The Evolution of Neural Crest Cells: Teleology Raised to the Power of Serendipity

Early stem cells were set aside to create new features

There is a reason why Aristotle’s ideas persisted for thousands of years—they advance fundamental themes in how we think. And no, those ideas did not become outdated with the rise of modern science, as the textbooks explain. Consider a recent paper on the flight of bats which stated that the bat’s specialized airflow sensors evolved in order “to guide motor behaviors” and that vertebrate nervous systems, in general, “have flexibly adapted to accommodate anatomical specializations for flight.” The infinitive form is the key. Evolutionary theory is supposed to have rejected teleology. Whereas Aristotle explained natural phenomena as a consequence of final causes, modern science, so the textbooks state, is free of such mysteries. After Bacon it was all about empiricism, mathematical descriptions and natural laws. There was no appeal to goals or end-directed action. Right? Wrong.

Evolutionary theory is Aristotelian. Practitioners use teleological language to describe how evolution works, ad nauseam. When evolutionists explain that the bat’s specialized airflow sensors evolved in order “to guide” motor behaviors, they are invoking an end- or goal-directed process. If nervous systems evolved “to accommodate” various capabilities such as flight, then evolution is Aristotelian.

Now the usual explanation for the teleological language, which is rampant amongst evolutionists, is that “we didn’t actually mean it, we’re just being lazy.”

In peer-reviewed papers?

No, evolutionists are not being lazy. Not this lazy. This is how they think about the evolutionary process. It performs actions in order to achieve goals.

Consider this week’s example, a study of embryonic development in vertebrates and how neural crest cells maintain their flexibility or pluripotency. The mystery is that these cells are able to give rise to various types of cells past the embryonic stages where most cells have lost that capability and instead are committed to a particular cell type such as skin, muscle or bone.

The explanation is that these cells evolved that way. Such explanations are given as though they advance the science.

But this adds nothing to the science. Explaining away an unexpected observation as “well evolution did it” is a cheap short-circuiting of the scientific method. It is a meaningless multiplying of entities which Occam warned us never to do and introduces explanations which themselves are in need of explaining.

As Descartes put it: “If you find it strange that … I do not use the [Aristotelian] qualities called ‘heat,’ ‘cold,’ ‘moistness,’ and ‘dryness,’ as do the philosophers, I shall say to you that these qualities appear to me to be themselves in need of explanation.”

This evolutionary reasoning—if it can be called reasoning—shuts off the search for how nature works—the main duty of science. Instead of figuring how embryonic development works it is simply ascribed to the contingencies of history. The underlying reasons for the design, which in its inexorable march of progress science will eventually uncover, are ignored. Evolutionists are, as they say, being lazy.

But that’s not the worst of it.

The constant teleological drumbeat in evolutionary theory not only obviates the scientific method, it replaces it with cacophony of serendipity. The evolutionary literature is chocked full of intricate, complicated, just-so stories that would put any soap opera to shame. All kinds of intricate events take place, leading to complex new creations which are then crucial to the next step in the plot.

This week’s paper on neural crest cells, for example, finds that after these fascinating and incredible cells were produced by evolution, they then became the crucial player in evolution’s construction of major new vertebrate designs. Here is how evolutionist Carole LaBonne, the study leader, explained it:

Neural crest cells never had their potential restricted at all. We believe a small population of early stem cells were set aside, so that when the time came, their immense developmental potential could be unleashed to create new features characteristic of vertebrates.

Early stem cells were set aside so that when the time came their immense developmental potential could be unleashed to create new features? This is Aristotelianism on steroids and the serendipity is deafening.

When you see a theory consisting of a long sequence of special explanatory devices you know it isn’t about science.

There Comes a Time

Live By the Sword, Die By the Sword

It happened this morning at 9:13 AM, a moment I shall never forget. The historians had always told us this day would come, but it just seemed impossible. Yes spontaneous origins seems absurd, they agreed, but the inexorable march of science will find it out. It always does. Don’t get in the way of science they warned, and now they have turned out right. And we are too loyal pupils of inductive philosophy to resist any conclusion by reason of its strangeness. Newton’s patient philosophy taught him to find in the falling apple the law which governs the silent movements of the stars in their courses. And if evolutionists can with the same correctness of reasoning demonstrate Epicureanism to be true, we shall dismiss our objections, and admit, with the characteristic humility of philosophy, our failed intuition that something does not come from nothing. All this ran through my mind as I read through Cynthia Moss’s new paper on bat evolution. It all seemed so contrived, but nonetheless, there it was:

Our observations demonstrate that the evolutionary progression that gave rise to the bat wing membrane has resulted in atypical somatosensory inputs, which have been co-opted to enhance flight control.

