Pope Benedict's Easter Homily - Creative Reason

"The creation account tells us, then,that the world is a product of creative Reason." - perhaps the pope would like IDvolution. Pope Benedict: Easter brings us to the side of reason, freedom and love "It is not the case that in the expanding universe, at a late stage, in some tiny corner of the cosmos, there evolved randomly some species of living being capable of reasoning and of trying to find rationality within creation, or to bring rationality into it. If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense or might even be a chance of nature. But no, Reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine Reason."

Royal Society Meeting - Modern Synthesis is Broken

Read a report on the Royal Society Meeting

“The Modern Synthesis, while undoubtedly productive for a time, is a misconception of reality that has reached the limits of its explanatory power. The problems are fundamental. No amount of cosmetic surgery is going correct them.”

“To the contrary, Darwinian competition causes not the evolution of species but the destruction of species.It is collaboration in its various forms that causes biological evolution. Hence I’m surprised by calls for extending the neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Synthesis. You can’t extend something that is broken. Surely what is needed now, after 65 years, is using the empirical evidence to develop a new paradigm for biological evolution.”

"If you want the definition of the Modern Synthesis, take a look at how Neil deGrasse Tyson explains evolution in the 2014 remake of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series. Tyson, an astrophysicist, is unaware that he is misinformed, as are most in science, academia, government, literature, the arts, and the public by this outmoded theory of evolution."

“Shuker tried to interrupt but Noble held his ground:
‘No, YOU need to listen. I used to think exactly like you. I embraced the reductionist mindset for years. When I got out of school I was a card-carrying reductionist. Reductionism is powerful and it’s useful. I am not dissing it. Many times we need it. But it is not the whole story.’ Noble described how bacterial regulatory
networks rebuilt those genes in four days by hyper-mutating, actively searching for a solution that would give them tails and enable them to Nind food. Natural selection did not achieve that. Natural genetic engineering did.’”

“It’s appropriate that this meeting is being held at the Royal Society, whose motto, we were reminded yesterday, is “Nullius in verba”: Accept nothing on authority."

“Not one whit of empirical evidence shows that new species arise from the neo-Darwinian mechanism. To the contrary, Darwinian competition causes not the evolution of species but the destruction of species.”

http://www.envevo.org/environmentalevolution.org/Home_files/Jan2017envevo_newsletter.pdf

New Book - Undeniable - Doug Axe

A remarkable thing about evolutionary theory is the way it demands that we deny our intuition at almost every step. Evolutionists then assure us that the science is all figured out, so we needn't trouble our silly heads about the relevant biology. In his new book, Douglas Axe of Biologic Institute turns this standard assurance on its head. In Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed (HarperOne 2016), Dr. Axe restores the place of intuition alongside intellect in considering the question of life's origins.

Humans may have lost abilities that our ancestors had

If our ancestors had the ability to regenerate teeth and limbs and now we can't; would this be evolution?   Or is it devolution?

From ScienceDaily:

Genetic elements that drive regeneration uncovered

Limb or organ regrowth may be hidden in our genes
 

"If you trace our evolutionary tree way back to its roots -- long before the shedding of gills or the development of opposable thumbs -- you will likely find a common ancestor with the amazing ability to regenerate lost body parts."

"Lucky descendants of this creature, including today's salamanders or zebrafish, can still perform the feat, but humans lost much of their regenerative power over millions of years of evolution."   (hmmmm)

"We want to find more of these types of elements so we can understand what turns on and ultimately controls the program of regeneration," said Poss (programs are designed)

A prior post here by John Sanford and genetic entropy - "the human race is degenerating at 1-5% per generation"

"so it's kind of a trade secret amongst population geneticists,any well informed population geneticist understands man is degenerating"

"so in deep geological time we should have been extinct a long time ago"

The Latest from Ann Gauger and Doug Axe

Ann Gauger on the Limits of Evolutionary Optimization

They discuss trying to get to shapes with meaning. Can a scribble on a page mutate to a han character with meaning? (protein folds)

“mutations and natural selection have limits and they can’t innovate anything unless the function they are innovating is already present… you already have to have the designed feature there in order to get it to improve… you cannot improve a pigment cell to an eye unless you already have something like an eye there.”


