Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 95

What? Paper on human mutation admits to “fundamentally challenging” neo-Darwinism?

On human mutation?:

Earlier this year we covered a paper in Nature which found that mutations in the Arabidopsis genome were not occurring randomly. As that paper noted, “The random occurrence of mutations with respect to their consequences is an axiom upon which much of biology and evolutionary theory rests.” Yet the findings of the paper overturned these basic principles of modern evolutionary biology. Now another paper, this one published in Genome Research by biologists from Israel and Ghana, reports similar findings about the non-random nature of mutations.

Mutation in Response to Need

A news release from the University of Haifa pulls no punches about the implications: “Groundbreaking study uncovers first evidence of long-term directionality in the origination of human mutation, fundamentally challenging Neo-Darwinism.” …

These researchers have done innovative research to investigate rates of “de novo mutations — mutations that arise ‘out of the blue’ in offspring without being inherited from either parent.” Their findings are extremely important: mutations aren’t random and may occur in patterns that are designed to benefit an organism. How did this arise? Epigenetics may be the direct mechanism, but how did those epigenetic mechanisms arise? Their origin has obvious design implications. But if your only alternative to neo-Darwinism is Lamarckism or some hazy materialistic model of evolution, then you are going to miss the viable possibility of intelligent design.

Casey Luskin, “Paper Provides More Evidence that Mutations Aren’t Random” at Evolution News and Science Today (March 15, 2022)

The paper is open access.

But Darwinism about human beings is the bread and butter of pop science media! If that’s under threat now, what will become of, for example, evolutionary psychology?

Copyright © 2022 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Epigenetics and plant psychology: They show “scents of alarm” ;)

No wonder weeds can be hard to get rid of:

Animals often use highly specific signals to warn their herd about approaching predators. Surprisingly, similar behaviors are also observed among plants. Shedding more light on this phenomenon, Tokyo University of Science researchers have discovered one such mechanism. Using Arabidopsis thaliana as a model system, the researchers have shown that herbivore-damaged plants give off volatile chemical “scents” that trigger epigenetic modifications in the defense genes of neighboring plants. These genes subsequently trigger anti-herbivore defense systems…

Prior studies have shown that when grown near mint plants, soybean and field mustard (Brassica rapa) plants display heightened defense properties against herbivore pests by activating defense genes in their leaves, as a result of “eavesdropping” on mint volatiles. Put simply, if mint leaves get damaged after a herbivore attack, the plants in their immediate vicinity respond by activating their anti-herbivore defense systems in response to the chemical signals released by the damaged mint plant. To understand this mechanism better, a team of researchers from multiple Japanese research institutes, including Tokyo University of Science, studied these responses in Arabidopsis thaliana, a model plant used widely in biological studies.

“Surrounding undamaged plants exposed to odors emitted from plants eaten by pests can develop resistance to the pests. Although the induction of the expression of defense genes in odor-responsive plants is key to this resistance, the precise molecular mechanisms for turning the induced state on or off have not been understood. In this study, we hypothesized that histone acetylation, or the so-called epigenetic regulation, is involved in the phenomenon of resistance development,” explains Dr. Gen-ichiro Arimura, Professor at the Tokyo University of Science and one of the authors of the study.

Tokyo University of Science, “‘Scents’ of alarm: Volatile chemical signals from damaged plants warn neighbors about herbivore attacks” at ScienceDaily (March 10, 2022)

The paper requires a subscription.

You may also wish to read: Scientists: Plants are not conscious! No, but why do serious plant scientists even need to make that clear? What has happened? Quite simply, the need to see humans as equivalent to animals has now spread to the need to see us as equivalent to plants.

Can plants be as smart as animals? Seeking to thrive and grow, plants communicate extensively, without a mind or a brain

Is salad murder? If we think plants are “equal organisms” with respect to humans, it’s not clear whether salad is or isn’t murder. Or whether murder is even a serious ethical problem.

Researchers: Yes, plants have nervous systems too. Not only that but, like mammals, they use glutamate to speed transmission

Copyright © 2022 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

What a radical idea! Make science worthy of trust… ?

