Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 71

May 17, 2022

Does a puzzling quantum scenario violate the conservation of energy?

Quantum mechanics is weird but this weird?

The quantum physicists Sandu Popescu, Yakir Aharonov and Daniel Rohrlich have been troubled by the same scenario for three decades.

It started when they wrote about a surprising wave phenomenon called superoscillation in 1990. “We were never able to really tell what exactly was bothering us,” said Popescu, a professor at the University of Bristol. “Since then, every year we come back and we see it from a different angle.”

Finally, in December 2020, the trio published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explaining what the problem is: In quantum systems, superoscillation appears to violate the law of conservation of energy. This law, which states that the energy of an isolated system never changes, is more than a bedrock physical principle. It’s now understood to be an expression of the fundamental symmetries of the universe — a “very important part of the edifice of physics,” said Chiara Marletto, a physicist at the University of Oxford.

Physicists are divided as to whether the new paradox exposes a genuine violation of the conservation of energy. Their attitudes toward the problem depend in part on whether individual experimental outcomes in quantum mechanics should be considered seriously, no matter how improbable they may be. The hope is that by putting in the effort to resolve the puzzle, researchers will be able to clarify some of the most subtle and strange aspects of quantum theory.

Katie McCormick, “Puzzling Quantum Scenario Appears Not to Conserve Energy” at Quanta (May 16, 2022)

If the scenario really violates the Law of Conservation of Energy, all bets are likely off about evolution issues of any type. Most likely, though, there is another explanation.

Superoscillation:

The paper is open access.

You may also wish to read: Expert claims: Standard Model of physics is broken Hinting that new particles or even forces of nature may influence the process.

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Published on May 17, 2022 19:04

Researchers: Ediacaran explosion? There were complex ecosystems before the Cambrian

Which means they had all the less time to develop:

The first animals evolved towards the end of the Ediacaran period, around 580 million years ago. However, the fossil record shows that after an initial boom, diversity declined in the run-up to the dramatic burgeoning of biodiversity in the so-called “Cambrian explosion” nearly 40 million years later. Scientists have suggested this drop in diversity is evidence of a mass extinction event roughly 550 million years ago—possibly caused by an environmental catastrophe—but previous research has not investigated the structure of these ancient ecological communities…

The first animals evolved towards the end of the Ediacaran period, around 580 million years ago. However, the fossil record shows that after an initial boom, diversity declined in the run-up to the dramatic burgeoning of biodiversity in the so-called “Cambrian explosion” nearly 40 million years later. Scientists have suggested this drop in diversity is evidence of a mass extinction event roughly 550 million years ago—possibly caused by an environmental catastrophe—but previous research has not investigated the structure of these ancient ecological communities…

The results point to competitive exclusion, rather than mass extinction, as the cause of the diversity drop in the late Ediacaran period, the authors say. The analysis indicates that the features of ecological and evolutionary dynamics commonly associated with the Cambrian explosion—such as specialization and niche contraction—were established by the first animal communities in the late Ediacaran.

Mitchell adds, “We found that the factors behind that explosion, namely community complexity and niche adaptation, actually started during the Ediacaran, much earlier than previously thought. The Ediacaran was the fuse that lit the Cambrian explosion.”

Public Library of Science , “ First animals developed complex ecosystems before the Cambrian explosion ” at Phys.org (May 17, 2022)

One can claim that the Cambrian explosion was nothing new only at the risk of shortening the time to establish complex ecologies, which should begin to create doubt about random processes in an active mind.

The paper is open access.

You may also wish to read: Stasis: Mating behavior unchanged from Cambrian era Researcher: And it provides strong evidence to suggest that a Limulus, or horseshoe crab-like behavior, already existed in the Cambrian completely by convergence. So, it really helps us to get a sense of how these animals were actually living millions of years ago.”

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Published on May 17, 2022 18:45

At Mind Matters News: Can largely rearranged genomes explain why octopuses are smart?

Octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish are among the smartest invertebrates, rivalling mammals for complex behavior that can include delaying gratification, having good memories (even in old age), and getting emotional about pain. Yet they are related to life forms like the nautilus which displays no such qualities.

