Err Oops, Evolutionists Are Getting Slammed Again With Their Lunacy

One little problem with that new/old warm little pond idea is that, well, there wouldn’t have been any land, at least any land with sufficient stability, way back in those “primordial” days (remember those colorful evolutionary posters in your second grade with all the lightning, earthquakes and volcanoes going off?) to begin with. And without any land, there’s going to be a little bit of a problem making those warm little ponds—oops I mean “inland geothermal systems”—Darwin and the evolutionists had planned on. The pond idea seemed like a good one because the contents of living cells aren’t anything like those deep sea hydrothermal vents. And as for their ET idea, evolutionists were finally getting tired of all those B-grade movies their stupid idea spawned.

The warm little pond idea—there I go again, I mean “inland geothermal systems”—solves the problem because evolutionists can claim such “systems” can have a chemical composition similar to that of living cells. But then they have yet another problem. You see living cells don’t live in environments that match their composition. Quite the opposite. As one evolutionist points out:

To suggest that the ionic composition of primordial cells should reflect the composition of the oceans is to suggest that cells are in equilibrium with their medium, which is close to saying that they are not alive. Cells require dynamic disequilibrium—that is what being alive is all about.

Yes indeed. Problem is, life’s dynamic disequilibrium is maintained by an army of unbelievable molecular machines which don’t appear on demand, whenever an evolutionist draws a new poster. So either you don’t have dynamic disequilibrium, in which case you’re not alive. Or you have dynamic disequilibrium, in which case you didn’t evolve.

Fortunately evolution is a fact. Otherwise, there could be problems.

It's Baaaaack: The Warm Little Pond

Even in evolution, what goes around comes around. Remember when Darwin posited his “warm little pond” thought experiment. “But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond …” So began the homily. Realizing the absurdity Crick switched the narrative to extra terrestrials. That’s where those unlikely seeds of life came. Then it was comets, and then it was deep sea hydrothermal vents. One way to avoid criticism is to keep switching the theory. But what happens when you run out of ideas? No problem, just start over. Of course you must disguise the shell game with newer, more complicated sounding jargon. And so we present, without further ado, “Inland geothermal systems,” a.k.a., warm little ponds:

All cells contain much more potassium, phosphate, and transition metals than modern (or reconstructed primeval) oceans, lakes, or rivers. Cells maintain ion gradients by using sophisticated, energy-dependent membrane enzymes (membrane pumps) that are embedded in elaborate ion-tight membranes. The first cells could possess neither ion-tight membranes nor membrane pumps, so the concentrations of small inorganic molecules and ions within protocells and in their environment would equilibrate. Hence, the ion composition of modern cells might reflect the inorganic ion composition of the habitats of protocells. We attempted to reconstruct the “hatcheries” of the first cells by combining geochemical analysis with phylogenomic scrutiny of the inorganic ion requirements of universal components of modern cells. These ubiquitous, and by inference primordial, proteins and functional systems show affinity to and functional requirement for K+, Zn2+, Mn2+, and phosphate. Thus, protocells must have evolved in habitats with a high K+/Na+ ratio and relatively high concentrations of Zn, Mn, and phosphorous compounds. Geochemical reconstruction shows that the ionic composition conducive to the origin of cells could not have existed in marine settings but is compatible with emissions of vapor-dominated zones of inland geothermal systems. Under the anoxic, CO2-dominated primordial atmosphere, the chemistry of basins at geothermal fields would resemble the internal milieu of modern cells. The precellular stages of evolution might have transpired in shallow ponds of condensed and cooled geothermal vapor that were lined with porous silicate minerals mixed with metal sulfides and enriched in K+, Zn2+, and phosphorous compounds.

And the evolutionists even have a new method: “Phylogenomic scrutiny.” I have no idea what that means.

Evolutionists Don’t Take Kindly to Criticism

You can’t criticize evolution because that would be against the law. It’s incredible, but evolutionists legislate the truth of their theory. They’ll sue, lie to judges, falsify histories, oppose academic freedom, control funding, blackball skeptics and create laws that not only enforce evolution but outlaw even criticism of their non scientific ideas. If you think any of this is hyperbole, think again. All of this is true. A good recent example is the unrelenting, and desperate, attacks by evolutionists on the new Academic Freedom law in Tennessee. Evolutionists have warned that exposing scientific theories such as evolution to the evidence is sure to bring doom and gloom to any state that enacts such freedoms. And journalists have consistently lied about the law, calling it creationism in disguise. What these Academic Freedom laws actually do is allow evidential analysis and criticism of theories. That, of course, is what science is all about. Scientific theories are subjected to and evaluated against the evidence—all of the evidence. Not evolution though. Evolution could not withstand such exposure, for evolution is a religious theory that routinely fails on the science. And so evolutionists tenaciously attack and reject any law that exposes their ideas to scientific evaluation. Here, for those who have difficulty understanding the science, it becomes painfully obvious. The evolutionist’s fierce opposition to academic freedom makes it abundantly clear that evolution is not about science. It never was.

An Evolution Professor Just Took the Fifth

As we saw here and here the Los Angeles Times has intentionally misinformed its readers about a new Academic Freedom law in Tennessee. If their false reporting was merely a mistake, then they would have issued a correction. The incident highlights the fact that evolution is a lie. That’s strong language but it would be wrong to describe evolution in lesser terms. It is what it is. Evolution is a lie at the scientific level, and then more lies are required at the journalism level to cover it up. As usual, the cover up serves to make the underlying lie that much more obvious. And it continues. As a follow up to this story an evolution professor supported the journalist, issuing the same lie:

This sensible reporter is not fooled by dishonest creationist subterfuge, and neither is anyone else with a brain.

But when I asked the professor to what “dishonest creationist subterfuge” he was referring, he made no reply. It is one thing to provide a reasoned defense for the Los Angeles Times yellow journalism. It is quite another simply to repeat the same lies.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

You Won’t Believe What Evolutionists Are Celebrating Now

Evolutionist Jerry Coyne’s new paper was just accepted where he complains about America’s “extreme religiosity,” which he defines as a religious feeling or belief. He further complains that religion is based on dogma. So, feelings or beliefs based on dogma are bad? And just where would we find such “extreme religiosity”? How about with people like Coyne who proclaim religious dogma from one side of their mouth while hypocritically accusing those who don’t accept their lunacy out the other. You see evolutionists insist that everything just happened to arise spontaneously, and further that this is beyond any reasonable doubt. They prove this with all kinds of religious arguments, and then blame us for being religious. Nice work if you can get it.

Here’s an example. It has been known since Aristotle that species tend to cluster in a hierarchical pattern and in the eighteenth century Linnaeus saw it as a reflection of the Creator’s divine plan. Obviously this pattern does not force one to embrace evolution. But does it really look like a divine plan? Darwin argued it most certainly did not:

The several subordinate groups in any class cannot be ranked in a single file, but seem clustered round points, and these round other points, and so on in almost endless cycles. If species had been independently created, no explanation would have been possible of this kind of classification.

This argument about divine patterns did not begin with Darwin. It has complex theological roots, and today it continues as one of evolution’s many metaphysical axioms. Fifty years ago evolutionist George Carter explained that “If species are separately created there is no reason why they should be created in large groups of fundamentally similar structure.”

Niles Eldredge agrees that the pattern defies creationism and design:

Could the single artisan, who has no one but himself from whom to steal designs, possibly be the explanation for why the Creator fashioned life in a hierarchical fashion—why, for example, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and birds all share the same limb structure?

Likewise Jerry Coyne explains that the appearance of species through time is “far from random” and “no theory of special creation, or any theory other than evolution, can explain these patterns.” [29] And why are species so similar? “There is no reason,” explains Coyne, “why a celestial designer, fashioning organisms from scratch like an architect designs buildings, should make new species by remodeling the features of existing ones.” [54]

Of course this claim about how the species would be designed does not come from science. Nor do the many other metaphysical claims that, over and over, prove evolution.

