributed to strengthened synaptic connections among particular brain neurons, yet synaptic membrane components are transient, whereas memories can endure. This suggests synaptic information is encoded and ‘hard-wired’ elsewhere, e.g. at molecular levels within the post-synaptic neuron. In long-term potentiation (LTP), a cellular and molecular model for memory, post-synaptic calcium ion (Ca2+) flux activates the hexagonal Ca2+-calmodulin dependent kinase II (CaMKII), a dodacameric holoenzyme containing 2 hexagonal sets of 6 kinase domains. Each kinase domain can either phosphorylate substrate proteins, or not (i.e. encoding one bit). Thus each set of extended CaMKII kinases can potentially encode synaptic Ca2+ information via phosphorylation as ordered arrays of binary ‘bits’. Candidate sites for CaMKII phosphorylation-encoded molecular memory include microtubules (MTs), cylindrical organelles whose surfaces represent a regular lattice with a pattern of hexagonal polymers of the protein tubulin. Using molecular mechanics modeling and electrostatic profiling, we find that spatial dimensions and geometry of the extended CaMKII kinase domains precisely match those of MT hexagonal lattices. This suggests sets of six CaMKII kinase domains phosphorylate hexagonal MT lattice neighborhoods collectively, e.g. conveying synaptic information as ordered arrays of six “bits”, and thus “bytes”, with 64 to 5,281 possible bit states per CaMKII-MT byte. Signaling and encoding in MTs and other cytoskeletal structures offer rapid, robust solid-state information processing which may reflect a general code for MT-based memory and information processing within neurons and other eukaryotic cells.

That just has random mutations written all over it.

A Spacecraft Has Been Orbiting This Major Asteroid Since Last Summer

The Dawn spacecraft has returned some great photographs of the asteroid Vesta, such as this one showing the south pole. Vesta is 330 mile in diameter.

This Study Shows that Even a Protein’s Concentration Levels Are Finely-Tuned

One of the problems with evolution is that its view of how organisms arose by chance conflicts with the details we observe in biology. Under evolution, chance mutations happen to create genes which then perform some function, such as contributing to a metabolic pathway, which then becomes part of a complex network of pathways, which then is regulated in complex ways, which then …, which then …, which then …

What we observe is a world where the details matter. But evolution is a theory of serendipity. For example, it is beyond all odds that proteins would arise by chance, but this is only the beginning of evolution’s difficulties. The gene encoding the protein needs to be expressed at the right times, the resulting protein needs to be produced in the right quantities, it then needs to be transported to the right place in the cell, and so forth.

Here’s one study showing the intricacies not of a protein’s design, but of its distribution. In this case the concentration of a multi-purpose protein called cohesin within the cell is crucial.

Cohesin is involved in such tasks as chromosome condensation, segregation and cohesion, and DNA repair. But the concentration of cohesin required to perform these different tasks differs substantially. And if the concentration levels go wrong then some of the cell functions can fail while others may continue to work properly:

The requirement for different in vivo cohesin concentrations to achieve distinct cohesin functions provides an explanation for how cohesin mutations can specifically lead to adult disorders such as Cornelia de Lange Syndrome and Roberts Syndrome without compromising the cell divisions needed for development and maturation.

In biology, the details matter. Proteins do not merely evolve by chance and then suddenly begin solving problems. An army of other molecular machines need to sense the need for the protein, access the associated gene, open it up and make a copy, use the copy to construct the protein, construct the right quantity, transport the protein to the right place in the cell and in the right concentration, and destroy the protein when the job is done.

Could all of this have evolved by chance? I don’t know, perhaps. But that is not what science is telling us.

Darwin Was Working on His Theory When This SuperNova Was First Seen

This beautiful Hubble Telescope photograph of the Eta Carinae system gives us a great deal more detail than they had in 1843 when the supernova was first observed from Earth. It’s a graphic illustration of the level of scientific ignorance Darwin was working under. Darwin remains a hero today, and his “one long argument” continues to hold sway, not because of the science, but because of the religion. In that regard, Darwin was spot on, and nothing has changed. Sure, all kinds of new scientific evidence has been discovered, but it is interpreted according to the same old metaphysics. Religion drives science, and it matters.

In a Few Minutes Some Russian Space Junk Will Pass Close By the International Space Station

An upcoming close encounter between the International Space Station and a chunk of a Russian rocket was discovered on Friday, and so the five astronauts have exited the station and right now are strapped into the two Soyuz reentry vehicles just in case an impact occurs. The chances of an impact are highly unlikely, but they’re not taking any chances.

These Molecular Sorting Machines Cooperate With Each Other in a “Complex Topology”

The mitochondria inner membrane has an army of protein machines that carry out the mitochondria’s job of constructing ATP molecules—the all-purpose cellular energy source. These proteins are specialized for specific tasks and are precisely arranged in the inner membrane environment. As one writer explained:

The generators in the cellular power plants are biological membranes located inside the mitochondria. Even minute errors in the composition of the inner mitochondrial membrane can lead to severe metabolic derangements, which can have an especially negative impact on the energy-hungry muscle and nerve cells. In order to function, the cellular generators depend on the support of numerous highly specialized membrane proteins in the inner mitochondrial membrane.

Not surprisingly, except to evolutionists, the machinery that transports and locates these protein machines is also highly complex. In fact, research is now indicating that at least two different sorting machines, using two different mechanisms, work in a cooperative and coordinated manner:

Stop-transfer and conservative sorting are not mutually exclusive pathways but represent sorting mechanisms that cooperate in the membrane integration of a protein with complex topology. We conclude that the multispanning protein is inserted in a modular manner by the coordinated action of two inner-membrane preprotein translocases.

Findings such as these are common in biology. Evolutionists misrepresent the biological world as a fluke that just happened to come together. They cannot explain how this is possible, but they insist it must be so. Within evolution there is a sort of militant advocacy that cannot tolerate even so much as minor doubts about whether evolution is true. It is perfectly acceptable to doubt the various sub hypotheses of evolution, but not evolution itself. This is because if evolution is not true, then all kinds of dogmatic convictions come into question. And so it is imperative for evolutionists to defend their theory at any cost, even if that includes casting scientific inquiry as nefarious, blackballing dissenters, misrepresenting science, and so forth. Of course most evolutionists would never think of their movement in such terms. Instead, evolution is viewed as “just science” and any doubt about evolution is viewed as religiously-motivated creationism. The truth is precisely the opposite.

This Evolutionist Just Dissented From Their Official Motto, But Then Rationalized it (Kind of)

Massimo Pigliucci just said that Theodozius Dobzhansky’s famous statement (and paper title)—nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution—is “patently wrong.” Of course Pigliucci is not walking back any of evolution’s false epistemological claims, such as that evolution is as much a fact as is gravity, heliocentrism or the round shape of the earth. But it is a positive step to see an evolutionist at least concede that, what has amounted to the evolutionist’s official motto, is obviously a false claim. But then Pigliucci appears to justify the lie as a necessary pedagogical device:

Problem is, Dobzhansky was writing for an audience of science high school teachers

As though it is OK to tell lies to high school teachers.