Even compared to each other, the genomes of three cephalopods studied had been broken up and extensively reorganized:

Looking to solve the mystery, researchers began to examine the genomes of the two-spot octopus, the Boston Market squid, and the Hawaiian bobtail squid. And that’s where they discovered something interesting. Squid genomes were arranged differently from those of similar life forms.: …

The scientists admit that they don’t know just how breaking up and reorganizing the genome results in increased intelligence but it is a promising research avenue.

News , “ Can largely rearranged genomes explain why octopuses are smart? ” at Mind Matters News (May 17, 2022)

Takehome: It’s still not clear just how intelligence develops in a life form. The relationship between massive genome rearrangement and very high intelligence in an invertebrate remains unclear but it is a promising research avenue.

Both the April 21 paper and the May 4 paper at Nature Communications are open access.

You may also wish to read: Octopuses get emotional about pain, research suggests. The smartest of invertebrates, the octopus, once again prompts us to rethink what we believe to be the origin of intelligence. The brainy cephalopods behaved about the same as lab rats under similar conditions, raising both neuroscience and ethical issues.

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Published on May 17, 2022 18:12

Is China seriously contemplating [imminent?] invasion of Taiwan?

In 1958, full orbed hot war threatened to break out after dogfights over the Taiwan straights that saw a breakthrough use of Sidewinder missiles that brought down several Red Chinese Migs. We may be contemplating that brink again, if a current report on a claimed, leaked audiotape of discussions by Chinese authorities is credible. (The audiotape is in a Chinese dialect, likely Mandarin but possibly Cantonese.)

As the first linked reports:

In the past week, in response to the instruction of the “Central Military Commission of the State Council” in Beijing on “transitioning to a war time system,” a meeting took place involving senior officers of the People Liberation Army’s Guangdong Military Region of the Southern Command and the principal officers in Guangdong Province administration and the regional Chinese Communist Party committee . . . .

The meeting focused on three areas:

1 Building a military-civilian joint mobilization command and control system

2 Establishing wartime procedures

3 Preparing for wartime command and control . . . .

[Involving, at least (from Guandong Province):]

1. 1,358 units of various types with a total of 140,000 personnel; 953 ships; 1,653 unmanned aircraft; 20 airport terminals; 6 shipyards; 14 emergency mobilization centers; grain and oil depots, hospital blood bank, etc.

2. 15,500 military experts of various disciplines.

3. 64 10,000-ton ro-ro ships, 38 aircraft, 588 trains, and 19 civil facilities such as airport docks.”

As this is reportedly a provincial meeting, such would be just one part of the overall effort.

Another video, contemplating the geostrategic situation and threats, gives wider context that should give pause, whether or not the above is true:

We may contemplate how China must perceive itself as navally hemmed in by the first island chain off its shores, with Australia looming as a continental forward base and Hawaii as key link to the USA and the Panama Canal:

This is closely parallel to the naval challenge Germany faced c 1900:

This is the context for Jutland:

Ironically, Russia is facing much the same choke point today, though the GIUK gap is a bit wider. Going back to my 2016 geostrategic framework:

After two failed world wars, Germany has no concern about Britain choking off its naval and trade access, as it has learned to be a power of peace.

Can China and Russia learn the lesson? Iran? Others?

We shall see. END

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Published on May 17, 2022 03:28

May 16, 2022

830 mya organisms found in Australia may still be alive

Presumably, that would put them among the oldest known life forms:

A team of geologists has just discovered tiny remnants of prokaryotic and algal life – trapped inside crystals of halite dating back to 830 million years ago…

Using a core sample from the Browne Formation extracted by the Geological Survey of Western Australia in 1997, Schreder-Gomes and her colleagues were able to conduct investigations of unaltered Neoproterozoic halite using nothing but non-invasive optical methods. This left the halite intact; which, importantly, means that anything inside had to have been trapped at the time the crystals formed…

Michelle Starr, “Potentially Alive 830-Million-Year-Old Organisms Found Trapped in Ancient Rock” at ScienceAlert (May 16, 2022)

The researchers think that some of the remnants may still be alive. “And living prokaryotes have been extracted from halite dating back 250 million years; why not 830 million?”

We shall see. The implications for finding fossil remnants of life on Mars are addressed in the article.

The researchers acknowledge that survival of microorganisms over geological timescales is “not fully understood.”

The paper is open access.

