James Shapiro Cries Foul: “I was outraged”

Evolution’s Crocodile Tears

The latest attack in the never ending Texas textbook battle comes from evolutionist James Shapiro, University of Chicago professor, who states that he was falsely misquoted by certain members of the Texas state’s school board textbook review committee. Shapiro explains that he was outraged by a “completely false statement” and that he was “the victim of skillful misquoting for an anti-science purpose.” Indeed, according to Shapiro these opponents of evolution are “trying to confuse and mislead the public,” and are “against freedom of speech in scientific research, honesty in public decision-making, and suitable modern education for the students of Texas.” Shapiro concludes that all of this “sounds counter to the ideals of liberty, democracy and opportunity on which this nation was founded.” These are very serious charges from a leading evolutionist and, as such, need to be addressed.

The Outrage

Here is the statement that so outraged Shapiro:

THE CURRENT UNDERSTANDING OF THE GROWING BODY OF EVIDENCE IS THAT NATURAL SELECTION ONLY PURIFIES BUT SOMETHING ELSE IS REQUIRED TO CREATE SIGNIFICANT VARIANTS TO BE SELECTED. The critical aspect is introduction of novelty. It is gradually being recognized that no mechanism for this has been firmly established. See "Evolution: A view from the 21st century," James A. Shapiro, Prof of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Univ. of Chicago, (2011), page 144, "Selection operates as a selective but not a creative force."

As you can see, Shapiro is cited to support the claim that natural selection appears to be inadequate to explain the evolution of novelty and that science is beginning to recognize that no mechanism for the introduction of novelty has been firmly established.

Shapiro cries foul because, as he explains, he has been studying and publishing the details precisely of mechanisms that create novelty:

I stated on the very first page of the Introduction [of his book]: "Uncovering the molecular mechanisms by which living organisms modify their genomes is a major accomplishment of late 20th Century molecular biology."

Indeed, Shapiro says he discusses such mechanisms, for the introduction of novelty, throughout his book. But what exactly is this “novelty” that Shapiro discusses? It is changes to the genome structure.

The Facts

In other words, Shapiro is referring to genetic changes such as adaptive mutation, horizontal gene transfer, insertion of nucleotide sequences into the genome and movement of sequences within the genome, gene and genome duplication, and so forth.

All fascinating stuff, but it directs our attention away from the problem. Yes such mechanisms are real and important, and yes science increasingly understands how these mechanisms help organisms cope with their environment. But these mechanisms do not explain the major evolutionary advances. They do not explain macroevolution and, yes, they do not explain the introduction of novelty. From individual proteins to new body plans, we have more questions than answers. And these natural genetic engineering mechanisms, as Shapiro calls them, do not suddenly resolve this fundamental problem of evolution.

Indeed, Shapiro’s outrage is rather incredulous given that evolution’s failure to explain the origin of novelty is well known. Stephen J. Gould long ago admitted that macroevolution is an unsolved problem. Since then this sentiment has only increased. As one evolutionist recently agreed, “we know very little about how they [evolutionary innovations] originate.” Or as another paper explained, “Little information exists on the dynamics of processes that lead to functional biological novelties and the intermediate states of evolving forms.” Another evolutionist was a bit more frank: “The problem is that the source of novelty is so dammed elusive.”

Shapiro’s work further confirms that natural selection is not the powerful creative force it has often been portrayed to be and that “something else” is required. Shapiro may think the answer lies in his natural genetic engineering toolkit, but neither he, nor anyone else, has shown this to be true.

To make matters worse, the sentence that so outraged Shapiro is decidedly conservative. It states that “It is gradually being recognized that no mechanism for this has been firmly established.” That is absolutely uncontroversial, as there is no question that no mechanism has been “firmly” established. It would have been entirely safe to say that no such mechanism for this [the creation of novelty] has been established, period.

Shapiro, of course, is well aware of all this. He knows that his natural genetic engineering toolkit has not been shown to solve evolution’s problem of novelty. And he knows that no mechanism for this has been firmly established. The statement is well within its rights and Shapiro’s outrage amounts to little more than false indignation.

