Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 555

Scientific American: Treating an ideological political narrative as science

Along the same lines as taking past lives research seriously, we have a story about the hitherto unheard-of personality trait that is now ripping the world apart:

There are many divides in the world right now. But there’s one divide, deeply embedded into the core of human nature, that helps explain many other divides. What I’m referring to is a source of human personality variation that is built right into our DNA: antagonism. By really zooming in on this trait, and understanding how antagonism interacts with environmental conditioning and messaging, we can gain a greater understanding of one of the most prominent divides in the world today: populism.

…

Perhaps the most important interaction in the world today, however, is that between antagonism and populism. The core feature of populism is an anti-establishment message and a focus on the central importance of the people. The anti-establishment message portrays the political elite as corrupt and evil, and disinterested in the interests of “the pure people.” According to John Judis and Ruy Teixeira, the essential divide among populists is “the people versus the powerful.”

In a recent series of studies, political communication professor Bert Bakker and his colleagues conducted the largest and most systematic investigation into the question: What happens when antagonistic citizens receive an anti-establishment message? They found strong support for the notion that the anti-establishment message of populists resonates the most with highly antagonistic people. This finding was confirmed in seven countries across three different continents. Antagonism predicted support for populists for both right-wing (Trump, UKIP, Danish People’s Party, Party for Freedom, SVP) and left-wing (Podemos, Chavez) populists. Scott Barry Kaufman, “The Personality Trait That Is Ripping America (and the World) Apart” at Scientific American

This isn’t science; it is a political harangue, aimed at people who would be insulted if the same terms were applied to them. But science media seem to bde losing the ability to distinguish, which will make them less useful as sources of information about science.

For what it is worth, the main driver of populism today is the fact that top-down bureaucratic policies often don’t work out for voters, prompting big upsets in the polls. That happened in Canada’s two biggest provinces this year, Ontario and Quebec. The election of populist governments usually means that numerous bureaucrats are looking for new employment, which means that we will hear from their cronies that society is going downhill in the most awful way. And new terms like “antagonism” (a 2019s Word of the Year hopeful?) do sound more educated than mere whining would.

Note: Re the “past lives,” as explained earlier to a commenter, consider the statement from the “past lives” paper: “Among children who report memories of a previous life, gender nonconformity is strongly associated with a purported life as a member of a different sex. This association may offer insights into contributors to gender nonconformity in children who do not express such memories.”

The most likely explanation is that the children in question are highly suggestible. But that account of the situation, however well-evidenced and clinically fruitful, won’t validate transgenderism. Quite the opposite; it implies that transgenderism too is an elaborate fantasy.

But whoops, transgenderism is a Big Cause now, as Nature amply demonstrates. The transgender lobby explicitly seeks validation of beliefs, not an adequate account of them. One politically correct outcome of their demands can be that past lives research is tacitly accepted in science journals as part of the acceptance of transgenderism if that’s what the lobby wants.

We shall see. As they used to say, he who dines with the devil must have a long spoon. And too many of the people we are encountering seem to be eating with their fingers.

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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See also: Science journal embraces reincarnation research in support of transgender ideology

and

Sceptic asks, why do people who abandon religion embrace superstition? Belief in God is declining and belief in ghosts and witches is rising

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Will social media make communications nearly impossible?

Consider some of the stories:

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, the drama critic who reviewed Tom Stoppard’s new play, The Hard Problem [of Consciousness], woke up one Sunday morning (December 2, 2018) to a home invasion, of a sort:

In case you hadn’t noticed, @terryteachout, my Twitter account, was hacked on Sunday morning as part of a cross-platform attack on my social-media presence. The objective, it seems, was ransom: I actually received a series of telephone calls from the culprits, who appear to reside in England. Needless to say, I hung up and immediately started changing passwords and building a higher security wall.

Terry Teachout, “Home invasion—with a happy ending” at Arts Journal

The extortionists had posted racist and sexist material to @terryteachout. The drama critic asked for a replacement account, @TerryTeachout1, which meant losing 15,000 followers and all previous tweets. Unfortunately, Twitter was slow to respond, with the result that the offensive material was visible under his name “well into Monday.” Meanwhile, he did receive this message from Twitter Support late Sunday night:

We’ve investigated the reported account and have determined that it is not in violation of Twitter’s impersonation policy. In order for an account to be in violation…it must portray another person…in a misleading or deceptive manner.

