Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 482
May 15, 2019
Sabine Hossenfelder: “We know that quantum mechanics is wrong.”
Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, Her message from the “ depth of abstract math” is that “We know that quantum mechanics is wrong”:
You can use this theory to make predictions for any experiment where the creation and destruction of particles does not play a role. This is the case for all your typical quantum optics experiments, Bell-type tests, quantum cryptography, quantum computing, and so on. It is not merely a matter of doing experiments at low energy, but it also depends on how sensitive you are to the corrections coming from quantum field theory. So, yes, quantum mechanics is technically wrong. It’s only an approximation to the more complete framework of quantum field theory. But as the statistician George Box summed it up “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” And whatever your misgivings are about quantum mechanics, there is no denying that it is useful. Sabine Hossenfelder, “Quantum Mechanics is wrong. There, I’ve said it.” at Back(Re)Action
Do we know that quantum mechanics is wrong and, if so, how can it be useful?
See also: Sabine Hossenfelder: Has The Large Hadron Collider “Broken Physics”?
and
Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor: Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder Is Really Confused About Free Will
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At Nature: Carl Woese’s archaea are “shaking up the tree of life”
The Archaea, a huge domain of life, were only identified in the 1970s, by Carl Woese., They, of course, were a problem for the Darwinian Tree of Life, which we were all taught in school as the Correct Understanding:
These newly discovered archaea have genes that are considered hallmarks of eukaryotes. And deep analysis of the organisms’ DNA suggests that modern eukaryotes belong to the same archaeal group. If that’s the case, essentially all complex life — everything from green algae to blue whales — originally came from archaea.
But many scientists remain unconvinced. Evolutionary tree building is messy, contentious work. And no one has yet published evidence to show that these organisms can be grown in the lab, which makes them difficult to study. The debate is still rancorous. Stalwarts on both sides are “very hostile to each other, and 100% believe there’s nothing correct in the other camp”, Hugenholtz says. Some decline to voice an opinion, for fear of offending senior colleagues. Traci Watson, “The trickster microbes that are shaking up the tree of life” at Nature
You know, we thought that the calm, united exterior was just wallpaper featuring calm scenes… It was the noise, see?
The real issue, as Watson goes on to note, is how did complex life forms come to exist? Competing, hotly contested “trees of life” abound, as she goes on to explain, with images taken from the pantheon of Norse gods (some archaea were discovered in Greenland).
Two factors turn up the heat: Archaea resist cultivation in a laboratory and most of the arguments turn on claims that are not very reliable. As Watson puts it: “Even those who are master tree-builders concede that it is tricky to untangle how organisms living two billion years ago were related to each other. Biologists reconstruct these relationships by modelling how a particular ‘marker’ — usually a protein or a gene — has changed over time in the organisms of interest.”
If the most complex cells descended from the least complex ones (which is what it looks like), that’s not really something many researchers want to hear.
Note: Science writer David Quammen recently challenged the Tree of Life in a recent book on Carl Woese, The Tangled Tree:A Radical New History of Life :
See also: Carl Woese on the “conceptual failings of the modern evolutionary synthesis”
Before you go: DNA uses “climbers’ ropes method” to keep tangles at bay
DNA as a laster of resource recycling
The amazing energy efficiency of cells: A science writer compares the cell to human inventions and finds that it is indeed amazingly energy-efficient.
In addition to DNA, our cells have an instruction language written in sugar Of course it all just tumbled into existence and “natural selection” somehow organized everything. As if.
Cells find optimal solutions. Not just good ones.
Researchers build “public library” to help understand photosynthesis
Wait. “The part of the plant responsible for photosynthesis is like a complex machine made up of many parts, … ” And machines just happen all by themselves, right? There is no information load to account for; it just evolved by natural selection acting on random mutation the way your Android did!
In Nature: Cells have “secret conversations” We say this a lot: That’s a lot of information to have simply come into being by natural selection acting on random mutation (Darwinism). It’s getting not only ridiculous but obviously ridiculous.
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Researchers: Helpful gut microbes send messages to their hosts If the strategy is clearly identified, they should look for non-helpful microbes that have found a way to copy it (horizontal gene transfer?)
Cells and proteins use sugars to talk to one another Cells are like Neanderthal man. They get smarter every time we run into them. And just think, it all just tumbled into existence by natural selection acting on random mutations (Darwinism) too…
Researchers: First animal cell was not simple; it could “transdifferentiate” From the paper: “… these analyses offer no support for the homology of sponge choanocytes and choanoflagellates, nor for the view that the first multicellular animals were simple balls of cells with limited capacity to differentiate.”