Why it isn’t trusted today:

The Reuters/Oxford Trust in Journalism project ranked the United States last among 46 countries for public trust in media. Everyone over 40 understands why: There is no longer even a veneer of impartiality in mainstream media. The ruthless logic of the digital age (even for print media) is that if you want someone to pay upfront for your content, you must cater to their preconceptions. Thus, most of the science content the public sees is either from a source they know is biased in other coverage or is free content on social media with even less accountability. There is plenty of good science writing out there, starting with journals such as Science and Nature; the problem is the funding model, which understandably puts most quality science news coverage behind paywalls. The online “free” funding model is payment by the click, not by accuracy, and you get what you pay for.

This reflects a broader problem that has only become more evident in the COVID-19 era. When the media reduces tentative hypotheses to simplified yes/no results, people notice if the answer changes (When are masks necessary? Do I need to sterilize grocery bags? Could COVID-19 have come from a lab?). This reduction also happens for financial or political gain, and often with at least acquiescence by scientists (fame, grants, and awards are enticing). The “science is settled” trope is stretched much too far (and not just with COVID), and it costs credibility.

Warren S. Warren, “Earning the public’s trust” at Science Advances (March 9, 2022)

And even the “good” science journals featured articles falling all over themselves to pretend that the pandemic had nothing to do with gain-of-function research at the Level 4 virus lab in upcountry Wuhan, China — research that was, we are told, forbidden in the United States.

We haven’t even begun with a serious reckoning of all that happened but here is a glimmer of hope: “Quebec’s ‘Punitive’ Pandemic Response Did Not Effectively Curb COVID-19 Spread, Report Finds”

But lockdowns and curfews didn’t need to affect the spread of COVID, did they? They only needed to apprise people of the penalties for not Trusting “the Science!”, wholly irrespective of evidence.

Here are links to “We’re not your lab rats any more.” A stroll through the beginning of the collapse of the “science-driven” COVID Crazy.

Copyright © 2022 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

May anyone at all question Darwinism? Scientists or non-scientists?

The very fact that Darwinism flourishes so readily where intellectual freedom is absent is a good reason to question it.

Here are some excerpts from John West’s chapter in The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos (2021).

If you are a scientist:

Biology professor Caroline Crocker at George Mason University was “barred by her department from teaching both evolution and intelligent design” after committing the crime of mentioning intelligent design in a course on cell biology. “It’s an infringement of academic freedom,” she told the journal Nature.2 Subsequently her contract was not renewed.

Oregon community college instructor Kevin Haley was terminated after it became known that he criticized evolution in his freshman biology classes. Haley’s college refused to state why his contract was not renewed, but some of Haley’s colleagues were upset that students who took his biology class were starting to challenge evolution in their classes.4 Before the controversy over evolution, Haley had been regarded as an excellent teacher.

John G. West, “Do Scientists Have Freedom to Question Darwinism?” at Evolution News and Science Today (March 11, 2022)

Question? Why does anyone suppose that the Woke care whether someone is a good teacher or not? That isn’t what they are About.

If you are a non-scientist:

College professors are not the only targets in academia who face discrimination because of their skepticism of Darwinism. Students can be even more vulnerable. Ohio State University doctoral candidate Bryan Leonard had his dissertation defense put in limbo after three pro-Darwin professors filed a spurious complaint attacking Leonard’s dissertation research as “unethical human subject experimentation.” Leonard’s dissertation project looked at how student beliefs changed after students were taught scientific evidence for and against modern evolutionary theory. The complaining professors admitted that they had not actually read Leonard’s dissertation. But they were sure it must be unethical. Why? According to them, there is no valid evidence against evolutionary theory. Thus — by definition — Leonard’s research must be tantamount to child abuse.4

John G. West, “Do Non-Scientists Have Freedom to Question Darwinism?” at Evolution News and Science Today (March 14, 2022)

Sadly, many people think the Woke aren’t coming for them. They, they assure us, never provoke the Woke.

