Mutations-to-Marvels

How do ants know where they are going? As the Discovery Channel reports, they have their own built-in GPS system.* It seems that tiny magnets in the ant antennae provide a "biological compass needle." And the system has a low carbon-footprint. Ants are not responsible for global warming.

The presence of magnetic material, as part of a navigational system, is nothing new in biology. It has been observed in a wide array of organisms including, of course, homing pigeons. Nonetheless, we still do not fully understand the inner workings. Figuring out how these magnetic marvels work is a worthy challenge, as the Discovery Channel article explains:

Nanotechnologists have their eye on such ant, bird and other nature-made GPS systems, as they could in future lead to more accurate drug targeting in humans, and might even serve as tiny data storage devices. While insects and animals seem to either get their magnetic materials from dirt or otherwise produce them, the crystals apparently aren't so easy to recreate in a lab. According to Fleissner and her team, "Even though birds have been producing these particles for millions of years, the main problem for scientists who want to find benefits from their use will be the technical production of these particles."

Biology is full of these high-tech devices which leave evolution in the dust. Sadly, evolutionists have no choice but insist on the non-scientific mutation-to-marvels creation story.

* This navigational system in ants actually bears little resemblance to the Global Positioning System, aside from the fact that both systems fall under the broad category of Navigation.

Technology Transfer: The Flight of a Fly

Insect flight is fascinating. It seems to defy engineering principles and the old joke is that it is impossible. (As body size reduces the lift force becomes weaker than the body weight, and viscosity effects also cause problems). Now we understand better how it can be possible, and we're continuing to learn more of the details. A recent paper reporting on creative new research on insect flight control reveals some interesting aspects of the visual flight speed response in fruit flies. Insects, like subatomic particles, are difficult to measure without disturbing. Past experiments often relied on tethering the flies–hardly a natural environment. This new paper reports on research using a wind tunnel with controlled light patterns to better understand how the fly's visual system controls flight. The researchers found that:

To control flight speed, the visual system of the fruit fly extracts linear pattern velocity robustly over a broad range of spatio–temporal frequencies. The speed signal is used for a proportional control of flight speed within locomotor limits. The extraction of pattern velocity over a broad spatio–temporal frequency range may require more sophisticated motion processing mechanisms than those identified in flies so far. ... Finally, the high-level control principles identified in the fly can be meaningfully transferred into a robotic context, such as for the robust and efficient control of autonomous flying micro air vehicles.

In recent years autonomous, uncrewed flight vehicles have become increasingly common. Of course leaving out the crew can be useful for dangerous missions, but the absence of any personnel also allows for very small vehicles. There are applications for micro flight vehicles, and this work adds to a growing body of research on how the sophisticated designs of insects can be of use in such vehicles.

Darwinius masillae: The Religion in Evolution

Alfred North Whitehead once observed that we often take our most crucial assumptions to be obvious and in no need of justification. These underlying assumptions are unspoken and undefended because, as Whitehead put it, "Such assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know what they are assuming because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them.” This week a new paper describes a beautiful primate fossil which evolutionists claim as powerful evidence for their theory. In fact, evolutionists have orchestrated an instant sensation out of the find. Journalists across the board obediently relayed the evolutionary message to their readers, listeners and viewers, and movies, books, documentaries and web sites are in the works. It will be a multi media extravaganza.

Why all the hype? It is not merely because we now have a beautifully preserved early primate fossil. While this is certainly cause for celebration in the paleontology department, it would not qualify for the evening news. The excitement is because of what Darwinius is thought to portend for evolution. The fossil is supposed to be an important puzzle piece in primate evolution, and therefore human evolution. And that's big news. But behind all the hype lies an unspoken and unrecognized assumption that has nothing to do with scientific research.

It seems so obvious that evolutionists would laugh to think it even needs to be explained: similarity implies evolution. As one evolutionist quipped, if an intelligent being had designed both a fish and Sophia Loren from scratch, there’s no way, if evolution hadn’t occurred, that her arm would have had any internal resemblance to the fish.

