The ID Update

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Earlier, I called attention to this longish but very informative article by Carl Zimmer, "Now: The Rest of the Genome" (The New York Times, November 11, 2008). It pretty much blows the genetic reductionism I grew up with out of the water. The “gene” - that little coil of sugar that ran our lives back then - is a dead idea.

Now here's an exchange that caught my attention:

“The way biology works is different from mathematics,” said Mark Gerstein, a bioinformatician at Yale. “If you find one counterexample in mathematics, you go back and rethink the definitions. Biology is not like that. One or two counterexamples — people are willing to deal with that.”

More complications emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, though. Scientists discovered that when a cell produces an RNA transcript, it cuts out huge chunks and saves only a few small remnants. (The parts of DNA that the cell copies are called exons; the parts cast aside are introns.)

Actually, the biologists flatter themselves. They underbussed vast discrepancies between their belief system and the evidence - along with the people who insisted on discussing their implications - until finally, the system is collapsing in the gene's "identity crisis" (Zimmer's phrase).

Thomas Kuhn was right. Old paradigms don't get disproven; they collapse from their own unworkability.

One thing about this article, it is mercifully free of rubbish about evolution. We actually don’t know what most of the stuff in the genome does. So why not wait until we do know before we begin to describe its history? That will save a lot of rewrites down the road, maybe inconvenient ones.

(Note: Re the business about cutting out huge chunks and saving only a few small remnants ... We textbook editors used to do that when we were racing a deadline. We would copy a whole chapter from the master copy of the manuscript to date, and then select only a few pages for which final revisions had been ordered. Then we just recycled the rest of the pages of the chapter. Wasteful? Yes, of paper. But not of time. Under deadline panic, the most important quantity was time, not paper. And we knew from experience that our method was slightly faster. So I would recommend caution to anyone claiming that methods like that cannot be the result of design. When we did it, that's precisely what it was, design.)

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

In his letter to the Hebrews, the apostle Paul wrote how "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Ref 1). It would appear that faith has had a major part to play in much of the Darwinian synthesis. Darwinists after all continue to this day to hope for solutions for incongruent data, proclaiming a certainty on an imperfect fossil record and filling in the 'gaps' of theoretical evolutionary sequences with intermediates that they have not seen (Ref 2-3). University of Wisconsin molecular biologist Sean Carroll provided a perfect example of such an application of faith at last month's International Symposium On Human Identification by lifting the iconic status of a well-known fish called the coelacanth to new heights (Ref 4). His message was clear- the coelacanth was and still is a living fossil; a window into the past that gives us a glimpse of how life transitioned from sea onto land. Let us examine the evidence.

It is now considered fact by many evolutionary biologists that early land dwelling vertebrates, the tetrapods, owe their origins to a small group of fish belonging to a family known as the osteolepiforms (Ref 5). These lobed-finned fish supposedly crawled out of the water at the end of a period called the Devonian, almost 350 million years ago, to take up a terrestrial life style (Ref 5). Such a move has been dramatically portrayed through images that show osteolepiforms crawling on paired fins (Ref 6). Data in support of this move continues to be in short supply and the precise details concerning the true identity of osteolepiforms remains extremely vague (Ref 6). Indeed it is questionable whether osteolepiforms were really intermediates in the water-to-land transition or simply an extinct fish group (Ref 6).

The history of the theory describing the water-to-land transition dates back to 1861, just two years after the publication of The Origin Of Species when Thomas Huxley, an ardent Darwin supporter, described the so-called crossopterygian fish (Ref 6). Huxley considered these to be close relatives of the lungfish that at the time was viewed as the most likely candidate for a terrestrial ancestor (Ref 6). It was from Huxley's crossopterygians that the American paleontologist E.D Cope identified the first specimens of a group of fish called the rhipidistians. From their general anatomy- specifically the bone structure and teeth arrangements- rhipidistians bore a likeness to a group of extinct amphibians called the labyrinthodonts (Ref 6). Several other features including nostrils that may have allowed rhipidistians to breath with their mouths closed, seemed to support the idea that rhipidistians were truly a missing link in the evolution of life onto land. Further discoveries followed- the unearthing of another group of fish called elpistotegids from late Devonian strata which appeared to close the gap between fish and tetrapods yet further (Ref 6). Yet this 'ride of discovery' was far from uncontroversial (Ref 6).

