Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 74

May 10, 2022

Result of “de-extinction” project not very encouraging

For scientists studying de-extinction — the ambitious effort to resurrect extinct species — a paper that appeared in Current Biology in March was a sobering reality check. Thomas Gilbert, a genomics researcher and professor at the University of Copenhagen, led a team of researchers who tested the feasibility of de-extinction by sequencing the genome of the Christmas Island rat, a species that went extinct in the late 19th or early 20th century.

“Look, this is like the best-case scenario,” Gilbert said. The samples of DNA from the extinct species were relatively new and well preserved, and the extinct rat was very closely related to the standard brown Norway rat, for which there is abundant DNA reference data. This was a far cry from trying to figure out the DNA of some jungle cat from the Pleistocene, let alone a dinosaur. Reconstructing the extinct rat’s genome should have been relatively simple.

Yet despite their best efforts, the scientists were unable to recover nearly 5% of the Christmas Island rat’s genome. Many of the missing genes were related to immunity and olfaction, two highly important functions for the animal. “It’s not just the irrelevant stuff that you’re not going to get back,” Gilbert said. “And so what you’ll end up with is nothing like what went extinct.”

Yasemin Saplakoglu, “Why ‘De-Extinction’ Is Impossible (But Could Work Anyway)” at Quanta (May 9, 2022)

The paper is open access.

Jurassic Park was great sci-fi though.

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Published on May 10, 2022 19:25

Michael Denton’s new book: Nature is fine-tuned for human existence

Michael Denton has a new book out, The Miracle of Man: The Fine Tuning of Nature for Human Existence

Currently:

Best Sellers Rank: #876 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)#2 in Cosmology (Books)#4 in Anatomy (Books)#6 in Earth Sciences (Books) [6:40 pm PST]

From the publisher:

For years, leading scientists and science popularizers have insisted humans are nothing special in the cosmic scheme of things. In this important and provocative new book, renowned biologist Michael Denton argues otherwise. According to Denton, the cosmos is stunningly fit not just for cellular life, not just for carbon-based animal life, and not even just for air-breathing animals, but especially for bipedal, land-roving, technology-pursuing creatures of our general physiological design. In short, the cosmos is specifically fit for creatures like us. Drawing on discoveries from a myriad of scientific fields, Denton masterfully documents how contemporary science has revived humanity’s special place in nature. “The human person as revealed by modern science is no contingent assemblage of elements, an irrelevant afterthought of cosmic evolution,” Denton writes. “Rather, our destiny was inscribed in the light of stars and the properties of atoms since the beginning. Now we know that all nature sings the song of man. Our seeming exile from nature is over. We now know what the medieval scholars only believed, that the underlying rationality of nature is indeed ‘manifest in human flesh.’ And with this revelation the… delusion of humankind’s irrelevance on the cosmic stage has been revoked.”

David Klinghoffer, “The Miracle of Man: New Book by Michael Denton” at Evolution News (May 10, 2022)

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Published on May 10, 2022 18:41

Claim: Why human brains were once bigger

We are told that our brains started to shrink about 3000 years ago:

Your ancestors had bigger brains than you. Several thousand years ago, humans reached a milestone in their history – the first known complex civilisations began to emerge. The people walking around and meeting in the world’s earliest cities would have been familiar in many ways to modern urbanites today. But since then, human brains have actually shrunk slightly.

The lost volume, on average, would be roughly equivalent to that of four ping pong balls, says Jeremy DeSilva, an anthropologist at Dartmouth College in the US. And according to an analysis of cranial fossils, which he and colleagues published last year, the shrinkage started just 3,000 years ago.

“This is much more recent than we anticipated,” says DeSilva. “We were expecting something closer to 30,000 years ago.”

Chris Baraniuk, “Why human brains were bigger 3,000 years ago” at BBC (May 8, 2022)

The researchers cite writing as one possibility for shrinking brains:

One other possibility is that the emergence of writing – which occurred roughly 2,000 years before the reduction in human brain size set in – also had an effect. Writing is one of relatively few things that separates us from all other species and DeSilva questions whether this could have influenced brain volume through “externalising information in writing and being able to communicate ideas by accessing information that’s outside your own brain”.

Chris Baraniuk, “Why human brains were bigger 3,000 years ago” at BBC (May 8, 2022)

But then we need to explain how we started writing.

You may also wish to read: Yes, the human brain is the most complex thing in the universe. But that’s not even the most remarkable thing about our brains. Our complex brains mirror the universe — 27 orders of magnitude bigger — yet some humans function with only half a brain or split brains.

