The ID Report

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Every year, for some years now, the folk at Access Research Network have rank ordered the Top Ten intelligent design stories of the year. Due to volume, this last year, they were broken out into science news, media news, and 2009 resources. The Top Ten science news picks are here.

But why should ARN do it all? We're not wizards; we just put our heads together once a year.

For a free copy of Stephen Meyer's Signature in the Cell (Harper One, 2009), the top rated 2009 ID resource, courtesy the Discovery Institute, explain:

1. How would you have rated the stories differently?

Or

2. Are there stories that should have been on the list that are not?

In under 400 words. You can link at the comments box, so no need to reproduce swatches of copy if you don't want to use up your word count.

Here are the contest rules.

Go here to enter. If you are new to Uncommon Descent, you must register, a minor process.

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 Probability's Nature And Nature's Probability - Lite, by Donald Johnson
ISBN: 978-0-9823554-4-2

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

PART I
If Intelligent Design is to be escorted out of science debating halls because of its compatibility with a belief in a deity, undirected naturalism should likewise be excluded on the premise that it lines up with an atheistic world view. Such is the opening message of the `Lite' version of a book whose title Probability's Nature And Nature's Probability is so captivatingly simple that one cannot help but take at least a cursory look through its pages. And the author Donald Johnson has an impressive list of scientific accolades to his credit brought about by a passion for (and not a disdain of) science- a PhD in chemistry from Michigan State University, ten years as a senior research scientist in the medical and scientific instrumentation field, a twenty year college-teaching career and a second PhD in Computer Science.

Johnson's personal reflections reveal a lot about how he came to espouse the views of the Intelligent Design movement. Over the course of his career, Johnson grew increasingly skeptical over natural causation as applies to the origin of life. Science as we know it, he notes, should make testable predictions. While speculation does have a place in science, it needs to be presented as such and not dressed up and served up as a `platter of facts' for consumption by a public unaccustomed to the nuances of scientific argumentation. Johnson brings to the fore the blatant misrepresentations of what is truly `probable', `plausible' and `feasible' in the context of origins of life research as he takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of mathematical notation and probabilistic reasoning.

Theories that are at loggerheads with the singular origin of our universe can in most cases be soundly discredited on the grounds that they lack empirical evidence and testability. The oscillating (Big Bang/Big Crunch) model in particular is easily pushed aside given a notable absence of data in support of a universe that will reach the critical density needed to cause its collapse. For an infinite-existence model we are confronted with the question of how a system that has reached maximum entropy over infinite time could ever give rise to a non-maximum entropy cosmos. In the words of Johnson "an infinitely old universe would be energy dead with no capacity for work, since one result of the second law of thermodynamics is that perpetual motion machines are impossible (zero probability)". Other attempts to eschew the extraordinary fine tuning of our universe, such as we see in the manifold iterations of String theory, posit the existence of multiple universes. The metaphysicality of such alternatives however, given that we cannot possibly hope to see beyond the horizon of our own cosmic abode, renders them unqualifiable as real science.

What are we to make of the abundance of life on our planet? As Johnson so clearly conveys, an acceptable definition of life naturally entails a consideration of observable phenomena such as metabolism, growth and reproduction. At the heart of life lies a myriad of proteins that perform critical functions all of which depend on the tight specification of highly-restricted amino acid sequences. Proteins in the ribosome are themselves translated by the very machinery of which they form a part. The DNA that supplies the instructions for their manufacture is a digital code of the highest order with alternative splicing and sequence overlap of the estimated 20-25,000 genes that exist in humans producing somewhere in the order of 100-200,000 distinct proteins.

Even one of the smallest organisms, Mycoplasma genitalium, sports 482 genes although estimates suggest that as few as 151 genes might be all that is needed to make the simplest life form. How might chemical evolution have taken the first baby steps on the road to what one might tentatively call a primitive cell? The reality as Johnson so emphatically hammers home is that science remains clueless over this singularly important question. Since proteins and nucleic acids have long been known to act as an integrated co-operative whole, models that assume a gradual evolutionary process are today considered woefully inadequate for explaining the origins of life. Truth be told, there exists a pervasive 'science as we don't know it' element in everything from RNA world hypotheses to panspermia and the host of proposed undirected natural processes that invoke the role of minerals in early biocatalysis.

With matter and information representing two distinct "domains of existence", biologists are at a loss to explain the origin of the digital code contained in genetic material. DNA carries a large degree of so-called traditional information which provides meaning for subsequent interpretation by the translation machinery. Trevors and Abel wrote how the codons of DNA represent "functional meaning only when the individual amino acids they prescribe are linked together in a certain order using a different language". This has to be one of the outstanding revelations of the bioinformatics revolution. In fact, using his exhaustive knowledge of information science, Johnson demonstrates the extraordinary parallels between a computer program's algorithmic language and the genetic information system contained within every living cell.

What is most impressive about Johnson's text is the breadth and diversity of scientific sources that he draws from. Even those who are heavily committed to undirected naturalism display an apparently unavoidable tendency to use a language that connotes design. So it is that while Darwin's heavyweights seem intent on embracing chance and natural selection as the only drivers of biological change, they are also perhaps unwittingly navigating towards intelligent design through their own corridors of reason.

Further Reading
Trevors, J.T.; Abel, D.L. Chance and necessity do not explain the origin of life. Cell Biol. Internat. 2004, 28, 729-739.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Here's an interesting article in New Scientist by Bob Holmes on a new approach to how animals become separate species ("Accidental origins: Where species come from", March 10, 2010):

Everywhere you look in nature, you can see evidence of natural selection at work in the adaptation of species to their environment. Surprisingly though, natural selection may have little role to play in one of the key steps of evolution - the origin of new species. Instead it would appear that speciation is merely an accident of fate.

So, at least, says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading, UK. If his controversial claim proves correct, then the broad canvas of life - the profusion of beetles and rodents, the dearth of primates, and so on - may have less to do with the guiding hand of natural selection and more to do with evolutionary accident-proneness.

[ ... ]

"When it works, it works remarkably well," he says. "But it only works in about 6 per cent of cases. It doesn't seem to be a general way that groups of species fill out their niches."

Then Darwin's theory just barely makes it to statistical significance, conventionally given as 4 per cent.

The otherwise most informative article is marred by the constant need to claim that Darwin was not wrong - but obviously, if Pagels is right, Darwin was indeed wrong, and so are all the people fronting his cause. Natural selection acting on random mutation was, precisely, Darwin's proposed mechanism.

No one supposes that natural selection doesn’t occur. But is it the main driver of new species, as Darwin thought, and Pagels doubts?

Pagels dances very nervously indeed around that point (presumably from fear of joining the Expelled, given that his genome research has failed to back Darwin up.

So, for a free copy of Expelled, which details what happened to a variety of people who questioned establishment Darwinism, based on its failures of evidence, and provide the best answer to this question: What do you think of Pagels’s evidence? Is it critical? Is he just blowing smoke? Will he be forced to recant?

Here's where you enter, which you do by posting a comment, 400 words or less. If you are new to Uncommon Descent, you will need to sign up.

Here are the contest rules, not many or difficult. The main thing is 400 words or less. Winners receive a certificate verifying their win as well as the prize. Winners must provide me with a valid postal address, though it need not be theirs. A winner's name is never added to a mailing list. There is no mailing list. Have fun!

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

I see where Discovery Institute has put up a podcast with me, on "Is the Brain Just an Illusion"?

This must be one of the ones I did in Seattle in 2007, when they asked me to come and explain the book.

