Ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 and 11

AN (copy to my blog CED - after removing personal identifying
information and other changes)

----- Original Message -----
From: AN
To: "Stephen E. Jones"
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2005 11:19 PM
Subject: Antideluvian ages, e.g. Methuselah

Thanks for your message. As was my policy on my list CED (now terminated) and is now on my blog CED that replaced it, when I receive a private message asking interesting questions on a creation (including the Bible and Christianity), evolution or design issue, I usually `kill two birds with one stone' by responding to the sender, and copying my response to my blog CED, with the sender's personal identifying details removed, and his/her name replaced by "AN".

AN>Dear Prof. Jones,

Thanks, but I am just plain "Mr. Jones."

AN>Would you be able to point me to resources that deal with the long
>antideluvian ages recorded in Genesis from a Bible/science position similar
>to your own? Most authors I've read have omitted treatment of this, as they
>focus more on the "days" and on the flood.

I have an unfinished web page project called "The ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 and 11", to which I have now added some quotes and headings, that may be helpful.

AN>Would the original author readers have understood these as literal ages,
>or as only symbolic? Does C. John Collins address this?

I am not IIRC aware of "C. John Collins". As for whether "the original author readers have understood these as literal ages, or as only symbolic" no one knows (see quotes on that web page). Personally I think the best fit to the evidence (both Biblical and scientific) is that Genesis 1-11 is `symbolic history', i.e. real history expressed in symbolic form (analogous to the Book of Revelation):

"It is argued that the picture of God working like a potter with wet earth, anthropomorphically breathing life into man, constructing woman from a rib, with an idyllic garden, trees with theological significance, and a talking serpent, is the language of theological symbolism and not of literal prose. The theological truth is there, and this symbolism is the instrument of inspiration. We are not to think in terms of scientific and anti-scientific, but in terms of scientific and pre-scientific. The account is then pre-scientific and in theological symbolism which is the garment divine inspiration chose to reveal these truths for their more ready comprehension by the masses of untutored Christians. This is the view of James Orr who wrote: `I do not enter into the question of how we are to interpret the third chapter of Genesis-whether as history or allegory or myth, or most probably of all, as old tradition clothed in oriental allegorical dress-but the truth embodied in that narrative, viz. the fall of man from an original state of purity, I take to be vital to the Christian view.'" (Orr J., The Christian View of God and the World, 1897, p.185, in Ramm B.L., "The Christian View of Science and Scripture," [1955], Paternoster: Exeter, Devon UK, 1967, reprint, pp.223-224)

AN>My most immediate practical reason for asking this is I'm trying to
>arrive at how to talk about Genesis to my eight-year-old boy, who in
>many ways already thinks like a high schooler and asks tough questions.
>I want to weigh the matter carefully, as I'm not interested in wearing
>millstones!

I would imagine this issue is beyond an "eight-year-old boy", given that it is probably beyond most adults, if not most (or all) theologians! However, here are some suggested major points:

1. The Bible nowhere makes any teaching based on the ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 and 11. The only point made from the genealogies is line, not length:

"The general fact that the genealogies of Scripture were not constructed for a chronological purpose and lend themselves ill to employment as a basis for chronological calculations has been repeatedly shown very fully; but perhaps by no one more thoroughly than by Dr. William Henry Green in an illuminating article published in the Bibliotheca Sacra for April, 1890. These genealogies must be esteemed trustworthy for the purposes for which they are recorded; but they cannot safely be pressed into use for other purposes for which they were not intended, and for which they are not adapted. In particular, it is clear that the genealogical purposes for which the genealogies were given, did not require a complete record of all the generations through which the descent of the persons to whom they are assigned runs; but only an adequate indication of the particular line through which the descent in question comes. Accordingly it is found on examination that the genealogies of Scripture are freely compressed for all sorts of purposes; and that it can seldom be confidently affirmed that they contain a complete record of the whole series of generations, while it is often obvious that a very large number are omitted. There is no reason inherent in the nature of the Scriptural genealogies why a genealogy of ten recorded links, as each of those in Genesis v. and xi. is, may not represent an actual descent of a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand links. The point established by the table is not that these are all the links which intervened between the beginning and the closing names, but that this is the line of descent through which one traces back to or down to the other." (Warfield B.B., "On the Antiquity and the Unity of The Human Race," in "Studies in Theology," [1932], Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, 1988, reprint, pp.237-238)

2. Genesis 1-11 (especially the ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 and 11) is an ancient Eastern document, the original sources of which were probably ancient by Moses' day:

"To us who live in this late day, the second millennium B.C. seems very long ago indeed. We are tempted to think of it as lying near the dawn of time, when man first struggled upward from savagery into the light of history, and are prone, therefore, to underestimate its cultural achievements. We are further prone to picture the Hebrew ancestors, tent-dwelling wanderers that they were, as the most primitive of nomads, cut off by their mode of life from contact with what culture there was, whose religion was the crudest sort of animism or polydaemonism. So, in fact, did many of the older handbooks depict them. This, however, is an erroneous notion and a symptom of want of perspective a carry-over from days when little was known at first hand of the ancient Orient. It is necessary, therefore, to throw the picture into focus. Horizons have widened amazingly in the past generation. Whatever one says of Israel's origins must be said with full awareness that these lie nowhere near the dawn of history. The earliest decipherable inscriptions both in Egypt and in Mesopotamia reach back to the early centuries of the third millennium B.C.- thus approximately a thousand years before Abraham, fifteen hundred before Moses. There history, properly speaking, begins. Moreover, in the course of the last few decades discoveries in all parts of the Bible world, and beyond it, have revealed a succession of yet earlier cultures which reach back through the fourth millennium, the fifth, and the sixth, to the seventh and, in many instances, farther still. The Hebrews were in fact late-comers on history's stage. All across the Bible lands, cultures had come to birth, assumed classical form, and run their course for hundreds and even thousands of years before Abraham was born, Difficult as it is for us to realize, it is actually farther in time from the beginnings of civilization in the Near East to the age of Israel's origins than it is from that latter age to our own!" (Bright J., "A History of Israel," [1959], SCM Press" London, Third Edition, 1988, pp.23-24)

so it is possible that their original meaning was lost even by then. As a leading evangelical theologian wrote regarding the use of historical source material in the Bible, "... the purpose of inspiration is to communicate life in Christ ... to make us wise unto salvation, and not to supply us with an infallible review of Semitic history." (Carnell E.J., "The Case for Orthodox Theology," Westminster Press: Philadelphia PA, 1959, p.109).