You may also wish to read: Researchers: Eukaryotes got started from a merger between bacteria and archaea, without oxygen. On the whole, it might be easier to conclude that the timing is somewhat off than that complex life started without oxygen. But symbiosis is an intriguing theory nonetheless.

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Published on May 16, 2022 19:32

At Mind Matters News: Claim: Honeybees, “like humans” can tell odd vs. even numbers

Ants, fruit flies, and even plants can also calculate but it does not follow that they are conscious of what they are doing:

Our results showed the miniature brains of honeybees were able to understand the concepts of odd and even. So a large and complex human brain consisting of 86 billion neurons, and a miniature insect brain with about 960,000 neurons, could both categorize numbers by parity.

Scarlett Howard, Adrian Dyer, Andrew Greentree and Jair Garcia, “Honeybees join humans as the only known animals that can tell the difference between odd and even numbers” at Phys.org (April 29, 2022) The paper is open access.

That should, of course, be a hint that it’s not the same process.

Bees would be useful for this sort of research because, as the researchers point out, “Studies have shown honeybees can learn to order quantities, perform simple addition and subtraction, match symbols with quantities and relate size and number concepts.”

Nature is founded on mathematics and it is hardly surprising that some life forms take advantage of that. In other examples…

News, “Claim: Honeybees, “like humans” can tell odd vs. even numbers” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: Bees are not six-legged humans. They are incorporating the mathematical structure of the universe into their survival strategies. The researchers mainly demonstrated that we can use operant conditioning on bees.

You may also wish to read: Pigeons can solve the Monty Hall problem. But can you? The dilemma pits human folk intuition against actual probability theory, with surprising results. In one 2010 study, pigeons outperformed humans in the three-doors test but in a second 2012 study, they only beat preschoolers, not college kids.

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Published on May 16, 2022 18:40

Researchers: Eukaryotes got started from a merger between bacteria and archaea, without oxygen

Because otherwise, the timing doesn’t work:

Since the 1960s, many scientists have argued that the emergence of eukaryotes — cells containing a clearly defined nucleus — happened in response to the oxygenation of Earth’s surface environment. But new research led by Stanford University and University of Exeter scientists suggests eukaryotes in fact emerged in an anoxic environment in the ocean.

“We can now independently date eukaryogenesis and key oxygenation transitions in Earth history,” said lead author Dr. Daniel Mills, a researcher in the Department of Geological Sciences at Stanford University, the Department of Biology at Portland State University, and the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center.

“Based on fossil and biological records, the timing of eukaryogenesis does not correlate with these oxygen transitions in the atmosphere (2.22 billion years ago) or the deep ocean (0.5 billion years ago).”

News Staff, “Eukaryotic Cells Emerged in Anoxic Environment, New Study Suggests” at SciNews (April 27, 2022)

So, on this view, complex life started as a merger (symbiosis) between the simplest life (Archaea) and bacteria:

“Mitochondria-bearing eukaryotes likely resulted from a merger between archaea and bacteria, and the DNA in modern Asgard archaea is more closely related to the DNA found in eukaryote nuclei today than it is to other archaea.”

“This is additional evidence that the host that took in the bacterium was an archaeon.”

News Staff, “Eukaryotic Cells Emerged in Anoxic Environment, New Study Suggests” at SciNews (April 27, 2022)

On the whole, it might be easier to conclude that the timing is somewhat off than that complex life started without oxygen. But symbiosis is an intriguing theory nonetheless.

The paper requires a fee or subscription.

You may also wish to read: Claim: Complex cells started without oxygen Yes, the ham sandwich was invented that way too. It started without any ham… (The University of Exeter’s take on the story)

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Published on May 16, 2022 18:09

May 15, 2022

At Mind Matters News: Must we be able to reason to be thought of as human persons?

Michael Egnor: A common argument as to why abortion is generally ethical is that the unborn child cannot reason:

But human life is a continuum precisely because every stage of human life — from zygote to senescence — is human. A zygote is just as much a human being as you and I are. You and I were just as much human beings when we were zygotes as we are now, and we will be just as much human beings when we are on our deathbeds as we are now.

Children in the womb at every stage are certainly human beings, just as we all are. Human life is a developmental process of actualization of potencies. We grow, physically, mentally, and spiritually. No one is less than human just because of age or stage of development or ratios of potency to actuality.

