First chimpanzee fossils found, etc

This is a re-post of a science news excerpts post I accidently deleted:

First chimpanzee fossils found, BBC, 31 August 2005. ... The only chimpanzee fossils known to science have been unearthed in Kenya, the journal Nature reports. The three 545,000-year-old chimp teeth were dug up in the country's Tugen Hills and probably belonged to the same individual, the US discoverers say. Plenty of fossils belonging to early human ancestors, or hominids, have been found at dig sites all over the world. But until now, scientists had not identified a single fossil belonging to humankind's closest living relative. ... The teeth were excavated from the Kapthurin Formation of the Tugen Hills late in 2004. "Once you realise what they are, they're dead ringers," Professor Sally McBrearty... [said] "The thick bases of the incisors, in particular, are very characteristic of chimpanzees and also the fact that all of the teeth have thin enamel. "The molars you might think: 'maybe this is human'; but the cusp pattern isn't really right." The chimp probably died on the shore of a lake in a wet, wooded habitat. The fossil remains of hippos, crocodiles, catfish and turtles have been found at the site. And about 1km away, human fossils probably belonging to Homo erectus have been uncovered. ... Co-author Nina Jablonski ... estimates that the chimp was seven or eight years old when it died. ... The teeth seem to share more affinities with the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) than they do with its "sister" species, the bonobo (Pan paniscus). But the authors say it could equally represent a member of an extinct chimp lineage. ... Many researchers have suggested that humans and chimps have occupied quite separate ecological zones since they split away from a common ancestor between five and eight million years ago. Modern chimp populations are found in tropical west and central Africa, whereas the Rift Valley is widely regarded as the "cradle of humanity" ... The new discovery demonstrates that half a million years ago, the Rift Valley contained habitats suitable for both early humans and chimps. ... Fossils Show Chimps, Humans Co-Existed, Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News, September 2, 2005 - American anthropologists have discovered the first chimpanzee fossils, filling one of the biggest gaps in the ancient primate record. While hominid fossils abound, no one had previously found a fossil belonging to our closest living relative ... As well as providing new insight into the evolution of chimps, the landmark discovery shatters the widespread belief that humans and chimps did not coexist since they diverged from a common ancestor five to eight million years ago. The researchers found startling evidence of the cohabitation as they unearthed fossils attributed to Homo erectus or Homo rhodesiensis in the same geologic layer less than a mile away. Since modern chimp populations are now confined to wooded west and central Africa, whereas most hominid fossils have been found in the semi-arid East African Rift Valley, it has been long speculated that ancient chimps and humans diverged from their common ancestor when hominids left the jungles and moved east to the less wooded grasslands. "People used to believe that the origin of humans had to do with their leaving the forest and beginning to walk on two legs. Our discovery shows that the forest-savanna dichotomy used to explain the split between the chimpanzee and human lines does not add up," McBrearty ... [said]. ... "It's difficult to diagnose species from teeth alone. Because we have absolutely no other fossils of chimpanzees, people have assumed that chimps did not change much over time. In fact, we don't know exactly what chimpanzee ancestors may have looked like, and if there may have been a number of different species in the past that are extinct today," McBrearty said ... According to anthropologist John Hawks ... significant developments may follow the discovery. "I think the interesting thing is the hint from genetics that East African chimpanzees diverged from central African chimpanzees only relatively recently - within the past two or three hundred thousand years. If that is accurate, then these fossils must represent some extinct form of chimpanzee that no longer exists - almost a chimpanzee version of a Neanderthal," Hawks [said] ... First-ever Chimp Fossils Found, Bjorn Carey, LiveScience, 31 August 2005. The first ever chimpanzee fossils were recently discovered in an area previously thought to be unsuitable for chimps. Fossils from human ancestor were also found nearby. Although researchers have only found a few chimp teeth, the discovery could cause a shake-up in the theories of human evolution. ... It had previously been thought that chimps never lived in the arid Rift Valley-they prefer more lush environments like the Congo and jungles of western Africa. For years scientists believed that early human ancestors left the jungles and moved east to the less wooded grasslands and that this move caused the evolutionary split between the human and chimp lines. But now, with the discovery of ancient chimps and humans in the same area, evolutionists may have to rethink what caused humans to become humans. ... We need to look for another reason for the evolutionary split." ... One of the more frustrating aspects of paleontology is that full skeletons are very infrequently preserved-especially in jungle environments where soil acidity and scavengers destroy or eat bones that could otherwise become fossils. Teeth, on the other hand, more frequently survive. They’re coated with thick enamel, which protects them from chemical attacks and makes them less desirable for hungry scavengers. ... "Chimp teeth are actually very distinctive, because compared to human teeth, molars for instance, they have very, very low crowns," Jablonski said. "The incisor teeth at the front of the jaw are also very distinctive. They’re triangular and very thick - much thicker than the same tooth in a human." ... nearby Hominid fossils were also ... found in sediments of the same age as the chimp teeth-about half a million years old. Although not modern humans, these hominids were fairly advanced as evidenced by the wide variety of stone tools they used. "These represent an earlier species of human, relatives to modern humans, but not Homo sapiens," Jablonski said. "There’s some controversy over what this species is called. Most would call it an advanced form of Homo erectus. They looked like people and were a fairly sophisticated culture with various stone tools and lived in the same environment as humans." The discovery of ancient chimps and humans living in the same area opens the door to many questions. More teeth, and perhaps even bones, may lie in the Rift Valley sediments, and finding them could help answer these questions. "I’m going back to look for the rest," McBrearty said. ... [A further nail in the coffin of the Darwinian Savannah Theory of human evolution. If humans and chimps occupied the same environment, then natural selection in response to different environments cannot be the reason for their differences.]

Y Chromosome Not Going Extinct, Study Says , Malcolm Ritter, Livescience/AP, 1 September 2005. NEW YORK (AP) -- The human Y chromosome -- the DNA chunk that makes a man a man -- has lost so many genes over evolutionary time that some scientists have suspected it might disappear in 10 million years. But a new study says it'll stick around. Researchers found no sign of gene loss over the past 6 million years, suggesting the chromosome is "doing a pretty good job of maintaining itself," said researcher David Page ... That agrees with prior mathematical calculations that suggested the rate of gene loss would slow as the chromosome evolved, Page and study co-authors note in ... the journal Nature. And, they say, it clashes with what Page called the "imminent demise' idea that says the Y chromosome is doomed to extinction. The Y appeared 300 million years ago and has since eroded into a dinky chromosome, because it lacks the mechanism other chromosomes have to get rid of damaged DNA. So mutations have disabled hundreds of its original genes, causing them to be shed as useless. The Y now contains only 27 genes or families of virtually identical genes. In 2003, Page reported that the modern-day Y has an unusual mechanism to fix about half of its genes and protect them from disappearing. But he said some scientists disagreed with his conclusion. The new paper focuses on a region of the Y chromosome where genes can't be fixed that way. Researchers compared the human and chimpanzee versions of this region. Humans and chimps have been evolving separately for about 6 million years, so scientists reasoned that the comparisons would reveal genes that have become disabled in one species or the other during that time. They found five such genes on the chimp chromosome but none on the human chromosome, an imbalance Page called surprising. "It looks like there has been little if any gene loss in our own species lineage in the last 6 million years," Page said. That contradicts the idea that the human Y chromosome has continued to lose genes so fast it'll disappear in 10 million years, he said. "I think we can with confidence dismiss .... the 'imminent demise' theory," Page said. Jennifer A. Marshall Graves ... who argues for eventual extinction of the Y chromosome, called Page's work "beautiful" but said it didn't shake her conviction that the Y is doomed. The only real question is when, not if, the Y chromosome disappears, she said. "It could be a lot shorter than 10 million years, but it could be a lot longer," she said. The Y chromosome has already disappeared in some other animals and "there's no reason to expect it can't happen to humans," she said. If it happened in people, some other chromosome would probably take over the sex-determining role of the Y, she said. ...[See also, Study: 'Male' chromosome to stick around, CNN, August 31, 2005 & Male chromosome may have a future after all, MSNBC, August 31, 2005. Prof. Grave's "It could be a lot shorter than 10 million years, but it could be a lot longer" is a good(?) example of an untestable theory. Apart from the unlikelihood of anyone remembering her prediction in "10 million years" time, I am sure that if the human race still existed in "10 million years", it would have long since have developed the technology to prevent any loss of essential Y-chromosome genes if it wanted too. I came across this "imminent demise" argument of Prof. Graves while doing my biology degree (she is a leading Australian geneticist) and it seemed an unwarranted extrapolation (to put it mildly). The Y-chromosome's primary (only?) function is determing the sex of males. Therefore, that the Y-chromosome it can lose other genes that have no essential function does not mean it can lose its primary function maleness-determining SRY gene(s). If that happened, then (absent any genetic engineering solution or Prof. Graves' vague `hand-waving' "some other chromosome would probably take over the sex-determining role of the Y") only females would be born, leading to extinction of the species when the last male died. Here "the Y chromosome has already disappeared in some other animals" is misleading. According to Wikipedia, "only two species of `mole voles', Ellobius tancrei and E. lutescens, have lost the Y chromosome entirely. In one species, both sexes have unpaired X chromosomes; in the other, both females and males have XX." It seems they have the original generalised XX chromosomes one or both with maleness determining SRY gene(s) that never became specialised into an X and a Y chromosome as in humans? But having long since specialised its male sex determination in the Y-chromosome, that does not mean it could re-develop it again. So if any genes are going to be preserved by natural selection it would be the Y-chromosome's maleness genes!]