3. On the related matter of deriving our Christian doctrine of creation by starting at Genesis and working forward through to the New Testament, Brunner points out that for every other Christian doctrine, we start with the New Testament and work backwards through to the Old Testament:

"Unfortunately the uniqueness of this Christian doctrine of Creation and the Creator is continually being obscured by the fact that theologians are so reluctant to begin their work with the New Testament; when they want to deal with the Creation they tend to begin with the Old Testament, although they never do this when they are speaking of the Redeemer. The emphasis on the story of Creation at the beginning of the Bible has constantly led theologians to forsake the rule, which they would otherwise follow, namely, that the basis of all Christian articles of faith is the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. So when we begin to study the subject of Creation, in the Bible we ought to start with the first chapter of the Gospel of John, and some other passages of the New Testament, and, not with the first chapter of Genesis. If we can make up our minds to stick to this rule, we shall be saved from many difficulties, which will inevitably occur if we begin with the story of Creation in the Old Testament. Of course, I do not wish to deny the permanent significance of, and the absolute necessity for, the Old Testament accounts of the Creation-not only in the first two chapters of Genesis but also in the Prophets, the Psalms, and in the Book of Job. In order to expand the somewhat scanty statements of the Testament we certainly need the weighty and enriching testimony of the Old Testament; but in principle these statements are as introductory in character as the Old Testament witness is to the Messiah is to that of the New Testament." (Brunner E., "The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption," Dogmatics Vol. II, Wyon O., trans, [1952], Lutterworth: London, 1955, Second Impression, pp.6-7. Emphasis in original)

The result is that we often get hung up on the problems of Genesis 1-11 (which are some of the most difficult in the Bible) and spend less time on what the New Testament says on creation. Phillip E. Johnson has made a similar point:

"The most important statement about creation in the Bible is not in Genesis; it is in the opening verses of the first chapter of John. `In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.' The direct opposite of that statement is creation by purely materialistic, undirected evolution". (Johnson P.E., "Creator or Blind Watchmaker?" First Things, January 1993, p.12);

"The most important statement in Scripture about creation is not contained in Genesis but in the opening verses of the Gospel of John: `In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.' (John 1:1-3) This statement plainly says that creation was by a force that was (and is) intelligent and personal. The essential, bedrock position of scientific naturalism is the direct opposite of John 1:1-3. Naturalistic evolutionary theory, as part of the grand metaphysical story of science, says that creation was by impersonal and unintelligent forces. The opposition between the biblical and naturalistic stories is fundamental, and neither side can compromise over it. To compromise is to surrender." (Johnson P.E., "Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 1995, pp.107-108);

"H: In your opinion, what are the secondary issues in the creation-evolution debate?
J: I think that one of the secondary issues concerns the details of the chronology in Genesis. Many Christians get excited about that. But I always teach my audiences that the message of evolution isn't just that God created gradually over a long period of time so that the days of Genesis have to be understood as long historical periods. If that was all that was at stake, it would be nowhere near as important a controversy as it is. But the real message of evolution is that God had nothing to do with biological creation. So I say, in terms of biblical importance, that we should move from the Genesis chronology to the most important fact about creation, which is John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word". Evolutionary biology is emphatic that God had nothing to do with it. It says: "In the beginning were the particles." One of the big things that I have to do is to get people who want to object to evolution, to the main issue. It's important not to be side-tracked into questions of biblical detail, where you just wind up in a morass of shifting issues. In my judgment, the chronology of Genesis 1 is a secondary issue." (Hastie P., "Designer genes: Phillip E. Johnson talks to Peter Hastie," Australian Presbyterian, October 2001, pp.4-8, pp.6-7).

AN>Thanks.
>
>AN

You are welcome. I hope you find this useful. Feel free to make comments (anonymously if you wish) to the copy of this that will be posted to my blog soon after I send this. But otherwise, I have a long-standing policy not to get involved in private discussions of creation (including the Bible and Christianity), evolution or design issues, since: 1) I don't have the time; and 2) I believe such discussions should be public.

Steve

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"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.1)
Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
Blog: CreationEvolutionDesign
Book-in-progress: "Problems of Evolution"
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"The Evolution Wars" (TIME, August 15, 2005) #3

This is is part #3 of my multi-part critique of the articles in TIME of August 15, under the cover story, "The Evolution Wars".

THE EVOLUTION WARS [...]

By Claudia Wallis [...]

[Continued from part #2. See part #1]

"Both sides ought to be properly taught," said the President, who appeared to choose his words with care, "so people can understand what the debate is about ... I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought."

If President Bush did "choose his words with care" it was because he knew that they would be misrepresented by the secularist media (e.g. TIME and The Washington Post), which shows by its hostility that when it comes to the secularist creation story, evolution, it does not want people to "understand what the debate is about" by being "expose[d] ... to different schools of thought"!

On its surface, the President's position seems supremely fair-minded: What could possibly be wrong with presenting more than one point of view on a topic that divides so many Americans?

There is no "seems" about it. It is "fair-minded" and right to "to present... more than one point of view on a topic that divides so many Americans." In fact Darwin himself wrote in his Origin of Species:

"For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this is here impossible." (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1928, reprint, p.18. My emphasis)

On any other topic, but evolution, there would be no question about it, and those arguing for only "one point of view" to be presented would be rightly regarded as authoritarian demagogues, out of step in a free, pluralistic society. Indeed, this is a point that Republican Senate majority leader, Senator Bill Frist, made when he came out in support of President Bush's comments:

Frist Backs Bush on Teaching 'Intelligent Design' in Schools, David Stout, The New York Times, August 19, 2005. WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 - The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, aligned himself with President Bush today when he said that the theory of "intelligent design" should be taught along with evolution in public schools. Teaching intelligent design as well as evolution "doesn't force any particular theory on anyone," Senator Frist, Republican of Tennessee, said in Nashville, according to The Associated Press. "I think in a pluralistic society that is the fairest way to go about education and training people for the future."

This is important support for President Bush because Senator Frist is a medical "doctor who graduated from Harvard Medical School," has shown by his support for embryonic stem cell research that he is is willing to go against the majority conservative position on a scientific issue, and is potentially the next Republican President, which will make it more difficult for the Darwinists (i.e. scientific materialists) to isolate President Bush and marginalise his views as "misinformed", having "confused ... science and belief"; showing a "low level of understanding of science," "anti-science," and "When it comes to science ... wrong."

But to biologists, it smacks of faith-based science.

All science is "faith-based", including biology. Science is based on "the sheer act of faith that the universe possessed order and could be interpreted by rational minds," which in turn was based on "the Christian conception of the nature of God":

"Although we may recognize the frailties of Christian dogma and deplore the unconscionable persecution of thought which is one of the less appetizing aspects of medieval history, we must also observe that in one of those strange permutations of which history yields occasional rare examples, it is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear articulate fashion to the experimental method of science itself. Many things undoubtedly went into that amalgam: Greek logic and philosophy, the experimental methods of craftsmen in the arts as opposed to the aristocratic thinker-all these things have been debated. But perhaps the most curious element of them all is the factor dwelt upon by Whitehead-the sheer act of faith that the universe possessed order and could be interpreted by rational minds [Whitehead A.N., "Science and the Modern World," Mentor, 1948, pp.4-15]. For, as Whitehead rightly observes, [Ibid., p.17] the philosophy of experimental science was not impressive. It began its discoveries and made use of its method in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a Creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation. The experimental method succeeded beyond men's wildest dreams but the faith that brought it into being owes something-to the Christian conception of the nature of God [Ibid., p. 14]. It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today-is sustained by that assumption." (Eiseley L.C., "Darwin's Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It," [1958], Anchor/Doubleday: Garden City NY, 1961, reprint, p.62. My emphasis)

And no science is more "faith-based" than evolution, which is "the standard scientific theory that `human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.'" (Shermer M.B., "The Gradual Illumination of the Mind," Scientific American, February 2002. My emphasis). Clearly it is impossible for evolutionary biologists to know that "God had no part in this process," therefore it is for them an article of faith. Darwinian evolution, in particular, is based on the faith that all mutations in the entire history of life have been random in the sense of unguided, which in turn is based on the faith (and wrong faith at that) that there is "no mechanism" (or intelligent designer/God) "that could guide mutation in directions that are non-random":

"There is a fifth respect in which mutation might have been nonrandom. We can imagine (just) a form of mutation that was systematically biased in the direction of improving the animal's adaptedness to its life. But although we can imagine it, nobody has ever come close to suggesting any means by which this bias could come about. It is only in this fifth respect, the 'mutationist' respect, that the true, real-life Darwinian insists that mutation is random. Mutation is not systematically biased in the direction of adaptive improvement, and no mechanism is known (to put the point mildly) that could guide mutation in directions that are non-random in this fifth sense. Mutation is random with respect to adaptive advantage, although it is non-random in all sorts of other respects. It is selection, and only selection, that directs evolution in directions that are nonrandom with respect to advantage." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.312. Emphasis in original)