That reminds me of the high school biology teacher who explained to me that they couldn’t allow any evidential problems or contradictions into the curriculum because that would “confuse the students.” We certainly wouldn’t want that.

Another common evolutionary tactic is to threaten those making the curriculum decisions with all manner of doom and gloom if evolutionary dogma is not enforced, as did several members of that evolutionary mouthpiece the National Academy of Science this week:

By undermining the teaching of evolution in Tennessee’s public schools, HB368 and SB893 would miseducate students, harm the state’s national reputation, and weaken its efforts to compete in a science-driven global economy.

Miseducate students? This coming from those who have dominated our failing public schools, teaching all manner of lies about the origin of life and faked embryos to moths and horse fossils. Unfortunately the National Academy of Science has long since compromised itself by insisting that the religious theory of evolution is a fact (once again, your tax dollars at work).

But by far the most common, powerful, tactic evolutionists use to justify their dogma is, as usual, the creationism warning. Teaching the facts and allowing evolution to be criticized, is really a conspiracy, as Eugenie Scott ominously warned last month at the University of South Florida, for it is “a backdoor way of getting creationism into the curriculum [1:18]”:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

I Just Found Out There Are Multiple Multiverses

An evolutionist just told me privately that there are multiple—as in a large number—multiverses and this is a game-changer. A multiverse is a large number of universes, which evolutionists now know really do exist. Evolutionists explain that the number of universes in a multiverse is “a large number” rather than infinity because certain mathematical and philosophical problems arise if you have an infinity of universes. With an infinity of universes evolution becomes a fact (along with everything else, of course, because everything happens when you have an infinite number of chances, and evolution is all about chances). But “a large number” is actually just as good, when you think about it. This is because “a large number” can be any number you want it to be. The only limit is infinity, but that actually is not a limit because, well, it is infinity.

Anyway, now it turns out that not only is there a multiverse (“a large number” of universes), but there also is “a large number” of multiverses. This is an incredible thought, when you think about it, and makes evolution beyond just a mere fact. There simply is no question that everything just happened to arise all by itself. It’s a real game-changer.

A Treasure Trove of Thousands of Novel Genes Has Been Discovered, Much Closer Than You Could Have Imagined

You’ve heard about those novel genes—unique DNA sequences that code for proteins found in only one species. Now an abundance of these have been found not in our body, but on our body. That is, in the hundreds of different microbe species that attend to the average human. In fact, not only does this Human Microbiome supply thousands of new, unique genes, it also supplies ten times more cells than our own bodies have.

Here is a Haunting Composite Image of the Titanic on the Ocean Floor

This month’s National Geographic has some detailed composite images of the Titanic on the ocean floor, produced by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

Your Tax Dollars At Work: This Evolution Professor Just Made An Anti-Science, Religious Statement at the NIH

Lynn Jorde, award-winning evolution professor and Chair of the Department of Human Genetics at the tax-payer supported University of Utah, just gave a talk at the tax-payer supported National Institutes of Health where he approvingly quoted Lewis Thomas, former Dean of Yale Medical School that without random mutations we would be bacteria:

The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music. [at 4:55 minutes]

And so we should, Jorde reminded his evolutionary audience, appreciate our mutations, though he did concede that those mutations “occasionally cause disease.”

There are different ways of describing evolution’s religiously-driven manipulation of science. Evolutionists often attempt to mask it with technical-sounding jargon. Other times they seek to impose, more forcefully, their religious views. Either way one is left rather astonished at the lack of self-awareness evolutionists display. One is reminded of Hans Christian Andersen’s seemingly unlikely tale, The Emperor's New Clothes. In the case of evolution, however, it is unfortunately all too real. Evolutionists are without shame in their absurdity.

Recent Hammerhead Shark Research Shows Several, Independent Lines of Evidence Against Evolution

Hammerhead shark research suggests that the first hammerhead appeared abruptly some 20 million years ago. It’s aerodynamic head, or cephalofoil, is a unique design, not only providing lift while swimming, but a platform for a distributed sensor suite, complete with widely spaced eyes and an array of electromagnetic sensors providing triangulation with superior binocular vision and electromagnetic tracking of prey, detecting extremely weak electrical signals arising from molecules in their prey. Even evolutionists admit it is “remarkable.” Indeed, an abruptly appearing design that requires our smartest scientists even to understand. In addition to this, the newer hammerheads are smaller versions of that original hammerhead. These “incredible shrinking sharks” must have independently evolved from the ancestral lineage.

Abrupt appearances, astonishing designs, and independent repeated evolution. It is, as E.O. Wilson would say, a consilience of evidence.

Here is What the Multiverse Really Means

Evolutionists use the multiverse idea to explain how their improbable idea that all of biology, and everything else, just happened to arise spontaneously. We know from science that the idea is improbable, but that is only if we restrict ourselves to our particular universe. What if there are many universes? A great many universes. So many universes that even improbable events are eventually likely to occur, in at least one of them. And since there is no upper bound on the number of universes there may be out there, even astronomically unlikely events—like millions and millions of incredible species, each with their incredible designs—become just another yawner. So what, it was bound to happen. And when said evolution occurs, then the creatures it produces will observe their own world. What will be apparent to them is only their own universe. It will appear as though the world must have been created, so unlikely and incredible are its inhabitants. But it is all an illusion for, in the bigger picture, that near infinity of universes—the multiverse—was bound to produce a world so incredible.

What evolutionists do not so often discuss is the baggage that comes along with this multiverse idea. For if our world becomes an odds-on favorite to evolve, then what else has evolved out there? There must be universes that contain all manner of incredible, unlikely events. After all, with the mulitiverse, they no longer are unlikely.

There are worlds where there is nothing, and others full of action. Everything that is not downright physically impossible—and even the concept of impossible is challenged when multiverses can have their own laws of physics—is likely to happen. There is a multiverse where someone just floated in mid air for a moment, and another where a star just disappeared. There are others that are full of super heroes and others where all the planets are hollow. There’s even one, as the poster above explains, where you are batman. But I always wanted to be Robin.

Locusts Incredibly Change from Passive and Peaceful to Aggressive and Deadly When They Are Overcrowded

Locusts are the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the insect world. They are picky eaters and lead a solitary lifestyle until overcrowding occurs and within a few hours they undergo a radical transformation and form vicious swarms. Suddenly they abandon their peaceful independent lifestyle and refined vegetarian diet for aggressive behavior which has them strangely marching together and flying in swarms, and eating most any plant and ultimately each other. They change color from brown to yellow and black, and their brain undergoes a radical change, including an increase in size by about a third.