Evolutionists finally had hard facts to back up their claims. They now had scientific observations demonstrating the evolution of components of the bat wing. In fact, these are fantastically efficient and complex sensors detecting airflow over the wing and transmitting that information along the central nervous system as part of an incredible biological flight control system. As Moss explains in the above video, “Biology has done an exquisite job in creating these animals that can maneuver so agilely.” The paper further explained that “Bats achieve remarkable agility with modified forelimbs that serve as airfoils while retaining capacity for object manipulation.” Or as the press release put it, “Bats fly with breathtaking precision because their wings are equipped with highly sensitive touch sensors, cells that respond to even slight changes in airflow.” Such biological designs could even help engineers design air vehicles that better negotiate obstacles by sensing and adjusting to air turbulence.

It seems so amazing, yet now we know it all is nothing more than the product of blind mutations. In fact Moss’s paper had many more cogent observations. For example, the paper explains that the bat’s specialized airflow sensors evolved in order “to guide motor behaviors.” Also, the paper does not simply limit itself to bat evolution, but brilliantly concludes that vertebrate nervous systems, in general, “have flexibly adapted to accommodate anatomical specializations for flight.”

Needless to say all of this left me stunned. But I quickly began to see the truth of evolution. I simply had never conceived of the idea that things like sensors evolved in order to guide motor behaviors, or that entire nervous systems evolved in order to accommodate capabilities such as flight.

But once you shed your anti science bias, evolution provides these sorts of amazing explanations. Of course nervous systems evolved. They evolved to produce flight. How could I have ever doubted such obvious truths? It just goes to show how dangerous those science deniers are.

Zack Kopplin: There is No Scientific Evidence Against Evolution

A Product of the Warfare Thesis 

Zack Kopplin is the face of rational thought. Kopplin is a bright, energetic young man opposing the forces of anti intellectualism and ignorance that deny science and the fact of evolution, and seek to inject religious beliefs into the public schools. There’s only one problem. While we are delighted to see young people get involved in public policy issues, Kopplin is feverishly promoting precisely what he claims to be opposing.

Kopplin insists that there is no scientific evidence against evolution. While there is room for debate about particular biological evidences and exactly how they bear on the theory of evolution, there simply is no question that there is scientific evidence against evolution. Plenty of it. To deny that would be the height of anti science denialism. Yet this is precisely what evolutionists claim.

Kopplin explains that the church burned people alive for believing the Earth was round and that the Earth rotated the sun. A myth such as this is sure to move audiences, and is red meat for evolutionists, but it is, nonetheless, a myth. Historians call it the Warfare Thesis myth, but evolutionists won’t stop using it.

Not surprisingly Kopplin wants evolution to be taught in the public schools. But evolution is full of religious claims. Kopplin is pushing to have religious beliefs injected into the public schools—precisely what he claims to oppose.

This is the fruit of evolutionary thought.

Chuan He: Evolution Created Epigenetics

Because Nature Takes Advantage of What it Evolves

They never predicted it, then they denied it could be heritable, and then they denied it could cause lasting change. “It” in this case is epigenetics and in spite of being wrong, wrong and wrong again, and in spite of the fact that there is no scientific explanation for how epigenetics could have evolved, evolutionists nonetheless insist that it, in fact, must have evolved. Evolution loses every battle but claims to win the war. All of this became abundantly clear this past week when the finding of a new epigenetic signal was announced:

The epigenetic mark of DNA methylation, once thought to be rare if not nonexistent in worms and flies, occurs throughout the genomes of these organisms and in algae on the base adenine, not the cytosine known to be modified in mammals

and, in reference to said findings, evolutionist Chuan He explained that “If nature evolves something, it tends to take advantage of it,” both of which are non scientific claims.

First, there is no scientific evidence that nature evolved epigenetics. That is a religiously-driven, absurd claim.

Under evolution, the protein machines that attach the epigenetic markers must have fortuitously evolved from random mutations. But placing markers would not have helped if they were not in the right place, and in response to the right environmental signals. In fact, such protein machines could easily wreak havoc if they weren’t working just right.

But even given all that, such a marvel would do no good. That is because a tiny methyl group, or any other epigenetic marker, must be interpreted by other molecular machines. In other words, there must also have evolved the machines needed to recognize and perform the appropriate regulatory actions, as indicated by the given marker.

Evolution requires an enormous sequence of random mutations to occur before fitness improvements could be realized.

There is no scientific evidence that any such thing occurred. Perhaps future findings will reveal such an amazing feat, but today science gives us no such indication and in fact reveals that such an evolution would be heroic.

Second, He’s claim that nature “tends to take advantage of” what it evolves is a Darwinian personification of evolution which, as usual, is underwritten by Aristotelian teleology—none of which is scientific.