For instance, another common metaphysical mandate is that god or a designer would never draw up inefficient designs. A favorite example is the recurrent laryngeal nerve which, Coyne explains,

makes no sense under the idea of special creation ... No form of creationism/intelligent design can explain these imperfections …

In fact evolution is drenched in metaphysics. From its early formulations in the Enlightenment years, to Darwin, to today’s refinements, evolution relies on non scientific assumptions. The “fact” of evolution has never been demonstrated without appeal to ultimate truths which are far beyond the halls of science.

Is this enough for us to convict evolution? Actually no, metaphysics is no sin. There’s certainly nothing wrong with holding religious beliefs. And is there anything wrong with viewing the world through the spectacles of one’s beliefs?

Indeed, who says there is anything wrong with allowing one’s beliefs to influence science? Well, in fact evolutionists say this, and herein lies the rub. The problem is not that evolution is a metaphysical theory or that evolutionists promote their metaphysical views. The problem is that evolutionists criticize others for precisely what they do. They even deny what they do. As Jerry Coyne explains, our metaphysics are really not metaphysics at all:

the argument from imperfection — i.e., organisms show imperfections of “design” that constitute evidence for evolution — is not a theological argument, but a scientific one. The reason why the recurrent laryngeal nerve, for example, makes a big detour around the aorta before attaching to the larynx is perfectly understandable by evolution (the nerve and artery used to line up, but the artery evolved backwards, constraining the nerve to move with it), but makes no sense under the idea of special creation — unless, that is, you believe that the creator designed things to make them look as if they evolved. No form of creationism/intelligent design can explain these imperfections, but they all, as Dobzhansky said, “make sense in the light of evolution.”

Should we laugh or cry? According to Coyne the design “makes no sense under the idea of special creation" and this "is not a theological argument, but a scientific one.” Coyne’s misrepresentations and sophistry are astonishing. The problem is not that evolutionists are metaphysicians—the problem is that they are in denial, and in the process make a mockery of science. Religion drives science and it matters.

"Journalism Should Be Based On Telling the Truth—Your Father Would Never Have Done This"

Does the truth matter anymore, or is it just about imposing personal beliefs? Here’s a film that goes against the evolutionary tide and makes the revolutionary claim that “journalism should be based on telling the truth” [0.57]. And if you read too far you too might see some truth:

The Scopes Trial

…
Most of what Edward Murrow reports, however, isn't so. For instance, as is depicted in his documentary and reported in countless articles about the Scopes trial even today, we are constantly told that the State of Tennessee outlawed evolution in 1925. But it did not. Not even close.

We are also told, most memorably in the film classic Inherit the Wind (1960), that William Jennings Bryan was a veritable fount of demagogic nonsense regarding evolution, the Bible, and even sex. (See dozens of examples with video clips from ITW at www.themonkeytrial.com.) Bryan is consistently depicted as bigoted, scientifically ignorant, prudish, simple-minded, hypocritical, conservative, and—perhaps above all—cowardly.

The above characterizations of Bryan are manifestly not true as historians all know. Yet many of them are repeated today by The New York Times, the ACLU, and just about everybody else.
…
Eugenics

And then there are the central aspects of the trial about which we are conspicuously not told. For instance, who should determine the content of our children's education: Parents (who pay the bills and whose kids attend) or some other group? Or the fact that the popular biology textbook used by Scopes in 1925 (Hunter's Civic Biology) contained not one word of anything remotely creationist or otherwise Christian. It reflected, as it had for over a decade, the consensus view of evolutionary biologists at every turn, including their unscientific and offensive categorizations of Caucasians as the most evolved of the species over the inferior races identified by color and by rank (p. 196).

Certain families are genetically good families, the textbook further instructed, while others are degenerate (p. 261 ff). Homeless shelters, asylums, and even vaccines can thwart the advance of evolution and should be reevaluated on Darwinian grounds (p. 262). Forced sterilization works with other animals, so why stop with cats or cattle (p. 263)? Margaret Sanger, the eugenicist founder of Planned Parenthood, wouldn't. Nor, tragically, would the American Museum of Natural History or our own Supreme Court in 1927 (Buck v. Bell). The Bible's great "law" to help those in need (the sick, the poor, the elderly, and the handicapped) is quaint, but biology's great "law" to improve life on earth by the elimination of weaker races is reality. Derelicts and deadbeats, the textbook solemnly taught, are "parasites." And what do we do with parasites? Typically, we "kill them off to prevent them from spreading " (p. 263). (The actual pages of Hunter's Civic Biology can be viewed here.)

This was dangerous ground. This was unscientific and sick. And Bryan, with vision and courage, opposed it just two short decades before the Nazis showed the world what applied Darwinism actually looks like. The materialist ideas that blacks were genetically inferior, that wars can be biologically justified, and that Judeo-Christian charity can hurt mankind rather than uplifted it were Darwinian theories, Bryan argued, not scientific facts.

Thus Bryan stated at the trial his opinion that man, created uniquely in the image of God according to the Bible, is not merely a mammal. HL Mencken of the Baltimore Sun then mockingly reported that Bryan denied he is a mammal. But there's a difference, as Mencken well knew.

Bryan the Coward?

As for Bryan's alleged cowardice, he took on the entire mainstream media and the evolutionary establishment. He had no fear of the theory of evolution except as it was being applied to mankind (see above). Moreover, contrary to usual accounts of the trial, it was the cowardly (in this instance) Clarence Darrow—not Bryan—who ultimately kept the evolutionary scientists off the witness stand. Why? Because Bryan insisted they should be subject to cross-examination and the Judge agreed. Darrow disagreed and, in doing so, resorted to a contemptuous outburst against the Judge for which he later apologized in court. You will never find this simple observation in any mainstream article of which we are aware.

When Darrow called Bryan to the stand for his cross-examination at the trial as an expert on the Bible, Bryan accepted the challenge and the two battled for over two hours in the Tennessee sun with Darrow asking all the questions. Many people who have actually read trial transcript believe that Bryan won, not Darrow. This is certainly true of the majority of those who witnessed it. As a general rule of thumb, at least, the winner of a debate is usually not the one who is himself unable to answer the questions he asks and who ends up screaming that his opponent Bryan holds to ideas that "no intelligent [person] on earth believes." Bryan's views, of course, were (and are) held by tens of millions of Americans who both believe the miracles of the bible and are intelligent.

With Darrow's last bombshell (essentially that Bryan is the biggest fool on earth), the Judge abruptly halted the cross-examination. What he hoped would be an entertaining and even enlightening battle of capable and articulate adversaries had been turned into a one-man barrage of insults and offenses.
…

Finally, when it came time to deliver the closing arguments, Darrow simply refused to play ball. The summations to the jury by both Bryan and Darrow, of course, were eagerly anticipated around the world. They were to be the culmination of the trial, the oratorical equivalent of Ali v. Frasier. But for the first (and only) time in jurisprudential history, a defense attorney in a prominent case refused to argue the merits of his client's case, claiming instead that it was a waste of time and fearing, as he said in so many words, that if he went toe-to-toe with Bryan he (Darrow) might just accidentally win and that would derail the appeal process.

In addition to being overly self-assured, this is not a believable dodge.

No, Darrow's goal was simply to prevent Bryan from delivering his side of the argument in Dayton. Bryan was, by all accounts, one of the two or three greatest orators in American history and Darrow's scheme was the only way to silence Bryan at the trial. It worked. With Darrow staying in his corner (chest out, but only like the proverbial bully who runs from a real fight), Bryan was not able to deliver his summation of the trial and for that Darrow is considered by his admirers to be both shrewd and brave.

