Jay L. Wile's Blog, page 18

Science and Creativity: Part 1

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If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that science is not my only interest. I write plays, perform in plays (musicals and non-musicals), and play the piano. When people who don’t know me well find out about these interests, they are sometimes surprised. They wonder how a scientist could possibly have a creative side. I have always been puzzled by the idea that science and creativity are incompatible. Science, by its very nature, is creative. I know lots of scientists who can write amazing poetry, play an instrument beautifully, sing a song magnificently, or perform onstage like a professional. However, none of my acquaintances from the arts can solve a differential equation, analyze the motion of a body that is influenced by friction, or synthesize a chiral compound from nonchiral components. In my opinion, science and creativity simply go together.

That’s why I love it when students decide to be creative with their assignments. I have two examples of this, which will take up two blog posts. They both come from the online physics courses I taught the previous academic year. In those courses, students must write lab reports, and I grade them. I don’t have the students write a hypothesis, discuss materials and methods, and all that nonsense. That makes no sense when it comes to a laboratory exercise, and it doesn’t really prepare the student for university lab reports. Instead, I have them write out their data, do any calculations that are necessary, and then write a summary of what they did and what they can conclude from their results. The summary and conclusions must be in their own words.

In honor of my love of the theater, one student (Riley Harro) wrote his last experiment summary and conclusion as an audition, and it was stellar! It contains a lot of inside jokes that resulted from the discussions we had in class and the common phrases I use while teaching. To give you some context, the lab is about testing materials to determine whether or not they are ferromagnetic, paramagnetic, or diamagnetic. In the end, the nail is ferromagnetic, the aluminum paper clip is paramagnetic, and the matchstick is diamagnetic. I hope you enjoy his report as much as I did:

Summary for Experiment 16.2: Creating, Testing and Classifying Magnetic Materials

by Riley Harro

Scene I

Enter Casting Director, Large Iron Nail, Paper Clip

Casting Director: (Clicks pen open) I’m all ears! Play this like you were born for the part. We need you to cling together in this scene.

Large Iron Nail: Yes sir. (Audition starts) Hi Paper Clip. (Clunks against Paper Clip, Paper Clip doesn’t cling)

(Audition ends)

Casting Director: (Closes pen) I… appreciate the effort. I will notify you if you’re selected to act this feature. Any questions?

(Silence)

Casting Director: I’ll take that deafening silence as a no. While I make my decision, head over to the hall.

Exit Large Iron Nail, Paper Clip

Scene II

Enter Producer

Casting Director: (pacing in frustration) We need characters who actually feel what they act! I haven’t seen one audition that shows remotely realistic emotion.

Producer: (chuckles) Maybe you ought to expand your market…paper clips, matchsticks and nails just aren’t all cut out for this sort of thing. If I’m being generous.

Casting Director: You’re right. I just would hate to have the paper clip not be in it. He ought to get a starring role beyond “Simple Harmonic Motion!”

Producer: Ah yes, what role did he play there?

Casting Director: (chuckling, rubbing eyes) He suspended a spring and clung to a ruler. That’s about it. He was bent out of shape over it.

Producer: Some in this field aren’t wired to do more than that experiment.

Casting Director: (Stops walking. Claps his hands together) You have it! They need to be wired, don’t you see?

(Exits room, Producer shakes head, follows suit)

Scene III

Enter Casting Director, Long Wire With ½ an Inch of Insulation Off Both Its Ends, Large Iron Nail, Small Iron Nail, Battery and Paper Clip

Casting Director: Wire, get to work wrapping yourself around Long Nail. Battery, connect your terminals to the ends of wire that are not wrapped around Long Nail. All in position? Good.

(Audition starts)

Large Iron Nail [with wire conducting electricity]: Hi Paper Clip. (Clunks a hug with Paper Clip, tries to pull away, but Paper Clip keeps clinging)

(Audition ends)

Casting Director: Stellar! You have performed the part just as I dreamed it.

Enter matchstick

(Sequence of tests start)

Large Nail [with wire conducting electricity]: (Touches Matchstick, Matchstick doesn’t cling)

Large Nail [with wire unwrapped and no electricity flowing]: (Clunks against Paper Clip, tries to pull away, but Paper Clip stays attached)

Paper Clip [straightened out/wrapped in wire that is conducting electricity from the battery]: (Clunks into Small Nail, Small Nail does not cling)

(Tests finish)

Exit Long Wire With ½ an Inch of Insulation Off Both Its Ends, Large Nail, Small Nail, Battery and Paper Clip

Scene IV

Enter Producer

Casting Director: You see, for the iron nail to attract the paperclip, its atoms had to be arranged in magnetic domains. The electricity (flow of charged particles) through the wire did that, and the paper clip hugged it because it was a magnet. Even with no electricity flowing around our nail, it was still magnetic to the paper clip, since iron is ferromagnetic. The magnetic domains of iron atoms stayed aligned even after electricity stopped flowing. The matchstick did not cling to the magnet, so it was diamagnetic. Magnetic fields need to be aligned so as not to cancel out. When the straightened out paperclip was wrapped in wire that conducted electricity, its atoms had trouble organizing into magnetic domains, so it could not be a magnet to the small iron nail. They did weakly align when exposed to a magnetic field however, which was enough to respond to the large iron nail as a magnet.