The finding of the first coelacanth in 1938 was hailed as a breakthrough in the evolutionary saga for it appeared that here paleontologists had a 'living fossil' upon which to closely study the internal, soft anatomy of a supposed rhipidistian relative (Ref 7). Named after its discoverer Marjorie Courney-Latimer, the story of the coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) was from the beginning one that was filled with suspense and political intrigue (Ref 7-8). Its internal biology proved to be no less fascinating for it showed no clear cut evidence of having been intermediate for a terrestrial environment and thus was far from what would be expected for a terrestrial ancestor (Ref 7). While its fins were admittedly 'limb like', it had no backbone. Instead it displayed a notochord- a hollow tube filled with oil that ran from the brain to the tail (Ref 7). Some organs were similar to those of sharks and rays while other parts of the soft anatomy, such as vena cava which brings blood back to the heart, resembled those of land animals (Ref 7). The heart itself was extremely fish-like, lacking the right and left division that is characteristic of all land animals. Curiously the coelacanth revealed a number of specialized organs such as a gel-filled cavity in the nose thought to be responsible for detecting electrical impulses from potential prey. The overall picture was not, as many had hoped, unarguably indicative of a terrestrial precursor Indeed, if the internal biology of the rhipidistians had in any way resembled that of the coelacanth then they too would have been far removed from the sea-to-land transition (Ref 7).

Nevertheless, the picture of the coelacanth as a window into life's aquatic origins was heavily publicized (Ref 7). Darwinists supplied a simple exit from the inconsistencies in the data. They claimed that while its outward appearance had changed little over its 400 million year existence, its internal anatomy must have evolved such that its intermediary status between fish and tetrapods was no longer recognizable. Thus the uncertain nature of the coelacanth's soft anatomy was precisely what we would expect to see from a long period of internal evolution (Ref 7). Needless to say, such a proposition was unsupported by any evidence and was merely designed to fit into the pre-conceived model of vertebrate evolution. Indeed paleontologist Niles Eldredge admits that living fossils, such as the coelacanth are today, "something of an embarrassment" for the evolutionary picture (Ref 9, p.108).

Over much of the last century a lot of research into the origins of tetrapods has focused on the osteolepiforms. When cladistics first got its hand on analyzing the interrelationships between this group of fish, it dismissed them as an "ill-defined assemblage of primitive lobe-fins, remote from tetrapods" (Ref 10). In one recent television documentary much was said about current hypotheses on the environmental cues that are believed to have lead to the terrestrial conquest 360 to 410 million years ago (Ref 11). Possible intermediate species such as the fish-like Eusthenopteron found in Quebec at the end of the 19th century as well as the distinctly tetrapod-like Icthyostega- with its rib cage, four limbs and five digits- did not appear to significantly close the gap between sea and land fauna (Ref 11). The jaw of another specimen from the Devonian called Livoniana was equally disappointing. While the jaw itself looked as if it might be intermediate between fish and tetrapods, other features such as its seven rows of teeth were clearly not (Ref 11). Such features were all too easily dismissed as mere evolutionary experiments rather than being seen as valuable pieces of evidence that contradicted the expected picture. Moreover, the incompleteness of the Livoniana specimen left many fundamental questions unanswered.

Harvard paleontologist Alfred Sherwood Romer's original 'drying pond' hypothesis proposed that fish might have needed to make the transition onto land in response to immense droughts that would have dried up their original aquatic habitats (Ref 11). Recent evidence, however, suggests that the late Devonian might have not been so drought-ridden as Romer originally thought. In fact, fossilized plants suggest a more swamp-like Devonian environment (Ref 11). Today some speculate that heavy predation might have been the crucial factor that drove animals out of the water (Ref 11). Of course, such speculation leaves out the crucial question of how fish themselves evolved. According to paleontologist Niles Eldredge, fish like the coelacanth "started with a bang" in the Middle Devonian (Ref 12, p.106)- hardly the kind of descriptive that leads naturally to the conclusion of a gradual step-by-step progression in the origin of complex multi-cellular life.

