May 2011

Heidelberg man (Wikipedia)

A recent post on Uncommon Descent correctly pointed out that Neanderthal man was not a primitive species of human being, but a race of people who buried their dead and had larger brains than ours. Consequently, evidence that some modern people have Neanderthal DNA in their genes does not constitute evidence for the common ancestry of humans and apes, per se. Indeed, Casey Luskin made this very point in an article on Evolution News, in response to claims by evolutionists Karl Giberson and Francis Collins in their book The Language of Science and Faith (InterVarsity Press, 2011, pp. 43-44) that evidence for a genetic connection between modern humans and Neanderthals bolsters the case for “common ancestry.”

Now, I happen to believe that humans and apes do in fact share a common ancestry, although I would add that the development of the human brain since humans and apes diverged must have been intelligently guided, and I would also argue that nothing about the human brain can explain intentionality or free will. But what I’d like to discuss today is the question of whether Heidelberg man, the presumed common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern human beings, was also a true human being.

“Why does this matter?” I hear you ask. Because if Heidelberg man wasn’t a true human being, then we’d have a very odd situation indeed: two distinct races of human beings (Neanderthals and us) both diverged from a non-human ancestor. Heidelberg man certainly had a brain capacity in the modern range, but as yet we do not know whether he was capable of language, art or religion.

In a 2009 article entitled Evolution of the Genus Homo (Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2009. 37:67–92, doi: 10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202), anthropologists Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey Schwartz write:
Read More ›

Or anyway, the latest attempt at it. The Darwin lobby promotes uniformitarianism (long, slow gradual change caused by natural selection acting on random mutation), which is at odds with the evidence of rapid bouts of change followed by long periods of stasis.

Over at Access Research Network, David Tyler discusses “The unscientific hegemony of uniformitarianism” (05/16/11), and new approaches in progress. Read More ›

Here vjtorley cites the unspeakable Johansson case (Sweden), asking “Are secular humanism and freedom of thought ultimately incompatible?” The short answer is: Of course.

Secular humanism, as normally argued, denies the reality of the mind. On that, note this item at New Scientist on illusions, real and imagined*, which dramatically dismisses free will and just about everything else,

This might come as a shock, but everything you think is wrong. Much of what you take for granted about day-to-day existence is largely a figment of your imagination. From your senses to your memory, your opinions and beliefs, how you see yourself and others and even your sense of free will, things are not as they seem. The power these delusions hold over you is staggering, yet, as Graham Lawton discovers, they are vital to help you function in the world.

– Graham Lawton, “The grand delusion: Why nothing is as it seems” (16 May 2011)

The only freedom possible, if this folly were true – and the secular humanist believes it is – Read More ›

Recently, as some may recall, the pastor wrote to E. O.Wilson:

Gr8 you got it str8 about humans vs. ants. Keep on keeping on. – Yr Pastor

Seems the pastor didn’t believe in Wilson’s sociobiology theories and lots of other tenets of materialist faith. Now Wilson doesn’t either.

Skinny:

Earlier this year, sociobiologist E. O. “Dear Pastor” Wilson disowned his “inclusive fitness” (kin selection) theory, developed from his study of ants and bees. According to his theory, among life forms that live in groups, many members may give up the chance of reproducing their selfish genes so that the group as a whole is more fit. The problem is that it’s not clear how this situation could arise.

What’s very clear is that hundreds of cast members of the long-running Evolutionary Psychology Show ( everyone from the evolutionary agony aunt to the big bazooms boys) sense their jobs at risk. Hence viper mode!

In “Biologists Team Up to Quash New View of Cooperation”, Thomas Bartlett profiles Wilson’s co-author Martin Nowak, a Harvard math and biology prof for Chronicle of Higher Education, outlining that Nowak may have “an enviable resume, with tens of millions in grants and hundreds of publications,” but he also has a red bulls-eye on his back.

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Here’s Lee Billings at New Scientist coming to the point with admirable swiftness:

Two decades of searching have failed to turn up another planetary system like ours. Should we be worried?- “No place like home: Our lonesome solar system” (11 May 2011)

He answers his own question, in part:

It was clear we had ignored a fundamental rule of science. “We had been judging the cosmic diversity of planetary systems based on a sample size of one,” says Marcy.

If these were the first hints that our solar system was not normal, they were not the last. Other planets were soon caught breaking all sorts of rules: orbiting in the opposite direction to their star’s spin, coming packed in close orbits like sardines in a can, or revolving on wildly tilted orbits far away from their star’s equator.

Soon “theorists began to supply the necessary creation stories.”

Billings brings us up to date on how planets are detected, then comes the punch line:

All this makes the status of our solar system increasingly clear. “Our system is a rarity, there’s no longer a question about that,” says Marcy. “The only question that remains is, just how rare is it?”

Expelled ID guy Guillermo Gonzalez predicted this state of affairs. Here, for example, in 2001:

In “Out-of-Africa migration selected novelty-seeking genes” (New Scientist, 06 May 2011), Aria Pearson tells us, “AS HUMANS migrated out of Africa around 50,000 years ago and moved across the planet, evolution may have latched onto a gene linked to risk-taking and adventurousness.” Once treated skeptically, the idea “stands up to rigorous analysis,” due to minor differences in gene frequencies:

The study suggests that some small portion of the behaviours that characterise populations may be down to genetics, and that cultural actions like mass migration can modify our genes, says Matthews.

