Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 135

Three hundred new exoplanets found

Further to airing the view that convergent evolution means that life forms on exoplanets would likely be quiet similar to those on Earth, there’s been a recent bump in the number of exoplanets identified:

UCLA astronomers have identified 366 new exoplanets, thanks in large part to an algorithm developed by a UCLA postdoctoral scholar. Among their most noteworthy findings is a planetary system that comprises a star and at least two gas giant planets, each roughly the size of Saturn and located unusually close to one another.

University of California – Los Angeles, “UCLA astronomers discover more than 300 possible new exoplanets” at Eurekalert! (November 24, 2021) The paper requires a subscription.

Without a large population of exoplanets, it is hard to draw firm conclusions:

The number of exoplanets that have been identified by astronomers numbers fewer than 5,000 in all, so the identification of hundreds of new ones is a significant advance. Studying such a large new group of bodies could help scientists better understand how planets form and orbits evolve, and it could provide new insights about how unusual our solar system is.

University of California – Los Angeles, “UCLA astronomers discover more than 300 possible new exoplanets” at Eurekalert! (November 24, 2021) The paper requires a subscription.

Here’s a prediction: Our solar system will continue to be quite unusual, not that that rules out life on exoplanets.

You may also wish to read: At Mind Matters News: Exoplanets: The same laws of physics means similar life forms. Even on Earth, life forms of widely differing ancestry, arrive at the same solutions to physics problems, leading scientists note. On Simon Conway Morris’s view, life forms that fly on exoplanets will do what birds, bats, and insects do here, they say. Intelligent species may even look roughly like us.

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At Mind Matters News: Exoplanets: The same laws of physics means similar life forms

Even on Earth, life forms of widely differing ancestry, arrive at the same solutions to physics problems, leading scientists note:

Famous paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) was sure that, if the deck were reshuffled, humans would never evolve — even on this planet — again. As Paul Parsons puts it at BBC’s Science Focus Magazine,

News, “Exoplanets: The same laws of physics means similar life forms” at Mind Matters News (November 27, 2021)

His reasoning was that evolution is driven by random sets of genetic mutations, modulated by random environmental effects, such as mass extinctions, and that it would be extremely rare for the exact same set of effects to crop up twice.

Paul Parsons, “Could humans be the dominant species in the Universe, and we just don’t know it yet?” at Science Focus (November 19, 2021)

As very large telescopes, capable of peering into exoplanets, are under development, current analysts are rethinking that approach. There are good reasons for thinking that extraterrestrial life forms would share basic characteristics with terrestrial ones (convergent evolution). Cambridge palaeobiologist Simon Conway Morris, for example, told Science Focus that

“One can say with reasonable confidence that the likelihood of something analogous to a human evolving is really pretty high. And given the number of potential planets that we now have good reason to think exist, even if the dice only come up the right way every 1 in 100 throws, that still leads to a very large number of intelligences scattered around, that are likely to be similar to us.”

Paul Parsons, “Could humans be the dominant species in the Universe, and we just don’t know it yet?” at Science Focus (November 19, 2021)

On that view, life forms that fly on exoplanets will do what birds, bats, and insects do here, they say. Intelligent species may even look roughly like us.

Dorian Abbot noted in the lecture adopted by Princeton after it was Canceled at MIT that telescopes that can provide much better information about climate on exoplanets are planned for the 2030s and 2040s.

You may also wish to read:

Zoologist: Law of evolution can predict what aliens will be like. Arik Kershenbaum’s new book argues that convergent evolution on Earth helps us understand what to expect from extraterrestrial life. Kershenbaum’s argument fails when he addresses human culture: It just isn’t true that co-operation among humans is governed wholly by genes.

and

If we find life on exoplanets, some of it might be “crabs”. Over millions of years, many crustaceans gradually grew to look more and more like crabs, a process called convergent evolution. In an environment similar to Earth’s, we might expect life forms to converge on similar solutions. “Crabbiness” might be one of them.

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Good news: Jordan Peterson is Uncanceled at Cambridge U

Arif Ahmed

Cambridge philosophy prof, Arif Ahmed, fills us in. It turns out that, at Cambridge, People Who Think had had quite enough of the smartphone barbarians — People Who Tweet, if you like. Briefly, Peterson got Canceled because he was photographed standing next to someone in a tee shirt judged Islamophobic. Can’t be too careful who you are photographed beside when a Twitter mob is on the rampage, right?