That's a funny way to put it, but it is no joke. This sentiment comes from a non scientific, theological tradition that has been influential for centuries. It is one of the core religious components of evolutionary thought, and it has deeply penetrated today's science. This new primate fossil is not merely viewed as a new specimen to add to our understanding of species from the past. It is taken as yet more proof of evolution, and this will be the message in the media blitz to come.

But similarities between species are not necessarily a result of evolution. In fact, that idea has substantial scientific problems. But the mandate for evolution doesn't come from science, it comes from religion. The Darwinius masillae story is yet another example of this influence, and why it is important. Consider this recent example from PZ Myers' blog:

The evolution of whales is also a matter of fact and evidence. We have the fossils; we can see a pattern of change across geological time, from those hooved terrestrial quadrupeds to flippered ambush predators adapted to living in the shallows to four-flippered, paddle-tailed swimmers to obligate water-dwellers with flukes and no hind limbs, with many stages in between. It is a beautiful and strongly-supported example of macroevolutionary change. So yes, we believe it — you'd have to be blind to ignore the testimony of the rocks.

There are three fallacies in this single paragraph, but they aren't fallacies to evolutionists. Given the religious beliefs of evolutionists, such evolutionary thinking makes perfect sense. The most obvious of Myers' fallacies is his affirming of the consequent. If a theory makes a prediction that is found to be true, this does not prove the theory to be true. However, if the theory, and only the theory, can make that particular prediction, then the successful prediction does prove the theory true. As Elliott Sober put it, evolution relies on contrastive thinking. Or as Ernst Mayr put it, evolution is proven by the default of the alternatives.

And how do evolutionists know that only their theory can create the fossil patterns we find? Such a claim, of course, goes far outside science. Such a claim entails religious knowledge not available to science, and not vulnerable to scientific findings. With evolutionary thinking, the logic switches from if P then Q, to if and only if P, then Q. The grammatical difference is slight but the effect is huge. The former is scientific, the latter is religious. The former refers to a particular theory, the latter presumes knowledge of all explanations.

PZ Myers thinks of himself as a voice of reason, free of religious motivation. Like the fish which is unaware it is in water, Myers and the evolutionists are so steeped in religious committment that they are unaware of it. As Whitehead observed, the undefended assumptions are the important ones. For "such assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know what they are assuming because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them.”

Real Facts

Why do people believe that the most complex designs in the known universe evolved? Teams of our best scientists and their super computers cannot figure out how these wonders work, but we're sure they just happened to arise in a warm little pond somewhere. Somehow the mud created designs that outperform our best military systems. How do we know this to be true? Here is some example reasoning from PZ Myers' blog:

Biologists recognize that the basis of life is chemistry — that we are the product of some wonderfully interesting biochemical reactions. We do not believe in spontaneous generation, but we do know that the boundary between biology and chemistry is very, very fuzzy indeed, and that there was a transition in the history of life where chemical replicators gradually acquired sufficient complexity that they became the basis for life. Again, this is the product of evidence and experiment: we see molecular indicators of the common origin of all life, and that we see even in our own cells the hallmarks of a history with a much simpler origin.

Evidence and experiment? Molecular indicators of the common origin of all life? Such claims are, of course, false. It is not controversial that origin of life research has always been motivated by evolutionary thinking. The impetus for thinking that biology's incredible gizmos come from muddy water comes from evolution, not science. Indeed, the scientific evidence has always been a problem for origin of life research. Even the National Academy of Sciences has admitted that:

Constructing a plausible hypothesis of life’s origins will require that many questions be answered. Scientists who study the origin of life do not yet know which sets of chemicals could have begun replicating themselves.

But Myers' rewrite of both science and history is not uncommon. This is the sort of anti intellectualism to which evolutionary thinking leads. Myers continues:

The evolution of whales is also a matter of fact and evidence. We have the fossils; we can see a pattern of change across geological time, from those hooved terrestrial quadrupeds to flippered ambush predators adapted to living in the shallows to four-flippered, paddle-tailed swimmers to obligate water-dwellers with flukes and no hind limbs, with many stages in between. It is a beautiful and strongly-supported example of macroevolutionary change. So yes, we believe it — you'd have to be blind to ignore the testimony of the rocks.