With names like Sean Carroll to carry their baton, evolutionary biologists can pledge allegiance to icons such as the coelacanth without acknowledging the faith-based aspects of many of their claims. Such is the grave state of the evolutionary story being promulgated today in our schools and colleges.

References & Notes
1. Hebrews 11 vs 1; Bible New International Version

2. The paucity of the fossil record is well documented in the scientific literature (David Raup and Steven Stanley (1971), Principles of Paleontology, W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco p.74). Geological processes such as plate subduction make fossil preservation an unlikely occurrence (Niles Eldredge (1987) Life Pulse: Episodes From The Story of The Fossil Record, Facts On File Publications, New York p.72, Jan Zalasiewicz and Alan Collins (2001), Eat Your Crusts, New Scientist, 10 February, 2001, pp.42-45). With the many snapshots that we do find in the fossil record, the picture of multiple intermediates linking life forms to common ancestors rarely arises. In other words, our best evidence becomes no evidence on the premise that the evidence has long since been destroyed by tectonic shifts.

3. It is one thing to write off the lack of a continuous chain of intermediates by adopting a series of plausible explanations; it is another to then assume that you can fill in the gaps with hypothetical intermediates without actually being able to provide any empirical evidence in support of their existence. But as science writer Roger Lewin has noted, filling in the gaps of the fossil record with subjective desires forms an integral part of paleontological study. On the story of human evolution, for example, Lewin wrote, "There is and always has been far more fleshing out of the course and cause of human evolution than can fully be justified by the scrappy skeleton provided by the fossils. As a result", [David Pilbeam] continues, "our theories have often said far more about the theorists than they have about what actually happened."" (Roger Lewin (1987), Bones of Contention: Controversies in the Search for Human Origins, Published by Simon and Schuster, New York p.43)

4. Sean Carroll (2008), The Making Of The Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record Of Evolution, Presented On Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 At The 19th International Symposium On Human Identification

5. Michael Denton (1986) Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Adler and Adler Publishers, Bethesda Maryland, First Edition, pp. 178-180, 182, 194

6. Philippe Janvier (1998), Forerunners of four legs, Nature Vol 395 pp. 748-749

7. The program 'Ancient Creature Of The Deep' describing the biology of the Coelacanth was part of the Nova series on PBS and aired on Wisconsin Public Television on the 21st of January, 2003

8. Philippe Janvier (1999), Coelacanth a la Marseillaise, Nature Vol 401 pp. 854-855

9. Niles Eldredge (1987) Life Pulse: Episodes From The Story of The Fossil Record, Facts On File Publications, New York

10. Per Ahlberg and Zerina Johanson (1998), Osteolepiforms and the ancestry of tetrapods, Nature 395, pp. 792-794

11. The Nova documentary "The Missing Link" aired on Wisconsin Public Television on PBS on October 26th, 2004

12. Niles Eldredge (1987), Life Pulse: Episodes From The Story of The Fossil Record, Facts On File Publications, New York

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

When someone tells you it (whatever it is) is in their genes, show them this article:

... new large-scale studies of DNA are causing her and many of her colleagues to rethink the very nature of genes. They no longer conceive of a typical gene as a single chunk of DNA encoding a single protein. “It cannot work that way,” Dr. Prohaska said. There are simply too many exceptions to the conventional rules for genes.

It turns out, for example, that several different proteins may be produced from a single stretch of DNA. Most of the molecules produced from DNA may not even be proteins, but another chemical known as RNA. The familiar double helix of DNA no longer has a monopoly on heredity. Other molecules clinging to DNA can produce striking differences between two organisms with the same genes. And those molecules can be inherited along with DNA.

The gene, in other words, is in an identity crisis. - "Now the Rest of the Genome" by Carl Zimmer (November 10, 2008)

Now, can someone please text Lamarck and tell him, come back, all is forgiven?

Also just up at The Post-Darwinist:

One third of British teachers think ID or creationism okay

Can we all just spell out together "U-S-E-F-U-L I-D-I-O-T-S" and have done with it?

Why does it matter if humans are not just the "third chimpanzee"?

