Science Literature

A previous blog drew attention to negative feedback mechanisms in the Earth's climatic system as a mark (though not a proof) of design. An interesting study by Lindzen and Choi has recently appeared which gives an informative analysis of satellite data spanning 16 years (to 1999). These measurements provide evidence bearing on the Earth's radiation imbalance and climatic feedbacks. From the abstract:

"The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs."

Figure 2 from the new paper. "The observed relationship between ocean temperature changes (x-axis) and radiation flux to space (y-axis) is contained in the graph with the red box around it. The other graphs depict the relationship as predicted by 11 different climate models." (Source here)

The data source is the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) which allows measurement of the heat energy emitted by the Earth. Solar energy drives the Earth's climatic system and the incoming radiation is that of a body with a temperature of about 6000 deg K. The Earth absorbs much of this heat energy and emits radiation corresponding to a temperature of about 255 deg K. In a state of equilibrium, the absorbed energy is balanced by the emitted energy.

The equilibrium state is altered by clouds and greenhouse gases (such as water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane). These materials act like an insulating layer, inhibiting energy emission. Equilibrium is restored when the effective temperature of the Earth rises. Carbon dioxide has been the focus of interest over the past two decades, and climate scientists have come to use the term "climate sensitivity" to define the equilibrium response obtained when doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide. The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that climate sensitivity is in the range 1.5-5.0 deg C.

The hypothesis made by many climate scientists is that higher carbon dioxide levels increase the global temperature and this allows more water vapour to be held in the atmosphere. This leads to an increasing cloud cover and a greater blanketing effect: a positive feedback mechanism. Thus, the effect of the CO2 increase is amplified and global temperatures rise to restore equilibrium. This is the hypothesis that has been tested by Lindzen and Choi utilising the climate models currently favoured by climate scientists. The observed sea surface temperatures over the 16 year period have been fed into the models to calculate values for the heat energy radiated from the Earth. The results were compared with empirical observations derived from satellites. The findings, plotted in their Figure 2 (above), show that the model predictions are in marked contrast to the ERBE data. The authors point out that the latter reveal negative feedback mechanisms (as yet undetermined) in contrast to all the models which have positive feedback, described by the authors as "spurious positive feedback".

Lindzen and Choi go on to present revised climate sensitivity figures. Whilst the range of variation used in the models is 1.5-5.0 deg C, the authors say that their results "appear to demonstrate a climate sensitivity of about 0.5 deg C". This implies strong negative feedback. Furthermore, if greenhouse gases do warm the planet, their effects would not be distinguishable from natural climatic variations.

Scientists should have liberty to interpret the negative feedback mechanisms as a pointer to our planet's climatic system being designed for life. The Earth's climate is far more stable than the alarmists think. Their views are buttressed by incorporating positive feedback mechanisms into their models to amplify small climatic perturbations and, as Lindzen and Choi have shown, this approach is in tension with the empirical evidence.

It may be of wider interest to discuss a link between this topic and my earlier blog on "Darwin's boulders". The common thread is uniformitarianism adversely affecting the judgment of scientists. Much of climate science is concerned with the present and with short-term forecasting. However, not so many thousand years ago, all are aware of radically different climates during glacial periods. The causes of ice ages have been extensively discussed: some have favoured catastrophism whereas others offer uniformitarian explanations. Recently, the pendulum has swung very strongly towards acceptance of Milankovitch Cycles as the key to understanding glaciations. There are three dominant cycles, affecting the Earth's eccentricity, axial tilt and precession. The variations in solar energy relate to seasonality and geographic location.

Using these cycles, glaciations are said to occur because of predictable causal mechanisms affecting the Earth as it orbits the Sun. The mathematical formulas developed by Milutin Milankovitch are very suitable for incorporating into climate models and simulations, so they have proved to be attractive to climate scientists seeking to explain glaciations. Since the net annual solar radiation falling on the Earth is a constant, the irradiation differences identified by Milankovitch need to be amplified so that they can trigger large scale effects. This necessitates the use of positive feedback in model-building. The root problem is that the science that emerges is built on the assumption of uniformitarianism and model validation using empirical data has been far from rigorous.