Paper

Model and Laboratory Demonstrations That Evolutionary Optimization Works Well Only If Preceded by Invention–Selection Itself Is Not Inventive

Abstract

Since biological inventions only benefit their possessors after they work, their origins cannot be attributed to their selective effects. One proposed solution to this conundrum is that selection perfects activities that already existed in rudimentary form before they became beneficial. An example of this idea for protein origins is the promiscuity hypothesis, which claims that minor aberrant side-reactions in enzymes can be evolutionary starting points for proficient new enzymes. Another example—the junk hypothesis—claims that proteins arising from accidental expression of non-genic DNA may likewise have slight activities that, through evolutionary optimization, lead to proficient enzymes. Here, we tested these proposals by observing how the endpoint of simple evolutionary optimization depends on the starting point. Beginning with optimization of protein-like constructs in the Stylus computational model, we compared promiscuous and junk starting points, where design elements specific to the test function were completely absent, to a starting point that retained most elements of a good design (mutation having disrupted some). In all three cases, evolutionary optimization improved activities by a large factor. The extreme weakness of the original activities, however, meant even large improvements could be inconsequential. Indeed, the endpoint was itself a proficient design only in the case where this design was largely present from the outset. Laboratory optimization of ampicillin-resistance proteins derived from a natural beta lactamase produced similar results. Our junk protein here was a deletion mutant that somehow confers weak resistance without the original catalytic mechanism (much of the active site having been lost). Evolutionary optimization was unable to improve that mutant. In contrast, a comparably weak mutant that retained the active site surpassed the natural beta lactamase after six rounds of selection. So, while mutation and selection can improve the proficiency of good designs through small structural adjustments, they seem unable to convert fortuitous selectable activities into good designs. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2015.2

The death of NeoDarwinism, No Selfish Gene

"The genome... is best described as a database used by organisms to generate the functions that you and I and others study as physiology."

"We inherit much more than DNA"

"The number of possible interactions , the number of possible circuits you could form 25,000 genes is 10^70,000. There wouldn't be enough time over the whole billions of years of the evolution of life on earth for nature to have explored but more than a tiny fraction of those."


On Dawkins and the selfish gene - "He is totally confused."    "He has misused a metaphor"  "He [Dawkins] is philosophically naive and  I am afraid he has misled many people for a very considerable period of  time."  40 minutes in

"There are no good or bad genes"

"There are reasons those genes are there"

"The great majority of people we are talking to were educated in biology 30 or 40 years ago and they really have no idea of the sea change that has occurred."


"the house of cards, the citadel if you like  is empty, but many people still do not know that."  54 min

(more in comments below...)

Is nature mostly a tinkerer or an inventor? or was it all front loaded? by Who?

Who did the front loading?  

IDvolution - God “breathed” the super language of DNA into the “kinds” in the creative act.

This accounts for the diversity of life we see. The core makeup shared by all living things have the necessary complex information built in that facilitates rapid and responsive adaptation of features and variation while being able to preserve the “kind” that they began as. Life has been created with the creativity built in ready to respond to triggering events.

Phys.org August 18, 2015 published the following.

Is nature mostly a tinkerer or an inventor?  

The Krüppel-like factor and specificity protein (KLF/SP) genes are found across many species, ranging from single cell organisms to humans. This gene family has been conserved during evolution, because it plays a vital role in regulating the expression of other genes.

"Our study paints a picture of nature innovating largely through sharing the functional bits of genes—tinkering with molecular genetic material that already exists," said William E. Browne, assistant professor of Biology at UM's College of Arts & Sciences and principal investigator of the study.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-08-nature-tinkerer-inventor.html#jCp

"Our study paints a picture of nature innovating largely through sharing the functional bits of genes—tinkering with molecular genetic material that already exists," said William E. Browne, assistant professor of Biology at UM's College of Arts & Sciences and principal investigator of the study.

