Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Come out, come out, wherever you are

Here are science news excerpts (or rather excerpt singular, because the quotes I have added made it too long-I will post the other items later), with my comments in square brackets:

Come out, come out, wherever you are, Tim Radford, The Guardian, August 25, 2005. You never write, you never call ... on the puzzle of the absent alien … Alien life is the ultimate paradox: everybody knows what an alien looks like but no one has ever seen one. The universal neighbourhood could be crawling with citizens but none ever popped round to say hi. The extraterrestrial has spawned good books, mediocre art and bad movies; provoked serious speculation and a new science called astrobiology; and triggered a 400-year religious and philosophical debate, all without putting in a single appearance. If life exists on Earth - a nondescript planet orbiting an undistinguished star in a neither-here-nor-there galaxy in an ordinary corner of the universe - then it ought to exist on at least some other planets around a proportion of other suns in at least a selection of other galaxies. There are at least 200bn galaxies, and each may be home to 200bn stars. Even if the evolution of a sentient, intelligent, technologically aware civilisation is rare, the firmament should still be fizzing with life. But, as the physicist Enrico Fermi once asked, in a question now known as Fermi's paradox: "Where is everybody?" The alien is one of two possible answers to life's great question: is all this just for us? But if the alien exists, then alien civilisations would have begun to ask themselves the same question perhaps a billion years ago. The heavens should be ringing with long-distance calls, the galaxy buzzing with randomly directed robot probes. Forget about UFOs, Area 51 and the Men in Black: nobody so far has tried to get in touch. That hasn't stopped humans hoping for a call from Alpha Centauri or Andromeda Central. … wistful wondering about other worlds began a long time ago: before Copernicus, Galileo and others had firmly established that Earth was a planet, just like Venus or Mars. Epicurus wrote to Herodotus in 300BC proposing there could be "infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours" inhabited by "living creatures and plants and other things we see in this world". Kepler thought it highly probable that Jupiter was inhabited and Christian Wolff in the 18th century even worked out what a Jovian might look like. ... The astronomers Herschel and Bode proposed that even the sun might be inhabited, Benjamin Franklin wondered about the constitutions of the people who lived on Mercury, so close to the sun; and a Scottish clergyman called Thomas Dick in 1828 calculated there might be 2.4bn inhabited worlds within the visible universe. In 1837, he went further. … 53 billion lived on Venus and more than 8 trillion people might dwell on the rings of Saturn. … aliens continue not to visit. … if the laws of physics extend beyond Alpha Centauri, then they have not. The distances to the nearest stars are awesome, and the energy costs literally astronomical. There has been a brisk debate about why ET never phoned the Seti Institute, and why signals from Earth might never get through to Cygnus X-1 or a planet in the Pleiades. One - and some serious planetary scientists and astronomers back this theory - is that we really could be alone: that life itself is rare and intelligent life probably confined to one planet. Not so, say others: the raw materials for life as we know it are being manufactured by exploding stars and carried by icy comets all over the solar system and - since the Copernican principle says there is nothing special about the Earth - by extension, everywhere. Which brings us back to Fermi. Where is everyone? Life must be common, even if communities are light years apart. That could be all it takes to keep the neighbours from getting the message or putting a call through, say engineers such as Christopher Rose of Rutgers State University, New Jersey, in the journal Nature, and biologists such as Clive Trotman at the University of Otago in New Zealand, who did a similar set of sums in his book The Feathered Onion last year. You can't just broadcast a message saying, "Is anybody out there?" The signal dissipates as the square of the distance. By the time you get to Pluto, it's already vanishingly faint. So you send an ultra-powerful signal as a focused laser beam. How much energy would that take? How long could you afford to transmit? How many directions must you point the transmitter to cover the whole sky? (The answer to that one is 100,000 trillion). And what chance a citizen of an alien civilisation is tuned in when your one-second message whistles by at the speed of light? The arithmetic, says Trotman, predicts one-way communication with both antennae pointing at each other will happen for one second every 10 billion billion years. Assuming, that is, both civilisations are using the same wavelength. Don't wait up for ET. Use your imagination instead. … [The reference to "Epicurus" who proposed that there "could be infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours" inhabited by "living creatures and plants and other things we see in this world", is significant. As Ben Wicker points out in his book, "Moral Darwinism", Epicurus was one of the fathers of materialist philosophy, who sought to remove any reason to believe in God:
"To achieve this reductionism even more completely, Epicurus found another ingenious way to help eliminate our natural awe. It may sound, at first, a strange way to do it, but he reduced the universe by expanding it. The universe, according to Epicurus, is unlimited, both in respect to size and in respect to the `number of bodies and the magnitude of the void.' That means that, given an infinitude of time with an unlimited number of atoms in an infinite expanse of the void, there will be `an unlimited number of cosmoi [the plural of `cosmos'], and some are similar to this one and some are dissimilar ... [for] there is no obstacle to the unlimitedness of worlds.' ... in Epicurus's argument, the hypothetical infinity is useful for asserting that, since there is an unlimited number of atoms and they move eternally and combine easily, then there must be an unlimited number of worlds. This `plurality of worlds' argument is essential to Epicurean materialism, and is used again in the Enlightenment as a weapon to undermine Christianity (and continues to be used to the present day for the same purpose). Why, then, would a plurality of worlds be so useful to Epicureanism? The assertion of a plurality of worlds both rests on, and reinforces, the assumption that creation of complexity is easy, so easy that the combining and recombining of atoms creates not just one world, but many. So easy, indeed, that invoking a divine cause is completely superfluous. There must be a plurality of worlds, the materialist reasons, because an infinite universe during an infinite time using an unlimited number of atoms in perpetual motion, simply must produce a multitude of complexity out of simplicity. This belief is the origin of the `monkey-at-the-typewriter' argument, where even a monkey, randomly pecking away, can produce Shakespearean sonnets, if only it has an infinite amount of time to do it. The goal of this belief is to allow enough time and material so that chance can replace intelligence: if the monkey can replace Shakespeare, then almighty chance can replace almighty God. And so, even though there was no empirical evidence of eternal atoms, no empirical evidence that such atoms combine easily to form complex structures, no empirical evidence that the universe was infinite or the number of atoms unlimited, and no empirical evidence that there actually was a plurality of worlds, the belief in a plurality of worlds actually functioned, for Epicurus, to sustain the undemonstrated arguments on which his system itself rested. That is, the belief in a plurality of worlds reinforced the belief in the simplicity, of the atom and the case with which it could combine to create complexity. Whether for Epicurus or the modern materialist, the circular reinforcement ultimately serves to release adherents of materialism from the disturbing thought that a divine Intelligence is behind it all. Are we surprised to find that the late Carl Sagan, the chief spokesperson for materialism in the last quarter of the twentieth century, calculated that in the Milky Way galaxy alone, there would have to be one million civilizations capable of interstellar communication?" (Wiker B., "Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 2002, pp.41-42. Emphasis in original)
Astrobiologist David Darling confirms that astrobiology is a science based on and motivated by anti-Christian Epicurean materialist philosophy:
"The Rare Earth controversy has its roots in ancient Greece, where philosophers asked: Are there other worlds like ours harboring other life like us? Of course, the Greeks' notion of the cosmos was entirely different from ours. The Hellenic kosmos, in its most widely accepted form, placed the Earth at the center of a series of concentric revolving spheres to which the Moon, Sun, planets and stars were fixed like little lights. There was no conception of stars as huge balls of hot gas, or of orbiting extrasolar worlds. This single world geocentric kosmos, in which mankind found itself at the focus, was the only one of which we could be directly aware. To Aristotle, Plato and their followers, it was the only one possible, because more than one kosmoi didn't mesh logically with their other beliefs. The rival Greek school of atomism, however, disagreed. In this vision of nature, all things originated through the chance coming together of little bits of matter in endless combinations in an eternal, infinite void. Worlds and beings of every description were actually predicted, as Epicurus explained in his Letter to Herodotus, `[T]here are infinite worlds, both like and unlike this world of ours ... we must believe that in all worlds there are living creatures and plants and other things we see in this world.' Yet these `infinite worlds' with their livings things-these other kosmoi-weren't accessible in any way. Atomists didn't think of them as being somewhere that one might, even in principle, travel to, like the planets of other stars. Instead they were separate and self-contained universes, each with an inhabited Earth at its heart. More than a thousand years later, Aristotle's scheme became the cosmology of choice in Europe- approved by the Church of Rome and woven into medieval Christian teachings. A single inhabited world sat well with the doctrine of incarnation and redemption, but multiple Earths and multiple sentient races did not. For the inhabitants of these worlds to receive salvation, Jesus would have to be born and sacrificed on every one of them. Just as seriously, the atomist cosmos called into question the unique relationship between God and Man that, according to some interpretations, the Bible implied. As long as the Earth was the physical hub of creation, it was easy to believe it was unique. But when Copernicus began the transformation of our cosmic perspective by putting the Sun at the center of the solar system, suddenly our planet began to seem much less privileged. Five hundred years later, the full extent of our mediocrity has become startlingly clear. The Sun is just another star, one of many billions, within one of many billions of galaxies. And the Earth, it seems more and more evident, is one among a host of planets far outnumbering all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the world." (Darling D.J., "Life Everywhere: The Maverick Science of Astrobiology," Basic Books: New York NY, 2001, pp.92-94)
