The ID Report

"At the heart of the origin-of-life problem lies a fundamental question: What is it that we are trying to explain the origin of?"
-- Harmke Kamminga

What's the difference between a live cat and a dead cat? This is not a joke, with an answer like "a slightly better world." Seriously, and more specifically, think carefully about what, exactly, differs between a healthy, live cat, and a recently deceased cat, say a young, healthy cat just moments after being deprived of oxygen. Each possesses exactly the same material composition with all the right parts in all the right places. But even though both have exactly the same incredibly complex "stuff" connected up and ready to go, and although each may be separated in their respective states by mere milliseconds, one has something the other has irretrievably, permanently lost. What is it?

"It", of course, is "life", that elusively certain quality that divides all of nature into haves and have-nots, with the distinction being somewhat artificial to scientific materialists--after all, the haves are just a temporary anomaly in the otherwise have-not universe. One recent Science Daily article, for example, touts a "constructal law" that applies evolution "across the board" to explain the living and the non-living alike. That's why materialist scientists find "it" just another conundrum for science to solve by figuring out all the right physical connections among all the right physical molecules, like building the ultimate science project. Believing "life" is simply a big, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle of physics and chemistry keeps small bands of modern alchemists toiling tirelessly in near obscurity as they seek to transmutate the dead into the living.

Someone should tell them about cats. Because rather than do things the easy way, like merely getting "it" back into an otherwise complete, perfectly suited material housing such as our unfortunate cat, these industrious folks always want to work from "scratch". And to read the headlines that regularly appear one would be convinced that life can be manufactured from scratch, like a perfect pound cake, if one just gets the right ingredients in just so. Can they really do it?

Don't hold your breath. Consider one recent headline touting man-made life, this one boldly claiming in tall black all-caps: LIFE FROM SCRATCH. One would think it's a done deal--life from scratch! Really? Wow! It seems such groundbreaking news would be somewhere other than page 27 of the 31-page January, 2008 edition of Science News, but wow anyhow! Think about it: life from scratch hidden on the last pages of a thin little science rag. Strange, isn't it? The first publication to make such a claim proclaimed it proudly in the beginning. How odd that "The Weekly Newsmagazine of Science" would put this special revelation last. Must be some shaky news. Or shaky science. Or both.

Of course anyone bothering to read beyond the headline hyperbole of this cover-story article (as well as all the puffery in the constant stream of its genre) will quickly discover that scientists are no closer to "creating" life than they are to creating a square circle (and no more likely to realize its impossibility). By the end of the third paragraph, after stating that "scientists are on the verge of creating living cells by piecing together small molecules that are themselves not alive," the Science News article must admit: "The result would be the world's first human-made life forms, synthetic cells made more or less from scratch."

More or less? The "more or less" of this "life creation" is explained: "Some scientists, including [a named scientist] hope to make such a minimal cell by whittling down the genome of an existing bacterium to its barest elements, and then synthesizing that minimal genome." Oh really? So what scientists are on "the verge of" (if anything), is synthesizing the physical molecular structure of a minimal genome. But until scientists can take a dead bacterium with its complete, complex genome, and get life back into it, on what basis are we to believe a manmade "minimal genome" can be made alive? Magic?

When it comes to creating "life" in any form, the hopeful reports keep coming, tickling the ears with the sizzle, but never showing the steak. Just last month, The Boston Globe ran the headline "Harvard Fuels Quest to Create Life From Scratch" describing the latest research of Harvard's Origins of Life Initiative. And again, if one reads beyond the attention-grabbing headline, one learns that what has actually been created is a machine that can manufacture proteins. This is, of course, quite a feat of intelligent design, but to say, as the article quotes, that "it's a step toward artificial life" because the machine can mimic a ribosome, which is the "key component of all living systems", goes too far. Hey, our dead cat is full of ribosomes. There's no need to design a machine to make proteins, and no reason to believe that if you make them you are any closer to creating real life, much less "artificial life".

Here's a prediction for all those who think intelligent design theorists make no predictions: Scientists will never create life from scratch, unless one or both of "life" or "scratch" is redefined to a meaningless ambiguity. Because the truth of the matter, necessarily denied by materialist scientists, is that the design of life is the design of something more than matter. Life, whatever it is, is not merely a product of material ingredients to be concocted from a little of this, that, and the other. Life, as is plain to all but those who choose willing blindness, is something more than a recipe or a formulation of matter. Life is something that invisibly animates matter right up until the moment it departs, leaving the exact same material composition in a condition commonly referred to as death.

Death. The absence of life. And once life departs the physical body only a miracle can reverse the transition even in the most ideal of conditions. What greater miracle must it take to create life "from scratch"? It's strange, then, that the very people who deny miracles are the same people who believe they nevertheless can create life from scratch.

Time will tell if mere mortals can create life from scratch, but one fact is scientifically certain: life was created from scratch the first time. The only reasonable question that science compels but cannot answer is who did the creating? Because one thing scientists are making clear beyond doubt is that successful genesis of life requires an intelligent designer.

Roddy Bullock, a skeptic of Darwinism, is a freelance writer, engineer, lawyer, the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio (www.idnetohio.com) and is the author of The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science, published by and available from Access Research Network.

Send comments to: roddybullock@idnetohio.com.

If you like this essay, go here for many more.

Copyright (c) 2009 Roddy M. Bullock, all rights reserved. Quotes and links permitted with attribution.

Thanks go to Denyse O'Leary as the first one to ask the opening question of this essay. Author of several books, Denyse writes at the Post-Darwinist blog, among other places.

Publisher and agent inquiries welcome.

References:

Kamminga quote: Kamminga, Harmke. Protoplasm and the Gene. In A.G. Cairns-Smith and H. Hartman, eds., Clay Minerals and the Origin of Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-10.

Science News article: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20080112/bob9.asp

On "constructal laws", see Science Daily, "Can Living and Non-living Follow Same Rules? Unifying the Animate and Inanimate Designs of Nature" (April 30, 2009): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090428103104.htm (note this article is full of design terminology.)

More tantalizing headlines of "life from scratch":

"Researchers creating life from scratch" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9005023/

"Building Synthetic Genomes: Life from Scratch?" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18417061

"Life from scratch?" http://www.astrobio.net/news/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=319&theme=Printer

"Americans Ignorant of Plans to Create Artificial Life" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,431401,00.html stating: "the exciting field of synthetic biology" and "the field's controversial promise to create life from scratch."

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

The Toronto Sun's Lorrie Goldstein sounds off about Canadian science minister Gary Goodyear's recent refusal to say what he thinks about "evolution", which resulted in a florescence of dino puff costumes on the street in downtown Toronto, like pimples on a pubescent teen:

And I can understand why. A science minister who refuses to state he believes in evolution -- even if he considers the question hostile -- is worrisome, especially since his answer should have been easy.

All sorts of sensible people believe simultaneously in evolution and that God, or, if you prefer, a guiding intelligence, was behind creation, and therefore evolution.