The Aftermath

After the trial the very crowds who actually witnessed the trial over eight sweltering days in Dayton wanted to build a college in Bryan's name (which they went on to do). On the other side of the debate, the ACLU who had hired Darrow to represent Scopes, quietly attempted to have him removed from the case due to his conduct. According to those who were in a position to know and who supported John Scopes in every way, Darrow had embarrassed the cause for academic freedom, not advanced it.

Bryan died just five days after the trial, but not before travelling and delivering several speeches in front of enthusiastic crowds, surveying the land that was purchased in Dayton for the college to be built in his name, and editing his undelivered closing argument for publication. The day of his funeral in Washington DC was declared a state holiday back in Tennessee, a fact at considerable odds with the view that even Bryan's supporters were ashamed with the supposed bigotry and ignorance exhibited by the Great Commoner.
…
Some Lies Just Have to be Told

Why don't we generally know these things of the Scopes trial? How have the mythology of Inherit the Wind and the complicity of modern reporting on the Scopes trial largely eclipsed what actually happened in Dayton? The basic facts of the trial and the issues involved are not hidden in private journals or obscure libraries. They are in the text of the Butler Act, the trial transcript, the textbook that Scopes allegedly used, and so forth.

The answer to the question might also be rather easy.
…

Historical and modern reports of the Scopes trial are inaccurate in the extreme. Yesterday Inherit the Wind was assigned in history class at some public high school with all the authority and respectability that Edward R. Murrow (above) intended to confer upon it. Tomorrow a reporter from the New York Times or an attorney for the ACLU will solemnly remind us that in 1925 the State of Tennessee banned the teaching of evolution outright. These fabrications and others suspiciously like them will be advanced because they so nicely fit a materialist worldview. Those who seriously question evolution simply must be ignorant, bigoted, and so on. Bryan, in other words, be damned.

All of this is not to say that Darwinism itself is either right or wrong. But isn't it ultimately in everyone's best interest to treat real issues and real people fairly and accurately as best we can? This is one view of journalism and the conclusion of a (fictional) young reporter at the Scopes trial in "alleged".

Why don't we generally know these things? Because truth doesn't matter anymore.

h/t: NT

Here is the Response From the Los Angeles Times Explaining Their Reporting on That New Academic Freedom Law

David Zucchino at the Los Angeles Times has graciously given permission to post the messages he and I exchanged on the Times coverage of that new Academic Freedom law in Tennessee, and why the Times will not print a correction to their article. Please keep in mind that Mr. Zucchino’s comments, which are reproduced below, were sent to me in direct response to my query. So please read them charitably. For completeness, the three messages are reproduced below, in their original sequence.

Here is my first message to Mr. Zucchino:

April 12, 2012

David Zucchino
Los Angeles Times

Dear Mr. Zucchino:

In your article entitle "Creationism discussions are now OK in Tennessee schools" from April 11, 2012, you wrote:

"The measure will allow classroom debates over evolution, permitting discussions of creationism alongside evolutionary teachings about the origins of life. … The state’s teachers are not allowed to raise alternatives to evolution but, under the new law, would be required to permit discussion of creationism and other beliefs if they are raised in class."

This is unfortunately a severe mischaracterization of the new law. In fact, the law is careful to rule out just this sort of thing. The law says nothing about permitting discussions of creationism or any other religious theory, or for that matter anything not within the existing curriculum. You can see the actual Amendment here:

http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/107/Amend/SA0901.pdf

The language is quite clear. It repeatedly states that the new law does not introduce new material into the existing curriculum, and is instead restricted to "scientific subjects required to be taught under the curriculum framework developed by the state board of education."

Furthermore, it goes even farther in avoiding any confusion with creationism as it states: "This section only protects the teaching of scientific information, and shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine."

In addition to your erroneous description of the law, your article was also heavily slanted toward the opposition, even including Barry Lynn, a well known partisan on this issue. Unfortunately all of this simply feeds an on-going cultural myth that really needs clarification rather than reinforcement.

Will you be issuing a correction to the story?

Sincerely yours,

Cornelius Hunter

Here is Mr. Zucchino’s reply:

Mr. Hunter:

Thanks for your email regarding the Tennessee law.

A correction is not warranted.

A close reading of the amendments to the bill, and the sponsors’ summary of the bill, shows that the measure is clearly designed to open the door to debate over “differences of opinion about controversial issues,” as the bill's sponsors have written. They specifically mention evolution, clearly including it among “controversial issues” and requiring that competing viewpoints be discussed in class. Chief among competing viewpoints, of course, is creationism.

The sponsors appear to have calculated that including “creationism” or “intelligent design” in the bill’s language would make it difficult to pass, so they resorted to much more general language that allows broad interpretation under the term “scientific subjects.”

And while the amendment says the bill is not intended to promote any religious doctrine, it also says it is not intended to promote discrimination against a particular religion or “a particular set of religious beliefs.” Creationism, of course, falls within that description.

The amendment to the bill also says:

“The teaching of some scientific subjects required to be taught under the curriculum framework developed by the state board of education may cause debate and disputation including, but not limited to, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”

Again, the sponsors specifically point to evolution as a subject of “debate and disputation.” Thus competing viewpoints should be discussed in class, according to the bill. Among scientists, there are no widely accepted “scientific” alternatives to evolution. But there is creationism, which is certainly a subject of “debate and disputation.” Whether creationism has scientific validity is also a subject of “debate and disputation.” Therefore, it is allowed under the law.

If allowing discussion of creationism (as well as challenges to global warming and human cloning) isn't the purpose of the law, then what is? Discussions of scientific theories are already allowed in Tennessee schools.

As Gov. Haslam pointed out, the bill creates confusion.

The Los Angeles Times was one of many news outlets, along with AP, Reuters, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Nashville Tennessean and others, reporting that the bill will allow classroom discussion of creationism or other alternatives to evolution.

Sincerely,
David Zucchino
Los Angeles Times

Here is my follow-up reply:

April 13, 2012

David Zucchino
Los Angeles Times

Dear Mr. Zucchino:

You state that a close reading of the new Tennessee law shows that it requires competing viewpoints to evolution (such as creationism), be discussed in science class. I don’t know how you could possibly arrive at that conclusion from a close reading of the amendment. I am delighted that you read the amendment closely, but it makes no such requirement. If you could indicate the particular portion of the amendment that you think stipulates this requirement then I could clear this up.

Your conclusion has two major problems. First, the amendment does not require any types of classroom discussions, competing or otherwise. There simply is nothing in the amendment that makes any such requirement. What the amendment does state is that the Tennessee schools shall encourage scientific questions and critical thinking skills, assist teachers in presenting the science curriculum, and not prohibit teachers from helping students to understand the scientific strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories covered in the curriculum. There is no such requirement of a classroom discussion.

Second, the amendment says nothing about competing theories, such as creationism. In fact, the language explicitly rules this out. It repeatedly stipulates that it is strictly in reference to the state’s curriculum framework. I don’t know how you could have inferred otherwise.

You also stated that the sponsors of the new law specifically point to evolution as a subject of “debate and disputation” and that therefore competing viewpoints should be discussed in class, according to the law.

Again, you seem to be avoiding the clear, obvious statements of the amendment. There is no mention or support given to competing viewpoints in the law. I don’t know how the language could be any more clear on this. The critical thinking, analysis of evidence, review of strengths and weakness are all of the science involved, and all deal with the state’s curriculum. There is absolutely nothing in the amendment that goes outside of the approved curriculum. And on top of that, the amendment explicitly states that it “only protects the teaching of scientific information.”

You seem to be confused about this. For instance, you stated that creationism is allowed under the law because whether or not it has scientific validity is a subject of “debate and disputation.” That would be an incredible contortion of the amendment. Whether or not creationism, or any other scheme, is or is not scientific is completely irrelevant.