Deceit of the Raven, DAVID BERREBY, The New York Times, September 4, 2005 It began with apes. In the 1960's and 70's, scientists taught captive chimps to use words and documented wild ones using tools and planning hunting expeditions. Then other smart mammals -- monkeys, elephants and porpoises among them -- also proved to have surprisingly "human" mental powers. And in the last few years, the circle has expanded to still other mammals and beyond. Last year, in the journal Animal Cognition, the behavioral biologist Thomas Bugnyar described a twist in an experiment he was conducting with laboratory ravens. The birds' job was to find bits of cheese hidden in film canisters, then pry open the lids to get the food out. One raven, Hugin, was best at this, but a dominant bird, Munin, would rush over and steal his reward. So Hugin changed his strategy: when the other bird came over, he went to empty canisters, pried them open and pretended to eat. While the dominant bird poked around in the wrong place, Hugin zipped back to where the food really was. He was deceiving Munin. To do that, Hugin had to grasp that "what I know" and "what he knows" are different. He had to understand, on some level, that other ravens have their own individual perceptions, feelings and plans, just as he does. It was big news when scientists found evidence that apes could grasp this. That some birds can as well is even more remarkable. Bugnyar and his colleague Bernd Heinrich have uncovered still more evidence for avian "mind reading." In another experiment, described in The Proceedings of the Royal Society, they had ravens watch as a scientist gazed fixedly at a spot on the other side of a barrier. All the birds, apparently understanding that the big featherless biped knew something they did not, hopped off their perches to get a look. Ravens aren't the only animals getting an upgrade. Earlier this year, Brian Hare ..., Michael Tomasello ... and their colleagues showed that ordinary domestic dogs understand what is meant when a human being points at something (as in "the food's under this one!"). Even apes don't understand pointing, which suggests that selective breeding has left dogs especially attuned to reading human minds. People, of course, are expert at that -- knowing that another person's winks, nods, sighs and shrugs are not just random twitches but the signs of a mind inside that other person's body. We have an apparently effortless understanding that the person across from us has her own thoughts and feelings. That sense comes to toddlers, the theory goes, much as language does: because the capacity to learn it is "built in" to normal brains. .... The significance of research like Hare's and Bugnyar's is that it adds mind reading to the long list of skills we can't claim for our own kind only. When it comes to mental abilities, animals aren't on the other side of a chasm: birds and dogs, as well as apes and sheep, stand with us on a continuum. And even as biology establishes that animals aren't automatons, another challenge to our sense of uniqueness arises in the field of artificial intelligence. Even automatons aren't acting like automatons anymore. They're increasingly apt and lively -- less like machines and more like living minds. ... What happens, as these trends continue, to the familiar guideposts for deciding what is human? How will people decide, without a checklist of yes-no criteria for human standing, who, or what, is entitled to privileges and rights? The history of human groupishness -- our tendency to divide ourselves up by color, language, religion, sex, ideology and many other criteria -- hints at a possible answer. For millennia, humans have been capable of sending help to total strangers because they're perceived to be like us ... In 1995, Mary Tyler Moore wrote an appeal for lobsters, saying they're "fascinating beings with complex social interactions, long childhoods and awkward adolescences. Like humans, they flirt with one another and have even been seen walking 'claw in claw'! And like humans, lobsters feel pain." In other words, even as the clear list of differences between human and nonhuman gets shorter, the ancient rhetoric of Us and Them remains. People will never have any trouble dividing the human from the nonhuman. We've been doing it to one another for thousands of years. ... [This "birds and dogs, as well as apes and sheep, stand with us on a continuum," (apart from being false-that we share a common ancestor with "birds and dogs, as well as apes and sheep" does not mean we are on a "continuum" with them) is what Bertrand Russell called the "votes for oysters" fallacy:

"There is a further consequence of the theory of evolution, which is independent of the particular mechanism suggested by Darwin. If men and animals have a common ancestry, and if men developed by such slow stages that there were creatures which we should not know whether to classify as human or not, the question arises: at what stage in evolution did men, or their semi-human ancestors begin to be all equal? Would Pithecanthropus erectus, if he had been properly educated, have done work as good as Newton's? Would the Piltdown Man have written Shakespeare's poetry if there had been anybody to convict him of poaching? A resolute egalitarian who answers these questions in the affirmative will find himself forced to regard apes as the equals of human beings. And why stop with apes? I do not see how he is to resist an argument in favour of Votes for Oysters. An adherent of evolution should maintain that not only the doctrine of the equality of all men, but also that of the rights of man, must be condemned as unbiological since it makes too emphatic a distinction between men and other animals." (Russell B., "History of Western Philosophy," George Allen & Unwin: London, 1961, pp.697-698).

Indeed, if one is going to use the "stand with us on a continuum" argument, then why stop there? If all life shares a common ancestry (which I accept), then if one argues on the basis of that common ancestry that we should not "divid[e] the human from the nonhuman", then one should be arguing for equal rights for bacteria! Since the writer includes "artificial intelligence ... machines" in this "human ... nonhuman" continuum, maybe he agrees with that?! But as Antony Flew pointed out that this sort of thinking was a version of the Genetic Fallacy (see tagline quote) .]