A long history of false predictions followed by absurd truth claims—this is not science.

Richard Lenski: “It is an incontrovertible fact that organisms have changed, or evolved”

The Mother of All False Dichotomies

Practically since Darwin the various species of finches on the Galápagos Islands have been declared to be decisive, powerful examples of evolutionary theory. An undeniable confirmation of the age-old Epicurean idea that the world arose spontaneously. But exactly how do some bird species on an island group in the middle of the ocean demonstrate such a bold claim?

The answer involves much more than science. For these cute little birds do not tell us that single-celled bacteria somehow arose from a lifeless collection of chemicals. They don’t tell us that those bacteria gave rise to the complicated eukaryotes, and then to multicellular organisms, and then to fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. The Galápagos finches don’t even tell us how they themselves could have evolved.

What they do tell us is that nature’s organisms can change. Darwin inferred this, and more recent studies have uncovered some of the specifics. With changing weather patterns and food supplies, the birds respond accordingly. They adapt—a feature that is ubiquitous in biology.

The various species have some fantastic adaptation capabilities, and it’s nothing like evolution’s story of blind mutations hitting on better designs on rare occasion. Instead, it is a rapid shifting between preexisting designs, enabled by preexisting and very complicated mechanisms.

But it is change. And that, for Darwin and later evolutionists, is all they need. You see Darwin and evolutionists in general hold to a doctrine of creationism where the Creator constructs the species to be unchanging. In the eighteenth century it was referred to as the “fixity” or “immutability” or “stability” of species.

So if the finches could, in fact, change, then for evolutionists the fixity of species—and all of creationism along with it—must be false. And if creationism is false, then evolution must be true. As Darwin wrote in his notebook, if there was the slightest foundation for this idea, it “would undermine the stability of species.” Thus the template was cast for evolutionists to come.

What is striking is the heavy reliance on metaphysics. Nothing about the science here tells us, or even hints, that the biological world arose spontaneously as evolutionists insist is true. The underlying foundation of evolutionary thought is religious. As NT Wright recently quipped, “Oh my goodness, he [Darwin] has discovered some very interesting finches, this means we can’t believe in Genesis anymore.”

One recent study highlights this gap between the metaphysics and the science. The study further demonstrates the adaptive capabilities of species such as the finches. It also further demonstrates that adaptation is not evolution. The birds are quick to adapt but they are simply tracking the environment and food supply. The hallmark is their flexibility and adaptiveness.

As one scientist put it, “there has been no long-term specialised evolution.” For many years now even evolutionists have recognized that adaptation does not add up to the large-scale change evolution requires. Some other mechanism is needed.

Nonetheless the Galápagos finches continue to be celebrated as a proof text of evolution. They are an example of change, and evolution is equated with change—any kind of change. Even a mere altering of gene frequencies in a population is, for evolutionists, nothing less than full blown evolution. Such a trivial change becomes proof that the biological world arose spontaneously. It is the mother of all false dichotomies.

As evolutionist Richard Lenski put it, “It is an incontrovertible fact that organisms have changed, or evolved, during the history of life on Earth.” Yes, it is an incontrovertible fact that organisms have changed. But it is not an incontrovertible fact that they have evolved. The equating of change with evolution rests on deeply-held religious beliefs.

As NT Wright might say, “Oh my goodness, Lenski has discovered some very interesting bacteria, this means we can’t believe in Genesis anymore.” The idea that changing gene frequencies, or an occasional genetic mutation, proves that the species spontaneously arose is truly one of the greatest leaps of logic you will ever see. You can see more such examples here and here.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

The Trichodesmium Genome “defies common evolutionary dogma”

More Junk Science

A new study has found that Trichodesmium or “sea sawdust,” a genus of oceanic bacteria described by Captain Cook in the eighteenth century and so prolific it can be seen from space, has a unique, lineage-specific genome. Less than two-thirds of the genome of this crucial ammonium-producing bacteria codes for proteins. No other such bacteria has such a low value, and conversely such a large percentage of the genome that is non coding. This lineage-specific genome, as one report explains, “defies common evolutionary dogma.”

Indeed, but it is no mistake as different Trichodesmium species, in different corners of the world, show the same anomaly. Furthermore most of the non coding segments are expressed, suggesting they perform some function. Nonetheless, evolutionists believe that selfish or “junk” DNA is an important factor in the evolution of the Trichodesmium genome. Such explanations are gratuitous and add nothing to the science, but are commonly used in evolutionary theory which holds that the biological world spontaneously arose.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Darwin’s Finches Continue to Reveal More About Evolutionists Than Evolution

Interbreeding and Hybridization

Forty years ago biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant began an ongoing study of the different finch species on the Galápagos Islands. They gathered valuable data and during drought years they observed the finches adapt to the environmental challenges. In particular, the population of medium ground finches, Geospiza fortis, shifted toward a larger beak. This was because the drought left smaller seeds in scarce supply, and so those G. fortis with smaller beaks died off. These initial observations were followed with detailed studies of the changes that took place at the molecular level. The latest such study, published in February of this year, describes how a particular protein affects the embryonic development of the finch’s beak. All of this makes for a good case study in adaptation. Unfortunately, it also is a good case study in the misrepresentation of science by evolutionists.