Blind? How about logical? Myers here confidently proclaims the fact of evolution based on affirming the consequent. But this fallacy is only the beginning. The pattern Myers celebrates is so often contradicted in the rocks that this evolutionary illogic is also guilty of confirmation bias. Beyond these two fallacies, there is the problem there really wasn't a consequent to affirm in the first place. Not surprisingly, since the evidence is so often at variance with the pattern Myers finds so persuasive, evolution has long since dropped such a prediction. Increasing complexity, decreasing complexity, rapid appearance, trees, bushes, diversity explosions, stasis for eons—evolution predicts them all.

This is it folks. This is the kind of evidence and reasoning evolutionary thinking brings to the table. To be sure, earth's history is packed with an incredible menagerie of life forms. For those interested in real facts, that is a real fact. But how they got there is a different question. They may have just evolved there, courtesy of the wind, rain, and natural forces. There are of course mammoth scientific problems with that idea. But it could be true. What we do know about that idea, however, is that it is not a scientific fact. Rather it is an unlikely hypothesis that, amazingly, evolutionists insist must be true. Religion drives science and it matters.

A New Mandate for Evolution

President Obama recently called for more understanding and dialog in our heated public debates. We are to try to understand the other person's perspective, even if we strongly disagree. Count me in. Unfortunately I suspect not everyone feels the same. Consider, for instance, clinical psychologist Seth Kalichman. John Moore reviewed Kalichman's new book, Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy, in which Kalichman brands various folks as "denialists." As Moore describes, Kalichman describes these folks as "deranged and disgruntled university professors who turn to pseudoscience as a platform to gain attention." That's strong stuff.

I agree that some people are way out on a limb in their convictions. But deranged? Too many pundits rely on personal attack, ad hominems, strawmen, stereotypes and marginalization. Such attacks make for a simplistic world of good guys and bad guys. The world probably is that simple sometimes, but often it is not. While Kalichman's main concern in the book is AIDS, it appears Kalichman's watchful eye has others in view as well:

These attitudes are not unique to HIV. Denialism, notes Kalichman, is "partly an outgrowth of a more general anti-science and anti-medicine movement". Groups that support intelligent design, doubt global warming, claim that vaccines cause autism, argue that cigarettes are safe, believe that the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 were an intelligence-agency plot or deny the Holocaust all use similar tactics.

I doubt Kalichman's list stops here. Look around. Who else hides this insidious mental illness? Certainly anyone who questions that evolution is a fact must be one of those wicked denialists. What a powerful mandate and protection for evolution. There are many religious demands for evolution, but here we have something equally powerful. Take your choice: accept evolution or be defined as deranged.

The Giraffe's Long Neck

Giraffes have always figured prominently in the evolution genre, either as a rebuke to Lamarckism or as an example of natural selection's creative powers. Isn't it obvious that the giraffe's long neck was an evolutionary innovation, allowing its owner to eat leaves too high for other animals to reach? Actually, no, it is not so obvious. Perhaps the long neck was needed to compensate for the giraffe's long legs. Or again, perhaps the long neck makes the giraffe more attractive. In fact, the scientific evidence for all these narratives is weak. But of course, not knowing how or why the giraffe's long neck evolved in no way lessens the fact that it did evolve. There may be problems with evolution, but we must never allow ourselves to question evolution itself.

More Failed Evidences

In his book The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution, evolutionist Sean Carroll makes the usual claims about how we can know evolution is true. According to Carroll, there is no doubt, evolution is decisively confirmed, it is beyond any doubt, and so forth. As if to prove these high claims Carroll presents a variety of genetic evidences and arguments. But his examples routinely fail and indeed raise profound problems for evolution. The evolution genre is a sort of modern day version of the Emperor's New Clothes. It is a fascinating study in contrasts, for it reveals a well educated, intelligentsia gone awry.