This is an example of an extreme phenotypic makeover. With evolution we must believe a vast number of mutations conspired not to change the organism per se, but to give it this incredible capability to change under specific conditions. And that makeover would include eating each other. It hardly seems like a very good “survival of the fittest” solution, but that’s evolution for you.

A Flower Adapted to Losing its Pollinator Almost Immediately and Evolutionists Claim it is an Example of Evolution

What happens when a plant loses its pollinator? Plants are known to make the transition and in a controlled experiment using the monkey plant, after struggling with low seed production for a few generations, the flower then recovered with seed production rising to almost normal levels. Amazingly evolutionists are calling this adaptation an example of evolution in action:

The populations without pollinators suffered greatly reduced fitness in early generations but rebounded as they evolved an improved ability to self-fertilize.

There were no long time periods with natural selection slowly acting on random mutations. If evolution is true then this is another example of how evolution must have created incredible mechanisms of adaptation, which when used evolutionists could claim as an example of, yes, “evolution.” Evolutionists are completely tone-deaf to their own glaring fallacies.

I Just Had This Discussion With an Evolutionist

[Ed: This entry has been deleted, but you can still watch the video]

Evolutionists Are Now Going Wild With “Lateral” Evolution And One Evolutionist Said “There is Nothing to Criticize”

Do you remember when evolution was supposed to follow a common descent pattern, with genes passed down (“vertically” in evolution lingo) from progenitor to progeny? Then the evidence got in the way as similar genes were found in more distant species, violating the expect evolutionary pattern. So evolutionists took their first drink of lateral evolution. And of course the drinking continued. And continued. Soon the origin of life riddle, for instance, was transformed into one massive lateral evolution event, with genetic material readily being exchanged between cells in the same population via an incredibly complex, never observed, process that cannot be repeated or tested. Similarly lateral, or horizontal, evolution is being called upon to explain all kinds of findings that violate common descent’s expected pattern, as in the following example of evolutionists gone wild.

Many bacteria and single-cell eukaryotes live in zero or low oxygen environments and this means they can’t perform certain operations. For instance the eukaryotes cannot create sterols, small chemicals that are an important ingredient, for example, in the cell’s membrane, influencing its fluidity. Eukaryotes solve this problem, according to new research, by switching to the sterol-like molecule, tetrahymanol, for which oxygen is not required to synthesize. The research shows that the key gene in constructing tetrahymanol, squalene-tetrahymanol cyclase or STC, is distributed in many of these eukaryotes living in zero or low oxygen environments. But this means the STC gene is widely distributed, not following the expected common descent pattern. Not surprisingly, the evolutionists took another drink. They casually explain that the gene was “laterally transferred” among the eukaryotes:

The monophyly of eukaryote STC homologues could be explained by vertical inheritance from a common tetrahymanol-synthesizing eukaryotic ancestor. However, if this were the case, dozens of parallel losses of the STC genes in many eukaryotic lineages that currently lack this gene would be required, so this evolutionary scenario seems unlikely. An alternative and more plausible possibility is that the STC gene has been laterally transferred among phylogenetically diverged eukaryotes through an unknown mechanism.

An unknown mechanism? That’s right, evolutionists must appeal to unknown mechanisms to explain their “fact.” We don’t know how evolution happened, but we’re certain that it’s true. Take another drink. As one evolutionist who reviewed the paper wrote, “There is nothing to criticize.”

Nothing in biology makes sense in the light of evolution.

Not Just Friday Humor: The State of Evolution

This four minute video actually shows the state of evolution.

The State of Evolution

Joe Kittinger Just Watched Felix Baumgartner Take the First Step Toward Breaking His 50 Year Record

Here is Kittinger in 1960 jumping from 102,800 feet:

Here is Baumgartner jumping from 71,600 feet:

A Clinical Psychologist Just Said Evolution is “Beyond Any Rational Doubt”

We appreciate Professor Gregg Henriques over at Psychology Today pointing out this blog, and his noting that some critics say that “evolution itself is more religion than science.” Henriques gives a thoughtful analysis of his view of the origins debate. But the self-described academic and humanist loses his objectivity when it comes to the fact of evolution:

It is essential to recognize that within mainstream biology, evolution, meaning descent from a common ancestor, is an accepted FACT. In other words, it is beyond any rational doubt that billions of years ago there were single celled organisms and over time these organisms have evolved into the organisms alive today.

Here the clinical psychologist, who deals with depression, suicide and the personality disorders, equates mainstream biology with rational thought. In other words, what evolutionists say goes. We must accept what they declare to be true, and we must reject what they declare to be false. Any other course is not rational.

It is remarkable, and indeed concerning, how deeply evolutionary metaphysics and dogma have penetrated the academy.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Evolutionists Gave Me Pushback When I Pointed Out a Problem

This week the gorilla genome was published and it revealed some problems for evolution. When the human and chimpanzee genomes were compared years ago, the human genes showed some surprising differences in a few places, such as in genes related to hearing. Evolutionists called it “accelerated” evolution and they said that for some reason it was due to the development of human language. Well that explanation now doesn’t make sense because it turns out the gorilla genome has a similar pattern. So now evolutionists are calling it “parallel accelerated” evolution, because according to them the same accelerated evolution must have happened independently, in the human and gorilla genomes. But all they are really doing is giving a name to something that contradicts their belief. Why would the “accelerated evolution” occur in the gorilla? It wasn’t developing human language. Evolutionists have to imagine some other reason, but why then wouldn’t that “accelerated evolution” occur in the chimpanzee? It doesn’t make sense with evolution and all they can say is that random mutations just happened to create the same pattern twice for some reason.

So other evolutionists are trying to talk down the results, saying it all makes sense. For example PZ Myers, an evolution professor, said that these unexpected findings actually aren’t unexpected, but come from evolutionary noise that occurs during speciation. As usual it’s a real stretch because the “parallel accelerated” evolution pattern is greater than evolutionary “noise.”

And as usual, the professor claimed the results contradict creationism. That’s what Darwin’s book was all about. Evolutionists from before Darwin to today believe everything in biology shows that creationism is false. This is what motivates evolutionists. Therefore evolution must be true, even if it doesn’t make sense.

When I explained these problems some smart, up-and-coming evolutionists gave me strong pushback. They tried to walk back the professor’s argument, saying that Myers only meant that some of the human-gorilla pattern was due to evolutionary noise. Of course the professor said no such thing. He didn’t say that noise can explain only some of the findings, and the other findings are a surprise. No, he was busy calling creationists stupid and arguing that creationism is all wrong.

