Archive: Meteorites, Plant IQ, RNA, Hearing, Brain, Dino, MRI, Evolution
Here are some of the stories we were reporting in mid-February 2002, restored from archives.
Note: some embedded links may no longer work.
Meteorites Pose Puzzle for Solar System Age 02/22/2002
“If their analysis of two major components is correct, ‘the whole idea about the chronology of the solar nebula can be wrong,’ said Alexander Krot, associate researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology,” reports the Honolulu Star Bulletin Feb 19. What’s the problem? Chondrules and calcium-aluminum rich inclusions (CAIs) in two meteorites are hinting that planets formed early on in the solar nebula: “Originally, it was thought the disk lasted 50 million years around the sun before planets formed, he [Alexander Krot, associate researcher] said. That shrank to 10 million years, and now people are talking about the solar nebula lasting 1 million to 5 million years, he said.” The researchers suspect that the two types of materials, long thought to have formed at different epochs, may have nothing to do with age, but with where they were formed. The researchers dated the CAIs to 4.568 billion years, published in the Feb 8 issue of Science.
The thing to note in this story is not the bluffing about ages, but the internal inconsistency of theories. They cannot speak dogmatically about planet formation processes, because their models are built on imagination. Planetary Scientist Edward Scott at the HIG said, “It has been a tough struggle, particularly because we have to imagine what’s happening.” The imagination is resting on philosophical assumptions about long ages and evolutionary processes of planet formation. Alarm bells should go off when they have to cram the process of planet formation into a timeline one fiftieth what they were originally comfortable with. Planet formation theory was already rife with problems of its own, and now this makes it worse, similar to the Cambrian explosion in biology and the rapid formation of stars in the early universe. Does this story give you any confidence that the current “imagination” is any improvement?
Bacteria Survive a Big Squeeze 02/22/2002
Two kinds of bacteria continued to move and metabolize while being squeezed between diamonds, according to a paper in the Feb 22 issue of Science. The scientists watched them wiggle and oxidize formate under 1.6 gigapascals of pressure, equivalent to 50km deep in the earth’s crust, and act as if nothing happened when returned to ambient pressure. They conclude, “Evidence of microbial viability and activity at these extreme pressures expands by an order of magnitude the range of conditions representing the habitable zone in the solar system.” The BBC News also reported this story. In a related story from the NASA Astrobiology Institute, scientists found extremophiles living two miles deep in a South African gold mine, munching on rocks without benefit of photosynthesis. They estimate these bacilli divide about once every thousand years and represent half the biomass of the earth.
While remarkable, these findings say nothing about the origin of life on Europa or Mars, a subject which is primarily the interest of the NASA Astrobiology Institute that supported them. The authors in Science are within their bounds in stating that “The pressures encountered at the depths of thick ice caps and deep crustal subsurface may not be a limiting factor for the existence of life.” It would be a non sequitur, however, to deduce that these locales have life, or that life could originate there by chance. The capabilities of life to deal with extreme environments require extreme engineering. Time and chance are not engineers; they are the wrecking crew.
Plants Rate High in IQ 02/22/2002
According to Anthony Trewavas in the Feb 21 issue of Nature, plants deserve our respect: they’re pretty darn smart.
For centuries, plants have been regarded as passive creatures. Their development is thought to be predetermined, with only temporary interruptions in response to stress. Because plants lack obvious visible movement, they seem to be bereft of behaviour and intelligence. Yet they dominate every landscape, representing 99% of the biomass of the Earth. There is a clear conflict between the commonly held view and the success of plant life. Only now are we beginning to expose the remarkable complexity of plant behaviour. A revolution is sweeping away the detritus of passivity, replacing it with an exciting dynamic – the investigation of plant intelligence is becoming a serious scientific endeavour.