But as Gonzales and Richards note, the expectations of scientists like Kepler and Lowell, that the Moon and planets of our Solar System were inhabited (which sounds bizarre now), was a straight prediction of the Epicurean materialist `principle of mediocrity' (aka. the `Copernican principle):
"Sometime in the twentieth century, however, Einstein's cosmological principle came to be identified with a subtly different idea, the Copernican Principle, also known as the Principle of Mediocrity or Principle of Indifference. In its modest form, the Copernican Principle states that we should assume that there's nothing special or exceptional about the time or place of Earth in the cosmos. This assertion has a certain plausibility, since without any other information, it's reasonable to suppose that our location is a random sample of the universe as a whole. And there will obviously be more ordinary than extraordinary places to be. Besides, it need not be merely an assumption, since one can formulate it as a scientific hypothesis, make predictions, and compare those predictions with the evidence. It has a closely related but more expansive philosophical or metaphysical expression, however, which says, `We're not here for a purpose, and the cosmos isn't arranged with us in mind. Our metaphysical status is as insignificant as our astronomical location.' Metaphysically, this denial of purpose is usually accompanied by naturalism, the view that the (impersonal) material world is all there is and that it exists for no purpose. Although a minority opinion throughout most of Western history, this view has had adherents from the very beginning. In its early pre-Socratic form among Epicureans and others, it amounted to a conviction that the apparent order of the universe emerged from an infinite and eternal chaos, without purpose or design. Given enough time, space, and matter, these thinkers supposed, anything that can happen, will. ... Still, only in the modern age has such a denial of design and purpose in nature enjoyed official majority status among the cultural elite. ... What makes natural science admirable is that, at its best, it provides us with a way to publicly test what we believe against the natural world, while allowing us to overlook our individual motives and opinions. One way to do this is to consider the empirical consequences of our assumptions. What, for instance, would count against the Copernican Principle? .... It's fairly easy to imagine what observations would count against it: If human beings, Earth, or our immediate environment were highly unusual or unique in some important ways, then we would have reason to doubt it. If the cosmos seemed specially fitted for our existence, or the existence of life, then that would also count against it. Conversely, evidence that confirmed the mediocrity of our surroundings, or the cosmos itself, would count in its favor. ... Once considered, it's fairly easy to produce some general predictions of the Copernican Principle. In practice, these are usually unstated expectations rather than actual predictions. This has the effect of protecting them from critical scrutiny-all the more reason, then, to make them explicit. We all take some of its implicit predictions for granted. For instance, we think that the same laws of physics and chemistry govern both the heavens and the Earth. We're reasonable in concluding that nature's laws are uniform, so that the law of gravity doesn't differ on Earth and the Moon, or on Mondays. Moreover, there are lots of stars and galaxies, and we can expect that many of those stars will have planets circling them. In at least these ways, then, Earth is not unique. This is the firm legacy of the Copernican Revolution. If we stopped here, the Copernican Principle might appear to be well founded. But on closer examination, many of the important predictions turn out to be false or at least questionable. Here let's consider the Copernican Principle in its natural jurisdiction: astronomy. It manifests itself in cosmology, physics, and biology as well. But we'll hold those issues for the following chapters. Because astronomy considers objects as small as meteorites and individual planets, and as large as clusters of galaxies, the Copernican Principle has generated the most predictions in this field. Let's scrutinize the major ones in turn. Appropriately, we'll begin with one of the earliest: Prediction 1: Earth, while it has a number of life-permitting properties, isn't exceptionally suited for life in our Solar System. Other planets in the Solar System probably harbor life as well. This was one of the earliest expectations of modern astronomers. When only scant evidence was available, many respected scientists expected to find intelligent life on other planets in our Solar System. Kepler famously conjectured that the structures on the Moon were built by intelligent beings. More recently, Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910) described Martian `channels,' which to Percival Lowell (1855-1916) suggested the existence of a Martian civilization. Translating, or mistranslating, Schiaparelli's `channels' as `canals,' Lowell founded his own observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and dedicated his time to gathering evidence to support his belief. Lowell is important because of his influence and because he explicitly linked the idea of Martian life to his opposition to anthropocentrism, thus embodying the spirit of the Copernican Principle: `That we are the sum and substance of the capabilities of the cosmos is something so preposterous as to be exquisitely comic.... [Man] merely typifies in an imperfect way what is going on elsewhere, and what, to a mathematical certainty, is in some corners of the cosmos indefinitely excelled.' According to Carl Sagan, Lowell's enthusiasm `turned on all the eight- year-olds who came after him, and who eventually turned into the present generation of astronomers.'' But the Mariner, Viking, and Sojourner missions to Mars revealed a barren and inhospitable environment, and dampened enthusiasm for Martian civilizations. Yet the belief that Mars once harbored life lives on, most recently in the excited announcement of the discovery of microscopic magnetite crystals in the Martian meteorite ALH84001 and the discovery of vast water-ice fields under the Martian surface. Most now recognize that the other planets in the Solar System are not good candidates for life. ... however, the expectation that extraterrestrial life exists in our Solar System has not disappeared; it has shifted to a few outlying moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn, such as Europa, where liquid water may exist below the surface. Although we have no evidence for life of any sort in the outer reaches of the Solar System and virtually no one expects to find intelligent life there, speculations abound for the type of exotic creatures that may dwell in the deep, icy crevices of Europa. Much of this optimism ignores the myriad ways in which Earth is exceptionally well suited for the existence, and persistence, of life .... No other place in our Solar System comes close to providing the astronomical and geophysical properties that make Earth habitable. If anything, the other planets show how narrow the conditions for habitability are, even for planets in an inhabited Solar System. The basic pattern is worth repeating, because it's so often forgotten or ignored. From the seventeenth to the twentieth century, many expected to find intelligent, even superior life on the Moon, Mars, and other planets in the Solar System. This expectation required direct contrary evidence to suppress it. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, despite PR blitzes from Martian-life enthusiasts, the search has moved from the planets to a few obscure outlying moons. At the same time, the aspirations have been substantially downgraded. No one today expects to find advanced or intelligent life elsewhere in the Solar System. ET advocates now argue that finding the Europan equivalent of slime mold would be just as significant as finding intelligent Martians. Add to this pattern the evidence of ... some of the planets once said to diminish Earth's status now seem to be the guardians of her habitability. Finally, recall that these rare properties ... have been crucial in a diverse array of scientific discoveries here on Earth, from the nature of gravity to the internal structure of our planet revealed by seismic activity. Surely these facts about Earth's superiority both for living and observing should count as a sobering contradiction of the Copernican Principle." (Gonzalez G. & Richards J.W., "The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed For Discovery," Regnery: Washington DC, 2004, pp.248-253. Emphasis in original)
And moreover, a prediction that has had to retreat as science discovered: 1) how complex life is; 2) how difficult would be a naturalistic origin of life; 3) how fine-tuned is the Earth for life; and 4) how rare the Earth is. Yet despite the evidence running directly opposite to Epicurean materialist predictions, Darling reports that the materialist faith is undiminished, and "scientists the world over have reached a consensus" that "In all of this vast and ancient cosmos ... Almost beyond doubt, life exists elsewhere" (my emphasis):
"Something extraordinary has happened over the past decade. Without any fanfare, scientists the world over have reached a consensus on one of the most profound questions ever to challenge the human mind: Are we alone? In all of this vast and ancient cosmos, is life confined to Earth? No. Almost beyond doubt, life exists elsewhere. Probably, in microbial form at least, it is widespread. And more likely than not, we will find incontestable evidence of it quite soon-perhaps within the next ten to twenty years. These are the core elements of the remarkable new accord that is now routinely accepted by researchers across a spectrum of disciplines." (Darling D.J., "Life Everywhere: The Maverick Science of Astrobiology," Basic Books: New York NY, 2001, p.xi. Emphasis in original)
Simpson once criticised astrobiology (under its former name, "exobiology") as "this `science' has yet to demonstrate that its subject matter exists!":
"Our major space agency, NASA, has a `space bioscience' program. Biologists meeting under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences have agreed that their `first and ... foremost [task in space science] is the search for extraterrestrial life' (Hess et al., 1962). The existence of this movement is as familiar to the reader of the newspapers as to those of technical publications. There is even increasing recognition of a new science of extraterrestrial life, some times called exobiology-a curious development in view of the fact that this `science' has yet to demonstrate that its subject matter exists!" (Simpson G.G., "The Nonprevalence of Humanoids," in "This View of Life: The World of an Evolutionist," Harcourt, Brace & World: New York NY, 1964, pp.253-254. Emphasis in original).