Well, Goodyear did answer it, finally, and said the obvious thing - evolution goes on all the time. I doubt that will pacify the Darwin mob, however. They need their particular narrative to be government policy. That's the one and only point.

Also at the Post-Darwinist:

Incredible creatures watch

Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy

Darwin worship: How Darwin worship helps animal extinction

Morning coffee: A fun snippet from Salvo

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).

Review Of PBS NATURE Documentary Thin Green Line

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

For those who take issue with the rather blase application of evolution to every aspect of biology, Public Television's recent showing of Thin Green Line is bound to have raised hackles. Few nature documentaries that I have seen begin with quite the same density of evolutionary suppositions. We are told for example that amphibians were the first of our ancestors to venture out of the water and that they have since evolved 'into an explosion of species'. By the same token frogs are made out to be evolutionary gems that over the millennia adapted to live alongside dinosaurs, survive asteroid impacts and withstand the rigors of the ice age. Yet herein lies the irony. For despite all their supposed evolving and adapting, amphibians today have been unable to keep up with the more recent pace of environmental change.

Indeed evolutionary just-so stories aside, Thin Green Line provided important yet deeply troubling details about a tragedy that is unfolding beneath our very eyes- one that is unprecedented in its sheer scale. A third of all amphibian species across the globe are currently in decline and half of all amphibian species may eventually disappear altogether. Like many environmental tragedies, human activity is partly to blame. Spade-Foot toads in Cape Cod for example are being edged out by an increase in road construction while the Mountain Yellow-Legged frogs of America's Yosemite National Park have only recently recovered from a hard-fought battle against fish that were introduced by recreational fishers in the early 1900's (Ref 1).

As the demand for new housing continues to rise across the world, amphibians are facing survival challenges on every front. Yale University's David Skelly claims that 21% of frogs in suburban ponds across the United States suffer from reproductive deformities (Ref 2). Synthetic oestrogens released into US water ways are thought to be at the heart of the problem. Tyrone Hayes from UC Berkeley is likewise adamant that agricultural run-offs are responsible for causing immunosuppression in tadpoles (Ref 3). But these issues by no means provide the full story. Dr Roland Knapp from the Aquatic Research Laboratory in Sierra Nevada has shed light on a much more insidious problem- one brought about by a fungus called Chytrid (Ref 1).

As Thin Green Line documented, Chytrid attacks the skin of amphibians depriving them of much of their oxygen. Considered by many as an amphibian equivalent to 'Yellow Fever', the resulting fungal disease has reached global epidemic proportions and is today decimating frog populations across much of Central and South America as well as Australia. Conservation biologist Dr Karen Lips was the first to raise the alarm in Costa Rica when she noticed a mysterious die off of frogs in local nature reserves (Ref 4). Since then local ecosystems have been thrown off-balance with insect and snake populations being the worst affected. In central Panama emergency action has been taken to rescue dwindling frog species from an otherwise certain extinction by placing them under the care of a Noah's Ark-style facility called 'El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center' (EVACC).

Desperate times require desperate measures. Indeed scientists in Australia have turned their faith towards the limited powers of natural selection in their bid to stem the spread of Chytrid. In the Australian Alps, Kosciuszko National Park remains an ailing sanctuary for the yellow Corroboree frog. In fact there are now fewer than 200 of these beautiful creatures left within the confines of the park. Herpetologist Gerry Marantelli and his wife have taken it upon themselves to try and save them by building their own make-shift 'ark' out of disused shipping containers. Their approach seems simple enough- release captive frogs back into the wild and hope that in the process they somehow drive evolution in favor of Chytrid-resistant individuals.

Such attempts to select for specific traits in animal populations are nothing new. In 1997 scientists published data on guppy populations showing how the presence or absence of predators affected the time taken for guppies to reach sexual maturity (Ref 5). More dramatic results are seen when commercial fisheries set minimum allowed sizes for caught fish. In such cases selection favors smaller fish simply because these lie outside catch size limits and are therefore less likely to get caught (Ref 5). Nevertheless major problems can arise when animals kept in captivity are released into the wild where selective pressures are quite clearly very different from anything that they have been accustomed to (Ref 5).

One line of research is providing reason for hope in the fight against Chytrid. Microbiologists have discovered a bacterium- Janthinobacterium lividum- that lives naturally on frogs' skin and prolongs the lives of Chytrid-infected animals (Ref 6). If further tests prove positive, we could start seeing the application of Janthinobacterium in the wild sometime in the next few years (Ref 6). Still, today Chytrid continues to pose a severe threat to the well being of amphibian wildlife and anything less than its complete eradication could be catastrophic. The stakes are high. In short, without swift action we could be kissing the frog prince goodbye.

Literature Cited

1. See Roland Knapp's Current Research at http://vesr.ucnrs.org/pages/knapp/research/research.html

2. "Sex And the Suburban Frog", See Skelly Lab Website at http://www.cbc.yale.edu/people/skelly

3. Tyrone Hayes, Biologist/Herpetologist, See http://www.nationalgeographic.com/field/explorers/tyrone-hayes.html

4. Kelly Blake (2009), Biologist Karen Lips Investigates Amphibian Extinction Mystery, See http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/release.cfm?ArticleID=1856

5. Carl Zimmer (2003), Rapid Evolution Can Foil Even the Best-Laid Plans, Science, Vol. 300, p.895, See http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/300/5621/895.pdf?ck=nck

6. Richard Black (2008), Bacteria could stop frog killer, BBC News, See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7438205.stm

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Doug Mesner writes asking me to respond to a review of The Spiritual Brain which he published in Skeptic Magazine, and he has now helpfully made the review available on line. He writes,

The book distresses me in that I see in it an early Creationist assault on the Cognitive Sciences, and the formation of the false scientific arguments that may be brought to the stem cell debate in years to come.

Mesner appears to want to be the male Amanda Gefter. (Hey, I am all for gender equity.)

He wants a free exchange of views, but sadly, one thing that is not free is my time just now, so I must decline.

I am not sure why he references the stem cell debate, but if people like Gefter and Mesner are entitled to private definitions of creationism, I guess they can apply their definitions and worries to the stem cell debate, wind energy, or the assignment of parking spaces in municipally owned garages - or anything else they want to.

Having almost finished Alva Noe's thoughtful Out of Our Heads Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness and having read Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself, I would say that the skepticism (= materialism) espoused by Mesner is dead in the water and electrification of the corpse by a long discussion will not help. Things have just moved on.

Also just up at Mindful Hack
Neuroscience: Wanna remember yourself as a star? Just edit your memory! (Oh, wait ... )

Neuroplasticity: Once "fringe" and now "cutting edge" - but there were costs

Spirituality: Michael Gerson on Andrew Newberg's new "How God Changes Your Brain" book

Medicine: Jet lag is a disorder? But then what about ...