What I always ask is, "If the brain or the mind are an illusion, whose illusion are they?"

This question is modelled on the Jewish zen: "If the mind is an illusion, whose arthritis is this?"

On this episode of ID The Future, Anika Smith interviews science writer Denyse O'Leary about her book, The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul.

In the book O'Leary and her co-author Mario Beaurogard, neuroscientist and Associate Professor at Université de Montréal, explore the question of whether or not the mind is an illusion as materialists believe. The Spiritual Brain looks at whether religious experiences come from God or are merely the random firing of neurons in the brain. Drawing on his own research with Carmelite nuns, Beauregard shows that genuine, life-changing spiritual events can be documented. He and O'Leary offer compelling evidence that mind creates matter, rather than matter creating mind.

Listen here. By the way, I always call myself the co-author and recognize neuroscientist Mario Beauregard of the Universite de Montreal as the lead author.

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

On the supposed evolutionary origin of religion:

Did you know that: Religion is good for you; also, Religion is bad for you; also, Religion makes no difference; also, Religion can be explained by a God gene, or a meme, or part of the brain . . . or whatever the editor of your local paper's "Relationships" section will buy for this weekend's edition?

You didn't know any of those things? Aw, no surprise. But never fear: One outreach of the new atheist movement, currently making its way around the lecture rooms of the nation, is the academic attempt to account for religious belief, and to do so on any basis whatsoever, except one.

We will get to that forbidden one in a moment. First, let's look at the permitted ones.

[ ... ]

Okay, so what is missing from this picture?

First, common sense: Suppose I told you that flossing your teeth (1) helped; (2) didn't help; (3) made no difference; (4) can be explained by . . . (choose an option). What would you reasonably conclude about the state of the evidence?

Go here for the rest.

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).

Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

The Spanish Paseos Por La Naturaleza (A Walk Through Nature) series continues with an exploration of catalytic RNA within the larger context of the RNA world. Pulling together key lines of evidence from molecular biology, this installment builds a linchpin case against the fragile trusses of naturalistic causation.

The Paseos Por La Naturaleza series aims to further strengthen the global influence that the Intelligent Design movement already enjoys and raise awareness of important academic resources that are today challenging orthodox Darwinism and revitalizing the call for a fresh perspective on scientific discourse.

The third installment can be found at:
El ARN catalitico - un catalizador indigno de una discusion seria acerca del origen de la vida (See also OIACDI)

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

When Britain's Guardian newspaper first introduced its "evolutionary agony aunt", this writer thought - a spoof for sure. But where evolutionary psychology is concerned, it can be genuinely hard to tell.

No spoof. The Guardian burbled proudly, "A mere 150 years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species, we are proud to introduce our very own Evolutionary Agony Aunt" in the person of Carole Jahme, author of Beauty and the Beasts: Woman, Ape and Evolution and star of comedy Carole Jahme is Sexually Selected, described as a combination of Charles Darwin and Charlie Chaplin. We were told that her column will shine the "cold light" of evolutionary psychology on readers' problems, in sharp contrast to the glossy magazines.

Carole counsels her troubled readers by citing the behaviour of chimpanzees, other apes, and monkeys. And with what result?

Go here for the rest.

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

Santa Fe Institute economist Brian Arthur believed that much of what we see in global economic patterns can be explained by a process of "locking in" of historical events (1). Notably, the success of the QWERTY keyboard or the increased sales of the VHS video system over its arch rival Beta Max did not depend so much on any inherent better quality of the winning system but rather on small details in the history of innovation that, over time, lead to the establishment and the overwhelming success of particular technologies (1). Once such winning technologies became wide-spread, they became a locked and established part of our culture.

Arthur undoubtedly received much of his insight from long conversations that he had with biophysicist Stuart Kaufman as the two of them thrashed out the concepts of biology and economic policy in an attempt to reconcile both under the umbrella of their unifying theory of complexity (1). It was clear that a great number of parallels could be drawn between these two otherwise distinct areas of research.

From an origin of life standpoint, Kauffman has long been unconvinced by the usual crop of prebiotic synthesis experiments. There is after all no basis upon which to suppose that amino acids and nucleotides could randomly form long polymer chains with specific functions such as we see in the cell (2). Following such a realization Kauffman became enthralled by the idea that maybe there was a self-organizing process through which compounds could come together in an autocatalytic cycle- a closed cycle of catalysts that converted one molecule to another in a self sustaining fashion (3). What was interesting about Kauffman's idea was the manner through which he reached it- a multidisciplinary environment, such as the Santa Fe Institute with economists, political analysts and archaeologists coming together to look for a common thread uniting the emergence of complexity in lost civilizations, economically autonomous states and ultimately life's biochemistry.

One of Kauffman's favorite concepts- the 'adjacent possible'- describes a collection of molecules that are not actually in existence within the universe but are nevertheless one reaction step away from being synthesized (4). Thus the adjacent possible always exists since, once new molecules are synthesized, there is a new set of molecules that can always be made from these in a single reaction. Kauffman proposes that, ever since its origin, the earth's biosphere has been expanding into the adjacent possible as new molecules and compounds have become available (4). From a thermodynamic stance, the expansion of the biosphere into the adjacent possible would represent a displacement from equilibrium that, according to Kauffman, would provide the necessary chemical potential for driving the actual state of molecular diversity into the infinite adjacent possible. In other words many diverse molecules would emerge over time amongst which some would have the necessary properties to behave as biological catalysts. Given enough time, anything could happen.

While captivating in simplicity and imaginative content, Kauffman's cogitations on the emergence of life have done precious little to shake off the explanation-critical question of how specificity had arisen within his proposed autocatalytic cycles. The operative units of such cycles, namely proteins and nucleic acids, could not all exhibit low specificity if a self-reproducing metabolic cycle were to be in any way sustainable. Philosopher Stephen Meyer's exegesis on this matter is profoundly relevant. "It does not follow, nor is it the case biochemically" writes Meyer "that just because some enzymes might function with low specificity, that all the catalytic peptides (or enzymes) needed to establish a self-reproducing metabolic cycle could function with similarly low levels of specificity and complexity" (5). As Meyer later adds:

"For the direct autocatalysis of integrated metabolic complexity to occur, a system of catalytic peptide molecules must first achieve a very specific molecular configuration. This requirement is equivalent to saying that the system must start with a large amount of specified information or specified complexity...Self organizational models either failed to solve the problem of the origin of specified information or they "solved" the problem at the expense of introducing other unexplained sources of information. Kauffman's models provided only the best illustration of this latter "displacement problem."" (5)

Kauffman's concept of an infinitely expanding adjacent possible dies an early death when one starts dealing with actual numbers. Consider, for example, the number of possible amino-acid sequences that we can come up with for a protein that is 200 amino acids in length (numbers that are cited by Kauffman himself; 6). Proteins are made up of 20 different amino acids most of which are precisely arranged so as to attain specific functions. This means that for a protein that is 200 amino acids long, there are approximately 20exp200 possible ways that these amino acids can be lined up (ie 10exp260 proteins). Given that the total number of particles in the known universe is estimated to be around 10exp80 and considering Kauffman's own calculation for the total number of reactions since the big bang as being 10exp193, it is easy to see that the universe has not been around for long enough to cover even a small fraction of these 10exp260 proteins (6). In fact, Kauffman posits that it would take 10exp67 times the current age of the universe to cover all possible protein combinations for a protein of this size (6).

