The ID Update

"Gould supposes what he has to suppose, and Dawkins finds it easy to believe what he wants to believe, but supposing and believing are not enough to make a scientific explanation."
-- Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial

We all know how the giraffe got its long neck, right? Yes, the poor short-necked versions ate up all the leaves on the low branches, and only their lucky longer-necked brothers and sisters could eat. And eating leads to survival to reproduce. Not eating rarely aids in living long enough to reproduce, so voila!, "evolution" preserves the lucky and kills the unlucky, who are never to be seen again (including, incidentally, in the fossil record). So we are regaled with many such "just so" stories to "explain" evolution. When examined closely, almost any account of evolutionary development, such as that of the wing or the eye, involves mostly "supposing" to get from point A to point B. Supposing is fine for imagining; but supposing falls short of explaining, much less proving.

The fact that Darwinists are quick to presume elaborate imaginations to be akin to factual accounts for the origin of something as complex as a working eye is both amusing and troubling. On the one hand, like ancient andabatae, Darwinists make great spectacle as they thrash about in their imaginations (imagination being their only guide). Formidable in appearance only, alternating probes and thrusts in impressive form, Darwinists seem oblivious to the futility imposed by their armored helmets of philosophy. On the other hand, unlike the ill-fated andabatae (all of whom no doubt would risk removing the helmet for the ability to see), the groping blindness of today's Darwinists is self-imposed, evoking a certain pity. What purpose can be served by steadfastly insisting on a view of reality that does not admit certain lines of scientific inquiry, regardless of the evidence?

Unfortunately, the answer to the question above is that science has evolved to the precarious predicament of being guardian of a worldview. Changes in scientific understanding often trigger a change in worldviews. In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn includes a chapter entitled, "Revolutions as Changes in World View" which explores how worldviews change with scientific developments. Simple examples such as how Aristotle and Galileo understood the motion of pendulums can illustrate how fundamental shifts in scientific understanding affect how one views all of nature, i.e., one's worldview.

But the change in worldview brought on by understanding the difference between one view or another with respect to pendulum dynamics hardly rises to the level of change that theories of origins require. Discussing theories of origins may make for wearisome academic debates, but the truth of the matter (i.e., the actual, unchangeable, historic happening of the origin of living beings) has profound implications with respect to all areas of life--legal, political, and ethical--to name a few. At bottom, the fact of our existence means the truth of our origins must be either that we are matter-caused, i.e., matter is all that exists and energized matter alone produced everything from rocks to rocket scientists through unplanned, unguided motion, or we are intelligently created, i.e, matter was intelligently manipulated to create the cosmos and everything in it. There are no other choices, and theories built on one of these assumptions must necessarily be false.

Mainstream science has chosen to stake its flag squarely and immutably in the worldview associated with the matter-only assumption of philosophical naturalism, requiring all theories to assume matter is all that exists, or, at least, matter is all that matters. Such a stance is understandable and relatively harmless when the object of study is applied science, like studying pendulums or building rockets. But with respect to origin of life theories, science is championing the cause of naturalism unnecessarily. Contrary to the oft-repeated rhetoric, naturalistic Darwinism is not necessary to study and understand any area of science any more than is intelligent design, or even special creation. For example, photosynthesis, planetary motion, life cycles, even genetics, can each be studied and understood, as well as applied to solve practical problems, without recourse to any theory of origins, including the study of Darwinism. In fact it's done in laboratories everyday.

Why, then, do mainstream scientists guard Darwinism so fiercely? First, it seems that, almost by definition, one can't be a mainstream scientist without paying public homage to Darwin. Second, it must be appreciated that many people are convinced that Darwinism represents the truth with respect to origins. Not ever having been exposed to contrary evidence, such scientists are under the impression that there is no contrary evidence. Even more so, Darwinism has a symbolic value as the defining discipline dividing science and religion, and any attack on Darwinism is an attack on science itself. The attacks are all the more threatening because they always seem to come from "religious" people. Finally, like other religious people and their beliefs, many people who believe in Darwinism have never studied their chosen dogma; they believe it because that's what they've been taught and to think otherwise not only requires work, but is likely to make them look like charter members of the flat-earth society.

Obviously, objective scientific considerations are insufficient to explain the religious ferocity with which the evolutionist elites protect their Darwinian domain. There is more in play here than a simple scientific controversy, such as whether light is a particle or a wave, to give another example of a question that divided the scientific world for a time. No, the question of origins brings into play the question of ultimate worldview--which philosophy is correct for understanding reality? If naturalism is not the correct philosophy, i.e., matter is not all that exists, then weighty questions arise as to just what else may exist. The "what else" implies an intelligent "who else" that leads to a "why else" which causes one to see the world very, very differently from what naturalism would require.

Like surviving andabatae removing their unduly restrictive helmets, scientists willing to consider alternatives to philosophical naturalism can remove blinding restrictions on the mind and can see the world in an entirely different way. Such a paradigm shift has its professional risks, but those who are willing to honestly consider the alternatives to naturalism will no doubt find that the new way of seeing permits new ways of solving problems--solutions with fewer anomalies than those provided by naturalism. New theories of origins that consider intelligence, even God, can, then, join other scientific paradigm shifts, where, as Kuhn says, "Scientists then often speak of the 'scales falling from the eyes' or of the 'lightening flash' that 'inundates' a previously obscure puzzle, enabling its components to be seen in a new way that for the first time permits its solution."

As long as science is held hostage by the philosophy of naturalism, however, the scales on most eyes will remain, the puzzles will remain obscure, imaginations will continue, and "supposing" will have to suffice for explanation. Sophisticated "just so" stories will have to carry the evidentiary load, feebly substituting for scientific reasoning. That such "just so" stories go unchallenged from the mind's eye of Darwinists to the reading eyes of an unwary public is unfortunate. But that science would condone such behavior, risking its reputation for the honor of a philosophy, is tragic.

Let him who has eyes to see, see.

Roddy Bullock is a freelance writer and the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio and is the author of The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science, published by and available from Access Research Network.

This month's essay adapted from End Note 79 of The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science.

Send comments to: roddybullock@idnetohio.com.

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

Copyright (c) 2008 Roddy M. Bullock, all rights reserved. Quotes and links permitted with attribution.

Publisher and agent inquiries welcome.

References:

Opening quote from: Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), p. 42.

"Just so" stories refer to Rudyard Kipling's book, Just So Stories, originally published in 1902. The book is a collection of fanciful tales with titles such as "How the Whale Got His Throat," "How the Camel Got His Hump," and the like.

Andabatae were Roman-era gladiators that were heavily armored, but their helmets had no eye holes; they fought without the benefit of their eyesight.

Kuhn quote from: Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 111.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

If you got money for Christmas, 10 Books That Screwed Up the World: and 5 Others That Didn't Help would be a good use of your dime. Therein, Ben Wiker, senior fellow at St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, relates - among many other useful stories - the curious case of the canals on Mars.

Canals on Mars?

A number of prominent scientists, beginning in 1877 with Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, were convinced that they saw through their telescopes an intricate system of canals on Mars. These canals were all very geometrical and hence obviously carried water for the great Martian civilization. The certainty of intelligent life on Mars was trumpeted (with the aid of businessman and amateur astronomer Percival Lowell). Books were published. Major newspapers declared the evident certainty to the astounded (and gullible) public. Helping to whip the public into a frenzy was alien enthusiast H. G. Wells, whose War of the Worlds seared into people's minds the dire fate that awaited Earth once the Martians stopped boating around their canals and launched their inevitable attack.

By 1930, this certainty was exploded by another astronomer, E. M. Antoniadi, who pointed out that the "canals" weren't canals; they weren't nice geometrically drawn lines of precision traced on the surface of mars, but just fuzzy shapes.

The lesson is simple enough. Schiaparelli, Lowell, Wells, and a host of other scientists and popularizers wanted to see life on Mars. The alien enthusiasts just wanted to see what was fuzzy as straight and geometrical because they wanted Mars to be populated with aliens. It is often our desire to have something be true that makes us clearly and distinctly see the false as true, the imagined as real. This is as true in the history of science as it is in our everyday life. In either case, reality is the appropriate test of our everyday beliefs and scientific theories. (pp. 25-26)

In describing this story, I would have used terms like "design inference" (in this case, no), inference to the best explanation, and following the evidence wherever it leads. Qualities absent from the Big (materialist) Science of the day.

Antoniadi was lucky, I suppose, to live when he did. He could have been a Guillermo Gonzalez, exiled to a Christian college for speaking the truth about Earth's location and qualities, in relation to the solar system. Remember that Gonzalez's key point is that Earth is an unusual planet, but the materialist agenda needs to show that there are zillions of Carl Sagan's "pale blue dots" out there.

And just now Call Display is asking me to accept a call from a planet orbiting the Alpha Centauri star system, from an alien who knows there is no mind or free will and thinks that everyone should be genetically planned and ... hey, wait a minute, buddy! Aren't you just a fundraiser for Ivy League U's? Get offa my line and get ME offa yer list!!! you people will go bankrupt before you smarten up, but you are just so not my problem!

See also: Alfred Russel Wallace on why Mars is not habitable

Also just up at Colliding Universes, my blog about competing theories of our universe:

Nuclear weapons: Certainties we are safer without

Astronomer vs. pop science TV

Coffee break: From Dolly the embraceable ewe to a fully downloadable you?

Origin of life: Alien origin taken seriously? Ghost of Francis Crick smiles wanly

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).

Casey Luskin from the Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture interviews ARN Executive Director, Dennis Wagner and Kevin Wirth, ARN Director of Media Relations, about the top Darwin and Design news stories for 2008 in this 30 minute podcast. Summaries of the stories with links to the original news sources can be downloaded here.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Steve Fuller, Warwick University sociologist and author of Dissent over Descent will comment at Uncommon Descent in 2009, the Year the Darwin Cult Tops Itself. He starts today with this:

First, stripped of its current scientific scaffolding, Darwinism is a 19th century social theory that has been turned into a ‘general unified theory of everything’, and as such belongs in the same category as Marxism and Freudianism. The big difference is that Marxism and Freudianism – throughout their existence – have been contested (many would say decisively) by several alternative ways of organizing and interpreting the same body of data. In the case of Darwinism, this largely ended by 1950. However, it doesn’t mean that Darwinism has somehow turned into something other than a 19th century social theory. No, it’s simply a 19th century social theory with unusual clout. Indeed, Darwinism is really no different from Marxism and Freudianism in using its concepts as rhetorical devices for associating intuitively clear phenomena with rather deep and mysterious causes. I hope to draw your attention to examples of this in the coming weeks.

Agnostic Fuller also wrote a very entertaining play based on the idea of Darwin and Abe Lincoln appearing on a talk show. He has debated theistic evolutionist Denis Alexander and has replied to conventional Darwinist Sarkar Sahotra. He appears in Expelled.

Rte the Darwin cult: Go here and here for links to ridiculous hagiography of the old Brit toff - along with appropriate antidotes to splitting a gut.

See also: Intelligent design and popular culture: Population crank is now U.S. science and technology policy director

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 Dennis Wagner

I must admit I'm not a big fan of Rap or Hip-Hop. I think its a result of being born in the wrong generation and not finding anything particularly uplifting about Hip-Hop lyrics. However, that may be changing with my recent discovery of Atom tha Immortal who has recorded the first ID Hip-Hop song I know of. This is one philosophically, theologically, and scientifically astute dude. Check out his ID song at the IDarts.org website

by Kevin Wirth
ARN Director of Product Development

I guess this year's top 10 Darwin and Design news stories are blindingly dull for some folks. I got a rather silly email from someone today, and thought I would share his thoughts and my response. I won't reveal his actual name here...so I'll call him Smitty.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Hello Kevin, happy holidays. I just read your list of top ten news stories and listened to the podcast on "ID the future." It looks like another year and absolutely nothing has been learned about the intelligences behind intelligent design, nor anything new about the process of design. I've been saving these for the last few years and as I look them over, I see that the trend continues. There are no discoveries about either intelligence or the design process. Instead, the subjects you've selected are either intelligent design PR, intelligent design persecution, the politics of ID versus evolution or genuine science stories that you re-interpret to somehow imply support for ID.

For yet another year, there is absolutely nothing new that's been discovered about the intelligences or about the process of design. Is there anyone even working on those subjects? Even the Biologic Institute doesn't seem to be working on those topics. Their most newsworthy result is publishing software! How can anyone claim that ID is a science if no one is working on proving the central claims? If it were really a science then wouldn't the major share of the research funding be spent finding out who the intelligent designers are? I can't imagine there would be a more interesting question to answer. But after years of following this field, I can find no evidence of anyone past or present who's conducting any research to identify the nature of the intelligences. How do you explain that?

Regards,

Smitty

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Ah Smitty,

Happy Holidays right back at you. Thanks for reading our Top 10 stories and also for listening to our podcast recap.

If you'll permit me to be a bit brash, your questions don't indicate to me that you've been seriously thinking very hard about the implications of what we reported in our Top 10 news stories.

No new discoveries? Sure, we included all the usual suspects you identified. But you need to think about this a bit more. We gave you far more value than you claim. Part of what we do with these stories is underscore and remind folks that we need to be looking at evidence, not just speculation. Your tweaking shows how shallow your powers of analysis are, and it deserves a response.

1) I think the clutch feature of the flagellum (news story #6) was pretty nifty (you didn't include that one in your list...). The discovery of a clutch system isn't impressive to you? Wow, then I guess if we could somehow make the whole state of Alaska disappear that wouldn't be a very big deal for you either. I think we should continue to feature a new characteristic for this poster child every year until the expanded explanation of this little organelle is pretty much an overwhelmingly obvious example of a mind behind the scenes. Don't know how much more complicated it needs to be before you'll get the point, because if it's not convincing now, there's not much more that could be said.

This is a great example of what many Darwinians would call "Apparent design," only, it's pretty obvious to most observers that trying to explain how the flagellum came about via purely naturalistic processes has yet to be DEMONSTRATED by science. Until that time, you can claim IDers are chasing the "God did it" theme all you want, but most reasoning people recognize that the Darwinian answer (ie, "Evolution did it") is not compelling evidence either. Neither explanation can be presented empirically, and both are based on faith. Not only that, but if one must choose between chance and intellgence being the cause, then logic dictates that the flagellum was engineered by a brain. Chance has no chance of looking very convincing in this matter, no matter how much time you allow.

2) If you were paying attention, you'd see that the focus of many of our Top 10 stories revolves around the common thread of of cellular complexity. The movie "Expelled" (our #3 story) features one of the most amazing animation sequences of the cell one could imagine. And it barely scratched the surface. Go rent the movie and look at that sequence again, and then come back and explain to me how evolutionary processes demonstrate that all of those cellular components could originate with their specific functions and interrelationships via evolutionariy processes.

3) Continuing with molecular biology and the theme about the impressive complexity of the cell is our #8 story about the Ribosome. We provided a link, did you actually READ the transcript? No? I thought not. Consider the new paradigm shift proposed by John Brockman in his opening remarks:

"We are moving rapidly into the post-Darwinian era, when species other than our own will no longer exist, and the rules of Open Source sharing will be extended from the exchange of software to the exchange of genes. Then the evolution of life will once again be communal, as it was in the good old days before separate species and intellectual property were invented." (Life: What a Concept!, EDGE Foundation, 2008, p. 6)

The lofty goal of creating molecular machines is heralded here as the next big deal. That would be nice, except to achieve this requires synthesizing (among other things) ribosomes. Contributor/participant Dyson refers to the ribosome as the "central mystery" to the explanation for the origin of life. He talks about the ribosome as being "invented," which is hardly a Darwinian concept, since evolution cannot possibly be called on to "invent" anything. It makes much more sense to theorize that a brain invented something as complicated as a ribosome. You don't need to know HOW something was invented by a brain to deduce that it was. So far there is no evolutionary explanation for the origin of the ribosome, but Darwinists are confident, even without any evidence, that it somehow evolved.

Venter notes (p. 51)

"The lay press likes to talk about creating life from scratch. But while we can create and develop new species, we're not creating life from scratch. We talked about the ribosome; we tried to make synthetic ribosomes, starting with the genetic code and building them - the ribosome is such an incredibly beautiful complex entity, you can make synthetic ribosomes, but they don't function totally yet. Nobody knows how to get ones that can actually do protein synthesis."

This might not be particularly newsworthy to most Darwinians, or even the "lay press," but it is worth pointing out to folks who care to think about the issue. Dyson notes that "Once the ribosome was invented, then the two systems, the RNA world and the metabolic world, are coupled together and you get modern cells."

There is no evidence, and no compelling explanation for HOW this specualtive evolutionary development all took place, only the specious confidence that it somehow did. Sounds about as "God of the gaps"-sensical as any ID explanation, right? This is a great example of where we remind folks that evidence is not the same as speculation. Brilliant conjecture, no matter how well endowed with persuasiveness, is never a good substitute for compelling evidence. Yet this is the stock and trade of Darwinians.

Aside from that, your critique about a focus on those other issues is really rather hollow, considering that evolutionists put a pretty big stake in those same topics you rattled off ("intelligent design PR, intelligent design persecution, the politics of ID versus evolution or genuine science stories that you re-interpret to somehow imply support for ID.").

You really should re-examine each of these items, because I can provide you with a bunch of examples of how Darwinists focus on these very same targets all the time.

So, I don't understand what your objection is. If Darwinians can talk about these issues, why can't IDers? What's good for the goose should be good for the gander, unless of course, you're suggesting that we should be playing by a different set of rules than our critics. In which case I'll be waiting for your explanation with great anticipation. We think it's newsworthy stuff, and you don't. Fine with me. You say we're guilty of hijacking "genuine science stories that you re-interpret to somehow imply support for ID."

AS IF Darwinians never do this.

Ha! They do it EVERY SINGLE TIME they find a new fossil. Every new fossils find is assumed to be evidence for evolution, even if they can't figure out how just yet. Talk about who hasn't been coming forth with the evidence! I've been waiting all my life for Darwinians to explain how fossils provide overwhelming evidence for evolution. All I keep reading about from the expert paleontologists is speculations piled upon conjectures surrounded by extrapolations. They "think this happened", or "we suppose that occurred", and "we can't imagine (yet) what critter preceeded this one," and so forth. So, please spare me your prattle about how ID isn't producing any answers. Darwinians haven't been doing such a great job either. So let's just call it a draw, shall we?

The consensus about Darwinism isn't as tight as Darwinists claim, and the supporters of ID are not all a bunch of Bible thumping religious nuts. Let's see, Antony Flew is a good start. Then we have David Berlinski, and others in story #2 indicating that hmmmm, maybe there IS a rational way to look at ID if these agnostic and atheist folks can see it. This IS news for many Darwinians who somehow missed this story.

You say that "For yet another year, there is absolutely nothing new that's been discovered about the intelligences or about the process of design. Is there anyone even working on those subjects? Even the Biologic Institute doesn't seem to be working on those topics."

Hmmm. Let me ask you something: Have you contacted the Biologic institute and asked them if they're working on this stuff? And if YOU were an IDer, what peer-reviewed journal would you tell them to submit their research findings to?

The process of design isn't important to ID research. You don't need to explain HOW something was designed or engineered to detect that it was. Nor is it really important to know anything "about the intelligences" to detect design. So maybe that's why you haven't heard anything about that from Biologic lately.

You asked a spate of other questions, so I'll respond to them in turn:

You: Their most newsworthy result is publishing software!
Me: OK, did you indicate the same level of surprize when the Darwinians publish their little evolutionary software tools? And we never said that the software story was the "most newsworthy result," you did.

You: How can anyone claim that ID is a science if no one is working on proving the central claims?
Me: Who says no one is working on this? Not ARN. Not me. Not anyone I know within the ID community. Oh, let me add that I'd be delighted to accept any research funding on behalf of the ID movement -- we can produce lots of research on this problem with a little more coin.

You: If it were really a science then wouldn't the major share of the research funding be spent finding out who the intelligent designers are?
Me: So how do you know anything about who and how much research funding is or is not being spent? And anyway, as I mentioned earlier, the research wouldn't focus on who the "intelligent designers are." ID doesn't seek answers to that. What ID does is postulate that we can detect whether something was designed or not, period. It's agnostic about Who might have done the designing. You don't need to know anything about the designer to detect engineering or design.

Let's not overlook the fact that Darwin waited 20 years to publish his Origin of Species. ID hasn't been doing research anywhere near that long. Be a little more patient. If you
just can't wait any longer, I suggest you look a little deeper. If our Top 10 news stories don't get you excited, then heck, who are we to stand in your way? I'm pretty sure if you cared to, you could find even better stories. We don't own the market on 'em. If you can find a better one, I'll consider publishing it.

On the one hand I'm tempted to say you'll get your nickel's worth if you just hang in there a little longer. But on the other hand, if you continue to wait for someone else to show you the light, you'll never find it. I sugges that you stop "following" our Top 10 stories and start digging for a few on your own. Go find the answers yourself instead of waiting for others to "prove" it to you. ID isn't a cosmological vending machine for answers you think ought to convince you. It looks to me like you think others are responsible for providing you with the compelling evidence, and if none of it pleases you, that lets you off the hook, right? Sorry, but I don't think it works that way. If you're not convinced, then start digging. And if you're really serious, you won't be sending us any more of your prattle and tweakage about how disappointed you are (oh really?) that ID hasn't come up with anything convincing for you this year, or in previous years. Heck, I've met some pretty glorious pontificators who could learn volumes from your subtle approach.

You: I can't imagine there would be a more interesting question to answer.
Me: And, I would agree with you on that point. Meanwhile, Behe and Dembski should have given you plenty to chew on for now. Have you written any critiques about their work yet? I'd love to read it. If not, then start there.

You: But after years of following this field, I can find no evidence of anyone past or present who's conducting any research to identify the nature of the intelligences. How do you explain that?
Me: ID isn't concerned about the "nature of the intelligences" as you put it. It is only concerned with demonstrating that intelligence is a reasonable explanation for what many Darwinians refer to as the "apparent design" found throughout nature. IDers would suggest it's not "apparent design" at all, but rather evidence of "actual" design. Obviously engineered structures imply that a mind was at work, and is a logical and rational explanation.

I guess you didn't think any of those poor dissenters in the recent HIV-AIDS controversy over the past 25 years had anything useful or convincing to say either, right? I'm thinking of the dismissal of those darn pesky dissidents who've been insisting that HIV doesn't cause AIDs. How dare they challenge the findings published in a peer-reviewed journal! The refusal of Big Science to even take a whiff of their concerns was based on an article in that mainstay of scientific empiricism, Science magazine. And of course, no research funding was spent going down that rabbit hole of an idea. Big Science is hesitant to fund irrational notions that go against established findings.

But gee, this must be old hat for many Darwinians who already knew IDers like Phil Johnson never saw that one coming.

NOT!

You need to read my blog post at:
http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2008/12/25/big_science_takes_a_huge_hit_for_snubbin

Big Science took a Big Hit on this one, and you KNOW they're never going to say "Gee, that silly old Berkeley Lawyer/Dissidenter/Philosopher Phil Johnson knew it all the time and we dismissed him so cavalierly. Maybe he has some OTHER ideas we ought to listen to."

As if that'll ever happen.

Regards,

Kevin

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 about her experience as an Expelled University professor which is scheduled to be released sometime in early 2009. He is also the publisher of Caroline Crocker's upcoming book about her experience as an Expelled University professor which is scheduled to be released sometime in early 2009.

To read more essays by Kevin Wirth, click here.

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

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

If we look close at cell's own schemes,
precision work, inte-gral teams.
Protein domains that play their role,
so specified, a common goal.
It's hard to think how bits mixed up
like random tea leaves in a cup
could make up schemes of grand design,
so tailor-made, so clocked, so fine.

And so the cells they specialize,
with jobs to do, new tissues rise,
cells work together unified,
communicate both far and wide.
Neuron- impulse forth it sends,
muscle then contracts, leg bends,
lymphocyte- the fort defends,
liver cells the body cleanse.

Cells and tissues form a whole.
Each cell it knows its place, its role.
The body works incessantly.
A stomach, heart, a mind that's free.
From whence did come that thoughtful brain
that takes decisions, loss or gain?
Through inner soul it comes to life,
through stress and strain, through joy and strife.

And creatures learn to live, adapt,
territorial boundaries mapped,
ecosystems grow, divide,
scatter seeds both far and wide.
So who did make such symphony,
so caref'lly planned it seems to be?
Our minds do tell of higher mind,
an earth so purposef'lly designed.