Producer: Fantastic! Thanks to you and Hans Christian Oersted, we have the results of our experiment, “The Wiles of Magnetism.”

My Review of Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition

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The cover of Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition

I wrote the second edition of Exploring Creation with General Science more than 12 years ago, so the course was due for an update. Marine biologist Sherri Seligson has written a new edition of the course, which was just recently published. Previously, I reviewed the second edition of her Exploring Creation with Marine Biology and enthusiastically recommended it to homeschoolers. Unfortunately, I cannot enthusiastically recommend the third edition of Exploring Creation with General Science. At the same time, I also can’t say that homeschoolers shouldn’t use the course. In the end, there are things I loved about the course, things I didn’t like about the course, and things I didn’t understand about the course.

Let’s start with the things I loved. From the standpoint of what is covered, this course is a better fit for students who took Jeannie Fulbright and Dr. Brooke Ryan’s elementary course, Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology. That’s because in the second edition of Exploring Creation with General Science, I spent an enormous amount of time covering the human body. Fulbright and Ryan’s course does that as well, so there is a lot of overlap for students who have taken their course. This problem is compounded by the fact that Fulbright and Ryan’s course is the most difficult of all the elementary courses in that series, so it is usually taken in fifth or sixth grade, just one or two years before the general science course is usually taken. This new edition of general science does not dwell on the human body, so students will not have to sift through all that repetitive material. However, as I will mention later on, students will have to sift through repetitive material if they end up taking the next book in the publisher’s series.

I also loved the discussion of graphs and tables that takes place in Module 3. It is very well done, and it is something that will be extremely useful for students who are getting ready for high school science.

Another great thing about the course is that many of the experiments are novel and interesting. For example, there are several “standard” household experiments on the subject of density, but this course’s experiment on density (Experiment 1.1) is one that I had never seen and is very effective. Another great experiment is the Rube Goldberg experiment that ends the course.

In addition, I loved the way that Seligson makes science personal. She starts the course with a letter to the student and ends the course with another one. That’s a nice touch. Similarly, I loved the fact that the last module is made up of personal testimonies from several different scientists. They discuss how the scientists came to enjoy science, what they have done and are doing in their scientific field, and how they relate science to their Christian faith. That is an excellent way to end the course.

Unfortunately, there were also things I didn’t like about the course. My biggest dislike is that I don’t think there is enough explanation for most of the topics that are covered. Some topics (like graphs and mass) are thoroughly explained, but most are glossed over. For example, the book attempts to explain the refraction of light using a grand total of five sentences. In the same way, it discusses the light path in a reflecting telescope with such little explanation that I don’t understand the point the book was trying to make. When it comes to the amount of explanation, this book reads like a typical school textbook, not a course designed for independent study.

My second dislike is that the book uses some concepts before it explains them. For example, the book discusses the earth’s core and notes that while the inner core is hotter than the outer core, the outer core is liquid, and the inner core is solid. It then says that this is because the pressure in the inner core is so high that the atoms are not able to move around. However, the phases of matter (solid, liquid, and gas) are not discussed until 66 pages later. Even when the phases of matter are discussed, the differences in atomic motion among the phases are never discussed! Thus, the student has no idea why the lack of atomic motion makes the inner core solid.

The last dislike I want to mention is that the book makes the artificial distinction between “operational science” and “historical science.” I understand that a lot of creationists like the distinction, but it is not real. To see that, all you have to do is look at real scientific research that is currently happening. For example, Lenski’s Long Term Evolution Experiment is a repeatable experiment that is being run right now (what the book calls “operational science”), but it helps us understand the limits of natural selection, which allows us to better understand the kinds of biological change that happened in the past (what the book calls “historical science”). In the same way, epidemiologists use things that happened in the past (“historical science”) to learn about the causes of and risk factors for disease (“operational science”). Finally, how do predictive models about the future (such as models related to global warming) fit into all this? In reality, there is no distinction between “operational” and “historical” science. Science is science, and trying to make artificial distinctions like this is counterproductive.

There are also things that I don’t understand about the book. The introduction, for example, says that the student notebook is required. However, I don’t see why. Sure, it has note-taking prompts, places for the students to write their answers, etc. However a student can take notes and answer questions in a blank notebook, and it’s a lot cheaper! I am not saying the notebook is useless. Like most study aids, it will be useful to some and useless to others. But why is it listed as necessary?

