Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 128

Did we domesticate crops or did they domesticate us?

A recent paper prompts the question:

Emerging evidence of plant domestication as a landscape-level process

The evidence from ancient crops over the past decade challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the process of domestication. The emergence of crops has been viewed as a technologically progressive process in which single or multiple localized populations adapt to human environments in response to cultivation. By contrast, new genetic and archaeological evidence reveals a slow process that involved large populations over wide areas with unexpectedly sustained cultural connections in deep time. We review evidence that calls for a new landscape framework of crop origins. Evolutionary processes operate across vast distances of landscape and time, and the origins of domesticates are complex. The domestication bottleneck is a redundant concept and the progressive nature of domestication is in doubt. Robin G. Allaby, Chris J. Stevens, Logan Kistler, Dorian Q.Fuller Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Month 2021, Vol. xx, No. xx https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2021.1...

The paper is open access.

Aren’t domestic plants better cared for than weeds? How do we know it was all on our side? We assume that – but then, we would, right? No, not crazy here. Just wondering if it’s as simple as we thought.

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What? Brain surgeons are NOT smarter than the rest of us?

We are told, “Data from 329 aerospace engineers and 72 neurosurgeons suggests they are not necessarily cleverer than general population”:

Researchers examined data from an international cohort of 329 aerospace engineers and 72 neurosurgeons who completed 12 tasks online using the Great British Intelligence Test (GBIT) from the Cognitron platform, as well as answering questions around their age, sex and levels of experience in their speciality.

The tasks examined various aspects of cognition, including planning and reasoning, working memory, attention, and emotion processing abilities. The researchers then compared the results against those previously gathered from more than 18,000 members of the British public.

The findings, which were published in the festive edition of the BMJ, reveal that only neurosurgeons showed a significant difference, with quicker problem-solving speed but slower memory recall compared with the general population.

Nicola Davis, “Brain surgeons and rocket scientists no brighter than the rest of us, study finds” at The Guardian (December 13, 2021)

But doesn’t that make “evolution” a bigger mystery than ever? If the alleged smartest people aren’t necessarily the future, how did things get to be as they are?

Note: This was published in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal, which means it could be something of a joke. But still, a pause for thought.

Hat tip: Ken Francis, co-author with Theodore Dalrymple of The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd

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Major cosmological principle — the universe is the same in all directions — is under fire

Wouldn’t be happening if more wasn’t also going on:

“The consensus now is that it is a small effect that does not, in the end, cause too much trouble,” Nadathur said. But that 2% could yet prove consequential. Durrer is investigating whether backreaction might help resolve a growing cosmological crisis. The crisis, known as the Hubble tension, is that the nearby universe appears to expand about 9% faster than what the standard model predicts for the universe’s overall expansion rate. Many explanations have been floated, including radical new ingredients in the cosmos. But Buchert argued last year that the broad-brush cosmological principle might be to blame for the apparent discrepancy. In a lumpy universe, one would expect emptier patches to expand faster than the average. Durrer is simulating the effects of backreaction to calculate the odds that we could have landed in the middle of such an empty, expansive section of space. “Even if [backreaction] is not sufficient to explain the accelerated expansion, it might be marginally sufficient to solve the Hubble tension,” she said, although she doesn’t expect it to provide the whole answer.

Charlie Wood, “Cosmologists Parry Attacks on the Vaunted Cosmological Principle” at Quanta (December 13, 2021)

Watch this file.

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At Mind Matters News: Jonathan Bartlett: Will the Sokal hoaxes worsen the academic echo chamber?

Yes, of course they could. Frightened babblers of academic orthodoxy could decide to just stop considering new ideas. Jonathan Bartlett explains:

Academics has long had a problem of being insular. Many papers are published on the basis of your status in academics, not the quality of the paper itself. This is not to say that the papers didn’t legitimately pass peer review (though that is questionable in some cases), but rather that the editor decides which papers are “worthy” of peer review based on the editor’s knowledge of that person’s prior work.

Here’s the deal: Journals live and die by their reputation, and no editor wants their journal to be Sokal’d. What does this mean? It likely means that journals will simply increase their desk-rejection (prior to peer review) of papers by newer researchers, especially of solo authorship. The effect of this will be to restrict ideas to only those which are currently fashionable and held by existing, well-known academics. If your paper has to be co-authored by someone already well-known for an editor to take you seriously, then that means that your ideas are probably really well-aligned with the mainstream.