Actually, most of them just haven’t stumbled on one of the Wokester’s sensitive patches yet.

The very fact that Darwinism flourishes so readily where intellectual freedom is absent is a good reason to question it.

Copyright © 2022 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Why has science begun to resemble the troubled crowd at school?

Just look at some of the issues:

● Why does a person who is University of North Carolina research chief need plagiarism?:

Developmental geneticist Terry Magnuson has resigned as vice-chancellor for research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after a federal investigation found evidence of plagiarism in one of his National Institutes of Health grant applications. p1 Magnuson agreed to step down from his position days after the investigation was publicly disclosed, admitting that he copied online text into a grant application, according to Times Higher Education. Retraction Watch reports that today (March 11) is his last day in the post.

Natalie Mesa, “UNC Research Chief Admits to Plagiarism, Resigns” at The Scientist (March 11, 2022)

It’s getting to the point where mere machines can generate drivel (autobabble). Should a person have a high research a position who cannot generate ideas that make a difference? Or are we missing something?

● Discrimination on the basis of ethnicity: Journals, we are told, are being pressured to ban Russian authors because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many research organizations swiftly cut funding and collaboration ties with Russia. But the moves have sparked debate over whether Russian scientists should be able to publish in international journals. Some argue that a boycott is morally correct and could help end the war, but many journals say that indiscriminately isolating Russia’s scientists would do more harm than good.

Holly Else, “Ukrainian researchers pressure journals to boycott Russian authors” at Nature (March 14, 2022)

If those scientists have anything useful to say, the world will not be better off for not knowing it. And why should we assume that all those scientists agree with Putin? Will you stand with some of them while they tell Putin they don’t?

Again, if that’s not right, what are we missing?

● And who are we supposed to be punishing?:

CERN has taken a resolution which suspends the creation of new collaborations with Russian institutions and scientists. That is fair enough – I may even agree to this kind of going in a stand-by state. But what is ongoing cannot be undone without serious damage to all involved parties. There are hundreds of Russian colleagues who are just as sorry as we are for the recent events in Ukraine, if not more. Many of those colleagues have even signed a letter that condemns the actions of their government, and in so doing they have exposed themselves to the risk of being fired, or even inprisoned. And what is our attitude now – do we stop working with them? What do we think we are going to achieve by cutting ties with people who, exactly like us, consider the progress of human knowledge their mission in life?

Tommaso Dorigo, “Cancel Culture In Science?” at Science 2.0 (March 11, 2022)

Let’s just hope wiser heads prevail in planning a response to Putin’s aggression. If he doesn’t care about those scientists, we aren’t hurting him. Just them.

Copyright © 2022 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

At Mind Matters News: Is this idea too crazy?: There was life on the early Moon?

Not quite as crazy as some might think. The early solar system was very different from the current one:

Life got started on Earth while the planet was still somewhat unstable. It could have got started within 100 million years of Earth’s formation at 4.5 billion years ago or as late as 3.5 billion years ago, depending on who you talk to. Either way, things were much more extreme and much less stable back then. That was true for Venus, Mars, and the Moon as well.

To the extent that the universe appears fine-tuned for life to a dramatic degree, it’s at least reasonable to think it could have survived on, say, the Moon or Mars until conditions there became prohibitive. And if panspermia is a correct assumption (that life spread throughout the galaxy and took root in various places), there would be nothing especially unusual about that.

Astronomer Dirk Schulze-Makuch and planetary scientist Ian Crawford have looked into the possibilities:

There are two possible habitable time periods for the Moon. The first one was very early on, shortly after the Earth and the Moon formed, at a time when early Earth and Moon would be better described as a double-planet system. The Earth-Moon system was likely enshrouded by a common atmosphere. The problem is that the origin of life appeared later (as far as we understand), by about 4.1 billion years ago. However, since the study by Green showed the peak lunar magnetic activity associated with volcanic activity was about 4 billion years ago, this may still have worked for early lunar habitability and life.