Also, while the topics covered are better for students who have recently used Fulbright and Ryan’s elementary course, they are not a good fit for those who plan to use the next book in the publisher’s science series, Exploring Creation with Physical Science. That’s because large swaths of what is found in modules 5-9 of this course are also in the physical science course. That means a lot of repetition for students who plan to use the next book in the series. Now, it’s possible that the physical science course will be replaced next year; I don’t know. But even if it is replaced, some students will be in co-ops and other groups that will be using the old edition of the course for several years to come. Thus, parents need to be aware of the significant overlap between the two courses.

Overall, then, I am really conflicted about this course. It has some great aspects, and it has some bad aspects. It also has some mystifying aspects. As a result, I will neither recommend the course nor suggest that you avoid it. Instead, I want to hear from actual users. If you are reading this and decide to use the course, please remember that I would like to hear from you. You can use the contact form on this website to let me know what you think of it after you have used it for a while. I will then post a follow-up about what I have heard approximately one year from today.

Please note that if you use the book, I strongly recommend that you visit the “book extras” website, which is discussed on page viii. There, you will find a list of clarifications (the proper term is “errata”) that should be used to correct some passages in the book.

Another Foolish Global Warming Prediction Falsified

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A display at the St. Mary Valley Visitor’s Center at Glacier National Park (click for source)

My wife and I go to Montana almost every year to visit family, and we always make at least one trip into Glacier National Park. It is truly magnificent, and if you are in the area, I highly recommend that you visit it. However, be aware that global warming hysteria is presented nearly everywhere in the park. You can’t go into a visitor’s center (or even look at some of the trash cans) without being told that global warming is destroying the glaciers.

While I never noticed the silly sign pictured above, it was apparently in the visitor’s center at St. Mary Valley for several years, but this winter, it was quietly removed. It should be obvious why. The sign says that computer models indicate the glaciers will be gone by next year. However, it’s clear that isn’t going to happen, so they had to do something. Rather than owning up to their mistake and discussing the uncertainties related to global warming, they simply changed the sign. Apparently, it now says that the glaciers will be gone at some unknown time in the future, unless we act quickly to stop global warming.

Now, of course, you might wonder if this was just a mistake. Perhaps a couple of signs got made incorrectly. After all, some signs in Glacier National Park say the glaciers will be gone in 2030. I haven’t heard whether or not those signs have been changed as well. However, we know that it was more than just a couple of signs. It was a sermon preached by at least one of the rangers. Ginna Kelly writes:

During my stay, I talked with Park Ranger Jim Muhlhausen about why the glaciers are disappearing. The reason is climate change. Jim talked about what he sees on a daily basis. “It’s disturbing. You can directly see the effects. The change in vegetation, the reduction in habitat, and the melting of the glaciers.”

The evidence that the glaciers are melting speaks for itself. When the park was founded in 1910, there were 150 glaciers. Today, 25 exist. By 2020, none will exist.

The same nonsense has been reported by other news outlets, such as USA Today.

Of course, the glaciers in Glacier National Park are melting. They have been melting since the end of the Little Ice Age, which was around 1850. Whether or not this is because of natural cycles that have occurred throughout earth’s history, current human activity, or some combination of the two, nobody knows for sure. Thus, it is impossible to give dates for when they will disappear. In fact, it is impossible to know whether or not they will ever disappear. Indeed, my own observations of the glaciers in Glacier National Park (I see it roughly the same time every year) indicate that they have been growing over the past five years, but I am certainly no glaciologist.

What I can say for sure is this: As more nonsensical predictions like this one are made, the less people will actually believe that human-induced global warming is happening. Indeed, past nonsensical predictions could be part of the reason that only a few people rank a candidate’s position on global warming as a major issue when deciding how to vote.

Not long ago, I wrote a post about ignorant people claiming that others are rejecting science. Well, if this is what passes for science these days, I can understand why some reject it!

Bethel McGrew, Homeschool Graduate and Mathematics Ph.D. Student

The universe is inherently mathematical. Many scientists have come to this realization, but one of the first was Galileo Galilei. In his book, The Assayer, he wrote:

[The universe] cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.

I have always been intrigued by people who dedicate themselves to learning this language, and I had the privilege of interviewing one such person last week: Mathematics Ph.D. student Bethel McGrew.

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Bethel McGrew

Bethel was homeschooled K-12, and her experience produced a lifelong love of learning, whether the topic was literature, science, music, or chess (she has been a competitive tournament player but can now proudly say she is no longer the highest-rated among her siblings!) She didn’t do much with co-ops or group activities, and in some ways, I would say that her experience was that of a “classic” homeschooler. Her family used curriculum when it fit their needs, and when it didn’t, they found some other way to get the job done. For example, she said that her family couldn’t find a good course for geometry, so she just read Euclid.

In case you don’t know who that is, he’s the father of geometry. His treatise, Elements, was written around 300 BC and is considered one of the most important works of mathematics to this day. That was her primary reference for learning high school geometry! This was common in her homeschooling, perhaps because her parents (each has a Ph.D.) were so academically inclined. She read many primary sources as a part of her secondary education. For example, she read the works of Josephus (a first-century Jewish historian) to learn more about the history of New Testament times.

