evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-14--Plant Galls and Evolution: A Neglected Study

Professor Mel T. Cook at Rutgers University1 , author of The Insect Galls of Indiana2 , complained in 1911 ( p. 386 ) that “ it is very doubtful if any phase of biology has been neglected more than that very conspicuous and extremely puzzling branch known as cecidology , ” 3 the study of plant galls .
Today , almost 110 years later , Marion O. Harris ( University of North Dakota ) and Andrea Pitzschke ( University of Salzburg ) rightly deplore ( 2020 , p. 1854 ) that “ galls have not received the attention they deserve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oddities rather than as indicators of interesting happenings in the world of plants and their biotic interactions.
” 4 To help address this neglect , I have offered a series on “ Plant Galls and Evolution.
” Part Three , “ A Historical Sketch , ” is now available to be downloaded .
You will find Part One here and Part Two here .
This situation represents an astounding paradox in botanical research , and to a certain extent perhaps in modern science itself .
Consider the fact that plant galls constitute an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ubiquitous and distinctly visible , multiform , and often brightly colored phenomenon , which anyone can come across and investigate to a certain extent even with little or no scientific equipment .
Light at the End of the Tunnel I will repeat here some numbers on the occurrence of plant galls ( cf .
Lönnig 2020 ) .
For insect gallers alone , i.e .
gall-inducing bacteria , fungi , and viruses , with nematodes and mites not included : “ Estimates of the global richness of gall-inducing insects ranged from 21,000 to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 132,930 species.
” Moreover , between 13 percent and 45 percent of the total number of about 422,000 seed plant species are involved .
( See Espirito-Santo and Fernandes 2007 , pp .
95-96 . )
Although 98 percent of these are flowering plants , galls also occur on ferns and lycopods .
Santos et al .
( 2019 , p. 53 ) found them in 20 fern families and one lycophyte family ( altogether 93 host species belonging to 41 genera ) .
Molecular and other studies over the last few years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the end of the tunnel of neglected plant gall research .
My own two extensive review papers , referred to above , are Lönnig 2017 : “ Plant Galls and Evolution ( I ) : How More than Twelve Thousand Ugly Facts Are Slaying a Beautiful Hypothesis : Darwinism ” 5 ( 63 pp . )
, and Lönnig 2020 : “ Plant Galls and Evolution ( II ) : Natural Selection , DNA , and Intelligent Design , Or : The Proof that Complex Structures of Thousands of Species Have Been Formed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Thus Annihilating6 Darwin ’ s Theory ” 7 ( 55 pp. )
.
I have included , apart from the morphology and anatomy of some galls , an overview of the most recent papers on molecular plant gall research .
I would like to refer the reader interested in the details to these two reports .
In my new contribution , I restrict myself to important facets of the historical side of plant gall research .
My emphasis is on the origin and evolution of these phenomena from the point of view of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as they approvingly have been called by their adherents and successors8 — of their respective scientific branches .
These include Hippocrates of Kos ( 460-370 BC ) , the “ Father of Modern Medicine ” ( Yapijakis 2009 , p. 507 ) 9 ; Theophrastus of Eresos ( 371-286 BC ) , often called the “ Father of Botany ” ; Marcello Malpighi ( 1628-1694 AD ) , “ known affectionately as the ‘ Father of Cecidology ’ ” ( James A. Wearn 2011 , p. 481 ) 10 ; Carolus Linnaeus ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Modern Taxonomy ” ; and especially Charles Darwin ( 1809-1882 ) , often called ( not quite correctly ) the “ Father of Evolution , ” 11 the “ Father of the Theory of Evolution , ” 12 or ( perhaps more accurately ) the “ Father of the Theory of Natural Selection.
” 13 My study includes , too , some present-day neo-Darwinian authors and their critics .
Lest the reader expect a full coverage of the topic , that would necessitate a book of its own .
I emphasize that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an introductory article to the topic .
As is common in historical papers , the reader will find some original quotations , mostly from the primary literature .
For more , kindly see “ Plant Galls and Evolution ( III ) : A Historical Sketch.
” • However , in a much more comprehensive perspective — as far as positive and true results of research and actions are involved — cf .
James 1:17 ( πᾶσα δόσις ἀγαθὴ καὶ πᾶν δώρημα τέλειον ἄνωθέν ἐστιν , καταβαῖνον ἀπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς τῶν φώτων ) ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
• Google please : “ Darwin the father of evolution ” : Some 183,000 results ( 13 November 2020 ) .
• Google please : “ Darwin the father of the theory evolution ” : 35,100 results ( 13 November 2020 ) .
• Google also : “ Darwin the father of the theory of natural selection ” : 25,300 results ( same date as above ) .
Cunningham & Cunningham ( 1990:563 ) : Environmental Science : A Global Concern ( McGraw-Hill ) is also often cited for this term @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before Darwin .

Red-pea gall of gall wasp Cynips divisa (agamous generation) on oak leaf. In the autumn the galls turn brownish. The hole in the gall (below) indicates that the gall wasp has already left its home. Others leave it in springtime.
Professor Mel T. Cook at Rutgers University1, author of The Insect Galls of Indiana2, complained in 1911 (p. 386) that “it is very doubtful if any phase of biology has been neglected more than that very conspicuous and extremely puzzling branch known as cecidology,”3 the study of plant galls. Today, almost 110 years later, Marion O. Harris (University of North Dakota) and Andrea Pitzschke (University of Salzburg) rightly deplore (2020, p. 1854) that “galls have not received the attention they deserve. They are often seen as quaint oddities rather than as indicators of interesting happenings in the world of plants and their biotic interactions.”4
To help address this neglect, I have offered a series on “Plant Galls and Evolution.” Part Three, “A Historical Sketch,” is now available to be downloaded. You will find Part One here and Part Two here.
This situation represents an astounding paradox in botanical research, and to a certain extent perhaps in modern science itself. Consider the fact that plant galls constitute an unusually widespread, in fact, globally ubiquitous and distinctly visible, multiform, and often brightly colored phenomenon, which anyone can come across and investigate to a certain extent even with little or no scientific equipment.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
I will repeat here some numbers on the occurrence of plant galls (cf. Lönnig 2020). For insect gallers alone, i.e. gall-inducing bacteria, fungi, and viruses, with nematodes and mites not included: “Estimates of the global richness of gall-inducing insects ranged from 21,000 to 211,000 species, with an average of 132,930 species.” Moreover, between 13 percent and 45 percent of the total number of about 422,000 seed plant species are involved. (See Espirito-Santo and Fernandes 2007, pp. 95-96.) Although 98 percent of these are flowering plants, galls also occur on ferns and lycopods. Santos et al. (2019, p. 53) found them in 20 fern families and one lycophyte family (altogether 93 host species belonging to 41 genera).
Gall of Cynips divisa, but now the gall is opened. In the middle/center above
the larva is shown. This and the above photo by W.-E. L. (18 November 2020).
Molecular and other studies over the last few years appear to have cast some light at the end of the tunnel of neglected plant gall research. My own two extensive review papers, referred to above, are Lönnig 2017: “Plant Galls and Evolution (I): How More than Twelve Thousand Ugly Facts Are Slaying a Beautiful Hypothesis: Darwinism”5 (63 pp.), and Lönnig 2020: “Plant Galls and Evolution (II): Natural Selection, DNA, and Intelligent Design, Or: The Proof that Complex Structures of Thousands of Species Have Been Formed for the Exclusive Good of Other Species Thus Annihilating6 Darwin’s Theory”7 (55 pp.). I have included, apart from the morphology and anatomy of some galls, an overview of the most recent papers on molecular plant gall research. I would like to refer the reader interested in the details to these two reports.
The Historical Side
In my new contribution, I restrict myself to important facets of the historical side of plant gall research. My emphasis is on the origin and evolution of these phenomena from the point of view of several of the “Fathers” — as they approvingly have been called by their adherents and successors8 — of their respective scientific branches. These include Hippocrates of Kos (460-370 BC), the “Father of Modern Medicine” (Yapijakis 2009, p. 507)9; Theophrastus of Eresos (371-286 BC), often called the “Father of Botany”; Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694 AD), “known affectionately as the ‘Father of Cecidology’” (James A. Wearn 2011, p. 481)10; Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778 AD), the “Father of Modern Taxonomy”; and especially Charles Darwin (1809-1882), often called (not quite correctly) the “Father of Evolution,”11 the “Father of the Theory of Evolution,”12 or (perhaps more accurately) the “Father of the Theory of Natural Selection.”13 My study includes, too, some present-day neo-Darwinian authors and their critics.
Lest the reader expect a full coverage of the topic, that would necessitate a book of its own. I emphasize that this is just a historical sketch and an introductory article to the topic. As is common in historical papers, the reader will find some original quotations, mostly from the primary literature.
For more, kindly see “Plant Galls and Evolution (III): A Historical Sketch.”
Notes


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-14--Some Effects of Transgenderism