The Serendipity

There is another aspect of this issue that is worth mentioning. Imagine for a moment that Shapiro is on to something. Perhaps his natural genetic engineering toolkit can generate biology’s many incredible designs. Even if that is true, it would not solve the problem of novelty, it would just push it back one step.

For if those natural genetic engineering tools could create such complexities, it would raise the question of how evolution created such tools in the first place. You see those natural genetic engineering tools are, themselves, the result of complex structures and information. Adaptive mutations and horizontal gene transfer don’t “just happen.”

Imagine a fully automated factory that builds automobiles. That would be amazing and the discovery of how the factory works wouldn’t explain the origin of cars. Likewise, the discovery of genetic tools that created the species would be a tremendous advance, but it would hardly solve evolution’s problem of novelty. For how did the novel genetic tools evolve?

The Hypocrisy

Evolutionist James Shapiro was outraged, but given the facts how does his criticism fare? He was outraged by the “completely false statement that ‘no mechanism for this [introduction of novelty] has been firmly established.’”

But that statement is not “completely false.” In fact, it is not even just plain false. On the contrary, it is Shapiro who is making false statements about evolution’s problem of novelty.

Shapiro also complained that he was “the victim of skillful misquoting for an anti-science purpose.” But Shapiro was not misquoted, and expecting our public schools to teach accurate science is certainly not “anti-science.” On the contrary, it is Shapiro who is firmly in the evolution camp which consistently makes the anti-science claim that evolution is a fact.

Shapiro also complained that these opponents of evolution are “trying to confuse and mislead the public,” and are “against freedom of speech in scientific research, honesty in public decision-making, and suitable modern education for the students of Texas.” But how is it that wanting to get the science right makes one guilty of all these crimes? As we have seen, it is evolution that consistently misrepresents science in textbooks and classrooms, and misinforms the public.

Finally Shapiro complained that all of this “sounds counter to the ideals of liberty, democracy and opportunity on which this nation was founded.”

Really.

How about blackballing anyone who dares question evolutionary theory, Professor Shapiro? How about keeping lists of those people and ensuring their careers are derailed? How about constructing false histories?

Is that sort of McCarthyism your idea of liberty, democracy and opportunity, Professor Shapiro?

Evolutionists are outraged when anyone dares come forward with scientific problems. These opponents are castigated for their nefarious motives. They are bad while evolutionists are good. Evolutionists wear the white hat and wrap themselves in the flag while blackballing and misrepresenting both the science and the history behind the science.

We have, unfortunately, seen this movie before and it no longer surprises. Professor Shapiro’s false outrage and hypocrisy are the rule rather than the exception.

Scientific Illiteracy Growing Worse

5% Increase In 8 Years

A new Harris poll of 2,250 Americans reports that belief in Darwin’s theory of evolution has risen five percentage points since 2005, from 42% to 47%. This number has been steady for decades so it is difficult to know if this uptick is the beginning of a new trend or merely a temporary swing. But the fact that so many Americans believe that the species spontaneously arose, does not reflect well on science education. This pedagogy failure is not buried in a subtle detail of science. It is not as though Americans have failed to grasp a technical aspect of quantum chromodynamics. On the contrary, it would be difficult to find a more wrongheaded, anti scientific view than spontaneous origins. Scientific illiteracy, it seems, is at an all-time high.

Cellular Traffic Control System Research Earns the Nobel Prize

Keeps Activities Inside Cells From Descending Into Chaos

Earlier this year the Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to three scientists for their work on how tiny vesicles shuttle the right chemicals to the right location at the right time within the cell. It is an elaborate traffic control system at the molecular level. Here is how the Associated Press described the work:

This traffic control system ensures that the cargo is delivered to the right place at the right time and keeps activities inside cells from descending into chaos, the committee said. Defects can be harmful, leading to neurological diseases, diabetes and disorders affecting the immune system.

"Imagine hundreds of thousands of people who are traveling around hundreds of miles of streets; how are they going to find the right way? Where will the bus stop and open its doors so that people can get out?" Nobel committee secretary Goran Hansson said. "There are similar problems in the cell."