While her homeschooling experience was quite classic, her higher education was more modern. She started with distance-learning courses from Christian universities like Patrick Henry College and Bryan College. She then transferred to Western Michigan University in her home town of Kalamazoo and continued living at home while she finished her undergraduate degree. She originally thought she would pursue a career in philosophy (the field of her father’s Ph.D. and her mother’s main professional research focus) but decided to double major in philosophy and mathematics, discovering an unexpected love for the latter when some professors helped her see the beauty of math. She was offered and accepted a teaching assistantship to pursue a Ph.D. there. As a TA, she has taught everything from algebra to applied calculus, adding occasional long-distance tutoring work on the side with Asian ESL (English as a second language) students. She has earned her master’s degree en route and is currently beginning work on her dissertation in graph theory.

While I could write hundreds and hundreds of words about this amazing young woman, I would rather spend time quoting her, since she has some great wisdom to share. For example, she doesn’t shy from the word “creationist,” although her old-Earth framework for understanding creation diverges from mine. Despite that fact, I wholeheartedly agree with her advice to students when it comes to that issue:

Familiarize yourself with the debate so you are not caught off guard. Don’t be afraid to question the evolutionary paradigm, but be sure you understand it so that you know how to critique it.

This is one of the biggest gripes I have with many of my fellow creationists. They try to critique the theory when they don’t really understand it to begin with!

She also has great advice for homeschooling parents. For example, she says:

The transition to college education will be much smoother if parents do these three things:

1. Administer timed tests.

2. Hold the line on grades.

3. Set and stick to deadlines.

Homeschooling, by its very nature, is flexible, and that is good in many ways. However, as the student gets older, he or she should be trained for a world that is significantly more rigid. Bethel said that her parents did all three of the things listed above, and she was grateful that they did. She was also grateful to have been taught to read very early by the phonics method and has since passed it on in a unique way:

My proudest achievement as a teacher was teaching one of my little South Korean students to read English words with phonics, even though we couldn’t talk to each other!

While her parents might be considered “overqualified” homeschoolers, she wants to encourage any parent who would like to keep their kids at home but feels daunted by the prospect:

You really can do this… You don’t have to be exceptional to give your child an exceptional education at home. It will be rewarding. I guarantee it.

How will it be rewarding? She answers that question perfectly:

Homeschooling allowed me to develop a deep, special bond with my parents. It made me an old soul.

We should all strive for such a bond with our children. Homeschooling gave that to me and my daughter, and it gave that to Bethel and her parents. It can also give that to you and your children.

In addition, she has a few words for people on the outside looking in at homeschoolers and their culture:

Please, just educate yourself more before you make snap judgments and cheap jokes about the homeschooling community. I am discouraged when I see even fellow Christians who do not understand the rigor and excellence that are regularly instilled in kids with my background. I see a lot of ignorance out there.

What does this wise young lady plan to do with her Ph.D. in mathematics? She says:

This degree has been a challenge to myself, to see if I could take what was once my weakness and turn it into a strength. But I hold the idea of a career lightly. I really want to have a family and homeschool my own kids. I am passionate about teaching. I would enjoy working at a community college and just making mathematics accessible for students. I am not getting my degree solely to have a career. I am getting a degree to develop my talents and be the best me that I can be right now.

I can’t imagine a better motivation for getting a degree.

As her own words reveal, Bethel McGrew is wise beyond her years. I count it a privilege to share her story and her advice with my readers. When she’s not doing math, you can find her doing a variety of things, including singing, song-writing, and arranging hymns for piano. You can buy her self-produced gospel album Having Church wherever digital music is sold. Enjoy a sample on her YouTube channel here!

Did The 2016 Election Actually Cause Psychological Stress?

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A woman screams when she hears who won the 2016 election (click for video)

**** PLEASE NOTE **** This is NOT a political post, and political comments will NOT be tolerated.

One of the many problems associated with doing scientific studies on the psychology of people is that you have to ask them how they are feeling and what they are thinking. The problem, of course, is aptly pointed out by fictional character Dr. Gregory House: “Everbody lies.” How can scientists determine whether or not people are actually telling the truth in these studies? There are some techniques. For example, if the study is based on a survey, the survey can ask the same question in many different ways, and a model can compare a person’s answers to those slightly-different questions to see if there is a consistent pattern. However, I recently ran across a study that did something radically different, and I found it very interesting.

The scientists noted that many people said the results of the 2016 presidential election here in the U.S. caused them a great deal of stress and anxiety. As the authors of the study put it:

One therapist, Inger Burnett-Zeigler, wrote in Time, “In the weeks since the election, many of my patients have come to therapy with anxiety, fear, and worry…It’s obvious to me that this highly contested election is already having real mental health consequences.”…A full 72% of Democrats reported that the presidential election outcome was “a significant source of stress,” as compared to 26% of Republicans. (references removed for clarity)

The researchers wanted to see if this was really the case, so they decided to do something interesting: They studied how people searched the internet after the election. After all, in a survey, you are either responding to a person or filling out a form that you know a person will read. The fact that you know someone else is going to evaluate your responses might lead you to say things that aren’t really true, so as to look better to that person or to make a point. However, your internet searches are (supposedly, not really) private, so people might be more “honest” with Google (or in this case, Bing) than they are with people. As a result, if you really want to know how people are feeling, look at their internet searches.