One of Carroll's evidences involves vision, and a particular gene that determines the color of the light that is detected. [see pages 103-107] This gene encodes a protein that is found in the hundreds of millions of photocells in our retina. The photocells shaped like a cone come in three types, depending on which color they detect: red, green or blue. By combining the signals from these different photocells, our brain can assemble a full color image. The whole system is phenomenally complex, and might seem to be an unlikely subject to use as compelling evidence for evolution.

Carroll's point is that it is easy for him to envision how we came to have our particular color coding genes. For instance, two of them are adjacent in the genome. Isn't this evidence that one arose from the other via gene duplication? After the duplication event only a few mutations would be needed to settle on their respective color codings. Is this not compelling evidence for evolution by natural selection?

The story continues, but it doesn't get any better, and it is remarkable that Carroll thinks this example helps make evolution compelling. First, there is no compelling reason why one should accept Carroll's evolutionary interpretation of the data. Evolutionists are ensconsed in their theory, and often have difficulty understanding why others do not understand that all life simply evolved. Carroll is convinced of this evidence, but in fact he has not provided good reasons to be so swayed, for those who do not already believe in evolution.

Beyond this, his evidence raises profound problems for evolution. Most obviously, Carroll takes for granted the pre existence of the color-coding gene, the photocells, the retina, and the remainder of the vision system and brain. From where did this incredible system come? Are we to believe that it too is simply the result of evolution because Carroll thinks a gene duplication event added more color resolution?

Another problem is that Carroll vastly underestimates the complexity of the supposed evolutionary change he proposes. A new color-coding gene followed by a few mutations does not instantly provide enhanced color resolution as Carroll suggests. That is only the beginning of what would be required. The product of the new color-coding gene would need to be used in certain photocells. The quantity and locations of these photocells are important.

And on the receiving end, downstream cells would need to be reprogrammed, to interpret properly the new color information. This is because the photocells do not signal their color. The output of the photocell is merely a nerve impulse (action potential), and its interpretation is an extremely complex process. Modifying a color-coding gene without concomitant downstream reprogramming just confuses things.

With evolution all this complexity is irrelevant. Evolution presents a just-add-water view of biology that does not do justice to the science or the scientists. It is a fascinating study in contrasts.

Evolution's Reliance on Strawmen

A strawman argument is a sign of weakness. It means that one cannot withstand opposing arguments, so those arguments must be misrepresented. It is a common debate tactic. With an inferior position, one needs to weaken the opposing position. One way to do that is to misrepresent the opposing position. Attack the strawman to clear the way for the weak argument that otherwise could not survive on its own. Of course people do make occasional mistakes, but when misrepresentation is consistent--as it is with evolutionists--then it is a sign of weakness. Consider this latest example from evolutionist Barbara Forrest:

Intelligent design creationism (ID) is a religious belief requiring a supernatural creator’s interventions in the natural order. ... I examine the ID movement’s failure to provide either a methodology or a functional epistemology to support their supernaturalism, a deficiency that consequently leaves them without epistemic support for their creationist claims.

This quote comes from the abstract of a journal paper--not exactly a hasty thought. It is now a matter of record in the peer-reviewed literature: ID is a religious belief requiring a supernatural creator’s interventions. This of course is a strawman, and that is putting it lightly. But it is also quite typical in the evolution literature. From full length books, such as Why Intelligent Design Fails, to articles and papers such as Forrest's paper above, this misrepresentation of ID is rampant.

Evolutionists, as a rule, are busy attacking a strawman version of ID. To be sure, I can make arguments against ID, but they are based on the real thing. The evolutionist's version is a strawman because ID is not a religious belief and it does not require supernatural intervention. There are no religious premises in ID, no claims of faith or reliance on religion. Nor does ID require supernatural intervention in the natural order (ID merely requires that design is detectable).

Labeling ID as a religious belief is like labeling evolution as an atheistic belief. While ID has implications for religious belief, and evolution has implications for atheism, these are outputs of the theories, not inputs. Likewise, while there are theists who support ID, just as there are atheists who support evolution, these are people, not theories. There are no religious claims in ID, just as there are no atheist claims in evolution. It would be a fallacy to reject evolution because, for instance, the skeptic David Hume helped build its foundation.