We can forget the idea of ever being able to cover the full panoply of amino-acid combinations for a 200 amino-acid long protein. Nevertheless can we find solace in the context of the cell where catalytic events may speed up the rates of reaction and thus cram the adjacent possible into the incredibly short? The answer here is an even flatter no. To understand why, we must visit another of Kauffman's key ideas, that of 'self-organized criticality' (7). When we say that cells are subcritical, what we are really saying is that they have an extremely constrained rate of expansion of molecular diversity- much more constrained than Kauffman's adjacent possible biosphere. If it were much faster, cells would invariably die. We now know that viruses and bacteria are well below this so-called error catastrophe (7).

What does this mean for the exploration of the vast molecular space? Simple- the organization of molecules into a cellular 'living' context does nothing to shorten the time required to find those 200 amino-acid long proteins that are going to perform useful functions. In fact, because of their subcritical state, the search for functional proteins in a cell only becomes more drawn out. Molecular biologists Jean Jacques Toulme and Richard Giege point out how nature just has not had the time to visit the vast extent of combinatorial space that defines the protein world (8). In true neo-Darwinian style, they nevertheless assure us that the current repertoire of proteins could easily have evolved from a selected few precursors (8). If that is not blind faith, I do not know what is.

Further Reading
1. M. Mitchell Waldrop (1992), Complexity, The Emerging Science At The Edge Of Order And Chaos, Simon & Schuster, New York, pp.49
2. ibid p.122
3. ibid p.123
4. Stuart Kauffman (2000), Investigations, Published by Oxford University Press, New York, p.142-144
5. Stephen Meyer (2009) Signature In The Cell: DNA And The Evidence For Intelligent Design, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, p.262
6. ibid, p.142
7. ibid pp.152, 207-209, 216, 244
8. Jean-Jacques Toulme and Richard Giege (1997), Une introduction a la science des aptameres; Atelier de formation INSERM, 'Strategies combinatoires pour la selection d'oligonucleotides a fonction predefinie: applications en biologie'

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Here's the reason I asked why human evolution should be taught in school:

I just came across this fact: Human evolution: Little is known other than basic outline

Contrary to widely heard huffing, there are huge gaps in our understanding of early humans. In Nature's 2020 Visions (7 January 2010) Scroll down to Leslie C. Aiello, and we learn

Most of the recent effort in hominin palaeontology has been focused on Africa and Europe. But the announcement in 2004 of the small hominin Homo floresiensis in Indonesia was a warning that we are naive to assume we know more than the basic outline of human evolutionary history. ... Go here for more.

Sorry to be so long judging this one, but there were 143 posts and I had several local issues to deal with at the same time. Now, to business: The winner is Collin at 8. His succinct entry appears below. I would also have awarded a prize to EvilSnack at 48, for this entry, but I only received one copy of David Berlinski's The Deniable Darwin. I will see if I can procure another copy, but if not EvilSnack may contact me anyway. I have other prizes on my shelf.

Winners need to be in touch with me at oleary@sympatico.ca, with a valid postal address. Their names will not be added to a mailing list. There is no mailing list.

Here's Collin:

Human evolution ought to be taught in schools because it is one of the best cases for common descent. This is probably a result of the extra interest among scientists concerning human evolution.

Even creationists and students sympathetic to ID ought to be taught the best argument for Darwinism so that if they want to argue against it they do so against the best scenario the opposition has to offer. Otherwise, those supportive of traditional Darwinism will sense a straw man argument and end up being inoculated against further, more refined and honest arguments.

Some careless creationists in the '80s made this mistake causing further, more compelling arguments to be dismissed before being further evaluated.

Human evolution, being taught, does inform students of a lot of ideas that are not necessarily against ID or even creationism. Presumably even creationists (most of them) will concede that homo erectus did exist as some kind of now-extinct species. Students can be presented with the fact of the bones (or lack thereof) and they can make their own conclusions. My hope is that teachers will present evolution's best arguments but not endeavor to indoctrinate students. Maybe that is a fine line, but it can be done, and is the honest way to go about it.

What swayed me was Collin's emphasis on hearing both sides honestly represented by their own advocates. If schools do not teach students to evaluate on that basis, they are not worth the money we spend on them.

Consider a simple example: Most days, I ride the Toronto Transit System, which features a vast array of busboard ads and subway posters advocating every cell phone offer imaginable. You can be sure that the sales person will not emphasize strongly to the customer, "Our offer is the cheapest - but, of course, we do sign you up for three years, and it costs you $300 to cancel."

The salesperson's competitor does that. The competitor shouts from busboards, subway posters, and billboards, "No contract, no cancellation fee!" That sets the customer thinking about what to ask next time, doesn't it?

Cell phones are a minor matter, of course. But later in life, the student will deal with job offers, marriage proposals, mortgage offers, investment advice, medical plans .... The advocate's offer can only be evaluated by hearing alternatives, clearly spelled out.

One of my major objections to "Darwinism-only" biology education is that - apart from the fact that I don't think it is true - it is not a good way to teach.

Other comments follow:

Read more!

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

2010 sees the beginning of a new series in Spanish exploring key findings from contemporary science that support the intelligent design inference. The series Paseos Por La Naturaleza (A Walk Through Nature) aims to further strengthen the global influence that the Intelligent Design movement already enjoys and raise awareness of important academic resources that are today challenging orthodox Darwinism and revitalizing the call for a fresh perspective on scientific discourse.
Second installment can be found at:

Paseos Por La Naturaleza

OIACDI

(transl: New Intelligent Design Book A Landmark Assault On Scientific Naturalism)

Synopsis Of Chapter Eleven, Signature In The Cell by Stephen Meyer
ISBN: 9780061894206; ISBN10: 0061894206; Imprint: HarperOne

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

Biological determinists will argue on the assumption that universal laws undergird the origin of life. Such an appeal to natural law is of course not a novel one. Indeed even thousands of years ago Aristotle philosophized over the existence of some universal organizing principle that could shape life into the easily identifiable forms we see today. From a protein sequence perspective Pennsylvania State University biochemists Gary Steinman and Marian Cole gave seemingly empirical substance to the idea that there were certain combinations of amino acids that were more likely to form as a direct result of amino-acid bonding energies.

Along the same grain, biophysicist Dean Kenyon became a die-hard advocate of the view that proteins first assembled into functional entities through the selective affinities that specific amino acids had for one another. To be sure, Kenyon believed that specific protein sequences were somehow predestined to form as a direct result of such constraints. The title of his much-respected tome Biochemical Predestination, which he co-authored with Steinman, became a spark that served to boost his credibility. But as his joint book garnered strength as a staple text for biochemistry graduate studies in the 1970s, Kenyon himself began to have personal doubts over the validity of his own proposition. Interviewed as part of the Discovery Institute's documentary Unlocking the Mystery Of Life, Kenyon's own testimonial brought clarity to the depth of his ongoing struggles:

"There was this enormous problem of how you could get together into one tiny sub-microscopic volume of the primitive ocean all of the hundreds of different molecular components you would need in order for a cell replicative cycle to be established. And so my doubts into whether amino acids could order themselves into meaningful biological sequences on their own without pre-existing genetic material being present just reached an intellectual breaking point. The more I conducted my own studies including a period of time at the NASA Ames Research Center the more it became apparent that there were multiple difficulties with the chemical evolution account".

