Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 115

January 25, 2022

How much difference did meat-eating make to human evolution?

A new study calls the claim that meat-eating was really important into question:

There’s a widespread belief that eating meat became much more common with the advent of big-brained Homo erectus, two million years ago, based on increased archaeological evidence of meat-eating from that point.

But new research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has called that belief into question, suggesting that the numbers don’t quite add up.

“Generations of paleoanthropologists have gone to famously well-preserved sites in places like Olduvai Gorge looking for — and finding — breathtaking direct evidence of early humans eating meat, furthering this viewpoint that there was an explosion of meat-eating after two million years ago,” says Dr Andrew Barr, assistant professor of anthropology at George Washington University, US, and lead author on the paper.

“However, when you quantitatively synthesise the data from numerous sites across eastern Africa to test this hypothesis, as we did here, that ‘meat made us human’ evolutionary narrative starts to unravel.”

Ellen Phiddian, “Did meat-eating really play a big role in human evolution?” at Cosmos Magazine (January 25, 2022)

The dates examined range from 1.2 million years ago to 2.6 million years ago.

The paper is closed access but here’s the Significance statement:

Significance

Many quintessential human traits (e.g., larger brains) first appear in Homo erectus. The evolution of these traits is commonly linked to a major dietary shift involving increased consumption of animal tissues. Early archaeological sites preserving evidence of carnivory predate the appearance of H. erectus, but larger, well-preserved sites only appear after the arrival of H. erectus. This qualitative pattern is a key tenet of the “meat made us human” viewpoint, but data from sites across eastern Africa have not been quantitatively synthesized to test this hypothesis. Our analysis shows no sustained increase in the relative amount of evidence for carnivory after the appearance of H. erectus, calling into question the primacy of carnivory in shaping its evolutionary history.

On the whole, lots of things are easier to get hold of than meat (eggs and fish come to mind).

You may also wish to read: Human evolution at your fingertips

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Published on January 25, 2022 18:39

At Mind Matters News: Royal Society: Don’t censor misinformation; it makes things worse

While others demand crackdowns on “fake news,” the Society reminds us that the history of science is one of error correction:

A leading science organization, the Royal Society (Britain’s equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences), has put out a report discouraging social media censorship, with special reference to the COVID-19 pandemic:

The Royal Society, the U.K.’s academy of sciences, published a study of online scientific and health misinformation Wednesday, investigating its root causes and brainstorming possible solutions. The scientists concluded that censoring content deemed to be misinformation is often harmful and antithetical to the principles of scientific inquiry…

The report found that online censorship risked pushing misinformation underground and off of major social media platforms, where it is less likely to be exposed to countervailing opinions. Censorship also risks removing or suppressing content that may be true or helpful to the evolving scientific understanding of certain concepts.

AILAN EVANS, “DON’T CENSOR MISINFORMATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA, LEADING SCIENTISTS SAY” AT THE STREAM (JANUARY 19, 2022)

The Royal Society report seeks to establish a rational basis for public trust in science

Denyse O’Leary, “Royal Society: Don’t censor misinformation; it makes things worse” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: It’s a fact that much COVID news later thought to need correction was purveyed by official sources, not blogs or Facebook or Twitter accounts.

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Published on January 25, 2022 18:19

Has a 243 year-old puzzle been solved via a “quantum solution”?

The puzzle in question is Leonhard Euler ’s 36 officers puzzle:

In 1779, the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler posed a puzzle that has since become famous: Six army regiments each have six officers of six different ranks. Can the 36 officers be arranged in a 6-by-6 square so that no row or column repeats a rank or regiment?

The puzzle is easily solved when there are five ranks and five regiments, or seven ranks and seven regiments. But after searching in vain for a solution for the case of 36 officers, Euler concluded that “such an arrangement is impossible, though we can’t give a rigorous demonstration of this.” More than a century later, the French mathematician Gaston Tarry proved that, indeed, there was no way to arrange Euler’s 36 officers in a 6-by-6 square without repetition. In 1960, mathematicians used computers to prove that solutions exist for any number of regiments and ranks greater than two, except, curiously, six.