The Grant’s observations of how the Galápagos finches adjusted to shifts in the food supply led to four important findings: the adaptation was rapid, preexisting, cyclical and complicated.

First, the finch populations adjusted to food supply changes just as the temperature in a room changes with your setting of the thermometer. Adjust the thermometer upward and the temperature in a room soon rises. Adjust the thermometer downward and the room cools. The one tracks the other. The finches were not randomly searching some design space—a process which would require long periods of time.

In fact, second, the finch populations were not finding any new designs that were not already present. Just as the room temperature varies between the same old values, the G. fortis shifted between preexisting beak shapes and sizes.

So not surprisingly, third, the G. fortis beak design oscillated back and forth along a cyclical trajectory, morphing between preexisting designs, as the weather and food supply oscillated.

Finally, fourth, these beak designs are varied by extremely complex embryonic development mechanisms. The latest paper, for instance, reports on the ALX1 gene which encodes a transcription factor that influences the finch beak shape and size.

What is a transcription factor? It is a protein that binds to special places in the DNA and regulates gene expression. In other words, a transcription factor is a protein that regulates the creation of other proteins. That is a complicated affair, but the story does not end there. The latest paper finds that this gene must have been transferred between species via hybridization events.

All of these four findings are directly opposed to evolutionary theory and expectations. The process is supposed to be slow, not rapid. The process is supposed to construct new designs, not choose from preexisting ones. The process is supposed to continue off in a direction and arrive at new species, not oscillate back and forth. And the process is supposed to arise naturally, from brute, simple events. The process is not supposed to be based on complex, preexisting, mechanisms.

None of this makes any sense on evolution. In fact Darwin was persuaded that the finches were powerful evidence for evolution because they were different species, not mere variants. In other words, for Darwin they were powerful evidence because, he believed, they did not interbreed.

But interbreeding between the finches is precisely what science has been finding. In this case, the adapting beaks are influenced by the hybridization of the ALX1 gene. Precisely the opposite of the premise which led to the celebration of the Galápagos finches as compelling evidence for evolution in the first place.

Nonetheless, evolutionists have consistently misrepresented the story of the Galápagos finches as an ongoing, powerful modern day confirmation of Darwin’s findings and arguments. The Wall Street Journal calls the new finding “a vivid illustration of evolution working,” and Science Daily informs readers that changes in the finches beaks are “all driven by Darwinian selection.” The new paper, meanwhile, begins with the statement that Darwin’s finches “constitute an iconic model for studies of speciation and adaptive evolution.”

I don’t mind if evolution is true, but I do mind defending it, or any scientific theory, with gross misrepresentations of the evidence.

No Anesthesia Allowed For a Child

Junk Science

Advocates of legalized abortion are now arguing that new legislation in several states, restricting abortion access, is based on junk science. To be fair, the new legislation does not actually restrict access but rather adds an additional step to the process. And what is that step? Simply to make available anesthesia to the soon to be aborted unborn child.

The problem, as the Los Angeles Times reported this week, is the scientific evidence for the capacity of the unborn to feel pain is not settled. As a 2005 paper stated, the evidence is “limited,” but it is “unlikely” that the child perceives pain prior to the third trimester.

One might think that if the scientific evidence is limited and uncertain, then debate would cease. Would we not all agree that such anesthesia should be made available?

No, evolutionists insist that such relief not even be an option. It is reminiscent of laws that deny rights to children who survive abortion attempts. As advocate Elizabeth Nash put it, “We’re seeing more unsubstantiated science. The problem is that legislators are buying into it and using it.”

It is difficult to fathom this level of cruelty. And as always, the perpetrators are certain of their righteousness.

It is equally difficult to fathom this level of absurdity. Unsubstantiated science? The premise that an unborn child is not a human being is the height of unsubstantiated science. Of course such children are human beings—from a scientific perspective that is beyond question.

William Jennings Bryan famously opposed evolution in the Scopes Monkey Trial. He was concerned that evolution was dehumanizing and was undermining morality. Unfortunately he seems to have been correct.

Discovery Institute Summer Seminars

Intelligent Design and Science and Society

The Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute announces two intensive 9-day seminars for college students to be held July 10-18, 2015.