I first learned of Kenyon's misgivings in the Foreword he wrote for another ground-shifting manifesto The Mystery Of Life's Origins where he noted how it was the information-bearing attributes of both polynucleotide and polypeptide sequences that he had found most vexing and unexplainable. For Stephen Meyer, his own philosophical pilgrimage brought him to the writings of Michael Polanyi who at the end of the 1960s argued that the language-style content of DNA could not be reduced to the mere operation of natural and physical laws. Just as the ink on a paper could not explain the message communicated on a printed page, so the information conveyed in a DNA molecule transcended the chemical and physical properties of its smaller component subunits.

The structures of DNA and RNA presented no escape chute for the chemical evolutionist. As with proteins, there were no constraining forces or 'differential affinities', this time along the phosphate backbones of DNA and RNA, that would make any given base sequence more likely than any other. Meyer transpicuously relays this point to the reader by comparing the base letters of DNA and RNA to magnetic letters on the metallic surface of a refrigerator (For further discussion see We Have No Excuse: A Scientific Case for Relating Life to Mind by Robert Deyes and John Calvert). In the same way that the placing of such letters into meaningful strings cannot be reduced to the magnetic forces between them and the refrigerator, so the information-carrying aspects we observe in DNA and RNA bases cannot be attributed to physical and/or chemical constraints.

Constructing his case on the shoulders of prominent philosophers and scientists, Meyer shows how the absence of biological determinacy is a fundamental feature of both codon/amino-acid assignments and the correspondence between amino acids and their respective tRNA molecules. The need for sequence "freedom" in DNA is imperative if it is to be a molecule of "virtually unlimited novelty" that can store information. To draw yet again from one of Meyer's outstanding depictions, there is no more inevitability in the assembly of functional genes from the ground up than there is in the construction of the palace of Versailles from bricks and mortar.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

A while back, I wrote about a self-absorbed female Darwinist* who was misshelving Mike Behe's Edge of Evolution in the "religion" section of the bookstore, to make some odd personal point:

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

Listen to these, and don't have a fight with someone on your cell phone while driving:

1.

Moving the Goalpost: How Darwin's Theory Survives

It's easy to win the game when you can move the goalpost.

On this episode of ID the Future, biologist and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells explains how Darwinism, unlike football, has only one rule: survival of the fittest. The fittest are those who survive, and Darwinists are determined to survive at all costs—even if it means moving the goalpost.

Go here to listen.

(Note: This one is quite interesting because Wells talks about how his observation that a specific type of speciation needed by Darwinism has not been observed was recently distorted in a science mag to say that speciation - as such - has never been observed. This tells me that the commitment of many scientists to Darwinism is not to the idea of speciation as such, but to a broader philosophical commitment to a method by which it must happen, a method that supports broader philosophical ideas. Remember that 78% of evolutionary biologists are pure naturalists - no God and no free will.)

2.

Is the Cell Like a Computer?

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin interviews Dr. Donald Johnson, author of Probability's Nature and Nature's Probability: A Call to Scientific Integrity. As both a chemist and a computer scientist, Dr. Johnson explains how the cell uses programming code, much like a computer, and he elucidates how the information is processed and converted from proteins into DNA. Listen in as Dr. Johnson shares the science of how the cell is like a computer.

Donald E. Johnson holds PhDs in Computer & Information Sciences from the University of Minnesota and in Chemistry from Michigan State University. He can be reached at his website,ScienceIntegrity.net.

Go here to listen.

(Note: In two important way, cells are not like computers. When my machine is bust, it is just bust, and my local nerd must visit. If I need a new one, it must be bought and unpacked, and inevitably, I will need him back again as something is sure to go wrong. Millions of cells die every day and are replaced, with no loss of function. Fancy that, computer!)

3.

Alfred Russel Wallace: Champion of Natural Selection or Intelligent Design?

On this episode of ID the Future, CSC's Robert Crowther takes a look at Alfred Russel Wallace, who, along with Darwin, co-presented the theory of natural selection in letters to the Linnean Society of London over 150 years ago. Contrary to Darwin, Wallace actually believed that it was possible to detect design in nature. What would modern Darwin defenders make of Wallace today? Listen in and find out.

Go here to listen.

(Note: Actually, they have been doing a number on Wallace for centuries, as Mike Flannery points out. Go here or here for an example. Wallace, with thought design played a role in evolution, was just not as useful for propaganda purposes and was of a much lower social class than Darwin. Here is somewhat from my review of Flannery's book.)

4.

Deepening Darwin's Dilemma With Jonathan Wells

This episode of ID the Future features biologist and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells, who explains why Darwin saw the Cambrian explosion as a serious argument against his theory. Darwin countered it by supposing that fossils of the ancestors of Cambrian animals once existed, but were destroyed.

Listen in and learn how the discovery of microscopic and soft-bodied Precambrian fossils makes Darwin’s excuse sound hollow.

Go here to listen.

(Note: It gets better. The Smithsonian sat on the Cambrian fossils for decades because they did not support Darwin's theory. Yes, yes, that Smithsonian, currently alleged to have pressured California Science Center into cancelling a Cambrian film that - I gather - raises the Cambrian problem. [Almost all modern phyla of life forms appeared rather suddenly about 550 million years ago. This is just not the story Darwin was telling and he knew it and so did his supporters, and now so do more and more people.])

Any chance all those dusty drawers in the Smithsonian's cellar will be seized as evidence? Maybe we could learn something, and not about the current functionaries' e-mails.

Free advice to the public in general, not to anyone in particular: Do NOT feed bones to the shredder. Nor paper clips. Never feed anything but paper to the shredder, and feed paper with staples only if the firm warrants that the shredder will accept staples.]

5.

"A Matter of Dismal Wet Plops": Stephen Meyer Interviews David Berlinski on Darwinism

This episode of ID the Future features a clip from the recent "Signature in the Cell" event in Tampa, FL, featuring Stephen Meyer, Michael Medved, David Berlinski and Tom Woodward. Listen in as Dr. Meyer interviews Dr. Berlinski about the questions that led him to criticize Darwinism.

Go here to listen.

(Note: Besides being brilliant, Berlinski, a mathematician, is as funny as heck - not always a common combination. We are all familiar, I suppose, with the genius who doesn't get a joke. Well, that's not him, as the title of this pod suggests. I had a lot of fun reading his Devil's Delusion, a shot at publicly funded nonsense in science, of which many people are getting royally tired. Science advisor to Marie Antoinette, check your e-mail.

Never forget: Most people fund science because they think it will help find cures for cancer or get one's country a Nobel Prize in physics [and ain't we proud!] or offer one's kid a stable, respectable job wearing a lab coat. So take that away - make science mean folly about Stone Age Man, exposed e-mail plots, court cases about broken contracts, reasonable doubts subjected to inquisition and persecution - and what happens?

One thing that might very well happen is that people who used to just sigh and pay the bill might start thinking differently. As in ... we've got the headache already, Now, where is the payload?)

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 Intelligent Design 101: Leading Experts Explain The Key Issues
ISBN 978-0-8254-2781-7

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

The debate over whether or not our universe was designed with a purpose is one that centers not around philosophical questions but over "competing scientific explanations of the data". That is the central argument expounded by Phillip Johnson in Intelligent Design 101, a book that aims to bring into sharp focus the central tenets of the intelligent design (ID) movement. Contrary to a popular misconception, the modern day controversy over design in biology is not one that arose from some push to force Judeo-Christian beliefs into the science classroom. It is instead one that extends back thousands of years to the time of Plato and Xenophon in ancient Greece.