This analysis of the way uniformitarianism is a hidden presupposition of much climate science is, of course, a personal view. ID is concerned with design inferences and there is no reason why ID scientists should not take different views on these particular issues. The reason why I am sharing these thoughts is because making design inferences about the Earth's climate system is not a no-go area, and my previous blog explained the basis for a prediction: that negative feedback mechanisms predominate. This is a testable prediction, as the research discussed in this blog has shown. It is just possible that if climate scientists were more alert to design issues, they would have been more critical of their own models (which demanded positive feedback and relative climatic instability). And it can be argued that the presumption of uniformitarianism (Lyell's legacy to the present generation) has not only led to flawed science, it has also cost billions of dollars in a misguided attempt to save the planet.

On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data
Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi
Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L16705,2009 | doi: 10.1029/2009GL039628

Abstract: Climate feedbacks are estimated from fluctuations in the outgoing radiation budget from the latest version of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) nonscanner data. It appears, for the entire tropics, the observed outgoing radiation fluxes increase with the increase in sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs. Therefore, the models display much higher climate sensitivity than is inferred from ERBE, though it is difficult to pin down such high sensitivities with any precision. Results also show, the feedback in ERBE is mostly from shortwave radiation while the feedback in the models is mostly from longwave radiation. Although such a test does not distinguish the mechanisms, this is important since the inconsistency of climate feedbacks constitutes a very fundamental problem in climate prediction.

See also:

Tyler, D. Was Lyell's "project simply the worldview of naturalism"? ARN Literature Blog, 6 July 2007.

Additional note dated 15th January 2011:
Richard S Lindzen: "The larger predictions from climate models are due to the fact that, within these models, the more important greenhouse substances, water vapor and clouds, act to greatly amplify whatever CO2 does. This is referred to as a positive feedback. It means that increases in surface temperature are accompanied by reductions in the net outgoing radiation - thus enhancing the greenhouse warming. All climate models show such changes when forced by observed surface temperatures. Satellite observations of the earth's radiation budget allow us to determine whether such a reduction does, in fact, accompany increases in surface temperature in nature. As it turns out, the satellite data from the ERBE instrument (Barkstrom, 1984, Wong et al, 2006) shows that the feedback in nature is strongly negative - strongly reducing the direct effect of CO2 (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) in profound contrast to the model behavior. This analysis makes clear that even when all models agree, they can all be wrong, and that this is the situation for the all important question of climate sensitivity. Unfortunately, Lindzen and Choi (2009) contained a number of errors; however, as shown in a paper currently under review, these errors were not relevant to the main conclusion." (Source here).

As a young man aboard HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin was fascinated by erratic boulders. After completing his voyage, he wrote several papers about their origin. Tierra del Fuego was of particular interest, for he found boulder trains at different elevations at a place known as Bahia San Sebastian, which faces the Atlantic Ocean. Darwin actually delayed the survey work of HMS Beagle so he could gather more extensive information. On returning to the UK, he made the boulders the focus of two geological papers published in 1841. The route by which Darwin reached his conclusions is instructive for all of us involved in research today.

Some of "Darwin's Boulders" (Source here)

It is well known that Charles Lyell's writings were a major influence on Darwin. Captain Fitzroy acquired Volume 1 of Principles of Geology for the library of HMS Beagle. Darwin not only read it but afterward said that "it altered the whole tone of one's mind" and that, thereafter, he saw everything in the light of Lyell's ideas. He made a point of acquiring the other volumes as they were published. Lyell's approach to making geology a science was to relate all geological interpretations to the operations of present-day processes. He championed uniformitarianism as a methodological principle - and Darwin drank it all up. He followed Lyell's lead in explaining landscape evolution in terms of gradual, incremental changes of sea level.

"Darwin's thinking was profoundly influenced by Lyell's obsession with large-scale, slow, vertical movements of the crust, especially as manifested in his theory of submergence and ice rafting to explain drift. In turn, Lyell profited greatly from Darwin's observations, including uplift of the Pacific coast of Chile during the Talcahuano earthquake. Lyell celebrated these observations because they supported his idea of uniformitarianism - that continued small changes, as witnessed in the field, could account for dramatic changes of Earth's surface over geologic time."

Lyell had noted how sediments carried along by icebergs could be deposited far from their source, and Darwin extended the observations by documenting the way boulders were transported by icebergs. He then developed an ice-rafting model to explain erratic boulders. In 1845 he pointed out that if these boulders were close to glaciers, they were likely pushed into position, but if far from source, they were ice-rafted.