By Robert Deyes

See also:
Biology's Big Bang http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Arts/Arts-idx?type=article&did=ARTS.SBREEDSBURG.I0014&isize=M

Jim, Old Jim http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Arts/Arts-idx?type=article&did=ARTS.SBREEDSBURG.I0015&isize=M

By Kevin Wirth
ARN Director of Product Development

In a stunning announcement earlier this month it was revealed that the seminal papers outlining the probable cause of AIDS as published in the journal SCIENCE in 1984 were almost certainly falsified. SCIENCE, which is often cited as one of the most important peer-reviewed scientific journals in the world, will most likely be forced to retract the falsified papers it published (so much for the claim that peer-reviewed papers in leading science journals are the invincible bulwark of scientific investigation).

A letter submitted on December 9, 2008 to SCIENCE by the group Rethinking AIDS, stated in part:

"What prompts our communication today is the recent revelation of an astonishing number of previously unreported deletions and unjustified alterations made by Gallo to the lead paper. There are several documents originating from Gallo's laboratory that, while available for some time, have only recently been fully analyzed. These include a draft of the lead paper typewritten by Popovic which contains handwritten changes made to it by Gallo. This draft was the key evidence used in the above described inquiries to establish that Gallo had concealed his laboratory's use of a cell culture sample (known as LAV) which it received from the Institut Pasteur." [1]

The letter was signed by more than 40 Senior scientists.

But what is even more important is what happened during all those intervening years to the dissidents (now vindicated) who did everything they could to call attention to the problems related to flawed AIDS research. This behind-the-scenes story reveals much about what I consider to be the Achille's heel of science: Intolerance of Dissidents.

Dissent is concept many folks in the scientific community really don't want or care to hear about on issues where there seems to be an established consensus (and in fact, the very notion of the importance of consensus among scientists often creates additional stumbling blocks and challenges to scientific advancement). In fact, dissent is just the thing that creates confusion in the minds of students, the public, and especially those who control the purse strings for NSF and other major research funding grants. Unfortunately, if you challenge Big Science, you can quite often expect to get shut down.

Take the case of University of California at Berkeley retrovirus expert Peter Duesberg and Nobel Prize winner Walter Gilbert, who have been warning us for years that there is no proof that HIV causes AIDS. Their amazing claims challenged the most basic assumptions of the medical community in evaluating the cause of AIDS and is in direct contradiction to conventional wisdom about the disease.

Dr. Duesberg earned his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1963 from the University of Frankfurt in Germany. His work on retroviruses resulted in the isolation of the first cancer gene in 1970, and soon after proceeded to map their genetic structure.

"On the basis of his experience with retroviruses, Duesberg has challenged the virus-AIDS hypothesis in the pages of such journals as Cancer Research, Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Nature, Journal of AIDS, AIDS Forschung, Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapeutics, New England Journal of Medicine and Research in Immunology. He has instead proposed the hypothesis that the various American/European AIDS diseases are brought on by the long-term consumption of recreational drugs and/or AZT itself, which is prescribed to prevent or treat AIDS. See The AIDS Dilemma: Drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus." [2]

The 1984 papers published in SCIENCE, were used as evidence that Duesberg and those who agreed with him must be wrong.

As long ago as 1993, Robert Root-Bernstein wrote an article titled "Rethinking Aids" in the Wall Street Journal (not in one of those really important peer-reviewed science journals) that echoed many of the same findings as Duesberg. [3]

In 1994, another paper (co-authored by Philip Johnson)titled "What Causes Aids," challenged many of the then standard assumptions concerning AIDS research in exquisite detail, and was published in the June issue of Reason that year. [4]

Fast forward more than ten years to a 2007 interview with Dr. Duesberg and we see that he was still challenging scientists to reconsider the causes of AIDS. Moreover, the interview reveals what Duesberg has been made to endure as a result of challenging the scientific establishment over the nature, cause, and future direction of AIDS. One of his critics referred to him as "nuts" and he has lost much of the funding he had enjoyed earlier in his career before he began publishing his heretical views.

Regardless of whether Duesberg's claims are accurate, his challenges seem credible enough and are certainly worthy of investigation. Fortunately, he's not alone: many other scientists agree with him.

"...other scientists think differently and strongly respect Dr. Duesberg's ideas - including Nobel laureates in chemistry Kary Mullis and Walter Gilbert. Duesberg, Mullis, and Gilbert all point out that there is no direct experimental evidence that HIV causes AIDS, and that there are numerous problems with the HIV-AIDS theory. For example, not everyone infected with HIV gets AIDS, and not everyone with AIDS symptoms is infected with HIV. In fact, the symptoms of AIDS vary from continent to continent, and a medical diagnosis of AIDS is often made simply by testing positive for HIV antibodies in the presence of a disease such as tuberculosis or cancer. However, instead of engaging in scientific debate, according to Dr. Duesberg, the only response from the scientific establishment has been to cut off funding to further test his hypothesis."

ANALYSIS

Unfortunately, Duesberg's ideas were met with tremendous resistance over the years from within the medical community, which has resulted in a series of responses that mirror the way Darwin skeptics are also treated. That pattern speaks volumes about the nature of bigotry and discrimination directed towards dissenters.

Duesberg makes a comment in his interview that provides some hard-learned insight on the treatment dished out to dissenters:

"Scientists are selected for instincts that help them to get funding, recognition, invitations to meetings, access to publications and awards. None of these are available to scientific minorities. On the contrary, minorities are excommunicated at many levels from the consenting majorities, even from personal contacts with mainstream colleagues. Those are strong incentives for scientists not to "examine" unpopular ideas."

So much for scientific integrity.

The question I'm asking my readers to consider is this: could the same treatment towards dissidents exist in other areas of science? More importantly, could science be WRONG about other sacred cows in their orthodoxy corral?

Like, for instance, Darwinism?

The takeaway lesson from the treatment meted out to Duesberg and other dissidents is that the AIDS-HIV issue is just symptomatic of what goes on in the scientific and medical community whenever someone challenges orthodox views. The sad part is, many scientists don't seem to be learning the key lesson here about the value of dissent. Instead of closing ranks around orthodoxy, you'd think scientists would figure out after incidents like the AIDS fiasco that that if they could be wrong about something as big as the AIDS-HIV connection, perhaps they could be wrong about a few other cherished notions as well.

And let's not forget that the AIDS-HIV error was promoted in a peer-reviewed journal. And not just any Journal, we're talking about one of the most prestigious science journals on the planet. This is one of the issues Darwin critics are faulted for - it is widely claimed that their views should not be tolerated because they don't publish in the same circles as everyone else who dutifully follows the orthodox scientific bandwagon. The AIDS blowup demonstrates that the argument for heavy reliance on peer review as a defining factor of reliability is subject to enormous failure. Sure, it may serve science well in most instances, but it's certainly not infallible. What this incident does is show us just how clearly peer review is used as a mechanism to maintain control of an idea regardless of other data that contradicts the orthodox view.

When dissenters are slapped down by self-styled Saviors of Science, regardless of the venue, it's amazing how the same patterns of behavior emerge, indicating that it might just be the peer review process and resulting discrimination that should be investigated rather than the alleged stupidity or warped conclusions of the dissenters.

Consensus and unity about the cause of AIDS, or the reality of evolution are far more important to many scientists than listening to the persistent nagging of those pesky dissenters who keep raising their hands and insisting that there are problems with how we view the scientific data. Amazingly, it matters little how qualified a dissenter may be. The treatment of dissenters within the scientific and academic community is quite often so politically motivated that one wonders how anyone manages to conduct good science in the first place. And the treatment of dissenters ranges from censorship, turning them into "outsiders," denying them funding, to slaughtering their careers.

The best thing we can do, according to the scientific dogmatists, is marginalize dissenters as pseudoscientific idiots with improper motives, and dismiss them as crackpots for being so stupid as to dare challenge what every other qualified expert already knows and takes for granted.

And there's the rub.

This seems to be a familiar refrain no matter what the context of dissent might be where Big Science is concerned. Since it's unlikely that the leadership in the scientific and academic communities are going to acknowledge that their distaste for dissent is not appropriate, it's up to the "misinformed" and largely "ignorant" public to put the pressure on. We need to take aim at intolerance of dissidents by nipping it in the bud.

How do we do that?

If you have a child who attends a university where dissent is either not allowed, or where any form of discrimination against those who dissent is tolerated, perhaps you might consider sharing your thoughts with the appropriate administrators. Let your views be known. Don't let it pass. Academic freedom is a precious right, and it can be underscored by the insistence of Parental Patrons who subsidize universities through tuition payments. I'm firmly convinced that money is a language most university officials understand (especially these days...), and if you organize enough parents to challenge behaviors that should not be tolerated, it will have an impact.

Meanwhile, it's time to consider the staggering results of the refusal of the scientific community to listen to the voices of dissent. How many lives have been lost, damaged, or otherwise put at risk over the AIDS fiasco, and how many millions of research dollars flowed in the wrong direction? One can only begin to wonder how many other research programs are similarly flawed, despite the overwhelming evidence of "peer-reviewed" findings.

For more info, please be sure to read Dr. Duesberg's FAQ list and papers.

Science, to its credit, did post the following articles at no charge to the public:
http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/cohen/cohen.dtl

REFERENCES

[1] Press Release dated 12/9/08 from the group "Rethinking Aids"
http://rethinkingaids.com/Content/QA/tabid/146/Default.aspx

[2] http://www.duesberg.com/

[3] Robert Root-Bernstein, "Rethinking AIDS"
http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/rrbrethinking.htm

[4] Johnson, et.al, "What Causes AIDS"
http://www.duesberg.com/articles/kmreason.html

For readers who would like to find out more about what happens to Darwin Dissenters, and many others who have suffered discrimination for being Darwin skeptics, I recommend grabbing a copy of "Slaughter of
the Dissidents," which can be ordered here.

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 about her experience as an Expelled University professor which is scheduled to be released sometime in early 2009.

To read more essays by Kevin Wirth, click here.

Copyright (c) 2008 by Kevin H. Wirth, all rights reserved. Quotes and links are permitted with attribution.

by Dennis Wagner

What do Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln have in common? They were both born on the exact same day (February 12, 1809), and their Bicentennial Birthdays will be celebrated in 2009. Darwin enthusiasts are tying Darwin to Lincoln and putting Darwin on a pedestal as the greater liberator. Robert Stephens, an American who in 1995 founded the annual Darwin Day Celebrations, was interviewed on BBC. The reporter asked how best to celebrate Darwin alongside Lincoln. Stephens answered, "Feb. 12, 1809 was a very good day for our planet because Lincoln became the great emancipator of the slaves in America, and Darwin became the great emancipator of the human mind!"

And the celebration will not end in February. In fact it will build to a second climax on November 24th. That date marks the 150th anniversary of Darwin's Origin of Species. Just check out the cascade of festivities planned in dozens of countries at DarwinDay and Darwin200.

I don't know about you, but to me, celebrating Darwin as the great emancipator of the human mind seems to be a bit of a reach. Especially after reading the news stories from this past year: Darwin's tree-of-life declared unscientific, Darwinism declared dead as a theory of evolution by the Altenberg 16, and widespread discrimination against Darwin doubters. From my vantage point it appears Darwin is the great enslaver of the human mind, not the great liberator. As a culture we are stuck on a 150 year old theory that no longer fits the data, even though the theory has been modified many times to try and force it to fit. Science has moved on and left Darwin's molecule-to-man theory behind.

Standing on Darwin's Shoulders

But rather than demonize Darwin as some want to do, or put him on a pedestal as the great emancipator of the human mind as others want to do, I recommend a third alternative. I recommend we stand on Darwin's shoulders during this coming Bicentennial year and look to the future. What do I mean by "Standing on Darwin's Shoulders"? Darwin gave us several gifts, and I think we should graciously accept those gifts for what they are and move on. First, he gave us the gift of observation. Darwin was a naturalist of the highest order and his ability to observe and document the natural world is something we should all aspire to.

Second, Darwin was a rhetorical genius. His ability to use the success of the British artificial breeding industry to build broad support for his concept of natural selection was brilliant. In a nutshell Darwin gave us a very successful formula in his Origin of Species for overthrowing the current scientific paradigm. We would be well served to study his formula carefully as we attempt to replace his theory of random mutations and natural selection with a theory of design.

The third gift Darwin gave us was the courage to put forth a bold idea. While some of his ideas have advanced our understanding of the world we live in, we have learned over the past 150 years that it is not the whole picture. There must be something else that explains how life originated from non-life. There must be something else that explains where the gigabyte of information in our DNA comes from. There must be something else that explains why the laws of physics and our universe appear to be finely tuned for our existence. So let us stand on Darwin's shoulders and have the courage to proclaim our own bold ideas of design in nature to which the evidence continues to point.

Darwin Bicentennial Celebration Party Favors

Darwin Balanced Teaching Bookmarks (Free): We've put together some party favors to help you celebrate the Darwin Bicentennial in 2009. The first is our Darwin Featured Author page at ARN. Here you can find links to free online editions of Darwin's major books, as well as audio versions you can listen to. I must admit that it requires some mental fortitude to read Origin of Species from cover to cover, but those who do will be rewarded with some little gems like this quote from the introduction:

I am well aware that there is scarcely a single point discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result could be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts on both sides of each question, and this cannot possibly be done here.

We are in such complete agreement with Darwin's sentiments about teaching the pros and cons of his own theory that we have put this quote on a bookmark that you can download for free at the bottom of the ARN Darwin author page and distribute far and wide. You can also order this quote on a t-shirt or coffee mug.

Darwin Bicentennial Celebration: A Retrospective Look at the Origin of Species ($25). For 2009 we are re-releasing our interview with John Angus Campbell, one of the world's leading authorities on the rhetoric of Charles Darwin. In this one hour DVD Dr. Campbell reveals why Darwin’s rhetoric was so persuasive in overturning the origins theory of the day, even though his data was lacking in so many ways. After watching this interview, you will know more about Origin of Species than 99% of the world's population, you will appreciate Darwin's talents and gifts to us, and you will be able to articulate his bold idea and why it is not the whole story.

Expelled Super Bundle ($50). To further help you celebrate the Darwin Bicentennial we've put together the Expelled Super Bundle to highlight the lack of academic freedom that exists today to explore both sides of Darwin's theory, as he advocated. In addition to the Expelled DVD, the Super Bundle includes a copy of Dr. Jerry Bergman's new book Slaughter of the Dissidents, which dives even deeper into the issues raised in Expelled. To make this bundle even sweeter we are throwing in free copies of three of the best DVD documentaries on intelligent design: The Privileged Planet, The Case for a Creator, & Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Purchased separately these products would cost $125, but since we want to help get you in the party mood for 2009, the entire bundle can be yours for only $50.

ID DVD Give Away. Finally, as our way of saying "thank you" for your year-end donation to the ongoing work at ARN, we would like to send you a free set of the three ID documentary DVDs for each $25 you donate before February 12, 2009 (or B-Day as we call it around here). I can't think of a better party favor to be handing out during the 2009 Darwin Bicentennial Celebration than The Privileged Planet, The Case for a Creator, & Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Just indicate in the comment field of your online donation as you check out how many sets you would like with your donation.

I can't wait for 2009. Let the party begin!

(excerpted from the ARN 2008 Annual Report)

Darwin or Design with Dr. Tom Woodward is a Podcast on Intelligent Design and Apologetics presented by the C.S. Lewis Society.

Dr. Tom Woodward interviews Caroline Crocker about the obstacles she has faced teaching at George Mason University and moving on to help coordinate IDEA clubs across the country.

More...

Colorado Springs, CO - December 22, 2008
Access Research Network has just released its annual "Top 10 Darwin and Design News Stories" and its "Top 10 Darwin and Design Resources" list for 2008.

Gaining top honors on the news list was a detailed expose on the Evolution Industry by freelance reporter Suzan Mazur. Mazur broke the story with an article in March and followed with a six-part e-book on the "Altenberg 16," the 16 biologists and philosophers of rock star stature who met at the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Altenberg, Austria in July. What is the significance of this event? Each of the participants recognizes that the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution which most practicing biologists accept and which is taught in classrooms today, is inadequate in explaining our existence and they met to try and formulate some new mechanism for evolution.

"What is ironic about this story" stated ARN Executive Director, Dennis Wagner, "is that on the eve of the Darwin Bicentennial Celebration kicking off in 2009, we have the leading scientists of our day declaring that Darwin's molecule-to-man theory of evolution, which purports to explain our existence purely by random mutations and natural selection, is essentially dead. What exactly are we celebrating about Darwin in 2009?"

"Part of our mission at ARN is to help educate the public about issues relating to Darwin and Design. One of the things we do is monitor science news and other reports related to this topic, and provide access to resources designed to help others better understand the full scope of this issue" says Kevin Wirth, ARN Director of Media Relations. "For example a growing a number of breakthroughs are being made by scientists who are 'reverse-engineering' living systems and applying the design principals they discover to man-made technologies. One interesting story from 2008 was the report of engineers who are building better turbine blades and wings. They studied the shape of whale flippers with one bumpy edge, which inspired the creation of a completely novel design for wind turbine blades. This design has been shown to be more efficient and also quieter, but defies traditional engineering theories."

An online version of the Top 10 Darwin and Design stories for 2008 with hyperlinks to original news sources can be found at www.arn.org/top10.

It is well known that the keystone in a stone arch is crucial for the stability of the arch. Indeed, without a good keystone, the arch will collapse. For many years. Theodosius Dobzhansky has been quoted to affirm that evolutionary theory provides the infrastructure that integrates the whole of biology. This is what he said: "Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution." Sometimes, the reference to "evolution" relates specifically to Darwinism/neo-Darwinism, and sometimes the reference is to the concept of evolution rather than any particular mechanism. The imminent Bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his magnum opus is bringing Dobzhansky's words to the fore and applied to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. This is the inference to be drawn from a recent editorial in Scientific American and its accompanying illustration.

Darwinism is said to be a theory that everyone ought to learn (Image source here, Credit Matt Collins)

A major application of this message relates to education. Students need to know about Darwin's theory - indeed, everyone needs to know! The editors conclude:

"One way to celebrate Darwin's birthday is to contemplate how evolutionary studies can achieve broader adoption in secondary and higher education. Natural selection and the complementary idea of how genes, individuals and species change over time should be as much a part of developing critical thinking skills as deductive reasoning and the study of ethics."

It may surprise the Editors of Scientific American, but no one is arguing that natural selection and "how genes, individuals and species change over time" should not be taught. The differences are about how these topics are presented to students and what students are expected to learn. It would have been a welcome contribution to this particular discussion if Glenn Branch and Eugenie Scott had addressed it in their article in Scientific American.

However, instead of engaging with the issues, they devote over three thousand words to a polemic against the supposedly subversive activities of creationists. They bemoan the fact that the Louisiana Science Education Act has become law.

"On its face, the law looks innocuous: it directs the state board of education to "allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied," which includes providing "support and guidance for teachers regarding effective ways to help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied." What's not to like? Aren't critical thinking, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion exactly what science education aims to promote?
As always in the contentious history of evolution education in the U.S., the devil is in the details. The law explicitly targets evolution, which is unsurprising - for lurking in the background of the law is creationism, the rejection of a scientific explanation of the history of life in favor of a supernatural account involving a personal creator."

They are saying, in effect, that the letter of the law sounds fine, but the letter is a front for creationism, lies and deceit. They do not believe that all teachers will abide by the letter. They expect some to promote unwarranted doubts about evolution:

"Allowing teachers to instil scientifically unwarranted doubts about evolution is clearly beyond the pale. Yet that is what the Louisiana Science Education Act was evidently created, or designed, to do."

This message is one we have heard many times before, and there is no evidence that it has any validity. There are legitimate concerns about the way Darwinism should be explored in the classroom. Many of us think that natural selection is being asked to do far too much - way beyond the empirical evidence that demonstrates what it can do. Many of us think that observed natural variations should not be used to argue the transformation of life from a single cell to the diversity of living things we see today. The objections to Darwinism are scientific, and they need to be fairly addressed in the education of students. These ideas have been explored numerous times in this blog. Here are examples over the past few months: Evolution, Museums and Society, Cichlid fish - another textbook example of evolution in action?, Hairless Dogs as an example of deleterious mutations, A call for an end to Pseudo-Darwinian hype, Adaptations affecting dim-light vision in vertebrates, The formidable problem of assembling the bacterial flagellum.

Of particular concern is the polemical way the arguments are presented. There is no interaction with the scientific issues, but only a desperate attempt to prove the infiltration of creationism into the fabric of science and education. No doubt many are familiar with Of Pandas and People - but do published "analyses" of the book by evolutionists ever get serious with the science? The same can be said of many other resources produced by ID scientists - instead of a scientific discourse, we are fed with unappetising polemic.

Will 2009 be any different? Will ID scientists be allowed to raise scientific questions about the validity of Darwinism? Will anyone suggesting that there are serious issues to consider be hounded as betrayers of science? What about our young people? Will they be allowed to question whether the evidences presented in the classroom are adequate to support the evolutionary theory in the textbook? We all want to promote a healthy scientific mindset, but a refusal to address the issues critically does not bode well for the future.

The Latest Face of Creationism in the Classroom
Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. Scott
Scientific American, December 16, 2008

First para: Professors routinely give advice to students but usually while their charges are still in school. Arthur Landy, a distinguished professor of molecular and cell biology and biochemistry at Brown University, recently decided, however, that he had to remind a former premed student of his that "without evolution, modern biology, including medicine and biotechnology, wouldn't make sense."

Why Everyone Should Learn the Theory of Evolution
The Editors
Scientific American, December, 2008

First para: Charles Darwin did not think of himself as a genius. "I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men ..." he remarked in one passage of his autobiography. Fortunately for the rest of us, he was profoundly wrong in his assessment. So on February 12 the world will mark the bicentennial birthday of a scientist who holds a rightful place alongside Galileo, Copernicus, Newton and Einstein.

David Perlman, for the San Francisco Chronicle, reports that President-elect Barack Obama's decision to name two of the nation's most prominent scientists to crucial roles in his administration was being heralded in the scientific community as a signal that the new president is serious about taking on the challenges of climate change and creating a new energy policy for the nation.

"Holdren is a physical scientist who is very comfortable dealing with biology, and this scientific multilingualism is ideal for a post like science adviser," said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education that monitors school district clashes between Darwin supporters and advocates of "intelligent design," or creationism.

More...

---------------------------------------

Hold on to your hats...it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Biola University concluded its centennial year Friday with a fall commencement that featured renowned apologist Lee Strobel and the "godfather" of the Intelligent Design movement, retired UC Berkeley professor Philip E. Johnson.

According to the La Miranda, Calif.-based biblical institution, Strobel served as the keynote speaker while Johnson was awarded with an Honorary Doctor of Laws for distinction in public service.

More...

Scientists and historians have acquired skills of data analysis which are essential for their professional lives. It is therefore strange to find examples of scholars being satisfied with rather superficial conclusions. A recent case concerns the crimes committed by German scientists during the Nazi era. Most of us ask questions like: 'What perverted the thinking of these scientists?' and 'Why were their peers and their leaders not outraged by the experiments?' However, in a review of a history of the crimes committed in the years 1933-1945 by scientists of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, the take-home message is banal:

"What is the bottom line? Do not try to write the history of bad scientists when any of them are still alive. Like [the author of the book], do it only when all of those who were involved are dead."

The long shadow of Darwinism reaches far beyond the domain of science (Image source here, Credit: Noma Bar)

The Nazi leadership in 1933 left the Director of the Institute and six group leaders in place, but required the redundancy of 12 staff because they were Jewish. Thereafter, as staff retired, new appointees were "according to the wishes of the Nazis". Sad to say, nothing more is said in the review about the ideology that was enforced at that time and how it affected the thinking and actions of research scientists.

Claus Schilling was a group leader in 1933. He had been a medical doctor in Africa and was "fascinated by malaria". After retirement, he continued research into finding a vaccine.

"[B]etween 1942 and 1945, he used prisoners from the concentration camp at Dachau in southern Germany for his malaria experiments. Of the 1,200 people he infected with malaria, between 300 and 400 died. Schilling was caught by the Allies and executed in 1946."

Eugen Hagen was a virologist who conducted his infamous experiments in a concentration camp in Alsace. In a letter to his group leader, dated 1943, Hagen wrote:

"I contacted the central office of the SS [the Nazi protective squadron] to receive sufficient human material from worthless lives for our purpose."