With that in mind, the authors looked at the searches of over a million Bing users. They found 300,000 who had also answered a political survey on MSN prior to the election. From that survey, they identified the users as Republican/Trump voters or Democrat/Clinton voters. They then looked at the users’ general Bing search habits prior to and after the election. They found that neither Republican/Trump voters nor Democrat/Clinton voters increased their searches regarding mental health issues after the election. This made the authors conclude that neither side of the political isle actually experienced increases in stress or anxiety after the election. They just told people it was happening.

The authors coined a term for this: reverse cheerleading. It is the practice of lying about how you feel so as to signal your dislike for your opponents. The authors say:

This suggests that some Democrats reported mental health declines after Trump’s election as a form of reverse cheerleading, where partisans report evaluations that are more negative than their true beliefs to reflect badly on a president of the opposing party.

Now if you are wondering whether or not the methodology of the study is valid, they did find one interesting result. If they compared the searches of people who sometimes searched the internet in Spanish, they did find an effect. Those users were more likely to search Bing for mental-health-related issues after the election than before the election. As the authors say:

This finding suggests that while Democrats’ descriptions of mental distress after the election had an element of expressive reporting, the mental consequences of Trump’s ascendance were very real for Latinos.

Since many think that the President’s policies will be bad for Latinos, it makes sense that at least some Latinos would feel genuine stress or anxiety after the election. Thus, the authors’ method seems to be sensitive to at least some changes in psychological health.

So in the end, it seems that reverse cheerleading is real. As a result, you have to be skeptical of survey results and other voluntary reports about psychological issues.

Of course, those who are worried about privacy might be concerned that a study like this can actually be done. After all, most people think that no one will ever see their internet searches, especially if they clear their browser history. This study demonstrates otherwise.

A Classic Example of Misleading “Journalism”

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View of Arkhangelsk, Russia at night (click for credit)

The headline at MSN is ominous:

It was 84 degrees near the Arctic Ocean this weekend as carbon dioxide hit its highest level in human history

Oh no! It’s sweltering in (or at least near) the Arctic! To emphasize the dire nature of this horrible news, the article goes on to say:

Over the weekend, the climate system sounded simultaneous alarms. Near the entrance to the Arctic Ocean in northwest Russia, the temperature surged to 84 degrees Fahrenheit (29 Celsius). Meanwhile, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eclipsed 415 parts per million for the first time in human history.

To the average American, who was given a very poor education in both geography and critical thinking, that sounds so bad. It shouldn’t be that warm near the Arctic Ocean, should it? Of course it should! All you have to do is look at a compilation of the weather statistics for the city being discussed (Arkhangelsk, Russia). As you can see, since 1940, the highest temperature recorded at Arkhangelsk was 93.9 F (34.4 C). During that same time period, the highest May temperature was 86.4 F (30.2 C). Both of those are higher than the “alarming” temperature being discussed in the article.

Now these results are for all years since 1940. The recent, “abnormally warm” temperatures caused by global warming are setting those records, right? Wrong. You can click on various years, and you will find that the highest temperature on record (34.4 C) occurred sometime between 1960 and 1980. As you can see, then, there is nothing unusual about it being 84 F near the Arctic Ocean at this time of year. Most people don’t know that, and most people (especially those who blindly accept what the High Priests of Science proclaim) aren’t willing to do any investigation on their own to find out.

Of course, that’s what the author of this article is counting on.

Even Eyes Contain Bacteria!

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Mouse eyes were studied in the article being discussed, but the results are probably applicable to many mammal eyes.

Writing about coral in the Journal Science, paleontologist Dr. George D. Stanley noted:

Symbiosis is the most relevant and enduring biological theme in the history of our planet.

If you aren’t familiar with the term, “symbiosis” refers to organisms of different species living together. There are three general forms:

(1) Parasitic symbiosis, in which one organism benefits and the other is harmed

(2) Commensal symbiosis, in which one organism might benefit but neither is harmed

(3) Mutualistic symbiosis, in which all organisms in the relationship benefit

I have written extensively on mutualistic symbiosis (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, for example). Not only does it fascinate me, but it was also the major scientific issue that led me away from atheism. When one sees the amazing mutualistic relationships that exist all over nature, it becomes clear that these organisms were designed to work together.

Bacteria tend to develop a lot of mutualistic relationships. Indeed, you would not be nearly as healthy as you are if it weren’t for the many mutualistic bacteria that live in and on your body. And while it is widely-known that you can find mutualistic bacteria in many parts of a mammal’s body, it was thought that you would never find them living in the eye for any extended period of time. That’s because mammal eyes contain an enzyme called lysosyme, which kills bacteria. However, new research indicates that at least one species of bacterium, Corynebacterium mastitidis, makes its home in at least some mammal eyes.

