Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 187

“Massive” human head forcing rethink of evolution

Found in a Chinese well, called “Dragon man,” estimated 146,000 years old:

The skull, which is 23cm long and more than 15cm wide, is substantially larger than a modern human’s and has ample room, at 1,420ml, for a modern human brain. Beneath the thick brow ridge, the face has large square eye sockets, but is delicate despite its size. “This guy had a huge head,” said Stringer.

The researchers believe the skull belonged to a male, about 50 years old, who would have been an impressive physical specimen. His wide, bulbous nose allowed him to breathe huge volumes of air, indicating a high-energy lifestyle, while sheer size would have helped him withstand the brutally cold winters in the region. “Homo longi is heavily built, very robust,” said Prof Xijun Ni, a paleoanthropologist at Hebei. “It is hard to estimate the height, but the massive head should match a height higher than the average of modern humans.”

Ian Sample, “Massive human head in Chinese well forces scientists to rethink evolution” at The Guardian (June 25, 2021)

See also: Human evolution at your fingertips

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Physicist: Laws of thermodynamics can account for origin of life

“The cliché that life transcends the laws of thermodynamics is completely wrong. The truth is almost exactly the opposite,” physicist Jeremy England tells us:

Living things are so impressive that they’ve earned their own branch of the natural sciences, called biology. From the perspective of a physicist, though, life isn’t different from non-life in any fundamental sense. Rocks and trees, cities and jungles, are all just collections of matter that move and change shape over time while exchanging energy with their surroundings. Does that mean physics has nothing to tell us about what life is and when it will appear? Or should we look forward to the day that an equation will finally leap off the page like a mathematical Frankenstein’s monster, and say, once and for all, that this is what it takes to make something live and breathe?

As a physicist, I prefer to chart a course between reductionism and defeat by thinking about the probability of matter becoming more life-like. The starting point is to see that there are many separate behaviours that seem to distinguish living things. They harvest energy from their surroundings and use it as fuel to make copies of themselves, for example. They also sense, and even predict things about the world they live in. Each of these behaviours is distinctive, yes, but also limited enough to be able to conceive of a non-living thing that accomplishes the same task. Although fire is not alive, it might be called a primitive self-replicator that ‘copies’ itself by spreading. Now the question becomes: can physics improve our understanding of these life-like behaviours? And, more intriguingly, can it tell us when and under what conditions we should expect them to emerge?

Increasingly, there’s reason to hope the answer might be yes. The theoretical research I do with my colleagues tries to comprehend a new aspect of life’s evolution by thinking of it in thermodynamic terms. When we conceive of an organism as just a bunch of molecules, which energy flows into, through and out of, we can use this information to build a probabilistic model of its behaviour. From this perspective, the extraordinary abilities of living things might turn out to be extreme outcomes of a much more widespread process going on all over the place, from turbulent fluids to vibrating crystals – a process by which dynamic, energy-consuming structures become fine-tuned or adapted to their environments. Far from being a freak event, finding something akin to evolving lifeforms might be quite likely in the kind of universe we inhabit – especially if we know how to look for it.

Jeremy England, “Why trees don’t ungrow” at Aeon (November 1, 2017 — but republished quite recently)

But if life could just evolve via thermodynamic processes, it ought to be evolving all the time. Yet it is not. All current life, so far as we know, dates back to live that began to exist three billion years ago or so.

Reader Jorge Fernandez writes to say, “I’ve been running into England’s writings for years. The ‘trees’ prevent England from seeing the ‘forest’. England is a Materialist Faithful that arrived at his conclusion long ago. Now he uses his smarts to try to ‘justify’ that conclusion. He employs the familiar tactic of mixing scientific facts (e.g., the laws of thermodynamics and material properties) with ideological assertions (e.g., ‘abiogenesis must have happened because, after all, here we are!’). For instance, England came up with the idea of ‘dissipative adaptation’ as a mechanism for self-organization. To test that idea he constructed computer simulations that — would you believe it — yielded ‘positive’ results. And so, predictably, England concluded: “This process might explain how evolution can get going in inert matter.” Yeah, computer simulations can yield just about anything.”