Today the educational literature defines all aspects of biology in purely naturalistic terms. What is more, evolution has become the "monolithic fact" that we must all embrace. Even though there is incontrovertible evidence that defies such a factual status, evolutionists have bent over backwards to make naturalism fill in the glaring inconsistencies in the data. As a vociferous opponent of the macro-evolutionary aspects of Darwinism, Johnson has attempted a "divide and conquer" approach to break such a stronghold. By separating philosophical naturalists such as Richard Dawkins from scientists with a sound objective outlook, Johnson's much-publicized Wedge Strategy has sought to prize neo-Darwinism away from its "pedestal of philosophical naturalism". Attacks on Johnson's initiative have focused on the religious backgrounds of its supporters rather than on the sound scientific arguments that they put forward. Still, as Johnson remarks those who today maintain that ID is all about religion ignore the counter claim that the theory of evolution is not exactly all about science.

Addressing this point in a later chapter of the book, philosopher J.P Moreland re-emphasizes a long-standing denial- ID makes no theological commitments to Christianity, Hinduism, Islam or any other religion and does not set us on a "slippery slope" of religious interference of science. Instead ID has scientific legitimacy evidenced by the observation that those who argue against it do so by attempting to falsify its scientific claims.

What are the scientific foundations upon which ID stands? Geologist and lawyer Casey Luskin, biochemist Michael Behe and philosopher Jay Richards remind us of the widely-disseminated ID arguments in their respective chapters of Intelligent Design 101. Complex information-rich objects such as those that lead to the inference of intelligent activity in archaeology and forensic science also exist in the molecular world. Behe builds on Luskin's platform by treating us to an exposition of how irreducible complexity in nano-molecular machines continues to present "a conundrum for Darwinism". Richards then gives us a comprehensive rebuttal of the materialistic interpretation of the Copernican principle challenging science popularizer and television celebrity Carl Sagan's assumption that "the universe is all there is" and listing the features that are necessary for a habitable planet such as our earth to exist. Rather than being winners of a "grand cosmic lottery", our earth's habitability coupled with its prime 'real estate' position for making scientific discoveries argue in favor of design and purpose.

Evolutionary stalwart Julian Huxley famously opened the centennial of the publication of The Origin Of Species with the proclamation that naturalistic evolution explained the totality of life's existence. Nevertheless the more recent struggles between creationists on whether the universe is thousands or billions of years old have done little to quell the rising tide of scientists who feel uncomfortable with the Darwinian endpoint. In Johnson's assessment ID has become the umbrella movement that unites "people of many viewpoints who were once divided on side issues". Today there exists a tremendous dissatisfaction with the Darwinian synthesis amongst reputable scientists who are unconvinced by the supposedly unarguable evidence that Darwinists hold on to. Within such a setting, Johnson equates his volume Darwin On Trial to "a match that lit the tinder beneath a stockpile of logs".

In his chapter entitled Philosophical Implications Of Neo-Darwinism and Intelligent Design, philosopher Eddie Colanter brings to the reader's attention the religious undertones of the so-called strong form of Neo-Darwinism which holds that (i) all of life is the product of purely materialistic forces, (ii) any reference to God is superfluous and (iii) any moral values that humans place on their comportment are purely arbitrary and subjective (this latter point has important ramifications for how we view contemporary social issues such as abortion, euthanasia and the definition of personhood).

Intelligent Design 101 then concludes with a broad overview of the historical landscape upon which ID has made its impact. What is made explicit is that ID is not simply a modern extension of the Christian creationism that featured in prominent legal cases such as those surrounding the Tennessee anti-evolution laws of the 1970s. In the words of distinguished theologian H Wayne House, it is a movement that carries with it an "empirical method of argument [and a] lack of allusion to the fundamentalist wing of Christianity and Christian theology".

As we approach Darwin day with its accompanying festivities and plans to parade his namesake through museum halls across the nation, we cannot ignore the vast body of evidence that today is feeding the ID counter-attack. Intelligent Design 101 is an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand the twisted fables of the anti-ID lobby. If those who oppose ID have nothing to fear, they should be prepared to entertain competing points of view and to let truth and reason become "the final arbiters".

2010 sees the beginning of a new series in Spanish exploring key findings from contemporary science that support the intelligent design inference. The series Passeos Por La Naturaleza (A Walk Through Nature) aims to further strengthen the global influence that the Intelligent Design movement already enjoys and raise awareness of important academic resources that are today challenging orthodox Darwinism and revitalizing the call for a fresh perspective on scientific discourse.

First installment can be found at:

Paseos Por La Naturaleza

Evolucion de la comunicacion en las ballenas? Los darwinistas deberian estar preocupados, by Robert Deyes and Carolina Deyes (transl: Whale Evolution? Darwinist 'Trawlers' Have Every Reason To Be Concerned)

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Here is my post at Examiner on why. I thought it would never happen, actually. But I should have remembered - all psychology fads are inherently ridiculous because they are attempts to evade the depth of the human condition with some silly new idea.

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

David Warren is a Canadian journalist who writes for the Ottawa Citizen. He often expresses skepticism about Darwinism. Here he reflects on the "just-so" story usually used to explain Darwinian evolution:

The account of the Beginning of the Armadilloes, in the High and Far-Off Times -- and on the banks of the turbid Amazon -- is especially instructive. It supplies a theory of the convergent evolution of the clever armadillo, from the Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog and/or his friend the Slow-Solid Tortoise, under the ministrations of the Painted Jaguar.

Consulting it today, I realize that my skepticism toward the dogmas of neo-Darwinism might well originate from that story. It is not that I prefer Kipling's account of the origin of species, which was a quite intentional (and very amusing) farce. Rather, that it spared me from developing a taste for quite unintentional farces.

In logic, a "just-so story" is known as the "ad hoc fallacy." The Latin means "for this," and it applies to any "pourquoi" explanation of things, given for the express purpose of supporting an otherwise unprovable hypothesis.

The perfect example would be the whole pseudo-science of "evolutionary psychology," which seeks to explain why man is the way he is, by means of evolutionary plausibilities. We start from the hypothesis that everything in nature, as Darwin says, adapts exclusively to the end of survival. And then we return to the same place, by a logical circle.

Here are more of Warren's columns on this subject. (The first one begins with a reader's letter on one of his columns.)

Here are more stories on evolutionary psychology.

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).

Academic Freedom Update: California Science Center Engaged in Illegal Cover-Up

This episode of ID the Future features an academic freedom update on the California Science Center's cancellation last October of a screening of a pro-ID film, Darwin's Dilemma, by a private group. How does a government agency try to evade its obligations to the First Amendment? By suppressing information. Listen in to learn about the evidence that the Discovery Institute has uncovered in its lawsuit against the Science Center.

Go here to listen.

Well, of course they cancelled it. I cannot imagine why anyone would doubt that outcome.

Look, when I first started blogging - the only real news media today - I had to deal with the controversy over the Smithsonian withdrawing support for the screening of Privileged Planet. Go here for more.

But the Smithsonian was the famed institution where Walcott basically did nothing for decades about the critical evidence from the Cambrian evolution that showed that Darwinism is wrong.

If that's the science we want, fine. Our taxes pay for it.

Another podcast:

Rodney LeVake: Expelled Science Teacher, Part 1

On this episode of ID The Future, CSC's Casey Luskin interviews Rodney LeVake, the plaintiff in the Academic Freedom court case LeVake vs. Independent School District #656. LeVake, a former high school biology teacher, informally expressed doubts about evolution to a colleague who then reported him to the principal. LeVake ended up losing his biology position, not because he taught creationism or intelligent design, but merely because he expressed reservations about evolution to a colleague. Listen as he tells his story of clear academic persecution.

Go here to listen.