So this is all cleared up, right? Of course not. Evolutionists have been using this strawman for years, in spite of a substantial body of ID literature that clearly describes the theory. One more blog will not make any difference. The strawman is inexcusable but understandable. Evolution is a weak position that needs strawmen to survive.

Fine Tuning and the Intellectual Necessity

You have probably heard about the multiverse--the idea that the universe is really a large number of universes. The multiverse helps to explain why our particular universe seems so special. Our universe seems to be a finely tuned machine and the evolution of life would require low probability events. Is our universe special? The multiverse helps to deflect such thinking. If there is a large number of universes, then perhaps each has a different set of natural laws. And perhaps intelligent life can only be supported by a very particular set of laws. So the only life forms that would exist to observe their universe would be those that live in special universes. Presto, we're not special and fine tuning and evolution are explained.

There is, however, another type of fine tuning that evolutionists have not explained. In addition to physics and biology, philosophy is also fine-tuned. I suspect it can also be explained with the multiverse, but we need to start keeping a list of all the little things we sweep under the multiverse rug. Philosophy is fine-tuned in the sense that evolutionary theories of origin are both (i) fact and (ii) intellectually necessary. Let me explain.

On the one hand, evolutionists say they know that evolution (of one sort of another) is a fact, every bit as much as gravity is a fact. Life and all the species arose strictly by purely naturalistic processes. If you doubt this, it is equivalent to doubting the existence of gravity. It is remarkable that evolutionists have this level of certainty, but keep in mind they are very smart people.

On the other hand, evolutionists say that evolution (again, of one sort of another) must be assumed in order to do science. We saw how evolutionary thinkers, from the Joseph LeConte in Darwin's day to PZ Myers today, have illuminated this requirement. Here is another example from another evolutionist, Barbara Forrest:

Intelligent design creationism (ID) is a religious belief requiring a supernatural creator’s interventions in the natural order. ID thus brings with it, as does supernatural theism by its nature, intractable epistemological difficulties. ... I examine the ID movement’s failure to provide either a methodology or a functional epistemology to support their supernaturalism, a deficiency that consequently leaves them without epistemic support for their creationist claims.

In other words, in order to avoid "intractable epistemological difficulties" and get along with the business of doing science, evolution is a must. So, evolution is both a fact and intellectually necessary. These are two independent properties. It didn't have be this way. We could live in the universe where evolution is not a fact, but yet intellectually necessary. Or we could live in the universe where evolution is a fact, but yet not intellectually necessary. Either way things would be very confusing. I'm glad we're not stuck in one of those universes. Thanks to the multiverse, there are options. We live in a universe that is finely-tuned for truth, and full of evolutionists to explain this to us.

Theology: Still Queen of the Sciences

Evolutionist PZ Myers approves of this religious YouTube video challenge, and Myers adds another metaphysical mandate to the mix. Myers writes:

Scientist find a gene, and what do they do? Figure out what it does, and dig into the databases to find its relatives within that organism or in other species. Creationists claim genes can't be created without the intervention of a designer, and what do they do? Nothing.

Myers' religious passions are well known. Like most atheists he has strong religious views. And as an atheist, he is stuck with the theory of evolution for his creation myth. His dogmatic claim that evolution is a fact does not come from science. And his argument above is an example of how metaphysics drives evolutionary thinking.


Myers' point is that there is an intellectual necessity for evolutionary theories. Without them science cannot do much. This is a centuries old non scientific argument that gained strength in Darwin's day. For instance, Charles Lyell, for many the father of modern geology, argued strenuously for uniformitarianism. Lyell's argument was not merely that geological history is dominated by uniform processes, he was arguing for uniformitarianism. In other words, science, in general, should be restricted to uniformity.

This view had been slowly but surely gaining strength, as many theists had argued that this is how God would interact with the world. The Reverend Baden Powell argued that naturalism and continuity are required. To deny them in any instance "would be to endanger all science." And so, not surprisingly, Darwin made good use of this intellectual necessity justification for evolutionary explanations. It was one of his many metaphysical arguments for his theory.