Marcus Munafò, a biological psychologist at the University of Bristol, UK, cautions that variations in the DRD4 gene are numerous and complex, making its exact behavioural effects hard to pin down. But he agrees that it is likely that some differences in behaviour have been generated by genetic selection.

If a characteristic is usefully identified as genetic, shouldn’t it offer a stronger signal than this? And shouldn’t analysis be more rigorous than this? Read More ›

Well, no one told the life forms about it, and frogs, snapdragons, and snakes, among other, apparently broke it with impunity, so that the “law” is in the process of being retired.*

Now, a research team has, usefully, come up with estimates of the probability of mutations being reversible. From ScienceDaily (May 11, 2011):

Physicists’ study of evolution in bacteria shows that adaptations can be undone, but rarely. Read More ›

Here’s a quick question. What four adjectives would you associate with the country of Sweden? If you’re a secular humanist, you’ll probably answer: tolerant, equitable, well-educated and prosperous – or something along those lines. Indeed, atheists have long praised Sweden as a secular society, whose example other nations would do well to follow (see here, here and here). I suppose they like the thought of living in a society where Intelligent Design theory cannot be discussed in biology classes, and where even faith-based schools are not allowed to teach that religious doctrines are objectively true, as that would be tantamount to “proselytizing.” Well, as they say, there are two sides to every story. The flip side of Sweden’s much-vaunted secular Read More ›

As David Klinghoffer puts it at ENV:

Over the weekend, Jonathan Wells’s The Myth of Junk DNA broke into the top five on Amazon’s list of books dealing with genetics — a list normally dominated at its pinnacle by various editions of Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. Not bad, Jonathan.The juxtaposition with Dawkins’ Selfish Gene is appropriate, notwithstanding the demurrals of biochemist Larry Moran et al. Dawkins and other Darwinists, such as Jerry Coyne, have indeed posited that neo-Darwinian theory predicts that swaths of the genome will turn out to be functionless junk. The Junk DNA argument has been a pillar of the Darwin Lobby’s efforts to seduce public opinion and influence public policy. Professor Moran wants to imagine that Dawkins never held that neo-Darwinism predicts junk DNA. But that’s not how other Darwinists see it. (Compare, for example, Dennett’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, page 316.)

So far, with none of them having actually read the book (though P.Z. Myers threatens to do so), the Darwin apologists’ response to The Myth of Junk DNA has followed along four lines of defense. Read More ›

Few things in that area show much promise, but this one does.

Two economists have spent some time studying precommitment, the idea of freely choosing what’s right and ten instructing others not to listen when you say you have changed your mind. The first well-known precommiter was Homer’s Odysseus (1000  BCE), who

has been warned about the Sirens, whose seductive song leads sailors to destruction, but he wants to hear it anyway. So he gives his men earplugs and orders that they tie him to the mast, ignoring all subsequent pleas for release until they are safely past the danger.

– Daniel Akst, “Commit Yourself: Self-control in the age of abundance” Reason , May 2011

As Akst tell it, Read More ›

“Thank God for Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow!”

—Francisco J. Ayala

2010 Templeton Prize-winner; Past President of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science)

He and other luminaries recommend you get saved by evolutionizing your life here.

The science of how to decode human behavior, eliminate self-judgment, and create a big-hearted life of purpose and joyful integrity.

Benefits include

You’ll no longer feel empty or flat from the service you provide others. It will be as if the Universe has put its stamp of approval on your life, and you will know the thrill of living in right relationship to reality and in alignment with your highest values.

In other news: Believing that “the Universe has put its stamp of approval on your life” is the surest route to being a world class shothead. Read More ›

Here. Plantinga, Alvin Plantinga, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, talks about “God and Evolution: Where the Conflict Really Lies.” (May 10 and 12, 2011) Note: Plantinga was one of the two Christian philosophers who complained about the hit job on colleague Frank Beckwith in Synthese, incorrectly tagging Beckwith as ID, and in general as one bad dude.

Apparently, “Satan” has noticed our interview with Nancy Pearcey, author of Saving Leonardo (here), and he is cheesed. He describes Uncommon Descent as “an equally dangerous blog.” Not for lack of trying, Yer Scorchership.

Story here. Now put up your feet. Here’s the three-men-a-side debate that Dawkins says convinced him that Craig was an unworthy opponent. What you think? Offered alongside the one above at YouTube: Here’s why he says he “won’t debate creationists” and here he compares them to Holocaust deniers. How do you think a debate between Dawkins and Craig would go?

I give UD’s Denyse credit for having come up with this insightful observation. In another UD thread I came across this link. It represents the Episcopal church’s views on ID, and it is full of misinformation and misrepresentations. The proponents of the Intelligent Design Movement assert that it is possible to discern scientifically the actions of God in nature. Wrong. Anyone familiar with any basic ID literature would not make this blatant misrepresentation. I therefore must assume that the author of this claim never took the time to investigate ID, and probably got his ideas from the popular press. …the great majority of scientists say that claims of “Intelligent Design” have not been backed up by valid scientific research and Read More ›