Teachout was, well, surprised: “Is it any wonder that more and more people are getting fed up with Twitter?”

The story buzzed virally through Monday. Who would have believed that Twitter was so indifferent to racism, sexism, and users’ reputations? As the volume grew, Twitter eventually assigned the previously bot-managed case to a human being, who deleted the hacked account by 6:00 pm and verified @TerryTeachout1 as the replacement. Sadly, Teachout was later to learn that the hackers had also planted a trojan-horse virus on his laptop which erased his mailbox and address book as well.

Twitter seems to be a town that doesn’t care what happens to you unless you have lots of friends to create a buzz. And at least one well-known USA Today commentator is refusing to live there any more.  More. “No, Twitter is not the New Awful It’s the Old Awful back for more.” The Town Without Pity we all tried to get asway from at Mind Matters

See also: Consumers were not buying robots as friends this year. The market for drudgery busters remains strong. For dogs and pals, not so much Some consumer robotics will surely find a place under the Christmas tree. The robotic vacuum cleaner market is healthy and expected to grow, in a world where the demand for vacuum cleaners is growing anyway, doubtless due to more urban lifestyles.

Can Big Data help make your book a best seller? It’s more likely to help you picture your odds more clearly and clarify your goals. What does Barabási’s Big Data tell us that we couldn’t just guess? Well, for one thing, that there is a “universal sales curve” which means that a book’s only chance of making the list is shortly after publication.

Science confronts credibility issues? Not to worry, prestigious researchers blame them on social media trolls and bots And another thing: The researchers phoned the Seventies and asked them to please come back. Soon. Seriously, that’s the impression I get from reading a paper in PNAS, stemming from the National Academy of Sciences’ Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium November 2017

Stephen Hawking and the AI Apocalypse Can doomsday headlines, chasing fame, stand in for deep knowledge of a subject? One thing a celebrity pundit can usually count on is an audience of media professionals who haven’t considered the problems carefully either and don’t want to. It is much easier and more profitable to market Doomsday than Levin’s Law. As always, the fact that laws governing the universe will eventually triumph is true but not news.

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Exploring a million digits of pi — a vid

The millionth digit of pi is 1 and other phenomena:

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A new unified model of specified complexity

George Montañez,

George Montañez, Assistant Professor in the Computer Sciences Department\ at Harvey Mudd College, has just published a unified model of specified complexity:

Abstract:
A mathematical theory of complex specified information is introduced which unifies several prior methods of computing specified complexity. Similar to how the exponential family of probability distributions have dissimilar surface forms yet share a common underlying mathematical identity, we define a model that allows us to cast Dembski’s semiotic specified complexity, Ewert et al.’s algorithmic specified complexity, Hazen et al.’s functional information, and Behe’s irreducible complexity into a common mathematical form. Adding additional constraints, we introduce canonical specified complexity models, for which one-sided conservation bounds are given, showing that large specified complexity values are unlikely under any given continuous or discrete distribution and that canonical models can be used to form statistical hypothesis tests, by bounding tail probabilities for arbitrary distributions. Montanez GD (2018) A Unified Model of Complex Specified Information. BIO-Complexity 2018 (4):1- ˜ 26. doi:10.5048/BIO-C.2018.4

We are told to expect a lay-friendly version of the model soon as well.

See also: How can we measure specified complexity

and

Bill Dembski: Specification: The Pattern That Signifies Intelligence

Kirk K Durston et al. Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins

Winston Ewert at Evolutionary Informatics

Robert M. Hazen et al. Functional information and the emergence of biocomplexity (public access) A friend notes, “Functional information, as outlined by Hazen et al., can be a measure of specified complexity, where the specificity supplies the functional constraint.”

Robert M. Hazen et al. Functional Information and the Emergence of Biocomplexity pdf (book)

Could a signature of specified complexity help us find alien life?

and

A Tutorial on Specified Complexity

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A complex network of genes helps plants cope with DNA damage

From ScienceDaily:

When a building is damaged, a general contractor often oversees various subcontractors — framers, electricians, plumbers and drywall hangers — to ensure repairs are done in the correct order and on time.