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

Just three centuries ago spontaneous generation was embraced as a reality that seemed to agree well with scientific observations (Ref 1). It was thought that organisms could appear in their fully mature form without any initial development from young to adult. As one review summarized:

"Many sensible biologists believed in spontaneous generation- the idea that new life could form from decaying matter. It explained the existence of internal parasites of the human body such as tapeworms, which had no free-living counterparts, and the numerous 'animalcules' and 'infusoria' (microbes) that were revealed by the microscope but which had no clear origin" (Ref 2, p.90)

The 17th century physician Jan Baptista van Helmont became a proponent of spontaneous generation when, by putting two leaves together in putrid conditions, he generated 'long eels' (later found to be hyphae of fungal growth; Ref 3, p.2). Subsequent claims of spontaneously generated frogs and rats from mud and garbage mounds were quick in coming (Ref 3, p.2; Ref 4, pp.96-97). For the burgeoning amateur scientist there was even a recipe for how to generate life- take a dirty garment, add some wheat, let it ferment for a few hours overnight and watch mice spontaneously form (Refs 1,5). Of course today we may humor such stories, relegating them to nothing more than interesting quirks in the history of scientific discovery.

In 1668, the Italian Jesuit-trained doctor Francesco Redi became one of the first to challenge the prevailing notions of his day. His scientifically-sound experiments with muslin-covered meat demonstrated that under such conditions flies were no longer able to land and maggots did not mysteriously appear (Ref 1). The inspiration behind Redi's experiments was simple- he strongly believed that all life had been brought forth by God during the earth's creation (Ref 3, pp.3-4). The Catholic Church at the time took on a similar view, criticizing spontaneous generation for, "failing to distinguish between Creator and creation, for merging God and the universe" (Ref 6, p.105). Louis Pasteur likewise felt that accepting spontaneous generation would mean that, "God as author of life would then no longer be needed" (Ref 6, p.105).

In 1859, which just happened to be the year Darwin published The Origin Of Species, Pasteur devised an ingenious set of experiments using long-necked flasks filled with boiled organic infusions (Ref 7). By opening these flasks at different altitudes, Pasteur found that dirty city air contaminated them much more readily than the air high above in the French Alps (Ref 7). In effect Pasteur had shown that microbial growth depended not on some miraculous instantiation of 'animalcules' and 'infusoria' but on the seeding of his infusions by something carried in the atmosphere (Ref 7).

Pasteur's results brought a decisive victory to a centuries-old debate although, much to his chagrin, there were still those who for a while maintained a staunch allegiance to their long-held theory (Ref 7). Nevertheless today the term Spontaneous Generation has taken on a broader meaning. The school biology text book Of Pandas And People, for example, uses the term to encompass the popular view that life originated billions of years ago from some yet-to-be-defined concoction of prebiotic compounds. As noted:

"One explanation for the origin of life is that the first living cell, or cells, developed from nonliving matter according to chemical laws that we can observe today. This explanation is called the theory of chemical evolution or prebiotic (before biological life) evolution. The 'chemical evolution' theory assumes that matter and energy somehow self-originated into complex forms without any outside intelligence directing the process. We call this process of self-organization without outside intelligence spontaneous generation. In most forms, the theory assumes that a very long time was needed to "test" millions of chemical combinations until the right combination for life was found" (Ref 8, p.41).

To summarize, organic matter is seen as "the stuff of which life is spontaneously generated by nature" (Ref 8, p.71). In effect evolutionists have today replaced 17th century incantations of life-generating garbage mounds with wild suppositions of how life might have originated naturally in the silts of our earth. As perhaps the most outspoken of the new crop of Spontaneous Generationists, zoologist Richard Dawkins had this to say on the matter:

"Before the coming of life on earth, some rudimentary evolution of molecules could have occurred by ordinary processes of physics and chemistry. There is no need to think of design or purpose or directedness. If a group of atoms in the presence of energy falls into a stable pattern it will tend to stay that way. The earliest form of natural selection was simply a selection of stable forms and a rejection of unstable ones. There is no mystery about this. It had to happen by definition" (Ref 9, p.13)

Dawkins has yet to clarify the factual details of a purely naturalistic prebiotic evolution. After all, prebiotic simulation experiments have repeatedly demonstrated the requirement for investigators to guide reactions to a desired end (Ref 8, p.56).

Steen Rasmussen from Los Alamos claimed that synthesizing simple life would soon be easier than making the atomic bomb or sending people to the moon- "a tidal wave in the distance" that is bound to happen (Ref 10). Nevertheless if such an goal is ever realized, it will only have been through a controlled orchestration by human beings who supply biological systems with the information they need to multiply and survive. Indeed the creation in early 2008 of the first artificial cell emphatically demonstrated the need for carefully-executed instructions and finely-tuned conditions through which essential life processes such as gene expression and protein synthesis could occur (Ref 11).

If we are to learn one lesson from the exploits of text book icons such as Redi and Pasteur, it is that the origin of life appears to be anything but spontaneous. It is a phenomenon that requires the exacting environment of a cellular milieu (Refs 12-13). The new Spontaneous Generationists could likewise learn a lesson or two from their historical brethren, critically examining the circumstantial evidence with which they have forged their naturalistic path.

References
1. Andre Brack (1998), The Molecular Origins of Life: Assembling Pieces of the Puzzle, pp.1-2, See http://assets.cambridge.org/97805215/64755/excerpt/9780521564755_excerpt.pdf

2. The Science Book, Ed Peter Tallack, Published in 2003 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, UK

3. Christopher Wills and Jeffrey Bada (2000), The Spark of Life- Darwin and The Primeval Soup, Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, Massachusetts

4. Cornelius Hunter (2001), Darwin's God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil, Brazos Press, A division of Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan

5. Neil de Grasse Tyson (2004), "Origins: Back To The Beginning" NOVA Documentary, Aired on PBS on 29th of September 2004

6. Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton (1994), The Soul of Science- Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL

7. Louis Pasteur, See http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/html/chap5/chap5-sect6.html

8. Percival Davis, Dean H Kenyon, Charles Thaxton (1993), Of Pandas And People: The Central Question Of Biological Origins, Haughton Publishing Company, Richardson, Texas

9. Richard Dawkins (1989), The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK

10. The Nova/Science Now documentary, reporting on the attempts of Dave Deamer and Steen Rasmussen to generate simple life, aired on PBS, Wisconsin Public Television on October 18th, 2005

11. Tamsin Osborne (2008), 'Artificial cell' can make its own genes, New Scientist, 1st April, 2008, See http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13568

12. Fazale Rana (2008), The Cell's Design: How Chemistry Reveals The Creator's Artistry, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI

13. Robert Deyes (2008), The Disarming Cell: Taking The Wind Out Of The Sails Of Darwinism, http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2008/09/11/the_disarming_cell_how_cellular_biology

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Some friends were having a discussion about Darwin's assertion of the superiority of men over women, and I commented:

It would have been more scientifically accurate to the evidence to say that the male population features many more outliers than the female one does - on both sides - than to merely claim that men are superior to women.