Especially when the actual experimental evidence for this was based on a mere handful of studies on bacteria, which led to the criticism in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, that "the biologists' belief in the creative power of chance soon equalled or surpassed the Christian belief in the creative power of God":

"Then came 1952. J. and E.M. Lederberg designed an ingenious experiment which demonstrated that bacteria could become resistant to streptomycin without coming into contact with it. What was worse, the experiment was equally effective in verifying the pioneering finding of Luria & Delbruck. As far as Lamarckism was concerned, that was virtually the end ... The theory was not only overthrown, it also became thoroughly discredited. It did not occur to the jubilant Darwinists that they had yet to show that all adaptive mutations in nature occur purely by chance. ... Because of the euphoria which attended the triumph of Darwinism, the effect of those experiments on the thinking on evolution was most profound. First, the long-held conjecture that chance alone produced the favourable variations which natural selection preserved was deemed, without any justification, to have been experimentally verified. Then everything that evolved was designated the lucky beneficiary of chance. Enzymes, proteins, and even man himself, were held to be the products of mere chance. In short, the biologists' belief in the creative power of chance soon equalled or surpassed the Christian belief in the creative power of God." (Opadia-Kadima G.Z., "How the Slot Machine Led Biologists Astray," Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 124, 1987, pp.127-135, p.129. My emphasis)

So TIME's Claudia Wallis hit the nail right on the head, when she observed that President Bush's preference for "presenting more than one point of view" is especially "provocative" in the case of evolution, because that "rekindles a turf battle that goes all the way back to the Middle Ages":

And that is provocative not only because it rekindles a turf battle that goes all the way back to the Middle Ages ...

That is, evolution functions for most evolutionists, as it does for Harvard's Edward O. Wilson, "as [a] secular religion ... a [creation] myth that is now ready to take over Christianity. ... [which] will come from its capacity to explain traditional religion, its chief competition":

"Things have continued in much the same way to the present. There is professional evolutionary biology: mathematical, experimental, not laden with value statements. But, you are not going to find the answer to the world's mysteries or to societal problems if you open the pages of Evolution or Animal Behaviour. Then, sometimes from the same person, you have evolution as secular religion, generally working from an explicitly materialist background and solving all of the world's major problems, from racism to education to conservation. Consider Edward O. Wilson, rightfully regarded as one of the most outstanding professional evolutionary biologists of our time, and the author of major works of straight science. In his On Human Nature, he calmly assures us that evolution is a myth that is now ready to take over Christianity. And, if this is so, "the final decisive edge enjoyed by scientific naturalism will come from its capacity to explain traditional religion, its chief competition, as a wholly material phenomenon. Theology is not likely to survive as an independent intellectual discipline" [Wilson E.O., "On Human Nature," Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA, 1978, p.192] ... there is indeed a thriving area of more popular evolutionism, where evolution is used to underpin claims about the nature of the universe, the meaning of it all for us humans, and the way we should behave. I am not saying that this area is all bad or that it should be stamped out. ... I am saying that this popular evolutionism-often an alternative to religion--exists. ... we who cherish science should be careful to distinguish when we are doing science and when we are extrapolating from it, particularly when we are teaching our students. If it is science that is to be taught, then teach science and nothing more. Leave the other discussions for a more appropriate time." (Ruse M., "Is Evolution a Secular Religion?" Science, Vol 299, 7 March 2003, pp.1523-1524. My emphasis)

This explains the ferocity and implacability of evolutionists' opposition to intelligent design (and creation) being taught in science classes. It is to them the equivalent of another religion being taught in their temples.

... but also because it comes at a time when U.S. science is perceived as being under fresh assault politically and competitively. Just last week, developments ranging from flaws in the space program to South Korea's rapid advances in the field of cloning were cited as examples that the U.S. is losing its edge. Bush's comments on intelligent design were the No. 1 topic for bloggers for days afterward.

This last is significant in that through the Internet, the controversy has already circumvented evolutionists' control of the scientific journals and the media. They are trying to prevent students learning officially in school what many (if not most) of them, and their parents, already know unofficially from the Internet and news media anyway!

"It sends a signal to other countries because they're rushing to gain scientific and technological leadership while we're getting distracted with a pseudoscience issue," warned Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the 55,000-member National Science Teachers Association in Arlington, Va. "If I were China, I'd be happy."

A similar alarmist claim was made by Fred Spilhaus of the American Geophysical Union:

"President Bush, in advocating that the concept of 'intelligent design' be taught alongside the theory of evolution, puts America's schoolchildren at risk ... Americans will need basic understanding of science in order to participate effectively in the 21st century world. It is essential that students on every level learn what science is and how scientific knowledge progresses" (Spilhaus, F., President Confuses Science and Belief, Puts Schoolchildren at Risk, American Geophysical Union, 2 August 2005);

This is an absurd claim that if Americans don't accept evolution, then American technology will suffer, when in fact polls have consistently shown that the majority of American's never have accepted evolution in the fully naturalistic sense, while America has all along retained its technological world leadership. But the really interesting implication behind these last two comments, is that they implicitly assume that if American school students were presented with the evidence against evolution and for intelligent design, they would, in large numbers, choose intelligent design!

[Continued in part #4]

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

Editor Explains Reasons for 'Intelligent Design' Article, etc

Here are excerpts from recent news items:

Editor Explains Reasons for 'Intelligent Design' Article, Michael Powell, Washington Post, August 19, 2005. … Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg made a fateful decision a year ago. As editor of the hitherto obscure Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Sternberg decided to publish a paper making the case for "intelligent design," a controversial theory that holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand … of an intelligent creator. Within hours of publication, senior scientists at the Smithsonian Institution -- which has helped fund and run the journal -- lashed out at Sternberg as a shoddy scientist and a closet Bible thumper. "They were saying I accepted money under the table, that I was a crypto-priest, that I was a sleeper cell operative for the creationists," said Steinberg, 42 , who is a Smithsonian research associate. "I was basically run out of there." An independent agency has come to the same conclusion, accusing top scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History of retaliating against Sternberg by investigating his religion and smearing him as a "creationist." The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which was established to protect federal employees from reprisals, examined e- mail traffic from these scientists and noted that "retaliation came in many forms ... misinformation was disseminated through the Smithsonian Institution and to outside sources. The allegations against you were later determined to be false." "The rumor mill became so infected," James McVay, the principal legal adviser in the Office of Special Counsel, wrote to Sternberg, "that one of your colleagues had to circulate [your résumé] simply to dispel the rumor that you were not a scientist." .... As Sternberg is not a Smithsonian employee -- the National Institutes of Health pays his salary -- the special counsel lacks the power to impose a legal remedy. A spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution declined comment, noting that it has not received McVay's report. "We do stand by evolution -- we are a scientific organization," said Linda St. Thomas .... An official privately suggested that McVay might want to embarrass the institution. It is hard to overstate the passions fired by the debate over intelligent design. President Bush recently said that schoolchildren should learn about the theory alongside Darwin's theory of evolution-- a view that goes beyond even the stance of intelligent design advocates. Dozens of state school boards have attempted to mandate the teaching of anti-Darwinian theories. A small band of scientists argue for intelligent design, saying evolutionary theory's path is littered with too many gaps and mysteries, and cannot account for the origin of life. Most evolutionary biologists, not to mention much of the broader scientific community, dismiss intelligent design as a sophisticated version of creationism. ... The National Museum of Natural History was drawn into this controversy in June, when protest forced it to withdraw from co-sponsorship of a documentary on intelligent design. Sternberg's case has sent ripples far beyond the Beltway. The special counsel accused the National Center for Science Education, an Oakland, Calif.-based think tank that defends the teaching of evolution, of orchestrating attacks on Sternberg. "The NCSE worked closely with" the Smithsonian "in outlining a strategy to have you investigated and discredited," McVay wrote to Sternberg. NCSE officials accused McVay of playing out a political agenda. "I must say that Mr. McVay flatters us beyond our desserts -- the Smithsonian is a distinguished organization of highly competent scientists, and they're not marionettes," said Eugenie Scott ... "If this was a corporation, and an employee did something that really embarrassed the administration, really blew it, how long do you think that person would be employed?" … Sternberg … holds two PhDs in evolutionary biology… [He was] the unpaid editor of Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, a sleepy scientific journal affiliated with the Smithsonian. Three years later, Sternberg agreed to consider a paper by Stephen C. Meyer, a Cambridge University-educated philosopher of science who argues that evolutionary theory cannot account for … the Cambrian "explosion," … arguing that an intelligent agent …was the best explanation for the rapid appearance of higher life- forms. Sternberg harbored his own doubts about Darwinian theory. He also acknowledged that this journal had not published such papers in the past and that he wanted to stir the scientific pot. "I am not convinced by intelligent design but they have brought a lot of difficult questions to the fore," Sternberg said. "Science only moves forward on controversy." He mailed Meyer's article to three scientists for a peer review. It has been suggested that Sternberg fabricated the peer review or sought unqualified scientists, a claim McVay dismissed. "They were critical of the paper and gave 50 things to consider," Sternberg said. "But they said that people are talking about this and we should air the views." When the article appeared, the reaction was near instantaneous and furious. Within days, detailed scientific critiques of Meyer's article appeared on pro-evolution Web sites. "The origin of genetic information is thoroughly understood," said Nick Matzke of the NCSE. "If the arguments were coherent this paper would have been revolutionary-- but they were bogus." A senior Smithsonian scientist wrote in an e-mail: "We are evolutionary biologists and I am sorry to see us made into the laughing stock of the world, even if this kind of rubbish sells well in backwoods USA." An e-mail stated, falsely, that Sternberg had "training as an orthodox priest." Another labeled him a "Young Earth Creationist," …. Sternberg insists he does not believe in creationism. … Scott, of the NCSE, insisted that Smithsonian scientists had no choice but to explore Sternberg's religious beliefs. "They don't care if you are religious, but they do care a lot if you are a creationist," Scott said. "Sternberg denies it, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it argues for zealotry." …. Sternberg has seen stress piled upon stress in the past year. His marriage has dissolved, and he no longer comes into the Smithsonian. When the biological society issued a statement disavowing Meyer's article, Sternberg was advised not to attend. "I was told that feelings were running so high, they could not guarantee me that they could keep order," Sternberg said. A former professor of Sternberg's says the researcher has an intellectual penchant for going against the system. Sternberg does not deny it. "I loathe careerism and the herd mentality," he said. "I really think that objective truth can be discovered and that popular opinion and consensus thinking does more to obscure than to reveal." ... [This article has a misleading, self-serving headline. It seeks to shift the focus to Sternberg, whereas the actual content of it is the Office of Special Counsel's James McVay's findings that Sternberg was persecuted by the Smithsonian, aided and abetted by the NCSE. A more accurate headline would have been: "Office of Special Counsel Concludes Smithsonian Created a 'Hostile Work Environment' in Effort to Oust Biologist Skeptical of Darwinism," Newswire, August 19, 2005. It sounds like an attempt at damage control: I would be surprised if Sternberg does not sue the Smithsonian (and maybe the NCSE and even The Washington Post), for workplace harrassment leading to loss of employment and defamation, based on McVay's findings. While trying to give at least the impression of balance, the article nevertheless still contains "misinformation" that reveals the paper's pro-Darwinist/anti-ID bias. For example, President Bush's position, that "local school districts" should be able to decide that students be taught "both sides" to the controversy, does not "go… beyond even the stance of intelligent design advocates." The continual attempt to equate ID with "creationism" will increasingly backfire, as the public learn the difference between each (ID is not based on the Bible, for starters). Eugenie Scott's justification of removing from employment any scientist who publicly questions Darwinism by an analogy to a corporation firing an employee who embarrasses it, is revealing. But unlike employees of corporations, scientists are supposed to publicly question scientific theories and propose alternatives! Her fallacious "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it argues for zealotry", is another example of her stock-in-trade of "character assassination, ad hominem attacks, guilt by association, and demonization" (for which in one case she recently had to withdraw under threat of a lawsuit). The irony is that these persecutors of anyone who questions their naturalistic religion, think they are the heirs of the persecuted Galileo, when in reality they are the heirs of the persecuting medieval equivalent of the scientific establishment:

"From the Galileo case, what we really learn is that a man who thinks for himself is apt to get in trouble with his other professors and the people who control the funding. The problem was not only with the Catholic Church. Galileo's scientific colleagues were also to blame. Of course, at the time, the Catholic Church was the ruling intellectual power; the problem was that all the professors of natural science happened to be affiliated with the church. But today, the equivalent of the College of Cardinals is not a group of guys in red hats who sit in Rome, but the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC and their equivalent bodies in other countries. In other words, these people are the academic elite. And the academic elite is never really in favour of freedom of thought. ... That's the lesson from Galileo." (Hastie P., "Designer genes: Phillip E. Johnson talks to Peter Hastie," Australian Presbyterian, October 2001, pp.4-8, p.5. Emphasis in original).

BTW, if "The origin of genetic information is thoroughly understood," then what are the Darwinists afraid of? If they really thought that they had the answer that would kill off the ID movement once and for all (as that would), then why don't they demand that ID be allowed to fairly state its case alongside Darwinism in schools, universities and in scientific journals, instead of using every means (scientific or unscientific, fair or foul) to prevent that from happening? This is unlikely to be the end of the matter (to put it mildly)! See also "Smithsonian scientists accused of ID smear," PhysOrg.com, August 19, 2005; "US editor ignites evolution row at Smithsonian," The Independent, 20 August 2005; "Unintelligent Design: Hostility toward religious believers at the nation’s museum," August 16, 2005; "Scientist's complaint backed," The Washington Times, August 16, 2005.]