Similarly, when DNA is damaged, a molecular general contractor oversees a network of genetic subcontractors to ensure that the diverse cellular tasks needed to protect and repair the genome are carried out correctly and on time.

Scientists have known for some time that a master gene named SOG1 acts like a general contractor for repair, coordinating with various genetic subcontractors of the plant cell to mount an effective DNA damage response. But, it wasn’t clear which specific genes were among the subcontractors, nor how SOG1 interacted with them to oversee the DNA damage response.

Now, researchers at the Salk Institute report which genes are turned on or off, and in which order, to orchestrate the cellular processes required to protect and repair the genome in response to DNA damage. The research, which appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of October 10, 2018, reveals the genetic framework controlling a complex biological process that has broad implications for understanding how plants in particular, and organisms in general, cope with DNA damage to ensure long-term health and fitness.

“Just as a building with structural damage can be unsafe, cells with DNA damage that goes unnoticed or unrepaired can be dangerous,” says Assistant Professor Julie Law, the senior author of the paper. “However, the timing and overall coordination of events occurring after the detection of damaged DNA remain poorly understood. Is SOG1 acting like a micromanager, directly pointing each subcontractor to a task, or does it have a more hands-off role? This paper brings us one step closer to understanding how the response to DNA damage is coordinated over time to maintain genome stability.” Paper. (open access) – Clara Bourbousse, Neeraja Vegesna, Julie A. Law. SOG1 activator and MYB3R repressors regulate a complex DNA damage network in Arabidopsis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018; 201810582 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1810582115 More.

And, we are told, it all just happens, even though nature shows no evidence of design and evolution is random, not governed by laws … Note that they don’t even try to describe it without resorting to little human figures.

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See also: Researchers: Cross-species gene regulation observed for the first time

“Identical sequences of DNA located at completely different places on multiple plant genomes”

Phylogenetic of plants is a mess

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Science journal embraces reincarnation research in support of transgender ideology

It’s okay, Jerry, this is in support of transgender ideology, and that’s now science (Science?):

From Abstract: Objectives: This study examines childhood gender nonconformity (GNC) in conjunction with the phenomenon in which young children describe memories of a purported previous life. Methods: In a case-control study of 469 children reporting past-life memories, we used logistic regression to examine predictors of GNC, measured by documented gender nonconforming behaviors. Results: Children who remembered a life involving a different natal sex were much more likely to exhibit GNC than children who remembered a same-sex life. Conclusions: After exploring potential explanations, we conclude that past-life memories represent a novel factor that may be associated with the development of GNC.(paywall) Marieta Pehlivanova, Monica J. Janke, Jack Lee & Jim B. Tucker, Childhood Gender Nonconformity and Children’s Past-Life Memories, Received 30 May 2018, Accepted 04 Sep 2018, Published online: 15 Nov 2018 International Journal of Sexual Health More.

Conclusions: Among children who report memories of a previous life, gender nonconformity is strongly associated with a purported life as a member of a different sex. This association may offer insights into contributors to gender nonconformity in children who do not express such memories. In clinical settings, when past-life memories are present in conjunction with GNC, it may be beneficial to address this connection in focused psychotherapy. It is possible that currently unidentified hormonal or neurochemical factors could predispose affected children to both phenomena, or as Stevenson and Keil (2005) suggested, perhaps a previously unrecognized factor of consciousness may be involved.

There is a devastatingly obvious alternative to the idea that both associated ideas have merit but in these times, it may be wisest to leave the reader to guess what that alternative is.

One of the authors, Jim B. Tucker, has been researching past lives (reincarnation) for some time so our scout says it probably isn’t a hoax.

Some expect a pushback from naturalists (nature is all there is) in science, often called “materialists.” But it’s not clear. Science is changing. If consciousness is an evolved illusion, only survival matters, not truth. And today, you survive by conforming to whatever the journal Nature whatever it is.

At least, the people who embrace any nonsense that gives them power are acting out what they believe. (They believe in power.) Recently, Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne has been freaking out about all that but who’s really listening? His fellow Darwinians? Why?

Readers, can you offer “sciencey” suggestions for making reincarnation a part of science? Bring in Darwinism as much as you can; that’s sure to sell it.

Just think: Soon, the new “anti-science” will mean not believing in past lives.