Darwin missed all that because he started with the presumption of the superiority of men and did not take the whole range of the evidence seriously. The whole range shows that men can be much bigger failures than women, as well as much bigger successes.

A useful, evidence-based discussion might result from an attempt to discover why female achievement is more tightly clustered around a bell curve than male achievement.

For example, a smart girl gets straight A's in maths and sciences and goes on to become an excellent high school teacher.

A smart guy might win a medal for solving some previously unsolved math problem.

Or he might try scamming the Lotto, fail, get nailed, and land up in Slam! - and on the Angels' range, worse luck.

I don't know that we yet have a good explanation for the outlier question.

The trouble with claims about superiority is that they simply begin with recitations of grievances, real or imagined, and end with pronouncements - when the discussion should have begun with a full and fair examination of the range of the evidence.

The horror perpetrated by backward religious leaders who think women should not be educated is that they disable half their potential "ordinary" work force who would produce much wealth and learning for their peoples, given a chance.

On the other hand, feminists who claim that hard science is sexist because so few women do it (or, worse, that legislation is needed to deal with the situation) only add to the problem by creating a "counter-fanaticism".

One fanaticism is enough, thanks.

In fact - to me - no fanaticism at all sounds like a good starting idea.

Let's just go where the evidence leads, and I am sure we will arrive at a fair system.

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 Kevin H. Wirth, ARN Director of Product Development and Media Relations

I've been keeping my ear to the ground regarding the fallout in Texas over the recent State Board of Education (SBOE) vote on science standards...

I'm beginning to hear some rumblings about mounting a possible legal challenge to the vote, as well as taking legislative action to change the way Texas state science standards are decided in the future: and the upshot seems to be, keep 'the people' out of the process as much as possible.

A legal challenge, if picked up, would be promoted in part because of the "religious" motivations of some school board members. The new standards are viewed by many critics as "poisoning" the minds of school age children who would come under its influence.

Here's the spin:

"Cynthia Dunbar would like to make it required that "any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern." She also calls public education a "subtly deceptive tool of perversion."

And Don McLeroy, the leader of this group, argued passionately at last month's public hearing that someone in this country needs to stand up to the science experts.

As members of the 15-member Texas Board of Education, Mercer, Dunbar, and McLeroy are some of the most powerful decision-makers in the country in terms of what children read in public school science class."

And here's the warm-up shot:

"Now the issue is whether there is enough prima facie evidence to challenge the Constitutionality of the wording now, or wait for the textbook review process in two years."

"They have shown clear religious motivations that certainly raise some questions," Quinn said. "But if the board requires phony religious arguments in the science textbooks, I can't imagine somebody won't challenge it." Publishers may end up producing a textbook for Texas and other conservative states and a separate version for other states - because under the new guidelines, a Texas textbook "will be poison in states that value education," Quinn said.[1]

One of the biggest objections by critics of the recent SBOE vote is that it promotes (according to them) first and foremost an anti-science "religious" agenda - an intolerable threat to their way of thinking, and worse, that supporters of the new standards are intent upon "poisoning" and "injuring"[2] children with their views, and their voice and influence should be stopped at all costs. The vote of the SBOE (who are, by the way, ELECTED by the people of Texas...) has literally lit a fire under those who oppose the wording of the new standards, and they are using it as leverage to influence any other elected officials who will listen to their claims that good science is under attack by a bunch of religious loons.

And, they appear to be gaining at least some traction.[3][4]

Opponents of the new science standards are contemplating every possible avenue they can to both challenge and roll back the SBOE vote if possible and/or make sure it doesn't happen again. The Kitzmiller decision has emboldened them to think they can win in court. In their mind, they have a duty to protect kids from the horrible influence of the SBOE majority vote, and if they think they can achieve this via a legal challenge, you can bet your last doughnut they will do so.

There may not be a legal challenge yet, but we would do well to anticipate their future actions based on what we know about how they view "creationists" and the level of their determination to leave no stone unturned in an effort to smack them down. If they thought they'd have a chance at filing a successful lawsuit - don't think for a minute they wouldn't.

Meanwhile... those who oppose the new science standards are very actively engaged in taking other steps in an effort to ensure that voter influence will no longer be a factor in future decisions regarding state science standards or content in science textbooks. In the wake of the recent SBOE vote, a "slew of bills" have recently been proposed to "reign in the authority of the Texas State Board of Education." [5][6]

Think about it: this is the response to a body of public officials who were elected by the people into office.

These bills have been introduced since the vote, and has seen the reported emergence of "a parade of witnesses testifying to the state board's unfair processes, divisive ideological history and outright ineptitude."[7]

One of the bills (Senate Bill 2275) was considered just yesterday in Texas by the Senate Education Committee. The purpose of this bill is to take away the authority of the SBOE to vote on the state science curriculum standards, and place that decision into the hands of just one person: the state education commissioner. But the bill goes much further than that, since it would also require "the commissioner to establish teams of educators and content experts to develop standards and review textbooks for approval." In other words, regardless of what the commissioner decides the language of the standards should be, the bill ALSO provides for a team of expert editors to be at the ready to ENSURE that the language of the textbooks conforms to what the content experts say should be there. If this bill does go anywhere, then we need to be prepared to address the way the science texts will be influenced by those individuals. More important, if enacted, this bill would also remove the people, currently represented through elected officials on the SBOE, from the decision-making process. [8]

SBOE efforts to promote good language in the TX science standards has been derided as "code" for creationism instead of good science. To marginalize the text of the new Texas standards in this manner is an important indicator of just how far the opposition will go in their efforts to discredit the ruling of elected officials in the decision-making process. This indicates a complete disregard for the validity of democratically elected voices - and is an assault not just against "creationists," but also against the democratic process itself. Critics of the SBOE vote are seeking to eliminate the influence of the people in the process by pointing to the threat of the "creationists" in this debate, who (according to them) don't deserve to have a voice. The irrationality of such so-called "rational" thinkers is breathtaking, and their strong inclinations towards scientific fascism should continue to cause great alarm.

Residents of Texas would do well to let their elected representatives know that 'the people' want to keep their voice in the process.

[1]http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/scienceandreligion/1308/evolution_challenged_in_%22textbook%22_case:_as_goes_texas,_so_goes_the_nation/

[2] http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/DN-sboe_15tex.ART.State.Edition1.4acfccf.html

[3] http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/DN-sboe_15tex.ART.State.Edition1.4acfccf.html

[4] http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/04/the-education-f-14.html

[5] http://www.tfn.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Bills2009

[6] http://sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/texas-creationism-legislative-update-16-apr-09/

[7] http://tfnblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/reckoning-approaches-for-state-ed-board/

[8] http://tfnblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/major-sboe-bill-up-for-hearing-at-capitol/

[9] http://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2009/04/bill-would-limit-education-boards-power.html

Seattle area writer and Darwin skeptic Kevin Wirth is a founding member of ARN (formerly Students for Origins Research). He is also the Senior editor, contributor, and publisher of the book "Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth About Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters" by Dr. Jerry Bergman (2008). This is the most comprehensive book published to date documenting the extent and types of discrimination against Darwin Dissidents. He is also the publisher of Caroline Crocker's upcoming book "Free to Think," (Leafcutter Press) which addresses her critics and relates her experience as an Expelled University professor. Her book is currently slated for release in June of 2009.