The amendment is not allowing for whatever theories or viewpoints anyone wants to inject, just because someone argues that it is scientific. I am astonished you could have concluded this upon a close reading of the law. The language is crystal clear that it is addressing only the state’s curriculum.

Even creationists understand this. For instance AIG, one of the world’s leading creationist organizations, writes that: “media reports asserting that Tennessee law has introduced ‘creationism theory into science curriculum,’ and similar claims are simply wrong. The law does not permit or promote the teaching of intelligent design or creation science.” [1]

You also asked the question, if allowing discussion of challenges such as creationism isn’t the purpose of the law, then what is? This is troublesome for me for two reasons. First, you are divining a hidden, underlying purpose of the law, which not only is not in the law but is explicitly not allowed by the law, and then presenting that hidden purpose to your readers as an objective reading of the law. The fact that you are unable to imagine why legislators two thousand miles away would pass such a law does not give you the right to misrepresent the law to your readers.

Second, your question reveals that you are unaware how difficult it can be for students to raise scientific questions about theories. There is a hostile environment in our educational system, at all levels, to skepticism. Believe me, as one who has been blackballed by evolutionists, and one who has interacted with school boards and teachers, everything from passing grades to career options are at stake. This has nothing to do with creationism.

You also hypothesized that the amendment sponsors appear to have calculated that including “creationism” or “intelligent design” in the bill’s language would make it difficult to pass, so they resorted to much more general language that allows broad interpretation under the term “scientific subjects.”

But again, you are assigning motives that you imagine and projecting that onto the law itself. Even if your conspiracy theory was correct, that wouldn’t change the law. But I can also tell you that there is no such conspiracy. People I know involved with this legislation have no such calculation. And furthermore I know many people, myself included, who support these types of academic freedom bills who do not want to see creationism or intelligent design taught in our schools.

Let me be frank. I know journalists have time constraints and that you probably spent a grand total of a couple hours, if that, on the story. And I know that journalists are not experts in specialized fields. You probably haven’t thought much about biology since your high school class, and you probably know even less about the complex debate over evolution that has been on-going for years. You probably view the debate from afar through a political lens that casts evolutionists as the scientists and skeptics as the fundamentalists. Believe me, the debate is far more nuanced and complex than this. And again, it has nothing to do with creationism.

The bottom line is that your piece does need a correction. Without it you harm the reputation of yourself and your employer. You pointed out that the Los Angeles Times is one of many news outlets reporting that the bill will allow classroom discussion of creationism or other alternatives to evolution. I trust you realize this doesn’t justify false reporting. In fact, that is part of the story.

What the Los Angeles Times missed here was an opportunity to report on an often misunderstood story, particularly in the broad news media (this is not left versus right), and dig down a level beyond the usual cultural memes that continue to confuse the story.

Sincerely yours,

Cornelius Hunter

1. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2012/04/12/teacher-protection-academic-freedom-act

Mr. Zucchino’s response to this second message of mine was simply to reaffirm that the Times will not print a correction. This exchange illustrates how the rules of journalism actually work (or don’t work) in practice and the high-standing and protection enjoyed by evolution.

Getting Crushed: Evolutionists Are Now Saying That Some Species Have a Reputation For “Doing Things Their Own Way”

We have seen that the mitochondria DNA of the single-cell eukaryote Trypanosoma brucei is incredibly complex and unique, and make no sense on evolution, and more over that these incredible mitochondria designs reappear in distant species on the evolutionary tree. For instance, the Euglenids and the Dinoflagellates share these bizarre mitochondria similarities. Evolutionists are calling it “Corresponding evolutionary histories” or “Cascades of convergent evolution,” and it is far beyond the explanatory power of the usual just-so stories, such as gene transfer, gene duplication or gene loss. Furthermore, we saw that these incredible similarities go beyond the mitochondria. The Euglenids and Dinoflagellates, for example, also share very odd peculiarities at the molecular level in general, such as polycistronic transcription, trans-splicing and intron poverty. And there is more to the molecular similarities. For instance, both these groups have secondary plastids with unique characteristics. But for now, let’s step back even further, and look at the higher level cell morphology.

In addition to their mitochondria, plastids and protein synthesis details, these distant groups in the evolutionary tree of life share “stunningly similar” cell morphology “although completely different from what is the rule of the eukaryotic cell.” These similarities include:

Dorsoventral flattening
Ventral groove/sulcus
Recurrent flagellum
Subapical flagellar insertion
Paraxonemal rods
Gliding motility
Thickened cell surface
Extrusomes
Photoreceptive eyespots

You can hear about these beginning at the [10:05] mark here. It is well worth a listen. And in a related paper, here is how the authors summarize this situation:

Both euglenozoans and alveolates have a reputation for “doing things their own way,” which is to say that they have developed seemingly unique ways to build important cellular structures or carry out molecular tasks critical for their survival. Why such hotspots for the evolution of novel solutions to problems should exist in the tree of life is not entirely clear. However, the deeper we look into these groups, the more often it is found that they are also evolving strikingly similar mechanisms for achieving these essential biological functions. Significantly, however, there is a great weight of phylogenetic data that show these lineages are not closely related: of the 5 eukaryotic supergroups hypothesized to explain all eukaryotic diversity, alveolates and euglenozoans fall into 2 different supergroups, chromalveolates and excavates, respectively. The support for these supergroups as a whole remains contentious, but there is strong support from phylogenomics and many individual phylogenies and rare genomic characters for a specific relationship between alveolates and stramenopiles on one hand, and euglenozoans and heteroloboseans on the other hand. Moreover, no analysis of eukaryotic phylogeny has ever suggested they are closely related to one another. Still more significantly, the majority of the characteristics we discuss below are not universal to all members of either alveolates or euglenozoans, but rather appear to have evolved within a subgroup of each lineage. Altogether, the distribution of these characteristics can really only adequately be explained by convergent evolution. Below, we will examine some of these examples of convergence and what the cooccurrence of convergent traits may tell us about how they evolved.

Doing things their own way? Developed unique ways to build important structures and carry out tasks? Strikingly similar solutions in lineages not closely related?

So what does all this mean? For those not familiar with molecular and cellular biology, and not familiar with the details of evolutionary theory, all of this may seem confusing. Here then is the take-home message. Evolution is a lie.

Evolution may be true, false or somewhere in between. It is difficult to be certain of how the species arose. I’d love to tell you it’s obvious but the science just isn’t that clear. The science is certainly against evolution, but that does not necessarily mean evolution is completely false. We simply can’t know for certain.

So when someone tells you they do know for certain then run, for it’s a lie.

And that’s the rub. Evolutionists are certain and that’s a lie. Over and over evolutionists have made this abundantly clear. In their lectures and in their writings, evolutionists have consistently mandated that evolution is a fact beyond any reasonable doubt. It is the one common thread in evolutionary thought. They say it would be perverse to deny this fact. It is as obvious and true, they say, as is gravity, heliocentrism and the roundness of the Earth.

The problem here is that these are not minor mistakes. It is not merely a technical scientific detail that evolutionists have missed.

This fundamental tenet of evolutionary thought—that evolution is a fact—is utterly at odds with the evidence. It is in spite of the evidence, not because of the evidence. This is because evolution is not about the evidence. Evolution is not about an objective analysis of the biology. You see, evolution is not science, it is dogma.

Bloomberg Doubles Down on Evolutionary Metaphysics With This Non Sequitur Pontification from EO Wilson

Edward O. Wilson’s pontificating that “it’s a toss-up” whether St. John the divine was doing hallucinogenic drugs or was a paranoid schizophrenic, is not news. Nor is it news that the Baptist turned deist favors the latter, as he announces with the usual evolutionary hubris in this video. It is all just more evolutionary metaphysics parading as knowledge. But if the media is the message, then the news here is that the Bloomberg financial news service found Wilson’s anti intellectualism to be newsworthy. Bloomberg’s cheerleading of evolutionary big health care at least falls somewhere close to financial reporting. But here, sandwiched between stories about the US economic recovery and the outlook for stocks, we have evolution’s raw religion on display. It’s a “Now for something completely different” moment and Wilson’s Monty Python-esque deadpan arrogance does not disappoint. But for Bloomberg news it’s no joke, and that’s the news.