Hat tip: Pos-darwinista

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See also: About the facts of life, Darwinian Jerry Coyne is still being stubborn … Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry “Why Evolution Is True” Coyne continues to refuse to follow Nature down the primrose path of political correctness and is doubling down on what people used to be allowed to accept as biological fact (Coyne was president of an evolution society which has started to wobble on whether sexes are real divisions.)

Is Darwinist Jerry Coyne starting to get it about SJW “science”? Ah, not a moment too soon.; Here is a perfect specimen of sp. SJW, Trollus inyerfaceus. We have certainly dealt with them. Coyne may find some in his own back yard.

The perfect storm: Darwinists meet the progressive “evolution deniers” — and cringe… Double down cringe…

The Darwinians’ cowardice before SJW mobs explained in detail: They thought the mob was coming for someone else.

Rob Sheldon: Have a little pity for scientists scared of SJWs I thought the Areo article was the most honest I have met in a long while. It is one thing to boast about courage in the faculty lounge, it is quite another in the provost’s office. I have been cursed with both experiences.

Colin Wright, “The New Evolution Deniers” at Quillette

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Do genes unique to parrots enable them to mimic human language?

Turquoise-fronted Amazon parrot/Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The find kind of disappointed researchers who really wanted to know how humans come to use language but it is interesting in itself:

Parrots do live longer than other similar-sized birds (one captive parrot lived to be a documented 66 years). By comparing the genome of a blue-fronted Amazon parrot named Moises with that of 30 other long- and short-lived birds — including four additional parrot species, they got some clues.

They found genes identified with longevity, mainly genes responsible for the repair of telomeres (the ends of chromosomes), which tend to shorten with age. They also found some novel (de novo) genes, present only in parrots, near the genes associated with neural development that are linked with cognitive abilities, in humans. Interesting but not very conclusive:

“Unfortunately, we didn’t find as many speech-related changes as I had hoped,” said Wirthlin, whose research is focused on the evolution of vocal behaviors, including speech. Animals that learn songs or speech are relatively rare— parrots, hummingbirds, songbirds, whales, dolphins, seals and bats—which makes them particularly interesting to scientists, such as Wirthlin, who hope to gain a better understanding of how humans evolved this capacity.

“Parrot genome analysis reveals insights into longevity, cognition” at ScienceDaily

It’s not always clear what specific capacity the researchers are trying to study: the ability to vocalize words or the ability to understand them? One of them told a popular science magazine, … More. “Can genes predict which birds can learn to talk?” at Mind Matters

See also: See also: Crows can be as smart as apes. But they have quite different brains. The intelligence doesn’t seem to reside in the details of the mechanism

and

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor: How is human language different from animal signals? What do we need from language that we cannot get from signals alone?

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Among biggest paleontology issues of 2018: Is Toumaï an ape or a human ancestor?

Seymouria/Sanjay Acharya (CC BY-SA 4.0)

It’s getting testy, says a vertebrate paleontologist:

In January Roberto Macchiarelli, a professor of human paleontology, accused his colleague Michel Brunet of totally misrepresenting an important piece of evidence in the story of human evolution. The evidence in question is a femur – a thigh bone found in northern Chad in 2001. Macchiarelli believes that the femur belonged to Toumaï (Sahelanthropus tchadensis), a species which his opponent argues is the earliest known example of a human ancestor, dating back around 7 million years.

But Macchiarelli insists the femur belonged to a quadrupedal ape, not a bipedal hominin. Julian Benoit, “Five reasons why 2018 was a big year for palaeontology” at THe Conversation

If Toumaï is a human ancestor, then human beings originated in western, not eastern Africa, the thinking goes. Some of the artwork might have to change.

Mitochondrial DNA from Dad might affect claims about “mitochondrial Eve,” says biologist

He thinks the Central Dogma of mitochondrial DNA  needs to be rethought:

From a historical perspective, paternal mtDNA transmission may lead to a reinterpretation of two classic, but controversial, reports regarding “mitochondrial Eve”—the maternal ancestor of all living humans. In 1987, scientists reported the results of a worldwide survey of human mtDNA that showed “all mitochondrial DNAs stem from one woman” and that she probably lived around 200,000 years ago in Africa. A 2010 study was more robust in using mitochondrial genomes to gauge relatedness to confirm that the mother of all human beings, Eve, lived 200,000 years ago. If paternal transmission is not infrequent, then these studies must be reexamined. John D. Loike, “Opinion: The Central Dogma of Mitochondrial Genetics Needs Rewriting” at The Scientist

Funny, these days, so many icons are crashing around us that it’s hard to know amid the shards which is the china shop and which the bull.