Well, no sale there.

Eric Anderson writes to point out that physicist Brian Miller has discussed England’s work in two podcasts: Here and here. He adds, “Brian is, as always, incredibly good natured and polite about England’s work and his interactions with him. To England’s credit, he has also interacted positively and politely with Brian. But, yes, at the end of the day, England’s proposal and conclusions are completely wrong as it relates to OOL and what is needed for living systems. He’s gotten a lot of press (and is very good at self-promotion), but his is another flash-in-the-pan idea that will fade as more people examine it closely and see it for the nonsense it is.”

Another reader writes to note that most of the ideas England presents are found in the work of Nobelist Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003), “whose work evidently has been forgotten by the physics community.”

Well, England certainly has a knack for starting a discussion.

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Recently discovered giant arc of galaxies may “break” Standard Model in cosmology

It awaits confirmation:

If it is real, the Giant Arc would join a growing group of large-scale structures in the universe that, taken together, would break the standard model of cosmology. This model assumes that when you look at large enough volumes of space — above about 1 billion light-years — matter is distributed evenly. The Giant Arc appears about three times as long as that theoretical threshold. It joins other structures with similarly superlative names, like the Sloan Great Wall, the Giant Gamma-Ray Burst Ring and the Huge Large Quasar Group.

Lisa Grossman, “An arc of galaxies 3 billion light-years long may challenge cosmology” at ScienceNews (June 10, 2021)

Standard Model:

The theories and discoveries of thousands of physicists since the 1930s have resulted in a remarkable insight into the fundamental structure of matter: everything in the universe is found to be made from a few basic building blocks called fundamental particles, governed by four fundamental forces. Our best understanding of how these particles and three of the forces are related to each other is encapsulated in the Standard Model of particle physics. Developed in the early 1970s, it has successfully explained almost all experimental results and precisely predicted a wide variety of phenomena. Over time and through many experiments, the Standard Model has become established as a well-tested physics theory. – CERN

Meanwhile:

Standard Model: “Our reliance on hypothetical dark matter is an embarrassment; a laboratory detection would be exceedingly welcome.” – CalTech

Hmmm. Watch this file.

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What kind of faith does it take to believe in a multiverse?

Physicist Brian Keating offers some thoughts:

The concept of the Multiverse is an old one, one that has been approached primarily as a matter of metaphysics or philosophy. But is it scientific? And, if it is scientific, why do so many of its most ardent supporters describe their ‘faith’ in the Multiverse? This video explores several contrasting viewpoints, from Andrei Linde to Paul Davies as well as ways to test Eternal Inflation, one of the leading theories that predicts a Multiverse.

Science on uppers.

At Evolution News and Science Today, David Klinghoffer notes:

Stephen Meyer’s Return of the God Hypothesis shows that affirming a personal God is not a matter faith alone but of evidence. On the other hand, the multiverse is nothing but unsupported belief, adopted as a defense against an inference to theism. Watch and enjoy.

David Klinghoffer, “Keating: Blind Faith in the Multiverse” at Evolution News and Science Today

See also: The Return of the God Hypothesis

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At Science: Coelacanths could live to be 100 years old

The coelacanth, a refugee from 360 million years ago, turns out to be extraordinarily long-lived:

Few animals live as long as humans do. The West Indian Ocean coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), an endangered species of fish that can grow to 2 meters long and weigh about 100 kilograms, might be a rare exception. A new study finds the underwater giant may live to be 100 years old.

Alex Viveros, “This ‘living fossil’ could reach 100 years old” at Science (June 17, 2021)

Researchers counted the calcium structures on the scales which, like tree rings, get topped up each year. One specimen was 84. Apparently, coelacanths only reach breeding age at about 40 to 60 years. So it is life in the slow lane for the individuals as well as for the species.

It would be interesting to know: Were the coelacanths outliers among early Devonian fishes or was fish longevity normal back then and they just continue to be long-lived to this day?

See also: Surprise, surprise, the aging process is irreversible. It’s nice to know that entropy is good for something.