Some Effects of Transgenderism

Author ’ s note : This is Part Seven of a seven-part series about transgenderism .
Nothing in the series is intended to disparage any transgender person , any gender non-conforming person , or any person attracted to members of the same sex .
I write as a developmental biologist ( Berkeley PhD ) , and I focus on evidence pertaining to transgender treatments for children .
WARNING : Parts of this series contain explicit language .
Reader discretion is advised .
Teens who suffer from gender dysphoria are at much higher risk for suicide than other teens .
Transgender @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this risk .
Indeed , some advocates claim , “ puberty blockers save lives.
” In 2019 , psychologists Richard Bränström and John Pachankis published a study of 9,747,324 Swedes .
The goal was to determine whether “ gender-affirming [ cross-sex ] hormone and surgical treatment ” improved the mental health of people with gender incongruence .
Bränström and Pachankis found no evidence of improvement from cross-sex hormones .
But they concluded that the evidence “ lends support to the decision to provide gender-affirming surgeries to transgender individuals who seek them.
” Critics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the data .
So the authors revised their article .
The journal editor published a correction , stating that “ the results demonstrated no advantage of surgery.
” The 2019 study involved transgender adults .
What about children with gender dysphoria ?
A 2020 study surveyed 20,619 transgender Americans between 18 and 36 .
They were asked if they had ever wanted puberty blockers as adolescents .
About 17 percent said yes .
Of these , only 2.5 percent actually received the medication .
The goal of the study was to compare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those who received puberty blockers with those who wanted them but didn ’ t get them .
The authors adjusted the data to account for age , biological sex , and household income , among other things .
They concluded that giving puberty blockers to teens who want them reduces the risk of suicidal thoughts .
The journal that published the 2020 study also published some comments about it .
One comment , by pediatricians Scott Field and Den Trumbull , was very critical .
They pointed out that the data were collected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no way of knowing how many would-be participants in either group actually succumbed to suicide.
” Even worse , the adjusted data showed that those who received puberty blockers fared worse than those who didn ’ t .
Field and Trumbull pointed out that the first group “ actually had double ( 45.5 percent versus 22.8 percent ) the rates of the control group for serious ( resulting in inpatient care ) suicide attempts.
” The two pediatricians concluded , “ The prevailing narrative that these interventions are necessary to prevent suicide is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 6,793 people visited the gender clinic of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from 1972 to 2015 .
A 2018 study reviewed their medical records for regrets about having “ bottom surgery.
” About 0.6 percent of the males regretted having their testicles removed .
About 0.3 percent of the females regretted having their ovaries removed .
This evidence seems to suggest that regret is rare .
But the evidence comes only from medical records kept by the professionals who recommended and performed the sex reassignments .
How likely is it that sex-reassigned people would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
We don ’ t know .
How much follow-up did those records include ?
We don ’ t know .
So the quantitative evidence pertaining to regret is quite thin .
Yet there is growing anecdotal evidence for it .
American business executive Walt Heyer married in his mid twenties .
He and his wife had two children .
Yet for years he had secretly suffered from gender dysphoria .
As a young boy his parents would often leave him with his grandmother .
She started putting dresses on him when he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When his parents found out they removed him from her care .
But when he was seven his uncle sexually abused him .
He told his parents , but they didn ’ t believe him .
In 1983 , after 16 years of marriage , Heyer went to see a gender therapist .
On his second visit , the therapist gave him a prescription for estrogen .
The therapist also gave him an authorization for sex-reassignment surgery .
He trusted the therapist , so he divorced his wife and had sex-reassignment surgery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a woman , but he regretted having transitioned .
At the age of fifty he “ de-transitioned.
” According to Heyer , “ experts ” who encourage transitioning tend to ignore those who decide to de-transition .
So Heyer has become an advocate for those who regret having transgender surgery .
He says the numbers are growing .
In 2019 , he wrote about a young man who had visited a transgender specialist at the age of 15 .
As soon as he turned 18 , the young man underwent sex-reassignment surgery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Heyer , “ Now that I ’ m all healed from the surgeries , I regret them .
The result of the bottom surgery looks like a Frankenstein hack job at best , and that got me thinking critically about myself .
I had turned myself into a plastic-surgery facsimile of a woman , but I knew I still wasn ’ t one .
I became ( and to an extent , still feel ) deeply depressed.
” An excellent resource on this and related issues is Ryan Anderson ’ s 2018 book @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Transgender Moment .
Over 99.98 percent of human babies are born unambiguously male or female .
The idea that the other 0.02 percent should routinely have genital surgery was promoted by sexologist John Money .
The idea that “ gender ” is different from biological sex also owes its popularity to John Money .
The idea resulted in tragedy for David Reimer , though Money never publicly admitted it .
Although gender dysphoria is a mental disorder , common treatments are social , hormonal , and surgical .
Children entering puberty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But almost all of those who take puberty blockers move on to cross-sex hormones .
And most of these move on to sex-reassignment surgeries .
Understanding the cause ( s ) of a condition is helpful in knowing how to treat it .
Yet we do not understand the cause ( s ) of childhood gender dysphoria .
Children suffering from it are at greater risk of suicide than others , but there is no convincing evidence that hormonal and surgical treatments reduce the risk .
Conclusion : Children with gender dysphoria @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them are not based on good evidence .
They are a giant step in the dark .

Image credit: Gerd Altmann via Pixabay.
Author’s note: This is Part Seven of a seven-part series about transgenderism. Nothing in the series is intended to disparage any transgender person, any gender non-conforming person, or any person attracted to members of the same sex. I write as a developmental biologist (Berkeley PhD), and I focus on evidence pertaining to transgender treatments for children.
WARNING: Parts of this series contain explicit language. Reader discretion is advised.
Teens who suffer from gender dysphoria are at much higher risk for suicide than other teens. Transgender advocates argue that the Dutch Protocol reduces this risk. Indeed, some advocates claim, “puberty blockers save lives.”
In 2019, psychologists Richard Bränström and John Pachankis published a study of 9,747,324 Swedes. The goal was to determine whether “gender-affirming [cross-sex] hormone and surgical treatment” improved the mental health of people with gender incongruence.
Bränström and Pachankis found no evidence of improvement from cross-sex hormones. But they concluded that the evidence “lends support to the decision to provide gender-affirming surgeries to transgender individuals who seek them.” Critics objected that this conclusion was not warranted by the data. So the authors revised their article. The journal editor published a correction, stating that “the results demonstrated no advantage of surgery.”
The 2019 study involved transgender adults. What about children with gender dysphoria?
Puberty Blockers and Suicide
A 2020 study surveyed 20,619 transgender Americans between 18 and 36. They were asked if they had ever wanted puberty blockers as adolescents. About 17 percent said yes. Of these, only 2.5 percent actually received the medication. The goal of the study was to compare “adult mental health outcomes” of those who received puberty blockers with those who wanted them but didn’t get them. The authors adjusted the data to account for age, biological sex, and household income, among other things. They concluded that giving puberty blockers to teens who want them reduces the risk of suicidal thoughts.
The journal that published the 2020 study also published some comments about it. One comment, by pediatricians Scott Field and Den Trumbull, was very critical. They pointed out that the data were collected by survey. So “there is no way of knowing how many would-be participants in either group actually succumbed to suicide.”
Even worse, the adjusted data showed that those who received puberty blockers fared worse than those who didn’t. Field and Trumbull pointed out that the first group “actually had double (45.5 percent versus 22.8 percent) the rates of the control group for serious (resulting in inpatient care) suicide attempts.” The two pediatricians concluded, “The prevailing narrative that these interventions are necessary to prevent suicide is without reasonable evidence.”
Any Regrets?
A total of 6,793 people visited the gender clinic of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam from 1972 to 2015. A 2018 study reviewed their medical records for regrets about having “bottom surgery.” About 0.6 percent of the males regretted having their testicles removed. About 0.3 percent of the females regretted having their ovaries removed.
This evidence seems to suggest that regret is rare. But the evidence comes only from medical records kept by the professionals who recommended and performed the sex reassignments. How likely is it that sex-reassigned people would later report their regrets to those professionals? We don’t know. How much follow-up did those records include? We don’t know. So the quantitative evidence pertaining to regret is quite thin.
Yet there is growing anecdotal evidence for it.
Walt Heyer
American business executive Walt Heyer married in his mid twenties. He and his wife had two children. Yet for years he had secretly suffered from gender dysphoria. As a young boy his parents would often leave him with his grandmother. She started putting dresses on him when he was four (sound familiar?). When his parents found out they removed him from her care. But when he was seven his uncle sexually abused him. He told his parents, but they didn’t believe him.
In 1983, after 16 years of marriage, Heyer went to see a gender therapist. On his second visit, the therapist gave him a prescription for estrogen. The therapist also gave him an authorization for sex-reassignment surgery. He trusted the therapist, so he divorced his wife and had sex-reassignment surgery soon afterwards. He lived eight years as a woman, but he regretted having transitioned. At the age of fifty he “de-transitioned.”
According to Heyer, “experts” who encourage transitioning tend to ignore those who decide to de-transition. So Heyer has become an advocate for those who regret having transgender surgery. He says the numbers are growing. In 2019, he wrote about a young man who had visited a transgender specialist at the age of 15. As soon as he turned 18, the young man underwent sex-reassignment surgery.
A year later, he told Heyer, “Now that I’m all healed from the surgeries, I regret them. The result of the bottom surgery looks like a Frankenstein hack job at best, and that got me thinking critically about myself. I had turned myself into a plastic-surgery facsimile of a woman, but I knew I still wasn’t one. I became (and to an extent, still feel) deeply depressed.”
An excellent resource on this and related issues is Ryan Anderson’s 2018 book, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.
Summary and Conclusion
Over 99.98 percent of human babies are born unambiguously male or female. The idea that the other 0.02 percent should routinely have genital surgery was promoted by sexologist John Money. The idea that “gender” is different from biological sex also owes its popularity to John Money. The idea resulted in tragedy for David Reimer, though Money never publicly admitted it.
Although gender dysphoria is a mental disorder, common treatments are social, hormonal, and surgical. Children entering puberty are told they should take puberty blockers. But almost all of those who take puberty blockers move on to cross-sex hormones. And most of these move on to sex-reassignment surgeries.
Understanding the cause(s) of a condition is helpful in knowing how to treat it. Yet we do not understand the cause(s) of childhood gender dysphoria. Children suffering from it are at greater risk of suicide than others, but there is no convincing evidence that hormonal and surgical treatments reduce the risk.
Conclusion: Children with gender dysphoria need help. But transgender treatments for them are not based on good evidence. They are a giant step in the dark.