The researchers were studying mice and found that some had the bacterium in their eyes, while others did not. Now, of course, it could be that the bacterium had found its way to the eyes and had not been killed yet, so the researchers added the bacterium to the eyes of some of the mice that didn’t originally have it. Even after several weeks, the bacterium was alive and well on the eyes. To make sure this wasn’t a result of bad immunity, they added other species of bacteria to the eyes, and all those were killed by the mice’s immune systems.

Interestingly enough, when mice without the bacterium in their eyes were put in the same cages as mice that had it in their eyes, the bacterium was not transferred. However, when the mice that had the bacterium in their eyes had pups, the pups all had it. This led the researchers to conclude that the bacterium doesn’t “infect” the eyes (at least not easily), but it is passed down from one generation to the next.

But what is the bacterium doing there? To find out, the researchers treated some of the mice that had the bacterium with an antibiotic that kills it. They then infected those mice as well as mice that still had the bacterium in their eyes with a fungus that infects eyes. They found that the mice without the bacterium got the infection, but the mice that still had the bacterium in their eyes did not. Thus, the bacterium is protecting the eyes of the mice from at least some forms of infection.

Amazingly, the bacterium seems to do this by triggering an immune response from the mice. While this immune response destroys other organisms (like other bacteria and the fungus used in the experiment), it doesn’t kill the bacterium! The researchers don’t know how it survives, but they confirmed that it does. Here is what the authors state:

Our findings indicate that true commensalism with benefit to the host can exist at the ocular surface and uncover the importance of the local gamma-delta-T cell response in this process. We suggest that tuning of the local immune response by commensals may be necessary to maintain immune homeostasis in the ocular mucosa and may play a broad role in diseases of the ocular surface.

The “gamma-delta-T cell response” is the immune response that kills infecting organisms but not the bacterium that triggers it.

Now notice that the authors are careful to call the relationship between this bacterium and the mice “commensalism” and not “mutualism.” There are probably three reasons for this. First, while the mouse clearly benefits in at least some situations, it is not certain that the bacterium does. However, I would say that since the bacterium has a place to live (and presumably food to eat), it is probably benefiting. Second, this bacterium is found on the skin of many mammals and is thought to neither harm nor benefit the mammals. Thus, it is commonly called a commensal bacterium. Finally, the researchers can’t rule out the possibility that the bacterium becomes harmful in specific situations.

Since I don’t have to be as careful on my blog as the researchers do in the scientific literature, I will go ahead and suggest that this is another wonderful example of the abundant mutualistic symbioses that exist throughout God’s creation. As I stated in a previous post, there is at least some evidence that nature was designed to operate this way, and the negative relationships we see among organisms now are a result of the curse under which all creation groans. (Romans 8:20-22)

What Is the Function of a Narwhal’s Tusk?

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Three Narwhals swimming close to the surface of the ocean. The lead narwhal’s tusk is easy to see.

(credit: Dr. Kristin Laidre, Polar Science Center, UW NOAA/OAR/OER)

Back in April, I spoke at the Ohio Homeschool Convention. It is part of the Great Homeschool Conventions, at which I have been fortunate to be a regular speaker. This year, the convention graciously allowed me to do my favorite kind of presentation: A Question/Answer Session. I have done them at other conventions (see here, here, and here), and I always enjoy them, usually because I learn something. I open these sessions by simply asking for questions, and I tell the audience that the questions can be about anything. If I can’t answer a question, I am happy say the three words any scientist should be totally comfortable saying, “I don’t know.” I also tell them that if I have to say those words, I will try to find the answer later and post it on my blog.

That’s what happened at the Ohio Homeschool convention. One of the audience members asked me what a narwhal (Monodon monoceros) does with its horn. I had to tell him that I don’t know. I did tell him that it isn’t really a horn. In fact, it is an elongated tooth. I speculated about a couple of possibilities, but I couldn’t say anything for sure. That was a few weeks ago, and I have been pretty busy since then. However, I have wrapped up both the Thermodynamics course I was teaching at Anderson University, and the online classes I have been teaching this year, so I finally got around to investigating narwhals.

The short answer is that we still don’t know what a narwhal does with its tusk. The long answer, however, is much more interesting.

In 2014, a team of scientists, including an expert in marine dental structures, Dr. Martin T. Nweeia, studied the tusks of living narwhals in detail. They found that just like any other tooth, the narwhal’s tusk has a permeable outer layer. This allows seawater to travel into the pulp of the tooth, where there are all sorts of sensory nerves. They decided to test how the narwhals reacted when only the tusks (not rest of the narwhals’ bodies) were exposed to different kinds of water. They found that the higher the salt concentration in the water, the faster the narwhal’s heart would beat.

