“I’m Walkin’, Yes Indeed I’m Walkin'” But Not Because It’s Necessarily a Better Way to Get Around

From the crev.info article:

Who would have expected to find modern-looking spear points in coal dated 300,000 years old? That’s what has been described in a press release from the University of Tübingen – the “oldest known weapons anywhere” – indicating that the designers were skilled hunters. These were not flaked rocks for cutting up dead animals, but rather designed instruments for hunting live prey. “Tools preserved in lignite show capacity for abstract thought, Tübingen researchers say.”

Hmm. Principles of intelligent design at work here I see.

What’s also interesting about the discovery is the site: a coal mine that till recently was soaked in water: The bones of large mammals – elephants, rhinoceroses, horses and lions – as well as the remains of amphibians, reptiles, shells and even beetles have been preserved in the brown coal. Pines, firs, and black alder trees are preserved complete with pine cones, as have the leaves, pollen and seeds of surrounding flora. Until the mining started 30 years ago, these finds were below the water table. The archeologists say they are now carrying out “underwater archaeology without the water.” More finds are expected from this extraordinary site in north-central Germany. Already, they have found “a water buffalo in the context of human habitation, an almost completely preserved aurochs (one of the oldest in central Europe), and several concentrations of stone artifacts, bones and wood.”

The press release did not explain how any of these artifacts could be so well preserved in the presence of water for 300,000 years.

Very good point. Meaning the 300,000 years are probably a figment of their imagination just used to try and preserve the evolutionary story. tjguy

just up at crev.info

Man Is Man and Ape Is Ape: The Gulf Widens - September 18, 2012 http://crev.info/2012/09/man-is-man-and-ape-is-ape/

bornagain77

Of related interest, here is a podcast and summary of the excellent work Casey Luskin has recently done, going through the technical literature, finding that the evidence supports the abrupt appearance of (bipedal) humans in the fossil record instead of finding it to support the gradual process of evolution:

Missing Transitional Fossils in the Hominid Fossil Record - podcast http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2012-09-12T17_53_42-07_00 How do Theistic Evolutionists Explain the Fossil Record and Human Origins? Casey Luskin September 14, 2012 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/09/how_do_theistic_1064301.html

bornagain77

They partly blame women's birthing pains on the fact of walking upright. So it must of been the male apes idea.! They have to explain the unique birthing pain of our women as oposed to animals and so uprightness is a suspect. YEC know the reason and its unrelated to origins. Eve was naughty! Robert Byers

Don't be anti-science, Joe. Obviously the fact that it happened is incontrovertible proof that evolution diddit. ;-) sagebrush gardener

The heck with "why", start with the "how", as in how did accumulations of random mutations doit? Joe

Of related note: Energy efficiency is found to be optimum across all life domains, thus strongly suggesting that all life on earth was Intelligently Design for maximal efficiency in mind instead of reflecting a pattern of somewhat random distribution that would be expected from evolution:

Mean mass-specific metabolic rates are strikingly similar across life's major domains: Evidence for life's metabolic optimum Excerpt: Here, using the largest database to date, for 3,006 species that includes most of the range of biological diversity on the planet—from bacteria to elephants, and algae to sapling trees—we show that metabolism displays a striking degree of homeostasis across all of life. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2572558/

Related notes:

Optimal Design of Metabolism - Dr. Fazale Rana - July 2012 Excerpt: A new study further highlights the optimality of the cell’s metabolic systems. Using the multi-dimension optimization theory, researchers evaluated the performance of the metabolic systems of several different bacteria. The data generated by monitoring the flux (movement) of compounds through metabolic pathways (like the movement of cars along the roadways) allowed researchers to assess the behavior of cellular metabolism. They determined that metabolism functions optimally for a system that seeks to accomplish multiple objectives. It looks as if the cell’s metabolism is optimized to operate under a single set of conditions. At the same time, it can perform optimally with relatively small adjustments to the metabolic operations when the cell experiences a change in condition. http://www.reasons.org/articles/the-optimal-design-of-metabolism Map Of Major Metabolic Pathways In A Cell - Diagram http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/img/assets/4202/MetabolicPathways_6_17_04_.pdf Metabolism: A Cascade of Design January 1, 2009 By Dr. Fazale Rana Excerpt: A team of biological and chemical engineers wanted to understand just how robust metabolic pathways are. To gain this insight, the researchers compared how far the errors cascade in pathways found in a variety of single-celled organisms with errors in randomly generated metabolic pathways. They learned that when defects occur in the cell’s metabolic pathways, they cascade much shorter distances than when errors occur in random metabolic routes. Thus, it appears that metabolic pathways in nature are highly optimized and unusually robust, demonstrating that metabolic networks in the protoplasm are not haphazardly arranged but highly organized. http://www.reasons.org/metabolism-cascade-design Making the Case for Intelligent Design More Robust By Dr. Fazale Rana - April, 2010 Excerpt: ,,, In other words, metabolic pathways are optimized to withstand inevitable concentration changes of metabolites. http://www.reasons.org/making-case-intelligent-design-more-robust Life Leads the Way to Invention - Feb. 2010 Excerpt: a cell is 10,000 times more energy-efficient than a transistor. “In one second, a cell performs about 10 million energy-consuming chemical reactions, which altogether require about one picowatt (one millionth millionth of a watt) of power.” This and other amazing facts lead to an obvious conclusion: inventors ought to look to life for ideas.,,, Essentially, cells may be viewed as circuits that use molecules, ions, proteins and DNA instead of electrons and transistors. That analogy suggests that it should be possible to build electronic chips – what Sarpeshkar calls “cellular chemical computers” – that mimic chemical reactions very efficiently and on a very fast timescale. http://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100226a