Daniel Garisto, “Euler’s 243-Year-Old ‘Impossible’ Puzzle Gets a Quantum Solution” at Quanta (January 21, 2022)

But now, says Daniel Garisto,

But whereas Euler thought no such 6-by-6 square exists, recently the game has changed. In a paper posted online and submitted to Physical Review Letters, a group of quantum physicists in India and Poland demonstrates that it is possible to arrange 36 officers in a way that fulfills Euler’s criteria — so long as the officers can have a quantum mixture of ranks and regiments. The result is the latest in a line of work developing quantum versions of magic square and Latin square puzzles, which is not just fun and games, but has applications for quantum communication and quantum computing.

Daniel Garisto, “Euler’s 243-Year-Old ‘Impossible’ Puzzle Gets a Quantum Solution” at Quanta (January 21, 2022)

The paper is open access.

Schrodinger’s cat figured it out a long time ago but never got around to telling anyone.

You may also wish to read: How quantum computing can and can’t help us here in Macro World. Quantum computing could easily break down current encryption schemes. Quantum computing can help us create much safer encryption in exchange but currently it requires very cold temperatures in order to work.

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Published on January 25, 2022 17:48

January 24, 2022

Long after Dave Coppedge got the boot for discussing ID at JPL, JPL is paying a massive lawsuit for discrimination against other employees

As Jerry Bergman puts it, “Poetic Justice for A Darwin Skeptic: JPL Sued For Discrimination and Forced to Pay Out 10 Million Dollars in Restitution to Former Employees:”

Twelve years ago, David Coppedge was a proud member of a large team of scientists that made space science history. Specifically, he was for 14 years an information technology specialist at Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL), a division of Caltech (California Institute of Technology). Coppedge was also the Team Lead System Administrator for the Cassini Mission for nine years. Cassini was a collaboration of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency to send a probe to study Saturn, its rings, and its moons. The program was named after the Italian mathematician Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625 –1712) and was the largest outer-planet mission ever conducted by NASA and JPL.

Coppedge occasionally approached co-workers with whom he had worked with for years, each of whom he had considered a friend, to invite them to discuss and view science DVDs about intelligent design. Coppedge thought that “If JPL can talk about life evolving by chance, then employees should have the freedom to present scientific evidence for alternative views like design. Many times during work hours I had gone to JPL lectures presenting a naturalistic origin and evolution of life.”[1] It turned out that a naturalistic origin and evolution of life was the only view allowed to be discussed at JPL.

On April 13, 2009, as a result of loaning DVDs on intelligent design to his co-workers, Coppedge was accused of violating Jet Propulsion Lab’s (JPL) harassment and ethics policies. As a result, he was slapped with a Written Warning for violating both JPL’s Unlawful Harassment Policy and their Ethics Policy. Furthermore, he was demoted from the Team Lead position he held for nine years.

Jerry Bergman, “JPL Sued for Discrimination” at Creation-Evolution Headlines (January 22, 2022)

Coppedge was later fired under brutal circumstances, as Bergman documents.

And so now:

Almost a decade later, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), after a careful investigation, ruled JPL was guilty of discrimination—age discrimination. As a result of a class action lawsuit, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory agreed to pay $10 million in fines and damages, and make changes in the way hiring and promotions are handled in an effort to combat their discriminatory practices regarding age of employees.[17]

The EEOC’s research concluded that JPL systemically laid off employees over the age of 40 in favor of retaining younger employees and, furthermore, older employees were often passed over for rehire in favor of less qualified, younger employees.[18] The statement from attorneys involved in the settlement echoed what technology-related-industry employees have for years claimed about older workers facing age discrimination. Evidently JPL lawyers felt that the evidence EEOC had collected was very compelling and they would not prevail, so they settled for $10 million.

Jerry Bergman, “JPL Sued for Discrimination” at Creation-Evolution Headlines (January 22, 2022)

Well, people who study the movements of the planets should know this: What goes around, comes around.

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Published on January 24, 2022 19:44

Another layer of protection for DNA that just happened to evolve…

Probably in a short period of time, in relation to life on Earth:

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University have identified a new mechanism by which a protein known for repairing damaged DNA also protects the integrity of DNA by preserving its structural shape.

The discovery, involving the protein 53BP1, offers insight into understanding how cells maintain the integrity of DNA in the nucleus, which is critical for preventing diseases like premature aging and cancer…

53BP1 is a large protein known for determining how cells will repair a particular type of DNA damage—DNA double-strand break (DSB), in which the two strands of DNA are both broken, leaving a free DNA end floating around in the cell’s nucleus.

When DSB occurs, if not repaired, DNA ends could fuse to what it should not under normal conditions, which leads to the disruption of genetic information. In the short term, cells with unrepaired DNA may kill themselves off; but if a cell lost this self-surveillance, it may start the journey toward cancer.

In this study, the team discovered 53BP1 has a biological function in mediating the structure of DNA, specifically at a highly compacted region called heterochromatin.

The researchers found that this new function involves a new form of activity of 53BP1, in which the protein accumulates at the condensed DNA regions and forms small liquid droplets—a process called liquid-liquid phase separation, similar to mixing oil with water for salad dressing.

Case Western Reserve University, “Case Western Reserve University research team identifies new mechanism for protecting DNA” at The Daily (January 18, 2022)

Darwinism was easier back when cells were just blobs of protoplasm.

The paper is open access.

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Published on January 24, 2022 19:13

But Wasn’t Eugenie Scott PAID to Confuse People?

Casey Luskin is currently critiquing a 2007 talk by Eugenie Scott, then head of the National Center for Science Education (the Darwin in the schools lobby).

Re ID vs. creationism, Luskin writes:

Yesterday, in the first installment, I noted that the former National Center for Science Education executive director conflates intelligent design with creationism.

That’s a familiar fallacy, as anyone who’s read some ID literature should know. For example, one of the leading ID theorists, Michael Behe, explains clearly in his books that he never was a creationist. He’s a Roman Catholic who has no particular theological objections to evolution and fully accepted it prior to being persuaded of intelligent design by the evidence. To this day Behe finds the evidence for common descent persuasive, but he objects to the thesis that natural selection (or other unguided mechanisms) can account for all of the complexity of life. As he wrote in Darwin’s Black Box (published some 11 years prior to Scott’s talk) …

Scott never mentions these facts about Behe’s views. Yet his acceptance of common descent, combined with skepticism about the creative power of natural selection, has an ironic consistency with Scott’s own framing of “evolution” in her lecture. She notes that the “pattern” of common ancestry and descent with modification is just one part of evolutionary biology. The other part is the “mechanism” which generates that pattern. That, she says, is driven by natural selection but also includes other forces like genetic drift, etc.

Presumably, therefore, one may accept one part of evolutionary biology (or at least not necessarily challenge it) but be skeptical of the other. This is precisely what ID does, except Scott gets ID’s approach exactly backwards.

Lumping ID with “creationism,” she claims ID only objects to descent with modification but accepts selection so long as it operates within “created kinds.” That may be what classic young earth creationists do, but it is the opposite of ID theory’s approach. As Behe, myself, and many others have noted, intelligent design is compatible with common ancestry. Where ID is skeptical of evolution is the claim that unguided mechanisms — driven by selection and random mutation but also including drift and other blind forces — can explain life’s whole show.

Casey Luskin, “Eugenie Scott Gets Intelligent Design Backwards” at Evolution News and Science Today (January 19, 2022)

But if Scott had so far forgotten her disinformation mission that she actually made distinctions between ID and creationism, she would end up triggering the thing she would most want to avoid: Serious reasons why a reasonable person might doubt Darwinism. Her organization’s mission was to prevent that.

You may also wish to read: At Evolution News: Darwin in the schools campaigner got it all wrong on pseudogenes. When you think about it, it’s a better long-term strategy to predict that something has function than that it doesn’t.

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Published on January 24, 2022 18:30

At Mind Matters News: There’s no science argument on whether unborn children are human

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor notes that abortion activists argue that the embryo is a different species, some unclassified thing, or part of the mother —
that’s politics, not science:

Egnor has a message for people who wonder whether the preborn child is a human being:

He also recounts that, while he always tells the truth to parents about their unborn babies’ neurological issues as he understands them, sometimes the children surprise him:

“Just recently, I saw a 10 year old girl in the office for whom I’ve cared since she was in the womb. When her spina bifida was diagnosed by prenatal testing, the doctor basically insisted that she be aborted. It was relatively late in the pregnancy, and the doctor gave them the name of George Tiller, a notorious late-term abortionist in Kansas who aborted babies at an age when even the most callous of other abortionists refuse to kill. Her family declined, and sought me out as a second opinion. I told them the truth about their daughter’s prognosis — which was guarded but by no means hopeless.