These New Protein Findings Might be a Problem Even According to the Evolutionist’s Own Numbers

The BSC4 gene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or baker’s yeast, was interesting to researchers because of its leaky stop codon but then it became more interesting because it only showed up in that one particular organism. The BSC4 gene is yet another example of a species-specific, or de novo, protein-coding gene. In this case, the protein appears to be involved in DNA repair and helping the organisms cope with nutrient-poor environments. And if this protein is anything like a typical protein, then evolution, even by the evolutionist’s own reckoning, would not be able to construct such low-probability designs. The BSC4 gene must have been constructed in only the past 10 million years or so. And evolutionists cannot appeal to speculative mechanisms. No exon shuffling, duplication, retroposition, fusion, fission or whatever for this gene. It must have arisen the old fashion way, by an evolutionary search through sequence space via random mutations. Is this feasible? The important numbers here are the number of attempts that are possible, and the number of attempts that are required. The two might not add up.

Evolutionists have estimated the number of attempts that evolution could possibly have to construct a new protein. Their upper limit is 10^43 (a one followed by 43 zeros) obtained by multiplying 10^30 (cells in the world) by 10^4 (new genes generated per cell per year) by 10^9 (years). The lower limit is 10^21 obtained by multiplying 10^9 (bacteria species in the world) by 10^3 (unique sequences per species) by 10^9 (years).

While these estimates are incredibly optimistic for several reasons (even the evolutionists admit the upper limit is an “extreme upper limit”), we’re going by the evolutionist’s numbers for the moment. They need to be adjusted, however, because those estimates are for the entire history of the world and for all the species. For de novo genes such as BSC4, we’re dealing with a single species (with an effective population size of about ten million), and only about ten million years. In this case the upper and lower limits become 10^18 and 10^10, respectively.

And the numbers are even smaller for de novo genes found in humans. The time allowed goes down to about 5 million years and the effective population size goes down by at least two orders of magnitude, to about 10^5. So in this case the upper and lower limits become 10^14 and 10^10, respectively.

Studies have shown that even this many searches does not produce much. One study found that with 10^12 attempts all that was produced were a few proteins with weak ATP binding.

And for typical proteins, even these optimistic estimates of the number of attempts fall short by more than 50 orders of magnitude. And these deficits are according to the evolutionist’s own estimates of how many attempts would be required to find a typical protein. One study concluded that 10^63 attempts would be required for a relatively short protein. And a similar result (10^65 attempts required) was obtained by comparing protein sequences.

Another study found that 10^64 to 10^77 attempts are required, and another study concluded that 10^70 attempts would be required. In that case the protein was about the same length as that encoded by BSC4, but it was only a part of a larger protein which otherwise was intact, thus making the search easier.

The numbers don’t add up. The evolution of de novo genes can only count on from 10^10 to 10^18 attempts (and that’s optimistic). If the new proteins are anything like typical proteins, then these numbers show astronomical problems.

Evolutionist PZ Myers is Now Saying That The Gorilla Genome Contradicts Creationism

Remember all those unique human hearing genes that evolutionists said must have undergone “accelerated” evolution because of human language, but then similar genes showed up in the gorilla too? Evolutionists had to conclude that not only was there accelerated evolution, but amazingly it must have occurred in parallel, in both the human and gorilla lineages. So if human language was the reason for the accelerated evolution in the human lineage, the cause in the gorilla lineage was “entirely different, but as-yet-unknown.”

Well now evolutionist PZ Myers is saying that spread out speciation processes and incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) solves the problem. The idea is that when a population gives rise to two species (cladogenesis) those two populations may not both include all the copies (alleles) of a gene, so particular genes may contradict the true evolutionary history. So if a gene fits the hoped for pattern, then they say the history of the gene aligned with the speciation event. But if a gene doesn’t fit the pattern, then they say it was because of ILS.

For added protection Myers throws in some meaningless barbs at his opponents (“Do you really think all the differences popped into existence simultaneously, at one instant when two populations of our last common ancestor discretely and completely separated? Of course not: you’d have to be a creationist to believe in something that stupid.”)

Myers needs the ad hominems because his ILS explanation doesn’t work. It’s a stretch to explain all the parallel evolution using ILS. But incredibly, Myers claims not only that ILS explains the results, but in fact it is all expected. So what was surprising and puzzling for evolutionists rapidly has become yet another confirmation.

Of course, as usual, the evolutionist’s certainty never came from the contradictory evidence that was force fit into just-so stories. It was from religion. As Myers concludes, “the observation of ILS contradicts creationism.” Well if that’s true, then yes, Myers is absolutely correct. Evolution is the right answer.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

[Reworded second paragraph]

Evolutionists Are Now Saying Our Brain Evolved from a Brainless Worm

Humans, and all vertebrates for that matter, have fantastically complex brains. The brain develops in the embryo according to three signaling centers which create a framework. But the genes behind this early development phase are missing in vertebrates’ closest evolutionary relatives. Now evolutionists have found similar such genes in an even more distant species, the acorn worm. But such worms don’t even have a brain to begin with. So evolutionists are saying that random mutations just luckily laid the groundwork for far more complex designs in the lowly worm:

We propose that these genetic programs were components of an unexpectedly complex, ancient genetic regulatory scaffold for deuterostome body patterning that degenerated in amphioxus and ascidians, but was retained to pattern divergent structures in hemichordates and vertebrates.

That molecular machinery then for some reason “degenerated” but nonetheless, strangely “was retained” and came alive in vertebrates to help create the fantastic new brain design.

Nothing makes sense in biology in the light of evolution.

Napoleon’s Revenge: An Evolutionist is Suggesting We Make People Smaller and Give Them Pills to Fight Global Warming

A professor of philosophy and bioethics at New York University is now saying that since humans caused global warming, humans should fix the problem. But since market-based and geoengineering solutions are too risky and ineffective, we need to engineer humans to consume less, for example, by making them smaller.

for example a car uses more fuel per mile to carry a heavier person, more fabric is needed to clothe larger people, and heavier people wear out shoes, carpets and furniture at a quicker rate than lighter people

And how can people be made smaller?  By selection, of course:

You might try to do it through a technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which is already used in IVF settings in fertility clinics today. In this scenario you'd be looking to select which embryos to implant based on height.

George Orwell could not have said it any better. But that’s not all. The professor also suggests using pills—oops, pharmacological enhancements—to heighten one’s positive attitudes toward the environment. This isn’t about manipulating people; rather, it’s about helping people. After all, the pharmas like it so it must be good:

I recently gave a talk about this paper at Yale and there was a man in the audience who worked for a pharmaceutical company; he seemed to think there might be a huge market for modifications like this.

Yes I'm sure he did. Religion drives science, and it matters.