It was a tiny bit rich for Cambridge to pretend that endorsement-by-adjacency is a thing, when one of its own senior officials had recently been photographed shaking hands with functionaries of the Chinese state. No one could reasonably infer from the picture that Cambridge University subscribes to totalitarianism as a way of life. So why then should anyone have thought that Jordan Peterson has sympathy for ideas that are so blatantly at odds with much of what he has actually said? The idea that Peterson has any hostility towards religion is laughable.

The Peterson cancellation was one of several troubling events at that time which spurred some of us at Cambridge to fight back. Not only because we wanted Peterson to be able to visit Cambridge, but also because we wanted anyone whom any academic saw fit to invite to be able to visit. It should never have been up to the university authorities to dictate what academics can discuss or whom we can discuss it with.

Arif Ahmed, “How we uncancelled Jordan Peterson” at Spiked (November 26, 2021)

Get this: Ahmed and his peers got Cambridge to adopt, as of late 2020, a free speech policy enshrining those very principles. And Peterson did speak at Cambridge on November 23.

At his lecture on Tuesday night it became clear how much the tide has turned. In Cambridge’s largest lecture hall, before a sold-out audience, the first people to speak were the university proctors. The proctors hold an 800-year-old office whose principal duty is to uphold free speech in the university – as they reminded us in their speech. Their presence was the clearest possible signal that, this time around, the university fully supported Peterson’s invitation and his right to speak. The contrast with his cancellation just two years ago could hardly have been greater.

Arif Ahmed, “How we uncancelled Jordan Peterson” at Spiked (November 26, 2021)

If your alma mater isn’t following Cambridge’s lead, stop giving. We don’t need finishing schools for censorious ignoramuses and dunces, often on the verge of violence.

Here’s a review of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (2018) stitches hold? Jordan Peterson — Do the Stitches Hold?

And here’s an instance of the nastiness that the Righteous Woke have directed Peterson’s way: In Big Tech World: the journalist as censor, hit man, and snitch. Glenn Greenwald looks at a disturbing trend in media toward misrepresentation as well as censorship.

You may also wish to read: At Mind Matters News: Historian supports new anti-Cancel Culture university. At COSM 2021, he noted that proposed faculty had spent the last 48 hours dealing with a tidal wave of Twitter hate. So, he said, they are over the target…

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When the Smithsonian does human origins… it becomes a “path to whiteness”

We are told, “the Hall of Human Origins continues the dark tradition of Darwinian views about humanity”:

Entering the Hall of Human Origins, the viewer is greeted by a panorama of species becoming more “white” as they evolve. One exception is the Hobbit of Indonesia (Homo floresiensis) which is portrayed as exceptionally dark. This selective focus ignores the many blunders and hoaxes of paleoanthropology (Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, Ida) and the less credible fossils (Ardipithecus, Orrorin). Nor does the exhibit mention the continual changes of opinion about early man that appear frequently in the media (e.g., New Scientist, Phys.org). Instead, visitors are treated to a single line of descent mimicking the discredited “march of man” icon that keeps popping up in cartoons. Real paleontologists admit a reticulate pattern where it’s not at all clear who is ancestral to whom. This complexity is ignored.

Inside the Hall of Human Origins, these same six specimens are portrayed on a path to whiteness. Visitors seem to accept this portrayal without rioting because, after all, this is “science.” Note that skin colors, hair, and nose shapes are not preserved with bones.

News, “Evolution Theater: Smithsonian Whitewashes Human Origins” at Evolution News and Science Today (November 24, 2021)

Some of us wondered when someone would get around to noticing the gradual Darwinian bleaching during the Ascent of Man… Because, with fossils, the complexion stuff is all imaginary anyway, it should be comparatively easy to fix.

But here’s another ball dropped that might not be so easy to fix:

The poster about language fails to engage the serious philosophical problem of abstract reasoning that makes humans exceptional. That question is deflected by asking, “When Did Humans Start Talking?” as if the evolutionary emergence of language can just be assumed. “Scientists are not sure,” the caption reads, then speculates that complex behaviors “probably required language” — another instance of the fallacy that needs cause design. If that were true, crows should have been writing operas and lions books on philosophy long before now. They had much more time to grow bigger brains and face challenges than humans allegedly did. Or does Darwinism only work its magic on humans and not on other species?

News, “Evolution Theater: Smithsonian Whitewashes Human Origins” at Evolution News and Science Today (November 24, 2021)

Many in science would far rather believe that consciousness is just an illusion to be explained way, even if the results are bizarre. Questioning naturalism is a grave offence there. The problem can’t be resolved just by cosmetic work on the fossils.

Great photos at the link.