“As it turned out, I was wrong. She did indeed have spina bifida and I operated on her the day she was born. But she has done much better than any of us even dreamed. She walks, runs, and loves to dance. She is bright and charming, and is the love and light of her mom, dad, and her doting older brothers. I give talks to medical professionals about neurosurgical prenatal diagnoses and at the end of the talks I show a video clip of her dancing. Michael Egnor, “Political Website’s Christmas Gift to Readers: Promoting Abortion” at Mind Matters News (December 28, 2021)”

News, “There’s no science argument on whether unborn children are human” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: “The science of sexual reproduction is as much settled science as is the fact that the Earth orbits the sun and that DNA carries genetic code.” – Egnor

You may also wish to read: Political website’s Christmas gift to readers: promoting abortion FiveThirtyEight asked readers to share their abortion stories and got something it hadn’t bargained on: Many were glad it didn’t happen. I am a pediatric neurosurgeon, and every day I treat kids (and adults) who were prime candidates for abortion, but by the grace of God escaped the abortionist. (Michael Egnor)

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Published on January 24, 2022 18:13

January 23, 2022

Movie Night with Illustra: A Whale of a Story and 18 Trillion Feet of You

A Whale of a Story

Humpback whales. They are among the largest and most magnificent creatures on Earth. But how did these warm blooded, air-breathing, fully aquatic mammals come into existence? Evolutionary scientists have long proposed a slow, gradual process driven by random mutations and natural selection. Yet, 21st century biology and genetics have clearly revealed that these naturalistic explanations are woefully inadequate. Instead, the most convincing evidence for their creation now points to intelligent design.

18 Trillion Feet of You

Enter a living human cell to discover a world of unimaginable precision, complexity and design. Measuring less than 2/1000th of an inch in diameter, the cell is packed with molecular machinery that makes life possible. These microscopic wonders include our DNA – the genetic code. Through extraordinary computer animation you’ll discover how the more than 18 trillion feet of DNA in your body is organized, stored and processed. 12 Comments

Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

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Published on January 23, 2022 19:49

At Mind Matters News: Chalmers and Penrose clash over “conscious computers”

Philosopher Chalmers thinks computers could be conscious but physicist Penrose says no. Eric Holloway explains:

Chalmers argues that, while the conscious mind cannot be reduced to a physical process, it is possible to imagine a being that is physically identical to one’s self that is also without consciousness (the philosopher’s zombie). Therefore, he thinks, it is possible that a computer program could possess consciousness.

On the other hand, Penrose argues that the non-computable aspect of the mind is generated by a physical process, which he speculates is related to four-dimensional quantum gravity. This is because reconciling two divergent timelines with four-dimensional quantum gravity requires knowledge about arbitrarily distant points, making it an undecidable process, just like the aperiodic tiling concept that Penrose developed. So, on this point, the authors’ conclusions contradict each other.

But Penrose and Chalmers don’t have to contradict each other. What if the human mind is not a computer precisely because it is conscious? This is not so far-fetched. There are a number of concepts of which we are conscious that cannot be computed, for example Chaitin’s unknowable number.

More generally, there is the experience of the infinite and the experience of truth. Let’s see why these concepts are not computable.

Eric Holloway, “Chalmers and Penrose clash over “conscious computers” ” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: There are hard, practical reasons why computers cannot understand concepts like “infinity” and “truth” and therefore cannot be conscious.

You may also wish to read: Can quantum physics, neuroscience merge as quantum consciousness? Physicist Marcelo Gleiser looks at the pros and cons of current theories. The problem is, if we assume that “the mind is nothing more than the brain,” there may be nothing we can discover about how it works.

and

Why physicalism is failing as the accepted approach to science. The argument that everything in nature can be reduced to physics was killed by the philosophical Zombie, as Prudence Louise explains. Physicalism which depends on a mechanistic view of the universe, was challenged by observer-dependent quantum mechanics. Then the Zombie started walking…

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Published on January 23, 2022 19:29

Palmer Study Course on intelligent design: Part 5 Origin of Life Part I

Headlines generated by Origin of Life researchers are misleading. In Part 1, we look at how scientists have redefined “life” so they can search for solutions to much simpler problems. In Part 2, we consider some of the reasons Origins research has achieved so little success over the past 70 years.

Discussion questions

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Published on January 23, 2022 18:54

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