An Evolutionist Just Gave Up On a Fundamental Just-So Story (And Then Made Up Another to Replace it)

Which came first the chicken or the egg? In evolution’s case, the question is between DNA or proteins. The DNA stores the data to make the proteins, but proteins do things (like get the data out of the DNA). It is all so circular: proteins operate on DNA to get the data to make … themselves. When a new individual is conceived, the zygote has both already in place to begin with. But how could this whole biological system evolve from a mud patch? And which came first, DNA or proteins? Twenty five years ago evolutionists hit upon a new just-so story to solve this riddle: It wasn’t DNA or proteins, but RNA, that worked the magic. RNA is what the proteins create when they get the data out of the DNA. They create a copy, RNA, which chemically is slightly different. Evolutionists were excited about RNA because it can store data like DNA, and it can do things like proteins. It does both, so in the beginning it was an RNA world. It was common to see evolutionists hail this idea as solving those difficult origins problems. One experiment had evolutionists exclaiming that it was “extremely strong evidence for the RNA world.” Here’s how Wikipedia explains the concept:

the RNA world evolved into a world of RNP enzymes, such as the ribosome and ribozymes, before giving rise to the DNA, RNA and protein world of today. DNA is thought to have taken over the role of data storage due to its increased stability, while proteins, through a greater variety of monomers (amino acids), replaced RNA's role in specialized biocatalysis. The RNA world hypothesis suggests that RNA in modern cells is an evolutionary remnant of the RNA world that preceded ours.

All of this is just-so story telling, no different than Antony Flew’s hiker who made up all kinds of silly stories about a mythical gardener. In science we can’t just make up stories about an incredible, never observed, RNA world spontaneously arising, based on religious convictions that evolution must be true. And then say DNA took over this role, and proteins took over that role, due to their vastly superior capabilities.

That would be like saying that the internal combustion engine took over the role of land transportation due to its greater power and versatility, while jet engines took over the role of air transportation due to their greater thrust and reliability.

Eventually this caught up with evolutionists and now a paper is out saying that the RNA World hypothesis doesn’t work. A key molecular machine in the RNA World hypothesis is the ribosome. Not only does it construct proteins, a key function, but it is comprised of both proteins and RNA.

The new paper shows that (if evolution is true) early versions of the ribosome must have included the protein parts. Right there you have a flaw in the RNA World hypothesis. Beyond that, the research suggests that RNA alone cannot construct proteins. As the author explained:

I’m convinced that the RNA world (hypothesis) is not correct. That world of nucleic acids could not have existed if not tethered to proteins. … It appears the basic building blocks of the machinery of the cell have always been the same from the beginning of life to the present: evolving and interacting proteins and RNA molecules.

But the problems don’t stop there. For the results indicate that if evolution is true, then proteins predate the machinery to construct them. Again, evolution makes no sense on these findings. Here is how Russell Doolittle, one of the leading researchers in this area, responded:

“This is a very engaging and provocative article by one of the most innovative and productive researchers in the field of protein evolution,” said University of California at San Diego research professor Russell Doolittle, who was not involved in the study. Doolittle remains puzzled, however, by “the notion that some early proteins were made before the evolution of the ribosome as a protein-manufacturing system.” He wondered how—if proteins were more ancient than the ribosomal machinery that today produces most of them—“the amino acid sequences of those early proteins were ‘remembered’ and incorporated into the new system.”

Ah, yes, that’s a problem alright. Not to worry though, for there is always that next just-so story to save the day. In this case, the evolutionist explains that:

It is therefore likely that the ribosomes were not the first biological machines to synthesize proteins.

There you have it. There was some other fantastic machine, never observed of course, that created proteins before the ribosome came around. Unbelievable. Antony Flew is outdone.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

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.

Don’t Miss Venus and Jupiter Tonight

Tonight and tomorrow night Venus and Jupiter come within three degrees of each other from our perspective here on Earth. Look to the west and you can’t miss it. And while you are gazing, keep in mind that Venus is closer to the Sun than we are, and Jupiter is much farther from the Sun than we are.

Is This the Future of Evolution?

Evolutionists Are Making This New Bad Argument For Why Their Improbabilities Don’t Matter

The fact that evolution is unlikely doesn’t bother evolutionists. One way they justify this is with the fallacious argument that tossing a coin 500 times also results in an astronomically unlikely result. So small probabilities don’t matter. But they also have a new, absurd argument. Believe it or not, they are now saying that evolution cannot be evaluated by itself but must be compared to a competing theory. And since there are no competing theories that can generate probabilities, then their theory, with its astronomically low probabilities, wins:

It is well-known that in science, alternative hypotheses often happen to be in competition, but the point here is that a scientific hypothesis often cannot be tested in isolation but must be tested relative to other hypotheses. The fact that P(complex structures|Darwinian evolution) is extremely small does not tell us anything about Darwinian evolutionary theory. It does not make evolutionary theory implausible … science education needs to explain to students why an event being extremely improbable, given the mechanisms postulated by a scientific theory, does not undermine this theory in any way.

In other words, we can construct a silly theory—such as that all of biology, and everything else for that matter, arose on its own—and so long as there are no competing theories then it is a fact. This is another example of how evolution has corrupted our thinking.

There's a Super Moon Coming on May 5

On May 5th the moon will pass through perigee (the closest point in its orbit to earth) within one minute of when it is a full moon. The moon can be more than 10% larger in the sky when at perigee so look for this "super moon" event to give a spectacular moon rise at dinner time.

Here’s That Monumental Evolution Blunder About Probability Again

Did you think that University of Minnesota professor’s blunder about probability was a one-off? Laplace didn’t rebuke this argument two centuries ago for no good reason—the fallacy has been around forever and evolutionists continue to employ it. The argument’s next appearance is in a forthcoming journal article and the evolutionist doesn’t even try to clean it up. It’s the same old argument that if you toss a coin 500 times there are 2^500, or a one with about 150 zeros after it, different possible sequences of heads and tails. Therefore whatever sequence of heads and tails you end up with had an astronomically tiny—one in 2^500—chance of happening. Such a tiny probability is usually considered to be impossible, and yet it happened. The erroneous conclusion is that tiny probability arguments don’t work, and therefore even though evolution has a tiny probability, there’s really no problem with the theory. As the paper explains:

The small probability argument starts out with the legitimate statement that the evolution of complex biological structures, given only Darwinian processes, is very unlikely.