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Published on May 10, 2022 18:15

Expert claims: Standard Model of physics is broken

The quantum devil done it:

Particles obey a counter-intuitive but hugely successful theory called quantum mechanics. This theory shows that particles far too massive to be made directly in a lab collision can still influence what other particles do (through something called “quantum fluctuations”). Measurements of such effects are very complex, however, and much harder to explain to the public.

But recent results hinting at unexplained new physics beyond the standard model are of this second type. Detailed studies from the LHCb experiment found that a particle known as a beauty quark (quarks make up the protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus) “decays” (falls apart) into an electron much more often than into a muon—the electron’s heavier, but otherwise identical, sibling. According to the standard model, this shouldn’t happen—hinting that new particles or even forces of nature may influence the process.

Intriguingly, though, measurements of similar processes involving “top quarks” from the ATLAS experiment at the LHC show this decay does happen at equal rates for electrons and muons.

Roger Jones, “The standard model of particle physics may be broken, expert says” at Phys.org (May 9, 2022)

You may also wish to read: Sabine Hossenfelder asks, did the W-boson break the Standard Model? Hossenfelder: Is it correct? I don’t know. It could be. But in all honesty, I am very skeptical that this result will hold up. More likely, they have underestimated the error and their result is actually compatible with the other measurements.

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Published on May 10, 2022 08:01

May 9, 2022

Casey Luskin asks: Can claims about punctuated equilibrium accommodate the scientific data?

Some of us would have thought that quantum mechanics killed all that off but in any event:

As Stephen Jay Gould put it: “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.”1 Because of this difficulty, in the 1970s, Gould and his colleague Niles Eldredge developed punctuated equilibrium as a model where evolution takes place in small populations over relatively short geological time periods that are too rapid for transitional forms to become fossilized.2 But this model has many problems.3

Punctuated equilibrium compresses the vast majority of evolutionary change into small populations that lived during shorter segments of time, allowing too few opportunities for novel, beneficial traits to arise. Punctuated equilibrium is also unconvincing in that it predicts that with respect to the fossil record, evidence confirming Darwinian theory will not be found. Would you believe someone who claimed that fairies and leprechauns exist and were caught on video, but when asked to produce the film, declares, “Well, they are on camera, but they are too small or too fast to be seen”? That doesn’t make for a compelling theory.

Analogous problems plague attempts to account for the life-friendly fine-tuning of physical laws by appealing to a multiverse.

Casey Luskin, “Can Materialistic Models Accommodate the Scientific Data?” at Evolution News and Science Today (May 7, 2022)

As Luskin implies, appealing to a multiverse is like appealing to fairies.

Here’s Casey Luskin’s whole series on the topic.

You may also wish to read: Rescuing the multiverse as a science concept… ? Luke Barnes on the multiverse: In the cycle of the scientific method, the multiverse is in an exploratory phase. We’ve got an idea that might explain a few things, if it was true. That makes it worthy of our attention, but it’s not quite science yet. We need to find evidence that is more direct, more decisive.

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Published on May 09, 2022 19:45

Is belief in evolution “right-wing?”

Yes, that sounds like clickbait but it is apparently a discussion at Twitter. For example, “Evolution only works due to hierarchy. Belief in hierarchy is the biggest predictor for being right wing”

Well, if you say so…

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Published on May 09, 2022 19:04

Neurosurgeon Mike Egnor on when human life begins

As if there has ever been any science-based doubt:

… from a scientific standpoint, at the moment of fertilization of the egg by the sperm, a completely new organism is present. The organism is not a part of the mother’s body although he or she is located within the mother’s body. Half of the time, the organism is a boy. The genetic complement of the new human being is unique and different from that of the mother.

The argument that this unique human being present in the mother’s womb from the moment of fertilization is a part of the mother’s body until sometime later in gestation is, from a scientific viewpoint, bizarre. What this argument would imply is that human beings reproduce by a process of budding, which is a process by which a new individual organism forms from a part of the mother’s body. This is the means of reproduction of some species of worms but it is most certainly not a means of reproduction by human beings.

This argument used by abortion proponents — that an embryo or fetus is a part of the mother’s body until a certain point of gestation — is scientific nonsense. When the argument is made by a scientist, it represents either scientific incompetence or deliberate deception.

Michael Egnor, “When Does Human Life Begin?” at Evolution News and Science Today (May 9, 2022)

The question at issue, of course, is not a science one. It is: When does life that matters to the Woke begin? It depends on what the Woke want at any given time.