"This is interesting because it supports the idea that the appearance of new types of cells in a lineage of organisms as they evolve may be, more commonly, a consequence of turning off genes in unique temporal and spatial combinations," Browne said. "Large numbers of unique cell types are required to support the development of complex tissues and organs."


A prior finding

Front Loading? Genetic Entropy? Complexity to simplicity? 

Phys.org)—The view that animals have become more complex over time could be a thing of the past, according to the latest research.

The new evidence, from scientists at the University of St Andrews, suggests that some modern day animals may have evolved instead by becoming less complex. 

-and-

Our Fragile Intellect

"Taken together, the large number of genes required for intellectual and emotional function, and the unique susceptibility of these genes to loss of heterozygosity, lead me to conclude that we, as a species, are surprisingly intellectually fragile and perhaps reached a peak 2000–6000 years ago. But if we are losing our intellectual abilities, how did we acquire them in the first place? This will be the topic of
the next section [15]. "

 

You do the math......... 

 

"Our study paints a picture of nature innovating largely through sharing the functional bits of genes—tinkering with molecular genetic material that already exists," said William E. Browne, assistant professor of Biology at UM's College of Arts & Sciences and principal investigator of the study.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-08-nature-tinkerer-inventor.html#jCp

"This is interesting because it supports the idea that the appearance of new types of cells in a lineage of organisms as they evolve may be, more commonly, a consequence of turning off genes in unique temporal and spatial combinations," Browne said. "Large numbers of unique cell types are required to support the development of complex tissues and organs."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-08-nature-tinkerer-inventor.html#jCp

"This is interesting because it supports the idea that the appearance of new types of cells in a lineage of organisms as they evolve may be, more commonly, a consequence of turning off genes in unique temporal and spatial combinations," Browne said. "Large numbers of unique cell types are required to support the development of complex tissues and organs."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-08-nature-tinkerer-inventor.html#jCp

Natural Selection can impede speciation

In a prior post Natural selection is a conservative process not a creative one. it was argued that natural selection is a conservative process not a creative one.  Now we see that it can actually impede speciation.

Natural selection, key to evolution, also can impede formation of new species

 

 

A world-famous chemist tells the truth: there’s no scientist alive today who understands macroevolution

Absolutely fantastic talk.  Over 100,000 hits over at UncommonDescent. 

 

A world-famous chemist tells the truth: there’s no scientist alive today who understands macroevolution

Nanotech and Jesus Christ - James Tour at Georgia Tech 

  