Researchers Creating Life From Scratch, Paul Elias, ABC News/Associated Press Aug. 19, 2005 - They're called "synthetic biologists" and they boldly claim the ability to make never-before-seen living things, one genetic molecule at a time. They're mixing, matching and stacking DNA's chemical components like microscopic Lego blocks in an effort to make biologically based computers, medicines and alternative energy sources. The rapidly expanding field is confounding the taxonomists' centuries-old system of classifying species and raising concerns about the new technology's potential for misuse. …a new breed of biologists is attempting to bring order to the hit-and-miss chaos of genetic engineering by bringing to biotechnology the same engineering strategies used to build computers, bridges and buildings. The idea is to separate cells into their fundamental components and then rebuild new organisms, a much more complex way of genetic engineering. The burgeoning movement is attracting big money and some of the biggest names in biology, many of whom are attending the "Life Engineering Symposium" that begins Friday in San Francisco. … Already, synthetic biologists have created a polio virus and another smaller virus by stitching together individual genes purchased from biotechnology companies. Now, researchers are getting closer to creating more complex living things with actual utility. .... J. Craig Venter, the entrepreneurial scientist who mapped the human genome, announced last month that he intends to string together genes to create from scratch novel organisms that can produce alternative fuels such as hydrogen and ethanol. With a $42.6 million grant that originated at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Berkeley researchers are creating a new malaria drug by removing genetic material of the E. coli bacterium and replacing it with genes from wormwood and yeast. "We're building parts that can be assembled into devices and devices that can be turned into systems," said Jay Keasling, head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's ... synthetic biology department, which was created last year. Keasling, who doubles as a chemical engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, hopes to create never-before-seen living molecules by fusing genes from the three species a new breed of bacteria capable of spitting out malaria-fighting artemisinin, a chemical now found only in small traces in the wormwood plant. Artemisinin has been extracted from finely ground sweet wormwood for more than 2,000 years as a treatment for a variety of ailments, but the method is expensive, time consuming and limited by access to wormwood, which is found mainly in China and Vietnam. … Venter, meanwhile, has launched Synthetic Genomics Inc. with Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith and will compete with … several other recent startups to commercialize the technology. But with success also comes ethical questions. For example, national security experts and even synthetic biologists themselves fret that rogue scientists or "biohackers" could create new biological weapons like deadly viruses that lack natural foes. They also worry about innocent mistakes organisms that could potentially create havoc if allowed to reproduce outside the lab. "There are certainly a lot of national security implications with synthetic biology," said Gigi Kwik Gronvall, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity. ... "There are a cascade of ecological issues," said Laurie Zoloth, a bioethics professor at Northwestern University. "Synthetic biology is like iron: You can make sewing needles and you can make spears. Of course, there is going to be dual use." ...[This is not actually "creating life from scratch" since they will use existing genetic material. As science learns to tinker with the very building blocks of life and the universe, the more powerful and dangerous it becomes. It seems inevitable that lure of fame and fortune will eventually cause a scientist somewhere to unleash a disaster on humanity that cannot be undone. It was a topic in the philosophy of science unit in my biology degree that science is reaching the point (if it has not already reached it), where its risks outweigh its benefits.]

Neanderthals craved bison and mammoth ABC/Discovery News, Jennifer Viegas, 17 August 2005. … Neanderthals and early humans apparently were surrounded by small prey, but instead mostly ate woolly mammoths and other big game, according to two recent studies. It's like a modern human who lives on a chicken farm but rarely eats poultry in favour of beef. The findings, published in a recent issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, suggest that Neanderthals and our prehistoric relatives lived in organised communities that banded together early on to form hunting parties that took down large game. The study concerning early humans focused on the 16,000-year-old 'Magdalenian woman' skeleton from a site called Saint-Germain-la-Rivière in France. "This woman can be considered as an early ancestor of today's French population," says Dorothée Drucker, who led the study. …. Drucker's husband Hervé Bocherens led the Neanderthal research, which looked at 35,000-year-old Neanderthal remains from the Saint Césaire site, also in France. … Both Drucker … and Bocherens … studied samples of bone collagen from the early human and Neanderthal skeletons. Bone collagen contains isotopes, or atoms of different mass, from carbon and nitrogen that were in proteins people ate. By measuring, dating and then comparing isotope values to those of plants and other animals, scientists can link the bone collagen proteins to their meat source. The researchers had ample data for comparison, as the Magdalenian woman was found with the remains of saiga antelope, reindeer, bison, horses, red deer and wolves. Antelope remains were plentiful and showed signs of butchering but, since the isotope analysis reveals the dominant source of protein, the researchers believe the woman favoured a nice bit of bison over an antelope steak. The Neanderthal was found with the remains for aurochs (extinct cattle), bison, other bovines, giant deer, reindeer, horses, rhinoceros, mammoths and hyenas. … Paul Koch … says early humans probably butchered prey away from their base camps, which would explain the lack of big game bones at the sites. The Neanderthal preference for large game could be why they coexisted with big animals for long periods, says Koch. Such a specialisation might have contributed to the Neanderthal's downfall, though, as they would have been subjected to "boom-bust" meat cycles, driven by abundance or scarcity of big game associated with climate and vegetation changes. … [This is more evidence that Neanderthals and modern humans were very different. Of course modern humans may have contributed to the Neanderthals' extinction indirectly by out-competing them in hunting for small game, forcing the Neanderthals to specialise on big game, which were already under the pressure of Europe's rapidly oscillating interglacial climate ("Between 60,000 and 20,000 years ago, Europe became drier and experienced rapid phases of warming and cooling") could not also support the Neanderthal's additional predation.]

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

"The Evolution Wars" (TIME, August 15, 2005) #2

Here is part #2 of my multi-part critique of the articles in TIME of August 15, under the cover story, "The Evolution Wars".

[Continued from part #1]

UNITED STATES [page 53]

THE EVOLUTION WARS

When Bush joined the fray last week, the question grew hotter: Is "intelligent design" a real science? And should it be taught in schools?

Once again, President Bush did not "join... the fray"! He merely responded to a reporter's question, as this excerpt from the transcript shows:

Q I wanted to ask you about the -- what seems to be a growing debate over evolution versus intelligent design. What are your personal views on that, and do you think both should be taught in public schools?

THE PRESIDENT: I think -- as I said, harking back to my days as ... governor [of Texas] ... Then, I said that, first of all, that decision should be made to local school districts, but I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.

Q Both sides should be properly taught?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, ... so people can understand what the debate is about.

Q So the answer accepts the validity of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution?

THE PRESIDENT: I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, and ... you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.

As conservative commentator George Neumayr observed of The Washington Post's front-page headline, Bush Remarks On 'Intelligent Design' Theory Fuel Debate, "Acting like a person who hits a car and then strolls up to the accident scene in the guise of an innocent bystander, the Post reports all of this as a controversy about which it has no opinion -- and had no role in stoking. An honest headline on the story would read: "Press Baits Bush on Intelligent Design, Then Fuels Debate over his Response"!

By CLAUDIA WALLIS Sometime in the late fall, unless a federal court intervenes, ninth-graders at the public high school in rural Dover, Pa., will witness an unusual scene in biology class. The superintendent of schools, Richard Nilsen, will enter the classroom to read a three-paragraph statement mandated by the local school board as a cautionary preamble to the study of evolution. It reads, in part:

Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence ... Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book Of Pandas and People is available for students to see if they would like to explore this view ... As is true with any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind.

After that one-minute reading, the superintendent will probably depart without any discussion, and a lesson in evolutionary biology will begin.

I doubt that "ninth-graders" at high school would have "a lesson in evolutionary biology"! According to the Dover Area School District 9th grade Biology curriculum, during their course students will be taught "Darwin's observations of the living world", "evidences used to support Darwin's theory of the Origins of Species" and also "gaps/problems in Darwin's Theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to Intelligent Design." Presumably at the start of these series of classes, the superintendent would read his statement, so that students will be made officially aware (of what they would already be unofficially well aware), that: 1) there are problems with the standard Darwinian theory of evolution; and 2) there is at least one alternative, "Intelligent Design."

That kind of scene, brief and benign though it might seem, strikes horror into the hearts of scientists and science teachers across the U.S., not to mention plenty of civil libertarians.

It is amazing that a 1-minute statement in a rural school district alerting 9th grade high school students to what most (if not all) would already know from reading the newspapers and the Internet, would strike... horror into the hearts of scientists, science teachers and civil libertarians"! Quite clearly what is horrifying them is the symbolic value of this event which signifies the loss of their power to teach only their `creation story' in schools to each new generation.