“Interspecies communication” strategy between gut bacteria and mammalian hosts’ genes described
Researchers: Cells Have A Repair Crew That Fixes Local Leaks
Researchers: How The Immune System “Thinks”
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Researcher: Mathematics Sheds Light On “Unfathomably Complex” Cellular Thinking
How do cells in the body know where they are supposed to be?
Researchers A Kill Cancer Code Is Embedded in Every Cell
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May 14, 2019
Logic & First Principles, 20: What is law?
A good first step to understanding the ongoing failure of our civilisation is to contrast the common, positive law view of law summarised by Wikipedia (as a handy point of reference):
Law is a system of rules that are created and enforced through social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior. It has been defined both as “the Science of Justice” and “the Art of Justice”. Law is a system that regulates and ensures that individuals or a community adhere to the will of the state. State-enforced laws can be made by a collective legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes, by the executive through decrees and regulations, or established by judges through precedent, normally in common law jurisdictions . . .
. . . with Cicero’s summary of received classical views in de Legibus, c. 50 BC:
“Law (say they) is the highest reason, implanted in nature, which prescribes those things which ought to be done, and forbids the contrary.” . . . . They therefore conceive that the voice of conscience is a law, that moral prudence is a law, whose operation is to urge us to good actions, and restrain us from evil ones. They think, too, that the Greek name for law (NOMOS), which is derived from NEMO, to distribute, implies the very nature of the thing, that is, to give every man his due. [–> this implies a definition of justice as the due balance of rights, freedoms and responsibilities] For my part, I imagine that the moral essence of law is better expressed by its Latin name, (lex), which conveys the idea of selection or discrimination. According to the Greeks, therefore, the name of law implies an equitable distribution of goods: according to the Romans, an equitable discrimination between good and evil.
The true definition of law should, however, include both these characteristics. And this being granted as an almost self–evident proposition, the origin of justice is to be sought in the divine law of eternal and immutable morality. This indeed is the true energy of nature, the very soul and essence of wisdom, the test of virtue and vice.
Obviously, we cannot tell truth by the calendar or clock, but by what is sound. The first of these approaches is largely about an exercise in state power, justice is almost a footnote, a disputable matter of definition. The latter, we can summarise as highest reason regarding duty and justice (i.e. the due balance of rights, freedoms and responsibilities) for the individual and the community. Where, the first known lawful duties of the rational, responsible individual are to truth, right reason, prudence, sound conscience, fairness and justice.
That is, the civil peace of justice must be central, not the raw exercise of rule making power. Thus, we see how law and primary, generally known duties of moral character are inextricably intertwined, tracing to our morally governed nature. Where also, due force is that which defends the civil peace of justice with proportionate means, enforcing what is lawful. Legitimate power is protective and regulated by rational and responsible principles of justice, it is not primary.
Why is such a distinction important?
Simple: unless sound reasoning i/l/o responsible, rational duty to justice is central (and so also the due balance of rights, freedoms and responsibilities), we are establishing a system of power imposition under colour of law. That is, law becomes whatever some centre of power finds it advantageous and convenient to impose and back by force. This then reduces law to precisely what Plato warned against in describing the radical materialists of his day in The Laws, Bk X c. 360 BC:
[The materialistic sophists hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.
These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might . . . . these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others . . .
For, if the root of nature is an arbitrary, evolving material process, there is no basis for ought, save power. The door to nihilism lies open.
The famous second paragraph of the 1776 US Declaration of Independence brings the matter to a focus:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Here, we see that law is traced to the Just Creator, the source of reality who has made man as a rational, responsible, morally governed creature. One who holds “unalienable Rights,” binding moral claims to be respected due to one’s inherent dignity and status as a human being made in God’s image. As a social creature who thrives best in community (and, community founded on sound family), that leads to the need for rules of justice and good order, thus government. The just powers of government are circumscribed by general consent informed by the in-built laws of our evident nature. Where, patently, this is not “right-wing, Christofascist, theocratic tyranny” — let us lay that needless, slanderous strawman to rest.
In that context, prudence acts to address government gone sufficiently bad that resists remonstrance and calls for reformation:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
In short, there comes a point where governments for cause lose their legitimacy: they are not merely incompetent but have become enemies of the civil peace of justice through abuse and usurpation. At that point, acting through existing or emerging representatives, the people have a collective right to replace government that has gone bad. This is of course a main function of the general election, a peaceful means of replacement.
