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

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

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

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

There's a Super Moon Coming on May 5

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

Here’s That Monumental Evolution Blunder About Probability Again

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

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

But,

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

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

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

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

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

Religion drives science, and it matters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or as one journalist put it:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Religion drives science and it matters.

Evolutionists Now Want to Take Over Physics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except, that is, when it matters.

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

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

An Evolutionist Coauthor of James Watson is a Gnostic

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

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

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

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

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

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

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Evolutionists Think This Incredible Design is “Simple”

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

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

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

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

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

Incredibly evolutionists describe this process as simple:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evolutionist James Watson Says Protein Synthesis is “Inexplicably Complex”

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

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

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

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

Darwin Blamed the Evidence For the Lack of Fossils

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

JAMES D. WATSON: That there was no designer.

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

Religion drives science, and it matters.

A Solar Storm Should be Hitting Earth About Right Now

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

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

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

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

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

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