And here is how the Nobel Prize press release describes the work:

The 2013 Nobel Prize honours three scientists who have solved the mystery of how the cell organizes its transport system. Each cell is a factory that produces and exports molecules. … These molecules are transported around the cell in small packages called vesicles. The three Nobel Laureates have discovered the molecular principles that govern how this cargo is delivered to the right place at the right time in the cell. …

Through their discoveries, Rothman, Schekman and Südhof have revealed the exquisitely precise control system for the transport and delivery of cellular cargo. Disturbances in this system have deleterious effects and contribute to conditions such as neurological diseases, diabetes, and immunological disorders.

In a large and busy port, systems are required to ensure that the correct cargo is shipped to the correct destination at the right time. The cell, with its different compartments called organelles, faces a similar problem: cells produce molecules such as hormones, neurotransmitters, cytokines and enzymes that have to be delivered to other places inside the cell, or exported out of the cell, at exactly the right moment. Timing and location are everything. Miniature bubble-like vesicles, surrounded by membranes, shuttle the cargo between organelles or fuse with the outer membrane of the cell and release their cargo to the outside. This is of major importance, as it triggers nerve activation in the case of transmitter substances, or controls metabolism in the case of hormones. How do these vesicles know where and when to deliver their cargo?

Without this wonderfully precise organization, the cell would lapse into chaos.

The award encompasses research that was done by many teams over several decades. Not surprisingly there is no scientific explanation for how such a traffic control system evolved. All that evolutionists can offer is vague narratives about how evolution constructed primitive versions of the system which later were improved upon. Nonetheless evolutionists argue vigorously that evolution is a fact.

Thomas Huxley, Crocodiles and Evolution’s Mandate

Naturalism is the Necessary Alternative

Thomas Huxley would be pleased with new research out of the University of Florida indicating the slender-snouted crocodile actually comprises two different species. After all, it was that “long succession of different species of crocodiles” which, Darwin’s bulldog argued, would not have been created:

How is the existence of this long succession of different species of crocodiles to be accounted for?

Only two suppositions seem to be open to us—Either each species of crocodile has been specially created, or it has arisen out of some pre-existing form by the operation of natural causes.

Choose your hypothesis; I have chosen mine. I can find no warranty for believing in the distinct creation of a score of successive species of crocodiles in the course of countless ages of time. Science gives no countenance to such a wild fancy; nor can even the perverse ingenuity of a commentator pretend to discover this sense, in the simple words in which the writer of Genesis records the proceedings of the fifth and sixth days of the Creation.

On the other hand, I see no good reason for doubting that necessary alternative, that all these varied species have been evolved from pre-existing crocodilian forms, by the operation of causes as completely a part of the common order of nature as those which have effected the changes of the inorganic world.

Few will venture to affirm that the reasoning which applies to crocodiles loses its force among other animals, or among plants. If one series of species has come into existence by the operation of natural causes, it seems folly to deny that all may have arisen in the same way. [Thomas Huxley, “On a Piece of Chalk,” Lectures and Lay Sermons, (London: J. M. Dent & Sons) 20-1]

There you have it. Evolution’s contrastive thinking in a nutshell. The origins question may be difficult, but one thing we do know is the Creator would never have done it this way. Such “wild fancy” can easily be discounted and with that, evolution becomes the “necessary alternative.” Better to have blind natural laws do the creating than a capricious Creator.

And in classic Darwinian slippery-slope fashion, if with crocodiles, then surely with animals in general. And if with animals, then surely with plants as well. And if with animals and plants, then with all life.

In this passage Huxley expresses our religious belief. Special creation simply must be false and therefore evolution must be true. Given our metaphysical position, there is no choice. Evolution is a fact, regardless of the science.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

h/t: The man

This Just In: Universe About to Collapse

More at 11

If you thought global warming was bad consider this: evolutionists have now concluded that the risk of the universe collapsing is even greater than previously thought:

Sooner or later a radical shift in the forces of the universe will cause every little particle in it to become extremely heavy. Everything -- every grain of sand on Earth, every planet in the solar system and every galaxy -- will become millions of billions times heavier than it is now

Oh, and “this will have disastrous consequences.”