Also of interest is that the integrated coding between the DNA, RNA and Proteins of the cell apparently seems to be ingeniously programmed along the very stringent guidelines laid out by Landauer’s principle, by Charles Bennett from IBM of Quantum Teleportation fame, for ‘reversible computation’ in order to achieve such amazing energy efficiency.

Notes on Landauer’s principle, reversible computation, and Maxwell’s Demon - Charles H. Bennett Excerpt: Of course, in practice, almost all data processing is done on macroscopic apparatus, dissipating macroscopic amounts of energy far in excess of what would be required by Landauer’s principle. Nevertheless, some stages of biomolecular information processing, such as transcription of DNA to RNA, appear to be accomplished by chemical reactions that are reversible not only in principle but in practice.,,,, http://www.hep.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/QM/bennett_shpmp_34_501_03.pdf

The amazing energy efficiency possible with ‘reversible computation’ has been known about since Bennett laid out the principles for such reversible programming a few decades ago, but as far as I know, due to the extreme level of complexity involved in achieving such ingenious 'reversible coding', has yet to be accomplished in any meaningful way for our computer programs even to this day:

Reversible computing Excerpt: Reversible computing is a model of computing where the computational process to some extent is reversible, i.e., time-invertible.,,, Although achieving this goal presents a significant challenge for the design, manufacturing, and characterization of ultra-precise new physical mechanisms for computing, there is at present no fundamental reason to think that this goal cannot eventually be accomplished, allowing us to someday build computers that generate much less than 1 bit's worth of physical entropy (and dissipate much less than kT ln 2 energy to heat) for each useful logical operation that they carry out internally. - wikipedia

Also of related note; there is a mysterious 'higher dimensional' component to metabolism as well:

The predominance of quarter-power (4-D) scaling in biology Excerpt: Many fundamental characteristics of organisms scale with body size as power laws of the form: Y = Yo M^b, where Y is some characteristic such as metabolic rate, stride length or life span, Yo is a normalization constant, M is body mass and b is the allometric scaling exponent. A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling. http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~drewa/pubs/savage_v_2004_f18_257.pdf “Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional. Quarter-power scaling laws are perhaps as universal and as uniquely biological as the biochemical pathways of metabolism, the structure and function of the genetic code and the process of natural selection.,,, The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection." Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79 4-Dimensional Quarter Power Scaling In Biology - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/5964041/

bornagain77

Of related note: Energy efficiency is found to be optimum across all life domains, thus strongly suggesting that all life on earth was Intelligently Design for maximal efficiency in mind instead of reflecting a pattern of somewhat random distribution that would be expected from evolution:

Mean mass-specific metabolic rates are strikingly similar across life's major domains: Evidence for life's metabolic optimum Excerpt: Here, using the largest database to date, for 3,006 species that includes most of the range of biological diversity on the planet—from bacteria to elephants, and algae to sapling trees—we show that metabolism displays a striking degree of homeostasis across all of life. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2572558/

Related notes:

