Top Chemist: “They Just Stare at Me”

“Because it’s a Scary Thing”

Yesterday James Tour, who in 2009 was ranked one of the top 10 chemists in the world, explained that evolutionists do not understand how evolution could have created life. What’s worse, Tour explains that there is a lack of clarity about this scientific fact. In public, evolutionists insist evolution is a fact beyond all reasonable doubt. But in private, they admit there is no such scientific knowledge:

“Let me tell you what goes on in the back rooms of science—with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners,” Tour stated. “I have sat with them, and when I get them alone, not in public—because it’s a scary thing, if you say what I just said—I say, ‘Do you understand all of this, where all of this came from, and how this happens?’”

The answer he inevitably receives, Tour explained, is: “no.”

“Every time that I have sat with people who are synthetic chemists, who understand this, they go, ‘Uh-uh. Nope.’” Tour said. “And if they’re afraid to say ‘yes,’ they say nothing. They just stare at me, because they can’t sincerely do it.”

The truth is a scary thing.

Evolution Professor: We Evolved to be More Complex

Serendipity and Aristotelianism

We recently saw how evolutionists are elaborating on what they view as an evolutionary arms race within our genome. Rival elements battle it out as transposable elements invade and repressors seek to shut them down. The transposable elements are “continually evolving to escape repression,” while the repressors adjust and find new ways to defeat the transposable elements. It is “a never-ending race” according to one evolutionist. The backstory here is the on-going historical feud between those who view nature as perfect and those who view nature as evil. In the eighteenth century, for instance, the English natural theologians presented a decidedly optimistic, rosy version of the world, to which Hume responded that “A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures,” and that nature is so arranged so as “to embitter the life of every living being.” So who is right? The answer, of course, is that both are right. Nature is both wonderful and dangerous at the same time. As usual the heresy is not in recognizing these obvious truths, but in emphasizing and dwelling on one side of the spectrum, to the exclusion of the other. Creation and Scripture—general revelation and special revelation—are studies in contrast. Science requires recognizing both sides of the contrast, and keeping them both in view together. Show me a cult, either religious or scientific, and I’ll show you people who are fixated on one end of a spectrum. The result is a lopsided theory that makes no sense.

Consider the genomic arms race idea, for example. First, it requires rapid evolution of astonishing complexity. Not likely. Second, it calls upon a monumental amount of serendipity. Humans and frogs have “basically the same 20,000 protein-coding genes as a frog, yet our genome is much more complicated, with more layers of gene regulation.” How did that happen? Those astonishing levels of sophistication and subtlety in the human genome arose with the help of these invading transposable elements. The incredible regulation machanisms that arose to repress them, just happened to take on other roles as well. This resulted in primates and ultimately humans. Really? Evolution just happened to produce transposable elements, and they then became evolutionary mechanisms? In other words, evolution created evolution. As the report summarizes, “repressor genes that originally evolved to shut down jumping genes have since come to play other regulatory roles in the genome.” That was lucky.

Furthermore, to understand and communicate this story, evolutionists dive deep into the waters of Aristotelianism. It is the ultimate internal contradiction, for the theory that is supposed to represent the triumph over teleology is, itself, immersed in it. Consider these examples:

a transposable element changed to become expressed and replicated itself throughout the genome

The way this type of repressor works, part of it binds to a specific DNA sequence and part of it binds other proteins to recruit a whole complex of proteins that creates a repressive landscape in the genome. This affects other nearby genes, so now you have a potential new layer of regulation available for further evolution.

the transposable elements are themselves continually evolving to escape repression

This paper shows how important it is to integrate computational and experimental approaches to fundamental scientific problems, such as how and why we continuously evolve to be more complex.

For each wave, the host eventually finds a way to repress retrotransposon transcription and prevent further insertions.

KZNF genes rapidly evolved to repress these two distinct retrotransposon families

evolved earlier to repress the primate L1 lineage

followed by mutations in these retrotransposons to evade repression

Evolving to escape repression? Changed to become? We evolved to be more complex? This is not science, this is story telling. We need to stay with the evidence.

Here’s Another Finding Against Junk DNA

Heterochromatin More Complicated Than Thought

A new study is revealing yet more evidence that the so-called “junk” DNA is much more complex than evolutionists had predicted. As one report explains:

The game-changing discovery was part of a study led by Texas A&M biology doctoral candidate John C. Aldrich and Dr. Keith A. Maggert, an associate professor in the Department of Biology, to measure variation in heterochromatin. This mysterious, tightly packed section of the vast, non-coding section of the human genome, widely dismissed by geneticists as “junk,” previously was thought by scientists to have no discernable function at all.

There is still much to learn about these non-coding sections, but each new finding reveals yet more complexity. As professor Maggert explains:

The heterochromatin that we study definitely has effects, but it's not possible to think of it as discrete genes. So, we prefer to think of it as 30,000 protein-coding genes plus this one big, complex one that can orchestrate the other 30,000.