It may sound weird but, technically, it’s actually no different than when water turns to steam:

This violent process is called a phase transition and is very similar to what happens when, for example water turns to steam or a magnet heats up and loses its magnetization. The phase transition in the universe will happen if a bubble is created where the Higgs-field associated with the Higgs-particle reaches a different value than the rest of the universe.

In fact, not only is this total collapse more likely than evolutionists previously thought, it may have already begun:

"The phase transition will start somewhere in the universe and spread from there. Maybe the collapse has already started somewhere in the universe and right now it is eating its way into the rest of the universe. Maybe a collapsed is starting right now right here.

I hate it when that happens. Plus it will be another successful prediction for evolution. And if the collapse doesn’t happen, that too will be a successful prediction because, it turns out, the collapse may not happen after all:

Although the new calculations predict that a collapse is now more likely than ever before, it is actually also possible, that it will not happen at all. It is a prerequisite for the phase change that the universe consists of the elementary particles that we know today, including the Higgs particle. If the universe contains undiscovered particles, the whole basis for the prediction of phase change disappears. "Then the collapse will be canceled," says Jens Frederik Colding Krog.

They say more research is needed.

Here’s Another Study Showing Introns Are Not Random

Another Violation of Occam’s Razor

Evolution is, as evolutionists like to say, a fact. But that conclusion comes from philosophical and theological reasoning. From a strictly scientific perspective evolution is problematic. Virtually every area of scientific evidence challenges evolution. Consider for example the introns—segments of DNA within genes in the higher organisms. When introns were discovered evolutionists, in typical fashion, figured that introns were non functional, biological junk. They reasoned that introns had been randomly inserted into genomes for no particular reason, and now they appear throughout the higher organisms in the usual common descent pattern. Even if all that was true (which it isn’t) it wouldn’t help, for introns fundamentally contradict evolutionary theory.

When a gene is first transcribed, the entire gene is copied, including the introns. The introns are then removed by complicated and sophisticated splicing machinery that, among other things read splicing signals in the gene copy.

The problem is that if the first introns just happened to be randomly inserted into genes for no reason, then there would be no splicing machinery to remove them. This is not to say evolutionists cannot contrive explanations for introns, such as introns initially splicing themselves and the splicing machinery somehow evolving later. But such explanations are circuitous, just-so stories adding tremendous complexity and serendipity to the theory.

Beyond this basic problem, research has also been revealing that introns are not functionless, do not insert randomly in the genome, and do not fall into the common descent pattern. These last two findings were recently reinforced in a new study of a gene known as the eukaryotic translation elongation factor-1a gene. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the jargon. The gene codes for a protein that helps to deliver amino acids to the protein synthesis process.

But what’s important is that species usually have two copies of the gene, both copies have several introns, and even though some of the introns are in the same location in both genes, they must have been inserted independently.

In other words, this gene provides a test of some of the basic assumptions of evolution, and those assumptions fail. Specifically this example confirms, even assuming evolution on the whole is true, that introns are not likely inserted randomly but rather are inserted at a few specific locations. Therefore if introns are found at the same genome location in different species, it does not imply those introns come from a common ancestor. Instead they may be at the same location due to a common mechanism.

So introns are not junk, they are not inserted at random, and they do not reveal common descent any more than common mechanism. All this is on top of the fact that their very presence is problematic for evolution.

Introns are another example of how evolution violates Occam’s Razor. Entities are multiplied unnecessarily resulting in an extremely complicated, unparsimonious theory.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

More Fossil Failures: New Mammalian Fossils “Change Everything”

Science Versus Dogma

Earlier this year two different mammalian fossils, discovered in China, have revealed yet more problems for evolution. The problem is that, as with the existing evidence, the new findings point to “radically different,” as one evolutionist admitted, models of the origin of mammals. One of the new fossil findings, as with most of the molecular data, points to a much earlier origin of mammals, going back more than 200 million years ago. The other new finding is closer to the traditional, fossil-based, dating, closer to 150 million years ago.