Darwin's venerable theory is widely regarded as one of the best-supported ideas in science, the only explanation for the diversity of life on Earth, grounded in decades of study and objective evidence.

If this were so, then why worry? As Johnson observed, the `body language' of the evolutionists indicates "that they are afraid":

"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. My emphasis)

It certainly is not the `body language' of those who really believe that they have "one of the best-supported ideas in science, the only explanation for the diversity of life on Earth, grounded in decades of study and objective evidence"! When political, bureaucratic and corporate elites use every trick in the book to avoid scrutiny and questioning, the public draws the obvious conclusion that they are not confident of the rightness of their position and have something to hide. There is no reason why the public will not draw the same conclusion for the scientific elite in this matter, if they continue to rely on such dishonorable methods.

But Dover's disclaimer on Darwin would appear to get a passing grade from the man who considers himself America's education President. In a question-and-answer session with Texas newspaper reporters at the White House last week, George W. Bush weighed in on the issue. He expressed support for the idea of combining lessons in evolution with a discussion of "intelligent design"--the proposition that some aspects of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause or agent, as opposed to natural selection.

This gives the misleading impression that what President Bush said was something new, when in fact it was (as he said) his position when he was governor of Texas (1995-2000). That this is so, is evident from this quote, which I had previously posted, where Johnson was talking about the then Governor Bush's first Presidential campaign:

"The media and the scientific commentators cooperated in making the Kansas action a national issue that found its way into the presidential campaign, and the candidates were all asked to take a stand. Of course the Republicans said, Local control good; national regulation bad. George W. Bush, for example, said that it's fine if local authorities want to teach both creation and evolution; that would be better for education, in his opinion." (Johnson P.E.*, "Evolution and the Curriculum: A Conversation with Phillip Johnson and Gregg Easterbrook," , September 1999, Ethics and Public Policy Center: Washington DC, February 2000, No. 4)).

As I said in part #1, it is difficult to believe that the top-flight journalists and editors that TIME employs would not already know this (apart from the fact that in the transcript President Bush said), so it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Ms Wallis and her editors are deliberately trying to mislead their readers. Again, this is not the `body language' expected of those who really feel they have the truth on their side.

It is a subtler way of finding God's fingerprints in nature than traditional creationism.

This too is misleading, and it can only be deliberate, since a science journalist of Ms Wallis' calibre would know that ID makes no claim to be trying to "find... God's fingerprints in nature." All ID is seeking scientific evidence of design in nature. If it is scientific for Richard Dawkins to subtitle his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, "Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design," then it must also be scientific to present evidence and arguments that that the evidence of nature reveals a Universe with design. It is an example of the special pleading (double standard) fallacy for evolutionists to claim that the "no" answer to the question, "is there empirically detectable evidence of design in nature?" is "science", but the "yes" answer to the same question is "religion":

"Clearly if you have a question, the answer yes and the answer no to the question are still in the same subject area. So if the affirmation `Yes, natural selection can create as much as is needed,' is science, then the no answer -- `No, the evidence does not support that' -- is science, too. I vigorously assert that this is not two subjects but one subject: what does the evidence show and not show about natural processes? ... It can't be that the yes answer is science and the no answer is religion.'" (Johnson P.E., "Evolution and the Curriculum: A Conversation with Phillip Johnson and Gregg Easterbrook," , September 1999, Ethics and Public Policy Center: Washington DC, February 2000, No. 4).

[Continued in part #3]

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

Harvard to Investigate Origins of Life, etc

Here are news items with my comments in square brackets:

Harvard to Investigate Origins of Life, ABCNEWS/ Associated Press Aug. 16, 2005 - Harvard University is joining the long-running debate over the theory of evolution by launching a research project to study how life began. The team of researchers will receive $1 million in funding annually from Harvard over the next few years. The project begins with an admission that some mysteries about life's origins cannot be explained. "My expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention," said David R. Liu, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard. The "Origins of Life in the Universe Initiative" is still in its early stages, scientists told the Boston Sunday Globe. Harvard has told the research team to make plans for adding faculty members and a collection of multimillion-dollar facilities. Evolution is a fundamental scientific theory that species evolved over millions of years. It has been standard in most public school science texts for decades but recently re-emerged in the spotlight as communities and some states debated whether school children should also be taught about creationism or intelligent design. 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. Harvard has not been seen as a leader in origins of life research, but the university's vast resources could change that perception. "It is quite gratifying to see Harvard is going for a solution to a problem that will be remembered 100 years from now," said Steven Benner, a University of Florida scientist who is one of the world's top chemists in origins-of-life research. ... [The references to "the long-running debate over the theory of evolution … whether school children should also be taught about creationism or intelligent design," "intelligent design says life on earth is too complex to have developed through evolution" and "with no divine intervention" is a dead give-away that Harvard (which up till now has shown little or no interest in origin of life research) is reacting to the rising tide of scepticism about evolution. As Phil Johnson observed, "If Darwinists are to keep the Creator out of the picture, they have to provide a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," 1993, p.103). Antony Flew's abandoning of atheism for deism because, "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism" (Philosophy Now) would not have gone unnoticed among the Harvard secular elite. It is also a tacit admission that, more than a half-century since the Miller-Urey experiment (1953), materialistic-naturalistic science has no explanation of the origin of life. Note that the proposition there was "no divine intervention" in the origin of life is "science", and so can be taught in schools, but the counter-proposition that there was divine intervention" is dismissed as "religion" and so cannot be taught in schools!]

Study: Most Wild Chimps Are Southpaws, ABCNEWS/ Associated Press … RANDOLPH E. SCHMID AP Science Writer The Associated Press Aug. 16, 2005 - When it comes to fishing tasty termites out of their mounds, wild chimpanzees don't have the right stuff. Most, in fact, are southpaws. A three-year study of 17 wild chimps in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, found that 12 of them used their left hands when using sticks to probe for termites. Four were right-handed and one was listed as ambiguously handed. "Contrary to previous claims, wild chimpanzees show population-level handedness in tool-use," reported the research team led by William D. Hopkins of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta. Population-level handedness indicates a preference for one hand in a large group. Hopkins' findings are reported in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper also looked at previous studies of chimpanzees and found that others had noted a left-handed preference when using sticks to fish for termites, but there had been reports of a right-handed preference when cracking nuts. Scientists have long debated whether nonhuman primates exhibit handedness. Because the hands are controlled by opposite sides of the brain, the finding could indicate that this brain division had begun as long as 5 million years ago, prior to the split between humans and chimpanzees. Richard W. Byrne of the University of St. Andrews in Fife, United Kingdom, who has reported on hand-preference in mountain gorillas doing complex tasks, said: "It now looks as if whatever gives a population skew to manually skilled behavior has its roots deep in the shared ancestry of humans and all other African great apes." ... A larger question concerns the evolution of language, Hopkins said in a telephone interview. Most people, right and left handed, use the left hemisphere of the brain to process language, he explained. The argument has been made that if humans developed language after the split from apes, and language is related to handedness, then there shouldn't be handedness in apes, he said, "This reinforces the view that the whole historical link between language and handedness is probably not a correct one and people need to rethink those ideas," Hopkins said. ...
Study: Chimps show hand preference, CNN, August 16, 2005 … Chimpanzees in captivity show a right-handed preference for some tasks, but researchers have wondered if this because they are raised by humans, who are mostly right-handed. ... Humans are still far more likely than chimps to be right-handed. It could be there was a genetic mutation favoring right-handedness in humans, the researchers said. Or it could be that this is a reflection of the unique organization of human brains, they added.[If chimps were predominantly right-handed like humans, it would be hailed as evidence of our close relationship. Therefore, the opposite handedness in chimps from humans is evidence of a more distant relationship. This also indicates that the language ability in humans arose after the chimp-human split. This reminded me of what Gould pointed out about the differences between humans and chimps:

"The genetic differences between humans and chimps are minor, but they include at least ten large inversions and translocations. An inversion is, literally, the turning around of a chromosomal segment. Each hybrid cell would have a set of chimp and a corresponding set of human chromosomes. Egg and sperm cells are made by a process called meiosis, or reduction division. In meiosis, each chromosome must pair (lie side by side) with its counterpart before cell division, so that corresponding genes can match up one to one: that is, each chimp chromosome must pair with its human counterpart. But if a piece of human chromosome is inverted relative to its counterpart in chimps, then gene-by-gene pairing cannot occur without elaborate looping and twisting that usually precludes successful cell division." (Gould S.J., "Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History," [1978], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.55)

Each of those "ten large inversions and translocations" would presumably mean a new species (for the "meiosis" reason that Gould gave), so while I accept that humans and chimps share a common ancestor, there are probably at least ten species in between them and us.]