… I will tell you as a scientist and a synthetic chemist: if anybody should be able to understand evolution, it is me, because I make molecules for a living, and I don’t just buy a kit, and mix this and mix this, and get that. I mean, ab initio, I make molecules. I understand how hard it is to make molecules. I understand that if I take Nature’s tool kit, it could be much easier, because all the tools are already there, and I just mix it in the proportions, and I do it under these conditions, but ab initio is very, very hard.
I don’t understand evolution, and I will confess that to you. Is that OK, for me to say, “I don’t understand this”? Is that all right? I know that there’s a lot of people out there that don’t understand anything about organic synthesis, but they understand evolution. I understand a lot about making molecules; I don’t understand evolution. And you would just say that, wow, I must be really unusual.
Let me tell you what goes on in the back rooms of science – with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners. I have sat with them, and when I get them alone, not in public – because it’s a scary thing, if you say what I just said – I say, “Do you understand all of this, where all of this came from, and how this happens?” Every time that I have sat with people who are synthetic chemists, who understand this, they go “Uh-uh. Nope.” These people are just so far off, on how to believe this stuff came together. I’ve sat with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners. Sometimes I will say, “Do you understand this?”And if they’re afraid to say “Yes,” they say nothing. They just stare at me, because they can’t sincerely do it.
I was once brought in by the Dean of the Department, many years ago, and he was a chemist. He was kind of concerned about some things. I said, “Let me ask you something. You’re a chemist. Do you understand this? How do you get DNA without a cell membrane? And how do you get a cell membrane without a DNA? And how does all this come together from this piece of jelly?” We have no idea, we have no idea. I said, “Isn’t it interesting that you, the Dean of science, and I, the chemistry professor, can talk about this quietly in your office, but we can’t go out there and talk about this?”
If you understand evolution, I am fine with that. I’m not going to try to change you – not at all. In fact, I wish I had the understanding that you have.
But about seven or eight years ago I posted on my Web site that I don’t understand. And I said, “I will buy lunch for anyone that will sit with me and explain to me evolution, and I won’t argue with you until I don’t understand something – I will ask you to clarify. But you can’t wave by and say, “This enzyme does that.” You’ve got to get down in the details of where molecules are built, for me. Nobody has come forward.
The Atheist Society contacted me. They said that they will buy the lunch, and they challenged the Atheist Society, “Go down to Houston and have lunch with this guy, and talk to him.” Nobody has come! Now remember, because I’m just going to ask, when I stop understanding what you’re talking about, I will ask. So I sincerely want to know. I would like to believe it. But I just can’t.
Now, I understand microevolution, I really do. We do this all the time in the lab. I understand this. But when you have speciation changes, when you have organs changing, when you have to have concerted lines of evolution, all happening in the same place and time – not just one line – concerted lines, all at the same place, all in the same environment … this is very hard to fathom.
I was in Israel not too long ago, talking with a bio-engineer, and [he was] describing to me the ear, and he was studying the different changes in the modulus of the ear, and I said, “How does this come about?” And he says, “Oh, Jim, you know, we all believe in evolution, but we have no idea how it happened.” Now there’s a good Jewish professor for you. I mean, that’s what it is. So that’s where I am. Have I answered the question? (52:00 to 56:44)

 

A new definition of species

I had predicted this a number of times before.  As we study genetics further we will find a better way to classify species.  Alas, here we have a new paper that

Proteins and Genes, Singletons and Species

Recent experimental data from proteomics and genomics are interpreted here in ways that challenge the predominant viewpoint in biology according to which the four evolutionary processes, including mutation, recombination, natural selection and genetic drift, are sufficient to explain the origination of species. The predominant viewpoint appears incompatible with the finding that the sequenced genome of each species contains hundreds, or even thousands, of unique genes – the genes that are not shared with any other species. These unique genes and proteins, singletons, define the very character of every species. Moreover, the distribution of protein families from the sequenced genomes indicates that the complexity of genomes grows in a manner different from that of self-organizing networks: the dominance of singletons leads to the conclusion that in living organisms a most unlikely phenomenon can be the most common one. In order to provide proper rationale for these conclusions related to the singletons, the paper first treats the frequency of functional proteins among random sequences, followed by a discussion on the protein structure space, and it ends by questioning the idea that protein domains represent conserved units of evolution.

The Magician's Twin - CS Lewis

A powerful must see video:

The Magician's Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism 

The Similarity Between Science and Magic

1. Science as religion

2. Science as credulity

3. Science as power

Evolution is an alternative religion

Evolution is a Natural Process Running Backwards

This video makes a lot of sense.  Additional posts:

Dr. John Sanford "Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome".


....and....

Interview WIth Lynn Margulis - Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn’t create.

 

 

Dr. John Sanford "Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome"

Below is additional support for IDvolution.

Some quotes from Dr John Sanford on genetic entropy. Very consistent with IDvolution and Scripture.  To get the full effect take the time to view the videos.  Listen carefully where he states it is "kind of a trade secret of population geneticists."  The design of the genome is astonishing and shows intelligence, design and purpose.  