If the universe was designed, it does not follow that your grandmother's superstitions are true

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

In a short article, Bruce MacFadden of the Florida Museum of Natural History suggests that museums can effectively increase public understanding of evolution. Taken at face value, this objective is shared by ID scientists - the main issue relates to content. What is meant by increasing public understanding of evolution? What messages will be communicated to the public? It is clear from MacFadden's article that Darwinism is perceived as capturing the essence of evolution - and this is where the problems start.

Without the connecting lines, would people discern evolutionary links? (Source here)

Apparently, visitors to museums are more likely to "accept evolution" than the general public. Whereas 33% of the US population "rejects the tenets of evolution" but the figure is only 10% for museum visitors. The fuzzy meanings attributed to the word "evolution" make these figures difficult to interpret. For example, ID scientists have no problem accepting that Darwinian mechanisms exist in nature, but typically deny that these mechanisms have anything to do with the origin of phyla, classes, orders and families. Furthermore, there are at least two possible reasons for the survey findings: museums may be doing an effective job of communicating Darwinism already; and, people may be voting with their feet and sceptics may not enjoy visiting museums where an evolutionary story intrudes on the pleasure of seeing the collections.

The understanding of museum visitors was probed in one survey: 95% understood the concept of superposition in geology, 80% were able to recognise that the geological column represents a time line, but only 33% gave the "correct" answer to a question about natural selection.

"[W]ith regard to understanding mechanisms of evolution within a species, a scenario was presented in which successive generations of cheetahs are able to run faster; only one-third of respondents correctly attributed this to natural selection."

The problem with this example is that the natural selection explanation has not emerged from observation but it is inferred from theory: it is another of the "just-so stories" proposed by Darwinists. Cheetah design affects many different aspects of the animal and some of these are likely to be affected by natural selection. However, whether this is the complete story remains an open question. The "natural selection" answer may be the right one, but any confidence in its correctness comes from dogma, not empirical science.

We are given an insight into the thinking of exhibit designers when we read: "The challenge, however, is to find novel interpretive strategies that will attract the public to learn about more challenging concepts such as natural selection". Clearly, the emphasis is not on the collection, but the accompanying message. And in the case of evolution, the public need more exposure to natural selection as a creative force.

ID scientists have their own take on this. We need more and better teaching about evolution. We need to help students recognise what natural selection can and cannot do. This means that empirical studies of natural selection in action are valuable. Visitors to exhibits should be encouraged to develop a critical mind, and to ground thinking on hard data rather than on ideology.

I bounced these ideas off a friend whose career has been in musuem practice. He thought it was worth emphasising the importance of both context and evidence:

"While art and aesthetics are generally regarded as largely self-interpreting, this is not so with natural and human history. The evidence is the same. There may be selectivity in displaying it. But a very high proportion of the message is communicated by a different medium and the effectiveness of that medium is all important. Consider also the implications of displaying a homological series (as with MacFadden's horses) or a comparison of genomes without supplementary interpretation. In exercising their imagination, visitors may be influenced by their particular world-view but without the associated evidence, are unlikely to come to well-founded conclusions."

How should publicly-funded museums construct their exhibits? There is a strong case for requiring the self-appointed Darwinian guardians of science to engage in constructive dialogue with other scholars who do not share their confidence in the conceptual model provided by Darwin. There are some important issues to consider, including:

* Encourage critical thinking vs Provide packaged answers
* Reflect controversies in science vs Promote "consensus" science
* Major on displaying collection vs Major on communicating a story

Many scientists today are honest about the way secularisation has influenced the science community. They regard secularisation as an essential characteristic of science, whereas others of us regard secularisation as an unwelcome intrusion that is ultimately destructive of science. Since public money funds many research programmes and also many museums, and since a large proportion of the public have a theistic worldview, there is an urgent need for a broader-ranging debate over these issues. At present, it looks very much like a one-sided discourse about how the 'public understanding of science' can be aligned closer to that of the secularisers. Is it really the task of museum staff to put visitors right when they point out that the exhibited materials do not justify the accompanying commentary?

"Realizing that evolution is potentially a controversial topic, some institutions such as the Australian Museum communicate an explicit policy statement about the role of evolution as part of their mission. Other institutions, such as the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York, provide training to communicate a consistent policy and content about evolution, as well as prepare docents and staff 'on the floor' on how to respond to controversial questions from visitors."