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

---

"The Genetic Fallacy really is a fallacy, and it consists in arguing that the antecedents of something must be the same as their fulfilment. ... Consider a recent best-seller, hailed by its delighted publishers as `a wildly successful book'. My copy of The Naked Ape reports that the reviewer for The Times Educational Supplement described it as `brilliantly effective, cogently argued, very readable'. Marshall McLuhan agreed: `As with the title, the entire book is full of fresh perception.`Explaining that wildly successful title the author says: 'There are one hundred and ninety three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape, self-named homo sapiens' [Morris D., "The Naked Ape," Corgi: London, 1968, p.9]. ... Since McLuhan went out of his way to commend the title, it is just worth pointing out that the opposites of 'naked' and .'covered with hair' are, respectively, `clothed ' and `hairless'. So any `fresh perception' here has resulted in a misdescription. It is, however, a misdescription which suits the author's purpose. This is metaphorically to strip man and, as he was to express it in a sequel `to reveal' a human animal, a primitive tribal hunter, masquerading as a civilized, super-tribal citizen ' ... [Morris D., "The Human Zoo," Jonathan Cape: London, 1970, p.248]. Certainly it can be salutary to be reminded that, whatever else we are or may become, we remain animals: 'Even a space ape must urinate' ... [Morris, 1968, p.21]. And certainly it is useful to insist that as animals we have inescapable problems generated by our fertility. But simply to identify us with our nearest ancestors on the evolutionary family tree is an altogether different thing. It is this which, again and again, Morris does: ` Behind the facade of modern city life there is the same old naked ape. Only the names have been changed: for `hunting' read `working', for `hunting grounds' read `place of business', for `home base' read `house', for `pair bond' read `marriage', for `mate' read `wife', and so on' (Ibid. p.74.). Once more: `When you put your name on a door, or hang a painting on a wall, you are, in dog or wolf terms, for example, simply cocking your leg on them and leaving your personal mark there' (Ibid. p.161). ... The nerve of the argument, and it is an argument which comes up all over the place, is that if this evolved from that, then this must always be that; or at least, it must always be really or essentially that. Yet a moment's thought shows that this argument is absurd. For to say that this evolved from that implies that this is different from that, and not the same. It is, therefore, peculiarly preposterous to offer as the fruit of evolutionary insight a systematic development of the thesis that we are what our ancestors were. Oaks are not, though they grow from, acorns; and-for better or for worse-civilized people are not, though they evolved from, apes." (Flew A.G., "Thinking About Thinking: Or, Do I Sincerely Want to be Right?," [1975], Fontana/Collins, Revised, 1976, pp.101-102)

One side can be wrong (Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, The Guardian, September 1, 2005) #1

Here is part #1 of my two-part response to an article by Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne in Britain's The Guardian. My comments are in square brackets:

The Guardian
One side can be wrong

Accepting 'intelligent design' in science classrooms would have disastrous consequences, warn Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne

[Yes, "disastrous consequences" for Darwinism (i.e. scientific materialism-naturalism), that is! This only goes to show how little confidence Darwinists like Dawkins and Coyne have in their theory surviving critical scrutiny (like any other theory or -ism) in school classrooms.]

Thursday September 1, 2005
The Guardian

It sounds so reasonable, doesn't it? Such a modest proposal. Why not teach "both sides" and let the children decide for themselves? As President Bush said, "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes." At first hearing, everything about the phrase "both sides" warms the hearts of educators like ourselves.

[I am sure that the Guardian's readers will choke on their breakfast, reading that Dawkins' heart is warmed by the phrase "both sides", when it comes to evolution in general and Darwinian evolution in particular! After all, it was Dawkins who famously stated that anyone "who claims not to believe in evolution ... is ignorant, stupid or insane ... or wicked" (my emphasis):

"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." (Dawkins R., "Put Your Money on Evolution", Review of Johanson D. & Edey M.A,, "Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution", in New York Times, April 9, 1989, sec. 7, p.34).]

One of us spent years as an Oxford tutor and it was his habit to choose controversial topics for the students' weekly essays.

They were required to go to the library, read about both sides of an argument, give a fair account of both, and then come to a balanced judgment in their essay. The call for balance, by the way, was always tempered by the maxim, "When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong."

[So what is the problem? If ID is "simply ... wrong," then why not teach it in schools alongside evolution? You would think that if the likes of Dawkins and Coyne were serenely confident that evolution was right, they would demand that ID be taught alongside evolution in schools.]

As teachers, both of us have found that asking our students to analyse controversies is of enormous value to their education.

[But such "controversies" are only those within the naturalistic evolution paradigm, "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). Under the rules of naturalistic reasoning, students are not permitted to consider "controversies" that would question evolution itself. The official scientific materialist party-line is that when it comes to any theory that questions naturalistic evolution itself (like Intelligent Design) it is automatically converted by the naturalistic paradigm into a non-theory, so there is no (and what's more cannot be) a controversy over naturalistic evolution itself, e.g.:

"The Discovery Institute, which promotes "intelligent design," a newer version of creationism, argues that schools should "Teach the Controversy." But there is no scientific controversy." (Lawrence M. Krauss, "School Boards Want to 'Teach the Controversy.' What Controversy?," The New York Times, May 17, 2005.]

What is wrong, then, with teaching both sides of the alleged controversy between evolution and creationism or "intelligent design" (ID)?

[Note the word, "alleged" before "controversy"! Evolutionists cannot, within their naturalistic paradigm, concede (and probably not even think) that there really could be "a controversy between evolution and" any theory that contradicted naturalistic evolution itself, such as "creationism or `intelligent design'."]

And, by the way, don't be fooled by the disingenuous euphemism. There is nothing new about ID. It is simply creationism camouflaged with a new name to slip (with some success, thanks to loads of tax-free money and slick public-relations professionals) under the radar of the US Constitution's mandate for separation between church and state.

[This is simply false, and what's more the general public will increasingly realise it is false, that "ID ... is simply creationism camouflaged with a new name." For starters, ID is based not on the Bible (as creationism is), but on the evidence of design in nature:

"Questions about Intelligent Design

1. What is the theory of intelligent design?

The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

2. Is intelligent design theory incompatible with evolution?

It depends on what one means by the word "evolution." If one simply means "change over time," or even that living things are related by common ancestry, then there is no inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory. However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism, which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, an unpredictable and purposeless process that "has no discernable direction or goal, including survival of a species." (NABT Statement on Teaching Evolution). It is this specific claim made by neo-Darwinism that intelligent design theory directly challenges.

3. Is intelligent design based on the Bible?

No. The intellectual roots of intelligent design theory are varied. Plato and Aristotle both articulated early versions of design theory, as did virtually all of the founders of modern science. Indeed, most scientists until the latter part of the nineteenth century accepted some form of intelligent design. The scientific community largely rejected design in the early twentieth century after neo-Darwinism claimed to be able to explain the emergence of biological complexity through the unintelligent process of natural selection acting on random mutations. During the past decade, however, new research and discoveries in such fields as physics, cosmology, biochemistry, genetics, and paleontology have caused a growing number of scientists and science theorists to question neo-Darwinism and propose design as the best explanation for the existence of specified complexity in the natural world.

4. Is intelligent design theory the same as creationism?

No. Intelligent design theory is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. Honest critics of intelligent design acknowledge the difference between intelligent design and creationism. University of Wisconsin historian of science Ronald Numbers is critical of intelligent design, yet according to the Associated Press, he "agrees the creationist label is inaccurate when it comes to the ID [intelligent design] movement." Why, then, do some Darwinists keep trying to conflate intelligent design with creationism? According to Dr. Numbers, it is because they think such claims are "the easiest way to discredit intelligent design." In other words, the charge that intelligent design is "creationism" is a rhetorical strategy on the part of Darwinists who wish to delegitimize design theory without actually addressing the merits of its case." ("Top Questions," Discovery Institute: Center for Science and Culture, December 15, 2004)

The Darwinists are `digging their own grave' with the public, by continually trotting out this false claim that "ID ... is simply creationism camouflaged with a new name" when it is easy to see (at least for someone whose mind has not been taken captive by the naturalistic paradigm), that it isn't. So the public will increasingly conclude that the Darwinists who claim it are either dishonest or deluded and so either way cannot be trusted in their other claims.]

Why, then, would two lifelong educators and passionate advocates of the "both sides" style of teaching join with essentially all biologists in making an exception of the alleged controversy between creation and evolution? What is wrong with the apparently sweet reasonableness of "it is only fair to teach both sides"? The answer is simple. This is not a scientific controversy at all. And it is a time-wasting distraction because evolutionary science, perhaps more than any other major science, is bountifully endowed with genuine controversy.

[See what I mean! By redefining "science" as applied naturalistic philosophy, Darwinists can then claim that anything outside their naturalistic paradigm (like creationism or intelligent design) "is not a scientific controversy at all." But their redefinition of "science" depends on naturalism being true (which it isn't). To the vast majority of the rest of us who do not accept apriori that naturalism is true, there is very much a "controversy".]