Here, at least, is a pointer to the ideology that fostered destructive experimentation with human lives. Some people were regarded as "worthless" and dispensable. Medics, whose life's work involved alleviating suffering and curing diseases, degenerated to murder to further their research ambitions. Even when facing the death sentence, Schilling sought permission "to publish the results of his unethical malaria studies".

However, Muller-Hill does not give us any insights into this thinking in his review. There is no highlighting of ideological issues, no analysis of how these scientists came to view fellow humans as "worthless" and no application to the present day where the ethics of scientific research is firmly on the agenda for discussion. If the book is like the review, opportunities to learn lessons have been lost.

However, I am reluctant to assume that the book passes over the ideological issues so completely. There may be other factors at play here. An article appeared recently in The Daily Telegraph with this by-line: "The Nazis' gruesome experiments became an accepted part of German medical research, according to the author of a new history". The writer is Richard Evans, Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, and his new book is The Third Reich at War. After discussing examples of the abuse of science, he writes:

"What underpinned this behaviour was a widespread belief that some people were less than human, relegated to a lower plane of existence by their inherited degeneracy - or their race."

After this tantalising comment, it is frustrating not to have further analysis of the factors leading to these attitudes. The ideological roots are hidden in this piece; all we see are some aberrant outgrowths of the plant. Yet, the author has done more work on the ideological issues and he does know what factors were at work. Here is a paragraph from an earlier book (The Third Reich in Power, p. 259):

"The real core of Nazi beliefs lay in the faith Hitler proclaimed in his speech of September 1938 in science - a Nazi view of science - as the basis for action. Science demanded the furtherance of the interests not of God but of the human race, and above all the German race and its future in a world ruled by ineluctable laws of Darwinian competition between races and between individuals. This was the sole criterion of morality, overriding the principles of love and compassion that have always formed such an important element in the beliefs of the world's great religions."

The diagnosis is clear. The Nazi's had latched on to the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection as a scientific justification of their ascendancy claims. They regarded themselves as representatives of the 'fit' humanity and they considered it a 'law of nature' that the fittest had the right, not just to survive, but also to promote the demise of the less fit. To the Nazi's, it made perfect sense to pursue a policy of extermination for that part of humanity that had nothing to offer their brave new world.

There are lessons here for today. It is important that each scientist thinks about his/her personal ideology and the framework of ethics within which they operate. Unfortunately, there is too much of an ethical vacuum today. People adopt principles for personal or pragmatic reasons. All too often, research ethics gets no deeper than gaining ethical approval from the appropriate ethics committee. Too many scientists are post-modernists when it comes to ethical procedures - all is relative. No one is prepared to move from ethics to morality - to say that anything is right or wrong. For previous blogs on this, go here and here.

This situation leaves the scientific enterprise vulnerable to being corrupted by business interests, funding agencies and ideologically-driven researchers. Many would argue that we are seeing warning signs on a regular basis. Social Darwinism is not dead. It continuously comes back to public debate saying that it has learned from mistakes and that Darwinism must be the only valid interpretive framework for understanding society. A recent presentation of this stance is found in The Economist. This is why the agenda of the ID movement includes opening up debate about the ideological influences in modern thought. This is why it is justified to come back again and again to the corruption of Nazi scientists: they have something important to teach us about the role of ideologies in science and the need for robust foundations for ethical practice.

Crimes in the name of research
Benno Muller-Hill
Nature 456, 575 (4 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/456575a

BOOK REVIEWED - Das Robert Koch-Institut im Nationalsozialismus, by Annette Hinz-Wessels. Kulturverlag Kadmos: 2008. 192 pp. (in German)

First para: The Robert Koch Institute in Berlin was founded in 1891 and conducts research into infectious bacteria and viruses. When it celebrated its centenary, the crimes committed by members of the institute between 1933 and 1945 were apparently not of interest, and were not mentioned. Ten years later, after the Max Planck Society and the DFG, Germany's main research-funding agency, had investigated their own histories, this changed. Scientist Annette Hinz-Wessels has written the first history of the institute, concentrating on the years under National Socialism.

See also:

Evans, R. How Hitler perverted the course of science, Telegraph Online, 02 Dec 2008

Weikart, R. From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, Palgrave MacMillan, 2004

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

Together with Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist Niles Eldredge is known for having exposed the predominance of an evolutionary phenomenon called 'stasis' or 'non-change'. For Eldredge, his moment of realization came while studying the fossilized fauna of a period in the earth's history that paleontologists today call the 'Devonian' (Ref 1, Chapter 2). Today we know of the Devonian mainly because of a smattering of rock formations throughout the eastern United States. One particular Devonian animal, a trilobite by the name of Phacops rana, captured Eldredge's interest because of the apparent lack of morphological variability between species (Ref 1, Chapter 3). Eldredge noticed for example that, regardless of where he got his specimens from, they always had a similar arrangement of eyes. Not only were the individual lenses of their compound eyes arranged into columns but, regardless of the geographical locale from which he had obtained his trilobite specimens, the number of lens columns never appeared to deviate from 16-18. Eldredge's observations were telling. As he wrote,

"We climb up those rocks and check those samples, over what must be, in some total, a 3-or-4-million-year period, we see some oscillation, some variation, back and forth-but no real change at all, and no change especially in the anatomical feature, those columns of lenses in the eyes....This is the first element: simple lack of change. Stability, or stasis, as Gould and I began to call it" (Ref 1, p.70)

Many more cases of stasis have since been documented in the fossil record although in many of these, the reality of stasis has not been accepted with enthusiasm. In Eldredge's own assessment, evidence for stasis in the fossil record has become, "something of a professional embarrassment to be politely ignored, so alien did it seem to what evolution ought to look like in the fossil record" (Ref 1, p.120), Unwilling to simply sweep the evidence under the carpet, Eldredge and Gould decided to accept the fossil record for what it showed- long periods of morphological stasis interrupted only every few million years by sudden moments of morphological change (Ref 1, p.120). Science writer David Quammen has since also drawn attention to this rather striking phenomenon:

"Anyone who considers the biogeographical data...must be struck by the mysterious clustering pattern among what [Darwin] called "closely allied species"...Paleontology reveals a similar clustering pattern in the dimension of time...closely allied species tend to be found adjacent to one another in successive strata. One species endures for millions of years and then makes its last appearance in, say, the middle Eocene epoch; just above, a similar but not identical species replaces it" (Ref 2, p.12)

Writing in his opus The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Gould presented a detailed treatise of his theory on punctuated equilibrium that, as he outlined in one of the key chapters of this work, describes the fossil record not as a continuum of graduated forms connecting related species but rather as a series of intermittent punctuated changes that occur between long periods of morphological 'stasis' (Ref 3, pp. 875-885). One of Darwin's contemporaries, the paleontologist Hugh Falconer, wrote a monograph to Darwin about the great mammoth and drew attention to, "the persistence in time of the distinctive characters of the European fossil elephants" (Ref 3, p.747). Falconer's realization was critical for not only did it reveal how specific observable characters were morphologically constant within given species of mammoths but also how such constancy existed in spite of great climatic variations. The mammoth's existence through the ice age was Falconer's primary example:

"If we cast a glance back on the long vista of physical changes which our planet has undergone since the Neozoic Epoch, we can nowhere detect signs of a revolution more sudden and pronounced...than the intercalation and subsequent disappearance of the Glacial period. Yet the dicyclotherian Mammoth lived before it, and passed through the ordeal of all her extremities with it involved, bearing his organs of locomotion and digestion all but unchanged" (Ref 3, p. 747).

Even in the face of major environmental change- the very fodder that was supposed to drive natural selection- morphological constancy appears to have prevailed. The predominance of stasis of form in the fossil record without any intermediate links that connect disparate forms to common ancestors is a reality that paleontologists are today having to come to grips with. Contravening a dogma founded on expectations rather than on what the fossil record revealed, it was both Gould and Eldredge who took on the scientific establishment by bringing to public attention not a continuum of graduated forms connecting related species but instead the presence of intermittent punctuated changes between long periods of morphological 'stasis' during which species remained unchanged for millions of years. At the very least, the predominance of stasis should be prompting us to execute a radical 'face lift' to the way we consider evolution.

References

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

2.David Quammen (2004), Was Darwin Wrong?, National Geographic Magazine, November 2004, pp.4-31

3.Stephen Jay Gould (2002), Punctuated Equilibrium and the Validation of Macroevolutionary Theory, pp.745-1022 in, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

From Dolly the embraceable ewe to a downloadable you? A story available in a variety of formats from Jason Rennie's Science Fiction and Philosophy journal offers you a chance to discuss a man's plan to cheat death by getting his brain transplanted into a cloned body. Did it work? Could he prove it?

Also, I had no idea t hat, at the end of his life, Robert Frost had written a poem, "Accidentally on Purpose" that might make him the first ID poet.

Oh, and "Science fiction must be anti-ID, mustn't it?

Plus, Steve Fuller's comedy on the intelligent design controversy (Abe Lincoln and Charles Darwin, born the same day, on a modern talk show.)

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

Recently, one of my professional associations, Canadian Science Writers' Association, invited me to write an article for our newsletter, ScienceLink (Vol 28, No. 4, 2008), explaining the intelligent design controversy as I understand it. Here it is, as it appeared:

Muslim, Christian, atheist science views: A writer on the front lines weighs in

by Denyse O'Leary

I stumbled on the intelligent design controversy in 1998, when my editor at ChristianWeek was on vacation. He had laid down instructions that I was not to create controversy, so of course I tried. I headed my column Hush ...

A reader had recommended that I read Lehigh University (Pennsylvania) biochemist Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box (1996). I came away, thinking that Behe is either very wrong or very important. I decided to try to find out which.

Behe's basic argument was this: A system performing a given basic function is irreducibly complex if it includes a set of well-matched, mutually interacting, nonarbitrarily individuated parts such that each part in the set is indispensable to maintaining the system's basic, and therefore original, function. The set of these indispensable parts is known as the irreducible core of the system. (Dembski, No Free Lunch, p. 285)

There are two other intelligent design hypotheses: Mathematician William Dembski argues for a slightly different concept, specified complexity: Life shows evidence of complex, aperiodic, and specified information, and the only other examples we know of are artifacts designed by intelligent agents. A chance origin of life would exceed the universal probability bound (UP pegged at the life of the universe; hence design is a factor in the origin and development of life.

Astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, an expert in exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than our sun), advances a related privileged planet hypothesis: Taking aim at the late Carl Sagan, he argues that Earth is a very unusual planet, situated in a very fortunate position for astronomy, as well as for life - and that that is design, not chance.

I discovered from talking to Behe that he is not a creationist. He has no problem with assuming that everything in the universe was encoded at the Big Bang. But he does not see how it could all be accounted for by natural selection acting on random mutation, as Darwin postulated in On the Origin of Species . There must be some prior design to account for the swift development of the intricate machinery of living cells.

Behe is a Roman Catholic Christian. But as I started to study the question, I heard similar ideas from scientists who were Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and agnostics or atheists. The latter, of course, do not assume that design means God; it just means that there is an organizing factor in the universe that has not been accounted for in current theory. Some of them argue for self-organization as the factor.

When I first started monitoring the controversy in 1999, I heard that it was dead every six months. Then every three months, then every few weeks ... . I was fascinated by the difference between what pundits said and what I knew was happening. So in 2003, I ducked lucrative education writing contracts and wrote a book ( By Design or by Chance?, 2004) exploring the controversy. In 2005, I started a blog, Post-Darwinist, to log its continued development.

Now I hear that the controversy is dead every other day ... That's some dead.

My private view was - and is - that Darwin himself would not agree with the ultra-Darwinists today. Individual cells are not like bricks in a building (as scientists of his day supposed) but are as intricately organized as supercomputers. Had he known that, he would likely have sought a different theory to account for the origin and development of life than the one that is so zealously defended in his name today. New Zealand journalist Susan Mazur has done a formidable job of starting to explain the problems to a wide audience, in her coverage of the Altenberg meeting of evolutionary biologists last July.

While many dismiss the intelligent design theorists' and their sympathizers' views as politically or religiously motivated, keep in mind that current frontiers in science are proving stubborn. There are, for example, serious problems with the origin of life as a random event. For one thing, unicellular life got started soon after the planet cooled. Multicellular life developed very swiftly about half a billion years ago (the Cambrian period). Human consciousness also seems a swift, unique development - and it is not called by neuroscientists the hard problem of consciousness for nothing I have found the intelligent design controversy to be the most interesting beat I have ever covered, and as Mario Beauregard and I said in The Spiritual Brain (2007), this is a time for exploration, not dogma.

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).

The past few years has seen a steadily increasing awareness of the phenomenon of antisense transcription, but there has been very little insight into what antisense transcription products actually do. As is well known, DNA provides a template for the transcription of RNA sequences that are then used to make protein products. The distinction between sense and antisense transcription is helpfully made here:

"RNA, which is a single strand of nucleotides, is made by enzymes as an exact base-to-base copy of DNA. Since DNA is double-stranded, only one of these strands, the so-called sense strand, encodes for proteins. In normal DNA transcription, the two strands are split apart, and only the sense strand is copied. The other DNA strand, the "antisense" strand, can also be transcribed into RNA. Antisense transcription is the "reverse" expression of genomic DNA. If the same molecule of DNA is transcribed into antisense RNA, then the transcript has the reverse sequence as the original DNA sequence."

Antisense transcription is not an easy concept to illustrate, but this is how Nature Reviews Genetics did it.

The number of eukaryotic genes that have antisense transcripts seems to be quite high. This finding is stimulating many research projects, three of which have appeared recently in Science. Seila et al. have looked at the factors affecting transcription initiation. The first thing they noted relates to process.

"Transcription of DNA by RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) is an orchestrated process subject to regulation at numerous levels: binding of RNAPII to the promoter, transcription initiation, and elongation. These phases and their transitions require concerted action by many protein complexes and are accompanied by changes in local chromatin structure."

They noted some short (16-30 nucleotide) RNAs near the transcription start site (TSS) of protein-encoding genes. These were given the name TSSa-RNA. They appear to be intimately associated with promoters.

"Based on their direction and position relative to TSSs, we hypothesize that sense and antisense TSSa-RNAs arise from divergent transcription, defined as nonoverlapping transcription initiation events that proceed in opposite directions from the TSS. Divergent transcription is likely a common feature of mammalian TSSs given the presence of TSSa-RNAs in all cell types examined in this study."

There has been considerable uncertainty about whether these short RNAs and the antisense genes have functionality. Not long ago, they would have been lumped in with other "junk" materials and their production would have been regarded as a side-effect within the cell's complex genetic system. This has now changed. Gene regulation is the favoured role for these genetic elements. In a review published a few months ago, Beiter et al. wrote:

"So far, the regulatory potential of gene overlaps has been demonstrated only in a few selected cases of experimentally characterized antisense transcripts. Facing the large-scale antisense transcription observed in eukaryotic genomes, it still remains an open challenge to distinguish transcriptional noise from biological function of gene overlapping patterns."

All three of the new papers in Science develop our understanding of functionality. Seila et al. suggest a possible mechanism giving functionality to the TSSa-RNAs. Core et al. start their abstract with the statement: "RNA polymerases are highly regulated molecular machines." These authors comment on the need for regulation of the elaborate genetic system that can be found in cells: "Transcription of coding and non-coding RNAs by eukaryotic RNA polymerases requires their collaboration with hundreds of transcription factors, to direct and control polymerase recruitment, initiation, elongation and termination." They identify several possible functions for divergent transcription. In addition, He et al. conclude:

"The distribution of antisense transcripts was distinct from that of sense transcripts, was nonrandom across the genome, and differed among cell types. Antisense transcripts thus appear to be a pervasive feature of human cells, suggesting that they are a fundamental component of gene regulation."

Beiter et al. point out that "the mammalian genome contains a large layer of hidden biological information". Antisense transcription has been revealed to be widespread and these new papers are underlining the message that the transcription products have functionality within the "complex interplay between proteins, regulatory RNAs, and chemical and structural alterations of the genome itself". The DNA molecule has an extraordinary depth of information: one strand carries the instructions for the assembly of proteins whereas the other strand of the same DNA gene feeds transcription products into the regulatory system. ID scientists have always been sceptical of the Junk DNA hypothesis and these new findings confirm that the presumption of functionality is highly beneficial for biological science. The keywords are "information" and "systems biology". The systems that we see are exquisitely designed, not cobbled together by an incremental evolutionary process.

Papers discussed:

Divergent Transcription from Active Promoters
Amy C. Seila, J. Mauro Calabrese, Stuart S. Levine, Gene W. Yeo, Peter B. Rahl, Ryan A. Flynn, Richard A. Young, Phillip A. Sharp
Science Express, online 4 December 2008 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1162253

Nascent RNA Sequencing Reveals Widespread Pausing and Divergent Initiation at Human Promoters
Leighton J. Core, Joshua J. Waterfall, John T. Lis
Science Express, online December 4, 2008 | Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1162228

The Antisense Transcriptomes of Human Cells
Yiping He, Bert Vogelstein, Victor E. Velculescu, Nickolas Papadopoulos, and Kenneth W. Kinzler
Science Express, online December 4 2008; 10.1126/science.1163853

Antisense transcription: A critical look in both directions
T Beiter, E Reich, R Williams, P Simon
Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 2008 Sep 15; | doi 10.1007/s00018-008-8381-y

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Last night, the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C. offered a panel discussion on the theme of the book, edited by an old friend Paul Marshall, Blind Spot: When Journalists Don't Get Religion.

In the book, which covers a wide range of issues, one of the listed author contributors, Roberta Green Ahmanson, talks about what happens when journalists morph into censors of the news that involves the intelligent design controversy.

In the Columbia Journalism Review, Chris Mooney and Matthew C. Nisbet argued that intelligent design did not deserve to be covered at all. Their concern was not whether any reporters had implied that intelligent-design arguments were true; rather, he argued that some journalists had actually reported what the arguments were. Mooney and Nisbet insisted that such arguments were really religious arguments and were, therefore, not only nonscientific, but could not be counted as arguments at all. They concluded that intelligent design is "a sophisticated religious challenge to an overwhelming scientific consensus." Therefore, "journalistic coverage that helps fan the flames of a nonexistent scientific controversy (and misrepresents what's actually known) simply isn't appropriate."(p.168)

In their view, journalists are not to report what is happening but only what they have decided it is "appropriate"for their readers and listeners to know.

Wow. Why move to a surviving communist regime when you can have the same censorship services at home in the West ...

See also:

Popular media and the intelligent design controversy: When reporters write what they "know"

Religion and the media: Why it doesn't pay to be just plain vindictive

The intelligent design community and the media revolution - an old hack's thoughts

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

When assessing media coverage of the intelligent design controversy, the first thing you should do is forget what defenders of legacy mainstream media say about their media.

You've already heard it all anyway: "We're objective." "We're not biased." "We only report the facts." Et cetera.

Not only isn't that true, but it couldn't possibly be true, as I will explain below. And it wouldn't be a good thing if it were true.

Modern media grew up self-consciously aware of their key role in promoting materialist ideas. You know the sort of thing: "Science has shown/research has demonstrated/studies have shown" .. what? The Big Bazooms theory of human evolution? The fact that it is completely ridiculous would make no impact on them.

Due to the rise of citizen-directed, Internet-based, new media, they currently face a crisis of sinking readership and advertising revenues.

They may respond by trying to keep control over who defines what is news and who reports it. In that case, citizen-directed media - the sort that most of the intelligent design community uses now - might have to fight for their existence.

Having given some thought to these matters, I offer some reflections and recommendations:

Part: 1: Here is what happened up to about 2000: Believing that materialism is the truth, many journalists assume that their role is to promote materialism at the expense of traditional, spiritually oriented ideas about human nature.

Part 2: Now, what changed after 2000? New findings that don't support materialism became common, and so did new media that bypass old media. Old media contemplate restrictions on new media.

Part 3: What forms could restrictions on new media take? (Basically, any form that could possibly slow them down, but some are discussed here.)

Part 4: Recommendations for the next decade. For example, "Start new media now, before you need a licence. (When new laws are introduced, people who are already key players on the scene are usually "grandfathered.")"

Next: Part 1: Here is what happened up to about 2000:

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

Sociologist Richard Flory notes that, beginning in the late nineteenth century, journalists began to see themselves as the natural successors to traditional religious or spiritual leaders.

Journalism was the ideal successor to religion because it alone could provide the appropriate guidance for both individuals and society.

- Richard W. Flory, "Promoting a Secular Standard: Secularization and Modern Journalism, 1870-1930," in Christian Smith, ed., The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), p. 413.

Materialism, briefly, is the idea that the material cosmos is all there is, has been, or ever will be. In the materialist's view, the mind and free will are an illusion created by Darwinian natural selection. Key modern thinkers take this for granted. Post-modern thinkers do not - by definition - challenge that view with rational arguments, though they sometimes challenge it by denunciations or other rhetoric.

So how did journalists see their role?

Believing that materialism is the truth, many journalists assumed that their role was to promote materialism at the expense of traditional, spiritually oriented ideas about human nature.

Journalism consciously modelled itself on science, with "objectivity" as a new standard. Journalism would provide trenchant criticism of the religious outlook that it replaced.

To the extent that religion was presented as having any positive role, it was in purely functional terms, in the sense that moral precepts from religion might be a source of strength for some individuals, but had no authority for modern society.

- Richard Flory "Promoting a Secular Standard," p. 427.

In other words, churches earn the right to continue to exist because they help the poor. But their traditional idea that the universe has meaning and purpose is warm-hearted, well-meaning bunk that will be superseded by far more effective social engineering strategies.

What about this business of "objectivity"?

An obvious tension developed in journalism over the notion of "objectivity." Objectivity, in the scientist's sense, is not a reasonable goal for the journalist.

Responsible journalism must be accurate, honest, courageous, empathetic, balanced, and free of conflict of interest.

But the journalist is a subject who writes about the activities of subjects for an audience of subjects. There is no place to stand, while covering a story, that eliminates subjectivity.

So a journalist cannot really be "objective" in the sense that a scientist who makes a career of testing new insecticides on potato beetles can be objective about the beetles' fate.

So what did objectivity actually come to mean? Among other things, it came to mean hostility to a nonmaterialist approach to life and the universe.

Thus, the science journalist's tradition is skeptical of everything except materialism. Of that, no skepticism is permitted - or even thinkable!

He or she simply assumes that the universe cannot be intelligently designed. No contrary evidence is admissible, and none is seriously considered. The response to every difficulty raised, even at the most fundamental level is, "Science (= materialism) will come up with an answer some day." Only the details about why the universe isn't intelligently designed need filling in.

But there is never a date on that promissory note.

So the science journalist's mission is to keep writing up any evidence at all that might fill in some details.

Hence all the ridiculous stories you have heard in the pop science media: Computers will soon think like people; people today think like chimps, there are a zillion flopped universes out there, life originated in clay or silicon or ....

Next: Part 2: Now, what changed after 2000?

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

Two things changed a lot. One was public awareness of the state of the evidence for design in nature, and the other was the state of media technology.

First big change: The state of the evidence

Massive evidence is accumulating against materialism: This is true in cosmology (fine-tuning of the universe) , in biology (cells as supercomputers, inexplicable origin of life), neuroscience (the hard problem of consciousness), and so forth.

Darwinism - the creation story of materialism - began to run into really serious problems. Seeing that cells are like supercomputers, a number of biologists, including the Altenberg 16, are now arguing against Darwinism, though they are not arguing for design.

But most science journalists are not really aware of this stuff because their template for understanding issues is simply to reinterpret all problems as support for materialism, with Darwinism as its creation story.

For example,

Fine-tuning of the universe = That proves that many flopped universes exist!

Cells as super-computers = That just shows what Darwinism can do!

Origin of life? = Harvard will spend $50 million on "the answer"!

Hard problem of consciousness = Science (materialism) will solve it [no end date for evaluation of project suggested]

Almost all coverage of the intelligent design controversy in major media is provided by people who cannot acknowledge any problem with materialism. They think you must be a fraud or just plain stupid if you raise problems that cannot even exist, in their opinion. And remember, as far as they are concerned, their opinion is science.

Evidence plays very little role in the matter. Only evidence that supports Darwinism - no matter how ridiculous - can be admitted by definition. All other evidence is kicked into the Attic of Unsolved Problems that materialist ideas will supposedly solve some day. But that's a pretty big attic now ...