Evolution, museums and society
Bruce J. MacFadden
Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 23(11), November 2008, 589-591

Abstract: Visitors to natural history museums have an incomplete understanding of evolution. Although they are relatively knowledgeable about fossils and geological time, they have a poor understanding of natural selection. Museums in the 21st century can effectively increase public understanding of evolution through interactive displays, novel content (e.g. genomics), engaging videos and cyberexhibits that communicate to a broad spectrum of society, both within the exhibit halls as well as outside the museum.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

From the Discovery Institute:

Turning Darwin Day into AcademicFreedom Day

Next year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. As you can imagine, Darwinists have a full year of celebrations planned, and February 12th, Darwin's birthday, is likely to be the high water mark for most of those celebrations. Every year Darwin Day celebrations get more and more elaborate and outrageous. Celebrants decorate evolution trees, sign Darwin carols and odes to natural selection, and eat from the tree of life.

Naturally, we don't want you to miss out on the fun. On Charles Darwin's 200th birthday (Feb. 12, 2009), we want students everywhere to speak out against censorship and stand up for free speech by defending the right to debate the evidence for and against evolution and turn "Darwin Day" into Academic
Freedom Day.

Actually, the Darwin cult has become so ridiculous that it would be hard to parody. Just look at this ridiculous hagiography. And if they force it down school kids throats, some might wind up coming back again, too.

Video and Essay Contest: Grand Prize $500

All the details are here:

Who Is Eligible

Students currently enrolled in high school (grades 9-12) or as a college undergraduate may enter the contest. (High school students include those attending private, public, or home schools.) Essays must be submitted by an individual student, but videos may be submitted by a group of up to 5 students.The PrizesOne grand-prize winner will be announced and have his or her entry officially unveiled at academicfreedomday.com on Academic Freedom Day, February 12th 2009. The grand-prize winner will be awarded $500, and one essay runner-up and one video runner-up will receive $250. Up to 10 finalists will receive their choice of a free book or DVD.

The Deadline
Entries must be submitted to the YouTube Group "Academic Freedom Day Video Contest" here, by the end of business on January 23, 2009.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Also just up at the Post-Darwinist:

We are 98 percent chimpanzee? Scratch that.

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Civil rights on the agenda at Conservative Party Convention?

Painting with an undirected brush

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

(Note: This was my ChristianWeek column, published in print as "Neuroscience hits the junk science circuit" November 15, 2008)

Methods of probing the brain at work - while communicating with the research volunteer - have made neuroscience a very cool toy indeed. Functional magnetic resonance imaging has done for brain studies what the diving bell did for ocean studies. But all good science risks attracting junk science. And today I am going to talk about a junk science - neuropolitics.

With any luck, by the time this column sees print, we will no longer be hearing much from politicians for a while. But, knowing a timely fad when they see one, enterprising groups of researchers in psychology and neuroscience have been dabbling in “neuropolitics” — with predictable results.

In “Political Science: What Being Neat or Messy Says about Political Leanings” (Scientific American, October 13, 2008) Jordan Lite skeptically chronicles neuroscience-based explanations for voting behavior. Here’s an attempted explanation of a surge of sympathy for the Republican VP candidate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, after she was announced:

In “Political Science: What Being Neat or Messy Says about Political Leanings” (Scientific American, October 13, 2008) Jordan Lite skeptically chronicles neuroscience-based explanations for voting behavior. Here’s an attempted explanation of a surge of sympathy for the Republican VP candidate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, after she was announced:

Circuits of cells called mirror neurons that fire or send out signals when we see someone act in a way that's familiar may have played a role in a 20-point, post–Republican Convention swing in allegiances among white, female Obama supporters to the GOP ticket, says Marco Iacoboni, author of the book Mirroring People: The Science of How We Connect with Others. Pundits credited John McCain's pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate for the shift, but Iacoboni says there's reason to believe biology played a role.

At the most basic level, mirror neurons—in the form of empathy with Palin—may have temporarily dazzled swing female voters, says neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, author of the 2006 book The Female Brain, which explores hormonal and other influences on the brains of women and girls.