New Findings: Human Genome was Shaped by an Evolutionary Arms Race

From Hume to Carlin

In our cells there are mobile genes and there are complex genetic regulatory systems, and sometimes these two come together. Mobile genes with complex genetic regulatory systems is a challenge for evolution to explain for in a relatively short amount of time evolution must have developed these amazing regulatory systems. But just has Hume explained that “A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures,” and that nature is so arranged so as “to embitter the life of every living being”; and Malthus explained that populations struggle for limited resources; and Spencer characterized life as the survival of the fittest, so too today’s evolutionists describe these unlikely findings as the result of an on-going war, this time within our genome (please watch the 30 second video above before reading the abstract below):

Throughout evolution primate genomes have been modified by waves of retrotransposon insertions. For each wave, the host eventually finds a way to repress retrotransposon transcription and prevent further insertions. In mouse embryonic stem cells, transcriptional silencing of retrotransposons requires KAP1 (also known as TRIM28) and its repressive complex, which can be recruited to target sites by KRAB zinc-finger (KZNF) proteins such as murine-specific ZFP809 which binds to integrated murine leukaemia virus DNA elements and recruits KAP1 to repress them. KZNF genes are one of the fastest growing gene families in primates and this expansion is hypothesized to enable primates to respond to newly emerged retrotransposons. However, the identity of KZNF genes battling retrotransposons currently active in the human genome, such as SINE-VNTR-Alu (SVA) and long interspersed nuclear element 1 (L1), is unknown. Here we show that two primate-specific KZNF genes rapidly evolved to repress these two distinct retrotransposon families shortly after they began to spread in our ancestral genome. ZNF91 underwent a series of structural changes 8–12 million years ago that enabled it to repress SVA elements. ZNF93 evolved earlier to repress the primate L1 lineage until ~12.5 million years ago when the L1PA3-subfamily of retrotransposons escaped ZNF93’s restriction through the removal of the ZNF93-binding site. Our data support a model where KZNF gene expansion limits the activity of newly emerged retrotransposon classes, and this is followed by mutations in these retrotransposons to evade repression, a cycle of events that could explain the rapid expansion of lineage-specific KZNF genes.

In evolutionary theory death is the engine of progress and existence is an on-going battle.

Here’s Why the Problem of Evil is a Religious Argument

Not Just Philosophical

Election season is upon us and we hope for clarity in the debates to come. Too often campaign strategies involve ambiguity, avoiding difficult questions and political calculation. But sometimes the candidates’ positions on the issues, and their point of disagreement, are clear for all to see. I would rather have such clarity, even if I disagree on some of the issues. As with politics, the origins debate also sometimes lacks clarity. I don’t have a problem with disagreement, but I hope people understand what they are disagreeing on. A good example is the problem of evil. It is often at the heart of disagreements in the origins debate, and because it deals with ultimate issues it offers a clear distinction between positions. There’s just one problem: many people do not understand it, including those who use it.

Consider evolutionist Jerry Coyne. Coyne uses the POE, but doesn’t understand it (see here, here, here and here, for example).  The POE, and variations of it such as the problem of dysteleology, are based on the premise that if God is all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing, then there would be no evil (or no dysteleology, which, in practice is simply a catch-all term for anything that we don’t think God would have created). Evil and dysteleology exist, so therefore there is a problem. Ever since antiquity the problem has been solved by distancing God from creation. From the Gnostics and Epicureans to the Darwinists, the solution is that the world arose on its own. From the randomly swerving atoms of the Epicureans to the random mutations of the Darwinists, God is not responsible for this world because intermediate causes were to blame.

Now there are multiple problems with this reasoning, but here I’ll focus on just one: although Coyne claims arguments from dysteleology and imperfections are merely scientific, they are not. They are religious.

I’m not saying that religious arguments are, by definition, bad things. I’m just saying they shouldn’t be confused with science. PZ Myers made such an argument from the pages of the Los Angeles Times, and then, like Coyne, claimed it was not a religious argument.

In fact this is a running argument in the evolution literature. Make arguments that entail claims about God, and then claim there is no religion.

Sorry but arguments that entail assumptions about God are religious.

Evolutionists make three different arguments attempting to refute this obvious fact. Let’s look at each one.

First, evolutionists say the POE is simply a philosophical observation. There is no religious premise involved. In other words, given that God is all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing, it then is a necessary consequence that there would be no evil (or dysteleology, imperfections, etc.). God simply wouldn’t allow it, period. That just follows from simple logic.

The problem with this argument is that it is just false. There is no nice way to put it. And when I say it is false, I am not making a religious claim. Now we’re talking about a philosophical observation. Given the premise that God is all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing, it then is not a necessary consequence that there would be no evil.

The only way to arrive at that conclusion is to add another, unspoken, premise. And, yes, it must be a religious premise. You see Coyne is the one who brought religion into the discussion. And he is the one who is in denial about it. And he is the one who points the finger at the other guy for doing what he did.

Second, evolutionists say they are merely testing the creationist model. They aren’t making any religious claims, but merely evaluating those who do. But if that were the case their argument would do nothing for evolution. All they would have proved is that some creationist somewhere has a failed model.

In fact Coyne never cites creationists. For instance, one of Coyne’s myriad examples of dysteleology is lanugo, a fine, downy coat of hair humans have in an embryonic stage. According to Coyne this makes no sense and “can be explained only as a remnant of our primate ancestry.” [Why Evolution is True, 80]

Coyne gives no reference to creationists, but even if there was a creationist who said God would never create lanugo in human embryos, it would not mean that lanugo could only be explained with evolution. Such metaphysical certainty requires a strong underlying premise. Lanugo could not have been intended or created by the Creator, period. Not according to some creationist. Only religion can provide such certainty. The claim that Coyne, Myer and the rest are merely testing the creationist model is a canard.

Third, it is sometimes said that evolutionists such as Coyne and Myers are atheists. It is as though, qua atheists, they can make whatever religious claims they like without it counting as religion.

Evolution relies on religious premises—it is a religious theory. I don’t mind disagreement, religious or otherwise. But let’s understand what the disagreement is.