We are all human beings at every stage of life. Whether we are “persons” or not depends on the reigning moral and legal definition of “persons.” The moral quandary — the agonizing and contentious moral quandary in the abortion debate — is not whether zygotes or embryos or fetuses or newborns are human beings (they are), but whether they are persons worthy of respect and protection.

Michael Egnor, “Must we be able to reason to be thought of as human persons?” at Mind Matters News (May 15, 2022)

Takehome: Reason is a natural quality of the human being but, like everything in nature, it develops in stages. One can’t say it doesn’t exist when undeveloped.

You may also wish to read: Do babies really feel pain before they are self-aware? Michael Egnor discusses the fact that the thalamus, deep in the brain, creates pain. The cortex moderates it. Thus, juveniles may suffer more. Jonathan Wells recalls, from when he was a lab technologist, how very premature infants would scream when he took a drop of blood for tests.

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Published on May 15, 2022 20:09

At Nautilus, a science writer muses on efforts to grapple with time — the universe’s odd dimension

Odd because it goes in one direction only.

Annaka Harris, author of Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind, offers

“I think the flow of time is not part of the fundamental structure of reality,” theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli tells me. He is currently working on a theory of quantum gravity in which the variable of time plays no part. And throughout our conversation, I’m trying to get my mind around the idea that even though the universe is made up of “events,” as Carlo explains, a single interval between two events can have different values. There is no central clock, its hands ticking a steady beat for the universe to march along to, moving in one direction from the past into the future.

The prospect that our experience of time may not correspond to an underlying reality has fascinated me for as long as I can remember, as the idea connects two of the most intriguing topics—time and consciousness. Inspired by my recent conversations with Carlo and others in the production of my podcast documentary series, I’ve been thinking more about where the two phenomena overlap.

The more closely we observe the present moment, the more amorphous it becomes. It vanishes as we reach out to touch it, transforming into the next moment, and the next … When we look out at the ocean, we naturally perceive the waves while understanding (both intellectually and intuitively) that there is no real “thing” that is a wave. The concept is useful shorthand for a dynamic phenomenon that occurs in nature. So too with the human brain, which is an ever-changing symphony of electrical firing among billions of neurons.

Annaka Harris, “What Is Time?” at Nautilus (May 12, 2022)

Sadly, time is a very real concept, as is the present moment — as we all realize when we are running out of time.

You may also wish to read: Even if a time machine didn’t kill you, it wouldn’t change much. Here are some interesting reflections by science buffs on time machines, as seen in the movies. Are they even possible? If time machines that would take us any distance into the past or future are possible, they would suggest that we live in a fatalistic universe.

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Published on May 15, 2022 19:43

Michael Egnor muses on some shaky arguments for abortion

Including the part-of-the-mother’s-body claim:

1) The fetus is a part of the mother’s body. if the fetus is a part of the mother’s body, then all pregnant women are chromosomal mosaics. That is, they are organisms that have two sets of genomes. Chromosome mosaicism is a rare disorder and is not synonymous with pregnancy. There is no such thing as “transient chromosomal mosaicism.” Furthermore, if the fetus is a part of the mother’s body, then half of pregnant women are hermaphrodites — i.e., they contain both male and female tissues. Needless to say, “transient gestational hermaphroditism” is not a recognized medical disorder.

Furthermore, if a new human life begins by a piece of the mother’s body becoming a new organism, then human beings reproduce by budding. Budding is a form of asexual reproduction used by some species of worms, sponges, corals, and microorganisms, but it is not a means of human reproduction.

There is no biological sense to be made of the claim that “the fetus is part of the mother’s body.” The claim leads to scientific implications that are nonsense.

Michael Egnor, “If a Fetus Isn’t a Human Being, What Is It?” at Evolution News (May 11, 2022)

It appears that some people will say — and literally believe — anything to get rid of a kid. But it will come back to haunt them if they also say they believe in science.

You may also wish to read: Must we be able to reason to be thought of as human persons? Michael Egnor: A common argument as to why abortion is generally ethical is that the unborn child cannot reason. Reason is a natural quality of the human being but, like everything in nature, it develops in stages. One can’t say it doesn’t exist when undeveloped.

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Published on May 15, 2022 18:58

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