To read more essays by Kevin Wirth, click here.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Kevin H. Wirth, all rights reserved. Quotes and links are welcomed with attribution.

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

The first months of the year are traditionally very busy for most Americans in more ways than one. Not only is this the time when most begin to think about filing their tax returns but it is also the time for getting together with friends and family to watch that most traditional of American events- the Superbowl. 2003 was to be no different in this regard as two teams- The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Oakland Raiders- met in a face off that would draw millions to their screens. For my family and I, having moved from the UK only two years previously, this was a time of readjustment and learning- we had after all neither seen nor heard much about this sport when we were young. Thus watching a game in its entirety was both exciting and baffling and at times resembled our more familiar, home-grown sport of rugby. The post-match reviews were filled with color and emotion as those who had watched the event aired their opinions on both the technical and financial aspects of the game. Talk on the lucrative gains from the game received its just-deserved space in the tabloid press.

Those of us who had only occasionally watched football were awe-struck by how the clash of these two teams had captured the imagination of a nation in a way that at times resembled the Brazilian spirit of soccer which I had lived through as a child. However, there remained a burning and troubling question in our minds for which none of these magazine reviews and newspaper articles provided a satisfactory answer- why had a sport, that for the most part involved forward passing, mauling, throwing and very little kicking or contact with the foot, been given the rather implicit and illustrious name of football? What boot had been responsible for kicking this all-American game into the hall of fame of ultimate contradictions?

The paradox was nicely captured in Johnny Hart's B.C cartoon appearing in the Wisconsin State Journal round about the time that the 2003 Superbowl was being held. In his inimitable fashion, Hart's depiction showed how, unlike soccer (some would argue 'true football'), the naming of the comparatively new, ball-throwing sport represented a contradiction of terms - a sudden departure from a logical sequence which culminated in a moment of ironic proclamation "ERGO THE NAME FOOTBALL!!!".

Curiously paleontologists have a lot to learn from this story. At its heart, paleontology aims to discover much of how animals and their habitats have changed over time. Naturalist Jane Goodall, who spent a period of her life in Africa working alongside the British paleontologist Louis Leakey, reflected on the spirit of paleontology and its, "reconstructions of life-forms long since vanished from our planet" (Ref 1, p.49). For some of my own colleagues paleontology is a get-your-hands-dirty sort of hobby that takes them to the farthest backwaters of our country to scrape and chisel away at the ground. The discovery of graduated intermediates spanning the morphologies of today's living organisms is the inner hope of many a field trip into the deep unknown. Yet curiously, paleontology has over the years had to shift its focus from such deeply held expectations.

Sudden change, or punctuation is according to the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould a closer reflection of nature's ways than blending, smooth gradualism particularly when one thinks back on what the overall picture of the fossil record actually shows us (Ref 2, pp.765-774). In this sense the evidence contradicts the requirements that Charles Darwin so confidently maintained for his theory to hold true. Indeed, Darwin's famous premise 'Natura Non Facit Saltum' shut the door on the possibility of evolutionary jumps (Ref 3). Nevertheless what we see in the fossil record is not a continuum of graduated forms connecting related species but rather a series of intermittent punctuated changes that occur between long periods of morphological 'stasis' (Synonymous to overall 'non- change', See Ref 2, p.768).

In recent years an evolutionary theory called Punctuated Equilibrium has in effect attacked one of the principle tenets of Darwinism in so far as it denies, "the slowness and smoothness of rate" that "formed the centerpiece of Darwin's larger world view" (Ref 2, p.756). As Darwin critic Phillip Johnson commented, "if evolution means the gradual change of one kind of organism into another kind, the outstanding characteristic of the fossil record is the absence of evidence for evolution" (Ref 4, pp. 50-51). Biola University biophysicist Cornelius Hunter likewise commented on the 'big bangs' of biology - sudden events of change, separated by million-year long periods of stasis (Ref 5, p.69). Punctuated Equilibrium challenges the 'escape chute' of an incomplete fossil record so often used by evolutionary biologists to explain away the absence of gradual change. After all, if everything else about Punctuated Equilibrium is controversial, stasis remains evident for all to see (Ref 2, p.759).

Scientists are of course well aware of the predominance of stasis throughout the fossil record but have been unwilling to write about it in the scientific literature for the simple reason that it did not agree with the expectations that Darwin himself had so clearly pronounced. Indeed some neo-Darwinists have attempted to reason through it by invoking some kind of silent evolution (otherwise known as 'mosaic' evolution), in which the soft internal anatomy continued to evolve, unrecorded in the fossil record (Ref 4, pp.52-53). Others have suggested that natural selection acts as the 'preventer' of change, "eliminating all the innovations, sometimes for periods of millions of years and despite changing environmental conditions that ought to have encouraged adaptive innovation" (Ref 4, pp.52-53). As Johnson rightly concluded, Darwinism continues to enjoy a status of an a priori truth that, unlike other scientific theories, is shielded from the possibility of critical evaluation (Ref 4, pp. 52-53). Yet frustratingly Punctuated Equilibrium does appear to provide sufficient evidence to refute Darwinian 'gradualism'.

Both Stephen Jay Gould and his colleague Niles Eldredge recognized the predominance of stasis quite early on their scientific careers. For Eldredge it came while he was studying the fossilized fauna of the Devonian- a period of geological time that began approximately 408 million years ago and marked the arrival of land dwelling animals on earth (Ref 6, pp.40-42). One particular creature known as Phacops rana captured Eldredge's interest because of the insignificant amount of variability in the number of eye lenses that it displayed during the eight million of years that followed its first appearance (Ref 6, p.70). This greatly troubled Eldredge for the simple reason that he had been trained to expect gradual morphological change over time (Ref 6, pp.54-55). As Eldredge recalls, the response that followed the publication of his and Gould's subsequent Punctuated Equilibrium paper was from many less than congenial:

"We were not prepared for the reaction. Whether favorable ("I knew it all along" or the more positive "Finally I can make sense of my data") or critical ("You guys are full of ----------" heard more then once at national meetings in the mid- to late 1970s), the reactions provoked by the paper were strong among nearly all paleontologists....Some paleontologists were angered that we implied that the profession as a whole was ignorant of the simple model of allopatric speciation....Other criticisms were more serious including....the denial that stasis is a general phenomenon or even occurs at all!"(Ref 6, pp.121-122)

Since the 1970's several other key examples have confirmed the predominance of stasis in the fossil record (See review, Ref 7). It seems paradoxical therefore that paleontologists should still adopt the gradualistic premise of Darwinism as an established fact and dismiss stasis as just another failure to document evolution. It was Gould's and Eldredge's triumph that they recognized stasis as, "a potentially fascinating phenomenon worthy of rigorous documentation, not merely as a failure to find evolution" (Ref 2, p.760).