What possible use could this have for the narwhal? Well, narwhals live in arctic oceans, which can freeze. When saltwater freezes, the water ejects the salt, so that the actual frozen part is composed of only water molecules. As ocean waters freeze, then, they get saltier. When sea ice or glaciers (which are formed by fresh water freezing) melt, there is suddenly more salt-free water in the ocean, so the water becomes less salty. Thus, the scientists claim that at least one of the functions of the narwhal’s tusk is to indicate whether or not the ocean water is freezing. If it is freezing, the narwhal should move to waters that aren’t freezing.

Now I don’t think this is a really definitive conclusion, because the narwhals were in captivity. As a result, the observed response might be quite different from what the narwhals experience in the wild. However, the study does show that the tusk is sensitive to the amount of salt in water, which demonstrates that it has some kind of sensory function. With that in mind, you might want to take a look at recent drone footage of narwhals feeding:

It is a bit difficult to see, but the narwhals are eating cod (the squiggly things near the surface of the water). They move their tusks around, eventually hitting a cod. The cod that are hit seem stunned, which makes them easier for the narwhal to eat. The video stresses how the cod are stunned by being hit, but I wonder if the tusk is actually sensing chemicals in the water to tell the narwhal where the cod are. Please note that we don’t know if it is just the force of the hit that stuns the cod or something else that the tusk is doing.

Now the big problem with assuming that it must be an important sensory organ is that typically, only males have tusks. Some females have them, but that is rare, and when they occur, the female tusks are usually smaller than the male tusks. How do females survive without such a sensory organ? Well, narwhals are social creatures, living in groups (called pods) of usually less than 20 members. However, multiple pods often come together so that at times, there can be 100 or more narwhals together. It’s possible that the males of the pod do the sensing, and the females of the pod follow the males. The problem with that explanation is that there are some all-female pods. How do they survive without tusks? Well, it’s at least possible that the all-female pods meet up with pods that contain males in order to do their serious hunting.

Since tusks are typically a male characteristic, you might think they have something to do with attracting a mate or aggressive behavior against other males. That’s what Charles Darwin suggested. A 2014 study indicates that males with longer tusks have more massive sexual organs, so the tusks might be a way that males display their reproductive strength. However, if that were the main function of the tusk, it probably wouldn’t have all those sensory nerves. In addition, while some male narwhals have been found with broken tusks (suggesting aggressive behavior), other males have been seen rubbing tusks in a non-aggressive manner that suggests communication instead of fighting for dominance.

As you can see, then, this is one of the many mysteries of God’s creation that hasn’t been solved. Nevertheless, scientists’ search for an answer is fascinating!

Ignorant People Acting Intellectually Superior

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Screenshot from the video being discussed.

We live in a nation that is shockingly ignorant of basic science. Yet, at the same time, some of the most ignorant people on the planet act as if they can speak for science. Take, for example, Bill Nye. Many people view him as today’s spokesperson for science, despite the fact that he displays his scientific ignorance time and time again (see here, here, here, here, and here, for example). I just ran across another example of ignorant people claiming to speak for science. It comes from the Jimmy Kimmel Live show.

It’s one of those fake public service announcements (PSAs) which attempts to demonstrate the intelligence of the people making the announcement while at the same time displaying the stupidity of those who disagree with them. This is a form of what is now called virtue signaling – the attempt to show others how virtuous you are, often by making fun of people who disagree with you. A screenshot from the fake PSA is given above. The spokesperson, “actor, director, and two-time sexiest man alive George Clooney,” is promoting an organization that attempts to educate ignorant people to give up their foolish beliefs. In the segment from which the screenshot is taken, Mr. Clooney says that your donation of $200 will “…teach ten @*!x&^ knuckle-draggers that dinosaurs existed, but not at the same time as people.”

Now, of course, anyone with a modicum of scientific knowledge should immediately see what is wrong with the graphic being shown. Those who believe that dinosaurs and people did not live at the same time cannot use carbon dating as a way of supporting their claim. Because of the relatively “short” half-life of carbon-14, carbon dating can only be used on carbon-containing items that are less than 60,000 years old. Given that the generally-accepted timescale has dinosaurs going extinct 65 million years ago and the earliest humans appearing about 200,000 years ago, “Basic F**king Carbon Dating” cannot tell us anything about whether or not humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time.

In fact, if one truly believes carbon dating, one has to believe that people and dinosaurs did, indeed, coexist. That’s because multiple dinosaur fossils have been carbon dated to between 23,000 and 41,000 years old (see here, here, and here). All of those values are well within the timeframe that evolutionists tell us modern humans existed.

Now, of course, those who desperately want to believe in the generally-accepted timescale will make up excuses for why you can believe most carbon dates, but not the ones done on dinosaur bones. Interestingly enough, however, at least some of those people don’t want to do further tests to see if their excuses work. But that’s not my point. To some extent, all scientists make up “just so” stories to prop up their hypotheses, so it’s understandable that those who are committed to the scientific consensus do so as well.