After Darwin this tradition continued to hold sway. And as evolutionist Joseph LeConte reminded the world thirty years after Origins, strict naturalism was not merely good science--it was true:

The origins of new phenomena are often obscure, even inexplicable, but we never think to doubt that they have a natural cause; for so to doubt is to doubt the validity of reason, and the rational constitution of Nature. So also, the origins of new organic forms may be obscure or even inexplicable, but we ought not on that account to doubt that they had a natural cause, and came by a natural process; for so to doubt is also to doubt the validity of reason, and the rational constitution of organic Nature.

Today this dogma has become a truism for evolutionists. One example from Niles Eldredge will have to do, though evolutionists routinely employ this metaphysic:

But the Creator obviously could have fashioned each species in any way imaginable. There is no basis for us to make predictions about what we should find when we study animals and plants if we accept the basic creationist position. … the creator could have fashioned each organ system or physiological process (such as digestion) in whatever fashion the Creator pleased.

Today's atheists, such as PZ Myers, rely on evolution's theological claims no less than did Darwin and the earlier thinkers who laid evolution's non scientific foundation. It is not atheism that motivates evolution, but rather theism. The science is ridiculous, but the religion is compelling. From Lyell and Powell to Eldredge and Myers, the science is superfluous. Metaphysical mandates such as the intellectual necessity leave no choice. It does not matter what the empirical evidence says, evolution must be true.

The Most Dangerous Kind of Religion

Religion in disguise can be the most dangerous kind. Sometimes religious movements veil their true convictions and instead present an appealing false front to searching souls. Even long-time members may not be aware of the true inner core of the movement where they place their faith. By the time they do become exposed to the truth of their movement, they are too ensconced to raise any doubts. And likewise outsiders have difficulty understanding the movement. While this may sound like a cult, it also describes evolution. It is a religious theory disguised as science, and adherents and opponents alike often fail to appreciate this. The latest example of evolution's disguised religion comes in the form of this YouTube video that challenges viewers to find a gene that did not evolve.

While there are several problems with the challenge, the disguised religion comes around the 1:15 mark, shown above, where the criterion of homology is explained. Don't worry if you are not familiar with the concept of homology. The bottom line is that the challenge uses random design as a test for whether a structure evolved. Specifically, if there is any non random pattern detectable, then it must not have been designed; instead, it must have evolved.

This is today's version of a test that dates back to Daniel Bernoulli and Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. The idea is that God would not design according to a gratuitous pattern. If a design is not physically required, then God would not use it. Instead God would exercise all the possible variations in a design. As Kant wrote (concerning the design of the planetary orbits in the Solar System):

Thus, God's choice, not having the slightest motive for tying [the planetary orbits] to one single arrangement, would reveal itself with a greater freedom in all sorts of deviations and differences.

Laplace and Darwin both relied on this argument. For instance, Darwin argued that if God created the species then we should find "a sudden leap from structure to structure?" As Darwin pointed out, "We never find the bones of the arm and forearm, or of the thigh and leg, transposed." Today this argument is ubiquitous in the evolutionary literature. But it appears in shorthand, such as in the above video, so as to disguise the religion.

Those interested in the details can read more about evolution's religious premises here and here. The bottom line is that a crucial evolutionary premise is that observable patterns across the species disprove independent creation and mandate an evolutionary origin. The YouTube video is yet another example of this, now commonplace, metaphysical logic. The argument may appear to be scientific, but this is merely a disguise. The argument does not come from science, and it has no scientific justification. It comes from personal metaphysical belief that is fundamental to evolution.

The Evolution of Venomous Proteins

Imagine a Star Trek movie in which two strikingly similar planets are discovered. The planets are in different corners of the universe, yet their coastlines, mountain ranges, inhabitants and cultures are amazingly alike. Or again, imagine a new, yet fully-formed, planet is discovered. The planet was not there a few years earlier, but there it is, complete with inhabitants and civilizations. These two phenomena--convergence and rapid appearance--are common in biology and, needless to say, they contradict evolutionary expectations. These surprises are not often seriously reckoned with. Evolutionists do not engage the implications of these findings, and sometimes they even avoid or deny the findings altogether.