Among the controversies that students of evolution commonly face, these are genuinely challenging and of great educational value: neutralism versus selectionism in molecular evolution; adaptationism; group selection; punctuated equilibrium; cladism; "evo-devo"; the "Cambrian Explosion"; mass extinctions; interspecies competition; sympatric speciation; sexual selection; the evolution of sex itself; evolutionary psychology; Darwinian medicine and so on. The point is that all these controversies, and many more, provide fodder for fascinating and lively argument, not just in essays but for student discussions late at night.

[As far as "controversies that students of evolution commonly face", I have recently (2004) completed a biology degree and none of the above were presented as "controversies". But the point is that to the extent they are regarded as "controversies" within the naturalistic evolution paradigm, any answers outside that paradigm are not permitted. A recent example of this was in one of them, the "Cambrian Explosion":

"Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg ... editor of the ... Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, ... decided to publish a paper making the case for "intelligent design," ... 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 ... "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."... James McVay, the principal legal adviser in the Office of Special Counsel, wrote to Sternberg, ... 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. ... It is hard to overstate the passions fired by the debate over intelligent design. ... 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 ... Sternberg ... holds two PhDs in evolutionary biology ... 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 vast profusion of multicellular species and forms in what is known as the Cambrian "explosion," which occurred about 530 million years ago. Scientists still puzzle at this great proliferation of life. But Meyer's paper went several long steps further, arguing that an intelligent agent ... was the best explanation for the rapid appearance of higher life-forms. ... "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." Sternberg ... mailed Meyer's article to three scientists for a peer review. ..."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. ... An e-mail ... labeled him a "Young Earth Creationist,"... Sternberg insists he does not believe in creationism. ... Sternberg ... 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." (Michael Powell, "Editor Explains Reasons for 'Intelligent Design' Article," The Washington Post, August 19, 2005, p.A19)

Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?

[This defining of naturalistic evolution as "science" and Intelligent design as "religion" is what Johnson means by "the Darwinists ... rely[ing] on enforcing rules of reasoning that allow no alternative to the official story":

"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. My emphasis).

Moreover it is fallacious. Dawkins himself, when it suits him (i.e. when he wants to attack it) has conceded that even "creationism" is a rival scientific theory (he includes it in the same category of "doomed rivals" along with the scientific theories "Lamarckism", "neutralism" and "mutationism"):

"But there are other theories that are most definitely not versions of Darwinism, theories that go flatly against the very spirit of Darwinism. These rival theories are the subject of this chapter. They include various versions of what is called Lamarckism; also other points of view such as 'neutralism', 'mutationism' and creationism which have, from time to time, been advanced as alternatives to Darwinian selection. The obvious way to decide between rival theories is to examine the evidence. ... In short, divine creation, whether instantaneous or in the form of guided evolution, joins the list of other theories we have considered in this chapter." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, pp.287, 316-317. My emphasis)

And in my biology textbook, Dawkins discussed Paley's "argument of design", which at the time, "All undergraduates at Cambridge had to read":

"One of your books, The Blind Watchmaker, argues the case for the cumulative power of natural selection in the adaptation of organisms. Tell us about the metaphorical title of that book. The `watchmaker' comes from William Paley, the eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century theologian who was one of the most famous exponents of the argument of design. Paley famously said that if you are wandering along and stumble upon a watch and you pick it up and open it, you realize that the internal mechanism-the way in which it's all meshed together-is detailed perfection. Add this to the fact that the watch mechanism has a purpose-namely, telling the time-then this compels you to conclude that the watch had to have a designer. Paley then went on throughout his book giving example after example of detailed structure of living organisms-eyes, heart, bowels, joints, and everything about animals- showing how beautifully designed they apparently are, how well they work, how intricately the parts mesh together, just like the cog wheels of a watch. And if the watch had to have a watchmaker, then of course these biological structures also had to have a designer. My reason for beginning The Blind Watchmaker was Paley. He really saw the magnitude of the problem of adaptation when most people just didn't see how elegant, how beautiful, apparent design in life is. Paley saw that, and Darwin saw that. And Darwin was introduced to it at least partly by Paley. All undergraduates at Cambridge had to read William Paley. He at least put the question right. So the only thing Paley got wrong, which is quite a big thing, was the answer to the question. And nobody got the right answer until Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century." (Dawkins R., "Mechanisms of Evolution," in Campbell N.A., Reece J.B. & Mitchell L.G., "Biology," [1987], Benjamin/Cummings: Menlo Park CA, Fifth Edition, 1999, p.412)

Now if "Paley ... at least put the question right", then that was a scientific question, even if (according to Dawkins) "Paley got wrong ... the answer to the question" and Darwin "got the right answer". It is just special pleading for Darwinists to claim that their `no' answer to the question, "is there evidence for design in nature?" is "science", but the ID movement's `yes' answer to the same question is "religion"! The very fact that Darwinists continue to mention the design argument in biology textbooks, in order to show how Darwin (supposedly) refuted it, and spend so much time and effort trying to falsify ID's design argument (as in this Guardian article), shows that they really do accept design as a rival scientific theory.]

[Because of other priorities, this will now not be continued in part #2]

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

School to make evolution optional, etc

Here are science news excerpts, with my comments in square brackets:

School to make evolution optional, Roy Eccleston, The Australian, September 03, 2005 A SYDNEY Christian school has moved quickly to incorporate the controversial Intelligent Design theory into its science classes as an alternative to the conventional theory of evolution. High school students at Pacific Hills Christian School have begun to study ID theory, which claims to have scientific evidence that life on Earth was at least partly the work of a designer. The school's decision appears to be one of the first forays of the controversial US-developed theory into the Australian school system where it will be met with strong opposition from the nation's science teachers. The issue has already proved deeply divisive in the US, where the promotion of religion in schools is constitutionally banned. Australian science teachers have decided to oppose teaching ID, but will allow its discussion as a "belief system" in science class. "We would have no problem with ID being taught in religious or science classes," said the school's principal, Ted Boyce, adding that teachers were working to include it in the curriculum for next year. "Evolution is taught in the school system as if it's a universally accepted theory and there's no other way to view the origin of man and creation," Dr Boyce said. "I have trouble with this. We would teach evolution as a theory and ID as an alternative theory." Sydney's Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal George Pell [said] ... he was "agnostic" about whether ID, which uses DNA, proteins and mathematical formula to argue its case, should be taught in schools. But he said he would be happy to see ID discussed in classes where evolution was sometimes taught in an "anti-God way". "There's no doubt evolution explains a lot of things," he said. "But it's there to be replaced or improved -- there are many things it doesn't explain." ID is being incorporated into Catholic school texts on religious studies, said Monsignor Peter Elliott .... "I don't think you hermetically seal off science from other questions," he said. But prominent scientists have attacked ID as unscientific and "creationism in disguise". "You can't teach it in science class," said prominent physicist Paul Davies, who has written extensively on the nature of God and science. "God has never been a part of science." Professor Davies argued that ID theory was not scientific because it could not be subjected to standard scientific tests. "It isn't a scientific theory, it's a religion," he said. "There are all sorts of beliefs out there: flat-earthers, fairies and philosophy class might be appropriate." Pushing ID into the broader school system is sure to meet strong resistance. Gary Thomas, the president of the Australian Science Teachers' Association, said the association had agreed to resist pressure to have ID taught in science classes. "The study of science is about what is measurable, testable, and evidence-based," he said. "The theory of evolution is the best scientific explanation forexplaining the changes in life on Earth." But science teachers also agreed that they could include ID as a topic in the classroom. "While Intelligent Design has no status as a scientific theory, teachers of science may wish to contrast it to other belief systems with scientific theories like evolution, as a means of assisting students to understand better the nature of science," ANSTA has concluded. ... [See also, Roy Eccleston, Designed to put God into the gaps, The Australian, September 03, 2005. It is great news that "science teachers ... agreed that they could include ID as a topic in the classroom ... to contrast it to other belief systems with scientific theories like evolution." That is all the ID movement askes for at this stage, to "teach the controversy." Atheists like Paul Davies (who as the article says, has "has written extensively on the nature of God and science") only insist that ID is about "God", so they can then dismiss it as "religion." But as Davies well knows, all that ID claims is that there is scientific evidence of design in nature. Indeed, Davies himself has written, "The temptation to believe that the Universe is the product of some sort of design ... is overwhelming":