"The mirror neurons in your brain are going, 'ding, ding, ding—this person is just like me,'" Brizendine says. Those mirror neurons are working with the insula, a section of the limbic system involved with emotions and gut feelings, she says. Both operate at a subcortical, or nonthinking, level dubbed the "sub-Blink level" after New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling 2005 book Blink about gut instincts.

These comments handily illustrate a common factor in junk neuroscience: The attempt to find occult explanations for behavior. By “occult” explanations, I mean explanations that are not needed if we assume that the voter is behaving consciously and (in her own terms) rationally.

The text of the proposed explanations addresses mechanisms in the brain, but the subtext is that no one could conclude on rational grounds that sitting governor Palin might make a better vice president than career senator Biden. So we are asked to consider neurons or hormones or the “nonthinking” “sub-Blink” level as an explanation instead.

Lite quotes neuroscientist Elizabeth Phelps’ caution that “neuropolitics” is “too nascent” a discipline to justify such strong conclusions. Actually, neuropolitics is a bogus discipline whose purpose is to use the trappings of neuroscience to flag the generally liberal political beliefs of academics as more scientific than those of the average voter. Such studies are an excellent demonstration of confirmation bias — seeing only the evidence that supports what we already believe.

As it happens, much sound research has been done on how people decide who to vote for. Briefly, many voters do not think much about politics, but vote for a candidate who sounds “reasonable” — generally, the one they hear the most positive news about. Some always vote for or against the incumbent. Others are canvassed at the workplace to vote for, say, the “pro-union” party or the “pro-industry” party. In some regions, the region-friendly party routinely wins. Religious figures often suggest a direction for the vote of the faithful. Some voters, having paid little attention to the issues or party policy, “do their duty” by voting for an ethnically reassuring name or photo. Some factors are harder to predict. There is the disputed Bradley effect, for example — voters may reassure pollsters that they intend to vote for a minority group member, when they will in fact vote for reasons listed above.

The neuroscience around how we make choices is a fascinating study, and I certainly don’t want to discourage it. But serious study must begin by addressing the large existing fact base of rational and conscious factors that sway voters, not by proposing exotic theories about irrational and unconscious factors, theories that merely flatter the vanity of professors.

Also just up at The Mindful Hack

Non-materialist neuroscience: Jeffrey Schwartz on business leadership

Multidirectional skepticism? - skepticism finding its true voice?

New Scientist hit piece an "unusually atrocious" article?

New Scientist: From the "Just connect the dots, and ... " files

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

My friend Forrest Mims, survivor of Darwinist thug attacks, has recently been named one of the "50 best brains in science" by Discover Magazine (December 2008, page 43). The cover story informs us, "there may be no amateur scientists more prolific than Forrest Mims." It is not on line yet.

The Discover article classes Mims as an Outsider and reads, in part, "There may be no amateur scientist more prolific than Forrest M. Mims III, 64, of south central Texas. He has published in major scientific journals such as Nature as well as countless general-interest publications. Mims began teaching himself science and electronics at age 11 and says he never received any formal training apart from a few introductory college courses in biology and chemistry." I am told the list includes some other relative unknowns, as well as Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking (on the cover), Michael Griffin (head of NASA), James Hansen (global warming guru), E. O. Wilson (sociobiologist and evolutionist), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google founders), Neil deGrasse Tyson (PBS Nova), Harold Varmus (NIH), and J. Craig Ventner (human genome).

The selection panel has good reason for its view of Forrest. For a man with little formal science training, Mims has done an astonishing amount of research that has been published in a variety of journals. He has written many popular articles, as well as books. He is probably best known for the books and lab kits on electronics projects that he had developed for Radio Shack over the years. He even has a claim to minor historical fame as a co-founder of MITS, Inc., which introduced the Altair 8800, the first microcomputer, in 1975.

Encouraged by her family, his daughter Sarah Mims had a journal publication while still a high school student.

However, Forrest told me yesterday that when he was first told by a Discover editor to expect his name to come up, he worried that it was another vulgar hit piece, retailing the "Scientific American" affair or the "Eric Pianka" episode.