In other words, the data do not fit the theory. In order to reconcile the conflict, and fit the data to the theory, evolutionists have a wide range of explanatory mechanisms they can draw on. They can say that a trait descended from a common ancestor or that it evolved at some later date, in a particular lineage arising from the common ancestor. They also can say that a trait evolved more than once in multiple lineages arising from the common ancestor—the so-called homoplasies. These explanatory mechanisms alone make the theory highly flexible and allow evolutionists to explain just about any pattern.

The gratuitous use of such explanatory mechanisms makes for a circuitous theory. That is, the theory is augmented with various degrees-of-freedom allowing it to adapt to a wide range of data. As one evolutionist explained, mammalian phylogeny is “complex”—a euphemism that evolutionists use to explain empirical contradictions requiring additional epicycles.

But even this sacrifice of parsimony can’t fix all the contradictions. And so evolutionists must defer the problem to the future. As one evolutionist explained, “With sufficient data, ranging from molecular to morphological, we will eventually reach to a working hypothesis that will have the power to explain how mammals originated.”

But as we have seen many times, this repeated claim that more data will solve evolution’s problems has not fared well in the past. Perhaps this time will be different, but at the very least, what we do know for certain is that today, evolution lacks even a working hypothesis to explain how mammals originated. Nonetheless evolutionists are certain evolution is a fact.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Hominin Fossils Yield Uncooperative DNA Data

“Now we have to rethink the whole story.”

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

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

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

“Now we have to rethink the whole story.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OOL and Science’s Blind Spot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

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

Religion drives science, and it matters.

The Public Has Been Paying For Evolution, But …

The Times They Are a-Changin’

After several decades of the quiet misallocation of public funds on evolution research, science writer Suzan Mazur finally explains to evolutionist Steve Benner that “The public has been paying for scientific research but has not had a say in how funds are directed,” and that “the times are asking for more transparency.” Indeed. It is curious that people who don’t believe in evolution are forced to support not only its research but its non scientific influence on everything from education to health care.

Fred Sanger, Protein Sequences and Evolution Versus Science

Are Proteins Random?

The passing of the great biochemist Frederick Sanger this week reminds us of another one of evolution’s many scientific failures, namely the view that protein sequences are random. Here is how one obituary explains it:

… Chibnall and Sanger believed that there might be a real possibility of determining the exact chemical structure of proteins. This idea was controversial at the time as, although the 20 or so amino acids that can go to make up proteins were known, most scientists believed the arrangement of different amino acids in a protein to be random. One professor had even produced a complex mathematical formula that would express this random function. Thus, when Chibnall tried to get Sanger a grant from the Medical Research Council to work on protein structure, the grant was refused because “everyone knew” that the pattern of amino acids in a protein was random.

Nevertheless, Sanger scraped together enough money from various sources to start work. From 1944 to 1951 he held a Beit Memorial Fellowship for Medical Research; and in 1951, by which time the Medical Research Council had come to recognise the importance of his work, he became a member of the MRC’s external staff.

The protein which Sanger chose for his research was insulin which, as well as being relatively small in size and available in large quantities, had strong clinical implications in the understanding of diseases such as diabetes. He developed a method of marking the end amino acid and splitting it off from the insulin. The end amino acid was then identified and the process repeated. By this painstaking method, Sanger showed that a molecule of insulin contains two peptide chains made of two or more amino acids that are linked together by two disulphide bonds. It took eight more years finally to identify the 51 amino acids that make up insulin.

The evolutionary mythology of randomness at the molecular level persisted for many years to come. Here is how the famous French evolutionist, Jacques Monod, described Sangar’s breakthrough work in the evolutionary classic Chance & Necessity:

The first description of a globular protein’s complete sequence was given by Sangar in 1952. It was both a revelation and a disappointment. This sequence, which one knew to define the structure, hence the elective properties of a functional protein (insulin), proved to be without any regularity, any special feature, any restrictive characteristic. Even so the hope remained that, with the gradual accumulation of other such findings, a few general laws of assembly as well as certain functional correlations would finally come to light. Today our information extends to hundreds of sequences corresponding to various proteins extracted from all sorts of organisms. From the work on these sequences, and after systematically comparing them with the help of modern means of analysis and computing, we are now in a position to deduce the general law: it is that of chance. To be more specific: these structures are “random” in the precise sense that, were we to know the exact order of 199 residues [i.e., amino acids] in a protein containing 200, it would be impossible to formulate any rule, theoretical or empirical, enabling us to predict the nature of the one residue not yet identified in the analysis.