[2:28] In the case of the book of Revelation, however, it’s a toss-up I think, when you read the ramblings of St. John the divine, on whether he was in fact doing it with hallucinogenic drugs, which was a common practice, even people celebrating ceremonies, religious ceremonies, in more primitive societies, or whether he was a paranoid schizophrenic. I favor the latter. And I’ve talked with psychiatrists who discuss what kind of rambling he did—what kind of dreams he had—they were fantastic, they were jumbled, they were reflective of his likes and hatreds and so on. …

Now I know that recent historical, history-oriented, interpretations of St. John the divine, would like to put it that John was using an elaborate metaphor and symbolic way of attacking Rome, seven, you know, heads, crown heads of the serpent and so on, for the seven Ceasars, and that may be true, it may also be true that John was suffering from the residue of the catastrophe of the destruction of Jerusalem which had occurred only something like 38 years before he wrote the Revelations, that may be very true, but nonetheless it has all the appearance of a paranoid hallucination, and that is I believe the correct way to look at it, rather than to constantly mine it as have evangelical organizations, and others, mine it for deep meaning about the future, the history and future, of humanity.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

David Zucchino Just Confirmed the LA Times is Not Running a Correction to Their Glaring Misrepresentation of That New Academic Freedom Law

Remember that new Academic Freedom law that allows the scientific evidence to be examined for theories such as evolution, and the theory to be criticized? And remember how the Los Angeles Times falsely reported the story, literally contriving a false narrative and misinforming their readers? I explained the problem to the Times here, and they responded with an absurd, categorical denial which made no sense. I followed up a second time with this message below to journalist David Zucchino, but Mr. Zucchino has now responded, as before, that no correction will be printed.

April 13, 2012

David Zucchino
Los Angeles Times

Dear Mr. Zucchino:

You state that a close reading of the new Tennessee law shows that it requires competing viewpoints to evolution (such as creationism), be discussed in science class. I don’t know how you could possibly arrive at that conclusion from a close reading of the amendment. I am delighted that you read the amendment closely, but it makes no such requirement. If you could indicate the particular portion of the amendment that you think stipulates this requirement then I could clear this up.

Your conclusion has two major problems. First, the amendment does not require any types of classroom discussions, competing or otherwise. There simply is nothing in the amendment that makes any such requirement. What the amendment does state is that the Tennessee schools shall encourage scientific questions and critical thinking skills, assist teachers in presenting the science curriculum, and not prohibit teachers from helping students to understand the scientific strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories covered in the curriculum. There is no such requirement of a classroom discussion.

Second, the amendment says nothing about competing theories, such as creationism. In fact, the language explicitly rules this out. It repeatedly stipulates that it is strictly in reference to the state’s curriculum framework. I don’t know how you could have inferred otherwise.

You also stated that the sponsors of the new law specifically point to evolution as a subject of “debate and disputation” and that therefore competing viewpoints should be discussed in class, according to the law.

Again, you seem to be avoiding the clear, obvious statements of the amendment. There is no mention or support given to competing viewpoints in the law. I don’t know how the language could be any more clear on this. The critical thinking, analysis of evidence, review of strengths and weakness are all of the science involved, and all deal with the state’s curriculum. There is absolutely nothing in the amendment that goes outside of the approved curriculum. And on top of that, the amendment explicitly states that it “only protects the teaching of scientific information.”

You seem to be confused about this. For instance, you stated that creationism is allowed under the law because whether or not it has scientific validity is a subject of “debate and disputation.” That would be an incredible contortion of the amendment. Whether or not creationism, or any other scheme, is or is not scientific is completely irrelevant.

The amendment is not allowing for whatever theories or viewpoints anyone wants to inject, just because someone argues that it is scientific. I am astonished you could have concluded this upon a close reading of the law. The language is crystal clear that it is addressing only the state’s curriculum.

Even creationists understand this. For instance AIG, one of the world’s leading creationist organizations, writes that: “media reports asserting that Tennessee law has introduced ‘creationism theory into science curriculum,’ and similar claims are simply wrong. The law does not permit or promote the teaching of intelligent design or creation science.” [1]

You also asked the question, if allowing discussion of challenges such as creationism isn’t the purpose of the law, then what is? This is troublesome for me for two reasons. First, you are divining a hidden, underlying purpose of the law, which not only is not in the law but is explicitly not allowed by the law, and then presenting that hidden purpose to your readers as an objective reading of the law. The fact that you are unable to imagine why legislators two thousand miles away would pass such a law does not give you the right to misrepresent the law to your readers.

Second, your question reveals that you are unaware how difficult it can be for students to raise scientific questions about theories. There is a hostile environment in our educational system, at all levels, to skepticism. Believe me, as one who has been blackballed by evolutionists, and one who has interacted with school boards and teachers, everything from passing grades to career options are at stake. This has nothing to do with creationism.

You also hypothesized that the amendment sponsors appear to have calculated that including “creationism” or “intelligent design” in the bill’s language would make it difficult to pass, so they resorted to much more general language that allows broad interpretation under the term “scientific subjects.”

But again, you are assigning motives that you imagine and projecting that onto the law itself. Even if your conspiracy theory was correct, that wouldn’t change the law. But I can also tell you that there is no such conspiracy. People I know involved with this legislation have no such calculation. And furthermore I know many people, myself included, who support these types of academic freedom bills who do not want to see creationism or intelligent design taught in our schools.

Let me be frank. I know journalists have time constraints and that you probably spent a grand total of a couple hours, if that, on the story. And I know that journalists are not experts in specialized fields. You probably haven’t thought much about biology since your high school class, and you probably know even less about the complex debate over evolution that has been on-going for years. You probably view the debate from afar through a political lens that casts evolutionists as the scientists and skeptics as the fundamentalists. Believe me, the debate is far more nuanced and complex than this. And again, it has nothing to do with creationism.

The bottom line is that your piece does need a correction. Without it you harm the reputation of yourself and your employer. You pointed out that the Los Angeles Times is one of many news outlets reporting that the bill will allow classroom discussion of creationism or other alternatives to evolution. I trust you realize this doesn’t justify false reporting. In fact, that is part of the story.

What the Los Angeles Times missed here was an opportunity to report on an often misunderstood story, particularly in the broad news media (this is not left versus right), and dig down a level beyond the usual cultural memes that continue to confuse the story.

Sincerely yours,

Cornelius Hunter

1. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2012/04/12/teacher-protection-academic-freedom-act

Yet there will be no correction. No matter how grievous the yellow journalism, a correction would not be possible because this is evolution. Journalist David Zucchino and the Los Angeles Times have violated the fundamental ethic of journalism.

We all make mistakes but when a person willfully misrepresents the truth, then it is no longer merely a mistake. Unfortunately this is the story of evolution. Its endless trail of scientific misrepresentations goes uncorrected and denied, in spite of patient observers informing evolutionists of their “mistakes.” And since evolution is far more than a mere scientific theory, but a religious-cultural movement, this dynamic is seen in more than the mere scientific disputes. The LA Times has provided an unfortunate example of this.

Here is how one writer recently explained the increasing irrelevancy of news outlets such as the Times:

Couple of things to keep in mind about legacy media:

1. Their news gathering model is out of date, which is why they are bleeding circulation from every outlet. Essentially, on many subjects today, you can usually find out more accurate information more quickly by doing your own straightforward Internet search than you can by reading a “newspaper of record.”

2. One outcome of slow decline is that such media attract conformist journalists who spout a party line because they really haven’t any better ambitions or ideas.