As I recounted in By Design or by Chance?, in 1989, Scientific American abruptly withdrew from a promising relationship with Forrest when he refused to subscribe to Darwin's theory of evolution:

Mims had offered to write the column “Amateur Scientist” for SciAm.
His offer was gladly accepted in principle, pending an interview to discuss the details with editor Jonathan Piel. Mims canceled his current assignments and boarded a plane.

It should have been a great meeting. And it was, at first. Piel liked Mims’s proposed topics. The deal was pretty well sewn up—until Mims happened to mention, in a list of publications for which he had written, some Christian magazines, where he wrote about how to take kids on long distance bicycle trips.

Piel asked bluntly: “Do you believe in the Darwinian theory of evolution?”

Mims said no.

Suddenly, the temperature plunged below freezing.

[ ... ]

In the months that followed, SciAm editors pestered Mims about his religious beliefs, and even about his opinion on abortion. The magazine grudgingly assigned him a trial column. Editors liked it. More assignments were ordered. Maybe things would work out after all, Mims thought. Maybe he had finally passed all of the Darwinists’ tests.

However, during one phone call, Piel again raised the subject of Mims’s Christian beliefs. He professed worry that, if word got out that Mims was a Christian, a “public relations nightmare” might ensue.

By then Mims had realized the sad truth: SciAm was not simply going to assign him a column ... (pp. 187-88)

He moved on, of course, and told me later (2003) that not getting the column was probably the best thing for his science career: “It changed me from a mere science writer to a citizen scientist with many peer-reviewed papers.” Here is his own account of the affair.

Then there was the 2006 Eric Pianka affair, when a Texas Academy of Science spokesman told the videographer not to record the address given by award-winning environmental doomsayer Pianka. Spotting this, Mims took notes and was able to record some of the address via the audio on his camera. He could not record all of it, however, because the camera audio did not work when he was using the video to film the visuals Pianka provided.

The inflammatory statements he published, based on his notes and recording, were later disputed by the Academy, causing him much personal anguish. It was readily apparent that the Academy, embarrassed by Dr. Pianka's "anti-human race" views, had steamed into in full denial mode. Its efforts to discredit Mims appear to have failed.

Here is a link to a partial transcript of the affair.

In 2005, I wrote about Forrest and Sarah here

With her parents' encouragement, Sarah started to study the atmosphere in Texas in 2001. She discovered that some of the airborne dust had blown all the way from the Sahara Desert in Africa. But in 2002, she discovered something even more remarkable: Dust from nearby regions was full of soot, and the soot carried bacteria and fungus. These life forms, she found, had escaped from faraway fires. In other words, contrary to what many think, fire did not kill them, it actually spread them. Sarah confirmed her findings in 2003, and they were published in Atmospheric Environment in 2004. If other studies confirm them, the use of burning as a method of clearing fields may need to be rethought.

[ ... ]

... while doing research at the Mauna Loa Observatory (Hawaii) after the Scientific American debacle, Mims was confronted by a tourist who asked him, "Are you a scientist? A real scientist?" The tourist only wanted someone to show him how the instruments worked, but for Forrest, the question meant far more. He realized that the doors that shut us out are not wood and steel but ideas and philosophies, including our own. If he did science, he was a real scientist, and that was enough.

[ ... ]

Incidentally, things have changed at Scientific American. The magazine has since published a column based on an instrument that Mims designed, as well as a news feature about his study of airborne bacteria in Brazil. Perhaps up-and-coming Christian scientists like Sarah will find the scientific world more open to different perspectives. (Today's Christian, January/February 2005, Vol. 43, No. 1, 46)

Congratulations to Forrest Mims, a voice for real science in the midst of a mass of taxpayer-funded propaganda for unbelievable beliefs that happen to be held by scientists.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Below is a link to the Douglas Wilson - Christopher Hitchens debate at Westminster Theological Seminary made available on October 30th. The debate is the 12th item down on the audio list.

LINK

Martin Beckford, in the London Telegraph, reports that the poll also disclosed that pupils in almost a third of schools already learn about the controversial divine explanation of the universe, with even science teachers thinking it has a place in classrooms.