This then allows us to refocus our understanding of law, that it is indeed a system of rules that are enforced and backed by sanctions. However, such must reflect also, the prime directive of justice, thus the innate law of our morally governed nature. Law that starts with duties to truth, right reason, prudence, sound conscience, fairness/justice etc. Absent such integral safeguards, power and will to power acting under colour of law will pervert justice and reduce citizens to serfs.
(And one obvious case is that it is no duty of the state to impose that evolutionary materialistic scientism is the de facto established ideology and religion-substitute, able to use force to block any challenge, including in institutions of science and those of education. Truth and right reason backed by the prudence that recognises how often scientific schools of thought change, would urge restraint. Dover et al, are failures of just law. Similarly, the acts under colour of law that have enabled the ongoing holocaust of our living posterity in the womb are manifestly lawless. The state’s powers are not the final judges of justice, they are accountable before the bar of truth, right reason and the right.)
To restore our civilisation to soundness, we have to soundly reform our understanding of law. A tough challenge, given the dominance of evolutionary materialistic scientism, and one has the impression that time is beginning to run out: Mene, mene, tekel, parsin. END
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Science philosopher attempts to repair split between science and philosophy
Good luck with that, but anyway… Nicholas Maxwell, author of The Metaphysics of Science and Aim-Oriented Empiricism: A Revolution for Science and Philosophy, blames Newton and the focus on evidence as self-justifying when scientists don’t really behave that way. He offers physics as an example:
If physics, in particular, persistently accepts unified theories only, even though endlessly many disunified rivals are available that fit the available facts just as well, or even better, this must mean, whether it is acknowledged or not, that physics makes a big, highly problematic assumption about the nature of the Universe. It means that physics makes the big assumption: the Universe is such that all disunified theories are false. There is some kind of underlying unity in nature. This assumption is implicitly accepted as a part of scientific knowledge since theories that conflict with it – those that are disunified – are rejected (or not even considered) whatever their empirical success might be. This assumption of underlying unity is, however, accepted independently of evidence, even in a sense in violation of evidence (in that it clashes with endlessly many disunified theories even more empirically successful than the theories we accept). That contradicts what I have called ‘the Newtonian conception of science’, standard empiricism.
The conclusion is inescapable: science cannot proceed without making, implicitly or explicitly, a persistent metaphysical assumption of unity – ‘metaphysical’ because it is too imprecise to be verified or falsified by evidence. The current orthodox conception of science, inherited from Newton, and still taken for granted by scientists today, that science must appeal only to evidence, and must not make metaphysical assumptions about the nature of the universe independently of evidence, is untenable, and must be rejected.Nicholas Maxwell, “Natural Philosophy Redux” at Aeon
He offers further analysis and some alternatives but he is certainly right about one thing. Cosmologists do not like the universe the evidence suggests and they often don’t want to admit that the infinity of the multiverse is philosophically preferred to, say, fine-tuning and the Big Bang as a unique event.
Beyond that, though, many have complained about the stupid attacks on philosophy sponsored by, for example, the late Stephen Hawking. You’d think smart people would realize that everyone always proceeds from a philosophy, whether they acknowledge it or not.
The main disadvantage of not acknowledging the philosophy from which we proceed is that we assume it to be “the correct view of all right-thinking people.” That’s almost a definition of narrow-mindedness. It’s worth considering that the many Darwinians who can’t get with the times about problems in evolution may in fact have precisely that problem: They have never asked themselves why they are attached to a picture of the world of life that does not appear to be correct or complete.
See also: Stephen Hawking’s views outside science were more noted than notable
and
Cosmos Host Tyson Announces That Philosophy Can Mess You Up
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Bill Nye as “a terrible spokesman for science”
Yesterday, we ran an item on Bill Nye the Science Guy, Ken Ham’s opponent in that 2014 debate about human evolution.
Nye, it seems, hasn’t aged well. Some are noticing, including science writer Alex Berezow:
It was clear that something was amiss a few years ago when, amid Nye’s renewed celebrity status, it came to light that he aired an episode of Eyes of Nye that perpetuated anti-GMO propaganda. Nye was subsequently criticized by the scientific and (especially) science writing communities. Not long thereafter, Nye had a change of heart.
Good! Better late than never. But was this “conversion” based on a new understanding of biotechnology or simply a calculated marketing move? Evidence points toward the latter. As late as 2015, Nye was still pushing anti-GMO nonsense. That year, he published a book called Undeniable, which promoted evolution over creationism. Alex Berezow, “Bill Nye Is A Terrible Spokesman For Science” at American Council on Science and Health
In the book,* which Berezow says was entirely lacking in references, Nye apparently made anti-GMO statements. And he has since found his way into the GMO camp — a move that Berezow thinks is not authentic. Berezow adds, “Ultimately, it seems that Bill Nye just panders to whatever he thinks the audience wants to hear. He thought (incorrectly) that they wanted to hear why GMOs were bad, so he altered his message when he got pushback. He won’t get pushback for exaggerating climate change, so it’s likely he’ll keep this up for a while.”