You may also wish to read: A picture gallery of a visit to the Smithsonian makes clear: All Darwin all the time. This is hagiography, to be sure. But do the hagiographers know what time it is? Even now, Darwin’s bulldog Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) is threatened with Cancellation.

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Finnish author, Rope Kojonen, has two new books out, treating ID sympathetically

Helsinki-based post-doctoral researcher Rope Kojonen’s new English-language book, The Compatibility of Evolution and Design (Palgrave), approaches evolution from a design perspective:

From the Publisher:

This book challenges the widespread assumption of the incompatibility of evolution and the biological design argument. Kojonen analyzes the traditional arguments for incompatibility, and argues for salvaging the idea of design in a way that is fully compatible with evolutionary biology. Relating current views to their intellectual history, Kojonen steers a course that avoids common pitfalls such as the problems of the God of the gaps, the problem of natural evil, and the traditional Humean and Darwinian critiques. The resulting deconstruction of the opposition between evolution and design has the potential to transform this important debate.

One endorsement is from Alister McGrath:

‘A remarkably helpful and important intervention in the long-standing debates about arguments from design, natural theology, and the impact of evolutionary theory on Christian theology and apologetics.’

—Alister E. McGrath, Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion, University of Oxford, UK

As an academic book, it’s a deep dive into the book budget ($US119.99). But Kojonen tells us that “the electronic version is 55% off with the code CYBER21SPA, valid until Nov. 30, 2021, which brings the cost down to 38 Euros (US$43.00).

His second new, Finnish-language, book is Luominen ja evoluutio: miten usko ja tiede kohtaavat, published by Finland’s prestigious science publisher, Gaudeamus (University of Helsinki). It’s an overview of a variety of positions in the debate, which criticizes scientism and defends such concepts as the Kalam cosmological argument, the fine-tuning design argument and the moral argument.

Kojonen is also the author of The Intelligent Design Debate and the Temptation of Scientism (2016).

Most sympathizers with ID would be happy for a book that simply doesn’t misrepresent the situation — and end by dumping on the nature of reality (“Anyway, what if, in another universe, it’s all different?”)

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AI helps us see previously unknown cell components

There are a lot of them:

By combining microscopy, biochemistry techniques and artificial intelligence, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and collaborators have taken what they think may turn out to be a significant leap forward in the understanding of human cells.

The technique, known as Multi-Scale Integrated Cell (MuSIC), is described on November 24, 2021, in Nature…

In the pilot study, MuSIC revealed approximately 70 components contained within a human kidney cell line, half of which had never been seen before. In one example, the researchers spotted a group of proteins forming an unfamiliar structure. Working with UC San Diego colleague Gene Yeo, PhD, they eventually determined the structure to be a new complex of proteins that binds RNA. The complex is likely involved in splicing, an important cellular event that enables the translation of genes to proteins, and helps determine which genes are activated at which times.

U Cal San Diego, “AI Reveals Previously Unknown Biology – We Might Not Know Half of What’s in Our Cells” at SciTechDaily (November 25, 2021) The paper is closed access.

The friend who forwarded this story notes, “Even though we didn’t know maybe half of what’s in our cells, we somehow knew that most of the genome is junk?” Darwinism did that, of course. It was the Darwinians who needed the idea that most of the genome is junk.

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At YouTube: William Dembski: Gauging the Success of Intelligent Design

Mathematician and philosopher William A. Dembski explains the theory of intelligent design and examines its successes and challenges over the past decades. This talk was originally offered as part of the 2021 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith sponsored by Discovery Institute. 30 min (November 16, 2021)

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Monarch butterflies: “Remarkable” instance of concurrent evolution

The famous Monarch butterfly eats milkweed leaves as a caterpillar and drinks its nectar as an adult. High enough levels of milkweed sap can be toxic. How, then, do their predators survive?

To be able to eat this plant, monarchs evolved a set of unusual cellular mutations. New UC Riverside research shows the animals that prey on monarchs also evolved these same mutations.

A Current Biology journal article, published today, describes the research that revealed these mutations in four types of monarch predators — a bird, a mouse, a parasitic wasp, and a worm.

“It’s remarkable that concurrent evolution occurred at the molecular level in all these animals,” said UCR evolutionary biologist and study lead Simon “Niels” Groen. “Plant toxins caused evolutionary changes across at least three levels of the food chain!”

University of California – Riverside, “How to eat a poison butterfly” at ScienceDaily (November 22, 2021) The paper is closed access.

Eric Cassell on the mystery of Monarch butterfly migration. There exists no evolutionary model that satisfactorily explains its origin. That by itself does not prove that gradual evolution didn’t produce such programming, but the lack of such a model should at least give the open-minded pause for reflection.