But,

Very small probabilities mean little, as such events can be easily generated. Assume that a given coin is fair, and that our hypothesis H is that the coin is fair, so that it asserts that the probability of heads and tails is each ½, i.e., P(h)=½ and P(t)=½. Consider 5 tosses of this coin and a particular outcome (a certain sequence of heads and tails): P(h,t,t,h,t) = ½ * ½ * ½ * ½ * ½, which is equal to 1 in 2^5. For 70 tosses the probability of a particular outcome P(t,h,t,…) is 1 in 2^70, and for 500 tosses the probability P(t,t,h,…) is 1 in 2^500, which is smaller than 1 in 10^150 and thus smaller than Dembski’s universal probability bound. Inferring the falsity of the hypothesis ‘coin is fair’ because of this extremely small probability would be fallacious; 

It is truly incredible to see evolutionists work their chicanery so they can uphold complete nonsense as the truth. So the evolutionists would credulously accept all manner of bizarre events. If all their roulette wheel bets turned out winners, if their poker hands always gave a royal flush, if random Scrabble letters spelled out CONSTANTINOPLE, it all would be just another small probability event from which nothing can be concluded. This monumental blunder leads them into all kinds of ridiculous conclusions:

Small probabilities have a strange psychological effect on us and can even mislead educated persons into fallacious inferences. For this reason, this issue ought to be clarified when teaching probability theory to high school students. Arbitrarily small probabilities result if one considers the conjunction of different events, and the particular outcome of a sequence of many evolutionary events (such as all mutations in a lineage leading from a remote ancestor to an extant descendant) is no exception. Since complex events (involving many individual events) with small probabilities happen all the time in nature, a small probability suggests neither that the hypothesis postulating this probability is probably false, nor that some intelligent intervention must have taken place.

So there you have it. Their reasoning may seem fallacious, but actually it is merely a “strange psychological effect” that “can even mislead educated persons” and so we must indoctrinate high school students accordingly.

It is yet another example of how the evolutionary thinking is corrupting science and, in this case, basic mathematics.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Replay: If You Missed it, You Need to Watch This Video

Here is a time-lapse NASA video from the orbiting International Space Station showing amazing and eerie sights from above, including lightning and solar storms (the video is blank for the first few seconds). After the video begins to play you can choose a high-definition setting. Use full-screen mode and make sure your sound it on. It’s amazing what happens to happen.

Plant Leaves Don’t Just Absorb Sunlight, They Scatter the Light in Just the Right Way

If you know anything about photosynthesis you know it is incredibly complicated. It uses molecular solar panels to capture the energy in sunlight, in order to convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and hydrocarbons. What you may not know is that plant leaves, which support photosynthesis, are also very complicated. One problem is that when sunlight illuminates a leaf there is more light than can be used. But the dense chlorophyll pigment absorbs much of the light and so at lower levels there is insufficient sunlight. New research is elucidating how this feast or famine problem is smoothed out in some plant leaves with specs of calcium carbonate, called cystoliths, in the right size and distribution to scatter the incoming light:

light scattered by the cystoliths is distributed from the photosynthetically inefficient upper tissue to the efficient, but light deprived, lower tissue. The results prove that the presence of light scatterers reduces the steep light gradient, thus enabling the leaf to use the incoming light flux more efficiently.

This lower tissue accomplishes about half of the leaf’s carbon fixation, so the cystoliths are performing a crucial function within the plant. So random mutations just happened to produce the machinery to produce the cystoliths, and then to distribute them in the right way. Evolutionists don’t know how this could have happened, but they are certain it did happen.

Another Evolutionary Just-So Story Was Just Refuted (But Another One Replaced it)

According to evolutionists the gorilla split off from the human-chimp lineage 10 million years ago, and then the chimp and human split from each other 6 million years ago. But then a funny thing happened. Remember all those unique human hearing genes that evolutionists said must have undergone “accelerated” evolution? The story was that these hearing genes rapidly evolved because of human language.

Well now it turns out the gorilla sports the same feature: accelerated hearing genes. So now we have “accelerated and parallel” evolution:

A comparison of protein coding genes reveals approximately 500 genes showing accelerated evolution on each of the gorilla, human and chimpanzee lineages, and evidence for parallel acceleration, particularly of genes involved in hearing.

Or as one journalist put it:

One curious find was the evolution of genes associated with hearing, which seem very similar between humans and gorillas.

None of this is a problem for evolution, of course, as one evolutionist explained:

Our most significant findings reveal not only differences between the species reflecting millions of years of evolutionary divergence, but also similarities in parallel changes over time since their common ancestor.

You remember learning that with evolution species split and move apart. Now, amazingly, we know they also evolve together. Differences, similarities, whatever. In any case, it’s Evidence 1, Evolution 0:

We found that gorillas share many parallel genetic changes with humans including the evolution of our hearing. Scientists had suggested that the rapid evolution of human hearing genes was linked to the evolution of language. Our results cast doubt on this, as hearing genes have evolved in gorillas at a similar rate to those in humans.

But another evolutionist demonstrated that, evidence be damned, that old just-so-story is still serviceable:

Scally adds that it could well be that there has been a parallel acceleration in these genes for two entirely different reasons – that human hearing has developed because of speech and gorilla hearing has developed to serve an entirely different, but as-yet-unknown, purpose.

So hearing genes somehow undergo accelerated evolution due to the development of language, except when they don’t. It all makes perfect sense with evolution. Or as evolutionists are always reminding us, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. Meanwhile evolutionists continue with their mental cartwheels.

Religion drives science and it matters.

Evolutionists Now Want to Take Over Physics

Addy Pross out of Ben Gurion University in Israel is calling for a general theory of evolution, extending Darwinian theory to inanimate matter:

Though Darwinian theory dramatically revolutionized biological understanding, its strictly biological focus has resulted in a widening conceptual gulf between the biological and physical sciences. In this paper we strive to extend and reformulate Darwinian theory in physicochemical terms so it can accommodate both animate and inanimate systems, thereby helping to bridge this scientific divide. The extended formulation is based on the recently proposed concept of dynamic kinetic stability and data from the newly emerging area of systems chemistry. The analysis leads us to conclude that abiogenesis and evolution, rather than manifesting two discrete stages in the emergence of complex life, actually constitute one single physicochemical process. Based on that proposed unification, the extended theory offers some additional insights into life's unique characteristics, as well as added means for addressing the three central questions of biology: what is life, how did it emerge, and how would one make it?

So can Pross apply Darwinian theory to inanimate systems? Can he save the life sciences from its physics envy? There’s only one problem: He’s about three centuries too late.

Laplace, Buffon, Kant, Leibniz, Burnett and scores of others Enlightened thinkers were applying Darwinian theory to the inanimate world long before Pross and, for that matter, long before Darwin.

But Pross has a new approach: dynamic kinetic stability. Can it save evolutionary thought from its sheer inanity? Pross thinks it reduces life’s complexity to a simple principle. After all, haven’t complexity studies already demonstrated such a move?

Life is complex—that is undeniable. But that does not necessarily mean that the life principle is complex. In fact we would argue that the life principle is in some sense relatively simple! Indeed, simple rules can lead to complex patterns, as studies in complexity have amply demonstrated. So we would suggest that life, from its simple beginnings as some minimal replicating system, and following a simple rule—the drive toward greater dynamic kinetic stability within replicator space—is yet another example of that fundamental idea.