Cloning a world away, Roger Highfield, Daily Telegraph, 10 August 2005. ... In the light of cloned mice, goats, horses, pigs, deer, carp and fruit flies, the creation of Snuppy by South Korea's king of cloning, Prof Wook-Suk Hwang, shows that there is no fundamental reason why humans cannot be cloned, though experiments to date underline how risky and inefficient the process is. ... Early cloning attempts relied on sea urchins, salamanders, frogs and other creatures which have big eggs that are conveniently delivered as spawn. These cold-blooded pioneers were used to explore the biology of development to shed light on whether creatures were fully formed at the moment of fertilisation, and just grew, or if they developed from a single cell to the complex arrangement of billions in an adult. Nuclear transfer was first used almost a century ago by the great German embryologist Hans Spemann, who used a delicate hair from Margrette, his baby daughter, as a noose to manipulate a newly fertilised salamander egg. ... Evidence that all of the cells of an adult contained the recipe to make an individual was obtained in the 1950s by John Gurdon at Oxford University, who was trying to clone the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis. He went on to create 30 albino frogs, cloned by nuclear transfer from the cells of an albino tadpole into the eggs of normally pigmented frogs. One of his pupils, Chris Graham, wanted to develop nuclear transfer for mice and this marked the start of efforts to clone mammals that culminated in 1986 in the work of Steen Willadsen, an inventive Dane working in Cambridge. His lambs were the first mammals to be cloned beyond any doubt by nuclear transfer and his work would provide much of the impetus that drove Prof Ian Wilmut to create Dolly at the Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh. Over the years, Hollywood has invested millions in cloning fantasies. ... Copies of Adolf Hitler starred in the 1978 movie of another Ira Levin novel, The Boys From Brazil. ... Based on Prof Hwang's experience with Snuppy (although, admittedly, there are technical reasons why dogs are hard to clone) to ... clone a baby would mean obtaining more than 1,000 fresh human eggs, which are in very short supply, and using them to create 1,000 cloned embryos. If the Snuppy example holds true, these would then be implanted in 123 women. Of those surrogate mothers, all but one would risk the hurt and turmoil of the pregnancy failing, of miscarriages and deformed foetuses. Another common problem with nuclear transfer is unusually big offspring. Prof Wilmut also fears the psychological effects on a clone. In short, despite Hollywood's efforts to make it look easy, even a totalitarian dictator would find it tough to indulge a narcissistic cloning fantasy. ... [I did a major assignment on cloning in a molecular biology unit 3-4 years ago, and my conclusion then was that humans, who are particularly difficult to clone, apart from the ethical, social, economic and legal reasons (a cloned human, unlike a dog, could sue its creators), would never be cloned. It is nice to see this now being increasingly acknowledged. Indeed, so many are the problems of cloning, it is unlikely that even the original idea of cloning identical lines of high-quality farm animals (to replace the hit and miss of selective breeding) is an economic proposition.]

Did double whammy of volcano and asteroid wipe out dinosaurs?, Steve Connor, The Independent 17 August 2005 ... 16 August 2005 Volcanic eruptions may have triggered the demise of the dinosaurs. Many scientists believed that an asteroid caused the mass extinction 65 million years ago. However, a new study points to a more complex event that began with a series of eruptions which took place in what is now north-western India. The Deccan Traps in Maharashtra state are flows of lava resulting from huge outpourings of molten rock and ash. A mile deep, they cover about 200,000 square miles. Vulcanologists have long thought the eruption, dated to about 65 million years ago, could have caused the extinction. However, the Deccan Traps resulted from a series of eruptions that occurred over perhaps a million years. This would have given the global climate plenty of time to adjust. But the study shows a major part of the eruption occurred over a short period. Scientists from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris calculated that at least 2,000ft of lava was deposited in 30,000 years, which could have greatly altered global climate. They have also shown that the Traps were erupting when the asteroid crashed into what is now Mexico. This was a spectacular and almost unprecedented double whammy for Earth. Mike Widdowson, a vulcanologist, said it seems the end of the dinosaurs may have begun with climate change brought about by the eruptions and ended with the asteroid. "The eruptions pre-conditioned the global environment toward a catastrophic tipping point before the impact occurred. The asteroid was the coup de grâce," he said. ... [Another article on this that makes it clearer that the K/T mass extinction that took out the dinosaurs was an "almost unprecedented double whammy for Earth", in a short period of global warming caused by the greenhouse effect of volcanic emissions, then a sudden period of global cooling by the asteroid impact's `nuclear winter'. Since without this `one-two punch' we would not be here, I regard this as another fine-tuned event by an Intelligent Designer (who I assume is the Christian God), in preparing the Earth for man. I will add this also to section PC 8.3.1.1.1 "Preparing Earth for Life and Man ... Pruning the Tree of Life ... The Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) extinction " to the outline of my planned second book "Progressive Creation"]