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-15--Listen: Tour and Miller on the Engines We Can’t Live Without

Today ’ s ID the Future podcast features Part 1 of an extended interview that first appeared on a podcast @ @ @ @ @ University synthetic organic chemist James M. Tour .
As he typically does , since it @ @ @ @ @ Faith podcast , Dr. Tour begins his show by asking his guest for a statement @ @ @ @ @ a Christian and a physicist , gives his , and then they dive into origin-of-life @ @ @ @ @ accessible discussion given the depth of the material , the pair cover a range of @ @ @ @ @ origin of the first cell , entropy , free energy , order and disorder , @ @ @ @ @ , and the need for engines and information to overcome the vicissitudes of entropy .
@ @ @ @ @ feedback loops , Jeremy England , and much more .
Download the podcast or listen @ @ @ @

Photo credit: Philipp Potocnik via Unsplash.
Today’s ID the Future podcast features Part 1 of an extended interview that first appeared on a podcast show hosted by distinguished Rice University synthetic organic chemist James M. Tour. As he typically does, since it’s the Science & Faith podcast, Dr. Tour begins his show by asking his guest for a statement of faith. Miller, a Christian and a physicist, gives his, and then they dive into origin-of-life science. In a surprisingly accessible discussion given the depth of the material, the pair cover a range of issues — thermodynamics and the origin of the first cell, entropy, free energy, order and disorder, molecular engines, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and the need for engines and information to overcome the vicissitudes of entropy. Also in the mix — feedback loops, Jeremy England, and much more. Download the podcast or listen to it here.


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-15--Meyer: For the Scientific God Hypothesis, Next Year Will Be Pivotal

The past year has been an unprecedently rough time , and not least for faith and its institutions .
I have seen this myself in my own community , and honestly , I am worried .
Conceding that churches and synagogues aren ’ t “ essential businesses ” was a devastating admission for many professional religious leaders to make .
In a heartbreaking op-ed , Matthew Hennessey at the Wall Street Journal observes the startling new absence of children in his church in the Bronx : What happens in 2021 , for good or ill , will be determined by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As Center for Science & Culture director Stephen Meyer observes in a new video that I ask you to watch , the coming year will also be a signal one for the CSC .
First , it will be the 25th anniversary of the Center ’ s founding by Stephen Meyer and John West !
More important , the year will see the release of Dr. Meyer ’ s new book , Return of the God Hypothesis : Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe .
The book gathers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of research and discovery , and drives that into a spectacular and creative new frontier .
As Steve Meyer says , “ It ’ s a culmination of a great deal of my work over the years as well as a book that synthesizes and advances the work that many of our other scientists and scholars have done into a coherent intellectual case for the reality of God , based on science.
” The reality of God : He can reveal himself to us in many ways , perhaps a different way for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the language of nature , of science , is the most universally accessible and objective of them all .
Many would say it ’ s the most compelling .
Return of the God Hypothesis appears at a providential moment — that is if , like me , you are open to seeing things that way .
Of course , though , its impact on our culture will be a direct function of the push we at the Center can give it .
We have the needed tools to bring the book to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here — if only we can put them to their greatest use .
In 2021 , we will also be firing on all our other cylinders — with Evolution News , the ID the Future podcast , a new season of Science Uprising , more Long Story Short videos , the Summer Seminars , Phase 2 of ID 3.0 with its cutting-edge international scientific research projects , and more .
The objective is always to seek the truth and serve the culture in the best way possible .
But this is all costly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set against our hopeful message .
For us to use all these tools to the maximum , to uplift and heal , you must give us your assistance .
There is simply no alternative to our humbling ourselves and appealing to your generosity .
Here is an additional incentive : If you will agree to help , you will receive a digital monograph , Darwin ’ s Three Big Ideas that Impacted Humanity .
Look here for more information , and find out what you ’ ll get if you donate $ 300 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now — before the end of the calendar year .
Please consider joining with Stephen Meyer and the CSC today !

Photo credit: delfi de la Rua on Unsplash.
The past year has been an unprecedently rough time, and not least for faith and its institutions. I have seen this myself in my own community, and honestly, I am worried. Conceding that churches and synagogues aren’t “essential businesses” was a devastating admission for many professional religious leaders to make. In a heartbreaking op-ed, Matthew Hennessey at the Wall Street Journal observes the startling new absence of children in his church in the Bronx:
America’s religious leaders should hear alarm bells. In our aggressively secular world, it doesn’t take much to break the habit of regular worship. Communities of faith can’t survive without children.
What happens in 2021, for good or ill, will be determined by what you and I do right now. As Center for Science & Culture director Stephen Meyer observes in a new video that I ask you to watch, the coming year will also be a signal one for the CSC. First, it will be the 25th anniversary of the Center’s founding by Stephen Meyer and John West! More important, the year will see the release of Dr. Meyer’s new book, Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe.
The book gathers the fruit of more than 25 years of research and discovery, and drives that into a spectacular and creative new frontier. As Steve Meyer says, “It’s a culmination of a great deal of my work over the years as well as a book that synthesizes and advances the work that many of our other scientists and scholars have done into a coherent intellectual case for the reality of God, based on science.”
The Language of Nature
The reality of God: He can reveal himself to us in many ways, perhaps a different way for every person. No doubt, though, the language of nature, of science, is the most universally accessible and objective of them all. Many would say it’s the most compelling. Return of the God Hypothesis appears at a providential moment — that is if, like me, you are open to seeing things that way. Of course, though, its impact on our culture will be a direct function of the push we at the Center can give it.
We have the needed tools to bring the book to the public, as Steve Meyer describes here — if only we can put them to their greatest use. In 2021, we will also be firing on all our other cylinders — with Evolution News, the ID the Future podcast, a new season of Science Uprising, more Long Story Short videos, the Summer Seminars, Phase 2 of ID 3.0 with its cutting-edge international scientific research projects, and more. The objective is always to seek the truth and serve the culture in the best way possible. But this is all costly, and the increasingly censorious media are set against our hopeful message.
There’s No Alternative
For us to use all these tools to the maximum, to uplift and heal, you must give us your assistance. There is simply no alternative to our humbling ourselves and appealing to your generosity.
Here is an additional incentive: If you will agree to help, you will receive a digital monograph, Darwin’s Three Big Ideas that Impacted Humanity. Look here for more information, and find out what you’ll get if you donate $300 or more. We need your support now — before the end of the calendar year. Please consider joining with Stephen Meyer and the CSC today!


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-15--Consciousness Shows that Materialism Is False

My friend and colleague Bill Dembski , a leading advocate of intelligent design of the universe and life forms , has done a superb short interview with Robert Lawrence Kuhn on Closer to Truth .
Bill takes a position that will surprise many fellow Christians — he doesn ’ t believe that consciousness represents an insurmountable challenge to materialism : Bill makes the point that much of the popular argument hinges on shifting meanings of “ materialism ” and “ consciousness.
” By contrast , he argues , the design inference in biology is a much more effective challenge to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nature is an effective challenge to materialism .
But I also believe that the mind refutes materialism in a rather straightforward way — and in much the same way that evidence of intelligent design in biology refutes materialism .
But first , we need to define materialism .
There are several varieties but all share the belief that the matter of which reality is composed is stuff extended in space , that immaterial substances don ’ t exist , and that a comprehensive explanation of reality can be given by the methods of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Mind Matters , published by Discovery Institute ’ s Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence .

Photo credit: Norbert Kundrak, via Unsplash.
My friend and colleague Bill Dembski, a leading advocate of intelligent design of the universe and life forms, has done a superb short interview with Robert Lawrence Kuhn on Closer to Truth. Bill takes a position that will surprise many fellow Christians — he doesn’t believe that consciousness represents an insurmountable challenge to materialism:
Bill makes the point that much of the popular argument hinges on shifting meanings of “materialism” and “consciousness.” By contrast, he argues, the design inference in biology is a much more effective challenge to materialism.
I agree that design in nature is an effective challenge to materialism. But I also believe that the mind refutes materialism in a rather straightforward way — and in much the same way that evidence of intelligent design in biology refutes materialism.
Defining Materialism
But first, we need to define materialism. There are several varieties but all share the belief that the matter of which reality is composed is stuff extended in space, that immaterial substances don’t exist, and that a comprehensive explanation of reality can be given by the methods of the physical sciences.
Read the rest at Mind Matters, published by Discovery Institute’s Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-15--First Animals? Fossils Won’t Fit Cambrian Evolution