There’s nothing wrong per se with mainstream thinking — it probably became mainstream for good reasons. However, when only mainstream thinking is allowed, this leads to insularity and an echo chamber mentality.

Jonathan Bartlett, “Will the Sokal hoaxes worsen the academic echo chamber?” at Mind Matters News (December 13, 2021)

Echo chambers are not a recipe for progress.

Takehome: When only mainstream thinking is allowed, insularity and echo chambers are the result. In order to protect against Sokal hoaxes, journal editors may choose to pass on newer researchers, narrowing the diversity of opinions in their journals

In case you missed it:

Are Sokal Hoaxes Really Helping Reform Science? The evidence is mixed. The current prank on Higher Education Quarterly prompts some questions. Serious problems exist in today’s journals but the hoaxers seem so certain of their view that they don’t approach demonstrating it in a scientific way. (Jonathan Bartlett)

Be On the Lookout for More Sokal Hoaxes. If you spot a Sokal hoax, let us know by tagging @cnaintelligence on Twitter. One of the anonymous hoaxers said, “We plan to reveal the full extent of this hoax later. For now we recommend readers look for other fake papers.” (Jonathan Bartlett)

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Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne on freedom of speech

Jerry, if only it still mattered. The people that Darwinians empowered have bigger fish to fry than us. That’s for sure.

They must destroy an entire civilization that, due to their lack of accomplishments, refuses to regard them as geniuses. For now, from Jerry’s post-retirement job, the details:

I’ve spent a lot of time writing and working to try to get colleges and universities—especially mine—to refrain from issuing official political, ideological, or moral statements save under exceptional circumstances. Freedom of speech is a sine qua non for a decent university, and that goes along with a university not trying to stifle or chill speech by issuing their “own” official positions. For institutional statements of morality and ideology will necessarily stifle the speech of those opposed to approved sentiments. We already know that half of college students, and a goodly proportion of professors, are self-censoring lest they incur the wrath of those who have power over them. In colleges, those with power are the Woke. Students and faculty who have issues with wokeness have, by and large decided to keep their mouths shut, and that is not what should be happening in colleges.

Jerry Coyne, “Chair of Stanford’s Department of Computer Science sends out woke and confusing email affirming his department’s virtue” at Why Evolution Is True (December 12, 2021)

Coyne goes on to provide an interesting reason why you should not contribute (if you have in the past) to Stanford’s Alma Mater fund.

But the situation is actually worse than Coyne details. Historian Niall Ferguson told COSM 2021 some stark realities:

In response to a question from the floor, Ferguson, author of Doom: The politics of catastrophe (2021), outlined the seriousness of the problem:

Well, it’s just been announced this week that we’re trying to create a new university, University of Austin, committed to the fundamental principles of, of academic freedom of free inquiry. And the reason we have to do this is that we see so many limitations on free inquiry and academic freedom at the established universities.

The growing illiberalism on campuses is being documented in survey research:

Not only do 66 percent of students say it is acceptable to shout down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus, that result is up four percentage points from last year.

Another key finding is that nearly one in four students say it’s acceptable to use violence to stop a campus speech — up 5 percent over last year’s survey — with some elite colleges bringing that figure to as high as one in three students accepting of such violence.

KATELYNN RICHARDSON – UNLV, “OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF COLLEGE STUDENTS SAY SHOUTING DOWN A SPEAKER IS ACCEPTABLE: SURVEY” AT THE COLLEGE FIX (SEPTEMBER 23, 2021)

The problem may have worsened during the COVID lockdown (the psychology of which, ironically, was Ferguson’s slated topic). More.

Saving you work: The little fascists are no longer in short pants. They’ll soon be staring at you from across a Big Desk.

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At Mind Matters News: How can the universe have arisen from nothing?

We are asked to examine the problem logically:

Science writer Prudence Louise offers some realism on the topic:

The question of cosmic origins is a perennially popular question, but most theists think the answer has been known for thousands of years. God is the ultimate cause of the cosmos. While there’s room to disagree with that theistic conclusion, there are rational limits on the valid ways to reject it.