To explain convergence and rapid appearance evolutionists tack on unlikely and complex explanations to their their theory. These epicycles are, themselves, a sort of measure of the truth value of a theory. A large number of epicycles suggests the theory is merely a tautology--a description of what we observe rather than an explanation of an underlying fundamental aspect of nature. A recent study of animal venom is the latest example of this pattern of epicycles and denial.

The study compared toxic proteins across a wide spectrum of species. These molecular assassins are cleverly designed. In World War II, the Allies bombed German ball bearing factories as a way of disabling its larger war machine. Obviously such a strategy required detailed knowledge of the war machine, how it works, the single point failures, where they are located, how they can be disabled, and so forth. Similarly, these biological toxins are finely tuned to disable crucial processes, such as the conversion of food energy to chemical energy, or the nervous system to paralyze the prey. Beyond vague speculation, evolutionists have no explanation for how such finely tuned toxins could have evolved.

Beyond the problem of how such designs evolved, these toxic proteins also reveal patterns of convergence and rapid appearance. Evolutionists are trying to figure out how very different types of animals have such similar venomous proteins. And some of the proteins appear to be completely new, as there are no known proteins in biology that share any significant degree of similarity. This implies a massive degree of evolutionary change in a relatively short period of time (something the study fails to mention), ending with a finely tuned molecular machine.

How can evolutionists present such findings within their framework? A common literary device in the evolution genre is the use of teleological language, such as "evolution designed the hemoglobin molecule to perform several important functions." Of course evolutionists do not literally mean that evolution consciously designed anything. Their teleological language is useful shorthand. Useful because it masks the absurdity of the notion that the blind, unguided process of evolution stumbles upon incredibly complex designs, again and again.

And so, not surprisingly, in this study the evolutionists use a plethora of teleological language in their peer reviewed paper. The reader is told, for example, that the study "confirms that convergent protein recruitment" spans all major animal phyla. We also learn that "the proteins chosen" in the evolutionary process are from widely dispersed protein families. Such literary devices are ubiquitous in the evolution genre and crucial to maintaining a credible narrative.

Improved Reporting on Abiogenesis Research

It is one of the silliest of all the icons of evolution. Abiogenesis, the notion that life springs forth on its own from a lifeless pool of chemicals, is not motivated by science. There are no observations to suggest it occurs. (If anything science’s law of biogenesis, which states that all life comes only from pre existing life, suggests the exact opposite). Instead, abiogenesis is motivated by the religious ideas that mandated evolution. It is, frankly, an outrage that taxpayer money is used to fund abiogenesis research. Nonetheless, a new study does give evolutionists some good news.

The new study reports on a way to spawn two ribonucleic acid (RNA) nucleotides. The formation of such nucleotides, without too much experimenter interference, is quite difficult. And yet RNA is thought likely to be needed in the hoped for abiogenesis process. The bad news for evolutionists is that this finding does nothing to mitigate enormous problems with the whole idea of abiogenesis. Yes, it does improve the picture slightly, but big obstacles remain.

The good news for the rest of us is that science writer Nicholas Wade does a good job on providing a balanced view of this new study. To be sure, his article in today’s New York Times gives, on the whole, a much too rosy interpretation of the finding. The worst part is the headline (“Chemist Shows How RNA Can Be the Starting Point for Life”) which greatly exaggerates the findings. But headlines are headlines. Otherwise, much of the article is a vast improvement over the sort of reporting we are accustomed to seeing.

For instance, Wade gives mention to the problem of investigator interference and fine-tuning (e.g., the starting point for the experiment includes an unstable chemical). Wade quotes one critic, who suggests it would be a fantasy to think the chemical would be naturally available in its pure form. Also, Wade explains that even the lead author has reservations about the results.

Wade also mentions the problem of chiralty. Just as our right hand is different from our left hand, so too important organic molecules come in two mirror image forms. But only one form is present in our biochemistry. The new study does nothing to explain why or how this is so. As Wade explains:

A serious puzzle about the nature of life is that most of its molecules are right-handed or left-handed, whereas in nature mixtures of both forms exist. Dr. Joyce said he had hoped an explanation for the one-handedness of biological molecules would emerge from prebiotic chemistry, but Dr. Sutherland’s reactions do not supply any such explanation. One is certainly required …

It is good to see more accuracy in the reporting of evolutionary research.