Ironically, many of the famous textbook cases of the gradualistic picture that Darwinists set out in support of their views (including the well-known horse series) have since been found to document stasis (Ref 2, p.760). As Gould has commented, the failure of neo-Darwinists to accept stasis as real data has set evolutionary studies into a 'straight jacket' that lamentably still persists today to the detriment of the scientific method (Ref 2, p.763). After all, theories should be refutable, not established a priori truths immune from testing, and should be open to refutation as new evidence accumulates.

REFERENCES
1. Jane Goodall (1999), Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey, Warner Books Inc, New York, NY

2. Stephen Jay Gould (2002), The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts

3. Charles Darwin (1859), The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or The Preservation of Favored Races In the Struggle For Survival, Modern Library Paperbacks Edition (1998), New York, p.246

4. Phillip Johnson (1991), Darwin on Trial, 1st Ed, InterVarsity Press Publishers, Madison, Wisconsin

5. Cornelius Hunter (2001), Darwin's God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil, Brazos Press, A division of Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan

6. Niles Eldredge (1985), Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian, Evolution and the Theory of Puctuated Equilibria, Published by Simon and Schuster, New York

7. Robert Deyes (2008), More Than A Minor Dispute: How Punctuated Equilibrium Has Challenged Contemporary Evolutionary Biology, http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2008/06/23/more_than_a_minor_dispute_how_punctuated

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

The other day I was at my local grocery store and I noticed what appeared to be a girl child shopping. But I quickly realized - watching from behind - that it could not be a child.

Movements too precise, too disciplined. Honed by decades of experience, not mere years.

Well, she turned around and - it was a woman only slightly younger than me.

An almost proportionate dwarf. She came up only to the bottom of my rib cage - and I am only 5 ft tall.

Thus she was less than a metre tall, for sure.

Of course I immediately ceased to look at her - continuing to look would have been rude.

Her head struck me as slightly too large for an adult, in proportion to her body, which is why I describe her as a "nearly proportionate" dwarf.

Then, a few days later, I saw another nearly proportionate dwarf - a different woman - in another part of town - about the same size.

So I am even more skeptical than I used to be of claims that Flores man represents a "different species" of human.

I always was skeptical of the little lady of Flores claims as evidence for a new human species, but am especially so when I run into normal humans who just happen to be very small.

I think it more likely that - just as the elephants on Flores were unusually small, so were the people. While it would be interesting to know the reason for that, we need not assume that the people were a different species.

New intelligent design book

Remembering The Privileged Planet

Faith in mindless matter and energy

Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy - also, April 1 warning ...

A reader writes from an island in the Mediterranean to ask ...

A friend's note about Niko Tinbergen and the herring gull chicks - who was gulled, exactly?

Why newspapers are dying?

From the "More Stuff We Know That Ain't So" files: NobelistTinbergen

Excerpts from Ezra Levant's Shakedown

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 Dr Caroline Crocker

I recently attended a lecture by Michael Shermer at the UCSD Biological Science Symposium (4/2/09). His title was, "Why Darwin Matters", but his topic was mostly religion. He started by defining science as looking for natural explanations for natural phenomena and said that his purpose was to "debunk the junk and expose sloppy thinking." So, I must go on to the content of the lecture - or lack of it. What a disappointment! I was hoping to hear some reasoned thoughts, maybe even something to challenge my way of thinking. Instead we were subjected to an evening of slapstick comedy, cheap laughs and the demolition of strawmen. Lots of cartoons, a film of the evolution of Homer Simpson, photos of the Creation Science Museum with lots of ridicule. I wondered if the 1500 people listening registered how their intelligence was being insulted since Shermer obviously did not consider them capable of logical thinking - only bully-like laughter.

Michael Shermer entertains (Source here)

Or, is it possible that Shermer actually is incapable of understanding what intelligent design (ID) theorists have been trying to explain for so long? His characterization of ID was that the theory says,
1) It looks designed,
2) We can't think how it was designed naturally,
3) Therefore it was designed supernaturally. (God of the gaps.)
Okay everyone, laugh at the stupid ID theorists. Shermer then went on to give the example of Sir Isaac Newton who assumed that the planets line up in a plane because God made things this way. Shermer told his audience that ID theorists do not talk about this because science has now discovered a natural explanation for this phenomenon.

But, is that what ID says? Not at all. Rather, ID says that it is possible to detect the action of intelligence in the world by the presence of two features: complexity and specificity. Our experience with the world shows that if something that is highly complex and ALSO conforms to a pre-existing pattern or contains information, then it designed by an intelligent being. Therefore, when we see these features in naturally-occurring objects, we posit that an intelligent being may have played a part in designing them. Science of course cannot speculate about the identity of this being. So, what about Newton's planets? Well, they do not exhibit much complexity and lining up is not exactly spectacular specificity. Perhaps this is why ID theorists do not talk about Newton's ideas?

Shermer then made a very quick foray into explaining away some of the concerns that ID theorists have with regard to evolution. The Cambrian explosion and lack of transitional forms in the fossil record were addressed by saying that the Cambrian period was actually quite long. Also many of the transitional forms had soft bodies - and anyway, we do have some transitional forms, like Ambulocetus. Irreducible complexity was quickly dismissed by a slide showing a bird with wings that are not used for flying and pictures of a mousetrap with fewer than all of its parts. He did not attempt an explanation of how it would work. Shermer did not explain specified complexity, possibly because he did understand the concept.

After this, Shermer began to air his philosophical and theological ignorance (yes, in a science lecture). I was astonished at how a Darwinist who complains about mixing science and religion spent most of his time at the Biological Science Symposium talking about religion. Especially when he made a point that he is not opposed to discussing religion, just not in science class. One is forced to wonder at the duplicity of his actions. Shermer repeatedly complained that his evaluation of the design seen in nature is that it is not intelligent. For example, why would a designer cause the eye to see upside down and backwards? Obviously, Shermer could have done it better. So, his argument, if I am understanding him, is that if something is designed badly, it was not designed. Hmm, does that apply to faulty appliances, automobiles, and even rockets? Those that malfunction were not designed but evolved?

Then Dr. Shermer came to the question that children always ask, "Well, if God made everything, who made God?" The answer they were hoping for was, "Oh, yeah, you're the first one to think of that. Hmm, guess He doesn't exist." But this is an age-old question, almost the pons asinorum of philosophy and theology. An immense sophisticated literature has been developed around the First Case question, and Shermer acted like he'd never heard of it. Some of my more astute readers may have noticed that this is definitely not science, as Shermer defined it, but he did not seem to realize. He said that all good scientists would ask who made the designer, and who made him and so on, seemingly forgetting the first few sentences of his lecture where he said that science looks only for natural explanations for natural phenomena.