It is clear that many such children die in great torment.

In other news, Justice Alito and His Family Taken to Secure Location to Protect Them From Pro-Abortion Violence

You may also wish to read: At the Babylon Bee: Moloch Warns Of Looming Child Sacrifice Supply Chain Issues Bee: Moloch added that human sacrifices, purifications, ordeals by fire, mutilations, etc., would cease until the supply chain shortages were sorted out through democratically violent means.

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Published on May 09, 2022 18:55

May 8, 2022

David Coppedge on cell division as another “hurdle for evolution”

How do cells maintain integrity during division?:

When a stem cell divides, one daughter cell must maintain its stemness (i.e., ability to differentiate into any cell type) while the other specializes. Therein lies another truckload of requirements for coordinated action that, if it goes awry, can spell disaster for an animal or human. Watch this subject grow into a huge problem for evolutionary theory.

Researchers at University of California at Riverside investigated what happens when stem cells divide and specialize. UCR’s reporter Iqbal Pittawala describes how “genome organization influences cell fate.”

“Understanding the molecular mechanisms that specify and maintain the identities of more than 200 cell types of the human body is arguably one of the most fundamental problems in molecular and cellular biology, with critical implications for the treatment of human diseases. Central to the cell fate decision process are stem cells residing within each tissue of the body.”

The two daughter cells face a massive organization problem. Even though they contain the same DNA code, they will take on separate roles in the cell. This means that the accessibility of genes between the two cells must radically differ.

Dave Coppedge, “Cell Fate: Another Hurdle for Evolution” at Evolution News and Science Today (May 6, 2022)

Actually, it is only a problem if ruining the careers of those who engage in an honest discussion is no longer an available option.

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Published on May 08, 2022 18:38

At the Babylon Bee: Moloch Warns Of Looming Child Sacrifice Supply Chain Issues

In many parts of the United States:

CANAAN—In a somber press release outside the burning gates of torment and suffering, the fire god Moloch warned of looming supply chain issues regarding child sacrifices.

Moloch added that human sacrifices, purifications, ordeals by fire, mutilations, etc., would cease until the supply chain shortages were sorted out through democratically violent means.

“My demon logistics department is reporting a supply chain shortage of children to sacrifice upon burning idols and in fiery pits,” said the god of brazen gratification and hedonism. “The scarcity of innocent young lives to be brutally murdered at my feet is mostly due to the US Supreme Court’s upcoming reversal of Roe v. Wade, led by white supremacist Clarence Thomas.”

Worldviews, “Moloch Warns Of Looming Child Sacrifice Supply Chain Issues” at Babylon Bee (May 5, 2022)

Note from O’Leary for News: As I wrote elsewhere,

[s]everal nurses have told me over the years that they had taken the risk of holding babies who had survived abortions and were then abandoned to die in the Soiled Utility Closet. They cuddled them while they breathed their last.

One even tried to save such a baby by rushing him into the preemie ward but, as it was economically put, she fought that battle alone…. and lost.

That’s what Woke is and always has been. The next step is, of course, childhood euthanasia. It is already being discussed in “bioethics” circles.

Don’t think it’s not coming round to you too.

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Published on May 08, 2022 09:10

Given the newly discovered favorable signs, what if Europa is NOT inhabited?

Unless we inhabit it ourselves?:

Europa is a prime candidate for life in our solar system, and its deep saltwater ocean has captivated scientists for decades. But it’s enclosed by an icy shell that could be miles to tens of miles thick, making sampling it a daunting prospect. Now, increasing evidence reveals the ice shell may be less of a barrier and more of a dynamic system — and site of potential habitability in its own right.

Ice-penetrating radar observations that captured the formation of a “double ridge” feature in Greenland suggest the ice shell of Europa may have an abundance of water pockets beneath similar features that are common on the surface. The findings, which appear in Nature Communications April 19, may be compelling for detecting potentially habitable environments within the exterior of the Jovian moon.

“Because it’s closer to the surface, where you get interesting chemicals from space, other moons and the volcanoes of Io, there’s a possibility that life has a shot if there are pockets of water in the shell,” said study senior author Dustin Schroeder, an associate professor of geophysics at Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). “If the mechanism we see in Greenland is how these things happen on Europa, it suggests there’s water everywhere.”

Stanford University, “Explanation for formation of abundant features on Europa bodes well for search for extraterrestrial life” at ScienceDaily (April 19, 2022)

The paper is open access.

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Published on May 08, 2022 07:56

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