"The temptation to believe that the Universe is the product of some sort of design, a manifestation of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgement, is overwhelming. The belief that there is `something behind it all' is one that I personally share with, I suspect, a majority of physicists. This rather diffuse feeling could, I suppose, be termed theism in its widest sense." (Davies P.C.W., "The Christian perspective of a scientist," Review of "The way the world is," by John Polkinghorne, New Scientist, Vol. 98, 2 June 1983, pp.638-639, p.638. My emphasis)

Not to mention Davies making presumably a lot of money out of books about science with "God" in the title, e.g. "God and the New Physics" (1983) and "The Mind of God" (1992). If "a majority of physicists" believe "that there is `something behind it all'" then why is the evidence for that belief not able to be presented in schools? The bottom line is that "Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted. ... it is an effort to make true statements about physical reality" and since "The conclusion of design flows naturally from the data" science "should embrace it":

"It is often said that science must avoid any conclusions which smack of the supernatural. But this seems to me to be both bad logic and bad science. Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted. Rather, it is an effort to make true statements about physical reality ... In the present day, as biochemistry multiplies examples of fantastically complex molecular systems, systems which discourage even an attempt to explain how they may have arisen .. The conclusion of design flows naturally from the data; we should not shrink from it; we should embrace it and build on it." (Behe M.J., "Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference," C.S. Lewis Society, Cambridge University: Cambridge UK, September 24, 1994).]

Chimp DNA sheds light on humanity, ABC/AFP, September 1, 2005. ... Scientists have unveiled the genetic code of the chimpanzee, showing that humans are biologically distinct from apes thanks to a small handful of important differences in DNA. The first genome of a non-human primate to be sequenced reveals that the .. tally for Pan troglodytes is largely the same as for Homo sapiens, and indeed for those other mammals whose genomes have been sequenced so far. Of the chimp's 3 billion base pairs, a mere 35 million of them (less than 4 per cent) are different from a human's. Yet these scant differences have a huge impact. They have given humans an outsized brain, the ability to walk upright on two feet, develop complex language skills, adapt quickly to changing environments, as well as other uniquely human features. "To put this into perspective ... the number of genetic differences between a human and a chimp is about 10 times more than between any two humans," noted the US National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the research. Humans and chimps have a common ancestor, an ape-like creature that last walked the earth about 6 million years ago. The march of time has sculpted the ape and human genomes in tiny but significant ways, according to an analysis published alongside the draft sequence in today's issue of the journal Nature. ... Most of the differences between humans and chimps lie in stretches of DNA that appear to have little or no function. But as many as 3 million base pairs differ in functional areas, including genes, the protein-making nuggets in the DNA goldmine. Some 53 genes present in the human genome are missing or partially deleted from the chimp genome. .... The work was carried out by the Chimp Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, which involved researchers from the US, Germany, Israel, Italy and Japan. ... In an opinion piece published in Nature, a trio of primate experts say the latest insights highlight the proximity of humans to great apes, a category of primates that comprises chimps, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans. The authors also call for tighter controls on research into these animals. They stress in particular the need to bar scientists from trying to implant human genes into great apes, a procedure that is commonly done with laboratory rodents, creating transgenic mice or rats to reproduce the symptoms of human disease. ... Man, Chimp Separated by Dab of DNA, Los Angeles Times, September 1, 2005. ... At a time when the theory of evolution is under attack by proponents of "intelligent design," Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said he could not think of a better way to prove the theory of evolution "short of a time machine." ... But Collins ... cautioned that genes could not solve all of the mysteries of life. "The real question about what it takes to be human is more than a biological question, it's also a theological question," Collins said. DNA "may not tell us 'How do we know what's right and wrong?' and 'What's the human spirit, anyway?' " ... Big Differences In Duplicated DNA Distinguish Chimp And Human Genomes, Science Daily, September 2, 2005. A study comparing the genomes of both humans and chimpanzees has found that much of the genetic difference between the two species came about in events called segmental duplications, in which segments of genetic code are copied many times in the genome. The study appears as a companion article to the draft sequence of the chimpanzee genome published in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Nature. Dr. Evan Eichler ... led this study, in addition to being involved in the Chimpanzee Genome Sequencing Project. Eichlern ... and his colleagues... found that most of the change to the overall genome landscape between chimps and humans can be attributed to large segmental duplications. Such large-scale genetic events have altered more total base pairs -- about 2.7 percent of the genome -- than differences from single base-pair changes, which account for about 1.2 percent of the genome. "For all the talk of the 1.2 percent single base-pair difference and the importance of those, there's even more difference between the species due to duplication events," said Eichler. [See also 'Life code' of chimps laid bare, BBC, 31 August 2005. I agree with Collins that "to be human is more than a biological question, it's also a theological question." However, I disagree that this "prove[s] the theory of evolution." It proves the theory of common ancestry. But common ancestry is not necessarily evolution. While this does not change the fact that humans and chimps shared a common ancestor, it does help to put the very real genetic distance between humans and chimps into perspective. It used to be claimed that humans and chimps shared 99% of their genes. But a 1% difference in a 3 billion base-pair genome is 30 million nucleotide base pairs. Now this difference has increased to 35 million base pairs. That is a lot, considering just one base pair difference in the right place can change a gene and cause diseases like sickle-cell anaemia. Moreover, as Eichler points out, and as I have posted before, the chromosomal rearrangements are significant, there having been "at least 10 large inversions and translocations and one chromosomal fusion ... since the two lineages diverged":

"Although humans and chimpanzees have rather similar chromosome numbers, 46 and 48, respectively, the arrangement of genes on chimpanzee chromosomes differs from that on human chromosomes. Only a small proportion of the chromosomes have identical banding patterns in the two species. The banding studies indicate that at least 10 large inversions and translocations and one chromosomal fusion have occurred since the two lineages diverged."(King M.-C. & Wilson A.C., "Evolution at Two Levels in Humans and Chimpanzees", Science, 11 April 1975, Vol. 188, pp.107- 116, p.114).

The bottom line is that Darwinian evolution by the natural selection of random mutations cannot explain humans, as it cannot explain the origin of most (if not all) species:

"The role of chromosomal rearrangements in speciation has been considered ... More and more, it appears as if such rearrangements, of many different types, have played the primary role in the majority of speciation events. It by no means follows, however, that their significance in speciation is always of the same type. In fact, each chromosomal rearrangement-whether fusion or dissociation, translocation, inversion, gain or loss of heterochromatin-must be regarded as a unique event whose consequences will be almost impossible to predict in the present stage of our knowledge. It is thus extremely difficult to incorporate chromosomal rearrangements into mathematical models of speciation and phyletic evolution, which may be one reason why they have been relatively neglected by many evolutionary geneticists." (White M.J.D., "Modes of Speciation," W.H. Freeman & Co: San Francisco CA, 1978, p.336. Emphasis mine). ]