Now the calculations of Rose and Trotman mentioned in his article make it clear that SETI is a waste of time. So unless astrobiology discovers evidence of life on Mars, that is so radically different that it could not have come from Earth (or vice-versa), which according to my holiday reading of Simon Conway Morris' "Life's Solutions" (2003) seems highly unlikely, then this aspect of the Epicurean materialist project at least, will remain a `science' (to use Simpson's quotes) sustained, as it has been for over 2,000 years, by materialist philosophy!]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol)
"Problems of Evolution"

Sunday, August 28, 2005

US goes ape over evolution

This editorial on ID appeared in last Saturday's The Weekend Australian. It mentions a number of articles about (mostly against) ID, which I had considered posting and commenting on, so this saves me time by its summarising of them. My comments are in square brackets.
THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN AUGUST 27-28 2005
24 EDITOR
CONTROVERSY

US goes ape over evolution

AFTER a century of seeing off the doubters, Darwinism is once again the subject of intense debate, this time by critics who say the world is too complex to be explained by a theory that says human beings are descended from apes. In the blue corner is evolution, while in the red corner crouches intelligent design, or neo-creo, as it is called by some opponents of the gathering push to have it taught in US schools alongside Charles Darwin's tried and tested theory, which dates back to his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.
[I wonder how many (if any) of these editors and journalists who pontificate on about "Charles Darwin's tried and tested theory ... [in] his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, have ever read it! It is indeed a "tried and tested theory," but found wanting! Here is what the eminent French zoologist Pierre Grassé wrote about Darwin's explanation of the eye:
"Our study will concentrate on the eye, the genesis of which is a major challenge to evolutionists. ... Charles Darwin ... recognized the weaknesses of his theory, which are increasingly apparent today. We are not surprised, then, to read in a letter to his friend the botanist Asa Gray: `To this day the eye makes me shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations, my reason tells me I ought to conquer my fear' (Darwin, 1888. p.273, letter to Asa Gray, February 1860). We fully understand Darwin's fears and wonder what they would have been, had he been confronted with the anatomical and cytological complexity that is revealed by modern biology; he would have been even more worried had he known that selection cannot create anything on its own. .... The problem is to know whether random mutations could have given rise to an organ requiring, because of its complexity, a considerable number of data for its elaboration. The number of mutations must have been enormous for adequate ones to occur at a given point, by chance and to enable the organ to function. we need not belabor the diversity of the transparent parts, on the relationships between the intraocular fluid (aqueous humor) and the venous system (Schlemm's canal), among others. The complexity of the retina, of the sheaths, etc., need not detain us either; all this is extremely well known, but we must say that no recent publication inspired by Darwinism even mentions it. In 1860 Darwin considered only the eye, but today he would have to take into consideration all the cerebral connections of the organ. The retina is indirectly connected to the striated zone of the occipital lobe of the cerebral hemispheres: Specialized neurons correspond to each one of its parts-perhaps even to each one of its photoreceptor cells. The connection between the fibers of the optic nerve and the neurons of the occipital lobe in the geniculate body is absolutely perfect. The processes of the axons the outgrowths of the dendrites, and the connections with corresponding elements are so precisely laid out in time and space that as a rule everything works perfectly. In fact, the picture we have just sketched is even more complex; we did not consider the molecular structure which shows as many peculiarities of adaptation as the macrostructure (the subtleties of which were sometimes mistaken for imperfections; see Ivanoff, 1953), and we have neglected entirely the chemistry of a complex organ capable of multiple adjustments." (Grasse P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, pp.104-105. My elipses)
The fact is that neither Darwin, nor his followers, have ever provided a detailed explanation of its origin of the eye, or in fact any "organ of extreme perfection and complication" (to use Darwin's own words) by the natural selection of random (unguided) mutations.]
Eighty years after the Scopes "monkey" trial in Tennessee left creationism with a bloody nose, the debate over evolution and its place in the classroom - traditionally a no-go zone for religion - gained new impetus recently when President George W. Bush said that "both sides ought to be properly taught ... so people can understand what the debate is about". The tremendous kicking Mr Bush received in the US media gave George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian, hope that "all is not lost in America". [The reference to "the Scopes `monkey'" is apt, because both it and "The tremendous kicking Mr Bush received in the US media" were contrived by the same evolutionist "US media." But for ID, the old newspaper adage, "any publicity is good publicity," applies. The more the media mentions ID (even if it be by way of ridicule and attack), the more the public will want ID taught! BTW, the editor did not mention the title of Monbiot's article in The Guardian, "A life with no purpose: Darwinism implies that the only eternal life we have is in the recycling of our atoms. I find that comforting." An example of Alfred North Whitehead's "interesting subject for study," namely a "Scientist... animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless":
"Yet the trained body of physiologists under the influence of the ideas germane to their successful methodology entirely ignore the whole mass of adverse evidence. We have here a colossal example of anti-empirical dogmatism arising from a successful methodology. Evidence which lies outside the method simply does not count. We are, of course, reminded that the neglect of this evidence arises from the fact that it lies outside the scope of the methodology of the science. That method consists in tracing the persistence of the physical and chemical principles throughout physiological operations. The brilliant success of this method is admitted. But you cannot limit a problem by reason of a method of attack. The problem is to understand the operations of an animal body. There is clear evidence that certain operations of certain animal bodies depend upon the foresight of an end and the purpose to attain it. It is no solution of the problem to ignore this evidence because other operations have been explained in terms of physical and chemical laws. The existence of a problem is not even acknowledged. It is vehemently denied. Many a scientist has patiently designed experiments for the purpose of substantiating his belief that animal operations are motivated by no purposes. He has perhaps spent his spare time in writing articles to prove that human beings are as other animals so that `purpose' is a category irrelevant for the explanation of their bodily activities, his own activities included. Scientists animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." (Whitehead A.N., "The Function of Reason," Louis Clark Vanuxem Foundation Lectures, Princeton University, March 1929, p.16).]