3. They also attach themselves to establishment figures and causes, for protection, which leads to a loss of news gathering independence. They begin to act with a degree of irresponsibility that we used to associate with the tabloid press.

4. Remember the “air traffic controller” rule. The more vital the information is, the less biased the provider can afford to be. The ATC is allowed only one bias: Getting planes down safely. Now turn that around: In a world where people can learn about events quite easily without the legacy media, the legacy media slowly begin to write fiction that pleases themselves and their remaining readers.

Thus, it actually doesn’t matter to them what the Tennessee bill says, or what its outcome will be. They are constructing a work of fiction pleasing to themselves and their readers. The news story is simply an inspiration for an alternative reality. Read it if you like – but not for news.

What we are witnessing here is a tragedy. We’ve all heard about journalistic bias, the problems with legacy media and so forth. Here we have a clear example. This is not merely a case of media bias. This is not an example of an Op-Ed with an over-the-top political slant. This is an outright lie in a supposed news story. What I discovered is that there is no intent to cover the story accurately. There is no journalistic integrity here. The intent is to prop up an absurd and obviously false narrative. That’s a tragedy.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Evolution Falsified Yet Again: They Are So Complicated “That it’s Stunning”

We have seen (here and here) that the mitochondria DNA of the single-cell eukaryote Trypanosoma brucei is incredibly complex and unique, and make no sense on evolution, and more over that these incredible mitochondria designs reappear in distant species on the evolutionary tree. For instance, the Euglenids and the Dinoflagellates share these bizarre mitochondria similarities. Evolutionists are calling it “Corresponding evolutionary histories” or “Cascades of convergent evolution,” and it is far beyond the explanatory power of the usual just-so stories, such as gene transfer, gene duplication or gene loss. It is just another example of how evolutionary theory fails but the story doesn’t end with the mitochondria.

The Euglenids and Dinoflagellates, for example, also share very odd peculiarities at the molecular level in general. You can hear about them beginning at the [14:05] mark here.

For starters both these eukaryotic groups have permanently condensed chromosomes in their nucleus, polycistronic transcription, trans-splicing and intron poverty. These characteristics are highly unusual in eukaryotes.

Canonical gene expression in eukaryotes involves the transcription of a gene, and the splicing out of the introns so that only the exons remain, before translation takes place to construct the protein.

But in the Euglenids and Dinoflagellates, for example, a string of consecutive genes—sometimes hundreds of genes—are transcribed together in what is known as polycistronic transcription. And when these transcripts are cut up to produce monocistronic transcripts, short genomic sequences known as spliced leaders, which come from RNA genes, are added at the beginning in a process that is called trans-splicing. This was first observed years ago in the kinetoplastids. Also, there are very few introns in these distant eukaryotic groups.

Evolution expects that when organisms are classified according to how they evolved, then the classification serves to predict and explain other aspects of the organisms which were not used in the classification. Simply put, if certain traits point to a certain evolutionary history, then other traits should as well.

These similarities between the Euglenids and Dinoflagellates, of very odd and peculiar traits, disproves evolution yet again. It’s just another example of how the evidence explains evolution rather than evolution explaining the evidence. Evolution is a tautology. It is contorted to fit whatever we find in nature, no matter how absurd the theory must become.

Nothing makes sense in biology in the light of evolution.

You Won’t Believe This One, Even Evolutionists Call it “Totally Crazy”

Evolution expects the species to fall into a very definite pattern, but they don’t. For example, we saw that the mitochondria DNA of the single-cell eukaryote Trypanosoma brucei is incredibly complex and unique, and make no sense on evolution. But the contradictions don’t stop there. Evolutionists were further shocked to find such similar features in completely different organisms, on completely different parts of the evolutionary tree. Consider, for example, the Euglenids and the Dinoflagellates shown in the figure (which shows the 5 supergroups that comprise the eukaryotes). These two groups are very different—Dinoflagellates are Chromalveolates while Euglenids are Excavates—but their mitochondria are not only similar, but similar in ways that are highly unique. Imagine finding an automobile with six wheels instead of four. It is the only one of its kind. But then you discover the same anomaly in a distant country, an automobile with six wheels while all the rest have four wheels.

You can hear about the incredible mitochondria similarities between the Euglenids and the Dinoflagellates here (or you can see the paper here), beginning at the [28:30] mark. It is well worth a listen for you will learn that these distant mitochondria have in common: polycistronic transcription, reduced ribosomal RNA, universal import of tRNAs, use of the enzyme tRNA-Met formyl-transferase, trans-splicing, extensive RNA editing and 3’ polyadenylation and polyuridylylation. Here is how the evolutionist describes it at the [32.50] mark:

What is here common is total mayhem of the organellar genome—breakdown. Either you have very complicated structure in the kinetoplastids, and I will talk a little bit later on that, or, you have even more complicated, this is totally crazy, this was published last year, or actually two years ago in Science. This appears that these diplonemida have everything! They manage their organellar genome in such a sophisticated way, that is still beyond my comprehension.

Then we have apicomplexans plasmodium that have some small, short, linear molecules, and all genes from the mitochondria of malaria have been exported into the nucleus. There are just three, actually two even fused together, but they are in different sequence contexts, they are in fragments. So apparently they have to be spliced together. Enormous effort have to be invested just to produce two or three genes. And in dinoflagellates it’s even worse. The genes are again split into fragments—pieces are just like you would take scissors and cut them and paste them together. Then, on top of that, the transcripts are edited. So you need a vast range of proteins that perform these editings. And these editings are complex. So you have guanines changed to adenines, uridines changed to cytosines, cytosines in other positions changed to uridines. So you have five or six different changes of the given base, then you look on the level of amino acids, because you would expect that all this effort is made in order to change the amino acid, and in some cases the amino acid is not changed. So it’s like they do it for fun. And that is extreme in both of these groups.

It doesn’t make any sense on evolution not only because these are highly unique designs, but they then appear repeatedly, in otherwise very distant species. This is not what evolution expected and this is far beyond any level of evolutionary noise. Nor will the oft-used gene transfer explanation work in this case. This is an instance of massive convergence that makes no sense on evolution.

We saw that evolutionists needed the term “Recurrent evolution” to explain repeated convergence. Now evolutionists are calling these “totally crazy” arrangements: “Corresponding evolutionary histories” or “Cascades of convergent evolution.”

Evolution is not merely a scientific theory. If that were the case it would have been discarded long ago. Evolution is a dogma. That is why evolutionists make extreme truth claims. Rather than tentative, scientific, explanations of the evidence, evolutionists insist that their idea is a fact. A fact every bit as much as gravity or the fact that the Earth is round. It is beyond all reasonable doubt, they insist.

To say this is a misrepresentation of the science is putting it lightly. Evolution has been mandated by religious thought for centuries and it is a corruption of science. With evolution, we have lost the ability to reason scientifically.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Here’s a Very Complicated and Unique DNA Finding That Contradicts Evolution

You may remember from your high school biology class that DNA segments called genes are transcribed and that the copy, which is slightly different and called RNA, is then translated into a string of amino acids which folds up into a new protein. And in the more complicated eukaryote cells this process is more elaborate because the genes can be split up into multiple segments (called exons) in the DNA. This means the RNA transcript needs some editing to splice out the intervening regions. You may also remember your teacher explaining the cell division process and how the DNA is duplicated so that in the end there are two identical copies of the cell’s genome.

Finally you may remember your teacher explaining that these processes are found throughout all life, thus proving evolution yet again. For with evolution you cannot have one-offs. As your teacher assured you, evolution would be instantly falsified and discarded by all scientists if somewhere in the tree of life some organisms here or there revealed some other way of doing business.

Well guess what? One-off solutions are all over the evolutionary tree. The pattern that evolutionists expected didn’t turn out. Regarding the DNA mechanisms, consider the well-studied single-cell eukaryote named Trypanosoma brucei. Its mitochondria (the organelle that is the cell’s powerplant, turning food into fuel) employs very different, and incredible schemes.