The drive toward greater dynamic kinetic stability within replicator space, that’s the new idea. Just don’t look behind the curtain.

Ananyo Bhattacharya is Calling for Science Journalists to Ask Questions and Deflate Exaggeration

The chief online editor of Nature—One of the leading evolution cheerleader periodicals in the world—is unbelievably calling for science journalists to work harder at “contextualising, investigating and, at times, challenging science.” Ananyo Bhattacharya adds that “journalists must try to stay at arm’s length from their sources” and should ask questions and deflate exaggeration.

Except, that is, when it matters.

If a scientist makes a lazy or exaggerated claim about, say, the terrible impact of crystal imperfections on manufacturing tolerances, then the journalist needs to home in and check the facts. Stay at arms length, seek third party opinions, and do not run the story past the source prior to publication. That’s just the stuff of good solid investigative journalism.

But if an evolutionist pronounces, with all the pomp and authority of the high priest, that biological intricacy X evolved spontaneously (in spite of massive scientific contradictions), then like Charlie Rose the journalist is to fawn and express deep, heartfelt amazement at the oracle of truth to which he has been granted a few precious moments of access.

An Evolutionist Coauthor of James Watson is a Gnostic

Evolution’s “just-add-water” view of life has led to a massive underestimation of life. Evolutionists expect simplicity but biology is full of complexities. Bruce Alberts, one of James Watson’s co authors of Molecular Biology of the Cell, once admitted:

We have always underestimated cells. Undoubtedly we still do today. … we can walk and we can talk because the chemistry that makes life possible is much more elaborate and sophisticated than anything we students had ever considered. Proteins make up most of the dry mass of a cell. But instead of a cell dominated by randomly colliding individual protein molecules, we now know that nearly every major process in a cell is carried out by assemblies of 10 or more protein molecules. And, as it carries out its biological functions, each of these protein assemblies interacts with several other large complexes of proteins. Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines.

Indeed, even this description leaves out much of the story of how cells work. But it all must have evolved because evolution is a fact. And evolution is a fact because it must be. Evolutionists have a dozen or so metaphysical mandates that require evolution. One of them is Gnosticism, as shown on this phylogenetic tree representation of evolutionary thought:

Alberts, as with many evolutionists, is a Gnostic. As President of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the most prestigious positions in science, Alberts once penned this Gnostic ode to evolution:

Scientists, like many others, are touched with awe at the order and complexity of nature. Indeed, many scientists are deeply religious. But science and religion occupy two separate realms of human experience. Demanding that they be combined detracts from the glory of each.

It’s good to hear that scientists are touched with awe. Unfortunately many are, as Alberts tells us, “deeply religious.” That is precisely the problem. In fact Alberts is one of them. And he displays this in his next two sentences. Alberts did not learn these truths from science.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Evolutionists Think This Incredible Design is “Simple”

The cell synthesizes proteins by first storing an astronomically unlikely sequence of nucleotides in the DNA gene which codes for the protein. Like a sentence from a Shakespeare play, the nucleotide sequence produces a beautiful result. The first step is to unwind, open, read and copy the gene in a process known as transcription which requires a small army of proteins. The copy, or transcript, is called messenger RNA and after some editing it is passed to the ribosome where the genetic code is used to construct the protein, one amino acid at a time, based on the messenger RNA nucleotide sequence. This process is known as translation. Next the newly synthesized train of amino acids neatly folds into a protein, often with the help of other proteins.

But the synthesis of proteins is only the beginning. The newly minted proteins are transported around the cell, team up with other proteins, and do amazing tasks. Some of the proteins which are stationed nearby the cell membrane have an oily tail attached (by another protein) which inserts into the membrane and so anchors the protein. Such an anchor is also used to transport certain membrane proteins.

The oily tail anchors the proteins to an internal membrane. Small membrane bubbles, called vesicles, are pinched off from the internal membrane, taking with them proteins which are anchored. The vesicles transport the protein to the cell outer membrane.

Eventually these proteins disassociate from the cell membrane, have their oily tail detached (by yet  another protein), and make their way back to the internal membrane where they have a new tail attached and are transported back to the cell outer membrane for more duty. Here is how a recent research paper described the process:

Palmitoylation is detectable only on the Golgi, whereas depalmitoylation occurs everywhere in the cell. The reactions are not stereoselective and lack any primary consensus sequence, demonstrating that substrate specificity is not essential for de-/repalmitoylation. Both palmitate attachment and removal require seconds to accomplish. This reaction topography and rapid kinetics allows the continuous redirection of mislocalized proteins via the post-Golgi sorting apparatus. Unidirectional secretion ensures the maintenance of a proper steady-state protein distribution between the Golgi and the plasma membrane, which are continuous with endosomes. This generic spatially organizing system differs from conventional receptor-mediated targeting mechanisms and efficiently counteracts entropy-driven redistribution of palmitoylated peripheral membrane proteins over all membranes.

Incredibly evolutionists describe this process as simple:

Cells thus use a simple principle to transport Ras and other palmitoylated proteins to their destination: a localised distribution centre (Golgi), directed transport to the target destination as well as universal removal of target marks (depalmitoylierung) and subsequent reintegration into the transport cycle.

One reason why this transport cycle is clever is that the oily tails are only attached to (and detached from) cysteine amino acids located on the surface of these membrane proteins. So having a cysteine available on the surface could be a way to “tag” these proteins that should be sent to the membrane:

But how does the cell know which proteins need to be addressed to the cell membrane whilst they are in the Golgi apparatus? According to the scientists, any protein can obtain a lipid anchor if it has the amino acid called cysteine readily accessible on its surface. It would then be transported automatically to the cell membrane. Such transportation therefore does not require any receptors which specifically bind to the protein at the cellular site where it is supposed to go.

This is a fascinating example of how complex processes can be controlled with simple physical and chemical rules. At first glances, it would appear to be enormously challenging to identify the proteins that need to be transported to a certain location, to spot any that have been transported to the wrong place and to stop them radiating off from their ultimate destination. Yet the cell manages this in a really simple way without any additional receptors or regulatory mechanisms.

Yes that is clever. But it also requires extremely complex and unlikely amino acid encoding. This simple rule would require that a cysteine end up on the surface of these proteins after they fold. And likewise, the rule would require that there be no cysteines on the surface of other proteins, which are not supposed to be so transported to the membrane, after they fold.

In other words, the identification problem has just been pushed back to an earlier stage in the process.

Evolutionist James Watson Says Protein Synthesis is “Inexplicably Complex”

One of the most popular molecular and cellular biology textbooks coauthored by James Watson, Molecular Biology of the Cell, 3rd Ed, in a section entitled “How Did Protein Synthesis Evolve?”, describes protein synthesis as “inexplicably complex.” Its underlying molecular processes, the student is told, “do not make conceptual sense” and the text goes on to wonder “Why should rRNA molecules exist at all … ?”