The other peak of volcanic activity, which is thought to have provided an atmosphere of about 10 mbar, was timed at about 3.5 billion years ago, based on the NASA scientists Debra Needham and David Kring. By then, life had originated on Earth and was widespread on our planet, and according to Green, the Moon still had a magnetic field. If habitable conditions were present on Earth’s Moon, then life on Earth can be expected to have spread to the Moon via asteroid impacts by ejecting rocks from Earth that later landed on the Moon. And if the Moon was not habitable, remnants of early life on Earth could have still been preserved on the Moon in icy craters. The Moon is very special in this regard because it is the only repository where we might still find evidence from the early evolution of life on Earth.

Dirk Schulze-Makuch, “Life on the Early Moon? An Outrageous Hypothesis Re-Evaluated” at Search for Life in the Universe (March 3, 2022) The paper is open access.

We won’t really know unless we find fossils of microorganisms on the moon. And then we must be sure that they are not “false fossils” because sometimes it’s hard to tell whether an unusual formation is in fact a microfossil or a natural non-living occurrence. But it will certainly be an intriguing hunt.

News, “Is this idea too crazy?: There was life on the early Moon?” at Mind Matters News (March 12, 2022)

Takehome: We won’t know for sure unless NASA’s Artemis project finds microfossils on the Moon. But it’s possible that, as with Mars, early life got started but died out.

You may also wish to read:

Recent science papers support science fiction premises There isn’t a crystal clear boundary; both science and science fiction achievements require imagination. Of course, science can deal only in fact but many of the facts scientists are unearthing can support science fiction premises. Here are five examples.

Copyright © 2022 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

David Coppedge: The Miller-Urey experiment sparked, zombie-like, back to life

But only “twitching on the table,” he says:

Three geophysicists from the Technical University of Denmark, writing in Geophysical Research Letters, simulated the requirements to light sparks in the assumed prebiotic atmosphere. They used Miller’s original mixture and the revised mixture by Kasting (1993) that was more weakly reducing than Miller’s mixture of hydrogen, methane, and water vapor. The results were not encouraging. The possibility of spark generation is too doubtful to raise the Miller-Urey zombie to walking position…

No sparks; no amino acids. No amino acids, no life. Perhaps some molecules would form from UV light or cosmic rays, but those energy sources lack the pizzazz of sparks. The textbook cartoons would be boring without those blue sparks in the flask. Everybody seems to have assumed that sparks in the flask were a good proxy for sparks in a prebiotic atmosphere. One should never assume such a key piece of the story without evidence. These authors believe it “might have been more challenging… than previously thought.”

It’s not clear what the team accomplished if anything.

David Coppedge, “Zombie Science: Miller-Urey Experiment Is Back from the Dead, Barely” at Evolution News and Science Today (March 10, 2022)

Coppedge: “It’s not clear what the team accomplished if anything.” The main accomplishment is to have something to write a journal paper about, keeping the idea alive.

The paper is open access.

Copyright © 2022 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

New Zealand’s Royal Society grudgingly lets off two scientists who critiqued “Indigenous ways of knowing” as conventional science

No one was saying they shouldn’t be taught; the is due was treating them as a form of science, as generally understood today. Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne has been following the story:

Finally, last week the RSNZ came up with its decision: the two members of the Society who signed the letter were fully exculpated. The “confidential” summary of the investigation is below, but I got permission to publish it. That’s no longer necessary since much of it is now public.

But that didn’t stop the RSNZ from pulling a slimy move to get in one last lick against its two miscreant members. The RSNZ issued two statements, the second leaving out out a single sentence from the first. Here’s the original version, but in the final version, now published online, the sentence I put in bold has been omitted: …

As I said, the controversy over the hegemony of MM [Indigenous ways of knowing taught as science] in science continues, and if I know anything about New Zealand educational politics, MM will worm its way into science class. All the new RSNZ statement does is exculpate two scientists unfairly accused of misbehavior and harm for saying that MM, while worthy of being taught, is not coequal with modern science.

The Royal Society of New Zealand has acted despicably during this whole episode, abrogating the free speech of its members. If anything undergirds science, it’s the concept of saying what you think; and criticizing an indigenous “way of knowing” as “not compatible with modern science” is certainly within the purview of acceptable speech.