Ancient and modern man lived side by side, MSNBC, August 31, 2005. LONDON - Did Neanderthals and the first ancestors of modern man ever meet? The argument has raged among archaeologists and paleontologists for decades. .... But the team of scientists writing in .. Nature believe they may have settled the dispute with analysis of tools discovered at different depths in the cave of the Grotte des Fees at Chatelperron in central France. In the cave a layer of tools from the later so-called Aurignacian culture - named after Aurignac near Spain where they were first discovered - were found sandwiched between two layers of tools attributed to earlier Neanderthals. Aurignacian tools are more sophisticated and deemed to have been made by the first modern humans. The scientists, led by Paul Mellars from Cambridge University, said the layers suggested that not only had the two groups been around at the same time but that they must have shared the same space - at least for a while. Radiocarbon dating of some of the bone fragments from the different layers confirmed the observational conclusions. The scientists suggested that encroaching cold may have made the Aurignacians move towards the warmer coast from central Europe and at the same time encouraged the Neanderthals to move even further south where it would have been even warmer. When the weather warmed again in later generations the population flow was reversed - suggesting that the ancestors of modern man may have been better equipped to deal with colder climates than the last groups of Neanderthals, they said. ... Modern humans, Neanderthals shared earth for 1,000 years, ABC/AFP, September 1, 2005. ... One intriguing school of thought is that the Neanderthals did not suddenly disappear off the map but gradually melded in with Homo sapiens culturally and possibly sexually. .... But a new study delivers a blow to this theory. It shows that the two hominids did indeed co-exist for a long time but there is no evidence of any intermingling. Indeed, it points to the likelihood that the Neanderthals petered out, their lineage expiring in starvation and Ice Age cold. Paul Mellars ... says no evidence has been found of cultural interaction and DNA tests on samples taken from 1,000 Europeans have failed to find any evidence of Neanderthal genes. ... [More evidence that Neanderthals and modern humans were two entirely different species, i.e. they coexisted in the same locality for at least a millenium yet there is no evidence of interbreeding.]

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

The History of Chromosomes May Shape the Future of Diseases, etc

 

Here are science news excerpts, with my comments in square brackets and bold for easier distinguishing between them and the articles:

 

The History of Chromosomes May Shape the Future of Diseases, Carl Zimmer, The New York Times, August 30, 2005. The common ancestor of humans and the rhesus macaque monkey lived about 25 million years ago. But despite that vast gulf of time, our chromosomes still retain plenty of evidence of our shared heritage. ... A team of scientists at the National Cancer Institute recently documented this evidence by constructing a map of the rhesus macaque's DNA, noting the location of 802 genetic markers in its genome. Then they compared the macaque map to a corresponding map of the human genome. The order of thousands of genes was the same. "About half of the chromosomes are pretty much intact," said William Murphy ... at Texas A&M University. The other chromosomes had become rearranged over the past 25 million years, but Dr. Murphy and his colleagues were able to reconstruct their evolution. Periodically, a chunk of chromosome was accidentally sliced out of the genome, flipped around and inserted backward. In other cases, the chunk was ferried to a different part of the chromosome. All told, 23 of these transformations took place, and within these blocks of DNA, the order of the genes remained intact. "It's fairly easy to see how you can convert the chromosomes from the macaque to the human," Dr. Murphy said. This new macaque study, which is set to appear in a future issue of the journal Genomics, is just one of many new papers charting the history of chromosomes - in humans and other species. ... With a microscope, it is possible to make out the banded patterns on chromosomes and to compare the pattern in different species. ... molecular biologists discovered how cells accidentally rearranged large chunks of genetic material as they made new copies of their chromosomes. ... Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, for example, while chimpanzees and other apes have 24. Scientists determined that two ancestral chromosomes fused together after the ancestors of humans split off from other apes some six million years ago. ... Deciphering the history of chromosomes is like a fiendishly difficult puzzle. ... Pavel Pevzner of the University of California, San Diego... invented a fast method for comparing chromosomes from two different species and determining the fewest number of rearrangements ... that separate them. ... Scientists have used methods like Dr. Pevzner's to study different groups of species. Dr. Pevzner himself joined with Dr. Murphy and 23 other scientists to analyze the last 100 million years of mammal evolution. They compared the genomes of humans to cats, dogs, mice, rats, pigs, cows and horses, using a program developed by Harris A. Lewin and his colleagues at the University of Illinois, called the Evolution Highway. The program allowed them to trace how each lineage's chromosomes had become rearranged over time. They published their results in the July 22 issue of Science. The scientists found some chromosomes barely altered and others heavily reworked. ... Chromosome rearrangements may also play a role in the origin of new species. Scientists often find that closely related species living in overlapping ranges have rearranged chromosomes. The mismatch of chromosomes may make it impossible for the two species to hybridize. As a result, the rearrangements may then spread through the entire new species. ... chromosomes tend to break in certain places, a hypothesis first offered by Dr. Pevzner in 2003. ... "Certain regions of the genome are being broken over and over again." It is too early to say why these regions have become break points, said Evan Eichler of the University of Washington .... "There's something about these regions that makes them hot, and we have to figure out what that hot factor is," ... [This is more evidence for humans, apes and monkeys sharing a common ancestor, that the chromosome bands either match exactly already, or when inversions are reversed and translocations rejoined, they match exactly. One of the things that helped confirm to me that common ancestry was true, was the article, Yunis J.J. & & Prakash O., "The Origin of Man: A Chromosomal Pictorial Legacy," Science, Vol. 215, No. 4539, March 1982, pp.1525-1530, p.1525, with chromosome maps of an orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, and man side-by-side. I remember in one of my Genetics assignments (even though it was not required), enlarging on a photocopy the chimp and human chromosome maps, and then with scissors and glue proving to myself that where their bandings differed, just reversing or joining them, I could produce a near-identical fit. Here is the abstract of that article:

 

"Abstract. Man, gorilla, and chimpanzee likely shared an ancestor in whom the fine genetic organization of chromosomes was similar to that of present man. A comparative analysis of high-resolution chromosomes from orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, and man suggests that 18 of 23 pairs of chromosomes of modern man are virtually identical to those of our "common hominoid ancestor," with the remaining pairs slightly different. From this lineage, gorilla separated first, and three major chromosomal rearrangements presumably occurred in a progenitor of chimpanzee and man before the final divergence of these two species. A precursor of the hominoid ancestor and orangutan is also assumed." (Yunis J.J. & & Prakash O., "The Origin of Man: A Chromosomal Pictorial Legacy," Science, Vol. 215, No. 4539, March 1982, pp.1525-1530, p.1525)

 

I have added a modified version of these comments to my,  "Why I (a Creationist) Accept Common Ancestry" page.]

 

Boost to CO2 mass extinction idea, Helen Briggs, BBC, 28 August 2005. A computer simulation of the Earth's climate 250 million years ago suggests that global warming triggered the so-called "great  dying". A dramatic rise in carbon dioxide caused temperatures to soar to 10 to 30 degrees Celsius higher than today, say US  researchers. The warming had a profound impact on the oceans, cutting off oxygen to the lower depths and extinguishing most lifeforms, they  write in the latest issue of Geology. The research adds to the growing body of evidence that higher temperatures, rather than a giant space rock hitting the planet, led  to the greatest mass extinction in history. ... The extinction, at the end of the Permian Period and the beginning of the Triassic, has puzzled scientists for many years. Trilobites were one of the groups wiped out in the extinction. Some 95% of lifeforms in the oceans became extinct, along with about three-quarters of land species. Many possible reasons for this catastrophic event have been proposed - including impacts, volcanism, climate change and  glaciation. Hard evidence, however, has been difficult to find. The latest data from scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, supports the  view that extensive volcanic activity over the course of hundreds of thousands of years released large amounts of carbon dioxide  and sulphur dioxide into the air, gradually warming up the planet. ... Their work indicates that temperatures in higher latitudes rose so much that the oceans warmed to a depth of about 3,000m  (10,000ft). This interfered with the circulation process that takes colder water, carrying oxygen and nutrients, into lower levels. The water  became depleted of oxygen and was unable to support marine life. "The implication of our study is that elevated CO2 is sufficient to lead to inhospitable conditions for marine life and excessively  high temperatures over land would contribute to the demise of terrestrial life," Jeffrey Kiehl and colleagues write ... Until recently, computer models of past climate have been hampered by the difficulty of accounting for complex interactions  between the various components of the Earth's climate system Professor Paul Wignal ... says the models have not  been sophisticated enough to recreate such "lethal super-greenhouse climates". "I suspect many in the modelling community have been sceptical about just how bad conditions were 250 million years ago, even  though the evidence is in the rocks; but now the latest climate system modelling is able to replicate climatic conditions that came  close to destroying life on Earth," ... [I regard such mass extinctions, putting all of life through a `bottleneck', as all part of the Grand Design, God `pruning the tree of life', without which we would not be here. They are also another problem of evolution, i.e. `survival of the luckiest':