These comments are examples of how, as philosophers have pointed out many time, observations can be theory-laden. In the hands of evolutionists, fascinating and incredible molecular machines and processes don’t “make conceptual sense.” The text goes on to bemoan the fact that:

The complexity of a process with so many interacting components, has made many biologists despair of even understanding the pathway by which protein synthesis evolved.

But then student is told that all of these problems might be resolved by the RNA World hypothesis, so all is well.

Darwin Blamed the Evidence For the Lack of Fossils

Since the days of Charles Darwin the fossil record has provided incredible details of past life on earth, but in Chapter 9 of the first edition of his book, entitled “On the Imperfection of the Geological Record,” Darwin made this excuse for his theory:

Nature may almost be said to have guarded against the frequent discovery of her transitional or linking forms. From the foregoing considerations it cannot be doubted that the geological record, viewed as a whole, is extremely imperfect …

So new forms appeared abruptly in the fossil record and Darwin could not explain how such innovation evolved, but it was nature’s fault. Intelligent design advocates say the world conspicuously allows for discovery, but evolutionists say the opposite.

Here’s a Perfect Explanation of Darwin’s Achievement in Two Sentences

As we have been saying over and over, evolution is not about natural selection, common descent, mutations, gradualism, allele frequencies, environmental niches or punctuated equilibrium. These are all sub hypotheses and explanations of evolution which can be dropped at any moment. They are the protective belt of evolution, not its theoretical core, as Lakatos would put it.



Nor, on the other hand is evolution a form of atheism, materialism, secular humanism, or any other godless philosophy, as Charles Hodge described it. What is evolution’s core claim? That the species arose on their own. Call it naturalism, spontaneity or anti teleological, or listen to evolutionist EO Wilson at the 0:50 mark:

CHARLIE ROSE: Great to have you. Let me just start - tell me, put Darwin in perspective for all of us. When you think of the great scientific and intellectual contributions to the humankind, what was the achievement of Charles Darwin?

EDWARD O. WILSON: The achievement was not to present the idea of evolution, but to present the idea of evolution by random genetic change that was then sorted out by natural selection, by the environment. Hence, the origin of diversity of life as we know it on Earth by autonomy, by independent of any outside force. And this then put humanity in a wholly different light, namely as potentially having arisen by this, uncontrolled or un-designed process on our own on this planet, independently.

Or if two sentences are too long for you, and you want the absolute bare bones version of evolution, then continue listening as Rose puts the same question to James Watson and the Nobel Laureate hits it out of the park:

JAMES D. WATSON: That there was no designer.

If you think this is atheism then you don’t understand evolution. More importantly, you will not understand the power of evolution’s deception.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

A Solar Storm Should be Hitting Earth About Right Now

From NASA: The sun erupted with one of the largest solar flares of this solar cycle on March 6, 2012 at 7PM EST. This flare was categorized as an X5.4, making it the second largest flare -- after an X6.9 on August 9, 2011 -- since the sun’s activity segued into a period of relatively low activity called solar minimum in early 2007. The current increase in the number of X-class flares is part of the sun’s normal 11-year solar cycle, during which activity on the sun ramps up to solar maximum, which is expected to peak in late 2013.

This movie of the March 6, 2012 X5.4 flare was captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in the 171 Angstrom wavelength. One of the most dramatic features is the way the entire surface of the sun seems to ripple with the force of the eruption. This movement comes from something called EIT waves – because they were first discovered with the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) on the Solar Heliospheric Observatory. Since SDO captures images every 12 seconds, it has been able to map the full evolution of these waves and confirm that they can travel across the full breadth of the sun. The waves move at over a million miles per hour, zipping from one side of the sun to the other in about an hour. The movie shows two distinct waves. The first seems to spread in all directions; the second is narrower, moving toward the southeast. Such waves are associated with, and perhaps trigger, fast coronal mass ejections, so it is likely that each one is connected to one of the two CMEs that erupted on March 6. Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA

Here’s Where DNA Co Discoverer, James Watson, Shows His Religious Belief About Evolution

Just after the 14:55 mark in this interview with Charlie Rose, James Watson explains the religious mandate for evolution: No designer would have created this world (primate DNA sequences, in this case):

And I - I think when you—now that we`ve carried it forth, where we actually can look at DNA and see what it`s like in a chimpanzee, and you see all these things, the thought of anyone interfering, oh, boy. It just—it seems whacko.

The enormous scientific problems with evolution are inconsequential. Watson couldn’t even begin to tell us how the chimpanzee evolved. But he’s certain it must have. And Rose laps it up as usual. Religion drives science, and it matters.

All Alone in the Night

Here is a time-lapse NASA video from the orbiting International Space Station showing amazing and eerie sights from above, including lightning and solar storms (the video is blank for the first few seconds). It’s amazing what happens to happen.

Why the Coppedge Trial Matters

Over at Evolution News and Views David Klinghoffer writes:

David Coppedge's case against his former employer, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, goes to trial in Los Angeles on Wednesday. This will open yet another window on the culture of free-speech suppression that exists across academic and para-academic institutions. Read more

I’m surprised this is going to court. Even with their strong legal team, and with the courts generally (not always, but generally) biased in their favor, it is difficult to imagine the evolutionists not being exposed in this case. Time will tell.

Evolution Breakthrough: Enzymes Evolved “Very Early” in the Evolution of Life

After a massive study of the evolution of enzymes—which as usual was really nothing more than a comparison of enzymes, with precisely zero explanation of how the amazing protein machines actually are supposed to have arisen all by themselves as evolutionists insist must be true—the evolutionists did what evolutionists always do, sweep the problem under the proverbial origin-of-life rug:

Although, of course, new enzymes must have evolved at some stage, probably very early in the evolution of life.

Yes, very, very early, because, after all, we have no idea how it could have happened. In the beginning, everything that is important somehow rapidly evolved by lateral evolution between interacting communities. From there the rest, as they say, is history. The details are left up to the student.

Top Microbiologist: Darwin was a priest

Didier Raoult, whom even the evolutionists admit is “the most productive and influential microbiologist in France,” explains that Charles Darwin “was a priest,” in a personal profile story this week.

Raoult’s popular book, Dépasser Darwin (Beyond Darwin) questions several tenets of modern evolutionary theory, including the importance of natural selection. Evolution’s tree of life, explains Raoult, should be replaced by a network of interconnected species.

And how do evolutionists respond? David Moreira of the University of Paris-Sud in Orsay explains that “It’s dangerous to say those things.” It’s not that Raoult is wrong, but that he provides creationist groups with ammunition. As usual, evolutionary dogma takes precedence over science.