Evolutionists are still fighting over the first animals .
Each new fossil creates new questions , but there is one constant : bluffing confidence that Darwinism is true .
Here are some new developments in the Cambrian Explosion debates .
According to Live Science , “ Early life may have been far more like animals than we thought , suggests new research that shows bacteria can ‘ develop ’ like an embryo.
” Croatian scientists looked at biofilm development in the laboratory and envisioned animals trying to emerge .
A hint of Haeckel ’ s recapitulation theory popped into their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expression during biofilm growth mirrors the timing of these genes ’ evolution — just like the expressions of genes in developing animal embryos… .
“ This means that bacteria are true multicellular organisms just like we are , ” said Domazet-Lošo .
“ Considering that the oldest known fossils are bacterial biofilms , it is quite likely that the first life was also multicellular , and not a single-celled creature as considered so far.
” [ Emphasis added . ]
Needless to say , this idea is not going to sit well with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not account for the 20-some-odd hierarchical body plans that appeared in the Cambrian explosion .
But it works in the lab !
Oxford ’ s journal Molecular Biology and Evolution gave it a plug , Haeckel and all .
The paper by Futo et al.
, ( 1 Sept 2020 ) begins , The evolution of enhancers ( genes that regulate protein transcription ) is “ weird ” according to an article in The Scientist , “ Regulators of Gene Activity in Animals Are Deeply Conserved.
” Researchers put the enhancers from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and they still worked .
That can only mean one thing : evolution happens , even when it doesn ’ t evolve anything .
Wong et al.
, writing in the journal Science , deciphered “ Deep conservation of the enhancer regulatory code in animals.
” There must have been an enhancer explosion when sponges were the only game in town .
Stephen Meyer in Darwin ’ s Doubt discussed the excuse that a lack of animal fossils in the Precambrian was an artifact of collection .
This excuse returns in news @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believe could be animal embryos : “ Half a billion years old microfossils may yield new knowledge of animal origins.
” Hoping that their work “ is likely to prompt many interesting discussions , ” they point out that these microfossils appear in Greenland and in China during the Ediacaran period .
But will they explain the Cambrian explosion ?
“ We believe this discovery of ours improves our scope for understanding the period in Earth ’ s history when animals first appeared — and is likely to prompt many interesting discussions , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s first author and a palaeontologist at Uppsala University .
The existence of animals on Earth around 540 million years ago ( mya ) is well substantiated .
This was when the event in evolution known as the “ Cambrian Explosion ” took place .
Fossils from a huge number of creatures from the Cambrian period , many of them shelled , exist .
The first animals must have evolved earlier still ; but there are divergent views in the research community on whether the extant fossils dating back to the Precambrian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Admittedly , the microfossils are a matter of interpretation : “ some think they are eggs and embryos from primeval animals.
” What the microfossils show , instead , is that the Precambrian strata were capable of preserving adult animals if they had existed .
In Darwin ’ s Doubt , Meyer uses this fact to support the suddenness of the Cambrian explosion .
A brief article on Phys.org teases that a “ Study reveals true origin of oldest evidence of animals.
” Spoiler alert : no animals were found .
Instead , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to “ have resolved a longstanding controversy surrounding the origins of complex life on Earth , ” took another look at steroid signatures in rock thought to be produced by sponges .
Did that prove animals had evolved before the explosion ?
But then we learn that geological processes can also produce the steroids , so biology didn ’ t have anything to do with it .
What were the big implications , then ?
No evolution !
That makes the headline very deceptive : “ Study reveals true origin of oldest evidence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” was the oldest evidence of non-animals !
The Chengjiang fossil bed has produced another beautifully preserved animal named Kylinxia .
SciTech Daily has beautiful pictures of it .
The scientists try to make it a “ missing link ” between Anomalocaris and true arthropods , but it ’ s too late .
The Cambrian explosion had already happened .
That is the issue .
Complex , hierarchical body plans with organ systems and sophisticated behaviors appear in the Cambrian suddenly without ancestors .
They are not bacterial biofilms .
They are not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ microfossils .
They are animals , and they exploded onto the scene , confounding Darwin and all the evolutionists that have followed him .

Photo: Some believe microfossils could be animal embryos; by Sebastian Willman, via EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/248210.php?from=483256
Evolutionists are still fighting over the first animals. Each new fossil creates new questions, but there is one constant: bluffing confidence that Darwinism is true. Here are some new developments in the Cambrian Explosion debates.
Are Biofilms Animals?
According to Live Science, “Early life may have been far more like animals than we thought, suggests new research that shows bacteria can ‘develop’ like an embryo.” Croatian scientists looked at biofilm development in the laboratory and envisioned animals trying to emerge. A hint of Haeckel’s recapitulation theory popped into their crystal ball.
The order of gene expression during biofilm growth mirrors the timing of these genes’ evolution — just like the expressions of genes in developing animal embryos…. “This means that bacteria are true multicellular organisms just like we are,” said Domazet-Lošo. “Considering that the oldest known fossils are bacterial biofilms, it is quite likely that the first life was also multicellular, and not a single-celled creature as considered so far.” [Emphasis added.]
Needless to say, this idea is not going to sit well with serious Cambrian experts, since it cannot account for the 20-some-odd hierarchical body plans that appeared in the Cambrian explosion. But it works in the lab!
The team cautions these results are limited to single-species biofilms in laboratory conditions, so more research is required to see if the findings also hold true in the natural environment with multi-species interactions.
Oxford’s journal Molecular Biology and Evolution gave it a plug, Haeckel and all. The paper by Futo et al., (1 Sept 2020) begins,
Correspondence between evolution and development has been discussed for more than two centuries. Recent work reveals that phylogeny−ontogeny correlations are indeed present in developmental transcriptomes of eukaryotic clades with complex multicellularity.
Conservation Is Not Evolution
The evolution of enhancers (genes that regulate protein transcription) is “weird” according to an article in The Scientist, “Regulators of Gene Activity in Animals Are Deeply Conserved.” Researchers put the enhancers from a sponge into a zebrafish and a mouse, and they still worked. That can only mean one thing: evolution happens, even when it doesn’t evolve anything.
The results of the new study, published November 5 in Science, show that, at least in some cases, enhancer function persists across species that last shared a common ancestor as far back as 700 million years ago.
Wong et al., writing in the journal Science, deciphered “Deep conservation of the enhancer regulatory code in animals.” There must have been an enhancer explosion when sponges were the only game in town.
Transgenic expression of sponge enhancers in zebrafish and mice demonstrates that these sequences can drive cell type–specific gene expression across species. These results suggest an unexpectedly deep level of conservation of gene regulation across the animal kingdom maintained over the course of metazoan evolution.
Return of the Artifact Hypothesis
Stephen Meyer in Darwin’s Doubt discussed the excuse that a lack of animal fossils in the Precambrian was an artifact of collection. This excuse returns in news from Uppsala University about microfossils that they believe could be animal embryos: “Half a billion years old microfossils may yield new knowledge of animal origins.”
When and how did the first animals appear? Science has long sought an answer. Uppsala University researchers and colleagues in Denmark have now jointly found, in Greenland, embryo-like microfossils up to 570 million years old, revealing that organisms of this type were dispersed throughout the world.
Hoping that their work “is likely to prompt many interesting discussions,” they point out that these microfossils appear in Greenland and in China during the Ediacaran period. But will they explain the Cambrian explosion?
“We believe this discovery of ours improves our scope for understanding the period in Earth’s history when animals first appeared — and is likely to prompt many interesting discussions,” says Sebastian Willman, the study’s first author and a palaeontologist at Uppsala University. The existence of animals on Earth around 540 million years ago (mya) is well substantiated. This was when the event in evolution known as the “Cambrian Explosion” took place. Fossils from a huge number of creatures from the Cambrian period, many of them shelled, exist. The first animals must have evolved earlier still; but there are divergent views in the research community on whether the extant fossils dating back to the Precambrian Era are genuinely classifiable as animals.
Admittedly, the microfossils are a matter of interpretation: “some think they are eggs and embryos from primeval animals.” What the microfossils show, instead, is that the Precambrian strata were capable of preserving adult animals if they had existed. In Darwin’s Doubt, Meyer uses this fact to support the suddenness of the Cambrian explosion.
False Lead
A brief article on Phys.org teases that a “Study reveals true origin of oldest evidence of animals.” Spoiler alert: no animals were found. Instead, two teams of evolutionary scientists, claiming to “have resolved a longstanding controversy surrounding the origins of complex life on Earth,” took another look at steroid signatures in rock thought to be produced by sponges. Did that prove animals had evolved before the explosion?
The joint studies found molecular fossils extracted from 635-million-year-old rocks aren’t the earliest evidence of animals, but instead common algae. The researchers from The Australian National University (ANU), Max Planck Institute and Caltech say the finding has big implications for our understanding of evolution.
But then we learn that geological processes can also produce the steroids, so biology didn’t have anything to do with it. What were the big implications, then? No evolution!
“While it holds true sponges are the only living organism which can produce these steroids, chemical processes can mimic biology and transform common and abundant algae sterols into ‘animal’ sterols,” he said.
That makes the headline very deceptive: “Study reveals true origin of oldest evidence of animals.” The “true origin” was the oldest evidence of non-animals!
Another Complex Arthropod from China
The Chengjiang fossil bed has produced another beautifully preserved animal named Kylinxia. SciTech Daily has beautiful pictures of it. The scientists try to make it a “missing link” between Anomalocaris and true arthropods, but it’s too late. The Cambrian explosion had already happened.
“Owing to very special taphonomic conditions, the Kylinxia fossils exhibit exquisite anatomical structures. For example, nervous tissue, eyes and digestive system — these are soft body parts we usually cannot see in conventional fossils,” said Prof. Zhao Fangchen, co-corresponding author of the study. Kylinxia shows distinctive features of true arthropods, such as a hardened cuticle, a segmented trunk and jointed legs. However, it also integrates the morphological characteristics present in very ancestral forms, including the bizarre five eyes of Opabinia, known as the Cambrian “weird wonder,” as well as the iconic raptorial appendages of Anomalocaris, the giant apex predator in the Cambrian ocean.
That is the issue. Complex, hierarchical body plans with organ systems and sophisticated behaviors appear in the Cambrian suddenly without ancestors. They are not bacterial biofilms. They are not sponge steroids. They are not questionable microfossils. They are animals, and they exploded onto the scene, confounding Darwin and all the evolutionists that have followed him.


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-16--Tour, Miller: Cells, and Life, from a Design Perspective

Today ’ s episode of ID the Future is Part 2 of an extended interview between synthetic organic chemist James @ @ @ @ @ , Rice University and Discovery Institute respectively .
Here the conversation turns to the challenge @ @ @ @ @ error-correction mechanisms in origin-of-life scenarios and the way origin-of-life researchers slip information and design into @ @ @ @ @ lab .
Miller also makes a case for the research benefits of studying cells from @ @ @ @ @ the podcast or listen to it here .

Photo: James Tour in a scene from Science Uprising, via Discovery Institute.
Today’s episode of ID the Future is Part 2 of an extended interview between synthetic organic chemist James Tour and physicist/engineer Brian Miller, Rice University and Discovery Institute respectively. Here the conversation turns to the challenge and necessity of quickly evolving error-correction mechanisms in origin-of-life scenarios and the way origin-of-life researchers slip information and design into their origin-of-life work in the lab. Miller also makes a case for the research benefits of studying cells from a design perspective. Download the podcast or listen to it here.