"Survival of the luckiest. Perhaps the most far-reaching effect of this revival of catastrophist thinking has been the dawning realization that mass extinction makes a nonsense of natural selection as a 'creative' force. David Raup of Chicago's Field Museum has calculated that in the half-dozen major extinctions, *up to ninety-six per cent of all life forms were destroyed.* [Raup D.M., "Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology," ," Bulletin of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago IL, Vol. 50, January 1979] Now if only four per cent of living things managed to survive such cataclysms, the question of fitness is largely irrelevant. It is much more a question of chance. Instead of survival of the fittest, you get the survival of the luckiest. The worst catastrophe, everyone agrees, was at the end of the Permian period some 225 million years ago. It established the ancestry of most of today's life forms, for since then there has been little change in the basic pattern of types. But as Stephen Gould has observed, it wasn't necessarily the best-adapted Permian plants and creatures that lived through the disaster: `If anywhere near 96 per cent of species died, leaving as few as two thousand forms to propagate all of later life, then some groups probably died and others survived for no particular reason at all. There are few defences against a catastrophe of such magnitude, and survivors may simply be among the lucky four per cent...our current panoply of major designs may not represent a set of best adaptations, but fortunate survivors.' [Gould S.J., 'The chance that shapes our ends', New Scientist, 5 February 1981, p. 349]" (Hitching F., "The Neck of the Giraffe: Or Where Darwin Went Wrong," Pan: London UK, 1982, pp.166,170. Emphasis original)

This also shows that a runaway, positive-feedback, mass-extinguishing greenhouse global warming effect is possible, and I personally think it may be what will become increasingly apparent is going to happen on Earth, forcing the world's governments to increasingly hand over power to a "World Environment Organisation":

"International action to cut greenhouse gases is on the way, a leading British expert on the environment believes. Sir Crispin Tickell, a former diplomat and government adviser, says urgent action is needed because climate change is more serious even than terrorism. ... In a speech in Cambridge Sir Crispin says he thinks the world will finally act together to confront the threat. ... Speaking in the first of a series of lectures entitled Environment on the Edge, he says the Earth is in an unparalleled situation, because several problems are reaching a critical point simultaneously. The lectures are organised by the United Nations Environment Programme ... Our problems are taking us into `a no-analogue state', Sir Crispin says, and our ability to influence other species `has given us a profound conceit of ourselves'. The six main threats he believes are pushing the environment to the edge are: population increase; land degradation and waste; water pollution and supply; climate change; energy production and use; and the destruction of biodiversity. ... Sir Crispin argues for the creation of a World Environment Organisation `to balance - and be a partner of - the World Trade Organisation'. ... To bring about change, he says, `we need three things: leadership from above; public pressure from below; and - usually - some instructive disasters to jerk us out of our inertia." ("World 'will act on climate gases'," BBC, 4 November, 2004.)

 

out of which Antichrist will emerge (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7; 2 Thess. 2:1-4; Rev 11:1-8; 13:2-18) who will launch the last great persecution of the Christian Church, just before Jesus returns. ] 

  

Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much, Cornelia Dean, The New York Times, August 30, 2005 CHICAGO - When Jon D. Miller looks out across America, which he can almost do from his 18th-floor office at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, he sees a landscape of haves and have-nots - in terms not of money, but of knowledge. ... scientific illiteracy undermines citizens' ability to take part in the democratic process. Dr. Miller, 63, a political scientist who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at the medical school, studies how much Americans know about science and what they think about it. His findings are not encouraging. While scientific literacy has doubled over the past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are "scientifically savvy and alert," he said in an interview. Most of the rest "don't have a clue." At a time when science permeates debates on everything from global warming to stem cell research, he said, people's inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process. Over the last three decades, Dr. Miller has regularly surveyed his fellow citizens .... People who track Americans' attitudes toward science routinely cite his deep knowledge and long track record. "I think we should pay attention to him," said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, who cites Dr. Miller's work in her efforts to advance the cause of evolution in the classroom. "We ignore public understanding of science at our peril." ... Lately, people who advocate the teaching of evolution have been citing Dr. Miller's ideas on what factors are correlated with adherence to creationism and rejection of Darwinian theories. In general, he says, these fundamentalist views are most common among people who are not well educated and who "work in jobs that are evaporating fast with competition around the world." But not everyone is happy when he says things like that. Every time he goes on the radio to talk about his findings, he said, "I get people sending me cards saying they will pray for me a lot." ... [The scientific materialist elite never consider that their atheistic declaration of culture war against the vast majority of Americans who are theists, is almost certainly a major factor in the American public's increasingly negative and indifferent attitude toward science!]

 

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol)

"Problems of Evolution"

 

Show Me the Science (Daniel Dennett, New York Times, August 28, 2005) #1

Here is part #1 of my comments (in square brackets) on Darwinist philosopher Daniel Dennett's recent critique of Intelligent Design (ID) in The New York Times.

The New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor
Show Me the Science
By DANIEL C. DENNETT
Published: August 28, 2005
Blue Hill, Me.

PRESIDENT BUSH, announcing this month that he was in favor of teaching about "intelligent design" in the schools, said, "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought." A couple of weeks later, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader, made the same point. Teaching both intelligent design and evolution "doesn't force any particular theory on anyone," Mr. Frist said. "I think in a pluralistic society that is the fairest way to go about education and training people for the future."

[President Bush and Senator Frist were only echoing the common sense sentiment of the majority of Americans, as indicated by yet another poll that found that the majority (64%) of Americans are "open to the idea of teaching creationism in addition to evolution" (Laurie Goodstein, "Teaching of Creationism Is Endorsed in New Survey," The New York Times, August 31, 2005. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education, said the findings were not surprising because "Americans react very positively to the fairness or equal time kind of argument" and "it's the strongest thing that creationists have got going for them ... they do have American culture on their side." I will comment on that poll finding in probably my next post.]

Is "intelligent design" a legitimate school of scientific thought? Is there something to it, or have these people been taken in by one of the most ingenious hoaxes in the history of science? Wouldn't such a hoax be impossible? No. Here's how it has been done.

[This is just another Darwinist attempt to eliminate its competition, by ruling it out as not "a legitimate school of scientific thought" and now even a "hoax"! But as leading ecologist E.G. Leigh observed, this has long been Darwinism's modus operandi, "by eliminating competing explanations", and "not by providing evidence that natural selection among 'random' mutations could, or did, account for observed adaptation":

"The primary problem with the [Neo-Darwinan modern] synthesis is that its makers established natural selection as the director of adaptive evolution by eliminating competing explanations, not by providing evidence that natural selection among 'random' mutations could, or did, account for observed adaptation.... Mayr remarked, 'As these non-Darwinian explanations were refuted during the synthesis ... natural selection automatically became the universal explanation of evolutionary change (together with chance factors).' Depriving the synthesis of plausible alternatives, which seemed such a triumph, in fact sowed the seeds of its faults." (Leigh E.G., Jr, "The modern synthesis, Ronald Fisher and creationism," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 14, no. 12, pp.495-498, December 1999, p.495. My emphasis)

However, this will increasingly backfire, as the public more and more comles to realise that, "A real science does not ... rely on enforcing rules of reasoning that allow no alternative to the official story" but "would welcome the critics to an academic forum for open debate"(Johnson P.E., "The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism," Intervarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 2000, p.141. My emphasis)]

First, imagine how easy it would be for a determined band of naysayers to shake the world's confidence in quantum physics how weird it is! - or Einsteinian relativity. In spite of a century of instruction and popularization by physicists, few people ever really get their heads around the concepts involved. Most people eventually cobble together a justification for accepting the assurances of the experts: "Well, they pretty much agree with one another, and they claim that it is their understanding of these strange topics that allows them to harness atomic energy, and to make transistors and lasers, which certainly do work

Fortunately for physicists, there is no powerful motivation for such a band of mischief-makers to form. They don't have to spend much time persuading people that quantum physics and Einsteinian relativity really have been established beyond all reasonable doubt.