"Few geologists now doubt that those erratic boulders which lie near lofty mountains have been pushed forward by the glaciers themselves, and that those distant from mountains, and embedded in subaqueous deposits, have been conveyed thither either on ice-bergs or frozen in coast-ice."

Darwin supported this model for the Tierra del Fuego boulders using two arguments: first, that the land surface on which the boulders lay were free of mounds and ridges which might point to glacial action; and second, that the boulders were angular - which would not be expected if they were pushed such a great distance. Darwin "considered the possibility that glaciers could have extended" much further than they do today, but rejected the idea because it departed too much from uniformitarian thinking. Darwin's approach to interpreting landscape anomalies is described by the authors of a recent paper as "inductive reasoning". This is discussed further below.

The new research sets out to revisit "Darwin's Boulders" and to review the causal mechanism. The authors have mapped the Bahia San Sebastian train of boulders on the east coast (which number about 500) and also a second train at Bahia Inutil on the west coast (which number about 1000). All the boulders are medium-grained hornblende granodiorites, several hundred kilometres from the nearest source. The authors write:

"Of the three plausible mechanisms for emplacement of these distal erratics - iceberg rafting, stream-ice rafting, or direct deposition from glaciers - we support the latter. Overwhelming evidence for complete glaciation of Tierra del Fuego, from coast to coast, has been unchallenged for almost a century. It is unlikely that stream ice could have transported such large boulders over hundreds of kilometers while maintaining such a tight distribution, and there is no evidence of a capable fluvial environment in the immediate vicinity of either boulder train."

To expand on the relevant points: mapping of the surface sediments of Tierra del Fuego has revealed that the whole region has been glaciated. The boulder trains at Bahia San Sebastian train and Bahia Inutil have been mapped as resting on moraine crests. The "tight distribution" has been documented and ice-rafting has never been observed to result in anything like this. Direct deposition, however, is observed. Landslides onto glaciers can leave large boulders on the ice which can then be transported however far the glacier extends, leaving a linear train of blocks when the ice melts away.

I want now to return to the "inductive reasoning" comment noted earlier. Inductive reasoning starts with observations and philosophical premises, uses reason to identify patterns, which lead to the proposal of initial hypotheses. These can then be tested and confirmed hypotheses lead to theories. Darwin's observations were of angular erratic boulders, the ability of icebergs to carry large rocks over long distances, and relatively short glaciers in the upland areas. His philosophical premise was uniformitarianism. Put these together and the hypotheses were iceberg rafting or stream-ice rafting. The angularity of the boulders ruled out stream-ice rafting, so Darwin drew the conclusion that the mechanism was iceberg rafting.

The problems with this start with the philosophical premises. Once uniformitarianism was accepted as essential to science (as Lyell argued), Darwin felt honour-bound to adhere to it. His thinking became constrained. He was only prepared to work with hypotheses that were compatible with uniformitarianism - all else would be regarded as speculation or even antiscience. This led him to overlook data that was right in front of him: the "tight distribution" of the boulders that was inconsistent with the hypothesis. It also delayed the recognition of the glacial features that covered Tierra del Fuego.

The problem goes back to Francis Bacon, who wanted to move away from the deductive methodology of the Aristotelians and establish something more grounded in empiricism. Induction was a key stage in his methodology - but he underplayed the human dimension. Researchers have to bring philosophical premises to bear on their work. How can we avoid becoming slaves to our adopted premises? Uniformitarianism lasted a century before researchers accepted that catastrophism was just as viable as a philosophical presupposition. What matters is that we use these philosophical approaches to generate testable hypotheses. Multiple working hypotheses are to be commended as long as ways are found to put them to the test.

Charles Darwin never escaped uniformitarianism. It pervaded his geology - as is apparent from the example before us here. It entered his thinking about biological transformation: the natural selection of small incremental variations. (Unfortunately, this constraint is still with us today, as Darwinians are unwilling to concede anything significant to the theory of punctuated equilibrium or to evo-devo.) Darwin missed out in understanding heredity, because he was looking for gradual change rather than discontinuous variation. (For more on why Darwin did not discover the laws of inheritance, go here).