My point is much simpler than that. The makers of this fake PSA wanted to show that they are well-educated and intelligent because they simply accept what the High Priests of Science proclaim without investigating the evidence in any way. At the same time, they wanted to show that those who believe dinosaurs and people lived at the same time are stupid. Instead, they ended up demonstrating their own ignorance of the scientific data related to the issue. Unfortunately, because the High Priests are doing such a great job at keeping the general public ignorant of science, most people will have no idea!

Dr. Winston Ewert, Homeschool Graduate and Software Engineer

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Dr. Winston Ewert

Back in July of last year, I wrote about what might be one of the most important genetic studies of the decade. It treated an organism’s genome like a large computer program that was put together using specific groups of genes as programming “modules.” The study showed that this view of the genome made more sense of the genetic similarities between certain animals than an evolutionary view. When I read the study and blogged about it, I did not recognize the author’s name and had no idea who he was. Later on, he contacted me and thanked me for blogging about his study. He also informed me that he is a homeschool graduate and used my courses in his education. I recently contacted him to see if he would be willing to be a part of my homeschool graduate project, and he graciously agreed.

Dr. Ewert was homeschooled K-12, as were his four siblings. Like many homeschoolers, his parents’ primary motivation was to school their children using a Christian worldview. However, unlike most of the homeschool graduates I have talked with and written about, he was homeschooled in British Columbia, Canada. This actually made access to university a bit more difficult for him. Most British Columbia universities weren’t “homeschool friendly” like U.S. universities, so when he graduated from homeschooling, he started his higher education at Kwantlen University College, which was pretty much the Canadian equivalent of a community college. After two semesters, he transferred to Trinity Western University to finish his degree.

He said he had developed a computer obsession by the age of 10, so he knew he wanted to study computers. At Kwantlen, he started studying computer information systems. He transferred to Trinity when he realized he should be studying computer science instead. Had he started out in computer science at Trinity, this would have made graduating in four years a bit easier. That’s the only real negative aspect he could think of regarding his homeschooling.

This one negative was outweighed by all the positives that went along with homeschooling. For example, he says that homeschooling was much more like university than traditional schools, because homeschooling is very self-directed, just like university. As a result, he was better prepared to be a university student than most of his peers. In addition, he said:

My awareness was that people who were in school went to school for a long time and then did homework after school. Homeschooling was more efficient.

He appreciated the efficiency of homeschooling, which allowed him to spend more time developing his computer programming skills.

While at Trinity Western University, someone on the internet told him that he was stupid for not believing in evolution as the explanation for the origin and diversity of life and told him to read Dr. Richard Dawkins’s book, The Blind Watchmaker. In that book, Dawkins discusses a little computer program he wrote to ‘simulate’ evolution. It took a random series of letters and then used a form of mutation and selection to turn those letters into the sentence “Methinks it is like a weasel” (a line from Shakespeare).

The computer program is very silly and doesn’t in any way simulate evolution, but it intrigued Ewert. He wanted to learn more about how computer simulations were applied to evolution. He ended up writing a paper about the subject and sent it to a professor at Trinity Western University. Unbeknownst to him, that professor sent the paper to Dr. William Dembski, one of the leaders of the intelligent design movement. One of the members of Dr. Dembski’s research team, Dr. Robert Marks, was very impressed with the paper. He contacted Ewert and suggested that he do graduate work with their team at Baylor University. Initially, Ewert had no desire to spend more time in school, so he made excuses as to why he couldn’t do that. Dr. Marks was relentless, however, so Ewert agreed to go to Baylor to get his Masters. While he was there, Baylor started a Ph.D. program, so he stayed and eventually became Dr. Ewert.

While at Baylor, he had the incredible opportunity of spending a summer in North Korea. The government had allowed a group of foreigners to form Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, where native English speakers would come and teach. One of the Baylor University professors with whom he was working invited Ewert to assist him while he taught there during the summer. Dr. Ewert says it was quite the experience:

Overall, you feel like people’s descriptions of communist countries are exaggerated, until you actually see it, and then you realize they aren’t. Humanist ideas like ‘man is god’ are everywhere, and they affect the culture in a very negative way.

Also, the North Korean regime was incredibly strict. For example, Dr. Ewert was not allowed to take pictures through the windows of the vehicles in which he traveled. He could only take pictures at ‘approved’ spots. In addition, students at the university did not have access to any internet sites outside of North Korea.

After earning his Ph.D. he worked for Google for two years. He wasn’t all that happy with the work, however. He didn’t think the job he was doing was making much of a difference in the world, and he was frustrated by the fact that he could write computer code much faster than it could be reviewed. Eventually, he moved back to Canada and started his own computer software company, which specializes mostly in web development. He does his evolution-related research as a hobby.

He says that he is an introvert by nature, so he doesn’t really think much about giving other people advice. However, he did offer this piece of wisdom:

If you are interesting in computers, you should be learning programming languages before you go to university. Get programming experience, or you will be behind.

Speaking of computer programming, Dr. Ewert is working on the next installment of his evolution-related research. You can bet that I will blog about it as soon as I have read it!