Note: Adam and Eve existed, says the Guardian, but never met.

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See also: Darwinsplaining the kids who get mitochondrial DNA from their dads

Researcher shocked: Human mitochondrial DNA can be inherited from dads

AnnGauger on stacking the deck against Eve.

Rewrite the Textbooks (Again), Origin of Mitochondria Blown Up

and

Researchers: Mechanism may exist in all animals for filtering out mitochondrial DNA mutations

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New kingdoms of life: The “Tree of Life” is a hard concept to get past

two identified types, Spironema, and Hemimastix kukwesjijk/Yana Eglit, Nature

The recent find of a probable new kingdom of life in a routine dirt sample in Nova Scotia (an east coast province of Canada) raises an obvious question: How much more is there out there that is underfoot, so to speak, that does not fit our tidy categories?

Just yesterday, we were looking at the vast newly discovered array of subterranean microorganisms, many of which won’t turn out to be very tidy either, including those that live for millennia rather than twenty minutes.

One writer describes the hemimastigotes above as the latest (and most profound) of additions quietly and routinely added to the “tree of life,” (as if nothing is changing?):

To understand how evolutionarily distinct the hemimastigote lineage is, imagine the eukaryotic tree splayed out before you on the ground as a narrowing set of paths, which begin with places for all living groups of eukaryotes near your toes and converge far in the distance at our common ancestor. Starting at our mammalian tip, walk down the path and back into history, past the fork where our lineage diverged from reptiles and birds, past the turnoffs for fishes, for starfish and for insects, and then farther still, beyond the split that separates us from fungi. If you turn around and look back, all the diverse organisms you passed fall within just one of the six eukaryote supergroups. Hemimastigotes are still up ahead, in a supergroup of their own, on a path that nothing else occupies.Jonathan Lambert, “What a Newfound Kingdom Means for the Tree of Life” at Quanta

Yes, yes, we can picture it. But we are not picturing a tree. Maybe two separate trees. Maybe just a path. Lambert continues:

Burki, Simpson, Eglit and many others also think we have much more of the tree of life to uncover, largely because of how quickly it’s changing. “The tree of life is being reshaped by new data. It is really quite different than even what it was 15 or 20 years ago,” Burki said. “We’re seeing a tree with many more branches than we thought.” Jonathan Lambert, “What a Newfound Kingdom Means for the Tree of Life” at Quanta

Jonathan, it’s totally absorbing. But it might be better pictured as a grove than as an individual tree.

As scientists continue to fill out the tree, the algorithms used to add branches will only get more efficient, according to Eme. This will help researchers resolve deeper, more ancient splits in the history of life. “Our understanding of how life unfolded is still very much incomplete,” said Burki. Questions like why eukaryotes emerged or how photosynthesis evolved remain unanswered because “we don’t have a tree that is stable enough to pinpoint where these key events happened,” he said. What a Newfound Kingdom Means for the Tree of Life” at Quanta

Great discoveries await. But we might find that, for example, photosynthesis arose at different times in response to different groups of life forms’ needs. Let’s hope that the need to see the Tree of Life doesn’t cause us to shoehorn life forms into classifications that are more convenient than accurate.

Part of the underlying problem here is the need to think that all life originated from a single cell. As we’ve noted elsewhere, claims for ordinary common ancestry rest on evidence of similarities; a claim, for example, that today’s cattle and bison come from a common ancestor is made on the basis of detailed evidence from the history, biology, and behavior of those animals. The claim for universal common ancestry is a leap of faith, faith in That One First Cell.

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See also: New life form more different from others “than animals are from fungi”

Soil microorganisms are twice the estimated volume of oceans, raise question Presumably, these millennia-old subsurface organisms don’t reproduce much, as it is more economical to just stay alive and do nothing. What then of evolution? If the millennial organism changes a fair bit over the centuries, is that evolution?

and

Biologist Wayne Rossiter on non-religious doubts about universal common ancestry

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