Philosophical premises are of crucial importance. We cannot afford to leave discussion of this to the philosophers. Scientists bring philosophical premises whether they know it or not - and, as Darwin demonstrated, it matters. This is why the issues raised by Intelligent Design are of such importance. Should design inferences be part of science? Those who say 'no' are united in the belief that design cannot be inferred in the natural world. They 'know' this, not because they have empirical evidence to show it, but because their philosophical starting point is naturalism. All causation must be by Law or by Chance, they say. ID advocates have repeatedly pointed out that this stance involves circular reasoning, because they can envisage no scientific test to prove or disprove design. Consequently, disproofs of design are always theological: 'God would not do it that way!' However, philosophical naturalism has within it the seeds of its own destruction: like Darwinism, it is a universal acid that eats up our humanity (consciousness and free agency), our values (all morality is relative and socially constructed) and ultimately our science. That's why ID advocates must persevere until the urgently needed changes come.

Enigmatic boulder trains, supraglacial rock avalanches, and the origin of "Darwin's boulders", Tierra del Fuego
Edward B. Evenson, Patrick A. Burkhart, John C. Gosse, Gregory S. Baker, Dan Jackofsky, Andres Meglioli, Ian Dalziel, Stefan Kraus, Richard B. Alley, Claudio Berti
GSA Today, December 2009, 19(12), 4-10.

Charles Darwin considered himself to be a geologist and published extensively on many geologic phenomena. He was intrigued with the distribution of erratic boulders and speculated upon their origins. In his accounts of the voyage of the HMS Beagle, Darwin described crystalline boulders of notable size and abundance near Bahia San Sebastian, south of the Strait of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego. Influenced by Charles Lyell's reflections upon slow, vertical movements of crust, submergence, and ice rafting to explain drift, Darwin proposed that the boulders of Bahia San Sebastian were ice-rafted. Benefiting from 170 years of subsequent study of the glacial history of Tierra del Fuego, petrography, and terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide measurements, we revisit the origin of "Darwin's Boulders" at Bahia San Sebastian. We suggest that they, as well as another train of boulders to the west, at Bahia Inutil, represent rock falls of Beagle-type granite from the Cordillera Darwin onto glacial ice flowing into the Bahia Inutil-Bahia San Sebastian lobe. These supraglacial rock avalanche deposits were subsequently elongated into boulder trains by glacial strain during transport and then deposited upon moraines. The cosmogenic nuclide exposure dates support the correlation of Andean glaciations with the marine oxygen isotope record and the glacial chronologies recently proposed for Tierra del Fuego.

Students of evolution are taught to avoid incorporating the idea of progress to the theory. Law + Chance do not allow the incorporation of an over-riding goal. One Evolution 101 course expresses it this way: "It is tempting to see evolution as a grand progressive ladder with Homo sapiens emerging at the top. But evolution produces a tree, not a ladder - and we are just one of many leaves on the tree." The Darwinian mechanisms of mutation + natural selection emphasise Chance over Law, with the corollary that the evolutionary process is unpredictable. Readers of Stephen Jay Gould will know that this was one of his favourite themes, to which he repeatedly returned. In a recent paper, Simon Conway Morris consciously challenges the status quo and points a way to a different perspective on evolutionary transformation:

"Specifically, I argue that far from its myriad of products being fortuitous and accidental, evolution is remarkably predictable."

Are humans an "evolutionary inevitability" or just one of many leaves on the Tree of Life? (Source here)

Conway Morris has wrestled with the question: why, if evolution is fortuitous and accidental, are there so many evidences of convergence? Over-specialisation has meant scientists escape the overwhelming evidence for convergence being ubiquitous. Their research "tends to track the particularities and peculiarities of a given group and seldom enquires whether there are any wider or deeper sets of explanations". This needs to change, and the advocates of neo-Darwinism need to acknowledge the deficiencies of their theory.

"Here, I will suggest that one central tenet of the current neo-Darwinian synthesis, that evolution is for all intents and purposes open-ended and indeterminate in terms of predictable outcomes, is now open to question. Thus, not only is life suspended between permanently uninhabitable regions that are either locked into crystalline immobility or in continuous and chaotic flux, but that the lines of evolutionary vitality thread through a landscape that leaves evolution with surprisingly few choices. The basis of this view relies on the phenomenon of evolutionary convergence."

