The ID Report

Review Of The Ninth Chapter Of Signature In The Cell by Stephen Meyer
ISBN: 978-0-06-147278-7; Imprint: Harper One

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

Former Nature editor Philip Ball once commented that 'there is no assembly plant so delicate, versatile and adaptive as the cell" (1). Emeritus Professor Theodore Brown chose to wax metaphorical by likening the cell to a fully-fledged factory, with its own complex functional relationships and interactions akin to what we observe in our own manufacturing facilities (2). In recent years the seemingly intractable problem of explaining how the first cell came into existence through chance events, otherwise known as the 'Chance Hypothesis', has become more acute than ever as scientists have begun to realize that a minimum suite of functional components must exist for cells to be operational. Stephen Meyer's summary of the current state of this so-called 'minimal complexity' research is profoundly insightful:

"The simplest extant cell, Mycoplasma genitalium - a tiny bacterium that inhabits the urinary tract requires "only" 482 proteins to perform its necessary functions and 562,000 bases of DNA...to assemble those proteins...Based upon minimal-complexity experiments, some scientists speculate (but have not demonstrated) that a simple one-celled organism might have been able to survive with as few as 250-400 genes" (p.201).

For renowned biochemist David Deamer the first cell would at the very least have needed a polymerase enzyme to transcribe from a template such as DNA, a constant source of supplementary materials notably nucleotides, amino acids and ATP and enzymes that faithfully carry out DNA replication during cell division (3). To suppose that even a hypothetical first cell would just come together from a gimish of prebiotic compounds undergoing continuous destructive dilution is to appeal to the miraculous (4). Attempts to reconstruct such a cell start off from a fairly elaborate point of departure in which enzymes and other catalysts are already present and functional (5).

Just how important these functional enzymes are was brought to bear in a study led by University of North Carolina biochemist Richard Wolfenden (6). Wolfenden's team was able to demonstrate how a reaction with a half life of 2.3 billion years occurred in milliseconds when supplied with the necessary enzymes. Such spectacular differences are not uncommon. As Wolfenden remarked:

"What we're defining here is what evolution had to overcome...the enzyme is surmounting a tremendous obstacle, a reaction half-life of 2.3 billion years...Without catalysts, there would be no life at all, from microbes to humans. It makes you wonder how natural selection operated in such a way as to produce a protein that got off the ground as a primitive catalyst for such an extraordinarily slow reaction." (6)

Through a molecular technique known as random mutagenesis, scientists have now quantified the amino acid sequence variability that functional proteins can tolerate. Worthy of note in this field is the work of former Cambridge biochemist Douglas Axe whose data forms a pillar for the case that Meyer presents in his book. Using locally-randomized sequence libraries of a portion of the antibiotic resistance enzyme Beta lactamase, Axe calculated that somewhere between 1 in 10exp50 and 1 in 10exp77 150 amino acid-long protein folds form configurations with a Beta lactamase function (7). Of these one in 10exp50 to 1 in 10exp74 form folded structures that might perform any number of alternative functions (7).

Based on the structural requirements of enzyme activity Axe emphatically argued against a global-ascent model of the function landscape in which incremental improvements of an arbitrary starting sequence "lead to a globally optimal final sequence with reasonably high probability" (7). For a protein made from scratch in a prebiotic soup, the odds of finding such globally optimal solutions are infinitesimally small- somewhere between 1 in 10exp140 and 1 in 10exp164 for a 150 amino acid long sequence if we factor in the probabilities of forming peptide bonds and of incorporating only left handed amino acids.

In a 1981 legal challenge involving the Arkansas Board Of Education, astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe appeared for the defense as an expert witness. Taking on the dogmatic neo-Darwinist view on the origins of life, Wickramasinghe unwaveringly proclaimed that the probability of obtaining the information necessary for making the simplest cell by chance was 1 in 10exp40,000 (8). These estimates not only exceeded by many powers of 10 the total number of atoms available in the universe but also closely matched the minimal complexity predictions discussed above. By pulling together these probabilistic threads of evidence in Signature In The Cell, Meyer has relegated naturalistic life origin models to little more than fanciful speculation. His piece-by-piece dismissal of the chance hypothesis is beautifully executed as is the personal narrative that interconnects the various portions of his scientific story.

Additional Literature Cited
1. Philip Ball (2001) Life's Lesson In Design, Nature, Vol 409 pp. 413-416
2. Theodore Brown (2003) The Art of the Scientific Metaphor, The Scientist, Volume 17, Issue 21, p. 10
3. David Deamer, Jason Dworkin, Scott Sandford, Max Bernstein, Louis Allamandola (2002) The First Cell Membranes, Astrobiology, Volume 2, pp. 371-381
4. 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.42-68
5.Tamsin Osborne (2008) 'Artificial Cell' Can Make Its Own Genes, New Scientist,1 April, 2008, See http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13568-artificial-cell-can-make-its-own-genes.html
6. Without Enzyme, Biological Reaction Essential To Life Takes 2.3 billion Years: 2008 UNC Study, See http://www.med.unc.edu/www/news/2008-news-archives/november/without-enzyme-biological-reaction-essential-to-life-takes-2-3-billion-years-unc-study/?searchterm=Wolfenden
7. Douglas D. Axe (2004) Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds, Journal Of Molecular Biology, pp. 1295-1315
8. See Chandra Wickramasinghe's testimony at the 1981 Arkansas trial on creation which can be found at http://www.panspermia.org/chandra.htm

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

When it comes to academic triumphs and laudatory honors it can be said that mycologist Paul Stamets has his fair share. Stamets has authored six books on mushrooms, holds over twenty patents, is a winner of the Collective Heritage Institute's Bioneers Award and owns a wholesale business selling alternative medicines. Today he also runs a facility that boasts twenty four laminar flow benches across four laboratories processing between 10-20 thousand kilos of mycelia each week. He has close to a thousand mycelium cultures growing at any given time and is renowned across the world for his view of fungi as the 'grand molecular dissemblers of nature'.

Stamets describes himself in his youth as a hippy with a stuttering habit who could not look people in the eye. He also fondly recalls once telling his charismatic Christian mother that the forest is where he goes to church on Sundays. He spent many years as a microscopist at the Evergreen State College in Washington studying mushroom mycelia with the aid of an electron microscope. There he developed an intense passion for all things fungal even to the extent that he now occasionally appears in public sporting a hat made from Amadou- a fungus that, he boldly maintains, was essential for the portability of fire during man's much-heralded migration out of Africa.

When it comes to mushrooms, Stamets' most radical concept, and perhaps his most attractive one, draws on a human parallel. In fact he proposes that that organized networks of mycelia under our feet form the earth's own 'internet' of sorts carrying antibiotics and enzymes as well as huge numbers of signaling chemicals across trillions and trillions of end branchings. In short, he sees our own Internet superhighway as a mere replica of a highly-successful system that already exists in nature's own backyard. Perhaps surprisingly these networks are not confined to land habitats. Indeed aquatic underwater mushrooms have been discovered in the streams of southern Oregon and mycologists are now busily investigating how these hydrophiles survive and affect surrounding ecosystems.

Agarikon is yet another fungal species that gets mycologists such as Stamets visibly excited. Otherwise known as the 'elixir of long life', this impressively-sized fungus has been used for years as an effective treatment for respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis and is now known to exhibit a very potent effect against the smallpox and flu viruses. There is strong evidence that the active anti-virals in Agarikon might also serve well in the present-day combat against H1N1 and H5N1. In fact so critical to human health are the medicinal properties of this remarkable organism that Stamets has embarked on his own mini-crusade to create the largest Agarikon genomic DNA library in the world.

On a more serious note, many environmentalists claim that today we are fully engaged in the biggest mass extinction event that our planet has ever known. Stamets is not one to shy away from sounding alarm bells and boldly adheres to the claim that 50% of all known species on our planet could become extinct over the next 100 years if swift action is not taken. His use of oyster mushroom mycelia to remove oil pollution is an outstanding example of how we might avert such a bleak endpoint. These saprophytic fungi are gateway species that break down toxic waste through the action of specialized enzymes and thereby allow damaged ecosystems to flourish and rebound. Oyster mushrooms have also been shown to have a dramatic effect on bacterial titers destroying coliform bacteria and Staphylococcus in contaminated waters.

The environmental resiliency of fungi has long fascinated mycologists, and future mycotechnologies might build on this salient property. While Prototaxites- a 30-foot long, 3-foot high mushroom that lived 350-420 million years ago stands as the archetypal giant fungus, the twenty two-hundred acre, one cell thick mycelium mat of Armillaria ostoyae (honey mushroom) now holds the record for the largest organism in the world. Thermo-resilient symbionts such as Curvularia confer a viral-dependent heat tolerance on many grasses allowing them to grow at elevated temperatures, as high as 104 F in some cases.

Fungi can be described as being parasitic, saprophytic, micorrhizal or endophytic in their modes of deriving nourishment. This so-called 'mycological guild' of complementary fungi is what gives rise to a healthy ecosystem. The interactivity of these fungi and other organisms is clearly visible in ant cultivars of the Lepiota mushroom which are used by thatch ants to stop a particularly aggressive parasitic fungus called Escovopsis from invading their nests. In a converse strategy, Metarhizium is a parasitic fungus that kills carpenter ants and is therefore finding application in the protection of buildings from these would-be aggressors. By using the non-sporulating stage of Metarhizium, Stamets has surpassed the carpenter ants' own ability to keep the fungus at bay thereby providing him with an effective treatment against carpenter ant infestations.

Despite such mycotechnological advances, Stamets describes the current state of the field as being under-respected, underappreciated and underfunded. Most importantly he remains steadfastly focused on restoring ecosystems for the enjoyment of generations to come. For those of us actively involved in the evolution/ID debate, Stamets' findings are likewise poignantly relevant. In fact he makes a stunning claim regarding computer and fungal networks noting how "we were destined to create the computer Internet at a time when the earth is in crisis".

That our understanding of network theory and its importance in fungal bioremediation should coincide with our earth's need for ecological intervention introduces a teleological, purposeful perspective to life that contradicts the contingency of orthodox Darwinism. After all a cosmos that is fashioned towards such an endpoint is incompatible with the random, directionless tenet of natural selection. As for the Christian faithful there is one proclamation that makes sense in our current predicament: Thank God that the forests are where mycologists choose to go to church on Sundays!

For further details on Stamets' work see How Mushrooms Can Save The World at http://tiny.cc/iecmw, (Login: Promega; Password: mushroom)

Review Of The Eighth Chapter Of Signature In The Cell by Stephen Meyer
ISBN: 9780061894206; Imprint: Harper One

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

In the middle ages, Moses Maimonides debated heavily with Islamic philosophers over the Aristotlean interpretation of the universe. By looking at the stars and seeing their irregular pattern in the heavens, he concluded that only design could have generated the star arrangements he observed (1). In the process he ruled out necessity and the Epicurean ideology of chance. Centuries later Isaac Newton similarly opted for design as the best explanation for the origins of our solar system. Writing in his General Scholium for example Newton left us with no doubt over where his focus lay:

"This most beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being" (2).

Still, with the revolutions in thought brought forth by the likes of Pierre Simon Laplace and of course later Charles Darwin, the stage was set for chance and necessity to become the only players permissible in scientific discourse (1). Today science operates under the conviction that the material world "is all there is, and that chance and impersonal natural law alone explain, indeed must explain, its existence" (3).

So, what of chance? When statisticians refer to chance events what they really mean is that the exact combination of physical factors that cause these events are so complex that their occurrence cannot be reasonably predicted. Implicit in an appeal to chance is the negation of any sort of law-like necessity or Maimonidean-style recourse to design. On the flip side, Stephen Meyer reminds us in Signature In The Cell that that chance hypotheses can be eliminated when "a series of events occurs that deviates too greatly from an expected statistical distribution" (p.180).

A casino player winning 100 bets consecutively while spinning a roulette wheel is an obvious example of such a deviation. But low probability in itself is not enough for detecting design. Indeed fundamental to this particular non-chance alternative is the recognition of some sort of discernible pattern- 100 wins on a roulette wheel for example- that compels us to suspect that an intelligence somewhere is directing the outcome.

For Meyer such insights were seeded through conversations he held with philosopher William Dembski in the hallways of academia as he grappled with questions relating to life's origins. Much to the chagrin of the Darwin-faithful, today Dembski not only contends that design, "is a legitimate and fundamental mode of scientific explanation on a par with chance and necessity" but also argues that there exists a set of criteria for reliably detecting design in biology (1).

Pattern discernment, Dembski asseverates, can be retrospectively applied; that is, to events that have already occurred. Indeed as any spy buff will attest, cryptoanalysts routinely decode signals only after these signals have been generated and transmitted. Intelligent involvement in such cases can either be ruled in or out through a thorough examination of the available probabilistic resources (4).

In Signature In The Cell Meyer builds on Dembski's cornerstone case and uses a seemingly non-ending supply of illustrations to firm up his own supportive arguments. But the reader is nevertheless left pondering over what relevance such illustrations have to the matter at hand, namely demonstrating that the origin of life requires more than just chance. Meyer meticulously alleviates such concerns with a component-by-component breakdown of the probabilistic resources of our cosmic landscape. He writes:

"There are a limited number of opportunities for any given event to occur in the entire history of the universe. Dembski was able to calculate this number by simply multiplying the three relevant factors together: the number or elementary particles (10⁸⁰) times the number of seconds since the big bang (10¹⁶) times the number of possible interactions per second (10⁴³). His calculation fixed the total number of events that could have taken place in the observable universe since the origin of the universe at 10¹³⁰" (pp.216-217).

Applying his calculations on limits to biology Meyer notes:

"the probability of producing a single 150 amino acid protein by chance stands at about 1 in 10¹⁶⁴. Thus for each functional sequence of 150 amino acids there are at least 10¹⁶⁴ other possible non-functional sequences of the same length...Unfortunately that number vastly exceeds the most optimistic estimate of the probabilistic resources of the entire universe- that is the number of events that have occurred since the beginning of its existence" (p.217).

While such a rationale has already been advanced in the peer-reviewed literature (5), it is as profoundly relevant today as it was in its original context. Those design heisters who acrimoniously steal intelligent design away from the realm of biology do so at a tremendous cost to us all. Intelligent design is after all not 'pie in the sky' story telling. It is rigorous science.

Literature Cited
1.William Dembski (2002), No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, Lanham, Maryland, pp.1-3

2. Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton (1994), The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy; Crossway Books; Wheaton, Illinois, p.91

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

4. For a review of probability as relates to the biological context see Robert Deyes and John Calvert (2009), We Have No Excuse: A Scientific Case for Relating Life to Mind, Intelligent Design Network, See http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/We_have_no_excuse.pdf

5. Stephen C. Meyer (2004), The Origin Of Biological Information And The Higher Taxonomic Categories, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Volume 117, pp. 213-239

Review Of The Seventh Chapter Of Signature In The Cell by Stephen Meyer
ISBN: 9780061894206; ISBN10: 0061894206; Imprint: HarperOne

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

The distinction between historical and experimental science is one that extends back over the centuries and at its core seems easy to grasp. Whereas historical science has as its focus events that have defined the history both of our planet and larger cosmos, experimental science has its eye on the current operation of nature.

The 19th century philosopher William Whewell coined the term 'palaetiological sciences' to describe those fields of science, such as geology and paleontology, that have a historical perspective (1). Whewell's broad application of the term shone through in his two great works, his History of the Inductive Sciences and his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1). Immanuel Kant used a similar distinction contrasting those sciences that describe "relationships and changes over time" with those that deal with the "empirical study and classification of objects...at present" (2).

As part of their analytical process, scientists routinely assess the validity of competing hypotheses to determine which best explain the data they have at their disposal. The late Cambridge philosopher Peter Lipton formally defined such a process of validation in his book Inference To The Best Explanation (3). Put simply, Lipton considered the best explanation for the occurrence of a natural event as one that obviously best identifies a likely cause. Lipton's formalization rode on the back of 19th century geologist Thomas Chamberlin's 'method of multiple working hypotheses' (4) and provided an improvement over Charles Peirce's abductive reasoning- the process through which an established rule is used to explain a tangible observation (5).

Abductive reasoning would have us say that given a rule such as "If it rains the grass is wet", the occurrence of wet grass must invariably lead to the conclusion that rain had fallen at some moment in the past (5). Nevertheless Peirce was quick to identify an inherent fallacy in such a thread of logic- a fallacy known amongst philosophers as the 'affirmed consequent'. According to one review:

"Affirming the consequent, sometimes called converse error, is a formal fallacy committed by reasoning in the form: If P, then Q. Q. Therefore, P. Arguments of this form are invalid in that [they] do not always give good reason to establish their conclusions, even if their premises are true." (5)

In the above illustration, the fallacy is all too evident since rain is quite obviously not the only causal agent that waters our lawns (summertime sprinklers and hose pipes stand out as self-evident alternatives!). The question that naturally follows is, given numerous causally adequate explanations, how might one go about deciding which supplies the greatest explanatory power?

One way is to resort to vera causa ("causes now in operation") as Darwin did when he used animal migration behaviors to explain common descent. According to Darwin "the simplicity of the view that each species was first produced within a single region captivates the mind. He who rejects it, rejects the vera causa of ordinary generation with subsequent migration, and calls in the agency of a miracle" (6). Darwin of course assumed that the 'now operational' variations observed in animal breeding could likewise explain macro-evolutionary changes throughout the history of life.

An alternative approach to the causal adequacy question is to seek out additional lines of evidence that either prop up or debunk competing explanations. Stephen Meyer expounds on this salient point in the seventh chapter of his most recent book Signature In The Cell,

"the process of determining the best explanation often involves generating a list of possible hypotheses, comparing their known (or theoretically plausible) causal powers against the relevant evidence, looking for additional facts if necessary, and then, like a detective, progressively eliminating potential but inadequate explanations until, finally, one causally adequate explanation for the ensemble of relevant evidence remains" (p.166)

Historical scientists are of course not the only group to employ such a procedural chain. Meyer's impressive list of distinguished professions- including clinical diagnosticians and forensic detectives- that are 'cause-focused' in their modes of operation, gives us much to ponder over. And his follow-on question is brilliantly relevant- might not intelligent design supply the most causally adequate explanation for the origin of biological information? The answer may surprise some. It turns out that by the same 'vera causa' line of reasoning used by Darwin 150 years ago, intelligent causation in biology remains a distinct possibility. After all, a cornerstone claim in the ID offensive is that we routinely observe intelligent agents as 'causes now in operation' that generate the same type of specified information as we find in DNA.

Meyer goes on to boldly entertain the idea that intelligent design presents us with the only causally adequate explanation for the origin of biological information and spends much of the remainder of his book tying together substantial evidence in support of his position. As for Darwin, one can only imagine how he might have felt coming back to find intelligent design legitimized through his very own criterion. My hunch is that he would have applauded the current state of debate.

Citations Listed
1. For a summary of Whewell's work, see biologist Robert J O'Hara's discussion at http://rjohara.net/darwin/palaetiology

2. Phillip R. Sloan (2006), Kant On The History Of Nature: The ambiguous heritage of the critical philosophy for natural history, Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 37 (2006), pp.627–648

3. Peter Lipton: Philosopher of science renowned for his account of inference and explanation, Obituary appeared in The Guardian, Thursday 13th December, 2007, See http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/dec/13/guardianobituaries.obituaries1

4. For a detailed account of Thomas Chamberlin's work, see http://geology.about.com/od/history_of_geology/a/aa_geothinking.htm

5. See Absolute Astronomy, http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Abductive_reasoning

6. Charles Darwin (1859), The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or The Preservation of Favored Races In the Struggle For Survival, Modern Library Paperbacks Edition (1998), New York, p.488

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

Earlier this year Johan Bollen and colleagues from the Los Alamos National Laboratories unveiled a much-publicized 'Connections Map' that shows how researchers navigate online between science journals and those of other academic disciplines (1). With access to as many as 1 billion 'user interactions' from 35,000 journals in the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, the study was unique in its sheer scale (1,2). Furthermore, unlike other such studies that have mined inter-article citations data (papers that cite each other) to map connections, the work carried out by Bollen and colleagues relied on up-to-date internet usage and navigation information supplied by reputable online publishers such as Elsevier and Thomson Scientific (2).

The work of Bollen's group appeared to be in every sense revolutionary. In their paper to PLOS One, for example, they drew attention to the rather biased nature of studies that use inter-article citations data, concluding that, "existing citations databases over-represent the natural sciences" (2). Other factors, such as the lengthy time that it takes for papers to get published, lent support to the claim that internet navigation provided a more temporally-accurate picture of traffic between journals. In contrast to citations data that focuses only on published authors, internet navigation information also reflects the activity of 'a larger community' that includes practicing scientists who do not necessarily publish (2).

In order to maximize the accuracy of their study Bollen and colleagues selected only those user interactions that involved requests for article abstracts or fully-published articles (2). The overall distribution of the interactions that they mapped ranged from 47 and 41 percent in the social and natural sciences respectively to 8 percent in the humanities (2). Bollen and colleagues were able to access individual 'click streams'- that is, temporal sequences that show how researchers navigated between journals. The resulting Connections Map classified journals into 'course-grained disciplines' such as cognitive science, architectural design, international studies, religion, music, geology and plant genetics to name but a few (2).

While the timing of interactions in such maps are accurate to the second, some still question whether internet navigation-based connections really provide valuable information on the future trends of cross-discipline navigation. Anthony van Raan, director of the Leiden Centre for Science and Technology Studies suggested that Bollen's approach may do nothing more than supply snapshots of current navigation fashions (1). Nevertheless data on such fashions can in itself be valuable for tracking "contemporary trends in scientific activity" and monitoring how such trends vary over time (1).

Bollen and colleagues admit that there is much work that can still be done (2). Future projects might include comparing connections maps with inter-article citations data, deconvoluting the different navigation patterns through which researchers move between journals and identifying the most influential journals in given areas of research (2). Indeed, if used correctly there is no denying that data from connections mapping could help improve the way online journals are made available to the research community.

Literature Cited
1. Declan, B. (2009) Web Usage Data Outline Map Of Knowledge. Nature News (accessed 3/23/3009).

2. Bollen, J. et al. (2009) Clickstream Data Yields High-Resolution Maps of Science. PLoS ONE 4, e4803.

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

The NOVA documentary The Incredible Journey Of The Butterflies, which aired on public television earlier this year, details a phenomenon that in recent years has captivated biologists worldwide- the North American Monarch butterfly's 2500 mile long migration to the Mexican Sierra Madre mountains. Both the sheer scale of the journey and the paucity of models in the scientific literature that adequately explain its evolutionary origins are plainly evident (1).

The late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould took a rather nebulous stab at explicating the origins of another migratory feat- that of the green turtle's trans-Atlantic breeding trek from Brazil to the 'pinpoint of land' we now call Ascension Island (2). Having soundly carved up biologist Archie Carr's migratory drift hypothesis (which would have us believe that the migratory distance used to be much shorter and extended gradually as continents moved apart), Gould treated us to his own momentary reliance on obscurity. In Gould's words "the mechanism of turtle migration is so mysterious, that I see no barrier to supposing that turtles can be imprinted to remember the place of their birth without prior genetic information transmitted from previous generations" (2). It seems that for Gould at least, the bigger the evolutionary mystery, the more scope one would have for assuming what one wished to assume.

The rock pigeon, a favorite of Darwin's and a center piece in his treatise on artificial selection, uses the sun as a compass to get around (3-5). Equipped with an extraordinary capacity to perceive UV and polarized light, as well as a keen ability to detect the earth's magnetic fields, the rock pigeon is today considered to be a champion of directional orientation. As Fred Ryser noted in his textbook account, "the [pigeon's] sun compass employs the apparent movement of the sun along an arc across the sky -the ecliptic-during the day...On overcast days or when its capacity to see the sun is eliminated...the pigeon practices directional orientation by using geomagnetism...the pigeon's magnetic compass somehow senses [the] downward inclination in the magnetic field and the brain interprets it as north"(4). Underpinning such a phenomenal capability are numerous crystals of iron oxide that in the pigeon's brain align with the earth's magnetic field "like the iron needle in a compass" (5).

Just as remarkable is the Arctic Tern's aptitude for long distance precision flight. Flying in flocks of 12-25 individuals at altitudes of 30-150 meters, terns cover 40,000 km each year between their polar wintering and breeding quarters (6). One might assume that for these and other migratory birds, land masses en route could provide necessary resting points and navigational aids to keep them energized and on track. And yet some notable cases defy such a facile dismissal of the facts. The American golden plover, for example, can fly over the Atlantic from Canada to the northeastern coast of South America with sparse visual cues and without so much as a touchdown or a re-supply of food (7). Similarly, many ruby-throated hummingbirds fly 500 miles non-stop in their annual northward migration across the Gulf of Mexico. According to one review, such a compulsion to fly is ingrained in the very fabric of the young 'hummer': "there's no memory of past migrations, only an urge to put on a lot of weight and fly in a particular direction for a certain amount of time, then look for a good place to spend the winter" (8).

McGraw Hill's third edition of The Nature Of Life carried details of a study that confirmed the homing abilities of a long-winged seabird called the shearwater: "When experimenters transferred an individual shearwater...from its home in Great Britain to a new location in Massachusetts, the remarkable bird was back on its nest in 12 days, having crossed 4800 miles of trackless ocean" (5). Key experimental data corroborates the assertion that an established endogenous circannual clock is critical for ensuring appropriate pre-migratory fattening, moulting and reproduction. Writing on the common warbler, for example, Max Planck Institute's Eberhard Gwinner emphasized how "rhythmic waxing and waning of nocturnal [circannual activity]...is usually accompanied by variations in migratory fattening (indicated by an increase in body mass) and followed by a moult in winter and a phase of reproductive activity in summer" (9). Most remarkable of all is the finding that the circannual clock is responsible for setting not only the timing but also direction and duration of migration (9). Day length (or photoperiod) provides a critical trigger for getting migration started (9).

How might evolutionary processes have given rise to migratory behaviors? In their book Nature's IQ, Balazs Hornyanszky and Istvan Tasi are candidly open about their view on the matter- natural selection could not have been the operative mechanism (10). The exactitude of food intake relative to energy expenditure for trans-oceanic birds forms an important platform upon which they develop their rationale- too much food prior to becoming airborne and levels of body fat would be incompatible with effective flying (9). Too little food and the fat reserves would be insufficient for completion of the journey. The end result would be an almost certain death, perhaps an out of control plunge into the merciless seas below. Hornyansky's and Tasi's swathing attack on the evolutionists' 'non-answer' appeals to our deepest intuitions. Analogizing bird migration to human feats of navigation they write:

"Many [innate] complex abilities must be simultaneously present for migratory birds to perform such impressive feats, and these abilities and knowledge have to work in perfect harmony. If we want to climb the highest peak of the Himalayas, Mount Everest, we have to create a detailed plan to be able to reach our goal. It would be foolish to think that merely by a series of fortunate accidents, in time we will suddenly find ourselves there. Not only do we have to make an all-encompassing plan, but we also have to execute every detail of it. If we disregard just a single factor...our undertaking, despite all our efforts, could end in failure. The migratory system of birds, too, is able to function only in its entirety, and the superficial assumptions about its 'gradual evolution' get caught in the filter of logical thinking" (10).

Those in favor of evolution's ways openly struggle to understand the selective advantage afforded by the migratory birds' seemingly deliberate draining of precious resources. By their own admission "Migration exacts a high toll [as] grizzlies wait in streams and gorge on exhausted salmon migrating home from the sea, and falcons feast on fatigued songbirds arriving at their winter home in Africa. Fuel used by muscles to propel wings, fins, and legs is unavailable for reproductive activities, and time spent on the move is time not spent gathering food" (5). They counter their self-imposed quandary by assuming a priori that selection 'favors the brave' and that over time survival benefits must have outweighed such costs. Evolution is after all a 'fact' and so what must have happened must have happened. Such circular reasoning of course gets us nowhere and leaves the above functional challenges unanswered. In short, evolutionists are today caught in their own Gouldean-style reliance on obscurity.

Literature Cited
1. Robert Deyes (2009), Questioning The Role Of Gene Duplication-Based Evolution In Monarch Migration, Access Research Network, See http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2009/03/01/questioning_the_role_of_gene_duplication.

2. Stephen Jay Gould (1992), The Panda's Thumb- More Reflections In Natural History, Published by W.W Norton and Company, New York, pp.31-34.

3. Charles Darwin (1859), The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or The Preservation of Favored Races In the Struggle For Survival, Modern Library Paperbacks Edition (1998), New York, p.42.

4. Fred A Ryser Jr (1985), Birds Of the Great Basin: A Natural History, University Of Nevada Press, pp.290-291.

5. John H Postlethwait and Janet L. Hopson (1991), The Nature Of Life, 3rd Edition, McGraw Hill, New York, pp.922-923.

6. Gudmundur A. Gudmundsson, Thomas Alerstami, Bertil Larsson (1992), Radar observations of northbound migration of the Arctic tern,Sterna paradisaea, at the Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctic Science, Volume 4, pp. 163-170.

7. See American Golden Plover 'Fact Sheet' On The National Wildlife Federation Site http://www.nwf.org/birdsandglobalwarming/birdprofile.cfm?bird=American+Golden-Plover.

8. See Hummingbirds.Net at http://www.hummingbirds.net/migration.html.

9. Eberhard Gwinner (1996), Circadian And Circannual Programs In Avian Migration, The Journal of Experimental Biology, Volume 199, pp.39-48.

10. Istvan Tasi and Balazs Hornyanszky (2009), Nature's IQ: Extraordinary Animal Behaviors That Defy Evolution, Torchlight Publishing, Badger, CA, pp.93-94

Review Of The Sixth Chapter Of Signature In The Cell, by Stephen Meyer

Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

A sound approach to scientific investigation does not necessarily bring with it a mandatory requirement to be a 'nose to the grindstone' experimentalist. Indeed scientists can and often do take data that others have amassed and interpret it in light of their own understanding of the matter at hand. Therein lies a lesson that, as science historians will note, is backed by an impressive list of prominent cases. In fact Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and even Charles Darwin challenged the viewpoints of their day through their own theoretical interpretations of reality. For Darwin this meant for the most part collecting data from botanists, breeders, ecologists, and paleontologists and constructing a paradigm-shifting synthesis on the evolution of life that did not necessarily hinge on his own data. Both Einstein's two papers on relativity and Newton's opus Principia were theoretical manifestos that at the time they were published had little experimental support.

In recent years followers of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement have been called to task over their own perceived lack of direct involvement in experimentation. Stephen Meyer observes that ID's fiercest critics dismiss these same followers as being less than qualified to engage in scientific debate because of their presumed absence from experimental science. And yet in light of what we know about the influences of Einstein, Newton and Darwin one might be excused for countering that such criticisms hardly seem justifiable. Truth be told the Discovery Institute, a key ID nerve center, today supports a facility where scientists are actively involved in laboratory-based research.

As the director of the Center for Science & Culture at the Discovery Institute, Meyer has been personally exposed to a barrage of anti-ID hostility, evidenced for example in his televised encounters with prominent self-asserting secularists such as Eugenie Scott and Michael Shermer. But as Meyer makes clear, his own exposure to anti-ID sentiments extends back much further to his days as a graduate at Cambridge. With the exception of a handful of notable scientists, few at the time were willing to acknowledge ID as a serious alternative to the deeply-entrenched Darwinian orthodoxy.

One might be excused for feeling somewhat baffled by such a reluctance to embrace design in light of the Judeo-Christian framework upon which modern science owes its origins. Others before Meyer have made this point (1). Two years ago, for example, zoologist and biophysicist Jeff Hardin brought the Judeo-Christian influence on science to the attention of his audience during the Science And Christianity conference in Madison, WI (2). According to Hardin historical icons such as Robert Boyle, Johannes Kepler and Newton himself saw the reliability and intelligibility of nature as "testifying to God's glory". Quoting from Nobel Laureate Melvin Calvin's Chemical Evolution, Hardin concluded that "[the Hebrew] monotheistic view seems to be the historical foundation for modern science" (2).

But it is in citing the relevance of a non-religious form of these foundations to ID that Meyer supplies a fresh and unparryable case against those who out of hand wish to exclude ID from scientific circles. His closing remarks on how the singular actions of intelligent agents parallel sudden events in biology, notably the origin of life, draw on inferences made by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley and Roger Olsen in their exemplary text The Mystery Of Life's Origins (3). In short, one can no longer deny that the design premise represents a foundational 'cross beam' for contemporary science.

Literature Cited
1.Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton (1994), The Soul of Science- Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, pp.17-42

2.Jeff Hardin (2007), Thinking Bibically About Nature And The Nature Of Science, in Science And Christianity: Friends Or Foes?; Conference held on the 24th March, 2007, Blackhawk Church, Madison, WI

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

Review Of The Fifth Chapter Of Signature In The Cell By Stephen Meyer
By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

Amidst the many memories that I cherish from my college undergraduate years are the get-togethers that friends and I would have to discuss the core textbook principles of molecular biology. Benjamin Lewin's Genes IV stands out as one of the treasured resources we would pour over as we searched for the facts on the makeup of life. Perhaps most often visited amongst our topics of discussion were those of eukaryotic transcription and translation principally because for all of us there was something deeply unsettling about the naturalistic foundations upon which the emergence of these processes had been presented. So unsettled were we that we could never quite swallow the evolutionary suppositions that accompanied the factual details.

To recapitulate on what we now know about transcription, eukaryotes are furnished with three different RNA polymerases differing primarily in the types of genes that they transcribe. Each RNA Polymerase binds to a class of DNA sequence known as a promoter from which transcription then begins (1). A number of proteins called transcription factors, upon which these polymerases are absolutely dependent, form a functional transcription 'apparatus'. RNA Polymerase II for example requires at least four transcription factors, TFIIA, TFIIB, TFIID and TFIIE for activity - a fact that is self-evident in Stephen Meyer's pictorial outlines in the fifth chapter of his book Signature In The Cell.

The first step in the formation of the transcription apparatus involves the binding of TFIID to a DNA sequence upstream of the promoter's own TATA box. TFIIA and TFIIB are then incorporated into the complex allowing RNA Polymerase II to bind to its recognition sequence in the DNA together with TFIIE (1). The functional interdependence of these molecules of course limits the amount of genetic change that can be tolerated by any one of the genes that codes for them. After all, any structural change in any one of the transcription factors would have to be accompanied by concerted changes in other factors within the complex as well as the RNA Polymerase II itself if functionality were to be maintained. This latter point, as relates to functional molecular complexes in general, was heavily emphasized in a seminal paper on Cambrian fauna by Meyer et al in 2001 (2).

In thinking of eukaryotic transcription I am reminded of Alexandre Dumas' three musketeers who, like eukaryotic RNA polymerases, acted in unison in their endeavors. Ribosomal RNAs transcribed by RNA Polymerase I form part of the very ribosomes that then translate messenger RNAs, the latter having been transcribed by RNA Polymerase II. Similarly transfer RNAs (tRNAs), products of RNA Polymerase III, play their role in assuring the correct incorporation of amino acids during translation. Living up to the axiom 'Un Pour Tous', RNA Polymerases can be considered as the three chevaliers of the molecular realm.

As one reads Meyer's summary of how the mechanistic details of transcription and translation were first unraveled, one cannot help but notice the amount of theoretical ground work that had been laid out before the first experimental results began rolling in. Contravening the ideas initially put forward by 'Tie Club' physicist George Gammow (see my review on the exploits of the Tie Club, Ref 3), Crick realized that the inherent structure of DNA could not in itself account for the amino acid sequence of proteins. In Meyer's words "there is nothing about the chemical properties of the bases in DNA (or those in mRNA) that favors forming a chemical bond with any specific amino acid over another" (p.130). There had to exist a code embedded within but existing independently of DNA's structural layout.

Francis Crick realized early on in his career that if DNA were to function as a code, it would require a series of adapter molecules that could in some way mirror the 'letters' or codons in the DNA sequence. Such molecules were later identified as transfer RNAs each of which we now know is coupled to a specific amino acid as a result of the activities of specialized enzymes called tRNA synthetases. Intermediate between DNA and proteins are messenger RNAs- transcripts of the code-rich sequence of DNA that migrate from the nucleus to the cytoplasm where ribosomes are ready in waiting to begin translation.

To this day seemingly unanswerable questions on the evolution of transcription and translation mechanisms continue to rattle the Darwin-faithful. As noted in an earlier review, gradually evolving the genetic code to provide the full complement of amino acid coding triplets would be lethal before it were beneficial simply because such alterations would impact the very proteins that make up the translation machinery (4). Along these same lines, biophycist Paul Davies famously remarked that "a change in the code risks feeding back into the very translation machinery that implements it, leading to a catastrophic feedback of errors that would wreck the whole process. To have accurate translation, the cell must first translate accurately"(5).

Meyer's expository talent is visible in his extension of these same principles to other cellular processes such as DNA replication. Meyer fleshes out a cohesive argument in support of intelligent design garnering support from an extensive body of molecular evidence and expert commentaries. His review of the 'chicken and egg' paradox, as relates to the integral interdependencies of molecular systems such as transcription and translation, highlights once more why it is that evolutionary 'pie in the sky' assumptions are powerless to explain the origins of critical life processes.

Literature Cited
1. Benjamin Lewin(1990), Genes IV, Oxford Cell Press, 4th Edition pp. 543-546

2. Stephen C. Meyer, P. A. Nelson, and Paul Chien (2001), The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang, http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/Cambrian.pdf pp.34-35

3. Twenty Men In Matching Ties, And The Eternal Mystery Of The World's Comprehensibility
http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2008/09/07/twenty_men_in_matching_ties_and_the_eter

4. The Pioneers We Cherish: Reviewing The Achievements Of 'Origins' Biology, http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2008/08/06/the_pioneers_we_cherish_reviewing_the_ac

5. Paul Davies (1999), The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and The Meaning of Life, Published by Simon and Schuster, New York, p.111

Synopsis Of The Fourth Chapter Of Nature's IQ By Balazs Hornyanszky and Istvan Tasi

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

As an avid participant of the compass-based sport of orienteering in the 1980s, one of the roles I was frequently assigned to was that of 'course designer'. Meeting the needs of the many orienteering enthusiasts who turned up on competition day was a formidable task that required the cooperative efforts of a large number of individuals. Errors in communicating course layout or map design could have been navigationally disastrous for all concerned. Of course few of us need reminding of nature's own 'grand schemes' of cooperative synchrony epitomized in the colonies of over eleven thousand ant species that today grace our planet. Workers, soldiers, fertilizing males and queens 'play their instruments' in an orchestra that is in part directed by the activity of a family of molecules called pherormones.

In all, entomologists have identified a staggering thirty pherormones used by ant cohorts for transmitting precise messages between specialized groups, on everything from the whereabouts of food to the imminence of danger. The resulting functional inter-dependency amongst ants is all too evident in even the broadest brushstroke accounts of their activities:

"Ants have to have mandibles suitable for cutting leaves; they have to know that their business is to carry pieces of inedible leaves into the anthill; they have to know that once in the anthill, they [must] chew and spread the substrate...they have to have an appropriate system of communication to be able to carry out their mass operations (they can completely rob a tree of its foliage in a single day)...Before her mating flight, the future queen puts a bit of the home mushroom crop in her buccal pocket and leaves the anthill with it. In her new hole, she begins to nurse this culture, which will then serve the sustenance of the new anthill..Further complicating this picture is the fact that even within a single ant species, there are often several types of groups with completely different bodily structures and tasks...mutually dependent on one another" (p.64)

How might such a system of functionally interdependent units have evolved piecemeal? In keeping with the Gouldean realization of the predominance of stasis in the fossil record, the latest evidence unequivocally shows ant colony organization having remained largely unchanged over the last 60 million years- a bludgeoning blow to Darwin's step-by-step evolutionary axiom if ever there was one. Those choosing to clutch on to Darwinist dogma remain clueless about how today's specialized ants evolved from some ill-defined primordial insect from a bygone era. After all, the all-or-nothing aspects of ant colony communicative living make each member's efficient fulfillment of assigned roles in everything from mushroom growing to ground defense critical for the survival of the colony as a whole.

Anthills aside, examples of functional inter-dependencies in nature abound, the electric eel perhaps being the next hot favorite. Equipped as it is with sophisticated electricity emitting and receiving organs that serve to transmit signals with its close neighbors, this formidable creature sports a thick fatty layer that affords vital protection against the dangers of self-electrocution. While the summer sounds of crickets similarly function to locate mating partners, bees use a sun-oriented '8' dance to inform their hives of the precise whereabouts of food. For the eel, the cricket and the bee both the accompanying perception 'apparatus' and the brain regions that help decode the incoming signal are indispensable parts of their respective communication systems. Without them all would be lost.

Fish stand out as perhaps the most surprising of all animals in their use of acoustics. Several species are known for their grunting, croaking, growling and humming-style vibrations often identifiably directed at their own kind. Individuals of the same species have to carry an innate capacity to deconvolute the relevant species-specific sounds from the cacophony of noises that shroud their environs. In this regard, one has to stretch the imagination to claim that per chance the frequency range of sound emission would simply match up with that of sound detection in any given species. Australian biologist Michael Denton hammered home a similar message in his book Nature's Destiny over a decade ago.

For the collective sum of case studies outlined in Nature's IQ Hornyanszky and Tasi are unswervingly steadfast in asserting that the origin of "species-specific communication systems" remains outside the bounds of gradual evolutionary change. With a sense of irony they justifiably question today's received wisdom: "when did members of different...species carry on conciliatory discussions in order to be able to understand messages of fellow members of the same species?". In reality, for the Darwinian mechanism to hold true numerous mutations would have had to appear in multiple, geographically proximal individuals if all were to speak and understand the same 'language'. This unlikely state of affairs, coupled with the finding that an invariable repertoire of communicable sounds and visible signals exists amongst members of the same species, provides the fodder needed to bolster the case against blind evolution and in favor of intelligent design.

When the ancients wrote of ants as "[wise] creatures of little strength" (Pvbs 30 vs 25), they clearly understood the sophistication in their capacity to work together for the common good of a larger whole. Today science has extended such observations and brought into sharp focus a world replete with communication systems that defy the Darwinian paradigm. Biologists would do well to take note.

For more information and to order Nature's IQ go to http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/php/book_show_item.php?id=129

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

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

When talking about 'information' and its relevance to biological design, Intelligent Design theorists have a particular definition in mind. Indeed they see information as "the attribute inherent in and communicated by alternative sequences or arrangements of something that produce specific effects" (p.86). When the twentieth century American mathematician Claude Shannon laid down his own theory for quantifying information he drew attention to a mathematical relationship that on its surface appeared intuitive. Information as Shannon noted was inversely proportional to uncertainty. That is, the more information we had about our world the less uncertainty there was over the outcome of future events. Shannon also proposed that the more improbable an event the more information such an event would impart once it actually took place (say, throwing a six on a role of dice).

Nevertheless Shannon's theory was deficient in at least one crucial aspect- it made no distinction between meaningful and meaningless information-rich strings. While equally long sequences of alphabetical characters did not always elicit tangible (meaningful) outcomes, they nevertheless always displayed the same level of Shannon-style uncertainty. And yet language in itself was more than a random assortment of letters even though Shannon's theory ascribed the same degree of information content to such an assortment as it did to an equally long but meaningful series of sentences.

What was missing in Shannon's synthesis was a term that accounted for the so-called 'specificity', that is the "precise arrangement or sequence" of letters in, say, human language (p. 100). Therein lay a biological connection. After all, the swinging 50s brought with it a host of scientific breakthroughs, notably those of X-ray crystallographers Fred Sanger and John Kendrew who were instrumental in unveiling the 'twisted, turning, tangled chain' nature of proteins. In so doing they sewed the seeds for a process of discovery that would eventually culminate in an unexpected realization- proteins contained a high degree of structural and sequence specificity. That is, if proteins were to fulfill their hugely diverse repertoire of functions in the cell both their structural organization and amino acid sequence had to fit within a very narrow subset of all possible arrangements. Just like human language that only takes on meaning when letters and words are set out in universally recognizable and interpretable sequences, proteins could be considered as being rich in specified information.

In 1958 Francis Crick's Sequence Hypothesis formalized the idea that protein amino acid sequences were inextricably linked to the base sequences of DNA. Years earlier, geneticists George Beadle and Edward Tatum had supplied evidence that strongly suggested a link between genes and proteins. The elucidation of the DNA genetic code in the 1960s, defining the base triplets that coded for each amino acid, revolutionized the molecular biology arena. Most significant of all was the revelation that both DNA and proteins bore the same 'specificity' fingerprint as human systems of code. In short, the cellular world appeared to be intelligently designed.

In the fourth chapter of Signature In The Cell, Stephen Meyer displays an enviable clarity in his exposition of biology's post-'Shannon information' era. In so doing he masterfully dispels any concern that the intelligent design inference does not carry with it a sound logical foundation.