Summary: Current legacy media journalism is founded on assumptions that prevent the recognition that materialism is not true. Any idea that might rescue materialism, no matter how ridiculous, will be entertained and promoted first.

A classic case

An excellent example of the legacy media's handling of information that is not friendly to materialism is Amanda Gefter's recent article in New Scientist on the September 11, 2008, Mind-Body conference at the United Nations.

Materialist neuroscientists believe that your mind is an illusion created by the buzz of neurons in your brain. Non-materialist neuroscientists believe that your mind is a real fact of nature and affects your brain and body in important ways. Not surprisingly, most of the non-materialists who spoke at the conference were involved in one way or another with medical research.

Gefter assumed, without evidence and contrary to fact, that non-materialist neuroscience was concocted by "creationists" and that its principal backer was the ID-friendly Discovery Institute.

Her claim is completely erroneous. The Discovery Institute played no role in the recent UN conference. Non-materialist neuroscience is supported in a number of research environments, including the University of California - Berkeley ( Jeff Schwartz's research) and the Universite de Montreal in Canada (Mario Beauregard's research).

Gefter and her audience would not be able to grasp that materialism might not provide useful explanations for their work, especially in medicine. So she and they readily believe that the conference is a conspiracy involving the Discovery Institute, even though it had nothing to do with that Institute. (Go here for the facts.)

Summary: A legacy media environment full of rumour-mongering, in which few bother to do any serious research, is how most of your unplugged neighbours get news about the intelligent design controversy.

Second big change? (I promised you another one, didn't I?)

Major media have been disastrously impacted by the growth of the blogosphere, starting when blogging software came out in 1999.

They are impacted two ways: One is professional and the other is financial.

Professional impact: Bloggers scoop major media for news.

I did that several times myself. For example, I scooped the New York Times on the showing of The Privileged Planet film at the Smithsonian, and was the first to report (at my blogs) on the making of the Expelled film.

Increasingly, people do not need to buy a newspaper or sit through sixteen TV advertisements to find out what they personally want to know. A specialist blogger can tell them sooner and more accurately.

The specialist blogger is not cleverer than other people, but he or she learns a particular beat intensively. No general print or broadcast medium can afford to give much space or time to specialist interests. But the blogosphere is limited only by the space the blogger wants to allot to a topic and the time that a viewer wants to give to it. The two find each other via search engines.

Financial impact: Obviously, the financial impact of the new media on the legacy media is disastrous. The market is fragmenting into thousands of small, specialized groups, for whom the legacy mainstream media no longer decide what is news or what the news means. So the advertising dollar must pursue specialty markets, not mass markets.

The results? The New York Times slashed its dividend recently:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times Co slashed its dividend by almost three-quarters and plans to cut spending and reevaluate its assets to cope with an advertising decline that is gouging U.S. newspaper publishers. (November 21, 2008)

And the Chicago Tribune has just filed for bankruptcy protection. But those are only straws in the wind. Virtually all major media are hurting financially, with cuts and layoffs throughout the industry. Commentator Mark Steyn jokes that the Miami Herald's principle asset is the lot the building is on.

Perhaps the most significant new development is U.S. President-Elect Obama's intention to prioritize the new media for communication. That's no surprise; he was most popular among younger voters; and younger people primarily use new media, not old media.

As I pointed out in a recent post at Future Tense*

Essentially, young people are not reading much print media. That should not especially surprise anyone - travelling the Toronto subway, I often see young people listening to music or texting each other, but almost never see them reading newspapers or listening to regular radio. Now and then, I see a young woman flapping swiftly through a fashion mag, but the fashion writers are kidding themselves if they think that she is reading their work closely.

If anyone in a given subway car is reading a book, chances are it is a Bible or a Koran, or else it is "on the lit course."

I think books like the Bible and the Koran will survive, because to those who read them, they aren't just books, they're Books. Ritual surrounds their reading. At my own (Catholic) church, for example, an elaborate procession bears the Bible to the lectern and everyone stands as the priest reads (and kisses the book). Similarly, at Simchat Torah, Jews dance with the Torah. That kind of thing hasn't changed in thousands of years and I don't expect it to. But typical print culture - tabloids and fashion mags, for example - is going the way of all mere culture - into oblivion.

And as Wendy Elaine Nelles writes in the same venue,

We already know that the key to New Media is less structure, less formality, more personalization, more authenticity, more dialogue. We're already struggling for terms and definitions. What is now called "New Media" is quickly become established media, the go-to source and the first choice for obtaining news and information by increasing numbers of people.

With the leader of what is still the most powerful nation on earth tapping into New Media's capabilities, we will be sure to see major effects on all spheres of media and publishing.

Very well, but old media have a lot to lose, and are fighting back. Like the banking and auto sector, they will want the government to bail them out. In their case, however, bailouts would probably mainly take the form of restrictions on new media, such as blogging and talk radio.

* Future Tense is a blog operated by The Word Guild, an organization of Canadian writers who are Christian. Its purpose is to provide information and help to all interested writers during this historic transition to new media.

Next: Part 3: What forms could restrictions on new media take?

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

Restrictions could take at least two specific forms - there are doubtless others, but the following two are the most obvious candidates:

1. Vast, vague, and highly punitive laws against "offending" anyone on blogs. This is already a huge current problem for bloggers in Canada, and the idea is gaining popularity among US bureaucrats.

2. Demands for "equal time" (a renewed Fairness Doctrine) in private radio

Essentially, the idea of a Fairness Doctrine is that - to be fair - everyone gets equal time to make their point in each privately owned medium. Historically, the outcome of such a requirement is that media avoid controversy.

The "Fairness Doctrine" was in force in the United States from 1949 to 1987. It was intended to compel radio and TV stations on which someone voluntarily expressed a political opinion to broadcast the other side as well, for "balance." Its general effect was to greatly reduce political discussion.

That's because determining who should have equal time - and under what circumstances - becomes a source of unaffordable litigation. (For example, who says there are only two sides to a question? If 17 groups think they are entitled to equal time, the audience will be long gone and the medium will be very sorry to have ever permitted anyone to speak on any controversial issue.)

In 1987, Congress eliminated The Fairness Doctrine, as a perceived violation of the First Amendment - which of course it was. The First Amendment says nothing about a requirement to present both sides, whether in religion, media, or politics. Here's what it actually says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Washington Post editorialized on June 24, 1987:

The truth is ... that there is no 'fairness' whatever in the 'fairness' doctrine. On the contrary, it is a chilling federal attempt to compel some undefined 'balance' of what ideas radio and television new programs are to include. ... The 'fairness doctrine' undercuts free, independent, sound and responsive journalism -- substituting governmental dictates. That is deceptive, dangerous and, in a democracy, repulsive.

However, faced with a shrinking readership or looming bankruptcy, legacy mainstream media like the Post might incline to a different view today. This file must be watched carefully. See here for example, on how easy it would be to reinstate such a doctrine.

George Will comments:

- these worrywarts say the proliferation of radio, cable, satellite broadcasting and Internet choices allows people to choose their own universe of commentary, which takes us far from the good old days when everyone had the communitarian delight of gathering around the cozy campfire of the NBC-ABC-CBS oligopoly.

See also Austin Hill here.

Are they worrying unnecessarily? I've heard enough about the revival of a so-called "fairness doctrine" from enough different sources that I don't discount it.

The heart of the problem is that many legacy media people are poorly equipped to even understand the changes they are facing, let alone respond to them effectively. Some will respond by demands for government bailouts, or even government control.

The costs of getting into blogging, podcasting, videocasting, or social networking are so low now that almost anyone can just make their point online. Some bloggers even make money through Adsense and PayPal. All these new independent media compete with legacy media for viewer time and advertising dollars - among viewers who are free to roam cyberspace planetwide. A far cry from the days when most news came through local sources and was filtered by local opinion leaders.

The culture gap between old media and new media was strikingly described by Canadian civil rights lawyer Ezra Levant, recounting an incident at a conference in Halifax, Canada, earlier this year:

There was a weird moment during the panel when [pro-censorship journalism prof] Miller said that [commentator] Mark Steyn simply wasn't a good journalist -- compared to him, one presumes -- because Miller couldn't find corroboration for one of Steyn's quotes ...

I went to Google as Miller was talking, and found a ton of references for it. ...

It was pretty sad: an ageing journalism professor, looking down his nose at Steyn and accusing Steyn of sloppiness (and disparaging mere bloggers, too), while half the kids in the room could have found what Miller couldn't in about five minutes on the Net. Some "expert" witness.

But that expert witness teaches in a journalism school, and is a legend in his own lunch room.

This incident helps to demonstrate that the partisanship of old media (glaringly evident in the ID controversy) is driven in part by their growing irrelevance.

To sum up: New media are extinguishing old media's monopoly on the gathering and dissemination of news. And - in a symbolic gesture - the old media pundit demonstrates that he cannot even use the most basic tools of the new media!

One thing that many critics of old media fail to grasp is that people are not abandoning old media because they are partisan so much as old media are partisan because people are abandoning them. Abandoned people become emotionally irresponsible.

Legacy mainstream media may well morph into government media (for a government that is sympathetic to their problems, of course). They may defend heavy censorship laws against new media, in the name of "human rights" or "economic recovery." However, incompetence and irrelevance do not magically turn into competence and relevance once government gets behind them.

There is a very good chance that an updated version of a Fairness Doctrine would simply not be viable in the new media environment. But increased regulation of those allowed to broadcast, podcast, blog, et cetera, "in the public interest" is another possibility.

If this is the form the legacy media response takes, it will likely be preceded by a sudden vast run of stories about all the "crises" created or exacerbated by "irresponsible" or "biased" independent news sources like blogs, podcasts, or videocasts. We will be told that "it is best left to the experts" (= legacy media).

Of course, any medium can potentially create a problem, but the heart of the issue is that legacy media are simply losing the ability to either define what is news or control viewer time - and they cannot be expected to see that as a promising development.

Here is one very promising development: French Nobel Prize winner (Literature) Le Clezio recently argued that the Internet could have stopped Hitler. It's very hard to step back in time, and be sure what could have stopped Hitler (or Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, or the Rwanda massacre). But in principle, Le Clezio's point is worth considering:

Who knows, if the Internet had existed at the time, perhaps Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded - ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day.

This much is true: Fascists then and now have always depended on control of media messages to ensure that the story the public hears is the one they want.

Next: Part 4: Recommendations for the next decade

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

So what should the intelligent design community do about media in the next decade?

1. Do not wait and hope for legacy mainstream media to understand the intelligent design controversy. They will likely go under first.

2. Start new media now, before you need a licence. (When new laws are introduced, people who are already key players on the scene are usually "grandfathered.")

3. As much as possible, use Internet-based technologies for communications. They are cheap, and easy to adapt and move around as necessary. Also, many old media pundits are not as efficient with them as you may be.

4. Blogs are the new magazines. Because the blogosphere is growing, growth is easy. But later, when most people are using the blogosphere, you must persuade people to go to your blog instead of some other one. Now is the time to start building a readership, not later.

5. Denormalize the Darwinists. That is, cover the out-of-control, stupid stuff they are forced to do in order to maintain their position, and ask people, "is this normal?" (This tactic is being increasingly used in Canada to start to disempower unaccountable and out-of-control government agencies. )

6. Don't be narrow. Cover the inroads that self-organization theorists, for example, are making against Darwinists, even if you don't personally think they have the answer. They do have some pretty good questions, after all.

7. Be aware of and defend any legal rights you may have to free speech or choice of reading/viewing material. Do bear in mind, however, that constitutional statements can be reinterpreted by judges so that they do not mean in practice what they appear to mean at face value - and certainly not what was intended by the people who wrote them. Anyone remember the Fairness Doctrine?

Conclusion: Legacy mainstream media, whose roots are in a materialist view of the world, are suffering from two problems: Their view of the world is increasingly disconfirmed by evidence and their audience is moving to a variety of specialty media. Circumventing their likely efforts to retain a captive audience will require courage and resourcefulness.

Back to top: The intelligent design community and the media revolution - some thoughts from an old hack

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).

Simulated meteorite impacts have been observed to produce some organic molecules of interest to abiogenesis researchers. A group of Japanese scientists have designed an experiment to see if meteorite impacts could result in "the building blocks of life."

Their experiments validate a theory first proposed by the American astronomer Carl Sagan in the seventies, says Kakegawa. 'He just mentioned this hypothesis in one sentence in a paper, but he didn't do any experiments. Since then, many people have thought meteorites could produce organic molecules, but we are the first to succeed in showing this.'

Some want meteorites to carry life to Earth, whereas others want them to generate the building blocks of life. (Source here. ©iStockphoto.com/thecarlinco)

The authors simulated chondritic meteorites (thought to be the most primitive) impacting the ocean of the early Earth. To do this they created projectiles and fired them into a substrate to compress and shock solid carbon, iron, nickel, water and nitrogen. They report the production of fatty acids, amines and, when ammonia was added, one amino acid (glycine). They suggest that as impacts were frequent in the early Earth, bombardment led to organic molecules accumulating. This is perceived to be relevant to the origin of life.

The Scientific American report emphasized the tentative nature of the research: meteorites "may have helped spawn life" and "Did heat, pressure and carbon from meteorite impacts create biological precursors?" An astrobiologist is said to fear "that theories of life's origin may never move beyond the hypothetical". Astronomer Donald Brownlee found the research interesting but added: "If the body is too large, generated materials are probably destroyed by impact processes." One of the authors of the paper cautioned that the meteorite-impact theory "is not ready to supplant the vaunted Miller-Urey experiment".

Chemistry World quotes Jeffrey Bada, an expert in prebiotic synthesis at the University of California, San Diego, who doesn't think the results are particularly impressive.

'With the exception of methyl amine and acetic and propanic acid, the yields are very, very small,' he says. 'If glycine is indeed made, the amount that would be present in the ocean from one such impact would be about [10 to the power -30] grams per litre - hardly a meaningful concentration.'

From an ID perspective, the word "supplant" is inappropriate for the Miller-Urey experiments because they cannot carry the burden that people want to place on them. The experiments are a dead-end: there is no route for chemical evolution to proceed. There is a fundamental flaw because of the pre-requisite of a reducing atmosphere (which the meteorite impact experiment avoids), because there is no rationale for chirality to emerge from racemic mixtures, and because no progress has been made in resolving the problem of generating biological information. For more on the problems of building life from chemical precursors, go here and here.

It is worth noting a previous study of impact shocks to produce organic molecules (McKay and Borucki, 1996). These authors confirmed that the elemental conposition of shocked material is important. They based their work on cometary gases: methane, hydrogen cyanide and acetylene. Whilst amine groups were produced, productivity was nil with a carbon dioxide rich mixture. It is possibly significant that carbon dioxide was not mentioned along with nitrogen in the new research.

ID scientists interpret the findings of these abiogenesis scenarios as evidence against life having emerged by this route. It is one thing to generate organic molecules but quite another to label them as "precursors of life". Life does not exist without biological information, and until abiogenesis research takes information seriously, it will continue to explore cul-de-sac avenues.

Biomolecule formation by oceanic impacts on early Earth
Yoshihiro Furukawa, Toshimori Sekine, Masahiro Oba, Takeshi Kakegawa & Hiromoto Nakazawa
Nature Geoscience, 2, 62-66 (January 2009)
| doi:10.1038/ngeo383

Abstract: Intense impacts of extraterrestrial objects melted the embryonic Earth, forming an inorganic body with a carbon-dioxide- and nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Certain simple organic molecules have been shown to form under conditions resembling meteorite impacts, although the link between these events and the development of more complex molecules remains unclear. Ordinary chondrites, the most common type of meteorite, contain solid carbon, iron and nickel - elements essential to the formation of organic chemicals. Here we use shock experiments to recreate the conditions surrounding the impact of chondritic meteorites into an early ocean. We used a propellant gun to create a high-velocity impact into a mixture of solid carbon, iron, nickel, water and nitrogen. After the impact, we recovered numerous organic molecules, including fatty acids, amines and an amino acid. We suggest that organic molecules on the early Earth may have arisen from such impact syntheses. As the natural impacts that were frequent on the early Earth are more sustained and reach higher pressures than our experiments, they may have resulted in the synthesis of a greater abundance, variety and complexity of organic compounds.

See also:

Birch, H. Meteorites hitting oceans may have kick-started life, Chemistry World, 08 December 2008

Matson, J. Rock and Roil: Meteorites Hitting Early Earth's Oceans May Have Helped Spawn Life, Scientific American News, 7 December 2008.

McKay, C.P. and W. J. Borucki, W.J., Organic Synthesis in Experimental Impact Shocks, Science, 276, 18 Apr 1996, 390-392.

Why Science Lost Big At Dover

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

As we approach the end of a year, it is customary for us to look back at the events that have shaped and changed our lives. Big news items, major sporting occurrences, funniest moments and the achievements of science and medicine are just some of the categories that help us define the success or failure of a year that has passed. For evolutionary science, things are no different. Indeed one notable event this year was the 6th International Bioethics Forum which brought together scientists, ethicists and lawmakers for a two-day 'melding of minds'. The auspicious title of the forum was captivatingly simple: Evolution in the 21st Century. But at its heart was a subject matter that today draws people towards passionate debate- the ongoing conflict between Darwinian evolution and Intelligent Design (I.D for short). Surprisingly then, the speakers list did not include anyone representing those who are openly critical of Darwinian evolution.

For what could be considered as the blue-ribbon talk of the forum, the event organizers had pulled in three of the biggest names in the modern Darwinist movement- NCSE Executive Director Eugenie Scott, Georgetown University theologian John Haught and Michigan State Philosophy Professor Robert Pennock to give a talk about the Kitzmiller vs Dover trial. This historic trial centered on a small Pennsylvania town school board's decision to teach ID as part of the science curriculum. Together with Haught, Pennock was pulled in as an expert witness during the trial to argue that it would have been unconstitutional to teach ID in any high school science class. In Scott's account of the proceedings, the main argument put forward by the ID camp was that even if ID theory had religious overtones, there would still be a valid pedagogical, secular reason for teaching it. And yet in the end, Kitzmiller was able to win the case for the prosecution by claiming not only that there was no scientific evidence against evolution but that there was no credible evidence in support of ID. In Scott's words, "we were able to sink them both".

But who really lost out? In Pennock's estimation, the arguments of ID are nothing more than an extension of what was said by the much-celebrated theologian William Paley in his opus Natural Theology with terms like irreducible complexity and specified complexity being merely 'jazzy names' for saying the same thing that Paley proclaimed centuries ago. And yet Pennock clearly ignored critical differences. Paley after all argued on the basis of analogy, claiming that the design of instruments such as a watch was analogous to the complexity of biological systems (Ref 1, pp. 30-33). Since the watch had been designed, so likewise biological systems had to have been designed. ID theorists on the other hand provide an additional component to their argument inferring that information- that is complex, specified information- in biological systems is inaccessible to natural causes (Ref 1, p.150). Pennock evidently misconstrued the ID case. To make matters worse, he was unable to demonstrate how Darwinian evolution supplied a viable alternative (Ref 2). As philosopher William Dembski had previously commented, biologists to this day lack a clear view of how the Darwinian mechanism could have contributed to the history of life (Ref 1, p.41). Darwinism is silent about the details even though Darwinists stubbornly insist that millions of contingencies must have lead to the differences in form we see throughout nature (Ref 1, p.41).

Pennock proceeded to counter the claims that ID is not 'creationism through the back door' by presenting sketchy evidence showing that an initial draft of the textbook Of Pandas And People had contained creationist language. Of Pandas And People was chosen by the Dover school board as their main resource for presenting ID in their science classrooms. But one may rightly ask why it is that the scientific merits of a textbook should be decided upon by considering unedited drafts and not the finalized product? A quick review of Of Pandas And People reveals the usual but nevertheless valid ID material in the case against evolution. The implausibility of prebiotic synthesis experiments, the questionable evidence used in support of macro-evolution, the genetic data that contradicts structural homology, the fragmented picture of the fossil record and the absence of clearly defined ancestors to modern man are all presented as examples that contradict the basic tenets of Darwinism (Ref 3, pp. 8-148). The scientific case supporting ID is also presented with the rich informational content of genes and the irreducible complexity of biochemical systems appearing as the foundational pillars of the ID movement (Ref 3, pp. 19-20, 63-69, 85, 88-89, 141-149).

None of the science in support of ID was ever discussed at this year's International Bioethics Forum. So it was that world-renowned speakers such as John Haught were able to get away with their dismissal of ID as a discipline that represents neither good science nor good theology. Of course ID proponents have always distanced themselves from any theological claims (Refs 4-6). But that fact alone did not appear to affect the audience's enthusiasm for what Haught had to say. He also addressed some of the faith-based push-backs against evolution. According to Haught, much public concern today centers around the idea that if Darwinian evolution is readily embraced then the notion of a Biblical creator must be repudiated since if evolution is true there was no fall and if there was no fall there could not be a redeemer (eg: Jesus Christ). And yet while such anxieties might be real, they should not detract from the sound scientific arguments against evolution.

Both Darwinists and ID theorists readily agree that science should never have to deal with questions relating to divine purpose. Haught repeatedly emphasized that science and theology should be kept apart as two separate, non-conflicting ways of explaining the reality we experience as human beings. 'Explanatory Pluralism'- the term that Haught coined to define such separation- should of course be maintained. But contrary to Haught's claims, the ID movement emphatically distances itself from any questions of divine purpose or designer intention. While Haught cited ID as an example of 'Explanatory Monism'- an attempt to bring together both theological and scientific explanations of reality into a single framework- a quick review of the ID literature reveals such an assessment to be unfounded (Refs 4-6).

Right at the end of the forum, I managed to catch Eugenie Scott just as she was leaving and asked her whether she thought the aim of the ID movement was to teach ID along Darwinian evolution or to exclude the teaching of evolution altogether. Her answer was that texts such as Of Panda's And People unequivocally reveal that they are only out to teach everything that is wrong with evolution. When I then asked whether the ID camp proposed also teaching the merits of evolutionary theory she replied with an air of irony "there aren't any". Of course, the facts speak for themselves. The introduction of Of Panda's And People for example brings the true intentions of the authors to the fore:

"We have given a favorable case for intelligent design and raised reasonable doubt about natural descent. But used together with your other text, [Of Pandas And People] should help to balance the overall curriculum" (Ref 3, p. ix).

A balanced and not an exclusionary curriculum was all that was being asked for. I only wish I had had my own copy of the text as I spoke with Scott. Maybe then, I would have been able to set the record straight.

References
1. William Dembski (2002), No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, Lanham, Maryland

2. Robert Deyes (2008), AVIDA As A 'Teleo-LOGIC' Model Of Life. See:
http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2008/08/09/avida_as_a_teleo_logic_model_of_life

3. Percival Davis, Dean H. Kenyon (1993), Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, 2nd Edition Published By The Foundation for Thought & Ethics; Richardson, Texas

4. For more information on the distinction between Intelligent Design And Creationism see http://www.intelligentdesign.org/faq.php

5. Stephen Meyer (2006), Intelligent Design is not Creationism The Daily Telegraph (London), January, 29th, See http://www.discovery.org/a/3191

6. John West (2002), Intelligent Design and Creationism Just Aren't the Same, Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology, December 1, 2002, http://www.discovery.org/a/1329

NewScientist reports that it's not just the nature of dark matter that's a mystery - even its abundance is inexplicable. But if our universe is just one of many possible universes, at least this conundrum can be explained.

The total amount of dark matter - the unseen stuff thought to make up most of the mass of the universe - is five to six times that of normal matter. This difference sounds pretty significant, but it could have been much greater, because the two types of matter probably formed via radically different processes shortly after the big bang. The fact that the ratio is so conducive to a life-bearing universe "looks like a tremendous coincidence", says Raphael Bousso at the University of California, Berkeley.

More...

----------------------------------------------------

Seems as if scientism will continue to bow to their transcendent "maker", multiverse. Intelligent designer or eternal multiverse. Which is more plausible?


Reported in ENV...Philip A. Pizzo's (Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine), latest December 1, 2008 newsletter extols those who would make scientific research "free" by keeping it "protected from non-scientific influences such as 'Intelligent Design.'"

In his November 14, 2005 newsletter, Dean Pizzo expresses his fear that interest in teaching intelligent design is a sign that some communities "increasingly see[m] to be promoting theocracy over democracy." He plays heavily on the theocracy theme.

More...

-----------------------------------------------------

Sounds like Dr. Pizzo is engaged in just so much fearmongering.

As reported by Fox News, President George W. Bush said his belief that God created the world is not incompatible with the scientific theory of evolution.

Asked about creation and evolution, Bush said: "I think you can have both. I think evolution can - you're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm just a simple president. But it's, I think that God created the earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an Almighty and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution."

He added, "I happen to believe that evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life."

More...

-----------------------------------------------------------

It appears President Bush is playing loose and fast with the definition of "evolution".

The advice is this: when you have dug yourself into a hole, stop digging!

Secularism is undermining science, but secularists just keep digging (Source here)

Many who speak for science will say that there is apparent design in the physical universe and, since Darwinian mechanisms are not applicable to non-reproducing matter, there are "only two explanations: a benevolent designer or a multiverse." The multiverse concept has a reproducing cosmos, with an infinity of universes - of which ours is just one where the conditions happen, by accident, to favour the emergence of intelligent life.

Amanda Gefter of New Scientist does not welcome this analysis. Her thoughts were triggered by an article by Tim Folger in Discover (blogged here) which took a strong position on the matter, as is evidenced by the title: "Science's Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory". She was alarmed because the article effectively concedes that there is evidence for intelligent design in the physical universe. She writes that this:

"lends credence to creationists' mistaken claim that the multiverse was invented to serve as science's get-out-of-God-free card. Indeed, Folger's article was immediately referenced on creationist websites, including the Access Research Network, an intelligent-design hub, and Uncommon Descent, the blog of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute's William Dembski."

Gefter's first response is to deny the need for a dichotomy. Actually, this is a valid point at the level of principle. It is good practice in science to work with multiple hypotheses, otherwise testing hypotheses is methodologically weak and the pitfall is to continually validate the favoured hypothesis. This is why educationalists need to be concerned about teaching Darwinism only as the mechanism of evolution, because students emerge thinking that there is no evidence against the theory. Anyway, here is Gefter:

"Pitting the multiverse against religion presents a false dichotomy. Science never boils down to a choice between two alternative explanations. It is always plausible that both are wrong and a third or fourth or fifth will turn out to be correct."

The reason why this is not a good response is that the argument goes much deeper than specific hypotheses. In my earlier blog, I suggested that this was a good case study for the use of Dembski's design filter, with explanatory approaches based on Law, Chance and Design. In the context of the Multiverse, we are not dealing with specific theories, but contrasting paradigms: Law & Chance versus Design. This does lead to a dichotomy, not between science and religion, but between secularist science and theistic science.

Gefter does not realise she is in a hole, so she keeps digging. She wants to break through the dichotomy barrier. She draws on some speculations of some physicists which suggest that observing is a creative force.

"What might a third option look like here? Physicist John Wheeler once offered a suggestion: maybe we should approach cosmic fine-tuning not as a problem but as a clue. Perhaps it is evidence that we somehow endow the universe with certain features by the mere act of observation. It's an idea that Stephen Hawking has been thinking about, too. Hawking advocates what he calls top-down cosmology, in which observers are creating the universe and its entire history right now. If we in some sense create the universe, it is not surprising that the universe is well suited to us.
That's speculative, but at least it's science."

"Speculative"? Yes, certainly.
"At least it's science"? - No, it is science fiction.

These ideas are science fiction because there is no mechanism for observation to affect the fabric of the universe; because no one has suggested a way of testing the hypothesis that "we somehow endow the universe with certain features by the mere act of observation", and because everything we have learned about the universe as a material entity and ourselves as observers goes against the idea that observation affects the object. The only exception involves quantum physics, but no linkage between this scale and that of the universe at large has been made. The next step here is the abandonment of realism, long regarded as a hallmark of the scientific enterprise. If ID scientists are correct in their analysis of contemporary science (i.e. that it is suffering by having to wear the straitjacket of philosophical materialism), then we can make sense of these wild speculations. We can understand them to be driven by the need to force-fit the universe into a conceptual model where design has no place. By contrast, what ID scientists seek is to legitimise design-based explanations within science and to allow the evidence to be evaluated without the need to comply with the secularist worldview.

Why it's not as simple as God vs the multiverse
Amanda Gefter
New Scientist, 4 December 2008

First para: What would you rather believe in, God or the multiverse? It sounds like an instance of cosmic apples and oranges, but increasingly we are being told it's a choice we must make. Take the dialogue earlier this year between Richard Dawkins and physicist Steven Weinberg in Austin, Texas. Discussing the fact that the universe appears fine-tuned for our existence, Weinberg told Dawkins: "If you discovered a really impressive fine-tuning . . . I think you'd really be left with only two explanations: a benevolent designer or a multiverse."

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Michelle Malkin, whose guts I admire, echoes my own view of proposed media bailouts:

I launched a Newspaper Bailout Countdown Clock on my blog after The New York Times Company's bonds plunged into junk territory in October. A few weeks later, columnist Jon Fine published a tongue-in-cheek memo in BusinessWeek outlining a federal newspaper rescue proposal.

The jibes were meant to be facetious critiques of for-profit enterprises demanding massive taxpayer expenditures under the guise of preserving the "public interest." But now, in a rather unfunny turn, the newspaper bailout push has actually come to pass.

I expect we will hear many proposals like the one she documents, as various media find the new online world too much to cope with. Malkin concludes,

How "free" can a "free press" be if it is leveraged with government funding? How free would they be to criticize other corporate enterprises seeking local, state or federal help to keep them afloat in hard times? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? A press beholden to the ruling class -- a press that cannot stand on its own two feet and the strength of its product -- is a press better off dead.

Yes, I would say so. It is merely another burden to the taxpayer.

The original purpose of media was to be a permanent critic of government. That is why we are called the fourth estate. We have privileges, we can display our press cards and rush into newsworthy venues. We also have some serious duties = go to jail rather than name a source to whom we have promised anonymity. That is a classic form of civil disobedience.

The two biggest changes in my lifetime have been

1. The growth of private citizen media

and

2. The way so many big time media have morphed into government media.

In explaining this change, two factors seem key to me:

1. The materialist worldview in which legacy mainstream media grew up is collapsing of its own unpersuasiveness - for a variety of reasons.

Example: When science media are reduced to trying to explain why Texan Marilyn Mock bought a house for Tracey Orr based on selfishness, they are really reaching.

Such views are not renounced, so they can never be retired. They are part of the belief system of the journalist who has bought into materialism. That is why you will hear them recycled in pop science media, again and again = ancestral cave men spread their selfish genes by behaving this way (whatever that way was), so that is why Mock does it today. Yuh. Right. Big enlightenment, that.

2. We will not likely get anything better out of popular science media in the foreseeable future. The critical problem is, as Malkin noted above, media companies may want to force the taxpayer to fund their nonsense, thus delaying a transition to a more responsive media.

For what it is worth, I blog regularly at Future Tense, which covers these issues in detail. If you found this post helpful, you might find this one even more so.

Don't worry, we are not a cult, and you will not be asked for money. We are a group of Canadian Christian writers who are finding a way through the transitions, and we have lots of good links.

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).

Elisa Sand, writing for the Madison (SD) Daily Leader, reports that two films will be shown at the Madison Public Library to introduce area residents to the concept of intelligent design and create some awareness of a local IDEA chapter that has formed here.

Madison resident Don Parker has chartered a local chapter and is looking for interested individuals to join.

IDEA stands for intelligent design and evolution awareness.

"It's promoting freedom in science to go where the evidence leads," Parker said.

To spark discussion, Parker plans to show two films at the library... "Where the Evidence Leads" (Dec. 4 and 10) and "This Privileged Planet" (Dec. 18 and again in January.) Each meeting begins at 7 p.m.

More...

For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts can be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived.
-- Charles Darwin, Introduction to Origin of Species

An open letter to my Darwinist friends:

Good news, Darwinists. The data speaks for itself, and evolution is true. We are all evolving, slowly changing over time, with each generation exhibiting new levels of genetic diversity. And your ruthless (if not sacred) killing machine of natural selection fed by unstoppable random mutations remains intact for the most part. Yes, thanks to your unflagging zeal and devotion we now enjoy an ocean of facts and figures showing the power of unguided, random mutations and their short- and long-term effects on the living genome. Dutifully and invisibly replicating voluminous information day after day in complex cellular machinery designed, oops--that looks designed--to do just that, life does the best it can in its silently tedious task of begetting itself. You free-thinking skeptics of all but Darwin can rejoice with the rest us; we are indeed lucky to be alive.

But listen carefully, my friends. Your evolution lobby's biggest problem, and the reason why few but the most heavily invested truly believe, is that at a gut level, that instinctive impression of what makes sense that we all bear deep within us, your evolution story fails to convince. Yes, we are told about the magic wand of natural selection, and we all nod with a look that says, OK, if you say so. But how, we all privately ponder, can random mistakes in the finely tuned genetic code once, much less time after time, provide any beneficially new assembly instruction for unintelligent (that's what "natural" means) preservation from death (that's what "selection" means)? Pardon the rest of us, but this simply doesn't make sense.

Surely even the most surly of you hardened materialists putting full faith in eternal matter must marvel at the marvelously intricate cellular machinery operating like a bustling factory town in high season. And only minds indurate beyond hope can't but harbor a deep, secret wonder at how such deep, secret wonder could really just happen mindlessly. How did the cell's layers upon layers of complex coded instructions for multiple independent yet synergistically cooperating mechanisms come piece by piece from random and unplanned mistakes in a simpler code, with successive minor changes spanning millions of years? By way of crude and insufficient comparison, could the complex instructions of every component and every system of the space shuttle really come from unguided, purposeless mistakes in copying a set of instructions for, say, a little red wagon? Really? Even if we assume a true intelligent selector in place, really? (And, by the way, you've never told us where the instructions for that little red wagon come from.)

What the rest of us will never learn from you Darwinists because it's an inference derived from actual data is that our gut level sense about evolution is absolutely correct. Yes, the data supports Darwinism as far as it goes. Genetic changes, including mutations, appear to be frequent, chance, random events. But the data also confirms that, like everything else in nature, the undirected, randomly changing genome is not exempt from the laws of nature that demand that in the absence of intelligent intervention all natural processes of spontaneous change must tend to degradation and disorder. In nature, it is literally the law: the Second Law of Thermodynamics. And "natural selection," whatever its merits, unless it be super-natural can no more transcend natural law to intelligently code the genome than a river can transcend the law of gravity to flow uphill. In nature, no "theory of upness" can override the law of gravity; everything that goes up (or is up) must (and will) come down. It may fly, float, or get snagged on something for a moment, but it will come down. The same principle applies universally: time is not on the side of "upness" anywhere in nature.

So it's like a fresh breeze in a stuffy room when one happens upon the work of Dr. John C. Sanford, an experienced geneticist with impeccable credentials from Cornell University, who delights the reasonable scientific mind with one of those finally-someone-is-confirming-what-I-always-suspected-must-be-true moments. In his book, Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome, Dr. Sanford reveals the peer-reviewed studies from experts that show we were right to suspect the mysterious, law-defying "upness" of Darwinian theory all along. Importantly, Dr. Sanford explains the implications of what many Darwinists know but won't tell: the data shows virtually all genetic mutations, the only mechanism you Darwinists have to produce the raw material for new species, are either near neutral or deleterious, and natural selection is incapable of keeping up with all the negative changes. Using the language of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Dr. Sanford explains the data showing that not only do mutations fail to provide the raw material for novel phenotypic (i.e., bodily) features, but also that genetic entropy (i.e., disorder and information loss) is steadily increasing because natural selection simply cannot stave off the inexorable loss of information in the genetic code caused by mutations. In his words, the "Primary Axiom" of modern biology, i.e., that man is the product of random mutations and natural selection, not only is false, it can be shown false.

Using analogies, including the "red-wagon-to-space-shuttle" example, Dr. Sanford sets out in readable fashion the entropic case against natural selection as a mechanism of beneficial change in the information content of the genome. Consider one problem with natural selection: natural selection acts only at the phenotypic level (on the level of the whole organism) and not at the genotypic level (the molecular level of mutating nucleotides). That is, natural selection can only preserve or kill whole organisms, and cannot detect, much less choose the occassional "good" mutation. Of course this is true, and of course this renders natural selection nothing more than survival of the luckiest, without the necessary sensitivity to truly select for any given nucleotide sequence at the genetic level. Natural selection simply cannot "see" all the near-neutral and slight negative mutations (or even any positive mutations, which have rarely, if ever, been observed). What this means is that not only is natural selection incapable of "selecting" for "good" mutations, it cannot hope to keep up with the continuous torrent of negative mutations sufficiently to stop genetic entropy. According to Sanford, "Unless selection can somehow stop the erosion of information in the human genome, mutations will not only lead to our death, they will lead to the death of our species."

You see, we are all mutants with many thousands of information-degrading mutations already lodged in our genetic code. And the long-term prognosis is not positive; in short, our species, like all living organisms, continues to accumulate genetic information loss, such that we are evolving downward, not upward. Population geneticists have known this since at least 1957, and yet you Pollyanna's of popular Darwinism, who because you are sold-out Darwinists first and skeptical scientists second, ignore the evidence and believe a lie. Yes, let's speak plainly; it is a lie that natural selection can perform super-naturally simply because, by gosh, supernatural power must be assumed to explain your law-defying, bottom-up design--oops, again, occurrence--of information-rich coded machines. It is a fiction, a modern somehow-it-must-work, gosh-of-the-gaps, push-water-up-hill fantasy, this natural selection of yours.

We have four words for you, Darwinists: show us the data. Show us the data to support your theory that natural selection can prevent extinction, much less make any headway to new phenotypic novelty (much less new species). Then we might be interested in your scientific opinions. But until then, the data presents a more interesting scientific question: just where did our devolving genetic code come from in the first place? What gave us the low entropy of our original "upness"? What theory, perfectly consistent with the data, would support the idea that we (and all living organisms) are not evolving to a higher state, but slowly devolving from some higher state, perhaps a state of perfect genomic information content? Such a fascinating scientific question obviously leads to even more fascinating scientific questions about original creation. But how could any true scientist resist the thrill of such truth discovery?

In any event, in light of the data showing that with each mutation our genome experiences loss of information, we are not only lucky to be alive; we are lucky we are not extinct. It appears that the eventual and inevitable catastrophic "mutational meltdown" predicted by the data is many generations off. In the meantime, can we not use our scientific reasoning to consider the truth of our existence? What, if anything, would the idea of a truly supernaturally created genome that is now slowly degenerating over time imply about our history, our purpose and our existence?

Sadly, most of you Darwinists will react defensively to "facts ... adduced ... apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which [Darwin] arrived." That's understandable because even though many such facts plainly exist, in all your education you were never exposed to any scientific counter to the lie of natural selection as a positive change agent. And most people cannot admit to contrary facts when in an advanced stage of belief. But for any of you Darwinists who see the writing on the genetic wall and are willing to think outside your imposed consensus box, welcome.

Yes, evolution is the truth; it's just not the whole truth or nothing but the truth. So, (please) help us God.

Roddy Bullock is a freelance writer and the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio 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) 2008 Roddy M. Bullock, all rights reserved. Quotes and links permitted with attribution.

Publisher and agent inquiries welcome.

References:

John C. Sanford, PhD, Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome (Waterloo, NY, 2008). ISBN 978-0-9816316-0-8. Available from Amazon.

Bergman J. (2004). Research on the deterioration of the genome an Darwinism: why mutations result in degeneration of the genome. Intelligent design Conference, Biola University, April 22-23. As stated by Sanford, "Bergman (2004) reviewed the topic of beneficial mutations. Among other things, he did a simple literature search via biological Abstracts and Medline. He found 453,732 "mutation" hits, but among these only 186 mentioned the word "beneficial" (about 4 in 10,000). When those 186 references were reviewed, the presumed beneficial mutations were only beneficial in a very narrow sense and consistently involved loss-of-function (loss of information) changes. He was unable to find a single example of a mutation that unambiguously created new information.

"Mutational meltdown" occurs as a population's fitness continually declines and the fertility eventually begins to decline. It is the final phase of "error catastrophe", which is the biological situation where deleterious mutations are accumulating faster than selection can remove them. Unless reversed, error catastrophe leads to the extinction of a population.

On 11 September 2008, a symposium on the theme "Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness" was held at the United Nations attended by medical doctors and neuroscientists. The organisers spoke of a search for a more comprehensive perspective on the "self" and the workings of the human mind. The speakers at the conference have been engaged in this search and were ready to consolidate and move on. But in order to develop their thinking, they needed to challenge the prevailing paradigm in neuroscience. "Though much remains to be done, their findings to date have shed a more holistic light on our understanding of the elusive mind-body problem." This holistic view opens up new opportunities for research:

"The symposium will also serve as the occasion for the formal launch of The Human Consciousness Project - a multidisciplinary collaboration of international scientists and physicians who have joined forces to research the nature of consciousness and its relationship with the brain."

Materialist critics say of the new paradigm: "This nasty mind-virus piggybacks on reasonable worries."

The prevailing paradigm in neuroscience is materialism. Everything about the brain is interpreted in terms of physics and chemistry: our sense of free agency, our consciousness, our hopes and our ability to appreciate beauty. Yet this paradigm has only limited results to show for all the effort expended and "scientists have yet to crack the great mystery of how consciousness could emerge from firing neurons". The UN conference set out an agenda for going beyond reductionism. Jeffrey Schwartz warned the delegates that what they were doing would be met with heated opposition, because materialism is deemed by many to be of the essence of science:

"YOU cannot overestimate, how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about. . . how Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it. . . I'm asking us as a world community to go out there and tell the scientific establishment, enough is enough! Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality."

Sure enough, the event has raised alarm! The New Scientist reported it with the headline: "Creationists declare war over the brain". It has become commonplace for the science media to portray every departure from philosophical naturalism as "creationism" as though that were the ultimate crime for a scientists and no more needs be said. There is evidence that some of the conference speakers have links with the ID Movement, and apparently that is enough to shower derision on them. Since scientists are supposed to be able to grapple with complex issues and think rationally and objectively (rather than emotionally), I do not understand why there is so little outcry against the intolerant attitudes of so many science journalists and writers.

Here are some reactions quoted, described as "the voice of mainstream academia":

Andy Clark, professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh, UK: "This is real and dangerous and coming our way." [. . .] "This is an especially nasty mind-virus because it piggybacks on some otherwise reasonable thoughts and worries."

Patricia Churchland, philosopher of neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego: "it is an argument from ignorance. The fact something isn't currently explained doesn't mean it will never be explained or that we need to completely change not only our neuroscience but our physics."

It is instructive to flag up some of the missing ingredients in this report
1. No interviews with the scientists that were at the symposium are reported. This was noted by Angus Menuge in a letter (unpublished) to New Scientist: "I find it very troubling, that while Amanda Gefter took the trouble of interviewing sources who advocate scientific materialism, she did not interview any critics of that position, instead relying on third-hand reports. This does not seem to reflect journalistic best practice."
2. There was no acknowledgement that ID can lead to new research opportunities. This is perhaps not surprising, because science journalists have been programmed to say that ID closes the door on science. This is bad history, because ID science was the trigger for the time known as the scientific revolution and ever since then ID scientists have consistently demonstrated that ID extends the horizons of scholarly enquiry.
3. There is no acknowledgement that the new paradigm has emerged because of evidence. Materialists cannot allow any evidence to count against their paradigm. They are committed to the principle that all explanations of phenomena have to be formulated by reference to "chance and necessity". Consequently, as in the quote from Churchland above, any hint of evidence against their position is opposed as an argument from ignorance.

Geftner declares that only the materialist perspective is science in her final paragraph. She also throws out the charge that non-materialists are invoking a "God of the gaps" style of argument:

"What can scientists do? They have been criticised for not doing enough to teach the public about evolution. Maybe now they need a big pre-emptive push to engage people with the science of the brain - and help the public appreciate that the brain is no place to invoke the "God of the gaps"."

This "pre-emptive push" seems to be the only response of the materialists! Shout louder! Put more resources into educating the public! Never admit that non-materialist philosophies can lead to fruitful science! Ignore their claims of arguing from evidence and insist that they are using ignorance to invoke the "God of the gaps"!
In a letter of response to New Scientist, Beauregard and Schwartz write:

"We do not question materialist models of the mind-brain complex merely for ideological or political reasons. We want to move beyond them because we have not found them adequate explanations of mind-brain interactions, nor do they point to useful treatment plans. Your writer's attempt to smear scientists who are looking for new directions, while perhaps entertaining, is a poor substitute for thoughtful coverage of a growing area."

Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness, September 11th 2008, United Nations, New York.

and

Creationists declare war over the brain
Amanda Gefter
New Scientist, 22 October 2008

See also:

Beauregard, M. and Schwartz, J.M. Non-materialist mind, New Scientist, 29 November 2008, page 23.
Go here for the unedited version.

Menuge, A. Unpublished letter to New Scientist, 26 November 2008.

Review Of Alexander Oparin's 'Genesis and Evolutionary Development of Life'

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

In 1924 the Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin made his mark on 'life origins' debates by proclaiming that life had sprung into existence through natural chemical processes here on earth. In Oparin's assessment, the origin of life on our planet was more than a 'lucky accident'. It was and is a phenomenon that could be studied through objective scientific research. For Oparin, the beginning of life 3.9 million years ago would have required that at least two conditions be met- an absence of free atmospheric oxygen and an abundance of ultraviolet radiation that would have allowed the formation of life-essential hydrocarbons through photochemical processes. In short, conditions would have needed to have been radically different to what they are today. Oparin's conclusions were clearly emphasized in his 1969 book 'Genesis and Evolutionary Development of Life' where he talked about the 'preactualistic era' of the earth's history. He concluded that the existence of life today 'mixed the cards' because the products of metabolism generated by living organisms would not have been present before life began. As he expounded in his book:

"[organisms] could have been formed only on the basis of a lengthy evolution through the gradual perfection of some far simpler original systems isolated from the general homogeneous solution of organic compounds"

According to Oparin, life would have had to have begun through the isolation of portions of a 'primitive soup' containing building blocks such as amino acids and nucleotides. Separation from the ravages of the external environment would have had to have been maintained by some ill-defined boundary or wall made of lipid-protein complexes; perhaps a primitive version of the membrane that forms the outer boundary of cells today. Oparin went further still by speculating that such a boundary would not only have contained a protoplasmic fluid distantly resembling the cytoplasm but would have also provided a 'frontier' for the rapid exchange of components necessary for cellular survival.

To bolster the credibility of his theory, Oparin drew on the chemistry of coacervation- a process whereby large molecules organize themselves into drop-like aggregates or 'coacervates' and which he considered as one possible avenue for the formation of cell-like units on our primitive earth. What most impressed Oparin about coacervates was that they could host simple biochemical reactions when supplied with the appropriate enzymes. Of course the simplicity of these reactions was a far cry from the highly complex network of biochemical signals and metabolic pathways that comprise the dynamics of the simplest of living cells we know of. Nevertheless one of his primary objectives was to show the fluidity of a biochemical reaction occurring within the coacervate drop. This he achieved successfully.

Through his work on coacervates, Oparin became one of the first proponents of the 'metabolism-first' approach for explaining the origin of life by suggesting that biochemical processes and not some form of genetic instruction provided the seeds for the formation of the first cell (Ref 1). Yet from the onset, Oparin's experiments faced tremendous theoretical as well as practical problems. Most notably coacervation is a process that relies solely on electrostatic attraction between molecules and has therefore very little in common with the plasma membranes of living cells (Ref 2). Moreover, the process of coacervation requires careful control of chemical parameters such as pH, temperature and salt concentrations if the necessary molecular aggregations are to occur (Ref 2)- hardly what one might expect from the chemical maelstrom of a prebiotic soup.

For a primitive membrane-like barrier to have been an effective frontier to the outside world, it must have not only been selectively permeable to molecules needed for intra-cellular biochemical reactions but also must have been capable of maintaining an osmotic equilibrium with surrounding water (Ref 3). Today organisms have active transport systems that allow them to perform precisely this function (Ref 3). These systems involve intricate arrays of transmembrane channels made of defined protein complexes none of which would have been present in a hypothetical coacervate-type cell. Ohio University chemist David Deamer has answered such an impass by asserting that life must have existed in a "low ionic strength lacustrine environment" such as a pond or lake where salts might have been more dilute (Ref 3). Yet unless such lakes were supplied with just the right amounts of water to maintain the status quo, evaporation effects would only have served to concentrate these salts.

Oparin's belief in the significance of coacervates was reflective of the knowledge of the day since during much of Oparin's life, the cell's complexity was a mystery. The molecular biology revolution had not yet occurred and so the detailed role of DNA and the functional diversity of proteins had not yet been uncovered. In keeping with Darwins' theory of evolution, Oparin and the English biochemist J.B.S Haldane inferred that cellular biochemical networks and metabolic processes could have arisen in a gradual bit by bit fashion within the context of primitive coacervate-type cells. Nevertheless they failed to consider the minimal requirements of a functional cell and the enormous jump between a structure as simple as a coacervate drop and the simplest form of life. In his review of the work of biochemist Harold Morowitz, biologist Michael Denton exposed the magnitude of the problem:

"A [self-replicating] cell would necessarily be bound by a cell membrane and the simplest feasible [membrane] would probably be the typical bilayered lipid membrane utilized by all existing cells on earth today. The synthesis of the fats of the cell membrane would require perhaps a minimum of five proteins. Energy would be required, and this might require a further eight proteins for a very simple form of energy metabolism. Altogether, probably a minimum of another hundred proteins would be required for DNA replication and protein synthesis. The size of such a cell, containing perhaps four mRNA molecules, a full complement of enzymes, DNA molecules about 100,000 nucleotides long and bounded by a cell membrane, would be about one-tenth of a micron in diameter. Morowitz comments, "This is the smallest hypothetical cell that we can envisage within the context of current biochemical thinking. It is almost certainly a lower limit, since we have allowed no control functions, no vitamin metabolism and extremely limited intermediary metabolism" (Ref 4, p.309)

In his book Oparin clearly missed the point, assuming so much while at the same time demonstrating so little about how natural processes could have lead to the first cell. Others who have followed his example have done no better.

REFERENCES
1. Richard Robinson (2005), Jump-Starting a Cellular World: Investigating the Origin of Life, from Soup to Networks, PLoS Biol, Vol 3(11), p. e396

2. Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley and Roger Olsen (1984), The Mystery of Life's Origin Reassessing Current Theories, Published by Lewis and Stanley, Dallas, Texas, pp. 171-172

3. David Deamer, Jason Dworkin, Scott Sandford, Max Bernstein, Louis Allamandola (2002), The First Cell Membranes, Astrobiology Volume 2, pp. 371-381

4. Michael Denton (1998), Nature's Destiny: How The Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, 1st Edition Published by the Free Press, New York

In an informative essay, Janet Browne reflects on three Darwin commemorations: his funeral in Westminster Abbey, the 1909 centennial and the 1959 celebration. Each grasped the "opportunity to push an agenda, and even to adapt the past, so telling us what we like best to hear".

Nature's contribution to the anniversary preparations (Darwin 200 index here)

Darwin's religious views became known through his correspondence. He was content to be known as an agnostic and his view of God, if he did exist, was that he is remote from this world. Christian reaction to Darwinism ranged from "it is atheism" (Charles Hodge) to "God guides the process of evolution" (Asa Gray). Opposition to the technicalities of the theory came from contemporary scientists who were not persuaded that Darwin had a strong case. After Darwin's death, several colleagues in the Royal Society lobbied to have him buried in Westminster Abbey. This was to make a statement about Darwinism and faith and also to turn Darwin into an iconic figure. Browne writes that this was:

"valuable propaganda at a time when relations between science and religion were intensely fraught. The men of the Royal Society used Darwin's funeral as a way to reassure their contemporaries that science was not a threat to moral values, but rather was becoming increasingly important in the modern world."

By 1909, genetics was revealing that much of the variation reported by Darwin was innate and this was stimulating fresh thinking about biological change. "Thus, new forms could emerge de novo, without selective pressure and adaptive success." At the same time, palaeontologists were reporting lineages that "progressed" and this seemed to inject teleology back into biology. Darwinism was becoming sidelined.

"The 1909 commemorations, organised by a small group of naturalists and Darwin family members from the University of Cambridge, provided a way to reassert the primacy of natural selection against other evolutionary rivals."

A much bigger event was the celebration of 1959. This was the platform where the architects of the "modern synthesis" asserted their supremacy.

"The delegates at Chicago did more than celebrate a new union of the biological sciences. They in effect created modern Darwinism by emphatically rejecting any form of Lamarkism [. . .] The delegates also rejected the idea that the fossil record shows signs of directed evolution, and expanded Darwinian thought to cover the evolution of mind and behaviour. During the conference, Julian Huxley, the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, gave a secular sermon in the style of his grandfather, and provocatively declared that religious belief was merely a biological feature of evolving mankind."

Browne points out that "much of what we know about Darwin and Darwinism, including his celebrity status, is the result of the 1959 celebration in Chicago." This created the illusion of a consensus among biologists, but the reality is that many have serious doubts about the efficacy of natural selection to do what Darwinism claims for it. Many also doubt that gradualism is the way evolution proceeds. But the consensus means that doubting Darwin becomes a serious academic crime, for which the guilty get expelled from positions of influence and sometimes expelled even from being able to pursue a career in science.

Browne asks: "Will [the 2009] activities have a veiled agenda, as did those of the past?" The answer to this question must be an emphatic yes! If you don't want your mind to be manipulated, you had better develop your critical thinking skills. For more on Darwin as an icon, go here.

Birthdays to remember
Janet Browne
Nature 456, 324-325 (20 November 2008) | doi:10.1038/456324a

Summary: Anniversaries of Charles Darwin's life and work have been used to rewrite and re-energize his theory of natural selection. Janet Browne tracks a century of Darwinian celebrations.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

You don't need to pay thousands of dollars a year to hear these profs:

ASTR 160 - Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics: Professor Charles Bailyn teaches this course in astrophysics that focuses on black holes, dark energy and extra-solar planets. [Open Yale]

PHYS 200 - Fundamentals of Physics: Those who have a good background in math and physics can get a great review from this course offered by Professor Ramamurti Shankar. [Open Yale]

String Theory, Black Holes, and the Laws of Nature: String theory provides promise in unraveling the mysteries that surround the laws that govern the universe and Professor Andrew Strominger discusses his insights into this theory and its relationship to black holes in this lecture. [Harvard @ Home]

Socks Before Shoes: Unraveling Cell Division: Professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard, Andrew Murray, explains the process of cell division in this video lecture and offers some insights into what might cause abnormalities. [Harvard @ Home]

A COMPLETE Search for New Suns: The COMPLETE project aims to map 1,000s of light years of star forming material in the Milky Way and you can learn all about it from Alyssa A. Goodman, Professor of Astronomy at Harvard in this lecture. [Harvard @ Home]

Observing the Birth of the Universe: Lyman Page, Professor of Physics, delivers this video lecture on the origins of our universe, using humorous and accessible means to explain complex concepts. [Princeton]

Sequencing the Human Genome: Want to learn more about the process of sequencing our genome from start to finish? This lecture from Craig Venter can help you to become more informed on the subject whether you’re interested for fun or scholarly exploration. [Princeton]

Einstein's Biggest Blunder: A Cosmic Mystery Story: Alex Filippenko from the University of California, Berkeley delivers this lecture on one of the best-known thinkers and theorists of the 20th century. [Princeton]

Also, just up at Colliding Universes (and a chance to vote for Colliding Universes in the Canadian Blog Awards):

Not just aliens - the multiverse has gotta be out there too! (vote through a link here!)

Extraterrestrial life: Here's a story you could only read in New Scientist ...

The universe has the hallmarks of design and what can anyone do about it?

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).

Anna Patty, in the Sydney Morning Herald, reports that the state school registration and curriculum authority has investigated the teaching of creation theory in science classes at a Christian school.

The Board of Studies responded to a complaint about Pacific Hills Christian School in Dural, Australia.

The board referred the complaint to Christian Schools Australia, asking it to investigate.

The head of Christian Schools Australia, Stephen O'Doherty, said his organisation had found no reason for Pacific Christian School to lose its registration. "The whole thing is a complete furphy," he said. The school did not teach intelligent design or "creationism" - creation as scientific theory. He said the school had met the Board of Studies syllabus requirements in teaching evolution theory as science.

Interesting that a Christian school gets in trouble for alledgedly teaching ID.

More...

Peter Williams' ID.Plus blog reports on Bradley Monton's position on ID. Bradley Monton is a philosopher of science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has specialised in the philosophy of physics and the anthropic fine tuning argument. Prof. Monton thinks that Intelligent Design theory is science, and that its arguments have some force, although he is more impressed with ID arguments in physics than in biology. He is also an atheist.

Monton recently took part in a series of audio interviews with Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute Centre for Science.

More...

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

GATTACA, I keep telling you it's all over between us, we are not just our "genes." It's not even clear that there is a gene, in that sense.

But you are just so not listening ...

If you want to predict how tall your children might one day be, a good bet would be to look in the mirror, and at your mate. Studies going back almost a century have estimated that height is 80–90% heritable. So if 29 centimetres separate the tallest 5% of a population from the shortest, then genetics would account for as many as 27 of them1.

This year, three groups of researchers2,3,4 scoured the genomes of huge populations (the largest study4 looked at more than 30,000 people) for genetic variants associated with the height differences. More than 40 turned up.

But there was a problem: the variants had tiny effects. Altogether, they accounted for little more than 5% of height's heritability — just 6 centimetres by the calculations above. Even though these genome-wide association studies (GWAS) turned up dozens of variants, they did "very little of the prediction that you would do just by asking people how tall their parents are", says Joel Hirschhorn at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led one of the studies3.

[ ... ]

There could be scarier and more intractable reasons for unaccounted-for heritability that are not even being discussed. "It's a possibility that there's something we just don't fundamentally understand," Kruglyak says. "That it's so different from what we're thinking about that we're not thinking about it yet."

Still the mystery continues to draw its sleuths, for Kruglyak as for many other basic-research scientists. "You have this clear, tangible phenomenon in which children resemble their parents," he says. "Despite what students get told in elementary-school science, we just don't know how that works." (Personal genomes: The case of the missing heritability by Brendan Maher, Nature News (Published online 5 November 2008 | Nature 456, 18-21 (2008) | doi:10.1038/456018a)

See also:

Farewell, fat gene ... goodbye gay gene ... so long, sloppiness gene. And can someone please text Lamarck and tell him ...

Goodbye GATTACA: Environment and lifestyle affect which genes are actually expressed

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).

Ever since the 'anthropic principle' entered the language of science, the case for the universe having the hallmarks of design has become progressively stronger. There is a consensus in the thinking of physicists and cosmologists that far exceeds the alleged consensus about anthropogenic global warming, and also the alleged consensus that natural selection is the mechanism for explaining design in living things. Author Tim Folger elevates the principle to "an extraordinary fact" about the universe:

"Its basic properties are uncannily suited for life. Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way and - in this universe, anyway - life as we know it would not exist."

Is our universe one of an infinite series? (Source here)

Folger's article is based on an interview with physicist Andrei Linde, who says: "We have a lot of really, really strange coincidences, and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible." Many of these are sketched out for the benefit of readers, and Folger comments:

"There are many such examples of the universe's life-friendly properties - so many, in fact, that physicists can't dismiss them all as mere accidents."

If we apply Dembski's design filter approach, we have three avenues to explore: Law, Chance and Design. Law gets very little attention from Folger, despite the intense search for grand Unification Theories (GUT) or Theories of Everything (ToE). The reason is that GUT have not delivered. We cannot explain why the universe is like it is. No progress has been made in showing why the fine-tuning of fundamental constants should be a feature of the physical world. Indeed, the pendulum has swung away from GUT because of the interest in string theory - which has served to underline how extraordinary the evidences of fine-tuning actually are.

"[Polchinski and Bousso]calculated that the basic equations of string theory have an astronomical number of different possible solutions, perhaps as many as [10 to the power 1000]. Each solution represents a unique way to describe the universe."

This brings us straight to the Chance filter, and there is no shortage of people who are prepared to say how infinitesimally small the probability is for our universe to have the properties it does.

Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics. [. . .]
"If [dark energy] had been any bigger, there would have been enough repulsion from it to overwhelm the gravity that drew the galaxies together, drew the stars together, and drew Earth together," Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind says. "It's one of the greatest mysteries in physics. All we know is that if it were much bigger we wouldn't be here to ask about it."
Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, a physicist at the University of Texas, agrees. "This is the one fine-tuning that seems to be extreme, far beyond what you could imagine just having to accept as a mere accident," he says.

Scientists who have adopted the metaphysic of secularism and naturalism have no recourse to Design. According to their reasoning, something remarkable must overcome the mindnumbing improbability of our universe. Physicists with this mindset have given birth to the Multiverse Theory. They

"see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multiverse. Most of those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions suitable for life."

Which thought brings us to the third filter of Design. The argument is not based on ignorance but on evidence. We have good reasons to think that a ToE will never be forthcoming - there is no fundamental rationale for thinking that the universe and matter necessarily have the properties we observe. We have good reasons for thinking that Chance is not the answer, because the only way to persist with this explanation is to postulate an infinity of universes with different properties. We have no evidence to suggest that this option is anything more than science fiction. We have excellent reasons for thinking that Design is the answer because, without setting out to look for designed features, scientists have stumbled across them in abundance. Calling these evidences "fine tuning" points to something substantial. Were it not for the metaphysic of secularism, the design inference would be readily embraced.

"I don't think that the multiverse idea destroys the possibility of an intelligent, benevolent creator," Weinberg says. "What it does is remove one of the arguments for it, just as Darwin's theory of evolution made it unnecessary to appeal to a benevolent designer to understand how life developed with such remarkable abilities to survive and breed."
On the other hand, if there is no multiverse, where does that leave physicists? "If there is only one universe," Carr says, "you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don't want God, you'd better have a multiverse."

Design theory provides the best match with empirical science. If you have any doubts about the pervasive influence of secularisation within contemporary science, this multiverse debate should make the issues clear. Folger's article is very significant for spelling out the thinking of some of the leading figures in the scientific world. For a 2002 comment making the same point, go here. For a recent 2008 comment on these issues, go here.

Science's Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory
Tim Folger
Discover Magazine online, November 10, 2008

First para: A sublime cosmic mystery unfolds on a mild summer afternoon in Palo Alto, California, where I've come to talk with the visionary physicist Andrei Linde. The day seems ordinary enough. Cyclists maneuver through traffic, and orange poppies bloom on dry brown hills near Linde's office on the Stanford University campus. But everything here, right down to the photons lighting the scene after an eight-minute jaunt from the sun, bears witness to an extraordinary fact about the universe: Its basic properties are uncannily suited for life. Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way and - in this universe, anyway - life as we know it would not exist.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Was Darwin's horrid doubt just horrid - or a reasonable fear?:

... the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

I'd say that if his theory was true, horrid is a slam dunk (yes, you are an evolved monkey, and no, your thoughts do not mean anything).

But very little in science turned out to be what Darwin or his contemporaries thought.

Non-materialist neuroscientists think that your mind is real and that it helps shape your brain. It is not a mere illusion created by the workings of the brain.

Here are some excerpts from the afternoon panel of the Beyond the Mind-Body Problem symposium (September 11, 2008), sponsored by the Nour Foundation, UN-DESA, and the Universite de Montreal. The excerpts feature some interesting exchanges between a number of non-materialist neuroscientists.

Excerpts from the morning panel are here.

Both the morning and afternoon panels were televised and can be viewed here.

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).

Charles Garner, chemistry professor at Baylor University, is a guest columnist in the Waco Tribune-Herald.

He addresses worldviews. The other side usually cries foul, and uses the science - religion dichotomy when speaking on education issues.

Read the full opinion HERE.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

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

Now here's an exchange that caught my attention:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

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

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

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

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

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

Also just up at The Post-Darwinist:

One third of British teachers think ID or creationism okay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote from Michael Lynch:

"It has long been clear that much of what we see in biology cannot be explained in terms of natural selection alone, yet we continue to witness an unwarranted proliferation of adaptive stories, in some cases extremely bizarre ones, to explain every aspect of existing and extinct biodiversity. What needs to be accomplished will take more than 12 months. More realistically, it will require the education of a new generation of scientists in the basic principles of evolutionary theory that have emerged since Darwin."

Source: Darwin 200: Great expectations, Nature, 456, 317-318 (20 November 2008) | doi:10.1038/456317a

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

From the Discovery Institute:

Turning Darwin Day into AcademicFreedom Day

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

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

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

Video and Essay Contest: Grand Prize $500

All the details are here:

Who Is Eligible

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

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

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

Also just up at the Post-Darwinist:

We are 98 percent chimpanzee? Scratch that.

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

Painting with an undirected brush

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also just up at The Mindful Hack

Non-materialist neuroscience: Jeffrey Schwartz on business leadership

Multidirectional skepticism? - skepticism finding its true voice?

New Scientist hit piece an "unusually atrocious" article?

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

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

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mims said no.

Suddenly, the temperature plunged below freezing.

[ ... ]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 2005, I wrote about Forrest and Sarah here

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

[ ... ]

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

[ ... ]

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

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

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

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

LINK

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

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

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

More...

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are both the preface and the debate launch questions:

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

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

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

Also just up at The Post-Darwinist:

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

Infidel blogger awards ... Canadian blogger awards

Mark Steyn on Michael Crichton

Memory police - down the memory hole with YOU!

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

The biological world is full of remarkable nano-machines, each of which is breathtaking in complexity and elegance. Some are particularly worthy of note because they encapsulate design principles which we can appreciate relatively easily. Such is the case with the circadian clock of the prokaryotic cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongates. An informative review article about this subject has been recently published.

The cyanobacterial circadian clock elements
"The clock is composed of three proteins, KaiA, KaiB and KaiC, that together form a circadian clock. At the beginning of the cycle, KaiA (at the top) stimulates the large KaiC hexamer (center), which then adds phosphate groups to itself. Then, as KaiC fills itself up with phosphates, it binds to KaiB (bottom), which inactivates KaiA and allows the phosphates to be slowly removed. As the number of phosphates drops, KaiB falls off and KaiA can start the cycle again." (Source here)

"Cogs and Gears: The Kai Proteins"
The three Kai proteins make up the cogs and gears of the clock. The core is made of KaiC proteins, which alternate between two states: hypophosphorylated and hyperphosphorylated. The other two proteins promote changes between these states in a highly organised manner, based on reactions at specific sites - known as T432 and S431.

"[T]he KaiC phosphorylation cycle comprises four consecutive steps: (i) T432 phosphorylation, (ii) S431 phosphorylation, (iii) T432 dephosphorylation, and (iv) S431 dephosphorylation. This information provides the framework for a reanalysis of the Kai protein structures, suggesting how the in vitro clock might work."

"Why Biological Time Does Not Run Backward"
Research has identified numerous subtleties in the details of the phosphorylation reactions. These suggest reasons why the cycle only works in one direction.

"Overall, the structural information on the phosphorylation events at the KaiCII subunit interfaces and the inter- and intrasubunit interactions formed by the phosphorylated residues indicates that the number of hydrogen bonds increases as first T432 and subsequently S431 is phosphorylated. This progressive increase in molecular interaction would make the reverse reactions unfavorable, causing a built-in ratcheting mechanism that drives the KaiC oscillator unidirectionally."

"How Does This in Vitro Clockwork Tick?"
The researchers found that the protein assemblage could be made to function outside the cell. They have demonstrated that the circadian oscillations keep to time and provide the cell with a clock that does not get swamped by metabolic noise. Conseqently, even cell division does not disrupt the time-keeping: the daughter cells adopt the same time as the parent.

"The unexpected demonstration that KaiC's phosphorylation status continued to cycle when the three Kai proteins are combined in a test tube and ATP was added to provide energy shows that circadian oscillations are not absolutely dependent upon transcriptional and/or translational feedback."

The authors of the review paper set these fascinating details in an evolutionary context, but it should be pointed out that the research is about the operation of the clock, not its origin. Like so many other studies of this type, the evolutionary comments are a veneer on good science: they do not emerge from the research itself. Here are examples:

"The benefit of a clockwork that is imperturbable even when buffeted by the massive intracellular changes of cell division could have provided an evolutionary driving force for convergent circadian clock mechanisms among diverse organisms.
We now recognize KaiABC as a dynamically oscillating nanomachine that has evolved to precess unidirectionally and robustly."

It has not escaped the attention of ID scientists that this nano-molecular clock is the biological equivalent of Paley's watch. It has cogs and gears, it has a 1-way ratchet, it ticks accurately - and it is integrated into the transcription and translation feedback system of the cell. All this can be found in cyanobacteria that are often portrayed as examples of what "primitive" cells look like. Finding this molecular clock leads to a strong design inference, as is traced out by Rana here.

Structural Insights into a Circadian Oscillator
Carl Hirschie Johnson, Martin Egli, Phoebe L. Stewart.
Science 322, 31 October 2008, 697-701 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1150451

Abstract: An endogenous circadian system in cyanobacteria exerts pervasive control over cellular processes, including global gene expression. Indeed, the entire chromosome undergoes daily cycles of topological changes and compaction. The biochemical machinery underlying a circadian oscillator can be reconstituted in vitro with just three cyanobacterial proteins, KaiA, KaiB, and KaiC. These proteins interact to promote conformational changes and phosphorylation events that determine the phase of the in vitro oscillation. The high-resolution structures of these proteins suggest a ratcheting mechanism by which the KaiABC oscillator ticks unidirectionally. This posttranslational oscillator may interact with transcriptional and translational feedback loops to generate the emergent circadian behavior in vivo. The conjunction of structural, biophysical, and biochemical approaches to this system reveals molecular mechanisms of biological timekeeping.

See also:

Rana, F. A Biochemical Watch found in a Cellular Heath, Reasons to Believe, January 10th, 2008

A Review Of Sean Carroll's Presentation: 'Revisiting The Forensic Record Of Evolution'

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

Last month forensic scientists from all over the world convened in Hollywood for the 19th Annual Symposium On Human Identification. Notable amongst the talks was that of keynote speaker, molecular biologist Sean Carroll who kicked off the proceedings with a much anticipated presentation on how DNA had impacted our understanding of the evolution of life. One by one, he covered several examples that he claimed supported the purposeless meanderings of the Darwinian process.

First on Carroll's list was the ice fish- a rather curious creature that lives in the southern ocean close to Antarctica. For years scientists have puzzled over the finding that the blood of the ice fish is completely colorless- a feature not seen in any other living vertebrate. It turns out that only 1% of ice fish blood is actually made up of cells, a far cry from, say, the 40% cell content of human blood. What evolutionary advantage could be gained from fewer cells to carry the nourishment so vital for survival? Carroll argued that such a low cell content represented a key adaptation to the cold environment of the Antarctic waters. So the story goes, by carrying fewer cells, the resulting lower-viscosity blood could continue to flow even with the bitterly cold sea temperatures. The ice fish had seemingly evolved to withstand the harsh realities of its environment. Carroll turned to DNA evidence in support of his inference. While all other fish have two globin genes- alpha1 and beta globin- it turns out that ice fish carry a partly-deleted copy of alpha1 and lack the beta globin gene altogether. These deletions, Carroll commented, are inextricably linked to its lower blood viscosity and have seemingly produced a key adaptation in the ice fishes' fight for survival. Moreover, the ice fish carries a suite of anti-freeze proteins that, Carroll asserted, were co-opted from other proteins to suppress the growth of dangerous ice crystals in its gills.

Carroll's rendition of nature's ways continued unabated with his proclamation that the skin color of the Rock Pocket mouse in the Panacate lava flow of Arizona had similarly evolved in response to environmental cues. The foundations of this adaptation had everything to do with a gene called MCIR. It turns out that mice living on the dark larval soils of Panacate carry a 'dark' MCIR gene, hence their dark coat. Conversely the mice living on sand-colored soils carry a 'light' gene that gives them their characteristic sand-color. Once again Carroll gave the purposeless hand of evolution full credit for these differences, with variation by random mutation playing the lead role in bringing forth key evolutionary adaptations. And yet problematic for Carroll was the lack of a viable explanation for how genes such as MCIR as well as alpha1 and beta globin had arisen 'de novo' through natural processes (Ref 1). There was no evidence from the examples given that natural selection could do anything other than tinker with already-existing genetic information. Mutation and degradation, rather than construction and assembly, were words that Carroll used often during his discourse. As for his claims on co-opted proteins, one was left with the question of how mechanistically proteins could mutate and end up in just the right place elsewhere within the organismal 'milieu' to fulfill novel functions. As biochemist Michael Behe succinctly summarized, active proteins would be "ill suited for virtually any new role" (Ref 2, p. 66).

Resurrecting the iconic status of the deep sea coelacanth, Carroll went on to describe this creatures' inability to see in color, citing the degradation of a series of genes called opsins as the root cause of its visual deficiencies. So the story goes, since color was no longer discernible in the deepest recesses of our oceans, selective pressure to maintain color-seeing opsins in the coelacanth was no longer operational. By the same token, mutations in opsins appear to have given rise to the European kestrel's ability to visualize the UV reflection of rodent urine, providing it with important clues on the location of its prey. The same sort of reasoning lay behind the loss of functionality in the opsin genes of other animals such as the red-eyed owl monkey, the subterranean bush-baby and the blind vole rat. Indeed the 'use it or lose it' nature of these so-called fossil genes became Carroll's argument against intelligent design. After all, what designer in his right mind would place a multitude of non-functional genes into a genome?

Carroll's argument against design eschewed the real question of how genes came into existence through natural processes. There are no grounds for assuming that the processes through which genes might degrade are the same processes through which they could be built up (Ref 1). In simple terms, genes are long stretches of DNA that carry the information necessary to code for the production of functional proteins. Intelligent design theorists claim that a piece-meal assembly of information-rich genes using the basic building blocks of DNA exceeds the capacities of Darwinian selection and is better explained by appealing to the activity of an intelligent agent (Refs 3,4). If anything, this very principle should have been Carroll's first point of contention if he was to say anything against ID. From a philosophical perspective the possibility remains that a designer may have supplied an organism with more genetic information than may have been needed for life- what one may call an "all the options, all the bells and whistles" approach. Such a designer could have been interested in placing non-functional genes in the genome for a future role in his or her design. We all install software into our computers that may not be operational until some later date when we finally choose to use it. Computers can now be accurately scheduled to start a process at a specified instant in the future, similarly to the programming of a recording on a video-recorder.

One may rightly ask what evidence Carroll could furnish to support the premise that non-functional genes were necessarily derived from functional counterparts found elsewhere in nature. Indeed empirical evidence in support of an evolutionary continuum was severely lacking throughout the presentation. To be fair, Carroll did inject some much needed humor by showing a short clip of Aardman Animations' 'Creature Comforts On Evolution'. The images of talking animals explaining their evolutionary origins were received amidst bouts of laughter from the audience. And yet Carroll was unable to buttress up his non-design inference with any objective data. Indeed one can only imagine how things might have turned out if Intelligent Design supporters had been invited to present their side of the argument. In such a scenario, Carroll's case for fossil genes might have been shown to be nothing more than fossilized rhetoric.

References
1. A key point about the loss of function mutations is that no additional genetic sequences, and therefore no additional information, has been added to the gene involved. In his book 'Not By Chance', Lee Spetner notes how for the grand sweep of evolution to occur, information has to be built up.

2. Michael J Behe (1996), Darwin's Black Box-The Biochemical Challenges to Evolution 1st Edition Published by Simon and Schuster, New York

3. Stephen C. Meyer, Marcus Ross, Paul Nelson, and Paul Chien (2003), The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang p.367 (see http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=639)

4. Robert Deyes (2008), The Evolution Of An Alternative Theory: The Scientific Underpinnings of Intelligent Design, See
http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2008/06/11/the_evolution_of_an_alternative_theory_t

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

In 'Darwin? That's just the party line' (National Post, October 31, 2008) , retired Saskatoon-based journalist Wayne Eyre expresses his doubt about the new atheist movement and his appreciation for intelligent design theorist Mike Behe

That these gentlemen go on like this in the wake of, for example, biochemist Michael Behe's masterful Darwin's Black Box, in which he sets out a devastating case for the "irreducible complexity" of human systems, truly makes one wonder about the confidence they have in their own convictions.

, mystery academic Mike Gene,

For example, to avoid repercussions for not toeing the line, one biologist (rumoured to be an Ivy League professor) has taken on a pseudonym -- Mike Gene -- even though his book, The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues, neither denies evolution and common ancestry, nor claims to offer proof of intelligent design. He's just one of a number of scholars who cite peer-reviewed research to contend that a wholly random explanation for all of creation is, at best, implausible

and "Darwin skeptic" mathematician David Berlinksi,

And now comes along another tour de force -- David Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion: Atheism And Its Scientific Pretensions -- which, in 225 pages, delivers a formidable blow to the agreed-upon fictions that Darwin's theory and a deity-less cosmos increasingly appear to be.

I first read about The The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions in the National Review. Just before his recent death, William F. Buckley found the book to be "everything desirable; it is idiomatic, profound, brilliantly polemical, amusing and of course vastly learned"; and when George Gilder, co-founder of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, declared it "the definitive book of the millennium," I was hooked in to read it.

.

Who is Wayne Eyre? And what is the world coming to? Are Canadians actually allowed to doubt Darwin now? But then, come to think of it, the Calgary Herald printed my op-ed, "Albertans are right to reject Darwinian evolution (August 17, 2008), and that rag's in the same stable as the Post. Perhaps it occurred to someone there that, so long as it is safe and legal to read thoughtful books, many Canadians know why Darwinism is a crock - and so much the worse for papers where no such arguments may be aired.

This isn't necessarily good news for me, you know. Here in Canada, I had this beat pretty much sewn up for years, and it's been good to me. Now I'll have competition from people who read, write, and think, rather than attacks from threatened ass hats letting off steam. On the other hand, I won't be lonely, so in the end this is way better for me.

See also:

My reviewof Mike Behe's Edge of Evolution.

My summary of George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

Also just up at the Post-Darwinist:

Intelligent design and popular culture: Going all "viral" on the Explore Evolution text

Catholic Church and evolution: Exquisite pleasure in skinning a cat?

Richard Dawkins to write "improving" children's literature

Do we belittle God by calling him an intelligent designer?

Darwinism and popular culture: Op-ed writer in Canada's National Post doubts Darwin

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

Friend Malcolm Chisholm, who has a wonderful approach to information (= he reads a lot) writes to tell me of a book written by Alfred Russel Wallace (Darwin's co-theorist) on the question of the habitability of Mars:

It is called "Is Mars Habitable?" It was written in 1907 when Wallace was living in Broadstone, Dorset (where I went to school).

Wallace takes on Percival Lowell, a supreme icon of American astronomy. Lowell thought there were Martians and they used canals etc. Wallace blows up this theory, ending the book with the statement:

"Mars, therefore, is not only uninhabited by intelligent beings such as Mr. Lowell postulates, but is absolutely UNINHABITABLE."

Remember that Wallace has been derided for his beliefs in ID and spiritualism. Yet he was obviously not afraid to go against the scientific speculative spirit of the age.

Indeed. The introduction to the 1907 edition, scanned online, editor Charles H. Smith notes,

For many years one of Wallace's least remembered books, Is Mars Habitable? is increasingly being recognized as one of the first examples of the proper application of the scientific method to the study of extraterrestrial atmospheres and geography--that is, as one of the pioneer works in the field of exobiology.

Here is Wallace's conclusion:

To put the whole case in the fewest possible words:

(1) All physicists are agreed that, owing to the distance of Mars from the sun, it would have a mean temperature of about -35ÌŠ F. (= 456ÌŠ F. abs.) even if it had an atmosphere as dense as ours.

(2) But the very low temperatures on the earth under the equator, at a height where the barometer stands at about three times as high as on Mars, proves, that from scantiness of atmosphere alone Mars cannot possibly have a temperature as high [[p. 110]] as the freezing point of water; and this proof is supported by Langley's determination of the low maximum temperature of the full moon.

The combination of these two results must bring down the temperature of Mars to a degree wholly incompatible with the existence of animal life.

(3) The quite independent proof that water-vapour cannot exist on Mars, and that therefore, the first essential of organic life--water--is non-existent.

The conclusion from these three independent proofs, which enforce each other in the multiple ratio of their respective weights, is therefore irresistible--that animal life, especially in its higher forms, cannot exist on the planet.

Mars, therefore, is not only uninhabited by intelligent beings such as Mr. Lowell postulates, but is absolutely UNINHABITABLE.

What made Wallace so unpopular compared to Darwin is that he insisted that in science, evidence matters. Carl Sagan-style proclamations like "They're out there! How could we be so arrogant as to think we are all alone!" do not become science just because they are proclaimed by scientists.

See also:

Boldly go, but why, exactly?

Extraterrestrials: Several million UFOs later - the state of the question

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've been neglecting this blog for a while, mainly due to a ton of other work, and certainly not because there aren't universes in collision out there. Recently, Oxford's acclaimed physicist Roger Penrose, speaking at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, advanced the notion of cyclical universes as more satisfactory than the now conventional Big Bang theory.

In "The big bounce vs. the big bang" National Post (October 3, 2008), Joseph Brean reports,

"The universe seems to go through cycles of some kind ... Our universe is what I call an aeon in an endless sequence of aeons," ...

He described data he received just this week that appears to show traces of the previous aeon in the microwave background radiation that fills the universe and is regarded as the lingering "flash" of the Big Bang. If it actually does, a lot of science will have to be reconsidered.

But no one gasped in awe. There were no hoots of surprise, no muttering about this seeming heresy, this contradiction of everything the general public thinks they know about the creation of the universe -- that it happened just the once, about 14 billion years ago, when space and time exploded together out of a single point, infinitely hot and dense, called a singularity. There is not supposed to be any such thing as before the Big Bang. Eternal cycles, Sir Roger? What are you, Hindu?

Penrose is not Hindu, but the idea is Hindu (and Buddhist), and it is a very old one. As Brean explains,

They all seem to be describing something very close to the account in the Hindu Rig Veda of a universe that is cyclically born and dies, each lasting a little over four million years, and representing a day in the life of the deity Brahma, or Buddhism's mahakalpa, the "great eon" between destruction and rebirth.

Brean wonders whether the aeons idea might undermine the Catholic Church’s comfortable relationship with physics. The Church, after all, teaches that the universe did have a beginning, and - not surprisingly, perhaps - it was Belgian priest Georges LeMaitre (1894-1966), who originated the Big Bang theory, which is now the dominant one.

By contrast, the Dalai Lama acknowledges that a beginning to the universe is a problem for Eastern faiths:

From the Buddhist perspective, the idea that there is a single definite beginning is highly problematic. If there were such an absolute beginning, logically speaking, this leaves only two options. One is theism, which proposes that the universe is created by an intelligence that is totally transcendent, and therefore outside the laws of cause and effect. The second option is that the universe came into being from no cause at all. Buddhism rejects both these options. (The Universe in a Single Atom P. 82)

Penrose apparently disclaimed any theological interest to Brean,

Sir Roger was quick to point out that such theological coincidences do not figure in his research. They are no more than pleasing curiosities.

With due respect to Sir Roger, I do not believe that. Such disclaimers belong in the same category as journalists' claims to be "objective": they never have been true and never could be.

Discomfort with the Big Bang theory - for essentially theological/philosophical reasons goes back right to its origin:

Lemaître’s theory was revolutionary. It overturned a century and a half of science.
Initially, many scientists did not like the theory much, and some, like Arthur Eddington (1882–1944), said so. His comment was: "Philosophically, the notion of a beginning to the present order is repugnant to me. I should like to find a genuine loophole." To most scientists of the day, it sounded too much like religion. Thus, Lemaitre, a priest, was in the unusual position of trying to focus attention on the science that supported his idea, while many atheists were more concerned with the religious implications. This odd turnabout continues to the present day, as we will see. (Pp. 2-3 By Design or by Chance?)

The Large Hadron Collider broke some magnets and is out till mid next year, so it will b e some months whether we know if Penrose's "traces of the previous aeon" are vital evidence or faces in the clouds.

See also: Like clouds in our coffee ... all these other universes

Also just up at Collliding Universes:

A theory of "almost" everything is the best we can do?

Quantum mechanics and popular culture: Artist's kit offers chance to produce trillions of new universes

Alfred Russel Wallace on why Mars is not habitable

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

A few days ago, a friend alerted me to an interesting development: In its Perspectives section, New Scientist - the National Enquirer of popular science magazines - had published a hit piece on the non-materialist neuroscientists, including Mario Beauregard, my lead author on The Spiritual Brain. ("Creationists declare war over the brain" Amanda Gefter, 22 October 2008)

Non-materialists, essentially, think that your mind really exists; it is not simply an illusion created by the buzz of neurons in your brain. In fact, your mind is one of the key factors that shape your brain. On the medical side, non-materialist neuroscientists use this fact to alleviate illnesses such as obsessive compulsive disorder and phobias. They have good evidence for their case, and that is addressed here in an introduction to a recent symposium at the UN in New York. This post, however, will focus on the hit piece.

For me, the New Scientist piece was a gift. I sometimes teach non-fiction news writing. And it struck me as an excellent teaching opportunity ("the structure and function of the irresponsible hit piece, unpacked"). Of course, I mean to discourage my students from investing time or energy in such enterprises.

This piece is especially useful for two reasons: As Beauregard's co-author, I happen to know about non-materialist neuroscience already. So I need no research project to uncover the misrepresentations. Second, this piece is a very conventional example of the "hit" genre. That means I don't need to keep stopping and saying, "But, students, please note that this particular feature is rare."

Best of all, if I unpack this story now for interested Mindful Hack readers, I can save time in June by just dusting it off for Write! Canada. So, let's have a look.

Sections

1 Scare their pants off before they even start reading: The art of the panic headline

2 Reveal that a popular villain is behind it all (cue "evil" music)

3 Haul out the goblins that scared them before Haul out the goblins that scared them before

4 Context reduces fear. So get rid of context

5 Finally, an idea! Wow, a real idea! But wait ...

6 Scare their pants back on again and send them out to raise hell about stuff they know nothing about

Next: 1 Scare their pants off before they even start reading: The art of the panic headline

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).

Scientists should always state the opinions upon which their facts are based. ~Author Unknown

Oh boy. Here we go again. About once a year some science organization trots out a token "religious person" to insult the public by insisting that Darwinism and "faith" can coexist. This time it's Scientific American under the title The Christian Man's Evolution: How Darwinism and Faith Can Coexist. Without exception Scientific American and other institutions of mainstream science driven to such patronizing spend the intervening 364 days bemoaning every mention of intelligent design and demeaning every true scientist not afraid to infer the logical inference of design in nature. With genuine abhorrence in every word, institutions of science criticize intelligent design as nothing more than "creationism warmed over" and those who support it as guilty of . . . well, letting faith and science coexist. And yet these high-minded low downs who will ruin the career of any teacher even attempting to hint at intelligent design in the classroom nevertheless have the impudence to lecture the rest of us on the topic of their faith.

Before getting too exercised over the effrontery displayed by today's closed minded free thinkers, consider that the same logic used by Scientific American could be used to support the following headlines: How the Killing of Unborn Babies and Faith Can Coexist or How the Killing of Races We Don't Like and Faith Can Coexist or How Ruining Lives and Careers of Darwin Doubters and Faith Can Coexist or even How the Sacrifice of Virgins and Faith Can Coexist. You see, for every abhorrent practice and dangerous idea there is a "faith" with which it can co-exist. The question is simply which faith. And must we all be subject not only to the suffocating science but also to the offensive faith of those who deny intelligent design?

Scientific American's token de l'annee is Francisco J. Ayala, smiling from the page as one who has made a career of "proselytizing about evolution to Christian believers," and shamelessly proffered to us as a living example of the critical "how" of a Darwinism-faith coexistence. Never mind for the moment what one who lives to proselytize Christian believers would have to say about faith that has any true meaning; the thing speaks for itself. But consider from the atheist's perspective what a fantastic find is this pawn Ayala. More than a garden-variety tare among wheat such as the many prominent yet otherwise unremarkable "religious people" who deny that creation points to a creator, Ayala is an ordained Dominican priest. Such an abstruse status offers little more than token value to Darwinists but holds a certain esoteric panache among Christians, making Ayala a more curious catch, something akin to the oddity of a figless fig tree.

Not surprisingly, Ayala's "reconciliation" of faith and science is no more than an arbitrary requirement that both be strictly naturalistic, that is, letting neither be informed by the strong inference in nature of true, intelligent design. With that kind of reconciliation it's also not surprising that Ayala is "unwilling to affirm or deny a personal belief in God" and refers instead "to science-savvy Christian theologians who present a God that is continuously engaged in the creative process through undirected natural selection." Such tenuous wordplay satisfies only those taken captive by hollow philosophy because theologians of this kind are unlikely to be truth-savvy and cannot be Christians. Material evidence points unmistakably to a creator, not away, and Christians by definition are followers of Christ, who is the very creator God that nature attests to but which they deny. Just how are God- and evidence-denying theologians "savvy"?

And Christian or not, anyone who swallows Ayala's "science-savvy" line of reasoning lacks rational thinking ability. Like referring to an artist "continually engaged in the creative process through an undirected paintbrush," such a thought is pure sophistry, disconnected from any rational reality. The foisting of such silliness upon us all is exactly why, as the Scientific American article states, "convincing most of the American public [of the ability for Darwinism and faith to coexist] remains the challenge." Despite the best of Darwinists' exoteric ramblings, most Americans still think right. You might say we are designed that way.

One thing is for certain: faith in a creative God who created man in His image ex nihilo cannot coexist with a science that demands belief only in an unguided, purposeless process to miraculously turn nothing into something, and something into someone. And it's that faith that Darwinists ridicule and it's that faith that threatens the faith belief of every Darwinist--a faith belief for which there is no evidence--that an unintelligent process produced from eternal matter the requisite voluminous genetic information to build every new and useful feature of every living being. Richard Dawkins, a man admirable only for his consistency and right thinking on this point, would agree: there is simply no argument to be made that Darwinian faith and a faith in the creative God of the Bible can be rationally reconciled. And to humbly adapt phraseology from this source of limited admiration, it is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims that faith can coexist with naturalistic (unguided, purposeless) Darwinism, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).

The tragic irony is that it's that faith that aligns best with the material evidence in nature; there is simply no scientific reason to deny the creative work of a creative God. All of nature cries out intelligent design, and acknowledging such does nothing to hinder science or scientist. But insisting on denying intelligent design by saying (as did DNA co-discoverer Francis Crick) ignorant things like "biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see is not designed, but rather evolved," only serves to widen the divide between dogmatic materialist scientists and an open-minded, reasonable public.

It's time to drop the artificial "faith versus science" debate, and face the true conflict: science in the service of naturalism versus science in the service of truth. After all, everyone has faith. And either one's science will inform faith, in which the unmistakable material evidence of design in nature will lead to a natural faith consideration of an intelligent designer, or faith will inform science, in which a non-belief in a creative God will lead to stupid statements about a creator creating through undirected processes.

Please, dogmatic science institutions, until you are ready for real dialog on true faith and true science, spare us your tokens.

Roddy Bullock is a freelance writer and the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio 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) 2008 Roddy M. Bullock, all rights reserved. Quotes and links permitted with attribution.

References:

The Christian Man's Evolution: How Darwinism and Faith Can Coexist, Scientific American, October, 2008. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-christian-mans-evolution

Richard Dawkins quote: Richard Dawkins, review of Blueprints by Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey, New York Times, April 9, 1989, sec. 7, p. 34. http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/Reviews/1989-04-09review_blueprint.shtml

Francis Crick quote ("Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see is not designed, but rather evolved.") from Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit (New York: BasicBooks, 1988), p. 138.

It has long been recognised that Darwinists love to propose adaptationist stories about the origins of particular traits. Very few of them have the word "spandrel" in their working dictionaries. The Neanderthal nose has been considered as an adaptive structure: there must be a reason why Neanderthals had such big noses.

This gent uses XXL tissues. (Source here)

Some years ago, during a study of Neanderthal skulls, Schwartz and Tattersall identified "two triangular bony projections jutting into the front of the nasal cavity from either side". This was considered significant.

"Jeffrey Laitman, an anatomist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York who has been studying Neanderthal anatomy, thinks the bony structures probably helped Neanderthals breathe the cold air of Ice Age Europe. The jutting projections, Laitman suggests, could have provided more surface area on which to lay down mucosal coverings to warm and humidify cold, dry air before it reached the throat and lungs. Previous studies have suggested that the large sinus cavities of Neanderthals served a similar function." (Source here)

So, the argument went, the extra surface area was a more efficient heat transfer mechanism, allowing air to be warmed and humidified more effectively before reaching the lungs. This benefit was of adaptive significance to the Neanderthals, and natural selection ensured that the genetic instructions for making these large noses were passed on to subsequent generations. In a Commentary essay, Laitman et al. (1996) thought they were on to something really important:

"The acquisition and processing of oxygen and its by-products the primary mission of any air-breathing vertebrate. Chewing, walking, reproducing, thinking are all fine, but first one has to breathe. Anthropologists sometimes seem to forget this; evolution never does." [snip]
"[. . .] the overall Neanderthal anatomy suggests a group that relied more heavily upon the nasal rather than the oral route for respiration then do living humans. These specializations were very possibly due to respiratory-related adaptations to their environment. [. . .]"
"Although the exact function(s) of mammalian paranasal sinuses remains unclear, and have indeed become the focus of much recent study, it is likely that in Neanderthals they played at least some part in an air-exchange process, perhaps in warming and humidifying cold and dry air."

Notwithstanding all this, some remained unconvinced about the "respiratory-related adaptations". Callaway writes:

"The Neanderthal nose has been a matter of befuddlement for anthropologists, who point out that modern cold-adapted humans have narrow noses to moisten and warm air as it enters the lung, and reduce water and heat loss during exhalation. Big noses tend to be found in people whose ancestor's evolved in tropical climates, where a large nasal opening helps cool the body."

These scholars regarded the Neanderthal nose as an anomaly. Their preferred explanation was that a big nose goes with a big mouth and a wide jaw. In their view, Neanderthal features were all big, and this was sufficient to explain the facial features.

"To put this theory to the test, [Nathan Holton] and University of Iowa colleague Robert Franciscus, measured facial dimensions in dozens of Neanderthals and humans, ancient and modern. By correlating changes in the size of nose width, the distance between canine teeth, and other features, the researchers could determine whether or not big mouths went with big noses."

The results do not confirm the hypothesis. The researchers "found a slight link between nose and mouth, but not enough to explain Neanderthal noses. However, another measurement - the degree to which the face juts forward - seemed a better match for nose width." This suggests a developmental constraint rather than an adaptation.

Why, then, do Neanderthals have faces that jut further out than humans? "They had them because earlier hominids had them," Houlton says. He laments the tendency of some anthropologists to "atomise the body", and explain each of its part as an exquisite adaptation to an environment.

One additional research finding puts a different light on the adaptationist story noted above: "Fortunately for Neanderthals, their inner noses were narrower than the openings suggest, and therefore well adapted to bone-chilling winters." The moral of this incident seems to be: do not trust adaptationists who "atomise" the body and propose just-so stories for particular elements. Organisms are not collections of discrete elements but should be considered holistically. Evolutionary biologists have drunk too deeply at the well of reductionism.

The paradox of a wide nasal aperture in cold-adapted Neandertals: a causal assessment
Nathan E. Holton and Robert G. Franciscus
Journal of Human Evolution, Article in Press | doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.07.001

Abstract: Neandertals have been characterized as possessing features indicative of cold-climate adaptation largely based on ecogeographical morphological patterning found in recent humans. Interestingly, one character that deviates from this pattern is a relatively wide nasal aperture. The ecogeographical patterning of the nasal aperture in recent humans would predict instead that Neandertals should exhibit reduced nasal breadth dimensions. [. . .] The results of these analyses indicate a weaker association between intercanine breadth and nasal breadth than expected, and that more variation in nasal breadth can be explained through basion-prosthion length rather than anterior palatal breadth dimensions. Moreover, the ontogenetic development of anterior palate breadth does not correspond to the growth trajectory of the breadth of the nose. These results explain the apparent paradox of wide piriform apertures in generally cooler climate-adapted Neandertals without resorting to dentognathic constraints, and provide additional insight into both the adaptive and nonadaptive (i.e., neutral) basis for Neandertal facial evolution.

See also:

Callaway, E. Why did Neanderthals have such big noses?, New Scientist, 27 October 2008

Laitman, J.T., Reidenberg, J.S., Marquez, S. and Gannon, P.J., What the nose knows: new understandings of Neanderthal upper respiratory tract specializations, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1996 93(20), 10543-10545.