There is Hope

Back to this month's Scientific American: where evolutionist Lynn Margulis makes the bold claim that evolution explains human nature "Quite well." I guess we shouldn't be looking for measured scientific assessments from people who believe evolution is a fact. Margulis makes reference to the famous Wilberforce-Huxley debate, which reminded me that this is a topic that can help to highlight the religion in science (though Margulis has no such intention, of course). Even the Wikipedia site understands:

Though the debate is frequently depicted as a clash between religion and science, a case could be made for saying that for the many clerics in the audience, the underlying conflict was between traditional Anglicanism (Wilberforce) and liberal Anglicanism (Essays and Reviews). Many of the opponents of Darwin's theory were respected men of science: Owen was one of the most influential British biologists of his generation; Adam Sedgwick was a leading geologist; Wilberforce was a Fellow of the Royal Society (though at that time about half of the Fellows were well-placed amateurs).

Or as historian John Hedley Brooke comments:

The image of a head-on conflict between science and the Anglican Church also turns out to be simplistic. How, for example do we account for the following fact recorded in Leonard Huxley's Life of his father? Close to a group of Huxley's sympathisers had been "one of the few men among the audience already in Holy orders, who joined in – and indeed led – the cheers for the Darwinians." [click: "A legend in need of revision?"]

There is hope.

The Real Story Behind Junk DNA

By now you have probably heard about so-called junk DNA. In recent decades the genomes of a growing number of species have been mapped out. Not surprisingly, scientists did not understand how many of these DNA sequences worked. For instance, repetitive sequences are common, but what do they do? As these data accumulated evolutionists increasingly viewed such sequences as useless junk. Then, years later, various functions began to emerge as our knowledge grew. This junk DNA story is the latest version of what seems like a repeating bad dream that goes like this. Scientists discover something new in biology but don't understand it. Evolutionists, unaware that they are staring at a design whose complexity dwarfs their puny understanding, decide it is a useless evolutionary leftover. Such a useless design is pressed into service as an evolution apologetic. Later, when the function is eventually uncovered, evolutionists automatically claim the design as an evolutionary achievement. The structure goes from junk to treasure without a second thought.

The latest finding of "junk" DNA function involves repetitive elements which have been found to be active in certain tissues. The researchers concluded that this activity "has a key influence" on the overall activity of the mammalian genome. As one evolutionist admitted, "As a class [repetitive elements] are not just a junk DNA. They're not just parasites, but they can shape the architecture of the genome."

So what is the story here? That biological designs are complex? That evolutionary thinking does not anticipate nature very well? That evolutionists should think twice and speak once, rather than the other way around? Yes, these are all good lessons for us, but these are not the real story behind junk DNA (and the other rags-to-riches stories in the history of evolutionary thought).

The real story behind junk DNA is not that it is a show stopper for evolutionary theory. In fact, evolution never predicted junk DNA. And it can get by just fine, thank you, if there is no such thing as junk DNA. But if evolution is so ambivalent toward junk DNA, then why is it such a powerful apologetic? If the science doesn't hinge on the efficacy of DNA, then why is that very efficacy so important? And why is the finding of function so important to evolution's opposition?

Here we find the real story behind junk DNA. Junk DNA (and all examples of evil and dysteleology in nature), proclaim evolutionists, contradicts creation. The message seems so obvious and instinctive that it is not even thought through clearly. Is not junk DNA clear evidence for the scientific theory of evolution? No. The junk DNA apologetic is a religious statement about God. It is that simple.

Junk DNA mandates evolution because it denies creation on the basis of religious beliefs. God would never create DNA with no function. Such beliefs are not open to scientific rebuttal. Science has nothing to do with it. I cannot even begin to recount the number of scientists, professors and pundits I have heard proclaim, in the name of science, such religious conclusions as proof of evolution. They should be wearing a tiara and holding a scepter. This is the real story behind junk DNA.