Remember this when people suggest relying on Nye for information about evolution, as opposed to information about what somnolent educrats are saying about evolution. Is this overall personal history relevant to a general decline in Darwinism?
Note: Confused about the title Undeniable? Bill Nye wrote a book, published November 4, 2014 (St. Martin’s Press) called Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation . We’re told at Amazon that “Bill Nye has set off on an energetic campaign to spread awareness of evolution and the powerful way it shapes our lives” and that the book was sparked by “a controversial debate in February, 2014.” That would be the debate with Ken Ham. In 2016, Doug Axe of the Biologic Institute used the same general title for his book Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed (Harper One, 2016) (Harper One)
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See also: What Bill Nye is doing now It’s not clear why people who behave this way expect their causes to be taken seriously. UD News’ take on Bill Nye is that he was a schoolroom celeb but didn’t really age into a science guru for adults
The amazing energy efficiency of cells (cf Alex Berezow’s story at ACSH)
Bill Nye’s Knowledge Of Science Could Benefit From A Visit To Wikipedia (Barry Arrington) (And yes, even Wikipedia!)
These Vids Certainly Show A Different Side To Bill Nye…
and
Goes Around, Comes Around: 500 Women Scientists Are Eating Bill Nye…
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May 13, 2019
Sabine Hossenfelder: Scientific publishing is too much like Facebook
Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, focuses on the ways that search algorithms can be manipulated and offers a solution:
Because it occurred to me recently that the problem with Facebook’s omnipotent algorithm is very similar to a problem we see with scientific publishing. In scientific publishing, we also have a widely used technique for filtering information that is causing trouble. In this case, we filter which publications or authors we judge as promising.
For this filtering, it has become common to look at the number of citations that a paper receives. And this does cause problems, because the number of citations may be entirely disconnected from the real world impact of a research direction. The only thing the number of citations really demonstrates is popularity. Citations are a measure that’s as disconnected from scientific relevance as the number of likes is from the truth value of an article on Facebook. Sabine Hossenfelder, “The trouble with Facebook and what it has in common with scientific publishing.” at Back(Re)Action
She introduces SciMeter.org where you can “Create your own custom metric and apply it to a list of authors.” And it is none of Mark Zuckerberg’s business or any science boffin’s either.
Funny how many people are talking about Big Social Media manipulation these days. Either it’s a big problem or we are all going collectively nuts. Or both.
See also: Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor: Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder is really confused about free will
Sabine Hossenfelder On The Flight From Falsifiability
and
Has the Large Hadron Collider broken physics?
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Astonishing duplicity continues around Haeckel’s embryos
Romanes, after Haeckel
Readers may remember the long-drawn-out saga of 19th-century embryologist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) whose altered embryo drawings, with key stages missing, were “one of the most famous fakes in biology”—but still knowingly used a century later (See Fraud Rediscovered”). The drawings were altered to make vertebrate embryos look significantly more alike than they actually do, bolstering Darwin in the school system. Now, a friend writes to say, a recent retrospective on Haeckel provides cover for the longstanding use of these drawings (an early version of deep fakes?) in textbooks:
Ernst Haeckel’s contribution to Evo-Devo and scientific debate: a re-evaluation of Haeckel’s controversial illustrations in US textbooks in response to creationist accusations
Elizabeth Watts, Georgy S. Levit, Uwe Hossfeld
Theory in Biosciences, May 2019, Volume 138, Issue 1, pp 9–29
https://link.springer.com/article/10....