Except in New Zealand.

Jerry Coyne, “New Zealand’s Royal Society exculpates two members accused of criticizing indigenous “ways of knowing” as coequal with science” at Why Evolution Is True (March 13, 2022)

As Coyne acknowledges, New Zealand is ultra-Woke.

Why does anyone think that the Woke, in general, care about science or math? If they did, they’d call off the war on science and the war on math.

You may also wish to read:

Jerry Coyne on the war on math, science, in New Zealand – and falling scores

and

Maori creationism is okay In New Zealand schools; Objectors could be booted from NZ’s Royal Society.

Copyright © 2022 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Darwin’s tree of life is just… ground cover?

Some of us started to doubt the Tree of Life when so many life forms started acting like they don’t know their proper place in it. Just for example, octopuses and spiders don’t realize that invertebrates — especially those with tiny brains — aren’t supposed to be that smart.

But that, it turns out, is really only a minor issue. Here’s a discussion of some of the other issues:

Paleontology poses an insurmountable challenge to the theory of evolution. Charles Darwin himself predicted that countless intermediate animal forms must exist within the fossil record, given that organisms gradually evolved from one species into the next. However, what the fossil record actually shows is the exact opposite, namely, that whenever new species appear, they do so suddenly and without evidence of precursory forms in the geological record. The most prominent example is the so-called Cambrian explosion which happened around 530 million years ago, when about 20 animal phyla suddenly showed up on the stage of life out of the clear blue, as it were, but with no intermediate forms from the Precambrian strata. Given that no attempt to reconcile paleontology with evolutionary theory has succeeded, Darwinian evolutionists have come to admit that the fossil record doesn’t fit with their theory, as we will see at the end of this video. For the same reason, they’ve started to turn their focus towards another field of study in their search for support of evolution: Homology and phylogenetic trees. This episode assesses these efforts and shows why neither homologous structures nor tree of life studies support evolutionary theory.

Philip Cunningham writes: This series is a partnership between my channel and Discovery Institute, the main think tank on the topic of Intelligent Design and the interface between science and religion.

0:00 Intro

0:27 Recap

1:23 Homology and Phylogenetic Trees to the Rescue

1:59 The Basics of Homology

4:15 From Homology to the Tree of Life

7:06 General Assessment

8:00 Gene-Gene Comparisons

9:53 Gene-Morphology Comparisons

11:01 Morphology-Morphology Comparisons

12:14 Discarding Paleontology?

14:21 The Verdict

Copyright © 2022 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Rob Sheldon on the problems with the peptide origin of life hypothesis

Yesterday we ran a story on that. Rob Sheldon, our physics color commentator, who takes an interest in origin of life theories, writes to offer some comments on the peptides hypothesis:

It turns out that the article synthesized polyglycine from CO, NH3 and C on a very cold surface, thereby bypassing the warm pond and the need to dehydrate amino acids to form the peptide bond. It is a remarkable accomplishment, finding another pathway to protein without actually making amino acids.

Alas, they didn’t say what the drawbacks were.
1) The synthesis only works for glycine, the simplest amino acid
2) The synthesis cannot control chirality of the amino acids, which is moot for glycine because it is the only non-chiral amino acid
3) The synthesis only makes enough material to observe in a spectrometer–not even enough to weigh, photograph, feel, smell or taste.
4) It is unlikely life can start with one or a few amino acids, because the full suite is needed to build nano-machines. Although your car has lots of bolts, one cannot build a car out of nothing but bolts.

So the results were quite modest, but the claims were not. If one believes in a chance OOL, one clutches even at straws.

Here’s Christian de Duve on the subject:

Rob Sheldon is the author of Genesis: The Long Ascent and The Long Ascent, Volume II .

You may also wish to read: In this version of the origin of life, peptides gave life its start Now we are back to Proteins first! It’s comforting to spend time in an environment where nothing much changes. Peptide world, for example, is just SO 2013…

Copyright © 2022 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana