In the News

Check out these QuickTime cell biology animations from Graham Johnson Medical Media. Click on any of the thumbnail graphics and an animation window will open up and the animiation will download and run if you have QuickTime loaded. In particular check out the second animation from the top (Pseudomanas infection of Lung epithelium). If you turn up your sound you’d think you were watching some kind of space invaders scifi movie! We can see the credits now...

Producer: Random Mutations
Director: Natural Selection
Cast: Assorted chemicals

Yeah, right.

Now that The Da Vinci Code movie has been released in the theaters, don't forget our video lecture by Ward Gasque that expounds point by point what great fiction the story is. Recent surveys reveal that 13% of Americans and 17% of all Canadians polled believed that Jesus was married and had children and 24% of French believe the story is based on facts. About 25% of those polled who read the book claimed it influenced their religious beliefs.

This is from a News Feature in Nature for May 25, 2006. "Gene" was the only concept in evolutionary theory that seemed to have a clear definition (compare with species, speciation, selection, fitness, etc.). Now the definition is being attacked as "a crude approximation" and scientists say "The degree of complexity we've seen was not anticipated."

Genetics: What is a gene?
Helen Pearson (Helen Pearson is a reporter working for Nature in New York).

Abstract
The idea of genes as beads on a DNA string is fast fading. Protein-coding sequences have no clear beginning or end and RNA is a key part of the information package, reports Helen Pearson.

Here are a few interesting quotes from this report:

"Rick Young, a geneticist at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says that when he first started teaching as a young professor two decades ago, it took him about two hours to teach fresh-faced undergraduates what a gene was and the nuts and bolts of how it worked. Today, he and his colleagues need three months of lectures to convey the concept of the gene, and that's not because the students are any less bright. "It takes a whole semester to teach this stuff to talented graduates," Young says. "It used to be we could give a one-off definition and now it's much more complicated.""

"An eye-opening study last year raised the possibility that plants sometimes rewrite their DNA on the basis of RNA messages inherited from generations past. A study on page 469 of this issue suggests that a comparable phenomenon might occur in mice, and by implication in other mammals. If this type of phenomenon is indeed widespread, it "would have huge implications," says evolutionary geneticist Laurence Hurst at the University of Bath, UK."

"All of that information seriously challenges our conventional definition of a gene," says molecular biologist Bing Ren at the University of California, San Diego. And the information challenge is about to get even tougher. Later this year, a glut of data will be released from the international Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project. The pilot phase of ENCODE involves scrutinizing roughly 1% of the human genome in unprecedented detail; the aim is to find all the sequences that serve a useful purpose and explain what that purpose is. "When we started the ENCODE project I had a different view of what a gene was," says contributing researcher Roderic Guigo at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona. "The degree of complexity we've seen was not anticipated."

"Today's assault on the gene concept is more far reaching, fuelled largely by studies that show the previously unimagined scope of RNA."

The folks at Panspermia.org advocate that panspermia (life seeded from outer space) is an idea that traces back to the Greeks. It is one way to deal with the lack of evidence on earth for the chemical evolution of life, but doesn't it just beg the question? What is the source of the "genetic programs" that were seeded here from outerspace? This sounds more like design theory than an answer for the problems facing chemical evolution theory. At least these folks are a little more "honest" with the data than the chemical origin of life proponents. Here are a few snippets from their into page:

"Cosmic Ancestry is a new theory pertaining to evolution and the origin of life on Earth. It holds that life on Earth was seeded from space, and that life's evolution to higher forms depends on genetic programs that come from space. (It accepts the Darwinian account of evolution that does not require new genetic programs.) It is a wholly scientific, testable theory for which evidence is accumulating."

"We are calling the union of Lovelock's Gaia with Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's expanded theory of panspermia Cosmic Ancestry. This account of evolution and the origin of life on Earth is profoundly different from the prevailing scientific paradigm — the theory challenges not merely the answers but the questions that are popular today. Cosmic Ancestry implies, we find, that life can only descend from ancestors at least as highly evolved as itself. And it means, we believe, that there can be no origin of life from nonliving matter in the past. Without supernatural intervention, therefore, we conclude that life must have always existed. Although these conclusions cut across the boundaries between science, philosophy, and religion, we believe they are grounded in good evidence. In fact, new data that support many aspects of Cosmic Ancestry are coming in rapidly."

On Monday May 22, 2006 Dr. Cornelius Hunter and Dr. Michael Ruse debated on the topic “Evolution versus Intelligent Design: Scientific Assumptions in a Free Society” held by the Oregon State University Socratic Club. Adam Campbell, staff writer for the OSU Daily Barometer, provides a brief report.

On April 26, 2006 the Seattle Times Talk of the Times at Town Hall Seattle featured a debate over evolution and intelligent design between Discovery Institute CSC Director Stephen Meyer and US paleontologist Peter Ward. The event was sold out with 800+ in attendance for what turned out to be a really good debate. You can read a review of the debate here or watch it online here.

From ScienceDaily...

When scientists found 18,000-year-old bones of a small, humanlike creature on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, they concluded that the bones represented a new species in the human family tree that they named Homo floresiensis. Their interpretation was widely accepted by the scientific community and heralded by the popular press around the world. Because of its very short stature, H. floresiensis was soon dubbed the "Hobbit."

Increasingly, however, this controversial conclusion is being questioned. In a Technical Comment to be published in the May 19, 2006, issue of Science magazine, scientists led by Robert D. Martin, PhD, Field Museum Provost and world-class primatologist, say that the bones in question do not represent a new species at all. A far more likely explanation is that the bones belonged to a modern human who suffered from microcephaly, a pathological condition that causes small brain size, often associated with short stature.

A top-down systems approach to biology is yeilding new information about the complexity of the DNA repair mechanism.

Many cellular processes -- including DNA replication and repair, cell cycle control, metabolism, and stress responses -- form an integrated response to DNA damage, according to a report in this week's Science. The authors used a systems biology approach to create a map of transcriptional networks that are activated when yeast DNA is damaged.

"We now know an order of magnitude more pathway connections than were known before, as far as how information is transmitted through the cell in response to damage," senior author Trey Ideker of the University of California, San Diego, told The Scientist. Looking at cellular processes from a wide-angle view -- rather than the one-gene, one-protein approach of classical biology -- permits the construction of "a complete wiring diagram" of transcriptional interactions, Ideker said, which will help scientists control cellular response to DNA damage.

Peter Ward (coauthor of Rare Earth) was featured this week on an NPR broadcast claiming that the moon is the best place to look for evidence of the origin of life on earth because fossilized evidence from 3-4 billion years ago, which is missing on earth, may have wound up on the moon when meteors hit the earth. The skeptics reply that all we will find is moon dust, because with no atmosphere the earth fragments would have been pulverized when they slammed in to the moon. Ward countered that we should still find evidence of the early traces of life in the dust, and if so that means life formed easily and it will be found everywhere in the universe.

The chemical origin of life remains one of the largest "missing links" for the molecule-to-man theory of evolution. As every possible theory has been exhausted here on earth, reductionists have expanded the search to the moon, Mars and the universe in hopes of finding some shread of evidence to support their belief that life somehow spontaneously generated from non-life. We agree with Ward on one point. He called the origin of life the most important question in the cosmos! We agree. So lets teach our kids all the evidence pro and con and let them make up their own minds, rather than feeding them only government mandated reductionist fairytales.

You can listen to the NPR story here which has a bit of a fun scifi angle to it, which is probably the best way to present Ward's theories.

John Drake of the AP reports on an SC House committee considering an amendment that establishes how textbooks, software and other instructional materials are selected to require they "critically analyze" the subject matter.

It is the latest tactic by conservative lawmakers who want students to learn about problems in the theory of evolution.

Diane Hirth of the Tallahassee Democrat reports on the a forum to be held at Florida State University on intelligent design and the public schools.

ScienceDaily reports that there is a particular place inside a cell where proteins carry out their function. Scientists from the Charité Berlin, the University of Heidelberg, and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin have now been able to visualize the structure of a "molecular machine" involved in protein sorting.

Intelligently designed? We think so...

Dr. Michael Behe will appear at the New York Cultural Center on May 31st with Dr. Michael Hanby of Baylor in a panel discussion.

Sahar Shakir reports that the UC Irvine community was given a chance to witness an intellectual debate aimed at broadening the perspective on the origins of life. "A Colloquium on Origins, Evolution and Intelligent Design" featured two experts on the origin theory of intelligent design; Paul Nelson, a senior fellow at the International Society for Complexity Information, and Ralph Seelke, professor of biology and earth sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Walter Fitch, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCI, challenged them in favor of Darwinian evolution.

The event was sponsored by iDesign, a club focused on furthering the discussion of different contemporary theories on the origins of life and the universe, including that of intelligent design.

Author Tom Wolfe gave the annual Jefferson Lecture sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. His two hour long speech (click the above link to read the entire speech) was entitled "The Human Beast."

In more words (sometimes explicitly stated) he said that determinism is true, there is no free will, there is no I , evolution is a fact, there is no nature to man, and God is dead. He spoke of Darwin, Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche as if speaking of a beloved children.

It good he has figured it all out for us. Now we can attend to other things.

The Washington Post covered the speech. Please click HERE for the story.

Phil Johnson was interviewed by Kim Minugh of the Sacramento Bee.

His 1991 book "Darwin on Trial" is credited with setting into motion a movement that has spawned nationwide battles over how evolution should be taught in public schools.

You may have to register withe the Bee to read this article.

The Discovery Institute reports on fresh questions about the potential for a dismissal of the Kitzmiller case based upon mootness, potentially allowing the Dover Area School Board to avoid a large attorneys' fees judgment against them by rescinding their intelligent design (ID) policy before Judge Jones issued his decision.

Tom Simonite, of NewScientist, writes on the amazing Namib desert beetle, which lives on the parched sands of southwest Africa, and collects drinking water using its wings. The wings are waxed and covered with an array of raised unwaxed bumps. The bumps strongly attract water, while the waxy areas repel it.

You wonder how the beetle survived before this astounding adaptation?

UPI reports that South Carolina lawmakers are again embroiled in the continuing evolution controversy to decide how textbooks should present scientific theory.

Supporters of two bills before the legislature claim they only want to ensure textbooks enhance students' development of critical thinking skills, The (Columbia, S.C.) State reported Tuesday.

Critics say "critical thinking skills" are code words for inserting religious theories like intelligent design into biology lessons.

So, if ID is a "religious" theory, so is SETI, and all forensic science?

Pervaiz Shallwani, of the Morning Call, reports that while ID will not be taught in the Palisades School District this year, it certainly could in the future and is something worth being educated on. So said 17-year-old Sarah Weick, president of the school's Students for Social Change Club.

The club, a socially conscious group of students who look to generate discussion on hot-button issues in this predominantly rural, Christian community, is sponsoring a debate on the topic at Palisades High School May 9th.

"We want to provide an open forum where experts can present their opinions to the community and then take questions," Weick said.

Amanda Jacobs, of the Columbia Missourian, reports that Rep. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, chairwoman of the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee, said a bill made it through committee hearings by a 7-6 vote.

The Missouri Science Education Act would require sixth- through 12th-grade science teachers to engage in "critical analysis" of evolution as a theory rather than teaching it as an accepted fact.

WHAT: Critics of intelligent design will cross-examine intelligent design by asking its leading proponents the difficult questions in a Q-and-A format.

WHEN: Friday, May 12 at 7:30 p.m.

WHERE: Sutherland Auditorium at Biola University in La Mirada, Calif.

BACKGROUND: The question of intelligent design (ID) has flooded the news this year with the Dover, Penn. trial over the place of ID in public education. With many questions still left unanswered about ID theory, this event will allow the public access to hear from top ID experts and its critics.

Panelists representing ID include Mike Behe, Professor of Biochemistry, Lehigh University and Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute; Paul Nelson, Adjunct Professor, Biola University; Guillermo Gonzales, Assistant Research Professor of Astronomy, Iowa State University; Jonathan Wells, Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute; and Steve Meyer, Director and Senior Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute, Seattle.

Those cross-examining the panelists will include: Antony Flew, noted philosopher; Keith Morrison of Dateline NBC; and faculty from Cal State Fullerton: Bruce H. Weber, Ph.D. Professor of Biochemistry; James R. Hofmann, Ph.D. Professor and Chair, Liberal Studies Department; and Craig M. Nelson, Ph.D. Lecturer, Department of Comparative Religion.

Can material forces, on their own, write out the 20,000 digital DNA files that crowd the "hard drives" of higher animals?

A recent poll indicated that 60 percent of the medical doctors in the US have serious doubts about the veracity of the macroevolutionary theory as taught in universities today.

A new venue is available to give voice to this powerful flow of skeptical thought in the world of medicine, and to promote accurate knowledge and free exchange of ideas concerning the debate over Darwinism and alternative theories of origin. Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity (PSSI) has been established. PSSI is a means for physicians and surgeons to be counted among those skeptical of nature-driven Darwinian macroevolution. Click the headline above to reach the Web site.

Its members endorse the following statement: "We are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the origination and complexity of life and we therefore dissent from Darwinian macroevolution as a viable theory. This does not imply the endorsement of any alternative theory."

Any person with an M.D., D.O., D.D.S., D.M.D., D.V.M. or equivalent may become a member of PSSI. Membership is free of charge, and agnostics or members of any faith are welcome.

Allowing physicians and surgeons to speak on this subject with a united voice in significant numbers is one of the best ways to help ensure that the scientific facts will be made known, and PSSI can make that happen.

ScienceDaily reports on the amazing way bats catch food.

Aren't random mutation and natural selection incredible in their creative powers?

What happens when a mathematician takes a close look at the just-so stories of Darwinian evolution? The stories quickly change from plausible to ridiculous. Dr David Berlinski likens the cow to whale evolution to the engineering task of converting a car to a submarine. Why are the 50,000+ required morphological changes not found in the fossil record? From the producers of the Icons of Evolution documentary, this video interview is now one of the top five “must watch” videos on origins.

In JCI an article gives "real" scientists a clarion call to action to battle the evil forces of creationism and ID.

Count the numbers of ad hominem attacks, uses of perjorative language, assertions, calls to be close-minded, etc. The fact-value split way of looking at reality comes through loud and clear.

The Wisconsin bill says that only science should be taught in public schools. We suppose that also means that the philosophy of methodological naturalism preached by the materialists of the day should also be thrown out of the biology classroom.

Steve Connor, of the New Zealand Herald, reports that humans are causing evolution to slip into reverse for one of the species of finches that is said to have inspired Charles Darwin after he returned from his famous visit to the Galapagos Islands.

Scientists have found that one of "Darwin's finches" living in the remote Pacific archipelago has begun to lose the distinguishing trait that COULD (emphasis mine) be causing it to split into two different species.

"We need to make more effort to enable those species that are in the process of diversifying to continue to diversify and thereby generate new species," said Professor Andrew Hendry of McGill University in Montreal, who led the study.

If I were a Darwinist, why would I care whether the ground finch "speciated"? It is what we have been saying all along. Finch beaks oscillate about a mean, depending on the changing environment. That's micro-evolution, and non-controversial. They are, and will continue to be, finches.

Time Magazine's Mark Ridley reports on what Judge John Jones was probably seeking in the first place: fame, or perhaps ultimately, infamy.

Roger Dobson, of the Sunday Times, reports on a theory that has traced the origins of laughter back 4 million years to pre-humans slipping and stumbling in their first faltering attempts to walk on two legs.

According to the theory, when they saw a member of their group lose his footing they would laugh as a sign to each other that something was amiss, but nothing too serious.

What won't they think of next...

Don Wise, professor emeritus of geosciences at the University of Massachusetts has his own theory of incompenent design which seems to make as much sense as saying my car is not designed because it overheats in the desert, it runs out of gas, the parts get rusty, and I can't drive it down the sidewalk. Be sure to watch the video at the end of the article and read the lyrics to this favorite Darwinian Hymn.

ScienceDaily reports that for the first time, scientists have documented an organ-specific innate immune system. In research published in the April 18 edition of the journal Immunity, scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine outline the unique mechanism by which the lung shapes its defensive strategies against microbial invasion.

The alveola possess a complex immune system in which the macrophage is repressed in its steady state, activated when called upon to fight invading microorganisms, and then re-repressed, in a circuit that is unique to this microenvironment.

Lucky...likely not. Intelligently designed...likely so.