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Early humans at Gobekli Tepe did not live on meat, as earlier supposed

Readers may remember Gobekli Tepe, that remarkable 12,000-year-old complex that seems to have been the gathering point of a civilization:

We are told that our ancestors got smart by eating meat or fat but now:

Over the past four years, Dietrich has discovered that the people who built these ancient structures were fuelled by vat-fulls of porridge and stew, made from grain that the ancient residents had ground and processed on an almost industrial scale1. The clues from Göbekli Tepe reveal that ancient humans relied on grains much earlier than was previously thought — even before there is evidence that these plants were domesticated. And Dietrich’s work is part of a growing movement to take a closer look at the role that grains and other starches had in the diet of people in the past.

The researchers are using a wide range of techniques — from examining microscopic marks on ancient tools to analysing DNA residues inside pots. Some investigators are even experimentally recreating 12,000-year-old meals using methods from that time. Looking even further back, evidence suggests that some people ate starchy plants more than 100,000 years ago. Taken together, these discoveries shred the long-standing idea that early people subsisted mainly on meat — a view that has fuelled support for the palaeo diet, popular in the United States and elsewhere, which recommends avoiding grains and other starches.

Andrew Curry, “How ancient people fell in love with bread, beer and other carbs” at Nature

So you still don’t believe that starch is responsible for human brain evolution? Well, there is always sugar.

No, wait… also popcorn. To evolve smartness, try popcorn, candy floss, and marshmallows. People had to be smart to invent popcorn, candy floss, and marshmallows. Let’s get in while we can.

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Humanist philosopher James Croft goes after Steve Meyer’s Return of God Hypothesis

But in an interesting, traditional way (no Cancel Culture, no weirdness, no hysterics):

James Croft is with the Humanist Community at Harvard:

It was sponsored by the group Christian Heritage in Cambridge, England. The conversation is very genial but Dr. Croft offers a strong and aggressive critique about the nature of abductive inferences, and more. His three main points are what he calls the “Background Knowledge Problem,” the “Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence,” and that, as he sees it, the “Totality of Evidence Favors Naturalism.” I would say Meyer responds to these handily. But it was helpful to see him do so.

Croft is charming as an interlocutor, and he did his homework. He even read Steve’s Cambridge PhD thesis. He absorbed the case that Meyer makes in Return of the God Hypothesis and while accepting the science (just for the sake of argument!), he doesn’t concede the philosophy, even as he speaks its language.

David Klinghoffer, “A Philosopher Takes on Meyer’s God Hypothesis” at Evolution News and Science Today

See also: The Return of the God Hypothesis

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Surprise, surprise, the aging process is irreversible

It’s nice to know that the entropy is good for something:

Backed by governments, business, academics and investors in an industry worth $110bn (£82.5bn) – and estimated to be worth $610bn by 2025 – scientists have spent decades attempting to harness the power of genomics and artificial intelligence to find a way to prevent or even reverse ageing.

But an unprecedented study has now confirmed that we probably cannot slow the rate at which we get older because of biological constraints.

The study, by an international collaboration of scientists from 14 countries and including experts from the University of Oxford, set out to test the “invariant rate of ageing” hypothesis, which says that a species has a relatively fixed rate of ageing from adulthood.

“Our findings support the theory that, rather than slowing down death, more people are living much longer due to a reduction in mortality at younger ages,” said José Manuel Aburto from Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, who analysed age-specific birth and death data spanning centuries and continents.

Amelia Hill, “Ageing process is unstoppable, finds unprecedented study” at The Guardian

For sure. Declines in deaths from traffic accidents — to take one example — will lead to an older average age in a population. Prevent a war and you have more old codgers around decades later. Prevent teen suicides and the same thing happens. But those people aren’t aging more slowly. They’re aging at the same rate because they are alive.

Note: The researchers found it was the same story with primate apes.

That said, there may be a kind of blip in human longevity, not fully understood, between 105 and 110 years of age. But by the time you are there, you have already broken all the rules.