Schwartz J.H. and Tattersall, I., Significance of some previously unrecognized apomorphies in the nasal region of Homo neanderthalensis, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1996 93(20), 10852-10854.

Whenever biochemist Michael Behe's argument for design from "irreducibly complex" molecular machines appears, there is a Darwinist waiting in the wings with a devastating critique (or so he thinks).

More on ENV...

In ENV...science standards review processes always seem to send Darwinists into a misinformation flurry. The current review of Texas' standards is no exception. Josh Rosenau has a post up recently attacking Casey Luskin that has a number of errors. Josh is in elite company, as these are the very same errors that spread like the flu through the main stream media last spring. At that time we reported how the New York Times and Washington Post, among others, were misreporting the facts about "strengths and weaknesses" language in the Texas science standards.

More...

In The Spectator (UK), Melanie Phillips reports on the latest Dawkins-Lennox debate.

Phillips attended the debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox at Oxford's Natural History Museum. This was the second public encounter between the two men, but it turned out to be very different from the first. Lennox is the Oxford mathematics professor whose book, God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? is to my mind an excoriating demolition of Dawkins's overreach from biology into religion as expressed in his book The God Delusion - all the more devastating because Lennox attacks him on the basis of science itself. In the first debate Dawkins was badly caught off-balance by Lennox's argument precisely because, possibly for the first time, he was being challenged on his own chosen scientific ground.

The latest debate, however, was different because from the off Dawkins moved it onto safer territory - and at the very beginning made a most startling admission. He said...

"A serious case could be made for a deistic God."

This was surely remarkable.

More...

William Dembski and Sean McDowell did a seminar on understanding Intelligent Design. This is based on their new book. Below is the link for the mp3.

LINK

by Kevin Wirth
ARN Director of Product Development

It looks like the fallout from the movie "Expelled" is stimulating many critics to rehash the same old baloney I've been reading in other sources, which includes some rather spectacularly vacuous comments. Take for example the 10+ page hatchet job Michael Shermer and friends are peddling in their latest issue of SKEPTIC magazine (Volume 14, No. 2). In that issue, Shermer and his minions downplay the significance of the ongoing discrimination dished out to Drs. Richard Sternberg, Caroline Crocker, Guillermo Gonzalez and others. For today, I'm just going to focus on SKEPTIC's coverage of the controversy surrounding Caroline Crocker's contract with George Mason University (GMU).

Carrie Sager and Andrea Bottaro team up on page 59 (The Expelled Case of Caroline Crocker: Academic Freedom Martyr or Pseudoscience Hack? ) to let their readers know that Caroline Crocker shouldn't have been so disappointed to find her contract terminated because, after all, "the facts show that her contracts were allowed to continue through their natural terms and simply were not renewed." I suspect this is the spin handed out by GMU to Sager and Bottaro, who then sympathetically put on a sad face and remark that "Although this indeed must have been disappointing for Dr. Crocker, it is certainly not uncommon."

True enough - teaching contracts DO generally come with an expiration date, and when they do expire it should come as no surprise to anyone. However, did these two reporters do their due diligence on this story? Doesn't look to me like they did. Did they dig deep enough to discern whether Crocker found herself in a hostile work environmnt? Did they uncover anything that might even suggest anyone had it in for her? They appear to have missed the most important aspect of what allegedly transpired with Dr. Crocker's contract dispute at GMU. There are some very important elements of Dr. Crocker's story they somehow failed to uncover and report on for their SKEPTIC magazine readers.

According to documents I have read, Dr. Crocker was evidently the victim of a bait-and-switch ploy in which GMU first presented her with a three year contact, and then modified that agreement to just one year without any discussion or consent from her. Many of the details concerning this matter are well documented in a LETTER dated August 15, 2005 from Dr. Crocker's former attorney Ed Sisson to GMU President Dr. Alan G. Merten. That letter alleges that the new one-year contract was supposed to make a simple adjustment with regard to additional teaching responsibilities she had agreed to undertake, however, the timeframe of that new contract had also (unknown to Crocker) been reduced from three years to one. According to the Sisson letter, Crocker signed the new contract, assuming that the three year term that had been offered to her in the earlier contract was still in place.

So, while what Sager and Bottaro reported was technically true (Crocker's new contract DID run for a one-year term), it appears that they have fallen far short of informing their readers about the whole story. If the terms of the new contract were changed in the manner claimed in Sisson's letter, then it was not just a simple matter of her suffering a small dose of disappointment. In fact, if the version of these events in Sisson's letter are accurate, it dramatically changes the entire account of what happened from a simple contract expiration to a much more sinister example of deception and discrimination. Had Sager and Bottaro bothered to contact either Mr. Sisson or Dr. Crocker before publishing their article, perhaps this all-important document (and other supporting docs) might have surfaced and spared SKEPTIC's reporters from unnecessary embarassment.

If this presumptive style of fact gathering and reporting holds true for whatever else Shermer and Co. put together in this issue of SKEPTIC magazine, then I shudder to think about any additional "facts" that managed to escape their notice. I guess it's easy to write an article where the "facts" conveniently seem to align with their presumptions of Crocker's naivete. No need to dig further if it looks like she was simply disappointed because her contract expired. Happens all the time, right?

Meanwhile, as Shermer and other critics continue to dismiss the claims of discrimination as unsubstantiated, thousands of competent and qualified scientists, professors, and students continue to be harassed and discriminated against all across the USA for the crime of being a Darwin Doubter.

For readers who would like to find out more about what happened to Drs. Crocker and Gonzalez, and many others who have suffered discrimination for being Darwin skeptics, I recommend grabbing a copy of "Slaughter of
the Dissidents," which can be ordered here. Readers looking for more information about Crocker and other victims of similar discrimination can find it here.

Take in the You-Tube video of Caroline Crocker's former attorney Ed Sisson as he talks about her case in May of 2006.

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," which documents her experience as an Expelled University professor -- scheduled to be released sometime in 2009.

To read more essays by Kevin Wirth, click here.

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

Can the Catholic Church believe in God and Darwin?

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

I am shortly going to be writing several posts about the Catholic Church, Darwinism, and intelligent design. But first, a note about the stories you may hear in the Catholic press: Caution is well advised.

Few Catholic press reporters know much about the actual arguments and evidence in the intelligent design controversy. Most get stuck on fatuities like "There's no conflict between faith and science" and ambiguities like "The Catholic Church supports evolution." So they seldom have any idea what the critical issues really are.

Two of the most critical issues are, "What does it mean to believe in God" and "What does it mean to believe in the soul, as our immaterial and immortal nature?" Thus, you will hear truly staggering statements like along the lines of "The Church can believe in God - and Darwin too!"

Anyone who says that - or anything like it - simply doesn't understand the issue, and you can safely forecast that anything else you hear from them will be a timewaster.

Can the Church believe in God and Darwin too?

Darwinism is an attempt to explain of how the human being, including the human mind (and religion, of course), can come into existence without any purpose at all, let alone input from God. That is the nub of Darwin's theory, a point that is emphasized repeatedly in the evolutionary biology literature.

Now, suppose the Church decides that Darwin and his modern day fans are right. Can Catholics go on believing in God? Yes, but what belief in God means becomes radically different in that case. As Logan Gage says, the explanation for religious beliefs is that

They must have had survival value at some point in the past; or, alternatively, .. , religion does not have direct survival value but is a by-product of something else that does have survival value. (Note: - from a review of Intelligent Design: William A. Dembski & Michael Ruse in Dialogue, Journal of Lutheran Ethics, October 2008.)

So religion evolved either because it has survival value or because it is associated with other types of behaviour that have survival value. That is the explanation for it.

Of course, you may hear a pundit crow happily that "our wonderful God worked through evolution! He gave religion survival value! Thus we evolved to know that religion is true!"

Talk about missing the point ...

The Darwinian explanation does not explain religious belief, it explains it away . It removes any reason for supposing that the reason that we believe in God is that God actually exists and has revealed himself to us. From Gage again:

arns that particular religious belief X came about because we used to run from lions on the savannah, X loses its justification. I did not come to believe X by any sort of rational or designed process; rather, I believe X because my evolutionary history gave me a tendency to believe X.

Darwin himself grasped this problem:

... the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

Can you still believe in God or revelation? Yes, but your belief becomes the intellectual equivalent of smoking pot. You evolved in such a way that belief turns you on. That, in sum, is the reason for the strong appeal of Darwin's theory to atheists.

And what abut the existence of the soul?

The evidence for the Darwinian theory of the origin of the human mind or of religion is very poor, as Mario Beauregard and I noted in The Spiritual Brain. Nonetheless, some Christians in science would very much like the Church to embrace it. I don't think that likely because the Catholic Church is not well suited to the radical materialism that would result. Here, for example, is a must-read New York Times article spelling that out exactly:

That is the nub of the issue, according to Nancey Murphy, a philosopher at Fuller Theological Seminary who has written widely on science, religion and the soul. Challenges to the uniqueness of humanity in creation are just as alarming as the Copernican assertion that Earth is not the center of the universe, she writes in her book “Bodies and Souls or Spirited Bodies?” (Cambridge, 2006). Just as Copernicus knocked Earth off its celestial pedestal, she said, the new findings on cognition have displaced people from their “strategic location” in creation.

Another theologian who has written widely on the issue, John F. Haught of Georgetown University, said in an interview that “for many Americans the only way to preserve the discontinuity that’s implied in the notion of a soul, a distinct soul, is to deny evolution,” which he said was “unfortunate.”

The solution, in some folks' view, is to affirm "evolution" and deny the soul. Making clear to Catholics that there is no such thing as a soul could be bad PR, however. But there is another way: To define the soul in such a way that there is no reason to believe that it really exists. That is Ken Miller's strategy here:

For scientists who are people of faith, like Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown University, asking about the science of the soul is pointless, in a way, because it is not a subject science can address.

“Everything we know about the biological sciences says that life is a phenomenon of physics and chemistry, and therefore the notion of some sort of spirit to animate it and give the flesh a life really doesn’t fit with modern science,” said Dr. Miller, a Roman Catholic whose book, “Finding Darwin’s God” (Harper, 1999) explains his reconciliation of the theory of evolution with religious faith. “However, if you regard the soul as something else, as you might, say, the spiritual reflection of your individuality as a human being, then the theology of the soul it seems to me is on firm ground.”

That will go over better with Catholics who do not like to think much.

As a matter of fact, materialist Christians will need to fudge a lot over the next few years to make their case because the younger generation of John Paul II Catholics are not even modernists, let alone materialists. So don't be surprised if you seldom hear the conflict set out clearly in the Catholic media.

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).

According to Jeffrey L. Bada, marine chemist and origin-of-life researcher, "Stanley Miller was the father of origin-of-life chemistry. And he was the leader in that field for many decades [. . .]. It was the Miller experiment that almost overnight transformed the study of the origin of life into a respectable field of inquiry." From there, it entered the textbooks - and although the academic world moved on in its thinking, the textbooks never ceased to present Miller's findings as a major milestone in the quest for a natural origin of life. This research was analysed by Jonathan Wells in his Icons of Evolution and the textbooks were shown to have selectively reported the research and to have almost completely omitted reference to any of the academic critiques of Miller's work.

New tests on old samples reveal new reaction products but nothing to advance the "life assembled itself" paradigm (Source here)

Miller devoted his research activity to building on his 1953 foundations - but without a lot to show for it.

But Miller's ultimate goal, the creation of a living organism in a test tube, eluded him and other researchers. "Making the amino acids made it seem like the rest of the steps would be very easy," he said in a 1996 interview with Reuters. "It's turned out that it's more difficult than I thought it would be". (Source here)

Miller thought he was looking for the "little trick" that would allow amino acids to self-assemble further, but after a life-time's work might have concluded that a paradigm shift was needed. Other researchers developed the concept of self-assembly, notably Sidney W. Fox - the champion of "microspheres". Whereas Miller needed a wet atmosphere to form amino acids, researchers making proteins (forming peptide bonds between amino acids) needed localities that were dry. Miller himself saw the weaknesses of locating the action near a volcanic vent. It might be dry, but the heat energy would prohibit further self-assembly:

More recently, some scientists - such as German chemist Gunter Wachtershauser - have argued that life was more likely to have originated near submarine vents in chemical processes catalyzed by metals. "I have a very simple response to that," Miller said. "Submarine vents don't make organic compounds; they decompose them," because most of the crucial compounds are unstable at high temperatures." (Source here)

Jeffrey Bada, who was once a student of Miller, inherited Miller's archive of materials produced by his many experiments. With others, Bada used modern, more sensitive equipment to analyse the reaction products. He reports finding many new reaction products at levels too low to be detected by Miller, and particular attention is focused on the volcanic experiments.

"We identified 22 amino acids and five amines in the volcanic experiment, several of which had not been previously identified in Miller's experiments. Vials from the other two experiments were also reanalyzed and found to have a lower diversity of amino acids. The yield of amino acids synthesized in the volcanic experiment is comparable to, and in some cases exceeds, those found in the experiments Miller conducted."

A critique of the findings can be found here and here and a more broadly-based assessment is here.
To be realistic, most people in the academic world have moved on. They are looking elsewhere - in many different directions. This blog has drawn attention to some of the challenges and unsolved problems here and here, notably the total inability of researchers to move beyond chemistry to address the information content of all living things.
Rather than rehearse these arguments again, it might be more effective to draw attention to a recent debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox at Oxford's Natural History Museum. Melanie Phillips was there and asked Dawkins some probing questions. Among the responses was this:

"Dawkins told me that, rather than believing in God, he was more receptive to the theory that life on earth had indeed been created by a governing intelligence - but one which had resided on another planet. Leave aside the question of where that extra-terrestrial intelligence had itself come from, is it not remarkable that the arch-apostle of reason finds the concept of God more unlikely as an explanation of the universe than the existence and plenipotentiary power of extra-terrestrial little green men?"

It is now apparent that the hypothesis of "life assembled itself" is bankrupt. Most Origin-of-Life researchers realise this and acknowledge that they are dealing with an indescribably low probability occurrence. Some are prepared to move the problem away from planet Earth to some galactic haven where this improbable event actually occurred - leading eventually to intelligent life and their subsequent seeding of life on Earth. Those who are sympathetic to pangenesis, apparently including Richard Dawkins, at least recognise the problems for abiogenesis theories. I ask - when will this message get a proper place in the textbooks? How long will students be told that important discoveries are just around the corner? Why are students not being fed the truth about what abiogenesis research has actually achieved?

The Miller Volcanic Spark Discharge Experiment
Adam P. Johnson, H. James Cleaves, Jason P. Dworkin, Daniel P. Glavin, Antonio Lazcano, Jeffrey L. Bada
Science 321, 17 October 2008: 404. | DOI: 10.1126/science.1161527

Miller's 1950s experiments used, besides the apparatus known in textbooks, one that generated a hot water mist in the spark flask, simulating a water vapor-rich volcanic eruption. We found the original extracts of this experiment in Miller's material and reanalyzed them. The volcanic apparatus produced a wider variety of amino acids than the classic one. Release of reduced gases in volcanic eruptions accompanied by lightning could have been common on the early Earth. Prebotic compounds synthesized in these environments could have locally accumulated, where they could have undergone further processing [. . .]

See also:

Berardelli, P. Did Volcanoes Spark Life on Earth? ScienceNOW Daily News, 16 October 2008

Pease, R. New spark in classic experiments, BBC News, 16 October 2008

Phillips, M. Is Richard Dawkins still evolving? The Spectator, 23rd October 2008

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

In 'Heaven And Earth', a pictorial exposition of the natural world, photographer David Malin emphasized the astounding fact about man's unique position in nature- half way between the very smallest and largest things we know (Ref 1). When the world's largest particle 'smasher'- the Large Hadron Collider- is finally completed next year, it may provide a way of expanding our knowledge of the very small by unifying the two disparate realities defined by quantum physics and gravity. At least that is what String theorists hope for.

The world of quantum physics tells of a past and a future that is definable in terms of statistical probabilities and not the certainties that we attribute to a classical reality. For larger entities such as the human body, this quantum nature is lost because such objects continuously interact with the environment. The resulting so-called 'decoherence' causes larger objects to lose their quantum properties (Ref 2). But for much smaller objects such as electrons, things are rather different. Electrons become "criss-crossing waves of probability" rather than particles taking singular paths (Ref 3, p.179).

The simplest experiments in support of the quantum realm came from the Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman who showed how wave functions and interference patterns could be produced on detector screens whenever a beam emitted by a laser was split in two- an observation that could only be explained by assuming that, upon splitting, both routes had been taken by the beam (Ref 3, p.179). We now know that even when the intensity of the laser is lowered sufficiently such that single photons are emitted (one every few seconds), the interference pattern is still generated (Ref 3, p.181). Two possible histories for the path taken by the photon become reality. What we also know is that the moment some form of measuring device is placed in either of the two pathways, the interference pattern vanishes (Ref 4, p. 102). In 1997, the renowned physicists Dik Bouwmeester and Anton Zeilinger wrote of this rather strange state of affairs:

"In our everyday world, things have properties whether we care to look at them or not. Whether a given apple is red or green is independent of our checking its colour. And although most people acknowledge that quantum mechanics is very strange, thy often feel that quantum objects still have their properties- it seems to be just the clumsiness of our tools that invariably disturbs quantum objects in such a way that we cannot observe all their properties. But any seasoned quantum mechanic knows this not to be true" (Ref 5).

Expressed very simply, it is as if the photon somehow 'knows' that it is going to be measured and consequently 'decides' to go down one of the two possible pathways. As play write Michael Frayn described,

"any act of observation that attempts to determine which of the two paths the particle actually follows necessarily destroys the interference pattern phenomenon, so that the interference pattern vanishes" (Ref 4, p. 102).

One of the primary goals for modern physics is to find a theory that unifies this quantum level with the classical world defined by Newton, Maxwell and Einstein. Physics is making great strides towards a unified theory that may soon encompass these two seemingly disparate worlds under one theoretical umbrella. This theory has everything to do with the smallest unit of matter- a unit called a 'string' (Refs 6,7). The term 'string' in a cosmological context is certainly an enigmatic one and entails a rather bumpy history of excitement and disappointment for those brave physicists who have engaged in trying to realize Einstein's dream of unification. Ever since the 1920's several scientists have laid the ground work for this ambitious goal and while their efforts have so far been largely unfruitful, many believe that these efforts present us with a promise of things to come (Ref 6). According to Scientific American editor George Musser, it has been the integration of gravity into the quantum mechanistic framework that has been the greatest challenge (Ref 7).

If physicists are ever to explain what happened right at the moment that our universe came into being- a moment in which the large and the small existed together in the tiny space of the early cosmos- then a path to reconciliation of these two aspects of our physical reality must be found. In the 1970s and 80s, the unification of both of these realms became the focus of two respected scientists- John Schwarz and Michael Green- who saw string theory as, "the quantum mechanical theory of the gravitational force"(Ref 3, p. 341). Earlier studies with Schwarz' collaborator Joel Scherk, had lead to the finding of a massless particle which, they later proposed was none other than the elusive graviton (Ref 3, p.341). With the graviton- a particle that united quantum mechanics and gravity- String theory seemed poised for success.

Today String theory proposes that the vibrational patterns of strings are what determine the nature of all sub-atomic particles (Ref 8). As Princeton cosmologist Juan Maldacena elaborated, "[just] as a violin string can vibrate with different frequencies, these strings could oscillate in different ways, corresponding to the 'zoo' of particles that was observed" (Ref 8). CERN physicist John Ellis similarly described elementary particles as being different "modes of oscillation of a string" (Ref 9) while Brian Greene pictured our universe as "a string symphony vibrating matter into existence" (Ref 3, p.347). But String theory also requires the existence of space dimensions outside of the three that we experience in our everyday lives. These additional space dimensions are thought to be so small that they would have escaped detection from even the most powerful particle accelerators to-date (Refs 7; 9). Physicists to this day do not fully understand what these additional dimensions actually look like. While there have been attempts to formulate String theory within the three dimensions of space that we know of (Ref 9), most of its protagonists today concur that additional dimensions are required. Because the strings of gravity's graviton particles are thought to be free to move between these extra dimensions (Ref 3, pp.394-398), gravitons may some day soon present physicists with a window into the extra dimensions of space that String theory requires. The reason is conceptually simple and has everything to do with what scientists call the inverse square law.

The inverse square law of force tells us that a mass (A) at a distance of radius(r) from mass (D) will experience gravitational (G) and electrical (E) forces that are proportional to 1/r2 (Ref 3, pp.394-398). So for a universe many dimensions larger, this proportionality would simply increase such that in four dimensions G and E would be proportional to 1/r3, in 5 dimensions, to 1/r4 and so on (Ref 3, pp.394-398). Today the race is on to probe distances smaller than a 10th of a millimeter with the aim of detecting any deviation from the inverse square law that might indicate the presence of the additional space dimensions predicted by String theory. As astrophysicists Bernard Carr and Steven Giddings have noted, the spilling over of gravity into adjacent dimensions may provide the avenue through which String theory can truly be tested (Ref 10)

For now, no measurements on gravity have revealed any deviation from the inverse square law. But the Large Hadron Particle Collider, scheduled for completion in 2009, may change this (Ref 10). If the gravitational force really is much stronger than we observe in our three dimensional space and it is leaking out into adjacent dimensions of space as predicted, the production of tiny black holes- objects whose immense gravitational hold trap anything including light- would require much smaller amounts of energy and matter. Such a scenario would be achievable through the high-energy particle collisions that the Large Hadron Collider will be capable of (Ref 10). While Hadron has recently suffered some major technical difficulties (Ref 11) it promises much when it is finally up and running. If the planned experiments do provide evidence for gravitational spilling, we may be one step closer to achieving the String Theorists' dream of unification.

References:
1. See David Malin's discussion in Heaven and Earth: Unseen by the Naked Eye, Phaidon Press, UK, 2004

2. Michael Nielsen (2002), Rules of a Complex World, Scientific American Vol 287 (5) pp. 66-75

3. Brian Greene (2004), The Fabric of the Cosmos- Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1st Edition

4. Michael Frayn (1998), Copenhagen, Methuen Publishing Limited, London, United Kingdom

5. D.Bouwmeester and A. Zeilinger (1997), Quantum Mechanics: Atoms that agree to differ, Nature Vol 388 pp.827-829

6. Raphael Bousso and Joseph Polchinski (2004), The String Theory Landscape, Scientific American Vol 291 (3) pp. 78-87

7. George Musser (2004), Forces of the world, Unite!, Scientific American Vol 291 (3) pp. 106-107

8. Juan Maldacena (2003), Into The Fifth Dimension, Nature, Volume 423 pp. 695-696

9. John Ellis (1987), Strings in four dimensions, Nature Vol 329 pp. 488-489

10. Bernard Carr and Steven Giddings (2005) Quantum Black Holes, Scientific American, May 2005

11. Geoff Brumfiel (2008), LHC meltdown before first collision, http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080922/full/455436a.html, Volume 455, pp. 436-437

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

The Expelled DVD releases today, distributed by Vivendi. When I checked early this morning (around 3:30 am), Not bad for a documentary about the intelligent design guys that almost every film pundit knew he had a duty to trash. So far, there are 241 comments, and the vast majority of the ones I scrolled through are attacks, voted up by hundreds of people. But the film was also #30 in DVDs Amazon.

Clearly, Darwin's fans feel threatened, and customers are just letting them rant while they themselves buy the film and move on.

Lesley Burbridge-Bates of Motive Entertainment Partnership/L.A.B. Media, the publicity firm, tells us,

It opened in the Top 10, achieving the #5 position on a per-screen average. It has already made its place in history as the #12 Top Grossing Documentary of all time and the #1 Conservative Documentary. The initial buzz about the film was so intense that it became the #1 most popular blog on the Internet (3/24/08), the #6 Top search on Yahoo (4/8/08), and received over 2 million web hits, more than any other movie's website during this time.

Part of that was Yoko Ono's doing, to be sure. Her lawsuit over the use of a couple of bars from the late John Lennon's song Imagine resulted in millions of people learning about the film who had never been remotely interested in the intelligent design controversy.

The biggest problem for anyone introducing a new idea is to get that kind of name recognition. The legal trouble was very expensive for the producers, but they couldn't have bought that kind of publicity at any price.

Eventually, Ono dropped the case, but meanwhile, the producers had decided not to use Imagine anyway. The producers were defended by the Stanford Fair Use Project.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is th