And the lecture went on - from bad to worse. Now, Shermer began to throw in a few mistakes. For example, he claimed that all ID advocates believe in the God of Abraham and are motivated by wanting to share Jesus. His evidence? Shermer claims that after two beers all ID advocates admit that they are Christians (the closet variety I presume). Is it possible that he has never heard of Sir Anthony Flew who is no longer an atheist, but is certainly not a Christian? Or, what about Dr. David Berlinski, Ben Stein or Dr. Steve Fuller, none of whom would claim to be Christians, not all of whom are even theists. Of more concern is that it would appear that Shermer is saying that having a religious belief makes one unable to think scientifically. This is dangerous ground, Dr. Shermer, since atheism has also been defined as a religion (7th Circuit Court of Appeals)! My assessment of last night's talk is that Shermer's atheism (he calls it skepticism) is even evangelistic.

The talk was concluded with a consideration of the Anthropic Principle or the fact that the universe is fine-tuned for life. Shermer admitted that he has been given cause for thought by six key physical constants and the narrow range of values that enable our existence, but then went on to dismiss their significance by suggesting the possibility of parallel universes, which also "evolve". He admitted that there is no evidence for a multiverse, but claimed that since religion is "anthropocentrically absurd" we need to "climb to a higher plane of humanity and humility" and embrace "sciensuality" and buy his book. Are you convinced? I am not.

By Kevin H. Wirth, ARN Director of Product Development and Media Relations

Most of us have heard reports about problems with honeybees in recent years. As a long-time beekeeper (well, sort of -- I've been a beekeeper for the past 8 years running), I've followed the issue of the Big Bee Dieoff (CCD) with interest. In my opinion, one of the biggest problems in the beekeeping industry seems to be that of preserving the honeybee as the primary source of pollination for many of our crops. While I sympathize with the losses beekeepers have been subjected to in recent decades (I have lost many of my own hives), I think our focus needs to shift from preserving the honeybee to a focus on a much more pressing issue that has resulted from the decline of honeybee populations: the ability to pollinate our food sources effectively. In my view, we cannot continnue to rely on honeybees for pollinating our crops as heavily as we have in the past, and we need to shift very quickly from a focus on trying to fix the myriad problems facing the honeybee industry to a different pollination solution, or we will be facing a much more significant crisis than the loss of the honeybees: less food for our tables.

THE HONEYBEE DILEMMA

Imagine what it would be like if milk cows suddenly started dying off in vast numbers due to some unknown disease. Or if chickens the world over were suddenly overcome with a serious form of avian flu that rendered them unfit for human consumption or egg-laying. This is essentially the equivalent of what has been going on in the honeybee industry in recent years. Honeybees have suffered a tremendous series of hits beginning in the early 1980's when they began to be attacked rather hard by two types of parasites - tracheal mites and varroa mites. These mites can and often have decimated honeybee hives, and did such a great job of it in America that by the 1990's you'd have been hard pressed to find very many wild honeybee hives living in the USA. I well recall as a young man observing a honeybee hive in continuous operation for many years inside an oak tree in the neighborhood where I grew up. It's now long gone, and moreover, any feral hive is almost certain to be doomed by these mites within a short period of time (except in Hawaii, where the mites have not yet infiltrated, last I heard). Of course, these mites also attacked honeybess that were kept by bee keepers in large apiaries, and if just one hive got infected, you could count on it spreading rather rapidly to other hives in short order. This chain reaction has had the effect of wiping out hive colonies en masse over the years, and has provided beekeepers with a significant challenge: how to keep their hives strong and healty - strong enough in fact to produce enough honey to harvest and also enable their bees to survive into the next season.

Unfortunately, the treatment for these parasites has been a (get this) type of insecticide inserted into beehives that takes out the mites, but doesn't kill the bees. Well, it might not actually KILL the bees, but it certainly does weaken them. Plus, the insecticide percolates into the wax created by the bees. My advice for those of you who like to eat honeycomb: don't do it. That wax is most likely contaminated with a variety of pesticides - even from hives that are supposedly organic. Pesticides are picked up by the bees from the sources they visit for pollen and nectar, and you can't control whether the bees fly to locations where pesticides are used. So just because a beekeeper doesn't use any pesticides and calls his honey "organic" doesn't necessarily mean it's free from pesticides (unless he can certify that no one sprays within at least 4 miles of his beehives).
http://beediary.wordpress.com/2008/07/04/american-research-team-find-46-different-pesticides-in-ccd-colonies/

Anyway, for many years now, the mites (as you might have guessed) have built up a resistance to the insecticide used by many beekeepers, and so this treatment has become less and less effective against mites in recent years (just like DDT). A newer and safer treatment is formic acid, but there are handling issues for beekeepers. It's a product that requires extreme caution - but it does seem to be effective, and much safer for both the bees and humans if used properly.
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/formic/default.htm
http://www.miteaway.com/

So the mites are still a huge problem, and beekeepers continue to do battle with them. Any major beekeeper has to fight this battle in some way (and win) if he expects to continue with a viable honeybee business.

Add to all this the genetically modified Africanized honeybee (aka "Killer Bees") that have now invaded much of the Southern USA and are presently extending their range. These bees are actually very productive when it comes to honey, however, they will often take over a beehive without the beekeeper's knowledge. The problem is, these bees are 30x more aggressive than the usual breeds of honeybees used by commercial beekeepers, and pose a significant threat to humans and animals. As they continue to expand their range, they will continue to be a thorn in the side of commercial beekeepers.

ENTER THE NEW DISORDER: CCD

In just the past few years, beekeepers have seen their hives decimated by yet another type of challenge - only this one is invisible, and no one has any answers for it yet. We still do not understand for sure what causes Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). But we do know that commercially kept honeybees are dying off in great numbers. And, this IS having a very disasterous result on crops that have become dependent upon commercial beekeepers providing honeybees for pollinating those crops.

And that is the issue that needs to be addressed. Many in the beekeeping industry seem to think that the solution needs to be finding a way to preserve honeybees -- but this view is based on the self-interest of the beekeeper, not the real issue we are facing with the sudden die-off of honeybees. The real issue is finding alternative ways of pollinating our crops.

CAUSE FOR ALARM

The problem with the honeybees is cause for alarm since much of the food we eat is dependant upon them as pollinators for much of our nation's fruit trees, vegetables, and many other plants that bear fruit. Many states which produce much of our food, particularly California, have come to rely on honeybees for setting the fuit for everything from almonds to watermelons.

With the widespread and deep collapse of the honeybee brought on by mites and CCD, alternatives are not only a good idea, it's fast becoming a necessity. The longer we wait to implement these alternatives, the more disasterous will be the effect on our ability to produce the food we need.

ALTERNATIVES

Here is where I'm going to offer my observations and suggestions regarding what needs to be done about this problem.