None of the outcomes of rejecting God are appealing. They’re the sort of explanatory gaps we reluctantly accept in the wider context of our philosophical commitments.

Prudence Louise, “Universes from Nothing?: Scientific euphemisms and equivocations” at Medium (November 21, 2021) (November 21, 2021)

Louise runs through a number of ideas that sound popular in the lunchroom but don’t stand the test of careful thought. Just for example, “one day science will answer the question of why the universe exists.” But that’s not what science does. Generally speaking, science answers “how” questions, not “why” questions. Science can tell us a lot about how things work. But to ask why things work is a matter for philosophy, not science.

Louise is not a fan of Lawrence Krauss’s 2013 book, A Universe from Nothing:

More here.

Takehome: It turns out that the claim that everything just happened to come from nothing is fraught with problems.

You may also wish to read: 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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Micro evolution vs Macro Evolution, Part 1

This is part of the third program in the Palmers’ series on understanding design in nature:

Important Note: The mutations we discuss in this session are the random mutations that Neo-Darwinists claim to be the driving force of macro-evolution. There is increasing evidence that in fact most mutations aren’t completely random, but are directed to specific areas of the genome where changes can stimulate adaptation. This is additional evidence for design, not random processes.

Group discussion questions are available here.

You may also wish to see:

New introduction to intelligent design at YouTube Part 1. Part 1 begins with the basic concepts of Darwinian Evolution. Darwin’s theory related to heredity, but the science behind genetics was a mystery in his day. Darwin’s assumptions about heredity have proven to be mistaken.

New introduction to intelligent design at YouTube, Part 2: Molecular biology Part 2 introduces the foundational concepts of Intelligent Design. Evidence from molecular biology over the past 60 years completely upends Darwinism.

Part 2 of “Introduction to intelligent design”: Recognizing Design, Part 1 Part 2 applies the core concepts of irreducible complexity and functional coherence to one of the most important functions in each cell – energy production.

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Determinism for Thee but Not for Me

A professor sums up a lecture on the evolutionary explanation for why religion has been ubiquitous in every human culture:

Professor:  So, in summary, every human culture going back thousands of years has been religious because religion is either itself an adaptive behavior or it is a spandrel, a byproduct of the evolution of some other trait upon which natural selection acted.  Under the first view, religion itself was adaptive, perhaps because it enhances cooperation and cohesion within groups, and group membership in turn provides benefits which can enhance an individual’s chances for survival and reproduction.  Under the second view, perhaps religion evolved as a byproduct of adaptive selection of some other trait, although it is not clear what that other trait might have been.

Student:  Thank you for that explanation professor.  I wonder if I might ask a question.

Professor:  Of course.

Student:  Thank you.  If I understand correctly, the evolutionary process you described is fundamentally deterministic, and religion arose in all human cultures as a result of that purely deterministic process.

Professor:  Yes, that’s correct. 

Student:  But I don’t understand.  As sophisticated modern people, we understand that religious beliefs about supernatural beings and a spirit world and whatnot are false.  Why did evolution select for a false belief? 

Professor:  Excellent question.  Yes, it is true that evolution selected for a false belief in this case.  You see, evolution selects for survival value, not for truth.  Evolution may well select for a totally false belief system if that false belief system confers a survival benefit, and in the case of religion it did exactly that.  Deterministic evolutionary processes in a sense foisted a false belief on the overwhelming majority of humans throughout thousands of years of history because that false belief system made them more fit in the Darwinian sense of that word.

Student:  So we know for a certain fact that deterministic evolutionary forces shape our belief systems.  And we know for a certain fact that any particular belief system may be, to use your word, foisted on us by evolution even if it is false.  This is fascinating.  Until very recently, almost everyone’s most cherished and strongly held beliefs were exactly of the false-belief-foisted-on-them-by-evolution variety.

Professor:  Yes, that is indeed fascinating. 

Student:  It is also deeply troubling.

Professor:  What are you talking about?

Student:  For us moderns, especially the elites like those who teach at and attend this university, scientific materialism has largely supplanted religious belief as the foundation of our outlook on the world. 