"The Christian Taliban have not yet won," he wrote. "But they are gaining on us." [It is significant that Monbiot and his ilk use the term "Christian Taliban" of ID. That indicates their resistance to ID is not primarily scientific, but moral, i.e. they fear that if the public came to accept ID, then they might also be more likely to accept Christian purposefull moral values and reject Monbiot et al.'s non-Christian purposeless moral values. This confirms Ben Wiker's point that "every distinct view of the universe entails a view of morality, and every distinct view of morality needs a cosmology to support it":
"Could it be that much of the impetus keeping materialism as the reigning view of science today is, as it was with Epicurus, moral in origin, both in the broader and in the more confined sense? I believe, in many cases, that it is. To be blunt, materialists often suppress (or simply dismiss) evidence of intelligent design because, consciously or unconsciously, they realize that the Epicurean moral world they comfortably inhabit (for it was Epicurus's goal to make the world comfortable) would be completely undermined if materialist cosmology were overthrown by intelligent design. In this materialists rightly embrace that most fundamental law mentioned in the introduction, that every distinct view of the universe entails a view of morality, and every distinct view of morality needs a cosmology to support it. Many materialists therefore rightly fear the intelligent design revolution because they realize that a moral revolution necessarily follows upon it. If an intelligent designer exists, then a divinely mandated moral code for which we are accountable might exist. If an intelligent designer is not part of nature, and hence is not material, then he could have created other immaterial entities such as the immortal and immaterial soul. If the immortal soul exists and God exists, and he mandates a moral code, then heaven and hell might exist. If heaven and hell exist and God exists, then we might, be held accountable for actions that are mandated or prohibited. All of this is quite disturbing, and materialists rightly fear it. Those who wish to be freed from it realize that materialism remains the therapeutic cure." (Wiker B.D., "Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 2002, pp.56-57)
And this further use of the ad hominem fallacy will backfire on the evolutionists, as the public increasingly realize that the ID movement is simply proposing a scientific theory that there is empirical evidence for design in nature:
"Design theory-also called design or the design argument-is the view that nature shows tangible signs of having been designed by a preexisting intelligence. It has been around, in one form or another, since the time of ancient Greece. The most famous version of the design argument can be found in the work of theologian William Paley, who in 1802 proposed his "watchmaker" thesis ... Paley argued that we can draw the same conclusion about many natural objects, such as the eye. Just as a watch’s parts are all perfectly adapted for the purpose of telling time, the parts of an eye are all perfectly adapted for the purpose of seeing. In each case, Paley argued, we discern the marks of an intelligent designer. Although Paley’s basic notion was sound, and influenced thinkers for decades, Paley never provided a rigorous standard for detecting design in nature. Detecting design depended on such vague standards as being able to discern an object’s "purpose." Moreover, Paley and other "natural theologians" tried to reason from the facts of nature to the existence of a wise and benevolent God. All of these things made design an easy target for Charles Darwin when he proposed his theory of evolution. Whereas Paley saw a finely-balanced world attesting to a kind and just God, Darwin pointed to nature’s imperfections and brutishness. ... Following the triumph of Darwin’s theory, design theory was all but banished from biology. Since the 1980s, however, advances in biology have convinced a new generation of scholars that Darwin’s theory was inadequate to account for the sheer complexity of living things. These scholars-chemists, biologists, mathematicians and philosophers of science—began to reconsider design theory. They formulated a new view of design that avoids the pitfalls of previous versions. Called intelligent design (ID), to distinguish it from earlier versions of design theory (as well as from the naturalistic use of the term design), this new approach is more modest than its predecessors. Rather than trying to infer God’s existence or character from the natural world, it simply claims `that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable' [Dembski W.A., "Intelligent Design," InterVarsity: Downer’s Grove IL, 1999, p.106]." (Hartwig M., "What is Intelligent Design?," Frequently Asked Questions about Intelligent Design, Access Research Network, 2003. My ellipses)
Again, evolutionists' routine use of "dishonorable methods" in support of evolution will indicate to increasing numbers of the public that evolutionists are "afraid to encounter the best arguments against their theory":
"In the final analysis, it is not any specific scientific evidence that convinces me that Darwinism is a pseudoscience that will collapse once it becomes possible for critics to get a fair hearing. It is the way the Darwinists argue their case that makes it apparent that they are afraid to encounter the best arguments against their theory. A real science does not employ propaganda and legal barriers to prevent relevant questions from being asked, nor does it rely on enforcing rules of reasoning that allow no alternative to the official story. If the Darwinists had a good case to make, they would welcome the critics to an academic forum for open debate, and they would want to confront the best critical arguments rather than to caricature them as straw men. Instead they have chosen to rely on the dishonorable methods of power politics." (Johnson P.E., "The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism," Intervarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 2000, p.141)]
In Newsweek, Jonathan Alter wrote that the "most clever thing about intelligent design is that it doesn't sound like nonsense". However, intelligent design, which has been described as creationism in a cheap tuxedo, had "failed the market test". [Again, the public will increasingly realize that those who keep describing "intelligent design ... as creationism" (when one of ID's leaders Bill Dembski, has stated that , "intelligent design is compatible with ... the most far-ranging evolution"; and another, Mike Behe, accepts "common descent" and believes that "evolution occurred, but was guided by God)":
"Where does intelligent design fit within the creation-evolution debate? Logically, intelligent design is compatible with everything from utterly discontinuous creation (e.g., God intervening at every conceivable point to create new species) to the most far-ranging evolution (e.g., God seamlessly melding all organisms together into one great tree of life). For intelligent design the primary question is not how organisms came to be (though, as we've just seen, this is a vital question for intelligent design) but whether organisms demonstrate clear, empirically detectable marks of being intelligently caused. In principle an evolutionary process can exhibit such `marks of intelligence' as much as any act of special creation." (Dembski W.A., "Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 1999, pp.109-110)
"[Eugenie] Scott refers to me as an intelligent design `creationist,' even though I clearly write in my book `Darwin's Black Box' (which Scott cites) that I am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent. In fact, my own views fit quite comfortably with the 40% of scientists that Scott acknowledges think `evolution occurred, but was guided by God.' Where I and others run afoul of Scott and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is simply in arguing that intelligent design in biology is not invisible, it is empirically detectable. The biological literature is replete with statements like David DeRosier's in the journal `Cell': `More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human' [DeRosier D.J., Cell, Vol. 93, 1998, p.17]. Exactly why is it a thought- crime to make the case that such observations may be on to something objectively correct?" (Behe M.J., "Intelligent Design Is Not Creationism," Science, dEbate, 7 July 2000)
have failed the credibility test!]
"So now its backers are seeking the equivalent of a government bailout, by going around their scientific peers to Red State politicians trying to slip religious dogma into the classroom," Alter wrote. [This is just fantasy built on fantasy. As the transcript shows, President Bush was just answering a reporter's questions, with what has been his position when he was the Governor of Texas. But I personally consider that if history is any guide, it likely that if these "scientific peers", whose personal philosophy is 90-95% atheist/agnostic:
"The 1998 NAS members perhaps provide a more immaculate sample of the elite than Leuba's starred entries did. Congress created the National Academy of Sciences in 1863, and after naming its first members Congress empowered them and their successors to choose all later members. Its current membership of 1,800 remains the closest thing to peerage in American science. And their responses validate Leuba's prediction of the beliefs of topflight scientists generations from his time. Disbelief among NAS members responding to our survey exceeded 90 percent. The increase may simply reflect that they are more elite than Leuba's `greater' scientists, but this interpretation would also please Leuba. NAS biologists are the most skeptical, with 95 percent of our respondents evincing atheism and agnosticism." (Larson E.J. & Witham L., "Scientists and Religion in America," Scientific American, Vol. 281, No. 3, September 1999, pp.78-83, p.80)
continue to deny that ID is even science, then they risk science eventually splitting into anti-ID and pro-ID streams.]
Not every US media outlet had closed its mind to ID, which has its origins in the biblical book of Genesis. Writing for AgapePress, which offers news from a Christian perspective, Jim Brown quoted a Dr Thomas Sharp, who claimed to have identified a "great shift taking place from Darwinism to intelligent design". [Again, claims like "ID ... has its origins in the biblical book of Genesis", will increasingly discredit as either ignorant or dishonest those who make them as the public increasingly becomes aware that ID is a scientific theory based on the evidence of nature, not on the Bible. Significantly, this editor of The Weekend Australian, fails to spoil a good story by mentioning that in his article this Jim Brown pointed out that "Dr Thomas Sharp" is a "young-Earth creationist" and from this perspective, not "all intelligent design theorists are ... biblical" (putting it how he presumably meant it) and that "Sharp is at odds with intelligent design theorists who believe the Earth is millions of years old":
"The debate over evolution vs. intelligent design is as hot as it has ever been, and one creation scientist believes now is the perfect time for Christians to enlighten the culture about their belief in God's creative work recorded in the Book of Genesis. Dr. Thomas Sharp, founder of both the Oklahoma-based Creation Truth Foundation and the Arkansas-based Museum of Earth History, cautions that all intelligent design theorists are not biblical. "The biblical view is that we don't hesitate to identify who the intelligence is," he explains. "[But] the unfortunate problem with  intelligent design across the board is that it's not all biblical." Still, intelligent design provides an "incredible support base for the biblical view," he explains, "because obviously the wisdom and super-intelligence of the Almighty God was the logos, or the concept, behind the creation of life and everything in the universe." Sharp contends that if Christians in America are able to "step up" and answer the questions about the hope that is within them, a spiritual awakening could occur in the United States. "We have the possibility in the near future, if the church in America can prepare herself and will engage the culture with biblical reality, that we can have an awakening in this country," he asserts, "because we're seeing a transition in worldview at the academic level. There's a great shift taking place from Darwinism to intelligent design." A young Earth creationist, Sharp is at odds with intelligent design theorists who believe the Earth is millions of years old. Despite that, he says intelligent design is a prediction from the biblical creation model that life, universe, and man are products of intelligent design." (Brown J., "Intelligent Design Proponent Optimistic About Current Worldview Shift," AgapePress, August 23, 2005)]
Across the border in Canada, Margaret Wente wrote in The Globe and Mail that intelligent design was proof that Canadians were "more intellectually sophisticated" than those "credulous Americans". [This sort of elitist arrogance will also backfire with the public.]
In his BBC column, Harold Evans predicted more epithets would fly because Mr Bush's "apparently innocuous few words are seen as another shot in the culture wars in America, where the frontier between religion and politics is jealously contended". [They weren't "apparently innocuous few words", they were "innocuous few words" by President Bush, as the BBC article says, it was just "an off-the-cuff response to a reporter". The BBC also is "Acting like a person who hits a car and then strolls up to the accident scene in the guise of an innocent bystander ... report[ing] all of this as a controversy about which it has no opinion -- and had no role in stoking" when "An honest headline on the story would read: "Press Baits Bush on Intelligent Design, Then Fuels Debate over his Response" (Neumayr G., "Darwin's Compost," The American Thinker, August 4, 2005)!]