1) Increase the use of alternative pollinators. While it is important to figure out what's killing off the honeybees and figuring out a recovery strategy, my opinion is that it is far more important to launch one or more agressive alternative pollination strategies. Fixing the honeybee problem is not the solution to pollinating our crops. We need to see the deployment of massive numbers of alternative pollinators. Honeybees are not the only pollinators that can be used to get crops "set" so that fruit and vegetables will grow. My own experience shows that a variety of other insects will also participate in pollination activity if they are given the chance. If they become part of the natural habitat, they will reproduce to whatever extent a nearby crop requires. Many studies indicate that honeybees outperform natural pollinators by only a factor of 10%, which is significant, but hardly the disaster many seem to indicate regarding this crisis. Some would have us think that without honeybees, many crops would simply not get pollinted at all. Personally, I think this is a lot of hype. Alternative pollinators do exist, and can even be encouraged to grow (and I believe their numbers WOULD grow if they did not have to compete with artifically inserted honeybees brought in by beekeepers during the bloom season).

For example, I have a raspberry field on my property, and I can vouch for the fact that bumblebees outperform my honeybees for pollination on a scale of at least 10 to 1. When my raspberry plants are in bloom, I can see scores of bumblebees engaged in pollination, and hardly any honeybees, even though they are more numerous and are close by.

Bumblebees - will pollinate some crops that honeybees often won't even touch where I live (like raspberries, for example)

Masonbees - will pollinate almost anything, and are a viable alternative to honeybees.
http://flying-insects.suite101.com/article.cfm/orchard_mason_bees

Leafcutter bees - are opportunists, ie, they will go wherever there is pollen.
http://www.actahort.org/books/288/288_25.htm
http://www.nbii.gov/portal/community/Communities/Ecological_Topics/Pollinators/Pollinator_Species/Invertebrates/Bees_and_Wasps/Leafcutter_Bees/Alfalfa_Leafcutter_Bee/

Honeybees are currently by far and away the most relied-upon source of pollination for many key crops all across America, which means if something were to ever happen to honeybees, there go many of our crops (and that's exactly what we're looking at...). So, I think we need to focus on stimulating and growing a variety of home-based indigenous pollinators on a massive scale.

2) Increase the diversity of honeybees used in commercial operations. If we MUST use honeybees (and I don't think we must, but, if we do...) then we should be encouraging the use of a much wider variety of honeybees that are more naturally resistent to varroa and tracheal mites (cetain genetic factors and grooming behaviors contribute to increased survivability against mite infestations among different varieties of honeybees). Currently, the variety of honeybee used by most commercial beekeepers is the Italian. Other varieties have proven to be superior survivors against the mites, and so at the very least, we should be encouraging the distribution of a much broader blend of such honeybees. Thus far, we've only seen experimental efforts, not the widespread implementation I think is needed.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2006/060809.htm

In addition, there is another factor that seems to help: honeybees that create a smaller cell size. Almost all commercial beekeepers place their bees in hives containing frames. Each frame has a standard sized wax-coated "template" (known as "foundation" within the industry) with the initial dimples in place for each honeycomb cell. By making the cell sizes smaller on these templates, some beekeepers in Arizona have shown encouraging results in keeping varroa mite populations down. Beekeepers should pursue this avenue on a much larger scale, keeping in mind that bee size is a function of both inherited characteristics and cell size. Just as farmers breed cows for various traits, so the beekeeper can also choose to use different strains of bees for his enterprise.
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/bcfeb1990.htm
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/cellsize.html
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm

In my own bee colonies, I experimented by placing empty hive boxes below boxes with frames, thus allowing the bees to create wax comb below the frames at the size THEY wanted rather than using the size dictated to them by the frame templates. The results were impressive - they survived much better.

So far, there has been lots of talk about what the industry must do so recover from these challenges, but I've not seen much action in implementing what we know will help on the scale that is needed.

There is a lot of tire-spinning going on around this issue, and it's not being treated with the significance it requires. In my view, the problem is solvable, if only we would get out of the "paralysis of analysis" stage and start taking actions we know will improve the situation. Saving the honeybees isn't the main issue (but that's how the matter seems to be viewed by too many folks) - getting our crops pollinated is. We can live without as much honey as we've become accustomed to -- but we sure can't live without the food our growers have come to rely solely on honeybees to pollinate. I say, let's get other pollinators into the mix, and pronto, before we find ourselves in the middle of a much more serious crisis than the loss of the honeybees.

Another site worth looking at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/Services.htm?modecode=53-42-03-00

Seattle area writer and Darwin skeptic Kevin Wirth is a founding member of ARN (formerly Students for Origins Research). He is also the Senior editor, contributor, and publisher of the book "Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth About Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters" by Dr. Jerry Bergman (2008). This is the most comprehensive book published to date documenting the extent and types of discrimination against Darwin Dissidents. He is also the publisher of Caroline Crocker's upcoming book "Free to Think," (Leafcutter Press) which addresses her critics and relates her experience as an Expelled University professor. Her book is currently slated for release in June of 2009.

To read more essays by Kevin Wirth, click here.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Kevin H. Wirth, all rights reserved. Quotes and links are welcomed with attribution.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Recently, in the "stuff we know that just ain't so" files, I referenced Niko Tinbergen's Nobel Prize for supposed discoveries about herring gull chicks - discovderies that turned to ashes. A friend writes to say:

I remember going to Niko Tinbergen's Nobel Prize party in the Oxford University Zoology Department many years ago. I believe he shared the prize with a couple of other guys - and it was the Nobel for Medicine, of all things.

Of course Tinbergen and the his co-laureates were all animal behaviorists, and there was an undercurrent at the party that found the committee's decision rather strange to say the least. Also, I seem to remember being told at the party that his brother had got the Nobel for economics. However, I could never really understand what Niko Tinbergen had done to get the prize.

One thing that was significant was that he was very handy with a movie camera, and I think that had a lot to do with his success. There was not much scientific content that consisted of moving pictures in those days, and he was able to vigorously market himself as a result. If my addled brain serves me right, I also think that Tinbergen did the movies of the Peppered Moths for Bernard Kettlewell.

Unfortunately, I still can't make out what this red dot stuff means. The only conclusion I can draw is that Herring Gull chicks never ate until they had something red to peck at.

The Peppered Moth? Oh, you mean The Peppered Myth.

Basically, gentle readers, if you took Biology 101, with 600 other people and sat in a lecture room listening to someone drone about either the peppered myth or the herring gull chick, I suggest you take the following approach to what you learned:

The story is not important for its truth status. It is important for the moral lesson it is supposed to teach. In other words, it has the same basic value as Cinderella and Snow White. The basic message of Cinderella is "Being nice pays off." The basic message of Snow White is "Most people mean well, but some people really are out to get you" - both are useful lessons for the workplace, I would say.

Now, what is the basic lesson of some of these evolution tales? That change in life forms over time happens without design? And what if - unlike the basic lessons of the fairy tales - that is simply incorrect?

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).