First, the mitochondria DNA forms a huge, elegant network organized into so-called maxicircles and minicircles. There are a couple dozen maxicircles and thousands of minicircles. The minicircles are all different and laid out into an exact, three-dimensional network where each one is interconnected with just three neighbors.

This network is exactly recreated, with each minicircle copied and inserted in the right place, each time the cell divides into two daughter cells. It is a very complicated replication process.

Each minicircle is duplicated and a protein tag is attached to the copy indicating that it is a copy so that particular minicircle need not be copied. While this is occurring the entire network is slowly rotating between two opposing nodes where the copied minicircles are collected.

And regarding the DNA-RNA-protein sequence, a very different editing process is used. It is called “extensive RNA editing” but the label doesn’t do it justice. For many, but not all, of the mitochondria genes, hundreds of nucleotides are added to the RNA transcript and dozens are removed. All of this is done mistake-free, for if it isn’t done just right the result would likely be a useless protein. Not surprisingly all of this requires close to a thousand genes, in order to construct only a few dozen genes.

These are very unique solutions that do not form an evolutionary tree pattern. Nothing in biology makes sense in the light of evolution.

Professor Scot McKnight Just Cited Dennis Venema (Approvingly)

One would think that after almost four hundred years Christians would finally give up on their evolutionary mandate. Malebranche, Burnet, Leibniz and the other early naturalists at least did not have all the scientific details. But today there is no such excuse. Now we know in incredible detail that the theological mandate against special divine action really is as unjustified as it has always seemed.

But this week Scot McKnight, recognized authority on the New Testament and professor in Religious Studies at North Park University, reminds us why evolution remains alive and well. McKnight discusses the recent meeting in New York City of leading Christians and the need to promote evolutionary thought. McKnight cites Dennis Venema’s evolutionary apologetics as an example of what is needed.

In one example Venema repeats the scientifically bogus, theological argument for human-chimpanzee common ancestry based on the human chromosome #2. You can read more about the problems with this evidence here, here and here.

The bottom line is that the human chromosome #2 evidence allowed evolution to dodge a bullet. It is a gross misrepresentation of science to claim this as evidence for common ancestry any more than any other similarity. We share similar a body plan with the chimp also. So what? A similarity does not demonstrate an evolutionary relationship.

But as always the “So what” in evolutionary thought comes from theology, not science. As Venema concludes:

What makes shared synteny for humans and chimpanzees challenging from an anti-common descent viewpoint is that there is no good biological reason to find the same genes in the same order in unrelated organisms, and every good reason to expect very different gene orders. … In summary, should God have wished to avoid the appearance of common ancestry between humans and chimpanzees, there seem to have been many gene orders and chromosome structures available to Him to use for either species. … While this pattern makes perfect sense in light of common ancestry and acts as an important independent test of phylogenies, it continues to puzzle those who attempt to explain life apart from evolution.

When Venema explains that “there is no good biological reason to find the same genes in the same order in unrelated organisms” he is commenting on creation. It is a religious argument, not a scientific argument. An argument that McKnight has precisely the right expertise to dissect.

Amidst all of the scientific jargon lies religion at the steering wheel. It all sounds so technical, but like the rudder of a ship, religion is firmly in control. Which reminds us of those prescient words from the brother of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ:

My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.

See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

James’ words about the tongue reminds us of religion. It brings about many good things, but it also brings about lies.

I have no idea if the human and chimp genomes share a common naturalistic origin, but I do know religion when I see it. The evolutionary argument, as reiterated here by Venema, is about God, not science. Evolution is not a scientific finding, it is a religious lie. Perhaps we evolved, perhaps we didn’t, but the science indicates the latter.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Neuroscientist: “The Most Seamless Illusions Ever Created”

Evolutionary thinking has so strangled our thinking, and has imposed such anti intellectualism, that a UCLA professor, as reported at UncommonDescent, actually had to explain that there is something different, apparently something non physical, about consciousness:

I don’t actually believe the radio metaphor of the brain, but I think something like it could account for all of our findings. Its unfalsifiable which is a big no-no in science. But so is the materialist view—it’s also unfalsifiable. We simply don’t know how to reverse engineer consciousness. Saying that the complexity of the brain explains why we are conscious is just an article of faith—it doesn’t explain anything. We don’t know why our brains are associated with conscious experience and nothing else in the universe besides brains seems to be.  Maybe rocks have consciousness but no way of showing this. I don’t believe this—but again, I can’t prove its false.

If we acknowledge just how much we don’t know about the conscious mind, perhaps we would be a bit more humble.  We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good. So we will go on acting like free willing creatures no matter what. It’s what we're built to do.

This was actually deemed newsworthy? Indeed it was because evolution has come to so dominate our thinking. Conundrums that were well acknowledged ages ago are now revealed as though they are new findings.

This reminds me of Isaac Asimov’s 1958 futuristic short story “The Feeling of Power,” in which a technician named Myron Aub rediscovers arithmetic. Aub’s future world is one dominated by computers which do all the number crunching and people who not only are mathematically-challenged but, more importantly, don’t see the point. What good is math anyway? Today evolution has had a similar effect on our thinking. Just as computers can dull our mathematical skills, evolutionary thought dulls our critical thinking skills.

Antibiotic Resistance: Scratch Another “Proof” of Evolution (Which Was Never a Proof in the First Place Anyway)

Remember how you learned in tenth grade that evolution is a fact because bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics, and how evolutionists continue to proclaim this proof? Of course this evidence never explained how the bacteria could turn into a fish, or how the fish could turn into a giraffe. Nor did it explain how the bacteria evolved in the first place. The evidence didn’t even explain how the bacteria were able to respond so quickly to the antibiotics. Well if the whole argument wasn’t silly enough, now new research finds that drug resistance is actually an ancient trait because it was discovered in bacteria from an isolated cave in New Mexico, hundreds of yards underground:

A growing body of evidence implicates environmental organisms as reservoirs of these resistance genes; however, the role of anthropogenic use of antibiotics in the emergence of these genes is controversial. We report a screen of a sample of the culturable microbiome of Lechuguilla Cave, New Mexico, in a region of the cave that has been isolated for over 4 million years. We report that, like surface microbes, these bacteria were highly resistant to antibiotics; some strains were resistant to 14 different commercially available antibiotics. … This supports a growing understanding that antibiotic resistance is natural, ancient, and hard wired in the microbial pangenome.

This natural antibiotic resistance predates our use of antibiotics and could simultaneously (i) explain how such resistance appears rapidly after the introduction of a new antibiotic and (ii) relieve evolutionists of one of their already ridiculous arguments:

Clinical microbiologists have been perplexed for the longest time. When you bring a new antibiotic into the hospital, resistance inevitably appears shortly thereafter, within months to years. It’s still a big question: Where is this coming from. Almost no one thought to look at other bacteria, the ones that don’t necessarily cause disease.

Nothing in biology makes sense in the light of evolution.

Here’s the Latest Just-So Story: Recurrent Evolution

Biology’s designs don’t fit the evolutionary tree very well. Evolutionists expected the species to form, more or less, a common-descent type pattern. Species that are supposed to share a recent common ancestor would be highly similar with only minor differences. And on the other hand, species whose last common ancestor is ancient would be more dramatically different. Sister species could not have any dramatic differences, and distant species could not share unlikely designs that would not have been present in the distant common ancestor. These evolutionary expectations have been falsified many times over. And these failures of evolutionary theory are far greater than any evolutionary “noise.” But such failures do not cast doubt on the theory of evolution itself. This is because evolution is held dogmatically to be a fact. It cannot be false, for it is mandated by metaphysical beliefs which are far more powerful than any scientific reasoning. And so evolutionists appeal to a wide range of just-so stories to explain away the many contradictions to their theory. The latest is called recurrent evolution.