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Epigenetics: Biologists discover 71 new “imprinted” genes in the mouse genome

Some of us recall a science writer wondering when the “epigenetics” anomaly would finally come to an end, bringing us back to yer old biology teacher’s Darwinism. Not soon, it seems:

Most of the thirty trillion cells in a person’s body contain genes that come from both their mother and father, with each parent contributing one version of each gene. The unique combination of genes goes part of the way to making an individual unique. Usually, each gene in a pair is equally active or inactive in a given cell. This is not the case for imprinted genes. These genes — which make up less than one percent of the total of 20,000+ genes — tend to be more active (sometimes much more active) in one parental version than the other.

Until now, researchers were aware of around 130 well-documented imprinted genes in the mouse genome — the new additions take this number to over 200…

Close examination of the newly identified genes has allowed Professor Perry and his colleagues to make a second important discovery: the switching on and off of imprinted genes is not always related to DNA methylation, where methyl groups are added to genomic DNA- a process that is known to repress gene activity, switching them off). DNA methylation was the first known type of imprint, and was discovered around thirty years ago. From the results of the new work, it seems that a greater contribution to imprinting is made by histones — structures that are wrapped up with genomic DNA in chromosomes.

Although scientists have known for some time that histones act as ‘dimmer’ switches for genes, fading them off (or back on), until now it was thought that DNA methylation provided the major switch for imprinted gene activity. The findings from the new study cast doubt on this assumption: many of the newly identified genes were found to be associated with changes to the histone 3 lysine 27 (H3K27me3), and only a minority with DNA methylation.

WHY IMPRINTING MATTERS

Scientists have yet to work out how one parental version of a given gene can be switched (or faded) on or off and maintained that way while the other is in the opposite state. It is known that much of the on/off switching occurs during the formation of gametes (sperm and egg), but the precise mechanisms remain unclear. This new study points to the intriguing possibility that some imprinted genes may not be marked in gametes, but become active later in development, or even in adulthood.

Although it only involves a small proportion of genes, imprinting is important in later life. If it goes wrong, and the imprinted gene copy from one parent is switched on when it should be off (or vice versa), disease or death occur. Faulty imprinted genes are associated with many diseases, including neurological and metabolic disorders, and cancer.

University of Bath, “There’s more to genes than DNA: How Mum and Dad add something extra, just for you” at ScienceDaily The paper is open access.

Given that cancer is more likely to strike later in life, it would surely be no surprise if epigenetic factors played a role.

See also: Epigenetic change: Lamarck, wake up, you’re wanted in the conference room!

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Celebrity physicists are in a row over, literally, nothing

Readers may have heard of Larry Krauss, one of the contenders:

When celebrity physicists disagree about some fundamental prediction or hypothesis, there’s often a goofy and well-publicized wager to reassure us that everything is under control. Stephen Hawking bets Kip Thorne a one-year subscription to Penthouse that Cygnus X-1 is not a black hole; Hawking and Thorne team up and bet John Preskill a baseball encyclopedia that quantum mechanics would need to be modified to be compatible with black holes. Et cetera, et cetera. And even as we roll our eyes, we’re grateful because at least some part of us does not want to see these people violently disagreeing about anything.

So when celebrity physicist Lawrence Krauss publicly called celebrity physicist David Albert a “moron” for not appreciating the significance of Krauss’s discovery of the concrete physics of nothingness, it caused quite a stir. In his book, A Universe from Nothing, Krauss argued that in the same way quantum field theory depicts the creation of particles from a region of spacetime devoid of particles (a quantum vacuum), quantum mechanics, if sufficiently generalized, could depict the creation of spacetime itself from pure nothingness. In a scathing New York Times review of Krauss’s book, Albert argued that claiming that physics could concretize “nothing” in this way was at best naïve, and at worst disingenuous. Quantum mechanics is a physical theory, operative only in a physical universe. To contort it into service as a cosmological engine that generates the physical universe from “nothing” requires that the abstract concept of “nothing” be concretized as physical so that the mechanics of quantum mechanics can function. What’s more, if quantum mechanics is functional enough to generate the universe from nothing, then it’s not really nothing; it’s nothing plus quantum mechanics.

Michael Epperson, “The creative universe” at IAI News (June 11, 2021)

It’s a good thing nothing is at stake.

See also: What does “nothing” mean in physics? (Hugh Ross)

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