To say that in a polypeptide the amino acid sequence is “random” may perhaps sound like a roundabout admission of ignorance. Quite to the contrary, the statement expresses the nature of the facts. [Vintage Books Edition, 1972, 96]

In fact the protein amino acid sequences are not random any more than an English sentence is random. But if you don’t know the language, it may appear random, such as this sequence of letters: “modnartonsierutan”. But appearances can be deceiving. Reverse the order and add a few spaces, and the sequence becomes: “nature is not random”.

Standard tests of randomness show that English text, and protein sequences, are not random. Nonetheless evolutionists continued to promote this view. A 1986 paper described globular proteins as having “random sequences” and that the physical requirements for such proteins are commonly inherent in random sequences.

Likewise as late as 1990 evolutionists claimed that the distribution of oily amino acids in protein sequences could not “be distinguished from that expected for a random distribution.” Thus proteins could have “originated from random sequences.”

All of this proved to be false and is yet another false prediction of the metaphysically-driven evolutionary thought.

The Mystery of Extreme Non-Coding Conservation

No Plausible Speculations

Evolution is unique in that while it is well known amongst evolutionists to be a fact, its predictions often turn out false. Consider this new paper from the Royal Society on “The mystery of extreme non-coding conservation” that has been found across many genomes. Years ago an evolution professor told me, in defending the claim that evolution is falsifiable, that if functionally unconstrained yet highly similar DNA sequences were found in different species, then evolution would be false. A few years later that is exactly what was discovered. In fact, the DNA sequences were extremely similar and even identical in different species, and when they were altogether removed from mice it made no detectable difference. Hundreds of tests showed no significant difference between mice with and without long stretches of these DNA sequences. Did the professor agree that evolution was false? Not at all. For the fact of evolution goes far deeper than scientific findings and failed predictions. Nonetheless, ten years later, the mystery of extreme DNA conservation remains.

As the paper explains, there is currently “no known mechanism or function that would account for this level of conservation at the observed evolutionary distances.” This failure forces us to draw upon the typical explanatory mechanisms. The evolution of these extremely conserved sequences must have been abrupt and rapid, occurring in “short bursts.”

And since some of these sequences are found across a wide range of different species, the sequences, and whatever selective forces preserved them, must have been present very early in evolutionary history. On the other hand many of these sequences point to evolution’s nemesis, lineage-specific biology.

Some of these sequences are extremely conserved within lineages, but not across lineages. This forces us to conclude that the ancestral sequence first somehow arose in the common ancestor, later evolved independently in the different lineages which arose, became completely different in those different lineages, and then finally each of these different sequences, in the respective lineages, somehow became essentially unchangeable.

As is typical of the evolution genre, all of this is expressed in teleological terms. Here is a paragraph from the paper that is loaded with evolution’s Aristotelian tendencies:

Lowe et al. proposed that, within vertebrates, there have been three distinct periods of CNE [conserved non-coding element] recruitment around specific groups of genes. They suggest that this pattern is the result of regulatory innovations, which led to important phenotypic changes during vertebrate evolution. Prior to the divergence of mammals from reptiles and birds, it appears that CNEs were preferentially recruited near TFs and their developmental targets. This was followed by a gradual decline in recruitment near these genes, accompanied by [a recruitment] increase near proteins involved in extracellular signalling, and then [a recruitment] increase in placental mammals near genes responsible for post-translational modification and intracellular signalling. An analysis of CNE gain in the primate and rodent lineage has found that CNEs are either recruited near genes which have not previously been associated with CNEs, or are added near genes which are already flanked by CNEs. The interpretation was that the first set of genes is enriched in functions pertaining to nervous system development, whereas the latter contains genes involved in transcriptional regulation and anatomical development.