[This is the usual Darwinist fallacy of false analogy, comparing the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution with a theory in the much more rigorous physical sciences, like "Einsteinian relativity". But to establish there is a true analogy between Darwinian evolution and Einsteinian relativity, Dennett would need to show that "the two things being compared resemble each other in important respects and differ only in trifling ways":

"THE FALLACY OF FALSE ANALOGY. Few techniques of reasoning are so potentially useful-or so potentially dangerous-as analogy. When we reason by analogy we attempt to advance our position by likening an obscure or difficult set of facts to one that is already known and understood and to which it bears a significant resemblance. The fallacy of false analogy arises when the comparison is an erroneous one that distorts the facts in the case being argued. Drawing attention to likenesses can be extremely useful so long as the two things being compared resemble each other in important respects and differ only in trifling ways. If, on the contrary, they are alike in unimportant ways and different in important ways, then there is no valid analogy between them and a fallacy of false analogy results. Merely to seize upon some slight similarity as a basis for concluding that what is true of one is also true of the other will usually lead one astray. ... To expose a false analogy-or an imperfect analogy, as it is sometimes called-it is necessary to establish that the two things being compared resemble each other in insignificant ways, while they differ in significant ways." (Engel S.M., "With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies," St. Martin's Press: New York NY, Fourth Edition, 1990, pp.150-151. My emphasis).

But as Dembski points out, "actually quite easy to see that Darwinism is not in the same league as the hard sciences ... how many physicists, while arguing for the truth of Einsteinian physics, will claim that general relativity is as well established as Darwin's theory? Zero" (Dembski W.A., "Introduction: The Myths of Darwinism," in Dembski W.A., ed., "Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing," ISI Books: Wilmington DE, 2004, p.xxi)]

With evolution, however, it is different. The fundamental scientific idea of evolution by natural selection is not just mind-boggling; natural selection, by executing God's traditional task of designing and creating all creatures great and small, also seems to deny one of the best reasons we have for believing in God. So there is plenty of motivation for resisting the assurances of the biologists. Nobody is immune to wishful thinking. It takes scientific discipline to protect ourselves from our own credulity, but we've also found ingenious ways to fool ourselves and others. Some of the methods used to exploit these urges are easy to analyze; others take a little more unpacking.

[Dennett answers his own question why there is such resistance to Darwinism. It is the only scientific theory that depends on there being no God (materialism) or at least a God that does not intervene supernaturally in the world (naturalism). But Dennett (as most Darwinists do) misstates the mechanism. It is not only "natural selection" but the natural selection of random (i.e. unguided) mutations. And apart from there being no evidence that "natural selection" did (or even could) do the "designing and creating [of] all creatures great and small", Darwinists simply assume (with no way of knowing that all mutations in the history pf life have been random, in the sense of unguided:

"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).

As Darwin's contemporary critic Samuel Butler observed, "the `Origin of Variation' [which today we would call mutation] whatever it is, is the only true 'Origin of Species'":

"The question is not concerning evolution, but as to the main cause which has led to evolution in such and such shapes. To me it seems that the `Origin of Variation,' whatever it is, is the only true 'Origin of Species,' and that this must, as Lamarck insisted, be looked for in the needs and experiences of the creatures varying. Unless we can explain the origin of variations, we are met by the unexplained at every step in the progress of a creature from its original homogeneous condition to its differentiation, we will say, as an elephant; so that to say that an elephant has become an elephant through the accumulation of a vast number of small, fortuitous, but unexplained, variations in some lower creatures, is really to say that it has become an elephant owing to a series of causes about which we know nothing, whatever, or, in other words, that one does not know how it came to be an elephant." (Butler S., "Life and Habit," [1910], Wildwood House: London, 1981, pp.263-264. My emphasis).

And as Darwin's friend the Christian botanist Asa Gray proposed, it is a perfectly valid scientific hypothesis "that variation [mutation] has been led along certain beneficial lines":

"Wherefore, so long as gradatory, orderly, and adapted forms in Nature argue design, and at least while the physical cause of variation is utterly unknown and mysterious, we should advise Mr. Darwin to assume, in the philosophy of his hypothesis, that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines. Streams flowing over a sloping plain by gravitation (here the counterpart of natural selection) may have worn their actual channels as they flowed; yet their particular courses may have been assigned; and where we see them forming definite and useful lines of irrigation, after a manner unaccountable on the laws of gravitation and dynamics, we should believe that the distribution was designed." (Gray A., "Natural Selection Not Inconsistent With Natural Theology," Atlantic Monthly, October 1860, "Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism," [1861], Dupree A.H., ed., Belknap: Cambridge MA, 1963, pp.121-122. My emphasis).

Also, Sir Charles Lyell, the `father of modern geology', and another friend of Darwin, in his "The Antiquity of Man" (1863), sided with Gray rather than Darwin, by pointing out that "there is no tendency in the doctrine of Variation and Natural Selection" to preclude one holding "that now and then, and -only now and then, there is [or has been] a direct interposition of the Deity":

"Dr. Asa Gray, in the excellent essay already cited [Gray A., "Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology," Trubner & Co. London 1861, p.55], has pointed out that there is no tendency in the doctrine of Variation and Natural Selection to weaken the foundations of Natural Theology, for, consistently with the derivative hypothesis of species, we may hold any of the popular views respecting the manner in which the changes of the natural world are brought about. We may imagine ` that events and operations in general go on in virtue simply of forces communicated at the first; and without any subsequent interference, or we may hold that now and then, and - only now and then, there is a direct interposition of the Deity; or, lastly, we may suppose that all the changes are carried on by the immediate orderly and constant, however infinitely diversified, action of the intelligent, efficient Cause.' They who maintain that the origin of an individual, as well as the origin of a species or a genus, can be explained only by the direct action of the creative cause, may retain their favourite theory compatibly with the doctrine of transmutation." (Lyell C., "The Antiquity of Man," Everyman's Library, J.M Dent & Sons: London, Third edition, 1863, reprint, 1927, p.393. My emphasis).

In fact, Dennett himself admits, "that there are no sure marks of natural, as opposed to artificial, [i.e. "the earlier historical presence of rational designers"] selection" and that therefore "Darwinian Theory Cannot Disprove Intelligent Design":

"Indeed, all the biologists I have queried on this point have agreed with me that there are no sure marks of natural, as opposed to artificial, selection. ... Should this conclusion be viewed as a terrible embarrassment to the evolutionists in their struggle against creationists? One can imagine the headlines: `Scientists Concede: Darwinian Theory Cannot Disprove Intelligent Design!' It would be foolhardy, however, for any defender of neo-Darwinism to claim that contemporary evolution theory gives one the power to read history so finely from present data as to rule out the earlier historical presence of rational designers-a wildly implausible fantasy, but a possibility after all." (Dennett D.C., "Darwin 's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and The Meanings of Life," [1995], Penguin: London, 1996, reprint, pp.317-318. My emphasis)

So while Dennett dismissed out of hand "Intelligent Design" as "a wildly implausible fantasy," he did concede that it is "a possibility after all." Therefore if anyone is guilty of perpetrating "one of the most ingenious hoaxes in the history of science" it is the Darwinists like Dennett, who have elevated their personal naturalistic (and therefore false) philosophy to the status of a fact of nature!]

[continued in part #2]

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