Building a Virtual Microbe, Gene by Gene by Gene, Carl Zimmer The New York Times, August 16, 2005, Michael Ellison has a dream: to reconstruct a living thing inside a computer, down to every last molecule. It is, he said, "the ultimate goal in biology to be able to do this." It's a dream that Dr. Ellison, a biologist at the University of Alberta, shares with other scientists, who have imagined such an achievement for decades. Understanding how all of the parts of an organism work together would lift biology to a new level, they argue. Biologists would be able to understand life as deeply as engineers understand the bridges and airplanes that they build. "You can sit down at a computer, and you can design experiments, and you can see the performance of this thing, and then you can figure out why it's done what it's done," Dr. Ellison said. "You're not going to recognize the full return of the biological revolution until you can simulate a living organism." In the past few years this fantasy has become plausible and now Dr. Ellison is part of an international team of biologists who are now trying to make it a reality. They have chosen to recreate Escherichia coli, the humble resident of the human gut that has been the favorite species for biology experiments for decades. "We picked the simplest organism about which we know the most," Dr. Ellison said. Scientists may know more about E. coli than they do about any other species on earth, but that doesn't mean that creating a virtual E. coli will be a snap. Many mysteries remain to be solved, and at the moment even a single E. coli may be too complex to recreate in a computer. But the effort is still worthwhile, some scientists argue, because it would become a powerful tool for drug testing, genetic engineering and for understanding some of life's deepest mysteries. Discovered in 1885, Escherichia coli soon proved easy to raise in laboratories. Its popularity boomed in the 1940's when scientists figured out how to use it to pry open the secrets of genes. In the 1970's scientists figured out how to insert foreign DNA into E. coli, turning them into biochemical factories that could churn out valuable compounds like insulin. ... Research on E. coli accelerated even more after 1997, when scientists published its entire genome. Scientists were able to survey all 4,288 of its genes, discovering how groups of them worked together to break down food, make new copies of DNA and do other tasks. Some scientists speculated that before long they might understand how all of the pieces of E. coli worked together. Such speculations were not new. In 1967, Francis H. C. Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, and the Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sydney Brenner had called for "the complete solution of E. coli." But the call went unheeded for over 30 years. After all, E. coli contains an estimated 60 million biological molecules. Simulating all of them at once was an absurdly difficult task. But by the late 1990's, it began to look plausible, although not necessarily easy. Despite decades of research, many of E. coli's genes still remain a mystery - "probably around 1,000 genes," Dr. Thomas said. "There's a lot more we need to know about E. coli before we can build a really solid model." ... As knowledge of E. coli grows, scientists are starting to build models of the microbe that capture some of its behavior. "This field is moving forward very aggressively," said Bernhard Palsson of the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Palsson models E. coli's metabolism. ... Meanwhile, researchers at the laboratory of Philippe Cluzel at the University of Chicago have been focusing their efforts on making E. coli swim. The microbe swims with several spinning tails, each driven by a motor revolving 270 times a second. If the tails turn counterclockwise, they all wrap into a bundle that can propel E. coli forward. If the microbe makes the motors turn clockwise, on the other hand, the tails fly apart and send E. coli into a tumble. By alternatively swimming and tumbling, E. coli can navigate through its tiny world. It "decides" which way to spin its motors based on the information it gets from sensors that stud its outer membrane. "It's a big information-processing network," said Thierry Emonet, a research scientist at the University of Chicago. To understand this microbial computer, Dr. Emonet and his colleagues have created a virtual E. coli that can sense its surroundings and decide how to swim. They simulate the chemical reactions that carry signals from sensors to motors, and then track the path a virtual E. coli takes through three-dimensional space. ... Dr. Emonet said he hoped that his model would allow scientists to understand other sorts of decisions made by cells. Cells "decide" to divide in response to certain signals, for example, and runaway cell division can lead to cancer. Understanding the simple decisions of E. coli may help researchers understand the decisions of more complex cells like those in our own bodies. "If you can't understand how a single E. coli is able to find food by passing information from the outside to the inside, there's very little hope for understanding a system like cancer," Dr. Emonet said. A full-blown model of E. coli would be able not only to swim, but eat food, fight off invading viruses, make copies of its DNA, and do many other tasks all at the same time. Scientists agree that building a multitasking model would be a daunting job. "Technically, that's incredibly more difficult," Dr. Thomas said. Dr. Ellison and his colleagues have decided to take the first steps toward creating a full-blown model. They want to begin by simulating a simplified E. coli. "We're going to strip E. coli down to about one-quarter of its original size," Dr. Ellison said. Dr. Wanner is working with colleagues in Japan to make this minimal E. coli. "We're trying to knock out groups of 100 genes at a time," Dr. Wanner said. They hope to produce a stripped-down E. coli with only around 1,000 genes within two years. .... The researchers hope to use the model to recreate an entire E. coli, complete with genes, enzymes, membrane channels and other parts. There is one major catch, however. Even a stripped-down E. coli is so complex that no existing program can simulate it. "Our gamble in this is that computers are getting more powerful, so we build the framework and within 5 or 10 years the computers will be able to deal with this," Dr. Ellison said. "Assuming the speed of computing keeps increasing, I don't see why it's not possible," said Dr. Emonet ... But, like some other scientists, he has some reservations about its usefulness. "Even if we could make a simulation of everything inside E. coli today, that does not mean we would understand it," he said "The trick is to build the thing in steps and check that you understand the phenomena one at a time." A full-blown model of E. coli is still worth the effort, many scientists argue, because of its potential benefits. Scientists could
adapt the E. coli model to more complex human cells to simulate how they react to different drugs. "Then you can really do genetic engineering," Dr. Ellison said. "I mean where you can actually design an organism or change it in massive ways. When people talk about genetic engineering today, it's really kind of a joke because they mean, 'I moved a gene from one organism into another organism, and I'm going to pray that it works.' " A virtual E. coli could allow scientists to see in advance how major changes to the microbe would affect it. "That opens up a huge amount of opportunity," Dr. Ellison said. ... [Personally I doubt that they could ever completly model an entire bacterium like E. coli. And even if they did, the simulation would be so complex that no human mind could understand it. But it will be interesting if they work out its the information content. The "motor revolving 270 times a second" that is controlled by "a big information-processing network" is none other than the bacterial flagellum! It will be particularly interesting if they can work out the information content of that!]

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

"The Evolution Wars" (TIME, August 15, 2005) #1

This is the first part of a multi-part critique of TIME magazine's articles under the cover story, "The Evolution Wars" (August 15, 2005, pages 52-59). Over the coming weeks, I will work my way through each article, but interspersed with posts on other issues. Before considering the first article, the cover poses the following question:

EVOLUTION WARS
The push to teach "intelligent design" raises a question: Does God have a place in science class?

This is a form of the fallacy of false alternative (or false dilemma), in that it implies that the only alternatives that can be taught "in science class" are either evolution or creation by "God" and therefore "intelligent design" (ID) must be the latter. But clearly the question, "is there empirically detectable evidence of intelligent design in nature?" is separate from the question, "who is the designer?" For example, if the evidence shows that the minimal self-replicating cell was too complex to be plausibly explained by unintelligent natural processes, then design can be reliably inferred without needing to uniquely identify who the designer was.

This is no mere hypothetical example. Recently one of the world's leading atheists, British philosophy professor Antony Flew, author of a book "Darwinian Evolution" (1984), came to that very conclusion, based on the scientific evidence, and citing arguments of intelligent design theorists, that the complexity of the first self-replicating organism was so great, that unintelligent natural processes were inadequate to produce it from non-living chemicals, so it must have been created by God:

"A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God -- more or less -- based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday. At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England. Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives. "I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose." … Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates. There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife. Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?" … The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote. … Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe." (Ostling R.N.,"One of the world's leading atheists now believes in God, more or less,"San Francisco Chronicle/Associated Press, December 9, 2004)

But note that while Flew concludes from the scientific evidence of nature that there is design, he assumes that the designer was the deistic God of Thomas Jefferson, whereas a Christian IDist like me assumes (but cannot prove-from the evidence of nature alone) that the designer was the "God of the Christian" and a Muslim would assume that the designer was "the God of Islam." In fact there are IDists who are not even theists, like the agnostic Michael Denton, who regards design as an intrinsic teleological property of the laws of nature, and explicitly rejects the designer being a supernatural creator:

"Because this book presents a teleological interpretation of the cosmos which has obvious theological implications, it is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science-that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended ultimately in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so- called `special creationist school.' According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God's direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world-that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies. In large measure, therefore, the teleological argument presented here and the special creationist worldview are mutually exclusive accounts of the world. In the last analysis, evidence for one is evidence against the other. Put simply, the more convincing is the evidence for believing that the world is prefabricated to the end of life, that the design is built into the laws of nature, the less credible becomes the special creationist worldview." (Denton M.J., "Nature's Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe," Free Press: New York NY, 1998, pp.xvii-xviii. Emphasis in original).

It is hard to believe that the top-flight journalists and editors of TIME would not be aware of ID's distinction between the evidence of design in nature and the identity of the designer, the former being ID's primary focus with the later being left to philosophy and theology. Especially since (as we shall see) their own articles in this very issue make that point!

[Continued in part #2]

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