But what else is new? If LeVake had expressed doubts about the decline of bears* in Canada, he would have run into the same problem. Once a supposed "science" theory has become a big time theory-a-rama, you don't need evidence. You just need to keep inciting the base of people who are either paid or pay to support you. And administration is easily cowed.

So why don't they all seek work in the dairy industry?

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

This contest seemed to have attracted a lot of discussion, with 148 entries, so I spent all yesterday getting through the entries. Its basis was a fawning review by David B. Hart, of Richard Dawkins's The Greatest Show on Earth. We are informed - on the mag’s cover - that Dawkins "gets a gold star" for his book of that name (January 2010 Number 199).

Well, Darwinism is certainly one of the greater shows on Earth, and Dawkins is worthy a life membership in an illusionists' association.

The winner this time is Paul Giem at 111 (minor correction offered at 112), for

To come back to the point of this post, we were asked to critique the comment,

The best argument against ID theory, when all is said and done, is that it rests on a premise - irreducible complexity" - that may seem compelling at the purely intuitive level but that can never logically be demonstrated. At the end of the day, it is – as Francis Collins rightly remarks – an argument from personal incredulity. While it is true that very suggestive metaphysical arguments can be drawn from the reality of form, the intelligibility of the universe, consciousness, the laws of physics, or (most importantly) ontological contingency, the mere biological complexity of this or that organism can never amount to an irrefutable proof of anything other than the incalculable complexity of that organism's phylogenic antecedents.

My reply:

There are several problems with this paragraph. For example, there is the idea that ID rests on the premise of irreducible complexity. In fact, the origin of life is a far stronger foundation for ID (see Signature in the Cell), and the Privileged Planet hypothesis does not need irreducible complexity.

Another problem is the difficulty with the last sentence. If the "biological complexity" of an organism is "an irrefutable proof" of the "incalculable complexity" of its progeniters, and their progenitors had it, and so forth, did the incalculable complexity come from an originally "Incalculably complex" organism which arose spontaneously, or was the "irrefutable proof" somehow violated somewhere, or multiple times? Or does the concession constitute a proof of ID, in spite of the author's protestations?

But the part of the argument that stands out as the worst is the assertion that irreducible complexity "may seem compelling at the purely intuitive level but that can never logically be demonstrated." At this point I feel like I'm watching a movie, where the villain has been tracked down by the detectives who have put the clues together, and suddenly switches from pretending innocence to saying, "You can’t prove a thing!" He has now lost the audience (including any remaining doubt in the detectives). All that remains is the power play and the legal maneuvering. We now know the truth of his villainy to a moral certainty.

Science has never been about proof, and those who expect to attack ID because it can't be proved have committed a category error. The fact that they have to resort to this kind of argument suggests a fundamental weakness in their position.

Nor is the appeal to the supposed fallacy of "personal incredulity" helpful. What is the opposite? "Personal credulity?" If the contest is between faith and skepticism, it would seem that the proper scientific attitude would be skepticism.

There are other mistakes, but this belief that ID must be wrong until it can "logically be demonstrated" is obtained is the worst. If that's the "best argument against ID theory", then ID has it made.

I appreciated his point that science is about evidence, not "irrefutable proof". The latter is the domain of pure mathematics. (Why we cannot square a circle or meaningfully divide by zero.) But statistics and information theory are about the balance of evidence, and if the evidence does not support the idea that Darwinism creates much information, then it is not a good theory.

A free copy of Expelled goes to him, on condition of providing me with a working postal address, at oleary@sympatico.ca ]

I also appreciated Jerry's thoughtfulness in 137 through 139.

Further comments:

Just about everything Hart said about intelligent design theory, as quoted by Giem above, is wrong, and that is not an easy feat. It is hard to know where to begin, with stuff like this. For one thing, what is wrong with "purely intuitive level" and "personal incredulity"? If a landlady thinks that her drunken boarder will not pay his rent come Friday, though he swears up and down he will, that is a purely intuitive level of personal incredulity. She cannot predict the future because she is not God Almighty. But she is probably right anyway in her assessment, and should act on it.

And the rest is just bafflegab. For more on "bafflegab" (a term I did NOT invent), see below.

Go here for more.

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

I just came across this fact in the journal Nature: Little is known about human evolution other than basic outline.

So, contrary to widely heard huffing, there are huge gaps in our understanding of early humans. In Nature's 2020 Visions (7 January 2010) Scroll down to Leslie C. Aiello, and we learn

Most of the recent effort in hominin palaeontology has been focused on Africa and Europe. But the announcement in 2004 of the small hominin Homo floresiensis in Indonesia was a warning that we are naive to assume we know more than the basic outline of human evolutionary history. If H. floresiensis is indeed a surviving remnant of early Homo that left Africa around 2 million years ago, we have to reject the long-standing idea that Homo erectus was the first African emigrant. We also must reject many hypotheses concerning the prerequisites for this emigration, such as a relatively large brain size, large body size and human-like limb proportions. Importantly, we must confront our relative ignorance about human evolution outside Europe and Africa.- "Hominin paleontology"

Now, I don't believe for a moment that 2020 is going to yield a whole lot more information, as Mr. Aiello* hopes - more likely a whole lot more grant applications, as more people graduate and need a focus for their work.

That doesn't mean the work isn't worth doing. It does, however, raise a key question: Why are people expected to learn in school whatever evolution story is currently taken seriously - by whomever and for whatever reason?

When I was in school fifty years ago, we struggled through polynomials, the life cycle of the common toad, and how to behave on stage when putting on a fragment of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar - facts that were not under dispute and unlikely to change in the lifetime of anyone present.

Anyway, courtesy of the Discovery Institute, I have a copy of David Berlinski's The Deniable Darwin, for the best answer to the question: Why is human evolution, in its actual present state, compulsorily taught in schools? Why are people going to court in order to force the teaching?

Here are the contest rules. Winners get a certificate as well as the prize. You do not need to give me your actual address, just an address I can send the prize to, and we never save addresses for a mailing list.

*Aiello is President, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research

Go here to enter.

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 their book The Privileged Planet, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez and philosopher of science Jay Richards point out that rather than adopting the original definition of 'science' as a search for knowledge (literal translation from Latin), some opinion makers in science have taken it to mean "applied naturalism" defined as, "the conviction that the material world is all there is, and that chance and impersonal natural law alone explain, indeed must explain, its existence" (1).

Outspoken neo-atheists such as chemist Peter Atkins actively push their materialistic views via the 'scientism' movement, unwaveringly maintaining that science is "the only reliable way we have of discovering anything about the workings of nature and fabric of the world" (2). Philosopher Eddie Colanter described scientism as "the worldview [that] asserts that the only type of truth or knowledge that exists or that is important is that which can be known or verified through the scientific method" (3). Theologian J.P Moreland likewise defined scientism as "the view that science is the very paradigm of truth and rationality" (4).

Notable in Atkins's collective 'house of horrors' is the ontological reductionist notion that metabolic processes alone organize the "random electrical and chemical currents in our brains" that then shape our personalities and creative drive (2). Brain biologist John Eccles revolted against the demeaning undercurrent of such reductionism "with its claim [that] promissory materialism accounts for all the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity" (5). In his Challenges From Science theologian John Lennox maintains that if Atkins's assertion were true, it would at once render philosophy, ethics, literature, poetry, art, and music irrelevant for our understanding of reality (6).

Besides throwing these and other disciplines into the intellectual trash heap, Atkins's position better reflects his atheist tendencies than any truly unbiased approach to discussion. His own 'cosmic bootstrap', the idea that cosmic spacetime brought about its own existence and today "generates its own dust in the process of its own self assembly" (6), is laughable precisely because, as theologian Keith Ward notes , "it is logically impossible for a cause to bring about some effect without already being in existence" (6).

Moreland brilliantly counters the axioms that Atkins holds dear by demonstrating their self-refuting nature. "A proposition", writes Moreland "is self-refuting if it refers to and falsifies itself. For example, "There are no English sentences" and "There are no truths" are self-refuting" (4). He later adds that "scientism is not itself a proposition of science, but a second-order proposition about science to the effect that only scientific propositions are true or rational to believe" (4).

Atkins's condemnation of cosmic purpose and design is all too evident in his own rhetoric. "Our universe" he assures us, "hangs there in all its glory, wholly and completely useless. To project onto it our human-inspired notion of purpose would, to my mind, sully and diminish it" (2). Side-stepping the extraordinary nature of the cosmic Big Bang (6), Atkins then contents himself with speculation over the existence of infinite universes (2), and clearly unveils to his audience that his acceptance of the facts is dependent on his own pet peeves and preferences. In short his conclusions are not those of an unsullied objectivist.

Years ago astrophysicist Kenell Touryan warned us of the 'trap of scientism' that, in the realm of biology at least, has become the philosophical foundation of many an evolutionist. "No reputable physicist or chemist" Touryan noted "would be presumptuous enough to characterize scientific discoveries, at least in the hard sciences, as "truth that will make us free"" (7). Laying out the reality of his own experiences he wrote:

"I and many of my physicist colleagues see intelligent design everywhere in nature and, compelled by the weight of such evidence, choose to believe that we are made "a little lower than the angels"... We should all take seriously the principle that "the confidence expressed in any scientific conclusion should be directly proportional to the quantity and quality of evidence for the conclusion"" (7).

Last year's scathing allegation from Atkins and his ilk- that you cannot be a true scientist in the 'deepest sense of the word' and still have religious beliefs (8) - was not one grounded upon scientific insights but on a pervasive atheistic brand of religion. It is high time that we recognized this and tossed the 'addled eggs' of scientism out of the frying pan.

Literature Cited
1. Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards (2004) The Privileged Planet, How Our Place In The Cosmos Is Designed For Discovery, Regnery Publishing Inc, Washington D.C, New York, p.224

2. The Joy Of Science, The Existence Of God And Galileo's Finger, Roger Bingham Interviews Chemist Peter Atkins, 2007, See http://thesciencenetwork.org/media/videos/3/Transcript.pdf

3. Michael Behe, Eddie N. Colanter, Logan Gage, and Phillip Johnson (2008) Intelligent Design 101: Leading Experts Explain The Key Issues, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Michigan, p.161

4. Ibid, p. 204

5. John C. Eccles (1991) Evolution of the Brain, Creation of Self, Published by Routledge, New York, p.241

6. John Lennox (2007) Challenges From Science, Beyond Opinion, Living The Faith We Defend (Ed. Ravi Zacharias), pp. 112-118

7. Kenell J. Touryan (1999) Science and "Truth", Science, 30 July 1999, Volume 285. p. 663

8. Gene Russo (2009) Balancing Belief And Bioscience, Nature Volume 460, p. 654

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

(I am an "intelligent design" examiner now. As I have said elsewhere, I don't know how long this will last. Visit if you are interested, and maybe provide some ballast against the flocks of trolls. Apologies for any duplications.)

Intelligent design: What it is

Top ten news events in the intelligent design controversy

Faked embryos are back - at PBS

Some claim that Satan is a great motivator, just like God

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

Here's the contest.

The question arose from my longstanding puzzlement over claims that reptile behaviour could be sharply demarcated from bird or mammal behaviour, according to a tri-partite brain organization. The evidence did not seem to support that. For example, if we use a crude, obvious measure like looking after young, well, many crocodilians (including the Mississippi alligator) are pretty good at it.

Perhaps most reptiles are not. I do not myself plan to conduct a household census among snapping turtles and vipers. But if any species of reptile can do it, the simple three-part claim about the brain seems suspect.

"Aidan" at 3 is the winner, and needs to be in touch with me at oleary@sympatico.ca, to receive his prize.

My only comment is this: If I were a member of a jury that had to decide whether to convict someone of a criminal offence, I would be on my guard immediately when I heard anything about the "reptile brain." So far as I know, if a reptile did it, the reptile's keeper could get a fine for keeping a dangerous animal. That is way less serious than what happens if you are considered morally responsible, instead of unfit to plead, stupid, or something similar.

Meanwhile, I appreciated Collin's comments at 1 and : 2. Re 1: I fear the boy probably did lose his hand/arm or else the use of it, and my purpose in linking to the video was to disadvise foolish stunts with crocodilians. This is unrelated to claims about the "reptile brain" - I would say the same about bears, tigers, or chimpanzees, all of which have inflicted unexpected injuries for no apparent reason. Why risk serious disability to find out that an animal can be unpredictable?

Re 2, it sounds like Collin's in-law is a wise man.

Now here is Aidan's post, a couple of comments interspersed:

The “triune brain” theory (MacLean, 1970) presents the brain in terms of three successive layers:

1) the proto-reptilian system of spinal cord, brain stem, diencephalon and basal ganglia, which controls all genetically-programmed survival behaviours and a range of basic physiological functions such as heartbeat, breathing, digestion, et cetera;
2) the paleo-mammalian ‘limbic’ system, comprised of amygdala, hypothalamus and hippocampus, which generates self-awareness and attendant emotional responses; and
3) the neo-mammalian cerebral cortex, responsible for foresight, insight, reason, speech, et cetera.

MacLean’s model was an attempt to show that the evolutionary inheritance of modern human beings could be directly discerned in the structure of our brains. On the face of it, this seems a reasonable enough approach since, if we are indeed the transitory outcome of an on-going evolutionary process, the evidence ought to be visible within our physiology. As with every evolutionary artefact, however, the theory does not appear to have held up over time and is now outmoded, at least from a neurobiological standpoint. Against the predictions of Maclean’s theory, ‘mammalian’ social and parental behaviours show up in a wide range of non-mammalian vertebrates. Indeed, birds are demonstrably in possession of their own ‘limbic’ structures and reptiles appear to be, too.

[Which is why I would not recommend anyone to interfere with egg-laying vertebrates protecting their eggs, on the theory that those creatures can't - on principle - care - d.*]

The notion of evolution to which the triune theory adheres is ‘pre-synthesis’ – it postulates the addition of novel structure upon novel structure in a linear fashion. The ground of ‘orthogenesis’, however, which presented evolution as steadily progressive, has long since been lost. In the post-synthetic world, those sticking determinedly to evolutionary explanations for the origin and development of life see the process as proceeding mainly through adaptation of pre-existing structures. Three big slabs of systemic independence loosely knitted together would be a crude violation of this, and of the organic interrelatedness of all parts of the brain.

[My own view is that life forms use the brain capacity they have to do their jobs. - d.]

Clinical and ‘pop’ psychologists together and, of course, the lay media, are among those who like the three-brained idea. The concept of mental triplicity does appear to be useful to many people in practice, not as an accurate description of the material organisation of the brain but of the dynamic architecture of the mind as encountered from within. The notion that humans exist upon three ‘planes’ – material, psychic and spiritual – can be found in many traditions and also corresponds to Plato’s tripartite view of the soul. An idea so enduring may well be reflective of something essentially and immutably true.