We can commend Conway Morris for his willingness to support "the heterodox idea" that there is more predictability in evolutionary biology than the Darwinians will admit. We need scholars who are prepared to think rather than operate within a theoretical straitjacket. However, what Conway Morris does not do is to critique the paradigm that makes "fortuitous and accidental" mechanisms the key to the mystery of life's origins. He thinks that "something is missing" and that he can bolt on something that will somehow turn these stochastic components into an engine for delivering "ubiquitous evolutionary convergence". He wants to do this by bringing in contributions from developmental biology and epigenetics. Key words for the new way of thinking include: emergent phenomena, self-organisation and nonlinear systems.

"[T]hese concepts can be melded with the currency of evolution in the form of developmental constraints (the role of which may be exaggerated) and epigenetics to suggest that indeed something is missing in the Darwinian synthesis."

Is something missing? Hardened Darwinists will interpret this as merely a refinement of their essential mechanisms: with an acknowledgment that living things are products of history: genetic variations and natural selection can only work with the source material that is there. This is how structuralism can be integrated within the evolutionary synthesis. But Darwinists are not showing any signs of acknowledging that anything significant is missing from their theory! The evolution of life is still essentially fortuitous, but the options open for transformation are constrained by history.

Conway Morris does not talk about mechanisms that challenge the "fortuitous" thesis. Rather, he gives numerous examples of striking convergences that allow him to suggest that evolutionary trajectories are predictable. However, the argument presupposes common ancestry and the early (existing in the Precambrian) appearance of life forms that exhibit "an extraordinary degree of complexity". His story effectively starts with complexity and it is this complexity that is transformed as the Tree of Life extends its branches. The process is described as an apparently "baffling series of self-organizations".

"In many cases, we also see that the particular molecules show a remarkable versatility of function in what appear to be unrelated contexts. It is most probable that these molecules are homologous, but in many cases the overall architecture and the iron constraints of active sites (or equivalents) suggest that convergence should not be automatically dismissed. It is also striking how in general the idea that primitive groups are simple, almost skeletal constructions in comparison to their descendants, is simply incorrect and in precursors as diverse as the last common ancestor of the eukaryotes or choanoflagellates we either infer or see an extraordinary degree of complexity. Rather than imagining that this arose by a series of conveniently cryptic prior stages, we may have to face the possibility that evolution involves what to us seem to be a baffling series of self-organizations."

None of the above is understood at the level of mechanism - Conway Morris is developing a theoretical model that tries to make sense of twigs without being able to trace the branches. "What we do not understand is how organisms assemble as exceedingly complex functional entities nor why they repeatedly navigate to convergent solutions." There is no insight here as to how complexity is built from simple precursors - just an appeal to self-organisation. This, however, is the weak point of the argument. The origin of biological information cannot be a matter of self-organisation because DNA is a code. The precursor molecules have physical and chemical bonds that permit all possible different codes to be carried. There is no innate process of organisation that can generate information.

Nevertheless, Conway Morris has put his finger on data that needs an explanation. Working within his adopted paradigm, Law (rather than Chance) must be invoked if there is to be predictability. This is the hope behind the appeal to self-organisation, developmental constraints and epigenetics. Will this deliver predictability? I think the answer to this is "yes" - but in a more limited sense than that intended by Conway Morris. Developmental biology has taken us beyond the genocentric view of organisms. For example, concentration gradients of morphogens regulate tissue differentiation and morphogenesis in multicellular organisms. Where a pattern of development can be described mathematically, the application area is limited to a limited range of organisms. These ideas can be applied, in principle, to predict diversification within the basic types of life, but beyond this, the empirical base is speculative.

This is where design thinking has enormous potential to move the discussion forward. If we allow Design to stand alongside Law and Chance, there are ways to move the discussion of biological information forward and to ensure theoretical ideas are both informed and constrained by empirical research. Conway Morris' descriptions of ID as "anti-evolutionary dogma" and "scientific fiction" fail to do justice to scholars who "in any other respect fail to manifest any obvious sign of mental instability".

How do we know that "convergence" is the right description of the phenomena described in this paper? Could some of them be design motifs? How can the different explanations of Law and Design be evaluated? This is a contribution ID scientists can bring to the table.