The CSC Seminar on Intelligent Design in the Natural Sciences will prepare students to make research contributions advancing the growing science of intelligent design (ID). The seminar will explore cutting-edge ID work in fields such as molecular biology, biochemistry, embryology, developmental biology, paleontology, computational biology, ID-theoretic mathematics, cosmology, physics, and the history and philosophy of science. This seminar is open to students who intend to pursue graduate studies in the natural sciences or the philosophy of science. Applicants must be college juniors or seniors or already in graduate school.

Evolutionists Misrepresent Genetic Code

No Reason?

It would be a full time job to track down, monitor and document the scientific misrepresentations in the evolution literature. From textbooks and articles to websites, videos, popular books and the rest, the evolution literature is a continual stream of exaggerations and misrepresentations of the scientific evidence. Here is an example regarding the genetic code from the Public Broadcasting Service website:

Biologically and chemically, there is no reason why this particular genetic code, rather than any of millions or billions of others, should exist, scientists assert. Yet every species on Earth carries a genetic code that is, for all intents and purposes, identical and universal. The only scientific explanation for this situation is that the genetic code was the result of a single historic accident. That is, this code was the one carried by the single ancestor of life and all of its descendents, including us.

No reason for this particular genetic code? That is absurd. Thirty years ago it was shown to be an optimal code. Since then studies have shown a variety of unique characteristics, such as error-correction, of the genetic code.

In fact evolutionists have no scientific, credible explanation for how the code spontaneously arose. And yet leading evolutionists misguide people with the nonsensical and laughable claim that the genetic code is powerful evidence of evolution.

Religion drives science and it matters.

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Ed: Final link changed

Here is Another Retrovirus With an Important Function

Don’t Just Assume It’s Junk

The more that evolutionists claim nature is full of junk, the more that science finds uses for the junk. An intriguing example are the retroviruses which, for several years, have been found to have various functions. Yet another retrovirus function was published last fall in a study out of Canada. This retrovirus works with several proteins in human embryonic stem cells
and without it the stem cells lose their key functionalities.

Human endogenous retrovirus subfamily H (HERVH) is a class of transposable elements expressed preferentially in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). Here, we report that the long terminal repeats of HERVH function as enhancers and that HERVH is a nuclear long noncoding RNA required to maintain hESC identity. Furthermore, HERVH is associated with OCT4, coactivators and Mediator subunits. Together, these results uncover a new role of species-specific transposable elements in hESCs.

As with previous human retrovirus examples, this finding forced evolutionists to hypothesize that the retrovirus, unbelievably, played a crucial role human evolution. As one report explained:

According to the study's lead author, Xinyi Lu, a postdoctoral researcher in Ng's laboratory, the emergence of the regulatory activities executed by HERV-H could represent an important step in the evolution of our early ancestors. "HERV-H first integrated into the primate genome around 45 million years ago and is only found in the primate genome," says Lu, "and so it may contribute to some of the differences between primates and other mammals."

How curious this is. A retrovirus is supposed to have evolved, and then it just happened to play an important role in the construction of humans. This is yet another example of the incredible serendipity that evolutionists envision at work in their theory. Do they ever wonder at the likelihood of a retrovirus just luckily fitting in to the evolutionary process, and serving in an important role in the production of increasingly complex organisms?

With evolution, science becomes not a search for how nature works, or what likely occurred in the past, but rather bizarre, unlikely tales that cannot be proven wrong.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

Paper: Spontaneous Creation of the Universe From Nothing

A Two Thousand Year Old Project

Two thousand years ago the Epicureans believed that the world arose spontaneously. Their idea was that randomly veering atoms attained a great variety of configurations by chance, and would eventually find themselves forming stable, functional structures. And while this may seem unlikely, the immense universe provided a great many opportunities for those configurations to come about. In Cicero’s dialog, the Epicurean explains this to his stoic opponent:

You [stoics] would surely have no need of the activity of such a figure [a skilled craftsman] if you would only observe how unlimited, unbounded tracts of space extend in all directions. When the mind strains and stretches itself to observe these distances, it journeys abroad so far that it can observe no ultimate limit at which to halt. It is in this boundless extent of breadth, length, and height, then, that innumerable atoms of infinite quantity flit around. … There is space between them, yet they latch on to each other. In gripping each other they form a chain, as a result of which are fashioned the shapes and forms of things which you Stoics believe cannot be created without bellows and anvils. So you have implanted in our heads the notion of an external lord whom we are to fear day and night; for who would not stand in awe of a god who is a prying busybody, who foresees and reflects upon and observes all things, believing that everything is his business?

Cicero’s dialog reveals how little has changed in two thousand years and just how enduring certain metaphysical themes are. The Epicurean complains to the stoic that he does not appreciate the great size of the universe, that chance events are capable of producing functional structures, and that therefore there is no need to believe a sovereign Creator or “external lord,” who we must fear, is needed.

Though the terminology has changed, the ideas have not. This dialog from Cicero could have been written today. What goes around comes around.

Like the Epicureans, evolutionists believe that the world arose spontaneously. Darwin fulfilled this mandate for the origin of species. But the origin of everything else has been described by modern day Epicureans in the centuries before and after Darwin.

Evolutionary thought is by no means restricted to the species. Consciousness, life, the planets, the galaxy, and even the universe and its natural laws all are hypothesized to have arisen spontaneously.

This is a rather heroic mandate. It seems we do not live in a universe where functioning structures just happen to assemble. Not without other very clever structures to make it happen.

Yet evolutionists do not give this a second thought. They believe all this happened, even though the science does not support them. Last year this movement continued with a new paper entitled “Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing.” According to evolutionists, this paper provided the mathematical proof of what they already had assumed to be true.

So there you have it. Evolutionists believe not only that giraffes, sharks, violets and moles spontaneously arose; they not only believe consciousness, love and emotion spontaneously arose; they not only believe life itself spontaneously arose; they not only believe the Sun, stars and cosmos spontaneously arose; they believe the entire universe itself spontaneously arose.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

The Warfare Thesis in Action: Why Jimmy Kimmel is Important

A Strengthening Tradition

On July 30 of last year Meredith Prohaska had the misfortunate of having a sore throat. At what would have been a routine visit to the doctor the 12-year-old’s mother was told that Meredith should have an HPV vaccine. By dinnertime Meredith was dead.

What exactly is the purpose of the HPV vaccine? Why are so many people so insistent that young girls be given a sequence of this vaccine? Because it offers protection against a virus that is sexually transmitted. And after all, aren’t all 12-year-old girls going to sleep around eventually?

Meredith Prohaska’s cause of death was not the HPV vaccine. At least that is what the official records say.* After all, as Hugh Hewitt assures us, correlation does not imply causation. And since the HPV vaccine did not cause Meredith’s death—or the many other devastating problems girls have experienced including terrible pain and uncontrolled seizures—it therefore is known to be safe.

That’s the message from Jimmy Kimmel, late-night comedian who turns serious when it comes to vaccines and those who aren’t sure about them. Kimmel castigates those “anti-vaxxers” with cutting sarcasm. Vaccines are perfectly safe and anyone who doubts that is fair game for public ridicule.

What is disturbing about Kimmel, and the many other voices of scorn, is not their pro-vaccine sentiment. Vaccines are a complex issue and certainly there are arguments in their favor. But vaccines are not perfectly safe. That is a simple fact that no responsible medical professional would deny. And of course the benefits and risks do not fit a simple formula. Each vaccine is different, and each person is different. Science can inform, but it cannot answer the difficult risk-reward tradeoff question.

The quandary is further complicated by the fact that the vaccine manufacturers have their own special federal law protecting them against the normal law suit process where adequate damages can be sought. Would you purchase an automobile from a company with no liability and immune from prosecution? Of course not.

What is disturbing about mockers such as Kimmel is that they represent a strengthening tradition of delegitimization and dismissal of a group of people. This is a powerful and dangerous division.

We’re not talking about spirited political disagreements. We’re talking about abhorrence and disgust.

This is a much stronger movement, and it is not limited to vaccinations. A host of other, equally complex issues also fuel this irrational odium, including global warming, evolution and abortion.

While these are complex issues, the common thread is that in all cases, the mockers hold to irrational positions. The passion is exceeded only by the ignorance.

The unmistakable underlying pattern, it seems to me, is the Warfare Thesis and its attendant scientism. The dressing up of thoughtful people as ignorant obstructionists at best, and as insidious characters at worst, is not a little concerning.

An excellent example of this is the play and movie, Inherit the Wind. It presents a ridiculous, insulting picture of people which, though contrived, is today taken as accurate and cogent. The irony is that the script was originally intended to combat McCarthyism. It has now become something far more dangerous.

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*Addendum: Further information from the Waukesha County medical via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Diphenhydramine intoxication — ingestion of a lethal level of an antihistamine — caused the death of Meredith Prohaska, though the manner of death is undetermined, Medical Examiner Lynda Biedrzycki said in a prepared statement. "There is no evidence that any vaccination caused or contributed to her death," Biedrzycki said.

MicroRNA Study: “We Liberated Ourselves” From the Evolution Requirement

And Had Great Success

MicroRNAs are short RNA molecules that regulate gene expression, for example, by binding to messenger RNA molecules which otherwise would code for a protein at a ribosome. MicroRNAs were first discovered in the 1990s but a full understanding of their numbers and distribution across different tissue types has been slow in coming. Increasingly MicroRNAs are understood to be lineage-specific and a new study further confirms this. lineage-specific structures are the antithesis of evolution and its expected common descent pattern. Instead, structures appear in a few species, or even in just a single species, and are nowhere else to be found. Biology, as John Ray found three centuries ago, is full of unique solutions.

The new study found that imposing the common descent pattern, where microRNAs must be conserved across species, is hampering the search:

These results highlight the limitations that can result from imposing the requirement that miRNAs be conserved across organisms. Such requirements will in turn result in our missing bona fide organism-specific miRNAs and could perhaps explain why many of these novel miRNAs have not been previously identified.

Evolutionary theory has been limiting the science. Indeed, while the common descent pattern has been the guide since the initial microRNA studies, these researchers liberated themselves from that constraint, and it appears this will lead to good scientific progress:

In the early days of the miRNA field, there was an emphasis on identifying miRNAs that are conserved across organisms … Nonetheless, species-specific miRNAs have also been described and characterized as have been miRNAs that are present only in one or a few species of the same genus. Therefore, enforcing an organism-conservation requirement during miRNA searches is bound to limit the number of potential miRNAs that can be discovered, leaving organism- and lineage-specific miRNAs undiscovered. In our effort to further characterize the human miRNA repertoire, we liberated ourselves from the conservation requirement: not surprisingly then, 56.7% of our newly discovered miRNAs are human-specific whereas 94.4% are primate- specific. Considering that many miRNA studies to date have focused on seeking and analyzing conserved miRNAs, it is not surprising that, of the human miRNAs in miRBase, we found a larger fraction to be conserved in rodents and invertebrates. These findings strongly suggest the possibility of a wide-ranging species-specific miRNA-ome that has yet to be characterized. Indeed, it is reasonable to expect that at least some of these novel primate-specific miRNAs participate in unexplored aspects of regulatory processes that cannot be captured by the currently available mouse disease models. Thus, not only could these newly discovered miRNAs provide new molecular insights but they could also help us define novel biomarkers for tissue or disease states.

The evolutionary assumption is needed for evolutionary studies, but not elsewhere.

The Warfare Thesis, Scientism and Vaccines

Hugh Hewitt Unhinged

Evolution is not merely a theory about biology. It is a much broader movement, tracing back to the Epicureans, that is more of a worldview than a particular theory. Of course evolution calls for a strictly naturalistic origins narrative. But it also has its own world view. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the so-called Warfare Thesis. Simply put, the idea is that naturalism is the pinnacle of scientific progress and that anyone who questions the dogma that the world arose spontaneously must be driven by nonscientific, religious motives. Hence there is a war between religion and science as scientists inexorably uncover new truths which the pious resist and oppose where they can. The Warfare Thesis can be traced back to the eighteenth century with thinkers such as Voltaire, Hume and Kant. Voltaire initiated what would become the unstoppable mythology of the Galileo Affair, reporting that Galileo had “groaned away his days in the dungeons of the Inquisition, because he had demonstrated by irrefragable proofs the motion of the earth.” Neither were true but this myth endures to this very day. Hume, with his arguments against natural theology, and Kant, with his celebration of the Enlightenment, portrayed the pious and the providentialists as naïve obstructionists. By the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries textbooks were informing students that Christians believed the Earth was flat until Columbus proved them wrong. Though the Warfare Thesis is well known to be a myth, it has an enduring and compelling appeal. No less a historian than Daniel J. Boorstin—Distinguished Professor of history at the University of Chicago, Director of the National Museum of History and Technology, and Twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress—promoted the flat Earth myth in his 1983 book, The Discoverers. Unfortunately, now in the Year 2015, the Warfare Thesis not only shows no signs of abating but is gathering yet more strength. Its misconceptions, stereotypes, delegitimizations and “we versus them” mentality are reaching a fever pitch.

One of the corollaries of the Warfare Thesis is scientism, the view of science as the objective source of truth. Poets deal with subjective feelings but scientists, in their spotless white lab coats, deal in unimpeachable facts. It is not uncommon to see “science” referred to as the authoritative source of all kinds of truths. We are told, for example, that products are scientifically proven and that research has now explained why people hold religious beliefs.

But scientism is not limited to advertisements and tabloids. In a recent Washington Post editorial piece, Fred Hiatt bemoans the fact that public opinion is not always aligned with scientific consensus. Hiatt’s opening sentence leaves little doubt what’s coming: “Sophisticated readers know a science denier when they see one.”

This is all Warfare Thesis. There are science “deniers” and there are sophisticated people who can spot them. If you disagree with “science” (as if there is such a monolithic thing), you are not a concerned or thoughtful citizen, you are a denier. In this “we versus them” world, the negative connotation is obvious.

Hiatt criticizes the “southern Bible-thumper denying the fossil in front of his nose.” Ah yes, those “southern Bible-thumpers.” They’re still denying the fossils, aren’t they. We really should do something about them.

Hiatt goes on to quote from polls showing that 88 percent of scientists believe genetically modified foods are safe to eat, compared with only 37 percent of the public; that 87 percent of scientists believe that climate change is mostly caused by human activity, compared with only 50 percent of the public; and that 98 percent of scientists believe that humans have evolved over time, compared with only 65 percent of the public.

Shouldn’t the public accede to the professionals? Shouldn’t we all accept the fact of man-made global warming? One wonders what Hiatt would do with the 13 percent of scientists who don’t go along with the politically-charged conclusion.

Hiatt apparently is not bothered that climate research is not exactly double-blind. Blackballing, funding pressures, career threats, peer-review manipulation, editorial board controls and even shutting down journals altogether are all part of the “science.”

Does Hiatt understand that science is conducted by humans and not robots? Humans with political, cultural, religious, social and career pressures and concerns. A few years ago global cooling was the concern. Indeed, as philosophers well understand, scientific consensus changes with the seasons and is hardly a paragon of truth. Scientists thought continental drift was crazy and that genetic mutations must be independent of need. Even Einstein rejected quantum mechanics. All of these are now well accepted.

None of this means that man-made global warming is not true. In spite of the data adjustments, and in spite of the thoughtful concerns that have been expressed, it may well be true. But we don’t need to start calling names when people aren’t sure.

What is disturbing about Hiatt’s editorial is that it appeared in the Washington Post, one of the nation’s leading newspapers. This dangerous exhibition of Warfare Thesis stereotypes and scientism is what leading opinion makers are thinking.

Nor is this merely a rare mistake of one journalist. This month’s cover of the venerable National Geographic magazine, pictured above, could hardly be a more explicit proclamation of the Warfare Thesis mythology. Inside Joel Achenbach explains the battle. He propagates the Flat Earth myth because, as he explains, some guy in South Dakota in 1893 built a flat-Earth model. And Achenbach ridicules any doubt about man-made global warming as a conspiracy theory. “The idea that hundreds of scientists,” writes Achenbach, “from all over the world would collaborate on such a vast hoax is laughable.”

Laughable? Apparently Achenbach is unaware that scientists “from all over the world” have agreed on all kinds of theories that were later discarded as clearly false. And what about the scientists who do not agree? Even James Lovelock admits that he was “a Little Too Certain.” Dismissive language and delegitimization are not helping.

Vaccines

This latest round of the Warfare Thesis has also featured concerns about vaccines. The most significant work in the formation of the Warfare Thesis was Andrew Dickson White’s 1896 volume, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. White took the mythology to new levels, covering a wide spectrum of topics including vaccinations. Today, vaccinations continue to service the myth as evidenced by various commentators.

Radio journalist Hugh Hewitt, for example, has been castigating parents who do not vaccinate their children, assuring his listeners that vaccines are safe and the decision is a no-brainer. What about the many vaccine injuries? Hewitt echoes Hume with the absurd refrain that correlation does not imply causation. How then does Hewitt advocate vaccines in the first place?

But Hewitt has no time for such fine points as he belittles those who don’t go along. It’s Hume and White all over again. The lie that vaccines are safe because correlation does not imply causation did not begin with Hewitt. It is a common explanation used to dismiss and ridicule questions regarding vaccine risk.

CNN has also been attacking the vaccine issue. Reporter Sanjay Gupta recently interviewed the U.S. Surgeon General, urging him to recommend a federal law mandating vaccinations. Gupta became increasingly concerned in the interview, suggesting to the Surgeon General that those who do not vaccinate have sinister motives. Gupta unequivocally declared vaccines to be safe while the CNN anchor Jake Tapper was visibly angered at the thought of anyone declining vaccinations.

We are now living in a Warfare Thesis driven culture. Vaccines, as with the other topics that have been subsumed by this mythology, are far more complicated than this dangerous scientism allows. Vaccines have a long history of causing a wide spectrum of injuries and death. That is a scientific fact that all responsible researchers and health practitioners understand.

The message that vaccines carry no risk is simply a lie and an example of the dangers of White’s false history. Consider Lorrin Kain who died on December 22, 2009. In the spring of 1994, at the age of 6 weeks, Lorrin’s parents took their baby to be vaccinated. Their lives would never be the same. Lorrin sustained severe brain damage and would have uncontrolled seizures for the rest of her life. At the age of 15 she finally succumbed. And now the Kain’s are being told that the decision to vaccinate is clear-cut and that vaccines carry no risk.