When evolutionists find the same design in otherwise very different species, they say that, like lightning striking twice, the design evolved independently in the two different evolutionary lineages. They will appeal to common environmental “induction,” developmental “plasticity,” and other serendipitous cartoon explanations that don’t actually tell us anything about how such astronomically unlikely events could have occurred. Particularly when these distant species are in completely different environments to begin with.

For example, humans and squid share uncannily similar, incredibly detailed and complicated, vision systems. This in spite of the fact their environments are very different. [Side note: Evolutionists dismiss this profound contradiction because the squid photocells are not inverted as the human’s are. This would be like travelling to a distant planet and finding a Lexus automobile with the steering wheel on the passenger side, and therefore dismissing all the similarities as meaningless].

And these repeated designs, in otherwise different species, are rampant in biology. It is not merely a rare occurrence which perhaps evolution could explain as an outlier. That the species do not fall into an evolutionary tree pattern is well established by science.

But it’s worse than this. These repeated designs do not merely occur twice, in two distant species. They often occur repeatedly in a variety of otherwise distant species. So now the evolutionist must not only believe that there are many of these miraculous repeating design events, but that in most cases, they repeat multiple times.

The first step to explaining something away is to give it a name. And so evolutionists have labeled this awkward evidence as recurrent evolution. As a recent paper explains:

The recent explosion of genome sequences from all major phylogenetic groups has unveiled an unexpected wealth of cases of recurrent evolution of strikingly similar genomic features in different lineages.

In addition, many instances of a third more puzzling phylogenetic pattern have been observed: traits whose distribution is “scattered” across the evolutionary tree, indicating repeated independent evolution of similar genomic features in different lineages.

And how to explain these puzzling, unexpected patterns? Evolutionists have a dizzying array of speculative hypotheses:

Cases of genomic recurrence caused by ratchet mutations are fundamental to understanding the evolutionary constraints and canalizations that shape the way in which the “genomespace,” as the morphospace, is explored through evolution, underscoring predictability in the overall outcome of neutral mutation, whether or not this will be “constructive.” … Other quasineutral changes that have been repeatedly used as substrate for molecular innovations suggest that certain genomic traits confer evolutionary flexibility, opening new venues that can be explored during evolution. Thus, their mere presence would be indicative of evolutionary potential, allowing specific hypotheses about the occurrence of typically accompanying features.

That, for those unfamiliar with evolution, is what passes as science. Such speculation is acceptable, because everyone agrees evolution is a fact. One way or another, it must have occurred:

We believe that the wealth of recurrent genomic features indicate unappreciated similarity of fundamental forces across lineages.

In other words, there is no level of “recurrence” that could harm evolution. It simply reveals some unknown “fundamental forces” across lineages which must have done the heavy lifting because, after all, evolution is a fact.

It is easy to appeal to “fundamental forces” across lineages. But why would they produce the same designs over and over? It would be like finding a Boeing 747 jet airliner on a distant planet and concluding that “Well, they have gravity too.”

Not only is recurrent evolution an unlikely hypothesis due to the fundamental probabilities involved, but in many cases evolutionists won’t even have their usual strong selection explanation to fall back on. This because many genomic recurrences don’t seem to be all that necessary:

What forces may explain genomic recurrence? In contrast to recurrent anatomical or physiological characters, which are usually (and reasonably) assumed to reflect adaption, often due to shared peculiarities of the organisms' environmental niches, the potential causes of observed recurrent genomic features are more diverse and may be very different for different recurrent traits—indeed, in some cases, the adaptative value of repeated genomic outcomes is dubious.

And just as convergent evolution was found to be far more widespread than the evolutionist’s worst nightmare, so too will recurrent evolution be found to be widespread:

The diverse instances discussed here represent only a subset of the known cases of repeated evolution at the genome level that have been found largely serendipitously, suggesting that recurrent patterns of genome evolution are widespread.

And if we needed further proof that common descent’s failure is inconsequential for evolutionists, because common descent was never part of evolution’s theoretical core, here it is.

As ancestrally shared features are the result of a common evolutionary history, shared features evolved by recurrent evolution are often the result of common evolutionary forces acting on different lineages.

If the pattern fits the evolutionary tree, then it is explained as common evolutionary history. If not, then it is explained as common evolutionary forces. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Common descent has always been an auxiliary hypothesis for the simple reason that evolution’s theoretical core does not mandate common descent, or anything else for that matter, aside from its insistence that the species arose naturally. Beyond that, anything goes.

Evolutionists insist the species arose naturally, their religion requires it.

Here is My Letter to the Los Angeles Times About Their Misreporting on That New Tennessee Law

People need to earn money but not at the expense of one’s profession. Each profession has its own methods and practices that must be followed. In the newspaper business it is understood that reporting must be accurate. And when mistakes occur, then corrections are made. No serious newspaper allows inaccurate or biased reporting to go uncorrected. It just doesn’t happen. Therefore the Los Angeles Times needs to issue a correction to its erroneous reporting on Tennessee’s new Academic Freedom measure. Here is my letter to the Times apprising them of this situation:

April 12, 2012

David Zucchino
Los Angeles Times

Dear Mr. Zucchino:

In your article entitle "Creationism discussions are now OK in Tennessee schools" from April 11, 2012, you wrote:

"The measure will allow classroom debates over evolution, permitting discussions of creationism alongside evolutionary teachings about the origins of life. … The state’s teachers are not allowed to raise alternatives to evolution but, under the new law, would be required to permit discussion of creationism and other beliefs if they are raised in class."

This is unfortunately a severe mischaracterization of the new law. In fact, the law is careful to rule out just this sort of thing. The law says nothing about permitting discussions of creationism or any other religious theory, or for that matter anything not within the existing curriculum. You can see the actual Amendment here:

http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/107/Amend/SA0901.pdf

The language is quite clear. It repeatedly states that the new law does not introduce new material into the existing curriculum, and is instead restricted to "scientific subjects required to be taught under the curriculum framework developed by the state board of education."

Furthermore, it goes even farther in avoiding any confusion with creationism as it states: "This section only protects the teaching of scientific information, and shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine."

In addition to your erroneous description of the law, your article was also heavily slanted toward the opposition, even including Barry Lynn, a well known partisan on this issue. Unfortunately all of this simply feeds an on-going cultural myth that really needs clarification rather than reinforcement.

Will you be issuing a correction to the story?

Sincerely yours,

Cornelius Hunter

Here is How Those LIMEs Solved “Some of the Mysteries of Plant Evolution”

One of the signs of junk science is when the explanations become more and more and more complicated. When the epicycles are pasted on, one after the other, then you wonder if the theory really has anything to do with reality.

Another problem is when no matter what is discovered, even if contradictory to expectations, the theory is just reengineered once again to fit the data. Is the theory really anything more than a tautology?

Evolution has been down these paths over and over. And now we have yet another set of epicycles tacked onto evolutionary theory. Like the dormitory’s bulletin board at the end of the semester, the theory is looking pretty tattered, with old, long-forgotten epicycles barely hanging on and new ones tacked on wherever they fit. Our latest complexity is this “resolution” of the mysteries of plant evolution, all due to the rather unexpected, but now easily imbibed, finding of LIMEs throughout the plants and animals. As usual, the evidence was not only a complete contradiction from what evolution predicted, but accounting for these little surprises has evolutionists doing even more of their mental gymnastics. So we now present, without further ado, evolutionary epicycles 11,764-11,771:

That really clears it up.

Here’s an Incredible Electronic Version of the Biochemical Pathways Chart

Even evolutionists admit these biochemical pathway charts are “daunting in their majesty and beauty.” And as you can see, they just have random mutation written all over them.

There simply is no doubt evolution is a fact. Who could ever doubt it?