Evans was not alone in noting that science generally was "in trouble with the Bush administration". [A "science" establishment that is a major combatant in "in the culture wars in America", and was so long before George W. Bush became President, on the opposite side of politics from that of the "Red State" majority, should not be surprised that it finds itself "in trouble with the Bush administration."]
In The New York Times, William Safire noted that it was the gathering of scientists who saw a designing intelligence behind DNA in a cell and the traditional creationists under one banner in the 1990s that had the "Darwinist scientific establishment going ape".
Citing the words of a respected neuroscientist, Safire advised the "red-faced disputants" to lighten up and have fun in the classroom discussing the evidence. [A "science" establishment that has chosen to be a major combatant in "in the culture wars in America", and was so long before George W. Bush became President, on the opposite side of politics from that of the "Red State" majority, should not be surprised that it finds itself "in trouble with the Bush administration." The question is, what is the "science" establishment going to do about it? If it follows its current policy of attacking and ridiculing the President and directly and indirectly those who voted for him (who after all formed the majority), then it is headed for disaster!]
Los Angeles Times columnist Dana Parsons had no problem with intelligent design being mentioned in the classroom alongside evolution, writing: "It's hard enough contemplating hundreds of millions of years having gone by, let alone grasping the historical link between a sea slug and Bill Gates." [This is a refreshingly modest article by Parsons. He admits that he "was a C student in science" (I assume that is the rule, rather than the exception among journalists) and that he is "not the one to explain the ins and outs of intelligent design versus evolution" but is "just a planetary resident wondering: How the heck did we get here?" Parson quite frankly acknowledges he has "no idea how, or if, ID could be taught in a science classroom", but he doesn't "see why high school teachers discussing evolution couldn't make it clear to students that not everyone buys into it" and nor would he "blanch if they outlined the arguments of intelligent design supporters." After all, "That is not the same as "teaching" it or giving it scientific credence." Parson's concludes with, "It's not my fault evolution is so hard to grasp"!]
In The Independent, humourist Miles Kington wondered about the "possibility of the world being created intelligently". He consulted a "cosmologist", who said: "If I were an intelligent designer, and I'd made the universe, I wouldn't mention it on my CV." [I could not find this "cosmologist", "Professor Barby Rank" on the Web, and nor could I find the full article for free (I was prepared to buy it but The Independent wanted to know far too much personal information before they would accept my credit card). But in that part of the article which was free, this Prof. Rank contradicted himself by conceding that, "the universe is so impressive to us humans that [it suggests that] someone much brighter than us must have created it. But it doesn't take much to be superhuman. Always remember that humans are very stupid and easily impressed"! Maybe in the full article Prof. Rank supplied his blueprint for an even more "impressive" and "superhuman" "universe" that he would mention on his CV! But then if we "humans are very stupid and easily impressed", how would anyone know if Prof. Rank's universe was better designed?]
However, The New Republic has taken the debate seriously, turning over the cover of its latest edition to the case against intelligent design in an article subtitled The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name. The author, University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne, argued that intelligent design ultimately rested on the doctrines of fundamentalist Christianity, so its teaching in schools would be unconstitutional. "What we need in the schools is not less teaching of evolution but more," he wrote. Many Americans might still find the "creationist alternative psychologically more comfortable. But emotion should be distinguished from thought." [In this article which is too long to summarise here, Coyne repeatedly commits "the genetic fallacy ... a logical fallacy in which the origin of a belief, claim, or theory is confused with its justification," e.g. "You only believe in God because your parents taught you to. So your belief must be false ... This is a fallacy because the origin of the claim has no logical relation to its truth or falsity." For example:
"fundamentalist creationism has undergone its own evolution, taking on newer forms after absorbing repeated blows from the courts. "Intelligent design," as I will show, is merely the latest incarnation of the biblical creationism espoused by William Jennings Bryan in Dayton" and "But the creationists did not despair. They are animated, after all, by faith. And they are very resourceful. They came up with intelligent design. ... Intelligent design, or ID, is the latest pseudoscientific incarnation of religious creationism, cleverly crafted by a new group of enthusiasts to circumvent recent legal restrictions."
But even if that were true (which it isn't-the founders of the ID movement were not involved in the "repeated blows from the courts" resulting from attempts to teach "scientific creationism"), it is irrelevant. If "scientific creationism" is false and what's more has been ruled by "the courts" to contravene the doctrine of the separation of Church and State because it is based on the Bible, that does not mean the same applies to Intelligent Design, which may be true and is based on the evidence of nature.
Coyne admits that "these people [do] really believe in intelligent design ... They are not lying for their cause .... In fact, they view evolutionists as the duplicitous ones." Maybe that is because of evolutionists' use of fallacious arguments in support of evolution, like Coyne's use of the genetic fallacy above and his repeated use of the ad hominem fallacy against ID leader Jonathan Wells: "And here is Jonathan Wells, a member of Reverend Moon's Unification Church". Coyne does not seem to realize that Wells being a Moonie actually refutes his claim that ID is merely Christian "biblical creationism." Another reason why IDists might think that evolutionists like Coyne are "the duplicitous ones" is Coyne's spirited defence of "modern evolutionary theory (often called "neo- Darwinism" to take into account post-Darwinian modifications)," in this very New Republic article, when in 1992 Coyne co-authored a paper that found, "there is little evidence for the neo-Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak:"
"We conclude-unexpectedly-that there is little evidence for the neo- Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence supporting it are weak, and there is no doubt that mutations of large effect are sometimes important in adaptation." (Orr H.A., & Coyne J.A., "The Genetics of Adaptation: A Reassessment," The American Naturalist, Vol. 140, No. 5, November 1992, p.726).]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol)
"Problems of Evolution"

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Bones reveal first shoe-wearers, etc

Here are news excerpts (or rather one), with my comments in square brackets:
Bones reveal first shoe-wearers, Olivia Johnson, BBC, 24 August 2005. BBC News Sturdy shoes first came into widespread use between 40,000 and 26,000 years ago, according to a US scientist. Humans' small toes became weaker during this time, says physical anthropologist Erik Trinkaus, who has studied scores of early human foot bones. He attributes this anatomical change to the invention of rugged shoes, that reduced our need for strong, flexible toes to grip and balance. The research is presented in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The development of footwear appears to have affected the four so-called "lesser" toes - excepting the big toe. … While early humans living in cold northern climates may have begun covering up their feet to insulate them as early as 500,000 years ago, protective footwear comparable to modern-day shoes is thought to be a much later innovation. It has been difficult for archaeologists to determine exactly when humans stopped going barefoot, however, because the plant and animal materials used to make prehistoric shoes is highly perishable. ... But by examining the foot bones of early modern humans (Homo sapiens) and Neaderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) dating from 10,000 to 100,000 years ago, Professer Trinkaus says he has determined the period in which footwear became the norm. … He found Neanderthals and early moderns living in Middle Palaeolithic times (100,000 to 40,000 years ago) had thicker, and therefore stronger, lesser toes than those of Upper Palaeolithic people living 26,000 years ago. A shoe-less lifestyle promotes stronger little toes, says Professor Trinkaus, because "when you walk barefoot, you grip the ground with your toes as a natural reflex". Because hard-soled shoes improve both grip and balance, regularly shod people develop weaker little toes … The advent of footwear occurred during a period Professor Trinkaus describes as "a well-documented archaeological explosion" which also produced a number of other notable human advances. Paul Mellars … agrees there were "dramatic changes" in human behaviour at this time. "From 35,000 years ago onward, you see the first art, the first stone tools, and the first personal decorations and jewellery." More advanced shoe-making skills could have been a product of this overall increase in technological ingenuity. "There is a strong hint that people were doing more complicated things with ...skins, with special stone tools for cleaning and awls for piercing. "In view of all these changes, it wouldn't be at all surprising if we saw better shoes," … [See also: Prehistoric Sturdy Shoe Fad Discovered, Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, August 19, 2005 & Early Humans Wore 'Shoes' 30,000 Years Ago, ScienceDaily, August 17, 2005. I was wondering what the Darwinian explanation for this "explosion", beginning "From 35,000 years ago onward … [of] the first art … the first personal decorations and jewellery… [and] overall increase in technological ingenuity", when I remembered that Dawkins had committed the fatal mistake of in his latest book, "The Ancestor's Tale" (2004) of covering from the present backwards, all the major transitions in the history of life, from molecules to man. So here is Dawkins' non-Darwinian explanation of this "Great Leap Forward":
"That is all I want to say about the origins of agriculture. Now, as our time machine leaves the 10,000-year mark and heads for Rendezvous 0, we briefly pause, one more time, around 40,000 years ago. Here human society, entirely consisting of hunter-gatherers, underwent what may have been an even larger revolution than the agricultural one, the `cultural Great Leap Forward'. The tale of the Great Leap Forward will be told by Cro-Magnon Man ... ARCHAEOLOGY SUGGESTS that something very special began to happen to our species around 40,000 years ago. Anatomically, our ancestors who lived before this watershed date were the same as those who came later. … Something happened then - many archaeologists regard it as sudden enough to be called an `event'. I like Jared Diamond's name for it, the Great Leap Forward. Earlier than the Great Leap Forward, man-made artefacts had hardly changed for a million years. The ones that survive for us are almost entirely stone tools and weapons, quite crudely shaped. Doubtless wood (or, in Asia, bamboo) was a more frequently worked material, but wooden relics don't easily survive. As far as we can tell, there were no paintings, no carvings, no figurines, no grave goods, no ornamentation. After the Leap, all these things suddenly appear in the archaeological record, together with musical instruments such as bone flutes, and it wasn't long before stunning creations like the Lascaux Cave murals were created by Cro-Magnon people. A disinterested observer taking the long view from another planet might see our modern culture, with its computers, supersonic planes and space exploration, as an afterthought to the Great Leap Forward. On the very long geological timescale, all our modern achievements, from the Sistine Chapel to Special Relativity, from the Goldberg Variations to the Goldbach Conjecture, could be seen as almost contemporaneous with the Venus of Willendorf and the Lascaux Caves, all part of the same cultural revolution, all part of the blooming cultural upsurge that succeeded the long Lower Palaeolithic stagnation. ... Some authorities are so impressed by the Great Leap Forward that they think it coincided with the origin of language. What else, they ask, could account for such a sudden change? It is not as silly as it sounds to suggest that language arose suddenly. Nobody thinks writing goes back more than a few thousand years, and everyone agrees that brain anatomy didn't change to coincide with anything so recent as the invention of writing. In theory, speech could be another example of the same thing. … Much as I would like to linger around the heady time of the Great Leap Forward, we have a long pilgrimage to accomplish and we must press on backwards." (Dawkins R., "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 2004, pp.34-36).