Caterpillar on milkweed, moulting skin:

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How did a mammoth tusk from well over 100,000 years ago end up deep in the ocean?

At 3070 meters/10,000 feet? The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute was exploring the deep waters off the coast of central Calfornia in 2019 and they noticed something strange, an apparent elephant tusk. Having secured a tiny fragment, they went back to retrieve the whole thing in July of this year:

The researchers have confirmed that the tusk—about one meter (just over three feet) in length—is from a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi). The cold, high-pressure environment of the deep sea uniquely preserved the tusk, giving researchers the opportunity to study it in greater detail. Computed tomography (CT) scans will reveal the full three-dimensional internal structure of the tusk and more information about the animal’s history, such as its age.

“You start to ‘expect the unexpected’ when exploring the deep sea, but I’m still stunned that we came upon the ancient tusk of a mammoth,” said Haddock. “We are grateful to have a multidisciplinary team analyzing this remarkable specimen, including a geochronologist, oceanographers, and paleogenomicists from UCSC; and paleontologists at the University of Michigan. Our work examining this exciting discovery is just beginning and we look forward to sharing more information in the future.”

News, “Researchers recover ancient mammoth tusk during deep-sea expedition” at MBARI (November 22, 2021)

The friend who sent us this story has some questions:

How did it get there? Possibly, he thinks, during the Ice Age, it floated out there on an iceberg. Another possibility is: It died in or near the water, bloated up, and then floated until it sank.

But now here’s the kicker: Whatever happened, the find shows that a fully terrestrial mammal can get buried in ocean sediment. So, he asks, what about some of the papers that show apparent transitional terrestrial whale fossils that are buried in deeper sea conditions? How do we know that some of these fossils had anything to do with the ocean?

No doubt the ocean holds more secrets.

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At Mind Matters News: Astronomer: Hunt for ET can unify science and religion

Avi Loeb told The Hill that the Galileo Project, which looks for physical evidence of extraterrestrials, could answer religious questions as well as science ones:

Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, spoke recently at a recent Ignatius Forum on his differences with “the scientific mainstream” about the evidence for extraterrestrial life. Perhaps because the venue was the Washington National Cathedral, Loeb felt motivated to reflect on the religious as well as the science implications of a search for extraterrestrial life.

“As a member of Harvard University’s Galileo Project which seeks to “bring the search for extraterrestrial technological signatures of Extraterrestrial Technological Civilizations (ETCs) from accidental or anecdotal observations and legends into the mainstream of transparent, validated and systematic scientific research,” he shared his thoughts with The Hill, which covers the U.S. Congress: News, “Astronomer: Hunt for ET can unify science and religion” at Mind Matters News (November 21, 2021)”

In finding advanced extraterrestrial intelligence, religion might simply reflect advanced science with a twist. Traditional religions described God as the creator of the universe and life within it. They also suggested that humans were made in the image of God. But these notions are not necessarily in contradiction with science. A sufficiently advanced scientific civilization might be able to create synthetic life in its laboratories — in fact, some of our terrestrial laboratories almost reached that threshold. And with a good understanding of how to unify quantum-mechanics and gravity, an advanced scientific civilization could potentially create a baby universe in its laboratories. Therefore, an advanced scientific civilization might be a good approximation to God.

Avi Loeb, “Why science and religion come together when discussing extraterrestrial life” at The Hill (November 18, 2021)

Loeb told Cathedral Dean Randy Hollerith that he is not himself a “person of faith” but one must assume that he means simply that he is not an adherent of a traditional religious belief system. The extraterrestrials he describes are as much a belief system as any other; they are not traditional.

Takehome: Fewer scientists seem to think we can do without any source of intelligence for the creation of the universe. Hence the idea that advanced ET created it.

This TV reporter starts out by acknowledging that just a few years go, Loeb’s Galileo Project would have been dismissed as “very fringe”:

You may also wish to read: Harvard astronomer: Advanced aliens engineered the Big Bang Avi Loeb writes in Scientific American that when we humans are sufficiently advanced, we will create other universes as well. Avi Loeb’s hypothesis is not logically stranger than the many hypotheses that attempt to account for the Big Bang without underlying information/intelligence.

and

The Pentagon’s UAP (UFO) report signals a sharp attitude change. The brass have committed themselves to going “wherever the data takes us.” No, they didn’t report UFOs. But they reported enough mysteries to stop merely debunking and discrediting… and follow the evidence. (Aren’t they playing our song?)

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