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-16--Top Medical Journal: No Sex Designation on Birth Certificates

Editor ’ s note : See also our recent seven-part series on transgenderism , by Discovery Institute biologist Jonathan Wells , here .
The New England Journal of Medicine continues its hard swing toward wokeness .
Now , it has published an advocacy article that would remove sex designation as an identifiable factor on birth certificates .
From , “ Failed Assignments : Rethinking Sex Designations on Birth Certificates ” : Assigning sex at birth also doesn ’ t capture the diversity of people ’ s experiences .
About 6 in 1000 people identify as transgender , meaning that their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sex they were assigned at birth .
Others are nonbinary , meaning they don ’ t exclusively identify as a man or a woman , or gender nonconforming , meaning their behavior or appearance doesn ’ t align with social expectations for their assigned sex .
The idea is to move sex designation “ below the line , ” which allows for general statistical compilation of vital statistics , but not an identifiable designation of the particular individual about whom the birth certificate was created .
The point is to promote a particular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ designations below the line would be in keeping with legal developments deemphasizing sex distinctions .
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has held , in Obergefell v. Hodges , that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional , only a few legal contexts relying on sex designations remain .
In these contexts , using information from birth certificates is not the best way to categorize people .
The authors also want sex designations removed from important documents such as passports : Passports and state identification cards relying on sex assigned at birth for identification @ @ @ @ @ @ @ usually issued or renewed when the holder is an adolescent or an adult , however , so moving sex designations below the line of demarcation on birth certificates would permit applicants to identify their gender without medical verification .
Governments could also remove gender designations from identification cards altogether and focus more on identifiable physical features and updated photographs .
This change would accommodate nonbinary people and reduce the burdens associated with amending documents .
Articles like this certainly have their place .
But when they appear in the most influential medical journal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question the editors ’ ability to dispassionately choose which medical papers to publish .
I mean , if a reputable study reached conclusions that were scientifically sound but cut against the grain of the favored ideology , do you think it would ever make the pages of the NEJM ?
Not a chance !
Publishing ideological advocacy in what is supposed to be a journal that primarily publishes objective scientific information contributes to the growing public distrust of the science sector .
That doesn ’ t help people with gender dysphoria specifically , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overall .

Photo credit: Gabriel Tovar, via Unsplash.
Editor’s note: See also our recent seven-part series on transgenderism, by Discovery Institute biologist Jonathan Wells, here.
The New England Journal of Medicine continues its hard swing toward wokeness. Now, it has published an advocacy article that would remove sex designation as an identifiable factor on birth certificates. From, “Failed Assignments: Rethinking Sex Designations on Birth Certificates”:
Assigning sex at birth also doesn’t capture the diversity of people’s experiences. About 6 in 1000 people identify as transgender, meaning that their gender identity doesn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth. Others are nonbinary, meaning they don’t exclusively identify as a man or a woman, or gender nonconforming, meaning their behavior or appearance doesn’t align with social expectations for their assigned sex.
The idea is to move sex designation “below the line,” which allows for general statistical compilation of vital statistics, but not an identifiable designation of the particular individual about whom the birth certificate was created. The point is to promote a particular view of social justice:
Moving sex designations below the line would be in keeping with legal developments deemphasizing sex distinctions. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has held, in Obergefell v. Hodges, that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, only a few legal contexts relying on sex designations remain. In these contexts, using information from birth certificates is not the best way to categorize people.
The authors also want sex designations removed from important documents such as passports:
Passports and state identification cards relying on sex assigned at birth for identification pose another challenge. These documents are usually issued or renewed when the holder is an adolescent or an adult, however, so moving sex designations below the line of demarcation on birth certificates would permit applicants to identify their gender without medical verification. Governments could also remove gender designations from identification cards altogether and focus more on identifiable physical features and updated photographs. This change would accommodate nonbinary people and reduce the burdens associated with amending documents.
Articles like this certainly have their place. But when they appear in the most influential medical journal in the world, it calls into question the editors’ ability to dispassionately choose which medical papers to publish. I mean, if a reputable study reached conclusions that were scientifically sound but cut against the grain of the favored ideology, do you think it would ever make the pages of the NEJM? Not a chance!
Publishing ideological advocacy in what is supposed to be a journal that primarily publishes objective scientific information contributes to the growing public distrust of the science sector. That doesn’t help people with gender dysphoria specifically, or contribute to the betterment of society overall.


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-16--Protein Folding Breakthrough: Evolution or Design?

If U.S. engineers built a spaceship with hyperdrive , and a foreign country managed to reverse-engineer it and figure out how it works , who should get the credit ?
What is the bigger accomplishment : reverse-engineering a futuristic craft , or designing one from scratch ?
DeepMind is a leader in artificial intelligence ( AI ) .
Its geniuses managed to beat humans at the popular name Go using its AlphaGo algorithm .
Its AI systems have now reached 90 percent success at predicting how a protein will fold .
A blog post from DeepMind explains why this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looks simple by comparison .
In 1994 , a professor started a contest for AI specialists named CASP : Critical Assessment of [ protein ] Structure Prediction .
Every two years , contestants try to predict a protein ’ s fold from its amino acid sequence alone , without knowing the fold in advance .
Before now , scores achieved 20 to 40 on the Global Distance Test ( GDT ) , a measure of the distance between predicted amino acid positions versus actual biological positions .
DeepMind achieved an average score of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increased it enormously this year to 92.4 .
The blog entry pictures how closely the predicted fold matches the actual fold for two cases .
They appear to overlap very closely .
Achieving this success drew inspiration from biology , physics , and machine learning , along with leading experts in protein structure .
The team constructed a neural network to approach the challenge , solving small clusters of amino acids then using deep learning methods to explore how they might join up .
Even so , the CASP contest uses relatively simple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trouble figuring out proteins that interact .
Nature News says , Nevertheless , the success represents “ a gigantic leap ” that “ will change everything , ” Ewen Callaway writes .
In what ways ?
John Moult , a professor at the University of Maryland who co-founded CASP , explains in The Scientist , This is great news , and rightly applauded .
But we need to remember that this folding problem that has baffled humans for 50 years is solved rapidly in living cells at every moment .
Levinthal noted that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ within milliseconds ” inside the cell .
A few need help from chaperones to find their native fold , but many go directly from 1D amino acid sequence to 3D functional protein .
That ’ s not all .
The cell has repair enzymes , too , that can dismantle improperly folded proteins and fix them or replace them if they are irreparable .
In our hyperdrive spacecraft analogy , it is like having robots able to detect failed components , pull them out , fix them , and re-insert them .
How @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do this ?
Think of the sophistication of algorithms able to perform such operations !
The concept of Search bears heavily in intelligent design theory .
If the search problem is complicated enough , succeeding requires additional information beyond what blind search can achieve in the time available .
Finding a marked atom in a galaxy , for instance , would take far longer than the age of the universe to succeed .
William Dembski proved in his book No Free Lunch that no evolutionary algorithm is superior to blind search , unless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , though , is that the searcher needs to search through all possible sources of the auxiliary information to know which one is correct .
Dembski likened it to finding a buried treasure by digging at random on an island .
That kind of blind search is highly unlikely to succeed if the island is big enough .
If the searcher is handed a map , he could go directly to the spot with that auxiliary information .
All well and good , like in the movie It ’ s a Mad Mad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provided was accurate from somebody who knew .
Evolutionary algorithms , though , having no foresight , could generate a billion treasure maps , only one of which might be correct .
The search problem then switches to finding the correct map out of billions of treasure maps .
If a book on the shelf tells you which map is the correct one ( more auxiliary information ) , how does the searcher know ?
The searcher would have to check a billion books offering random answers with that information , only one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ added piece of auxiliary information must be checked out by another search .
That ’ s why no evolutionary algorithm is superior to blind search .
The only way to speed to the buried treasure is to trust a source that knows and test the information by digging there .
That information must come ultimately from a mind — someone who knows the right answer .
Returning to the protein folding problem , we have seen that the search space for protein folds is vast beyond comprehension , like an island as big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ folding proteins quickly and accurately , one can conclude therefore that a mind was behind the information .
That conclusion is certified by watching AI experts using their minds to reverse engineer protein folds .
AI is not inventing sequences that will fold ; it is trying to figure out how a given sequence will produce an observed functional fold .
Inventing a fold de novo is the harder problem ( Stephen Meyer discusses functional folds in Signature in the Cell , pp .
99ff . )
Does evolution come into the story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the CASP contest are evolutionary biologists .
Thinking that some proteins evolved into other proteins through mutation and natural selection , they believe that similar proteins are connected by common ancestry .
This belief , they feel , can allow them to “ evolve ” new proteins with similar folds .
Callaway says , “ Some applications , such as the evolutionary analysis of proteins , are set to flourish because the tsunami of available genomic data might now be reliably translated into structures.
” That is intelligent design , however , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ evolutionary ” out of “ evolutionary analysis , ” otherwise it is an oxymoron .
There are limits to the amount of variation a fold can endure and preserve function .
( Douglas Axe discusses these limits in Undeniable , p. 80ff and 180-182 .
See coverage by Evolution News here and here about simplistic evolutionary approaches to solving the folding problem , and why they miss the mark . )
If DeepMind ’ s AlphaFold algorithm succeeds in designing new enzymes , it will be through intelligent design , not blind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information in working proteins , extending that knowledge by design .
Materialistic evolutionary processes have no such foresight .
In short , DeepMind ’ s achievement is laudable , but the real prize goes to the designer of protein systems : their encoding in DNA , their translation in the ribosome , their spontaneous ( sometimes chaperone-assisted ) folding , their functions , their interactions , and their repair mechanisms .
All those get perfect scores when not harmed by random mutations that degrade information .
AI has not even begun to imitate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ AI in the future will be attained by intelligent design , not evolution .
The news only underscores the superior knowledge built into the molecular basis of life .

Image: Detail from the structure of myoglobin, by →AzaToth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
If U.S. engineers built a spaceship with hyperdrive, and a foreign country managed to reverse-engineer it and figure out how it works, who should get the credit? What is the bigger accomplishment: reverse-engineering a futuristic craft, or designing one from scratch?
DeepMind is a leader in artificial intelligence (AI). Its geniuses managed to beat humans at the popular name Go using its AlphaGo algorithm. Its AI systems have now reached 90 percent success at predicting how a protein will fold. A blog post from DeepMind explains why this is a big deal:
In his acceptance speech for the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Christian Anfinsen famously postulated that, in theory, a protein’s amino acid sequence should fully determine its structure. This hypothesis sparked a five decade quest to be able to computationally predict a protein’s 3D structure based solely on its 1D amino acid sequence as a complementary alternative to these expensive and time consuming experimental methods. A major challenge, however, is that the number of ways a protein could theoretically fold before settling into its final 3D structure is astronomical. In 1969 Cyrus Levinthal noted that it would take longer than the age of the known universe to enumerate all possible configurations of a typical protein by brute force calculation — Levinthal estimated 10^300 possible conformations for a typical protein. Yet in nature, proteins fold spontaneously, some within milliseconds — a dichotomy sometimes referred to as Levinthal’s paradox. [Emphasis added.]
Simple by Comparison
Reverse-engineering a hyperdrive looks simple by comparison. In 1994, a professor started a contest for AI specialists named CASP: Critical Assessment of [protein] Structure Prediction. Every two years, contestants try to predict a protein’s fold from its amino acid sequence alone, without knowing the fold in advance. Before now, scores achieved 20 to 40 on the Global Distance Test (GDT), a measure of the distance between predicted amino acid positions versus actual biological positions. DeepMind achieved an average score of 60 with AlphaFold in 2018. They increased it enormously this year to 92.4. The blog entry pictures how closely the predicted fold matches the actual fold for two cases. They appear to overlap very closely.
This computational work represents a stunning advance on the protein-folding problem, a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology. It has occurred decades before many people in the field would have predicted. It will be exciting to see the many ways in which it will fundamentally change biological research.
Achieving this success drew inspiration from biology, physics, and machine learning, along with leading experts in protein structure. The team constructed a neural network to approach the challenge, solving small clusters of amino acids then using deep learning methods to explore how they might join up. Even so, the CASP contest uses relatively simple proteins called domains. AlphaFold has more trouble figuring out proteins that interact. Nature News says,
The network also struggles to model individual structures in protein complexes, or groups, whereby interactions with other proteins distort their shapes.
Nevertheless, the success represents “a gigantic leap” that “will change everything,” Ewen Callaway writes. In what ways? John Moult, a professor at the University of Maryland who co-founded CASP, explains in The Scientist,
“This will change medicine. It will change research. It will change bioengineering. It will change everything,” Andrei Lupas, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany who helped judge the contest, tells Nature, adding that AlphaFold took only 30 minutes to produce the structure of a protein his lab had been trying to figure out for 10 years.
Writing in Science Magazine, Robert F. Service adds,
Knowing those shapes helps researchers devise drugs that can lodge in proteins’ crevices. And being able to synthesize proteins with a desired structure could speed development of enzymes to make biofuels and degrade waste plastic.
Lest We Forget
This is great news, and rightly applauded. But we need to remember that this folding problem that has baffled humans for 50 years is solved rapidly in living cells at every moment. Levinthal noted that proteins routinely “fold spontaneously, some within milliseconds” inside the cell. A few need help from chaperones to find their native fold, but many go directly from 1D amino acid sequence to 3D functional protein.
That’s not all. The cell has repair enzymes, too, that can dismantle improperly folded proteins and fix them or replace them if they are irreparable. In our hyperdrive spacecraft analogy, it is like having robots able to detect failed components, pull them out, fix them, and re-insert them. How does a cell without eyes and brains do this? Think of the sophistication of algorithms able to perform such operations!
The concept of Search bears heavily in intelligent design theory. If the search problem is complicated enough, succeeding requires additional information beyond what blind search can achieve in the time available. Finding a marked atom in a galaxy, for instance, would take far longer than the age of the universe to succeed. William Dembski proved in his book No Free Lunch that no evolutionary algorithm is superior to blind search, unless auxiliary information is provided. The catch-22, though, is that the searcher needs to search through all possible sources of the auxiliary information to know which one is correct. Dembski likened it to finding a buried treasure by digging at random on an island. That kind of blind search is highly unlikely to succeed if the island is big enough. If the searcher is handed a map, he could go directly to the spot with that auxiliary information. All well and good, like in the movie It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, where the information provided was accurate from somebody who knew.
The Absence of Foresight
Evolutionary algorithms, though, having no foresight, could generate a billion treasure maps, only one of which might be correct. The search problem then switches to finding the correct map out of billions of treasure maps. If a book on the shelf tells you which map is the correct one (more auxiliary information), how does the searcher know? The searcher would have to check a billion books offering random answers with that information, only one of which might be correct. Each added piece of auxiliary information must be checked out by another search. That’s why no evolutionary algorithm is superior to blind search. The only way to speed to the buried treasure is to trust a source that knows and test the information by digging there. That information must come ultimately from a mind — someone who knows the right answer.
Returning to the protein folding problem, we have seen that the search space for protein folds is vast beyond comprehension, like an island as big as the universe. Observing cells routinely folding proteins quickly and accurately, one can conclude therefore that a mind was behind the information. That conclusion is certified by watching AI experts using their minds to reverse engineer protein folds. AI is not inventing sequences that will fold; it is trying to figure out how a given sequence will produce an observed functional fold. Inventing a fold de novo is the harder problem (Stephen Meyer discusses functional folds in Signature in the Cell, pp. 99ff.)
What About Evolution?
Does evolution come into the story at all? Some of the workers in the CASP contest are evolutionary biologists. Thinking that some proteins evolved into other proteins through mutation and natural selection, they believe that similar proteins are connected by common ancestry. This belief, they feel, can allow them to “evolve” new proteins with similar folds. Callaway says, “Some applications, such as the evolutionary analysis of proteins, are set to flourish because the tsunami of available genomic data might now be reliably translated into structures.” That is intelligent design, however, not Darwinian evolution; take the word “evolutionary” out of “evolutionary analysis,” otherwise it is an oxymoron. There are limits to the amount of variation a fold can endure and preserve function. (Douglas Axe discusses these limits in Undeniable, p. 80ff and 180-182. See coverage by Evolution News here and here about simplistic evolutionary approaches to solving the folding problem, and why they miss the mark.)
If DeepMind’s AlphaFold algorithm succeeds in designing new enzymes, it will be through intelligent design, not blind search. It will build on the information in working proteins, extending that knowledge by design. Materialistic evolutionary processes have no such foresight.
In short, DeepMind’s achievement is laudable, but the real prize goes to the designer of protein systems: their encoding in DNA, their translation in the ribosome, their spontaneous (sometimes chaperone-assisted) folding, their functions, their interactions, and their repair mechanisms. All those get perfect scores when not harmed by random mutations that degrade information. AI has not even begun to imitate those capabilities. Any higher scores through AI in the future will be attained by intelligent design, not evolution. The news only underscores the superior knowledge built into the molecular basis of life.


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-17--ID Made Sassy: A New Book for Young People

The idea of translating books and articles into other languages is of course a routine one today .
A book written in English might be unintelligible to , say , the Chinese- , Spanish- , or Russian-speaker , so the content of the book is locked to them until it ’ s been translated .
According to a story told about the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek , King Ptolemy of Egypt gathered 72 ( some say 70 ) scholars and isolated them from each other .
In his setting them to work , something remarkable occurred : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of each one to translate identically as all the others did , ” according to the Talmud .
If that ’ s how the Septuagint originated , it would indeed be a miracle : as a rule , different minds find different ways to translate the same ideas , in part because they are themselves different and in part because they are doing their work with different audiences in mind .
That ’ s the case whether the text is the Bible or Shakespeare or Edgar Allan Poe — or the leading scientific @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Translating ID for various audiences has been a priority for the ID community .
Some ID books are quite thick and erudite .
It ’ s not just a matter of making them available to people who speak other languages but also to readers of different backgrounds and levels of sophistication , whose native language is English .
Reaching young people is a particular challenge .
It ’ s a tougher one today than 25 years ago when the Center for Science & Culture was getting ready to launch .
In those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and shortened all of our attention spans .
That ’ s one problem .
So congratulations to Douglas Ell for taking up the challenge of explaining intelligent design to the young .
His new book , Proofs of God : A Conversation between Doubt and Reason , is the first ID book ever to which I would apply the label “ sassy.
” His concept is a dialogue between Doubt and Reason , who sass each other merrily .
The Septuagint this is not , but that ’ s not what you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aim is to reach an easily bored teenager : DOUBT .
How do you prove the existence of God ?
REASON .
Evidence !
Facts !
Things with no other explanation !
You know what they say — “ When you have eliminated the impossible , whatever remains , however improbable , must be the truth.
” DOUBT .
They ?
What bozo said that ?
DOUBT .
Whatever .
No such evidence .
REASON .
There is !
Undeniable !
To me , and to many , science now proves God .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ working code that is new and doesn ’ t resemble the code in any other kind of animal .
You— That is how the book opens , going on to cover five days , one day per chapter , of fast-moving dialogue between the quarreling participants .
They cover “ The Numbers Proof ” ( in three steps ) , “ The Common Sense Proof , ” “ The Logic Proof , ” “ The Nonsense of Cumulative Selection , ” and “ Doubting Darwin.
” By the end , Reason has won @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Judeo-Christian style , to share what he ’ s learned with others .
It is just 93 pages long and filled with some fairly sassy cartoons .
Mr. Ell , a lawyer in Washington , D.C. , and a math and physics graduate from MIT , knows his intelligent design .
You could argue with the title of the book .
Does ID “ prove God ” ?
That ’ s not what I would say .
But let ’ s not be overly fussy .
Evolution News reviewed Ell ’ s earlier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Personal Journey Through Science to Belief , here back in 2014 , and commented that “ A lot of books — many of them very good — have been written about the debate over intelligent design .
But rarely does one come along that combines a compelling story of the author ’ s personal journey to faith with a well-written , comprehensive , easy-to-read presentation of the scientific evidence.
” This new book takes the previous one and updates it creatively for an entirely different demographic .
Will it speak to every bored @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not .
No book could .
Human beings are unique .
Ideally , you ’ d want a book individually written for every human on the planet .
That project is beyond humanity ’ s current staffing resources .
Yet the work of translation goes on .
Thank you to Douglas Ell for his energetic contribution .

The idea of translating books and articles into other languages is of course a routine one today. A book written in English might be unintelligible to, say, the Chinese-, Spanish-, or Russian-speaker, so the content of the book is locked to them until it’s been translated. According to a story told about the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, King Ptolemy of Egypt gathered 72 (some say 70) scholars and isolated them from each other. In his setting them to work, something remarkable occurred: “God put it in the heart of each one to translate identically as all the others did,” according to the Talmud.
If that’s how the Septuagint originated, it would indeed be a miracle: as a rule, different minds find different ways to translate the same ideas, in part because they are themselves different and in part because they are doing their work with different audiences in mind. That’s the case whether the text is the Bible or Shakespeare or Edgar Allan Poe — or the leading scientific advocates of the theory of intelligent design.
A Priority for Intelligent Design
Translating ID for various audiences has been a priority for the ID community. Some ID books are quite thick and erudite. It’s not just a matter of making them available to people who speak other languages but also to readers of different backgrounds and levels of sophistication, whose native language is English. Reaching young people is a particular challenge. It’s a tougher one today than 25 years ago when the Center for Science & Culture was getting ready to launch. In those 25 years, the Internet took over and shortened all of our attention spans. That’s one problem.
So congratulations to Douglas Ell for taking up the challenge of explaining intelligent design to the young. His new book, Proofs of God: A Conversation between Doubt and Reason, is the first ID book ever to which I would apply the label “sassy.” His concept is a dialogue between Doubt and Reason, who sass each other merrily. The Septuagint this is not, but that’s not what you’d want, obviously, if the aim is to reach an easily bored teenager:
DOUBT. How do you prove the existence of God? REASON. Evidence! Facts! Things with no other explanation! You know what they say — “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” DOUBT. They? What bozo said that? REASON. Sherlock Holmes. DOUBT. Who’s he? REASON. I like a literary person. DOUBT. Whatever. No such evidence. REASON. There is! Undeniable! To me, and to many, science now proves God. DOUBT. You can’t prove God! REASON. I can prove God three ways. DOUBT. Banana peels. Give me a hint. REASON. Every kind of animal has working code that is new and doesn’t resemble the code in any other kind of animal. You— DOUBT. Back up. What’s code?
That is how the book opens, going on to cover five days, one day per chapter, of fast-moving dialogue between the quarreling participants. They cover “The Numbers Proof” (in three steps), “The Common Sense Proof,” “The Logic Proof,” “The Nonsense of Cumulative Selection,” and “Doubting Darwin.” By the end, Reason has won over Doubt and commissioned him, in Judeo-Christian style, to share what he’s learned with others. It is just 93 pages long and filled with some fairly sassy cartoons. Mr. Ell, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and a math and physics graduate from MIT, knows his intelligent design. You could argue with the title of the book. Does ID “prove God”? That’s not what I would say. But let’s not be overly fussy.
“Counting to God”
Evolution News reviewed Ell’s earlier book, Counting to God: A Personal Journey Through Science to Belief, here back in 2014, and commented that “A lot of books — many of them very good — have been written about the debate over intelligent design. But rarely does one come along that combines a compelling story of the author’s personal journey to faith with a well-written, comprehensive, easy-to-read presentation of the scientific evidence.” This new book takes the previous one and updates it creatively for an entirely different demographic.
Will it speak to every bored teenager in your life? Of course not. No book could. Human beings are unique. Ideally, you’d want a book individually written for every human on the planet.
That project is beyond humanity’s current staffing resources. Yet the work of translation goes on. Thank you to Douglas Ell for his energetic contribution.


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-17--“Blind Evolution… Explained Everything”

“Blind Evolution… Explained Everything”

If anyone is having a hard time right now… wondering if there is a Creator , that science erases him and proves that he isn ’ t real… You are not alone .
I was there once… I was in that dark abyss .
I was one who once was convinced that there was no God , ridiculed others and belittled them .
These words come from Bryan , a young man who recently posted his story in response to one of our YouTube videos .
Bryan began to lose his faith in God after reading books by Darwinian biologist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he was convinced there was no God and that “ blind evolution… explained everything.
” Then he stumbled across a book by biologist Michael Denton , a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute ’ s Center for Science & Culture ( CSC ) , which sponsors this website .
That led him to more books and videos produced by the CSC .
He says he cried and hugged Michael Behe ’ s book Darwin ’ s Black Box , and he also cried after reading Signature in the Cell by Steve Meyer .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ few weeks ago , he posted this message to YouTube : Discovery Institute made me love science again .
When I was a materialist , listening to the likes of Dawkins and Dennett… I became viciously nihilistic and hedonistic .
Why should I learn any more science ?
I am hurtling towards death with no purpose — quick , play all the video games and watch all the immoral videos I can !
Oh how thankful I am that I don ’ t feel that that is all I can get from life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two lives changed by the work of the CSC .
Will you help us change millions of additional lives in 2021 by making an end-of-year donation ?
The need for beacons of light and hope in the current darkness is critical .
COVID-19 isn ’ t our only pandemic .
There is also a pandemic of loneliness and despair .
At the end of our Summer Seminars this year , a college student couldn ’ t hold back his tears as he told us how difficult his time at a secular university has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , how his professors have pushed him toward meaninglessness .
You made it possible for this young man to hear a different view , and the experience transformed him .
Sometimes when the night seems the darkest , people are the most open to turning to the light .
That ’ s why you and I have a tremendous opportunity to make such a difference in people ’ s lives next year , which happens to be the 25th anniversary year for the Center for Science & Culture .
By partnering with us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can reach millions of people with positive evidence of a purposeful universe and human uniqueness .
You can do so by supporting our key initiatives : • Evolution News , which reaches more than 1.3 million users per year .
• The ID the Future podcast , which received 700,000+ listens in 2020 .
• Original videos , including new seasons of Science Uprising , Secrets of the Cell , and Long Story Short .
• New books , including Stephen Meyer ’ s long-awaited Return of the God Hypothesis ( March 2021 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reach future scientists and societal leaders .
Unlike colleges , we don ’ t have an endowment .
We don ’ t receive taxpayer funds .
We rely instead on faithful partners like you .
Together we can make our 25th anniversary year our most effective and important year ever .
Just for donating , you will receive a free 39-page digital monograph , Darwin ’ s Three Big Ideas that Impacted Humanity .
Please donate now .

Photo credit: José María Mateos, via Flickr (cropped).
If anyone is having a hard time right now… wondering if there is a Creator, that science erases him and proves that he isn’t real… You are not alone. I was there once… I was in that dark abyss. I was one who once was convinced that there was no God, ridiculed others and belittled them.
These words come from Bryan, a young man who recently posted his story in response to one of our YouTube videos. Bryan began to lose his faith in God after reading books by Darwinian biologist Richard Dawkins and others. By college, he was convinced there was no God and that “blind evolution… explained everything.”
Then he stumbled across a book by biologist Michael Denton, a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture (CSC), which sponsors this website. That led him to more books and videos produced by the CSC. He says he cried and hugged Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box, and he also cried after reading Signature in the Cell by Steve Meyer.
Vincent has a similar story. A few weeks ago, he posted this message to YouTube:
Discovery Institute made me love science again. When I was a materialist, listening to the likes of Dawkins and Dennett… I became viciously nihilistic and hedonistic. Why should I learn any more science? I am hurtling towards death with no purpose — quick, play all the video games and watch all the immoral videos I can! Oh how thankful I am that I don’t feel that that is all I can get from life anymore.
Bryan and Vincent are just two lives changed by the work of the CSC. Will you help us change millions of additional lives in 2021 by making an end-of-year donation?
The need for beacons of light and hope in the current darkness is critical. COVID-19 isn’t our only pandemic. There is also a pandemic of loneliness and despair.
At the end of our Summer Seminars this year, a college student couldn’t hold back his tears as he told us how difficult his time at a secular university has been — how alone he has felt, how his professors have pushed him toward meaninglessness. You made it possible for this young man to hear a different view, and the experience transformed him.
Sometimes when the night seems the darkest, people are the most open to turning to the light. That’s why you and I have a tremendous opportunity to make such a difference in people’s lives next year, which happens to be the 25th anniversary year for the Center for Science & Culture.
By partnering with us during our 25th anniversary year, you can reach millions of people with positive evidence of a purposeful universe and human uniqueness. You can do so by supporting our key initiatives:
Evolution News, which reaches more than 1.3 million users per year.
The ID the Future podcast, which received 700,000+ listens in 2020.
Original videos, including new seasons of Science Uprising, Secrets of the Cell, and Long Story Short.
New books, including Stephen Meyer’s long-awaited Return of the God Hypothesis (March 2021).
Our Summer Seminars to reach future scientists and societal leaders.
Phase 2 of our ID 3.0 science research initiative.
Unlike colleges, we don’t have an endowment. We don’t receive taxpayer funds. We rely instead on faithful partners like you. Together we can make our 25th anniversary year our most effective and important year ever.
Just for donating, you will receive a free 39-page digital monograph, Darwin’s Three Big Ideas that Impacted Humanity. Please donate now.


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-17--Walter Bradley’s Wonderful Life — Scientist, Humanitarian, ID Proponent

Walter Bradley may not be a household name , but in any fair world he would be .
He ’ s sort of like George Bailey in the classic film It ’ s a Wonderful Life : He has changed many , many lives , and the world is a much better place because of him .
Don ’ t just take my word for it .
Noted philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig declares : “ Walter Bradley is one of the most extraordinary men I have ever known .
I am in awe of him.
” Brian Thomas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ Walter was instrumental in helping me understand that my gifts and talents as an engineer could be used to serve the poor and marginalized.
” And renowned scientist James Tour at Rice University says : “ Professor Walter Bradley fearlessly led the charge for faculty to unabashedly stand up for their faith on campuses.
” Now you can read about Walter Bradley ’ s wonderful life in a new biography about him , For a Greater Purpose : The Life and Legacy of Walter Bradley .
As the biography attests , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , professor , NASA researcher , pioneer in intelligent design research , proponent of the reconciliation of science and faith , and a leader in empowering people in Africa with apropriate technologies .
A retired professor from both Texas A & M and Baylor University , Bradley is also a longtime Fellow of the Center for Science & Culture at Discovery Institute , and he is the namesake of the Institute ’ s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence .
Bradley ’ s new bio is co-authored by his Baylor University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and entrepreneur William Dembski .
Marks also directs the Bradley Center , and Dembski is a Distinguished Fellow there .
Get your own copy now .

Photo: Walter Bradley at the launch of the Bradley Center, by Nathan Jacobson.
Walter Bradley may not be a household name, but in any fair world he would be. He’s sort of like George Bailey in the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life: He has changed many, many lives, and the world is a much better place because of him.
Don’t just take my word for it. Noted philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig declares: “Walter Bradley is one of the most extraordinary men I have ever known. I am in awe of him.” Brian Thomas of Justice and Mercy Energy Services testifies: “Walter was instrumental in helping me understand that my gifts and talents as an engineer could be used to serve the poor and marginalized.” And renowned scientist James Tour at Rice University says: “Professor Walter Bradley fearlessly led the charge for faculty to unabashedly stand up for their faith on campuses.”
Now you can read about Walter Bradley’s wonderful life in a new biography about him, For a Greater Purpose: The Life and Legacy of Walter Bradley. As the biography attests, Walter Bradley is many things: scientist, professor, NASA researcher, pioneer in intelligent design research, proponent of the reconciliation of science and faith, and a leader in empowering people in Africa with apropriate technologies.
A retired professor from both Texas A&M and Baylor University, Bradley is also a longtime Fellow of the Center for Science & Culture at Discovery Institute, and he is the namesake of the Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.
Bradley’s new bio is co-authored by his Baylor University colleague Robert J. Marks and thinker and entrepreneur William Dembski. Marks also directs the Bradley Center, and Dembski is a Distinguished Fellow there. Get your own copy now.


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-18--The Myth of Behe “Refuted”

The Myth of Behe “Refuted”

An op-ed today by two of biochemist Michael Behe ’ s Science Magazine reviewers from last year , Joshua Swamidass and Nathan Lents , repeats the myth that the reviewers “ refuted ” Behe .
Lents and Swamidass celebrate both the 15th anniversary of the Kitzmiller decision , and their own friendship .
They are , they tell us , an unlikely pair .
You won ’ t often see an evangelical Christian and a gay secular humanist teaming up , but we have crisscrossed the country together , speaking with audiences from the “ liberal elites ” at Columbia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Concordia University .
We have found solidarity in modeling what we believe is a better way forward for a culture at war with itself .
We ’ ve also found friendship .
The controversies about origins will remain .
Last year we…refuted the latest claims of intelligent design in the pages of Science , a move that put Joshua at risk of alienation from his spiritual community .
Soon after , Nathan endorsed Joshua ’ s book , explaining the possibility of a genealogical Adam and Eve , putting him at risk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ added . ]
A real “ better way forward ” in “ controversies about origins ” would be to use the right word .
Behe ’ s book Darwin Devolves was not “ refuted.
” It was criticized , yes , but what the “ unlikely pair ” fail to mention is that Behe responded in massive and devastating detail to their criticism , as he always does with critics .
To see how massively , check out the new book from Discovery Institute Press , A Mousetrap for Darwin : Michael J.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” — meaning “ to prove to be false or erroneous , as an opinion or charge ” — indicates a finality that is simply not the case .
Not even close .
Yet that word is a favorite with Swamidass and Lents , as with other evolutionists .
In the Science review itself they claimed , Behe doubles down on his claim that the evolution of chloroquine resistance in malaria by random mutations is exceedingly unlikely because at least two mutations are required , neither of which is beneficial without the other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The language about “ doubling down ” is misleading , too : it implies that Behe ignores criticisms , which is the opposite of true , to the point of absurdity .
A press release from City University of New York where Lents teaches ( “ Defending Darwin : Scientists respond to attack on evolution ” ) used the same language about “ refuting ” Behe : To criticize , once again , is not to refute .
To know that an idea has been refuted means that you have not only criticized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( in this case , from Dr. Behe ) , answered them , and dealt with any further response from the object of your criticism .
This has not be done .
Instead , in typical fashion , Darwinists seek to avoid a proper argument by using clever talk , giving the false impression of a scientist , Behe , who brushes away challenges .
That ’ s no way to conduct a scientific controversy .
By the way , Professor Behe met Professor Swamidass head-on recently with host Justin Brierley .
See @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Intelligent Design , Changed His Mind .
”

Photo: Clockwise from top left, Justin Brierley, Joshua Swamidass, and Michael Behe (screenshot).
An op-ed today by two of biochemist Michael Behe’s Science Magazine reviewers from last year, Joshua Swamidass and Nathan Lents, repeats the myth that the reviewers “refuted” Behe. Lents and Swamidass celebrate both the 15th anniversary of the Kitzmiller decision, and their own friendship. They are, they tell us,
an unlikely pair. You won’t often see an evangelical Christian and a gay secular humanist teaming up, but we have crisscrossed the country together, speaking with audiences from the “liberal elites” at Columbia University to the “biblically conservative” at Concordia University. We have found solidarity in modeling what we believe is a better way forward for a culture at war with itself. We’ve also found friendship. The controversies about origins will remain. Last year we…refuted the latest claims of intelligent design in the pages of Science, a move that put Joshua at risk of alienation from his spiritual community. Soon after, Nathan endorsed Joshua’s book, explaining the possibility of a genealogical Adam and Eve, putting him at risk among his atheist colleagues. [Emphasis added.]
A real “better way forward” in “controversies about origins” would be to use the right word. Behe’s book Darwin Devolves was not “refuted.” It was criticized, yes, but what the “unlikely pair” fail to mention is that Behe responded in massive and devastating detail to their criticism, as he always does with critics.
Michael Behe’s Mousetrap
To see how massively, check out the new book from Discovery Institute Press, A Mousetrap for Darwin: Michael J. Behe Answers His Critics. “Refute” — meaning “to prove to be false or erroneous, as an opinion or charge” — indicates a finality that is simply not the case. Not even close.
Yet that word is a favorite with Swamidass and Lents, as with other evolutionists. In the Science review itself they claimed,
Behe doubles down on his claim that the evolution of chloroquine resistance in malaria by random mutations is exceedingly unlikely because at least two mutations are required, neither of which is beneficial without the other. His calculations have already been refuted…
The language about “doubling down” is misleading, too: it implies that Behe ignores criticisms, which is the opposite of true, to the point of absurdity. A press release from City University of New York where Lents teaches (“Defending Darwin: Scientists respond to attack on evolution”) used the same language about “refuting” Behe:
[Science] magazine invited three biologists, all experts on evolution, to refute Behe.
To criticize, once again, is not to refute. To know that an idea has been refuted means that you have not only criticized it, but seriously absorbed any replies (in this case, from Dr. Behe), answered them, and dealt with any further response from the object of your criticism. This has not be done.
Instead, in typical fashion, Darwinists seek to avoid a proper argument by using clever talk, giving the false impression of a scientist, Behe, who brushes away challenges. That’s no way to conduct a scientific controversy.
By the way, Professor Behe met Professor Swamidass head-on recently with host Justin Brierley. See, “A Physician Describes How Behe, and Intelligent Design, Changed His Mind.”


evolutionnewsandviews--2020-12-18--Tour and Miller Tackle Cells as Computers, Alien Life, and More

Today ’ s ID the Future podcast is Part 3 of a conversation between Rice University chemist and inventor James @ @ @ @ @ research coordinator for Discovery Institute ’ s Center for Science & Culture .
Download the @ @ @ @ @ here .
In this concluding portion of their conversation , Miller fields questions Tour pulls @ @ @ @ @ cover everything from how simple can a cell get and still survive and reproduce to @ @ @ @ @ bouncing cosmologies , the possibility of alien life , and the similarities between computers and @ @ @ @ @ information .
The interview is borrowed , with permission , from Tour ’ s Science @ @ @ @ @ here .

Photo credit: Dino Reichmuth on Unsplash.
Today’s ID the Future podcast is Part 3 of a conversation between Rice University chemist and inventor James Tour and Brian Miller, research coordinator for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. Download the podcast or listen to it here.
In this concluding portion of their conversation, Miller fields questions Tour pulls from his mailbag. They cover everything from how simple can a cell get and still survive and reproduce to questions of design detection, bouncing cosmologies, the possibility of alien life, and the similarities between computers and cells in how they process information. The interview is borrowed, with permission, from Tour’s Science & Faith podcast, available here.