Optimal Design of Metabolism - Dr. Fazale Rana - July 2012 Excerpt: A new study further highlights the optimality of the cell’s metabolic systems. Using the multi-dimension optimization theory, researchers evaluated the performance of the metabolic systems of several different bacteria. The data generated by monitoring the flux (movement) of compounds through metabolic pathways (like the movement of cars along the roadways) allowed researchers to assess the behavior of cellular metabolism. They determined that metabolism functions optimally for a system that seeks to accomplish multiple objectives. It looks as if the cell’s metabolism is optimized to operate under a single set of conditions. At the same time, it can perform optimally with relatively small adjustments to the metabolic operations when the cell experiences a change in condition. http://www.reasons.org/articles/the-optimal-design-of-metabolism Map Of Major Metabolic Pathways In A Cell - Diagram http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/img/assets/4202/MetabolicPathways_6_17_04_.pdf Metabolism: A Cascade of Design January 1, 2009 By Dr. Fazale Rana Excerpt: A team of biological and chemical engineers wanted to understand just how robust metabolic pathways are. To gain this insight, the researchers compared how far the errors cascade in pathways found in a variety of single-celled organisms with errors in randomly generated metabolic pathways. They learned that when defects occur in the cell’s metabolic pathways, they cascade much shorter distances than when errors occur in random metabolic routes. Thus, it appears that metabolic pathways in nature are highly optimized and unusually robust, demonstrating that metabolic networks in the protoplasm are not haphazardly arranged but highly organized. http://www.reasons.org/metabolism-cascade-design Making the Case for Intelligent Design More Robust By Dr. Fazale Rana - April, 2010 Excerpt: ,,, In other words, metabolic pathways are optimized to withstand inevitable concentration changes of metabolites. http://www.reasons.org/making-case-intelligent-design-more-robust Life Leads the Way to Invention - Feb. 2010 Excerpt: a cell is 10,000 times more energy-efficient than a transistor. “In one second, a cell performs about 10 million energy-consuming chemical reactions, which altogether require about one picowatt (one millionth millionth of a watt) of power.” This and other amazing facts lead to an obvious conclusion: inventors ought to look to life for ideas.,,, Essentially, cells may be viewed as circuits that use molecules, ions, proteins and DNA instead of electrons and transistors. That analogy suggests that it should be possible to build electronic chips – what Sarpeshkar calls “cellular chemical computers” – that mimic chemical reactions very efficiently and on a very fast timescale. http://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100226a

Also of interest is that the integrated coding between the DNA, RNA and Proteins of the cell apparently seems to be ingeniously programmed along the very stringent guidelines laid out by Landauer’s principle, by Charles Bennett from IBM of Quantum Teleportation fame, for ‘reversible computation’ in order to achieve such amazing energy efficiency.

Notes on Landauer’s principle, reversible computation, and Maxwell’s Demon - Charles H. Bennett Excerpt: Of course, in practice, almost all data processing is done on macroscopic apparatus, dissipating macroscopic amounts of energy far in excess of what would be required by Landauer’s principle. Nevertheless, some stages of biomolecular information processing, such as transcription of DNA to RNA, appear to be accomplished by chemical reactions that are reversible not only in principle but in practice.,,,, http://www.hep.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/QM/bennett_shpmp_34_501_03.pdf

The amazing energy efficiency possible with ‘reversible computation’ has been known about since Bennett laid out the principles for such reversible programming a few decades ago, but as far as I know, due to the extreme level of complexity involved in achieving such ingenious 'reversible coding', has yet to be accomplished in any meaningful way for our computer programs even to this day:

Reversible computing Excerpt: Reversible computing is a model of computing where the computational process to some extent is reversible, i.e., time-invertible.,,, Although achieving this goal presents a significant challenge for the design, manufacturing, and characterization of ultra-precise new physical mechanisms for computing, there is at present no fundamental reason to think that this goal cannot eventually be accomplished, allowing us to someday build computers that generate much less than 1 bit's worth of physical entropy (and dissipate much less than kT ln 2 energy to heat) for each useful logical operation that they carry out internally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing#The_reversibility_of_physics_and_reversible_computing

Also of related note; there is a mysterious 'higher dimensional' component to metabolism as well:

The predominance of quarter-power (4-D) scaling in biology Excerpt: Many fundamental characteristics of organisms scale with body size as power laws of the form: Y = Yo M^b, where Y is some characteristic such as metabolic rate, stride length or life span, Yo is a normalization constant, M is body mass and b is the allometric scaling exponent. A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling. http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~drewa/pubs/savage_v_2004_f18_257.pdf “Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional. Quarter-power scaling laws are perhaps as universal and as uniquely biological as the biochemical pathways of metabolism, the structure and function of the genetic code and the process of natural selection.,,, The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection." Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79 4-Dimensional Quarter Power Scaling In Biology - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/5964041/

bornagain77

No, Barry, you're flowin'. Mung