"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is a thought of God."Pope Benedict XVI  

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

"a vastly superior operating system"

"a galaxy of design and complexity"

"over 90% of the genome is actively transcribed"

"the genome has multiple overlapping messages"

"data compression on the most sophisticated level"

"more and more the genome looks like a super super set of programs"

"more and more it looks like top down design"

"the reality is everybody is mutant"

"the selection process really has nothing to grab hold of"

"so it's kind of a trade secret amongst population geneticists,any well informed population geneticist understands man is degenerating"

"so in deep geological time we should have been extinct a long time ago"

"the human race is degenerating at 1-5% per generation"

"so personal and so immediate, because there is no circle of life where things where things stay the same, and it's not an upward spiral of evolution, things keep getting better and better, it is a downward spiral exactly as described in Scripture"

"I realized it had major implications for evolution, but I had no... I couldn't have guessed how profound the biblical implications are, how profoundly the evidence supports the biblical perspective of a dying universe and a dying world, we are dying because of the fall"

"and our only hope is Christ"

Dr. John Sanford "Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome"1/2

Dr. John Sanford "Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome" 2/2 

 

Dr. Thomas Seiler of Germany discusses the problems with evolution and discusses IDvolution

Clarification - When Hugh describes IDvolution to Dr Seiler it should be the "language of DNA".  IDvolution is discussed briefly at the 33 minute mark.

Hugh Miller interviews Dr. Thomas Seiler.

Interview WIth Lynn Margulis - natural selection

Natural selection is a conservative process not a creative one.

Discover Interview: Lynn Margulis Says She's Not Controversial, She's Right It's the neo-Darwinists, population geneticists, AIDS researchers, and English-speaking biologists as a whole who have it all wrong.

And you don’t believe natural selection is the answer?
This is the problem I have with neo-Darwinists: They teach that what is generating novelty is the accumulation of random mutations in DNA, in a direction set by natural selection. If you want bigger eggs you keep selecting the hens that are laying the bigger eggs, and you get bigger and bigger eggs. But you also get hens with defective feathers and wobbly eggs. Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn’t create.
and…
I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change — led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence. …
There is no gradualism in the fossil record… ‘Punctuated equilibrium’ was invented to describe the discontinuity. …
The critics, including the creationist critics, are right about their criticism. It’s just that they’ve got nothing to offer but intelligent design or ‘God did it.’ They have no alternatives that are scientific.
The evolutionary biologists believe the evolutionary pattern is a tree. It’s not. The evolutionary pattern is a web…

Wings, Horns, and Butterfly Eyespots: How Do Complex Traits Evolve?

IDvolution anyone?


Wings, Horns, and Butterfly Eyespots: How Do Complex Traits Evolve?


......This work is difficult and time consuming, but the question at its core—the genetic origin of new and complex traits—is probably still one of the most pertinent and fundamental unanswered questions in evolution today. At stake is the possibility of testing whether novel complex traits arise from a gradual building of novel developmental networks, gene by gene, or whether pre-existent modules of interacting genes are recruited together to play novel roles in novel parts of the organism.

Evolving Enzymes and Testing Darwin's Theory With Ann Gauger

Evolving Enzymes and Testing Darwin's Theory With Ann Gauger

How many mutations does it take?Hint: It is not one.

Click here to listen.

PNAS Authors Resort to Teleological Language in Failed Attempt to Explain Evolution of Irreducible Complexity

PNAS Authors Resort to Teleological Language in Failed Attempt to Explain Evolution of Irreducible Complexity


Summary: A recent article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) purports to explain the evolution of a relatively small molecular machine in the mitochondria that transports proteins across a membrane, thereby allegedly refuting irreducible complexity. Phrases and assertions like “'pre-adaptation' to bacteria ahead of a need for protein import,” “parts accumulate until they’re ready to snap together,” “machines emerge before there’s a need for them,” or intelligently "engineered" macromutations are part and parcel of this latest failed attempt by critics of intelligent design (ID) to answer Michael Behe’s argument of irreducible complexity. As would be expected, when evolutionists are forced to resort to such goal-directed and teleological language and mechanisms, this shows that inherently, blind and unguided materialist explanations are not sufficient to produce irreducible complex systems. As discussed in more detail below, this latest attempt to answer irreducible complexity unwittingly shows the need for intelligent design. A summary of the problems includes:

more...