Almost all of those questioned by Teachers TV, a satellite television channel, agreed that children with strong religious beliefs would feel excluded from science lessons if their views were ignored.

The findings support the views of the Rev Professor Michael Reiss, who lost his job as director of education at the Royal Society, Britain's prestigious scientific academy, after calling for creationism to be included in school science lessons.

More...

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Here's a debate that illustrates the real intelligent design controversy - if anyone wants to know:

Distinguished scientist and professor James M. Tour will moderate a debate next month in Texas about intelligent design and evolution featuring four prominent scientists and philosophers. What's interesting is that defending intelligent design are an agnostic who is skeptical of ID and an atheist philosopher. That would be Dr. David Berlinski and Dr. Bradley Monton, respectively. Defending evolution will be British theologian Denis Alexander and well-known physicist Lawrence Krauss.

Here's the lineup on line for last nights's and today's debate. The Friday night debate will be made available in DVD and MP-3.

Also, here's a podcast with Monton, who is attempting to "elevate the debate." I assume that means getting it out of the hands of people like fellow atheist PZ Myers, who is well represented by this exchange with an interviewer:

In a related matter, how come when I enter the search term "demented f*ckwit" into Pharyngula I get about a zillion hits?

Somebody's got to be in charge with slapping around the demented f*ckwits. The position has devolved on me.

To the extent that most people can distinguish between an argument and a knuckle sandwich, Monton has everything to gain by advancing an intelligent discussion.

A similar debate took place in England this fall, between agnostic sociologist Steve Fuller, for design in the universe as a legitimate perspective and Christina scientist Denis Alexander against it.

The big change ids that the debate is increasingly around a reasonable interpretation of the evidence from nature, not the conspiracy theories of an entrenched Darwin lobby whose materialist - or anti-realist Christian - view of life is being dramatically disconfirmed. Increasingly, their Darwinism is a mantra, invoked against the evidence.

Anti-realist Christian? Well, the Faraday Institute's Denis Alexander, standard bearer for "anti-ID" Christian academics, would certainly qualify. He says, "We live in a universe created and sustained by God which displays design, but design is not particularly located in those aspects of the created order that science currently understands." In other words, we must accept on pure faith that the universe is designed because it doesn't look that way.

The trouble is, it does look that way, which is why Alexander's brand of "theistic evolution" is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Krauss's materialist position may be defensible, but Alexander's position is simply a relic of the days when Christians in science thought that the tide of evidence was running against them, and wanted to move the discussion to sheer existential "faith" - which, for what it is worth, was a brand new definition of faith, not known to the historic Christian tradition, which insisted that belief in God is a matter of reason. A friend comments,

As ever Phil Johnson puts it so perfectly succinctly when he asks "How can God guide an unguided process?" Simon Conway Morris is talking about convergent evolution – that is, the randomness of RM+NS = Teleology. There are too many of these folks who don't understand basic geometry: Circles can't be squared.

. Well, they don't understand geometry, but they have faith.

Here are the preface and launch questions for the Dallas-Fort Worth debate:

Here are both the preface and the debate launch questions:

1 Intelligent Design has been defined differently by different people. But one definition which has the advantage of simplicity and non-circularity is this one -- The study of patterns in nature best explained by a goal-directed cause capable of adapting means to achieve ends.

2 The Issue -- Preface: Recent advances in scientific knowledge concerning the physical properties of the universe have shown the remarkably precise requirements requisite for a universe in which carbon-based life might exist. It has oftentimes been stated that the universe almost looks fine-tuned for habitability. Similar advances in our understanding of the nature of life within the universe have shown many biological systems existing and functioning in such delicate and precise patterns of interdependence which appear to reflect evidence of information and intelligent design.

Question: Is it necessary or even helpful for the scientific method to assume the absence of a designer in a universe manifesting such features? Or might it be helpful toward an accurate understanding of the universe and life within it to examine certain of its features in light of the possibility of intelligent design and empirically detectable evidences of the same?

Also just up at The Post-Darwinist:

Evolution does and does not predict irreducible complexity, and anyway it doesn't exist

Infidel blogger awards ... Canadian blogger awards

Mark Steyn on Michael Crichton

Memory police - down the memory hole with YOU!

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).