This example of teleological language also illustrates how the commitment to a theory can lead to a loss of parsimony. That is, in order to accommodate new and contradictory findings, additional explanations must be added to the theory. It becomes more complicated and less parsimonious. Here is how the paper summarizes these findings of extreme sequence conservation:

… despite 10 years of research, there has been virtually no progress towards answering the question of the origin of these patterns of extreme conservation. A number of hypotheses have been proposed, but most rely on modes of DNA : protein interactions that have never been observed and seem dubious at best. As a consequence, not only do we still lack a plausible mechanism for the conservation of CNEs—we lack even plausible speculations.

Reasonable speculation and even solutions to extreme sequence conservation may come in the future. But today’s science once again highlights the unique status of evolution.

Another God of the Gaps Warning

The Ultimate Protection

Theory protectionism comes in many forms. One of the most common protections for the theory of evolution is the so-called God of the gaps warning which casts evolution criticism as an argument for the existence of God that is from ignorance and therefore a danger to one’s faith. This warning appeared again this week when Mark Shea used it against Intelligent Design in the National Catholic Register.

Shea is thought provoking but makes several mistakes that are typical (no, ID is not a theistic argument, it is not an appeal to inexplicability, and the history of God of the gap arguments is nothing like Shea’s portrayal). But nonetheless the God of the gaps warning is another powerful metaphysical mandate for evolution. The many scientific failures of evolution become irrelevant and even disallowed. It doesn’t matter how the science bears on the theory, it is always protected.

Origin of Life Solved (Again)

And Again, And Again, And …

Alexander Oparin’s 1924 prediction that origin of life research would be solved “very, very soon” may have been premature, but now, almost a century later, evolutionists have apparently found their much needed solution. In fact they have several solutions.

Evolutionists in Cambridge, England, for example, have discovered that life began with strands of RNA in a cold environment. “There's no reason why self-replication couldn't occur” that way, explained one evolutionist.

Meanwhile evolutionists in Italy found that life might have inevitably arisen from DNA and the protein synthesis machinery self-assembling in solute-rich, spontaneously-forming liposomes.

On the other hand, evolutionists at Cornell University have discovered that proteins can be made in a clay hydrogel. Fill the spongy material with DNA, amino acids, the right enzymes and a few bits of cellular machinery and you can make the proteins.

But evolutionists in Texas have discovered that life began in dark, hot, isolated environments of craters with hydrothermal vents that served as incubators for life. Convective currents brought organic molecules together, including RNA and proteins which emerged simultaneously. The discovery is apparently monumental. As one evolutionist exclaimed, “This is what we’ve all searched for – the Holy Grail of science.”

Oparin’s prediction may be late in coming, but now it seems that the cup runneth over. Not only has the problem been solved, but several times over with many different solutions.

That is, according to evolutionists.

In fact these various studies demonstrate nothing close to the origin of life. The claims—that these findings demonstrate how life could have arisen, how certain pathways are inevitable, and how they have found the Holy Grail of science—are contradictory, ridiculous and exaggerated. They have no basis in science.

At best they are simply stealing molecular machinery from cells or finding patterns which say nothing about the origin of life unless evolution is assumed to begin with. At worst they are silly, unrealistic just-so stories.

Religion drives science and it matters.

Alfred Wallace: Evolution’s Creationist in the Closet

Coming Out

The fact of evolution does not refer to survival of the fittest, natural selection, gradualism, common descent, or any of the dozens of other subhypotheses but rather to evolution’s core idea that the species arose naturalistically. How it occurred is an open question—the theory of evolution. That it occurred is not in question—the fact of evolution. That makes evolution an all-or-nothing affair. If you don’t agree that science reveals the species arose strictly by natural causes and nothing else, then you’re not an evolutionist. In fact, according to evolutionists, you are a creationist. That is their term not just for those with a particular interpretation of Genesis. That is their term for anyone who doesn’t accept the fact of evolution. It doesn’t matter how many of evolution’s subhypotheses you accept.

That makes the case of one Alfred Russel Wallace rather interesting. With his centenary of passing observed this past week there has been a resurgence of interest and praise for evolution’s co-founder. There now is even a statue of Wallace at the Natural History Museum in London. Wallace is receiving his much deserved recognition, but all of this is a bit awkward because Wallace was, according to the evolutionist’s own terminology, a creationist.