Professor:  Yes, that is true, but I have no idea why that would be troubling to you.

Student:  That’s not the troubling part.  What troubles me is that if we know that our modern belief system is caused, like everything else, by purely deterministic forces, how can we know our belief system is not just as false as the religious beliefs we scoff at?  How do we know that evolution has not foisted yet another false belief system on us, in this case scientific materialism, because it is adaptive even though it is false?

Professor:  Let not your heart be troubled.  We can know that scientific materialism is true because we have sound evidentiary reasons for believing it. 

Student:  I don’t understand.  I know Christians who say they have good reasons based on their exhaustive review of the evidence to believe what they believe. 

Professor:  Yes, yes.  But they have deluded themselves.  Their evidence is not as good as the evidence we have that supports science and materialism. 

Student:  I think you missed the point I was making.  You said that our belief systems are the result of purely deterministic processes.  Either that is true or it is not.  If it is true, then evolution forces us to believe in scientific materialism just as it formerly forced theists to believe in religion.  The very essence of determinism is that it does not allow us to choose based on any ground, including an evaluation of the evidence.  And this is what troubles me.  I read one of the Christian philosophers.  He said that if my thoughts are utterly determined by material forces, why should I believe them to be true?  And after listening to your lecture today, I begin to take his point.  Why indeed should we prefer one deterministically caused belief over another?  After all, we say that we know that throughout history, the vast majority of people held a false deterministically caused belief.

Professor:  You aren’t listening to me.  We have good reasons to believe what we do.  Religious bumpkins don’t.

Student:  No, you aren’t listening to me.  Either determinism causes our beliefs or it does not.  By its very nature, determinism is an all-or-nothing proposition.  What gives us the right to say other people’s beliefs are mere evolutionary adaptations but not our own?  Maybe this is why Daniel Dennett called evolution a universal acid.  It dissolves the very mind that purports to believe it.

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Iron as an element critical to life, on Earth and elsewhere

Funny, how it turns out that iron is important to life on Earth:

Iron is an essential nutrient that almost all life requires to grow and thrive. Iron’s importance goes all the way back to the formation of the planet Earth, where the amount of iron in the Earth’s rocky mantle was ‘set’ by the conditions under which the planet formed and went on to have major ramifications for how life developed. Now, scientists have uncovered the likely mechanisms by which iron influenced the development of complex life forms, which can also be used to understand how likely (or unlikely) advanced life forms might be on other planets.

University of Oxford, “Iron integral to the development of life on Earth – and the possibility of life on other planets” at ScienceDaily (December 6, 2021)

The paper is open access.

Why do we think we sort of knew this stuff?

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At Mind Matters News: The central mystery of the universe is time

Great physicists, and filmmakers, have pondered the mystery. Is the arrow of time a way of creating causality in our universe? From Paul Davies:

The laws of physics governing the motion of molecules are time-symmetric – they make no distinction between past and future. If by some magic all the molecules in a box of gas had their velocities simultaneously reversed, the box of gas would heat up at one end and cool at the other. There is nothing in the laws of motion themselves to prevent heat flowing from cold to hot, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. The reason we don’t see such bizarre sequences of events is because of the initial conditions. The gas in the above example started out in an ordered state, with heat energy distributed unevenly. To explain the arrow of time in the box of gas we need to explain how it attained its initial state.

News, “Physicists assume everything is reversible in principle — but time isn’t. Why not?” at Mind Matters News

Here are some time-related conundrums imagined as short science fiction films reviewed at Mind Matters News:

What if a loved one aged much faster than you? – Sci-fi Saturday It’s one of the implications of faster-than-light travel (8:19 min). Should youthful Cpt. Bernhard take her now very old husband to the new Earth, Gaia? That’s the emotional and ethical dilemma in ARK.

If it’s real, it must be endured. (8:47 min) “It’s Okay?”, using futurist technology, takes a woman back through her time with someone she loves. This short sci-fi film plays around with time — and neatly and deftly avoids the common shortcoming of becoming just plain confusing.

and

In a Future Market, Time To Live Is Bought, Sold (10:57 min) An employee wants to rebel against the greed and injustice but then she would run out of time … “The Bargain” raises some issues — as a thought experiment — that appear in real life in the illegal organ trade

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