Evolution: like any other science it is predictable
Simon Conway Morris
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, (January 12) 2010 365, 133-145 | doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0154

Abstract: Evolutionary biology rejoices in the diversity of life, but this comes at a cost: other than working in the common framework of neo-Darwinian evolution, specialists in, for example, diatoms and mammals have little to say to each other. Accordingly, their research tends to track the particularities and peculiarities of a given group and seldom enquires whether there are any wider or deeper sets of explanations. Here, I present evidence in support of the heterodox idea that evolution might look to a general theory that does more than serve as a tautology ('evolution explains evolution'). Specifically, I argue that far from its myriad of products being fortuitous and accidental, evolution is remarkably predictable. Thus, I urge a move away from the continuing obsession with Darwinian mechanisms, which are entirely uncontroversial. Rather, I emphasize why we should seek explanations for ubiquitous evolutionary convergence, as well as the emergence of complex integrated systems. At present, evolutionary theory seems to be akin to nineteenth-century physics, blissfully unaware of the imminent arrival of quantum mechanics and general relativity. Physics had its Newton, biology its Darwin: evolutionary biology now awaits its Einstein.

Ulrich Kutschera is a German biologist and Darwin scholar who has reached the conclusion that Darwin's 1859 treatise conveys a "philosophical imperative". By this is meant the strict separation of "scientific fact and theories from religious dogmas". Kutschera rejects the claims of some that "evolutionary theory and Bible-based myths are compatible". From an ID perspective, Kutschera's essay warrants a critical analysis because there are points of agreement and major areas of disagreement.

Sailing along with Darwin - Ulrich Kutschera is third from the right (Credit: N. Spencer, source here).

Let us start with the central claim that Darwin "strictly" separated scientific facts and theorising from religion. It is fair to say this was his stated approach - but did he achieve it? Darwin presented himself as working in the Baconian tradition, but how did he implement induction? In his writings, he makes frequent references to the religious concept of creation. Characteristic of his reasoning is that a Creator could not be responsible for the world portrayed in On the Origin of Species. Repeatedly, theological reasons are provided to support Darwin's conclusion. ID authors have drawn attention to this style of argument: notably Nelson (1998) and Hunter (2001).

Once it is acknowledged that theological arguments can be used in scientific discourse to reject design and advance evolution, then it follows that responses to these arguments which affirm design are also, in principle, legitimate within science. This is not, of course, what Kutschera and his colleagues want. Significantly, Darwin advocates never interact with ID authors about these matters.

Continuing with the core theme of Kutschera's paper, Darwin's metaphysical stance is described as philosophical naturalism. This means that only natural causes are admitted within science (although exceptions are permitted for archaeological science and forensic science where evidences of intelligent design are always of great interest). ID advocates have generally agreed with Kutschera regarding Darwin's philosophical naturalism, but not with the way he has reached this conclusion.

Kutschera presents the young Darwin as someone accepting the 'natural theology' of William Paley, but who gradually lost his Bible-based beliefs. This interpretation of events can only be followed if Darwin's autobiographical writings are regarded as authoritative. However, this leads to an approach to Darwin studies that is short on critical appraisal. This is significant because numerous statements made by Darwin appear to some of us as either inconsistent or incoherent. An example would be Darwin's explanation of his use of the word "Creator" in the last paragraph of the Origin - discussed below.

Without going into detail, an alternative interpretation of Darwin's spiritual pilgrimage is as follows. Darwin learned his naturalistic philosophy from his father and grandfather. It was reinforced during his time at Edinburgh University. However, he was forced to question these beliefs at Cambridge, where he was deeply influenced by Christians (notably John Stevens Henslow and Adam Sedgwick) and then on the Beagle (Robert FitzRoy). However, it was Charles Lyell, through his writings on geology, who had a more profound ideological impact and Darwin emerged from his travels fully signed up as an advocate of philosophical naturalism.

Another area where Darwin enthusiasts promote their own reading of history is the furor theologicus, highlighted in the title of Kutschera's article. The fury of theologians is supposed to have been poured on poor Darwin's head, making him insert the 'unscientific' word "Creator" in the last paragraph of the Origin. Darwin's 1863 letter to Hooker is quoted to reveal an author who had "long regretted" truckling to public opinion. What Kutschera does not discuss is why Darwin retained the offending words in every subsequent edition of his book. Also, Kutschera does not interact with Van Wyhe's (2007) paper on why Darwin did not publish the Origin before 1859. He shows (convincingly) that Darwin was not in the least troubled by being out of step with theologians or the public. His concern was to gain acceptance of his theory among his peers.

"[N]o unambiguous evidence has been found that Darwin was particularly concerned about a hostile reception. In fact, all of the evidence that does exist points to other forms of expected objections, gaps in the theory or its evidence for example. None of Darwin's written considerations of difficulties suggests an unwillingness or even a reluctance to go public." (Van Wyhe, 2007, p.184-5)

Darwin's ideas received far more criticism from fellow scientists than from theologians. What Kutschera totally fails to acknowledge is this scientific opposition to Darwinism. The furor theologicus is mentioned several times but never documented. The result is a distortion of history.

Kutschera views Darwinism through a filter of positivist philosophy. There is no recognition that Darwin adopted a theoretical framework of uniformitarianism and naturalism with which he interpreted the data. He claimed to be an inductive thinker, but demonstrated deduction. Nevertheless, Kutschera writes:
"[T]he attempt to depict evolution, labelled as "Darwinism", as though it were a political or religious ideology, [. . .] is a misrepresentation of the way scientists work and think. Evolutionary biology is a non-dogmatic system of modifiable theories that is based exclusively on empirical facts and data."

The real problem in this paper is not that it presents an air-brushed Darwin, but that it appears in a journal designed to be read by teachers and students. What is the message getting through to schools and colleges? Instead of help in developing a critical analysis of the issues, young people are fed with propaganda. These students ought to be assessing the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of Darwinism. They ought to be evaluating the effectiveness of the theory to explain empirical facts and data. Instead, it looks as though anyone seeking to apply critical thinking skills to Darwinism will be regarded as guilty of subverting science!

Darwin's Philosophical Imperative and the Furor Theologicus
U. Kutschera
Evolution: Education and Outreach, (December 2009) 2(4), 688-694 | DOI 10.1007/s12052-009-0166-8

Abstract: In 1859 Charles Darwin submitted a manuscript entitled "An Abstract of an Essay on the Origin of Species and Varieties through Natural Selection" to John Murray III, who published the text under the title On the Origin of Species. On many pages of this book, Darwin contrasts his naturalistic theory that explains the transmutation and diversification of animals and plants with the Bible-based belief that all species were independently created. On the last page of the first edition, published in November 1859, where Darwin speculated on the origin of the earliest forms of life from which all other species have descended, no reference to "the Creator" is made. In order to conciliate angry clerics and hence to tame the erupted furor theologicus, Darwin included the phrase "by the Creator" in the second edition of 1860 and in all subsequent versions of his book (sixth ed. 1872). However, in a letter of 1863, Darwin distanced himself from this Bible-based statement and wrote that by creation he means "appeared by some wholly unknown process." In 1871, Darwin proposed a naturalistic origin-of-life-concept but did not dare to mention his "warm little pond hypothesis" in the sixth definitive edition of the Origin (1872). I conclude that the British naturalist strictly separated scientific facts and theories from religious dogmas (Darwin's "philosophical imperative") and would not endorse current claims by the Catholic Church and other Christian associations that evolutionary theory and Bible-based myths are compatible.

See also:
Van Wyhe, J., 2007, Mind The Gap: Did Darwin Avoid Publishing His Theory For Many Years? Notes & Records of the Royal Society, 61, 177-205 | doi:10.1098/rsnr.2006.0171

With millions of eyes on Copenhagen, this seems an appropriate time to ask whether ID thinking has any relevance to understanding the Earth's environment. Can design concepts help us weigh the diverse and often conflicting messages? I think ID is helpful, because features of the Earth's environments and ecologies start to take on new meaning. In this blog, I am thinking particularly of negative feedback mechanisms. Human design engineers will use negative feedback to promote stability and positive feedback to amplify an input signal. They select the mechanisms they need to achieve the desired effect. By analogy, if the Earth is designed for life, we would expect to see negative feedback mechanisms predominating to achieve stable environments. What do we find?

Higher levels of carbon dioxide have accelerated the growth rates of quaking aspen, one of North America's most important and widespread deciduous trees (Source here)

In the scientific news recently are two research papers relevant to biological feedback mechanisms. The first concerns the quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), a dominant species in many northern forest ecosystems. "Aspen growth has increased an average of 53% over the past five decades, primarily in response to the 19.2% rise in ambient CO2 levels."

"Trees are already responding to a relatively nominal increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 50 years," says Rick Lindroth, a UW-Madison professor of ecology and an expert on plant responses to climate change. [. . .] The study's findings are important as the world's forests, which cover about 30 percent of the Earth's land surface, play an important role in regulating climate and sequestering greenhouses gases. The forests of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, act as sinks for carbon dioxide, helping to offset the increase in levels of the greenhouse gas, widely viewed as a threat to global climate stability.

A second study is concerned with the impact of fertilisers on the species diversity of grasslands. These chemicals more than double the availability of nitrogen and whilst this stimulates some plants to thrive, others are quickly out-competed and they die off.

"In a long-term open-air experiment, grassland assemblages planted with 16 species were grown under all combinations of ambient and elevated CO2 and ambient and elevated N. Over 10 years, elevated N reduced species richness by 16% at ambient CO2 but by just 8% at elevated CO2. This resulted from multiple effects of CO2 and N on plant traits and soil resources that altered competitive interactions among species. Elevated CO2 thus ameliorated the negative effects of N enrichment on species richness."

These are but two examples of negative feedback to promote stability. There have been many examples like this in the past, and there will be many more to come. Examples of positive feedback are rare. The effect this has in my mind is to reinforce the thought that the Earth's environments and ecosystems have a robustness about them. This means that when a catastrophe comes, like the eruption of Mt St Helens volcano, recolonisation rarely takes as long as was first anticipated. Whilst this does not prove the Earth is designed, the marks of design are easy to find and the evidence is fully consistent with design.

How does this relate to Copenhagen? A frequently heard message is that the Earth is heading for a doomsday crisis: rapid melting of ice caps, rapid sea-level rise, ocean currents that flip and runaway climate change, etc. These scenarios all invoke positive feedback mechanisms and avalanche processes. What seems to be overlooked is the dominance of negative feedback processes, many of which we are not yet aware of, that counter such dramatic changes. One way to handle such thinking is to analyse feedback mechanisms that we know are operating and check whether they are positive or negative. If mainly positive, the case for sustainable green energy is strong. However, if the findings show mainly negative feedback, it is fair to conclude that the predictors of doomsday are alarmists. We still need to work towards a sustainable future, but intelligent evolution (rather than revolution) will be the agenda.

Rising concentrations of atmospheric CO2 have increased growth in natural stands of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides)
Christopher T. Cole, Jon E. Anderson, Richard L. Lindroth, Donald M. Waller
Global Change Biology, Published Online: Oct 22 2009 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02103.x

Abstract: As atmospheric CO2 levels rise, temperate and boreal forests in the Northern Hemisphere are gaining importance as carbon sinks. Quantification of that role, however, has been difficult due to the confounding effects of climate change. Recent large-scale experiments with quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), a dominant species in many northern forest ecosystems, indicate that elevated CO2 levels can enhance net primary production. Field studies also reveal that droughts contribute to extensive aspen mortality. To complement this work, we analyzed how the growth of wild aspen clones in Wisconsin has responded to historical shifts in CO2 and climate, accounting for age, genotype (microsatellite heterozygosity), and other factors. Aspen growth has increased an average of 53% over the past five decades, primarily in response to the 19.2% rise in ambient CO2 levels. CO2-induced growth is particularly enhanced during periods of high moisture availability. [. . .] Owing to aspen's role as a foundation species in many North American forest ecosystems, CO2-stimulated growth is likely to have repercussions for numerous associated species and ecosystem processes.

Elevated CO2 Reduces Losses of Plant Diversity Caused by Nitrogen Deposition
Peter B. Reich
Science, 326, (4 December 2009), 1399-1402 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1178820

Abstract: The interactive effects of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and elevated nitrogen (N) deposition on plant diversity are not well understood. This is of concern because both factors are important components of global environmental change and because each might suppress diversity, with their combined effects possibly additive or synergistic. In a long-term open-air experiment, grassland assemblages planted with 16 species were grown under all combinations of ambient and elevated CO2 and ambient and elevated N. Over 10 years, elevated N reduced species richness by 16% at ambient CO2 but by just 8% at elevated CO2. This resulted from multiple effects of CO2 and N on plant traits and soil resources that altered competitive interactions among species. Elevated CO2 thus ameliorated the negative effects of N enrichment on species richness.

See also:

Collins, S.L. Biodiversity Under Global Change, Science, 326 (4 December 2009), 1353-1354 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1183271

Devitt, T. Greenhouse gas carbon dioxide ramps up aspen growth. University of Wisconsin-Madison News (4 December, 2009)