[Maybe. I don't know. In my experience, "pop" psychologists are looking for "Get out of jail free" cards. "Reptile brain" is as good as the next excuse. We are only beginning the search for real answers.]

(*Note: As a child, I sometimes wandered through swampy areas. One would sometimes be assailed by a male red-winged blackbird- for no apparent reason. Later, it became clear that he was protecting a nest.)

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

Here, we asked, as per the title, why do evolutionary psychologists need to debunk compassion?

That's always been a puzzle for me because ... why indeed? Only if one is a slave to basically stupid ideas like "the selfish gene," would debunking compassion, which is widely noted in my local society - and most working societies - seem a worthwhile project. Yet that project generates many useless research papers and other goofy projects.

You'd think more people would be interested in sponsoring compassion than debunking it. But hey.

Anyway, the winner here is Aidan at 6 for this entry (and Aidan needs to get in touch with me at oleary@sympatico.ca with an address to which I can mail the prize):

Proponents of neo-Darwinian orthodoxy are instinctively aware of certain awkward anomalies they need to undermine and contradictions they must cover up if their Big Picture View is to appear to trump all others. In the case of compassion, they are required to show that, whatever else it may be, it isn’t *really* compassion. Compassion as it is – in its raw, undebunked state – is particularly threatening to the materialist worldview because it is a universally accessible and entirely tangible demonstration of the reality of higher orders of being.

True selflessness lies not in the exclusion of oneself but in seeing another person *as* oneself. This is essentially ennobling not only because it rises above self-interest but because, in spirit (and in action), it lifts the other to the precisely same degree as ourselves, to the point where their interests and ours are seen as united within a much greater context. The existentially elevated ground upon which both are then able to stand – ground upon which neither could have stood alone – transcends both the material arrangements of the situation and the confines of each one's personal mentality. Compassion has the power to free us from ourselves and thereby set us upon a very different road.

It is not sympathy, where you suffer along with the person in the hope that this will make them feel better; neither is it pity, where you look down on the person and feel sorry for them from the position of your own safety. As a form of understanding – of oneself, other people and life generally – true compassion is astonishingly rich in content. It is intellectual and spiritual rather than emotional in nature, possessing a power to transform the character beyond recognition. On such a foundation, there is a sense of resonance and alignment with far higher orders, the contours of which we can hardly begin to discern, along with intimations of universal laws profoundly unlike those proposed by materialist observers yet plainly in harmonious accord with laws long since codified by spiritual tradition.

For ideological reasons, materialists and Darwinians cannot allow anything to be in this world that is not of it. If they can show that every instance of compassion fits the grim calculations of one survival strategy or another, they can dismiss every spiritual teaching without further examination. Then they win!

What I liked best about Aidan's entry is that Aidan helpfully distinguishes compassion from mere sentiment - you know what I mean: Blubbing all over someone's sofa about the awful time they are having.

Chances are, the afflicted person secretly wishes that "Blubber" would just go away. Almost any problem is easier to deal with than useless blubbing. Compassion transforms people; blubbing means that the upholsterer must be called in, for advice re the sofa.

Readers in general, never forget the extent to which "evolutionary" psychologists are generally poseurs. I respect the paleontologist who toils in the Badlands or Death Valley. But "evolutionary" psychologists are tax-funded intellectual parasites on a once Big Idea.

Other comments:

Barb, as always, had an excellent comment at 1: This comment particularly struck me:

If materials are solely responsible for morality, as E. O. Wilson asserts, then Hitler simply had bad molecules. He holds no moral accountability for what he did. People not versed in the art of logic and debate as well as those who are Ph.D. candidates in philosophy know this is sheer nonsense.

This comment particularly struck me, because that was one of the motivations for Richard Weikart's involvement in investigating the role of Darwinism in Nazism. The irrational attacks on Weikart for simply documenting the facts were one of my reasons for continuing to follow the story.

qwertyuiop at 4 , I hope you are not running for office anywhere near where I live. Your comments in general, about how materialist mechanist explanations are useful, tell me much. You write,

Would you claim that someone who studies how the brain processes music or the physics of music does not still appreciate music? If not, then why is their seeking of a physical explanation different from “Darwinists and materialists”?

I doubt very much that such a person appreciates music, because they are looking for a debunking explanation. People who get past that can appreciate music - as opposed to being thought well of by fellow members of their herd because they supposedly appreciate music, when all they really offer is a clever putdown.

Here are the contest rules. I gather that I think Contest 19 is still open.

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

The title question here riffed off a study that claimed to prove such a point. I must also have been thinking of the "Brights" movement of materialist atheists.

Go here for the original post and all comments.

The winner here is Barb at 2, who needs to provide me with a postal address at which she may receive a copy of The Spiritual Brain. Here is her entry appended, with a couple of comments interspersed:

"Are materialist atheists smarter than other people? How would we know?"

The short answer is no, not really. Paul Johnson wrote a fascinating book entitled Intellectuals, in which essays describe the life courses and contributions of men and women who are considered by most to be of at least above average intelligence. Johnson noted that while these people often did their own thing (so to speak), there is a kind of 'herd mentality' amongst intellectuals. It's as if collective peer pressure stops them from truly speaking their minds. The materialist 'new' atheism espoused today is nothing more than the 'old' atheism with extra doses of rage and hatred towards anything remotely godlike or religious in nature.

[Re the book Intellectuals, I strongly recommend it, as I read it on the advice of a friend. Trust me, you would not want most current cultural icons as advisors.]

Standardized IQ tests could be given, but this would not necessarily prove that materialist atheists are smarter than others, since Daniel Coleman asserts that there are other types of intelligence including emotional and social intelligence that could be used as measuring sticks.

[I think the book meant here is Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. All concepts of this sort run the risk of descending into fad, though that does not mean that their original insight cannot tell us anything. (I just hope that the [fictional] woman who throws a tantrum at my New Year's party and blubbers all over my living room doesn't go away proclaiming that she is way smarter than the rest of us because she supposedly has "emotional intelligence.")]

What about everyday life? Have the materialist atheists discovered true meaning in their lives? Viktor Frankl wrote that man’s search for meaning is the primary motivational force in one's life. Or are they cogs in a machine, slaving away because their ARM adjusted again and now they're underwater with respects to the mortgage on their house?

[Hard to say, no? My own problem isn't with people who have discovered no meaning in their lives but with people who have discovered a meaning that sounds suspect. Usually, people who have found no meaning are just plain depressed. The others can be all too active in trying to force their "meaning" into reality.]

If they truly are smarter than other people, then they're not in credit card hell making minimum payments, they're not victims of the financial collapse of Wall Street, and they're not gorging on junk food, taking drugs, or engaging in any self-destructive behaviors.

[Well, if that is true of anyone, I am sure glad if they are not demanding that I give them a loan or tax funding. Unfortunately, that actually happens. I'd rather give charity. In some quarters, that is a dirty word, but at least it is a personal relationship.]

Other comments:

Tribune7 at 1 writes, "People who brag about being smart invariably end up losing the hand." If so, I may have done someone somewhere a mercy. Recently, a correspondent wrote me to say that I had helped talk him out of a career in alligator wrestling.

I suppose he would eventually get bored with being called "Lefty."

At 4 toscents asks:

So, who's smarter? The dissembling philosopher, or the mildly demented believer? Does it matter?

Which would you trust with a intimate confession?

Well, it's nice to be asked a question I can actually answer with certainty. I don't need to trust either of them, for the same reason as I do not need to believe either of two implausible stories.

Here are the contest rules. I think Contest 19 is still open.

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).