So again, Dawkins has (like Darwin did), effectively abandoned "slow, gradual, cumulative natural selection", which he once claimed was "the very heart of the evolution theory":
"To 'tame' chance means to break down the very improbable into less improbable small components arranged in series. No matter how improbable it is that an X could have arisen from a Y in a single step, it is always possible to conceive of a series of infinitesimally graded intermediates between them. However improbable a large-scale change may be, smaller changes are less improbable. And provided we postulate a sufficiently large series of sufficiently finely graded intermediates, we shall be able to derive anything from anything else, without invoking astronomical improbabilities. We are allowed to do this only if there has been sufficient time to fit all the intermediates in. And also only if there is a mechanism for guiding each step in some particular direction, otherwise the sequence of steps will career off in an endless random walk. It is the contention of the Darwinian world-view that both these provisos are met, and that slow, gradual, cumulative natural selection is the ultimate explanation for our existence. If there are versions of the evolution theory that deny slow gradualism, and deny the central role of natural selection, they may be true in particular cases. But they cannot be the whole truth, for they deny the very heart of the evolution theory, which gives it the power to dissolve astronomical improbabilities and explain prodigies of apparent miracle." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, pp.317-318).]
As previously mentioned, my wife and I will be away on our annual Spring wildflower self-drive tour through Western Australia's Midwest region (one of the world's plant biodiversity `hotspots') from this Friday 26 to Sunday 28 August (Perth time - GMT +8:00).

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol)
"Problems of Evolution"

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Oil bubbles preserve ancient algae, etc

More news excerpts, with my comments in square brackets:
Oil bubbles preserve ancient algae, Anna Salleh, ABC. The remains of billion-year-old bacteria and algae have been found sealed in a time capsule of oil trapped inside quartz crystals in northern Australia, researchers report. Herbert Volk at CSIRO Petroleum in Sydney showcased his team's research at the annual Fresh Science forum during Australia's National Science Week. "The fact that we found evidence of algal organic matter is remarkable because algae have no hard body parts and they are hardly ever preserved in the fossil record," said Dr Volk, an organic geochemist. "I think the exciting thing about our new approach is that we can be sure that it is this age," he said, pointing to a debate over previous reports of such ancient bacteria and algae. Scientists want to understand the microscopic algae and bacteria that inhabited the early earth because they are an important stage in the evolution of more complex life forms. But fossils from the time are rare and poorly preserved so some scientists have turned to studying remnants of ancient micro-organisms found in oil deposits .... The remnants are hydrocarbon skeletons of fatty acids or other fatty compounds from the organisms' cell walls. Scientists know the hydrocarbons come from ancient organisms because of the age of the rocks around them and because the chemicals are similar in structure to those found in living organisms today. But getting an exact date on the remnants of ancient bacteria and algae is hard and previous has been criticised for not ruling out contamination, Dr Volk says. Hydrocarbons may come from higher up in the earth's surface, representing younger organisms, he says .... But now Dr Volk and a team of researchers have found 'time capsules' filled with hydrocarbons that can be guaranteed to be as ancient as the rocks they are in. … The researchers found tiny bubbles of oil trapped in 1.2 billion year-old grains of quartz sandstone and volcanic rock in the Roper Basin of Australia's Northern Territory. They found Precambrian hydrocarbons such as hopanes in the oil bubbles indicating the presence of the single-celled photosynthetic cyanobacteria, believed to be responsible for increasing oxygen levels in the atmosphere. They also found steranes that indicate the presence of algae. …. Because the bubbles were trapped inside the rock crystals itself, this guarantees the hydrocarbons came from organisms that are at least a billion years old, Dr Volk says. ... [Presumably the oil can get into the quartz crystals (e.g. as the crystal grows), but cannot get out again? If so, this would be important confirmation that photosynthetic cyanobacteria, and even algae, existed at least 1.2 bya (and probably a lot older, given that this was oil).]
Georgians Claim to Unearth Ancient Skull, Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili ABC/AP, August 23, 2005 - Archaeologists in the former Soviet republic of Georgia have unearthed a skull they say is 1.8 million years old -- part of a find that holds the oldest traces of humankind's closest ancestors ever found in Europe. The skull from an early member of the genus Homo was found Aug. 6 and unearthed Sunday in Dmanisi, an area about 60 miles southeast of the capital, Tbilisi, said David Lortkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum, who took part in the dig. In total, five bones or fragments believed to be about the same age have been found in the area, including a jawbone discovered in 1991 …. "Practically all the remains have been found in one place. This indicates that we have found a place of settlement of primitive people," he said of the spot, where archaeologists have been working since 1939. Researchers said the findings in Georgia were about 1 million years older than any widely accepted pre-human remains in Western Europe and were the oldest found outside Africa. The discoveries have provided additional evidence that human ancestors left Africa a half-million years or more earlier than scientists had previously thought. A well-preserved skull from the Dmanisi site would be "very important" in helping to track the development and migration of human ancestors, said Brian Richmond ... Study of the skull could help scientists understand "what it is about these individuals that allowed them to move outside of Africa" how their bodies and tool-use advanced to enable them to move more freely, Richmond said. It could also help determine the species of the remains at the site, Homo erectus or Homo habilis, he said. Million-year-old fossils of hominids … have been found in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, but not in Western Europe. ... Previously, Lortkipanidze's discoveries of bone fragments contradicted a theory among anthropologists that the primitive humans who left Africa were big, well-armed and smart. The human-like specimens that Lortkipanidze found were smaller and slender with a smaller brain, but still capable of making stone tools. .... Researchers also have found a wealth of animal remains from the same period, including elephants, gazelles, rhinos, sabre-toothed cats, giraffes, bears, ostriches, wolves and rodents. … [See also: Pre-human skull found in Georgian republic, MSNBC, August 22, 2005 & Scientists Find 1.8-million-year-old Homo Erectus Skull, Livescience, 22 August 2005. More evidence that the earliest modern humans originated where the Bible indicates they did, near the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the Near East, not in Africa. This site is only about ~300 kilometres (~200 miles) from there. My position is that Genesis is not scientific enough to be a science textbook, but not unscientific enough to just be the work of unaided ancient man. I agree with Pearce, "The Bible may not have been written with the object of teaching science, nevertheless, the Bible is not unscientific, for hidden within its story is a Creator's knowledge":
"To say that a work is not a textbook on science is different from declaring that a book is scientifically inaccurate, yet that is often implied by similar statements. A person could write a book on a nonscientific subject and yet give evidence of a background knowledge of science. For instance, there are on sale two children's books of animals; both are attractively produced. One appears to present the animals at random without scheme or order. The other indicated a knowledge of zoological taxonomy and the order of appearance of life on earth. The order in which the animals are presented in the latter would not convey this to the child enjoying her animals, but if she grew up to read zoology and happened to come across her childhood book she would recognize that the author had a greater depth of knowledge than was overtly apparent. He had been able to meet the simple pleasure of childhood and yet satisfy the sophistication of maturity. Likewise, the Bible story of creation is presented for man's childhood in picturesque portrayal of the goodness of God in His Creation and purpose in man. But now that mankind has reached maturity in knowledge and science, an informed person can detect that in the story of Creation, the Creator's knowledge is endemic; the order of geophysics and biology is correct, though expressed in general and picturesque terms. ... The Bible may not have been written with the object of teaching science, nevertheless, the Bible is not unscientific, for hidden within its story is a Creator's knowledge." (Pearce E.K.V., "Who Was Adam?," Paternoster: Exeter UK, 1969, pp.17-18).]
Smallest, oldest, fastest, dumbest dinosaur stories, Stephen Strauss, CBC, August 8, 2005. There they were – little would-be dinosaurs. Fat heads, chubby forearms, all encased in a goose-size egg, seemingly waiting 190 million years until they could qualify for some unique place in humans' world. We're talking about the world's "oldest" dinosaur embryos, whose supposed toothless mouths might, according to a University of Toronto scientist Robert Reisz, also qualify them as the world's "oldest" example of parental care. A couple of weeks ago the embryos were everywhere you looked after an article about the unborn animals was published in the journal Science. While I am deeply skeptical of trying to infer too much about behaviour from fossilized skeletal remains - oh, look, we can tell from the paunch and small brains that we're looking at the overeatssnackfoodswhilewatchingtelevisionosaurus - I was impressed with how much the story validated the "est" theory of science reporting. The est theory states that for something scientific to matter to the general public, it has to be the biggest, smallest, fastest, heaviest, lightest etc., etc. ever. … The truth is that science almost never values a single data point. You can't tell what things mean unless you have masses of them to compare with each other. What you want with dinosaurs is not some weird outliers, not some oldest, youngest, biggest, fastest freaks, but numerous representatives of the same group. If you have a collective you can actually begin to make some sensible arguments that may change the way that everyone - even supposedly est-obsessed readers - view of the long-dead thunder lizards. But what you get with dinosaurs are scattered, completely illogically preserved, often incomplete, hard to interpret piles of calcified bones. What you get are remains that seem designed by nature to provide the least possible scientific view of the dinosaur past. And when you're able to make sense of it, the field is so murky nobody seems to be able to agree on what you found. ... [A salutary reminder that science these days is highly competitive, with scientists' career depending on their being published and that in turn depending on whether it is an important, new addition to scientific knowledge. Hence it must be distinguished as a something-est!]
My wife and I will be away on our annual Spring wildflower self-drive tour in Western Australia's Midwest region (one of the world's plant biodiversity `hotspots') from this Friday 26 to Sunday 28 August.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol)
"Problems of Evolution"

Frist voices support for `intelligent design'

Here are news items with my comments in square brackets:
Frist voices support for `intelligent design', MSNBC/AP, Aug. 19, 2005 NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Echoing similar comments from President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said "intelligent design" should be taught in public schools alongside evolution. Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, spoke to a Rotary Club meeting Friday and told reporters afterward that students need to be exposed to different ideas, including intelligent design. "I think today a pluralistic society should have access to a broad range of fact, of science, including faith," Frist said. Frist, a doctor who graduated from Harvard Medical School, said exposing children to both evolution and intelligent design "doesn't force any particular theory on anyone. I think in a pluralistic society that is the fairest way to go about education and training people for the future."... The theory of intelligent design says life on earth is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation. Nearly all scientists dismiss it as a scientific theory, and critics say it's nothing more than religion masquerading as science. Bush recently told a group of Texas reporters that intelligent design and evolution should both be taught in schools "so people can understand what the debate is about." That comment sparked criticism from opponents, including Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, who called Bush "anti-science." Frist, who is considering a presidential campaign in 2008, recently angered some conservatives by bucking Bush policy on embryonic stem cell research, voicing his support for expanded research on the subject. Frist said his decision to endorse stem cell research was "a matter of science," but he said there was no conflict between his position on stem cell research and his position on intelligent design. ... Frist Urges 2 Teachings on Life Origin, David Stout, The New York Times, August 20, 2005. WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 - Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader, aligned himself with President Bush on Friday when he said that the theory of intelligent design as well as evolution should be taught in public schools ... A Washington spokesman for the senator, Nick Smith, said later that the report was accurate. The theory of intelligent design holds that life is too complicated to have developed through evolution and that a higher power must be involved. Critics say intelligent design theorists are trying to supplant science with religious beliefs. ... [This is getting a bit stale. I wonder how true it is that "Nearly all scientists dismiss it [ID] as a scientific theory"? But anyway, it is irrelevant how many scientists admitthat ID is a scientific theory. If they seek to falsify ID, then they are showing by their actions that they accept that ID is a scientific theory.]
Ocean bug has 'smallest genome', Roland Pease, BBC, 19 August 2005. … Small but perfectly formed, Pelagibacter ubique is a lean machine stripped down to the bare essentials for life. Humans have around 30,000 genes that determine everything from our eye colour to our sex but Pelagibacter has just 1,354, US biologists report in the journal Science. What is more, Pelagibacter has none of the genetic clutter that most genomes have accumulated over time. There are no duplicate gene copies, no viral genes, and no junk DNA. ... The spareness of its genome is related to its frugal lifestyle. The shorter the length of DNA that needs to be copied each generation, the less work there is to do. Pelagibacter has even gone one step further. It has chosen where possible to use genetic letters - or base pairs - which use less nitrogen in their construction: nitrogen is a difficult nutrient for living things to obtain. The result is one of the most successful organisms on the planet. Pelagibacter feeds off dead organic matter that is dissolved in ocean water - lead researcher Stephen Giovannoni of Oregon State University likens it to a very thin chicken soup. The dissolved carbon is always there, so there is no need to build in special metabolic circuits to adjust between periods of feast and famine. Indeed, in laboratory studies, the Oregon biologists have found that adding nutrients to the broth has no effect on the microbe's vigour. … The sheer abundance of Pelagibacter - there are an estimated 20 billion billion billion Pelagibacter microbes scattered throughout the world's oceans - is probably what has allowed the organism to streamline its genes. With so many copies in the ocean, there are plenty of opportunities for random mutations to try out more thrifty combinations. There are organisms with smaller genomes - Mycoplasma genitalium has about 400 genes. But these are all obligate parasites or symbionts, relying on other organisms to do the jobs they have abandoned. Pelagibacter is entirely self-sufficient. There is a great deal of interest in finding out how few genes a living organism can get away with. Bio-entrepreneur Craig Venter is trying to create an artificial version of a bacterium, aiming for as few as 300 genes. Stephen Giovannoni says the synthetic one will barely function. But Pelagibacter on the other hand, accounting for a quarter of all organisms in the ocean, is a shining example of Darwin's principle, the survival of the fittest. … [So if Pelagibacter ubique "is a shining example of Darwin's principle, the survival of the fittest," then presumably the other 2-100 million species estimated to be living on Earth are not "shining example[s] of Darwin's principle, the survival of the fittest"?! This BTW is a new benchmark for the minimal genome of a free-living organism, i.e. ~1350 genes.]
Climate change marks dawn of man, Olivia Johnson, BBC, 19 August 2005. ... Complex variation of the East African climate may have played a key role in the development of our human ancestors. Scientists have identified extensive lake systems which formed and disappeared in East Africa between 1 and 3 million years ago. The lakes could be evidence that global climate changes occurred throughout this pivotal period in human evolution. The findings, reported in the journal Science, suggest that humans evolved in response to a variable climate. Dr Martin Trauth of the University of Potsdam and his team were able to identify and date the pre-historic lakes by studying layers of soil along the Rift Valley in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. … Layers containing microscopic algae skeletons, called diatoms, reveal the depth and composition of the ancient lakes. Volcanic ash in nearby layers provides an estimate of the lakes' ages. Radioactive elements in the ash act as time stamps because they decay in a predictable way with time. By examining soil layers at seven sites throughout East Africa, Dr Trauth and his collaborators were able to identify three distinct periods during which extensive lakes covered the region and grew to depths of hundreds of metres. They argue that the growth of these lakes resulted from a moist local climate. The regional wet periods, which may have persisted for up to 100,000 years, occurred as much of Africa became increasingly dry. The periods of wet weather in East Africa might reflect fluctuations of the Earth's climate as a whole. At the time when the lakes grew - roughly 2.6, 1.8, and 1 million years ago - glaciers and the atmosphere were also going through major transformations… The Science paper states that if the lakes were temporary features related to the global climate, as the data suggest, they provide strong support for theories in which early human species evolved and spread out in response to a rapidly changing environment. "These episodes could have had important impacts on the speciation and dispersal of mammals and hominins," the researchers write. Dr Chris Stringer, a leading researcher on early humans in the Department of Palaeontology at London's Natural History Museum, praised the quality of the data, saying that it provides "very good evidence" of climate change in East Africa. However, he stressed that more detailed work was necessary to positively link these environmental changes to the emergence of man. "What this is showing is that there are fluctuations of the climatic belts moving up and down," he said. "But if early humans are able to move around, the effect of varying environment is reduced. The key issue now is how mobile are these people?" … [Stringer is here making Eldredge's point, that "by far the most common response of species to environmental change is that they move":
"To the question, `What happens to species when environments change?', the standard post-Darwinian answer became, `They evolve.' Species become transformed to meet the new conditions-provided, of course, they are well stocked with the necessary genetic variation on which natural selection may act to effect suitable evolutionary change. Failing that, the fate is extinction. Here we have imagination colliding with common sense- and, worse, with empirical reality. Given the benefit of some 130 years of post-Darwinian scrutiny of the natural world, it has become abundantly clear that by far the most common response of species to environmental change is that they move -they change their locus of existence." (Eldredge N., "Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate," Phoenix: London, 1996, p.64)
I have added this to my "Problems of Evolution" book outline, section PE 9.4.8. "Natural selection ... Response of species to environmental change is migration"]
Scientists Find a Touch of Sophistication in the Genes of a Simple Sponge, Jon Nordheimer, The New York Times, August 16, 2005 ... A husband and wife research team at the University of Richmond has discovered that marine sponges, long considered some of the most primitive creatures on the planet, carry a sophisticated gene that in other animals controls the growth of eyes, brains and the central nervous system. ... Sponges lack nerve cells, however, so they can't produce the complex sensory organs of higher animals. The finding was not entirely unexpected, said April and Malcolm Hill, the research biologists who isolated the gene in the larvae of common marine sponges. There have been other genes isolated from sponges in recent years that might have pointed in this direction, said Dr. April Hill. "What makes our finding so unique is that sponges lack any type of organs associated with the central nervous system," she said. ... Sponges evolved some 500 million to 1 billion years ago and - alone among animals - may possess archetypes of stem cells .... The sponge cells of similar nature are called archeocytes, she said. At any stage in the life of a sponge, these cells can transform themselves into any of the other five types of specialized cells that constitute a sponge. ... some of the other cell types, in turn, may be able to revert to archeocytes when they are needed to perform yet another function. "The fascinating thing is how sponges are capable of letting body parts dissolve into individual cells," Dr. Hill added. The scattered cells can float around but not die, she said, and then find each other and reassemble into a sponge. In laboratory gene-sequencing experiments, the Hills studied the DNA of free-swimming sponge larvae in the first days of life before they attached themselves to a bottom structure. "We discovered that the sponge genome has a gene highly related to a family of genes found in higher animals that is involved in the formation of nerve and brain cells," Dr. Hill said. It appears, she said, that some ancient pathways used in sponge development have been modified and co-opted for other functions in more complex animals. Analyzing and clarifying these pathways in sponges, she continued, may eventually give researchers greater insight into the "toolbox" involved in forming and patterning the genetic blueprints that control the development of higher animals. The Hills, who first published their findings in the biomedical journal Development Genes and Evolution said that last month they succeeded in isolating another sponge gene key to eye development. They are now at work with collaborators at the University of Zurich on a project to clone and characterize genes in the sponge genome ... including the universal "master gene" that controls eye development in all animals. As part of this project, they are trying to use their newly discovered sponge genes to introduce sight to blind mutant fruit flies. Moreover, they are searching for evidence of other genes in sponges that function in more complicated ways in higher animals. Mitchell L. Sogin ... said the molecular machinery required to evolve a primitive nervous system, he said, "did not come out of the ozone" but must have evolved from even simpler forms of animal life. ... [It seems that sponges have a precursor to (if not the actual) Pax 6 master gene that codes for all eyes, even though sponges have no eyes, and indeed no nervous system? It will be truly astonishing if a sponge Pax-6 gene can induce en eye on a blind fruit fly. That will be preadaptation, with a vengeance! Note BTW how Darwinists have to use the language of intelligent design (e.g. "co-opted"), to explain nature! My position is that since design is real, science has from the beginning been discovering that design (as the natural theologians used to say, "thinking God's thoughts after Him"), and indeed that is what science is. So it is misguided for opponents of ID to claim that ID needs to do its own scientific experiments, since, if design is real, then the anti-IDists are doing the job for them. The ID movement's task is to get anti-ID scientists to realize it! Where does Sogin think the "even simpler forms of animal life" got the "molecular machinery required to evolve a primitive nervous system"? Turtles all the way down?!]
Come on, use your common sense, John Horgan, The Guardian, August 18, 2005. ... 100 years ago Einstein wrote six papers that laid the groundwork for quantum mechanics and relativity, arguably the two most successful theories in history. To commemorate this, a coalition of physics groups has designated 2005 the World Year of Physics .... Amid this hoopla, I feel compelled to deplore one aspect of Einstein's legacy: the widespread belief that science and common sense are incompatible. In the pre-Einstein era, T.H. Huxley could define science as "nothing but trained and organised common sense". But quantum mechanics and relativity shattered our commonsense notions about how the world works. The theories ask us to believe that an electron can exist in more than one place at the same time, and that space and time are not rigid but rubbery. Impossible. Yet these sense-defying propositions have withstood a century of tests. Many scientists came to see common sense as an impediment to progress not only in physics, but also in other fields. ... Elevating this outlook to the status of dogma, the biologist Lewis Wolpert declared: "I would almost contend that if something fits in with common sense it almost certainly isn't science." Wolpert's view is widely shared. When I invoke common sense to defend or - more often - criticise a theory, scientists invariably roll their eyes. Scientists' contempt for common sense has two unfortunate implications. One is that preposterousness, far from being a problem for a theory, is a measure of its profundity; hence the appeal, perhaps, of dubious propositions like ... multiple-universe theories. The other, more insidious implication is that only scientists are qualified to judge the work of other scientists. Needless to say, I reject that position, and not only because I'm a science journalist. I have found common sense - ordinary, nonspecialised knowledge and judgment - to be indispensable for judging scientists' pronouncements even, or especially, in the most esoteric fields. For example, Einstein's intellectual heirs have long been obsessed with finding a single "unified" theory that can embrace quantum mechanics, which accounts for electromagnetism and the nuclear forces, and general relativity, which describes gravity. The two theories employ very different mathematical languages and describe very different worlds, one lumpy and random and the other seamless and deterministic. The leading candidate for a unified theory holds that reality stems from tiny strings or loops or membranes, or something wriggling in a hyperspace of 10 or 16 or 1,000 dimensions (the number depends on the variant of the theory, the day of the week, or the theorist's zip code). A related set of "quantum gravity" theories postulates the existence of parallel universes ... existing beyond the borders of our little cosmos. "Infinite Earths in Parallel Universes Really Exist," the normally sober Scientific American once hyperventilated on its cover. All these theories are preposterous, but that's not my problem with them. My problem is that no conceivable experiment can confirm the theories, as most proponents reluctantly acknowledge. The strings (or whatever) are too small to be discerned by any buildable instrument, the parallel universes too distant. Common sense persuades me these avenues of speculation will turn out to be dead ends. Common sense - and historical perspective - makes me equally sceptical of grand unified theories of the human mind. We're complex, variable, unpredictable creatures, whose personalities can be affected by a vast range of factors. I'm thus leery of hypotheses that trace some important aspect of our behaviour to a single cause. Two examples: psychologist Frank Sulloway claimed that birth order has a profound, permanent impact on personality; firstborns tend to be conformists, whereas later-borns are "rebels". And geneticist Dean Hamer argued that human spirituality stems from a specific snippet of DNA. Although common sense biases me against these theories, I am still open to being persuaded on empirical grounds. But the evidence for both Sulloway's birth-order theory and Hamer's "God gene" is flimsy. ... While many scientists disparage common sense, artificial-intelligence researchers have discovered just how subtle and powerful an attribute it is. Researchers have programmed computers to perform certain tasks extremely well; computers can play championship chess, calculate a collision between two galaxies and juggle a million airline reservations. But computers fail miserably at simulating the ordinary, experience-based intelligence that helps ordinary humans get through ordinary days. ... [A much needed reality check! So if testability and falsifiabilty are demarcation criteria that separate science from non-science (or pseudoscience), then how come multiple universes and string theories, neither of which are testable (and therefore falsifiable) are regarded as science?]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol)
"Problems of Evolution"