Abstract: As Blackwell (Am Biol Teach 69:135–136, 2007) pointed out, multiple authors have attempted to discredit Haeckel, stating that modern embryological studies have shown that Haeckel’s drawings are stylized or embellished. More importantly, though, it has been shown that the discussion within the scientific community concerning Haeckel’s drawings and the question of whether embryonic similarities are convergent or conserved have been extrapolated outside the science community in an attempt to discredit Darwin and evolutionary theory in general (Behe in Science 281:347–351, 1998; Blackwell in Am Biol Teach 69:135–136, 2007; Pickett et al. in Am Biol Teach 67:275, 2005; Wells in Am Biol Teach 61:345–349, 1999; Icons of evolution: science or myth? Why much of what we teach about evolution is wrong. Regnery Publishing, Washington, 2002). In this paper, we address the controversy surrounding Haeckel and his work in order to clarify the line between the shortcomings and the benefits of his research and illustrations. Specifically, we show that while his illustrations were not perfect anatomical representations, they were useful educational visualizations and did serve an important role in furthering studies in embryology. …
[Excerpt from Introduction:] in this paper we take a closer look behind the curtains at the scientist who created the original illustrations that many of the twentieth-century images are based upon—Ernst Haeckel—and examine to which degree his illustrations have been useful teaching tools and whether or not he is deserving of the accusations he has received regarding the finesse of his illustrations. …
[Excerpts from the Conclusion:] While Haeckel was incorrect in the details regarding recapitulation, he was not wrong in thinking that the similarities among embryos during development were a key proof of the theory of common descent. His attempt to make these similarities easily visible for lay audiences attracted over a century of accusations, and yet these illustrations acted as a central visualization of comparative embryology in American textbooks until the 1950s and then as inspiration for later illustrations in the second half of the twentieth century. [. . .] Yet despite the advances in scientific knowledge and the technological means of studying embryonic development, we have not seen the same advancement in the depiction of this knowledge for educational purposes. Haeckel’s illustrative grids, despite the stylization of the actual images, provided an excellent foundation for how comparative embryology can be presented clearly to students in order to enable them to more easily understand how embryonic development provides compelling proof of the theory of common descent.
So stuff that isn’t true provides an “excellent foundation” and “compelling proof of the theory of common descent?”
Wow. What a way to make people who never doubted common descent before start to do so…
After all, one can only assume that an accurate presentation would not have supported the theory.
It’s understandable that some people would do things like this and go on doing them, and, of course, attack anyone who figures the story out and publicizes it.
The part that’s harder to grasp is why such persons are surprised when many people don’t “trust science.” Or are they only pretending to be surprised? After all, they pretend about other things.
See also: Book Review In New Scientist Discusses The Long-Drawn-Out “Lies” Of Ernst Haeckel’s Fake Embryos (2015)
and
More On Haeckel’s Fake Embryos Possibly Starring Again In The Texas School System
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What Bill Nye is doing now
It’s not clear why people who behave this way expect their causes to be taken seriously.
It’s interesting where people end up. Does anyone remember the “Ham on Nye” series? It was at least a respectable examination of evidence.
UD News’ take on Bill Nye is that he was a schoolroom celeb but didn’t really age into a science guru for adults.
See also: Bill Nye’s Knowledge Of Science Could Benefit From A Visit To Wikipedia (Barry Arrington) (And yes, even Wikipedia!)
These Vids Certainly Show A Different Side To Bill Nye…
and
Goes Around, Comes Around: 500 Women Scientists Are Eating Bill Nye…
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May 12, 2019
Ancient humans used medicinal plants
Including Neanderthals:
In a 2019 Evolutionary Anthropology paper, archaeologist Karen Hardy analyzed plant species recovered from seven archaeological sites in the Near East, dating between about 8,000 and 790,000 years ago. During this span the region was occupied by Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and earlier forms of human ancestors. Of the 212 plant species identified, around 60 percent were medicinal and edible; they could have been used for food, medicine or both. Another 15 percent were non-edible, but may also have had curative properties in small doses.
In earlier work Hardy and colleagues studied molecules trapped in the fossilized dental plaque of ~50,000-year-old Neanderthals from the site of El Sidrón, Spain. In one female specimen with a tooth abscess, the team identified compounds that likely came from from yarrow and chamomile, bitter plants with little nutritional value, but known for their medicinal properties.Bridget Alex, “Prehistoric Medicine: How Archaic Humans Cured Themselves” at Discover Magazine
The big problem back then was no one knew enough about the big picture to understand why the details worked the way they did.
See also: “Jumping genes” threaten the world’s antibiotics Does anyone remember when antibiotic resistance was proof of Darwinism? Antibiotic resistance was Evolution. And Evolution was not non-Darwinian stuff like horizontal gene transfer/jumping genes. Welcome to post-Darwin science.
and
A deep and abiding need for Neanderthals to be stupid. Why?
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Access Research Network question of the month: May
ARN will be giving away a $50 VISA gift card for the best answer to this question:
In the Introduction to his Origin of Species Charles Darwin admitted, “I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived.”
What directly opposite conclusions could Darwin have meant?
How could natural selection inhibit major evolutionary change from occurring on a gradual step-by-step basis?
Send your answer to arn@arn.org.
See also: See March’s question here.
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