Trewavas describes the many problems plants have had to solve “from their evolutionary beginnings.” He provides examples of plants that almost seem to be assessing their surroundings and making decisions. He says that research into the field of plant communication has exploded in recent years, then asks the question if our concept of intelligence, related as it is to movement, is adequate. Plants seem to act smart in spite of the lack of a central nervous system. “How is such intelligent behaviour computed without a brain?” he asks. “The challenge is set – remarkable years of discovery lie ahead.”
Is software intelligent? Software applications in industrial robots and autonomous vehicles can be pretty sophisticated. You could watch a pilotless aircraft and conclude it was intelligent. Plants have some of the most intricate hardware and software humans have ever encountered, but that does not make them able to originate their own code. The examples are interesting, but the author honors the creature rather than the Creator.
Deep-Sea Extremophiles Eat Tungsten 02/22/2002
Bacteria found near deep-sea vents use tungsten instead of molybdenum as a key metabolic nutrient, says the NASA Astrobiology Institute in an article “From Lightbulbs to Life.” Tungsten has an extremely high melting point (6192o F.). These organisms live at temperatures at the sea-level boiling point of water. A Princeton chemist comments about the substitute nutrient, “They have the capability of playing the same roles. What is really interesting is that the rest of the proteins – which make up the largest part of the entity – are not at all similar. Thus, molybdenum and tungsten enzymes seem to point to a case of convergent evolution. Nature picked related elements to perform similar functions. … Biology is very resourceful. You never know exactly how Nature is going to compensate, how it is going to replace one thing with something else”
Evolutionists are magicians who are experts at sleight-of-mind. They invoke the spirit of Nature with a capital N, and wave their magic wand of convergent evolution whenever Nature needs to do a trick.
Bewildering Complexity – RNA Editing 02/21/2002
The Feb 22 issue of Cell contains a paper by Alabama biochemist Stephen J. Hajduk entitled “Editing Machines: The Complexities of Trypanosome RNA Editing.” RNA editing is critical to the accurate building of molecular machines like ATP synthase vital to cells. The author asks, “How many proteins does it take to edit an RNA?”
Recent studies, using conventional protein purification, homology modeling, and mass spectrometric analysis, have focused on identifying the components of editing complexes. This is an important yet somewhat bewildering exercise since at least a dozen proteins have been identified that putatively contribute to RNA editing in trypanosomes.
He describes how these proteins form editing complexes, and how RNA strands pass through several iterations of editors on their way to the protein assembly plant. In the last section, “Increasing complexities and unresolved issues,“ Hajduk states: “As we begin to understand the composition of the editing machinery, new complexities emerge.”
The author does not explain how evolution could have built this machinery. He only notes that the machinery is “conserved” (i.e., unchanged in many types of organisms), suggesting that they had a common ancestor. Clearly, however, he is bewildered by the complexity of the system. There is no need to stuff the facts into an evolutionary box far too small for them. Simply describe them and let people think.
Creationists, too, need to think about these issues. This level of complexity is found in trypanosomes, which cause serious blood diseases, including sleeping sickness. This fact is part of the larger question of why there is disease, suffering and death in the world today. Many organisms responsible for disease and suffering show exquisite design. Evolution explains everything as competition for survival. But why would a trypanosome care whether it survives or not? And how could such high levels of organization, involving multiple interrelated parts (editing complexes; think about it), arise without design? On the other hand, if everything was designed, did the designer intend for the suffering? Intelligent design is sound science but incomplete philosophy; it needs an answer to suffering.
We mortals may not understand all the reasons, but Biblical creationism has a coherent answer. It describes a world that was created perfect, but was cursed temporarily because of sin. A sovereign Creator has the right to punish and judge disobedience. The Bible clearly teaches God does so; God makes no apology for sending pestilence, disaster, and plague according to His own will, though it grieves Him, and He desires all people to repent and be saved. The original curse could have involved modification of existing structures to become agents of harm, as a constant reminder of the consequences of sin and the imminence of death. Yet the Bible also makes clear that God did not leave Himself without witness, showing ample proof of His goodness (Acts 14). What better proof than to send his only Son to take the penalty we deserve? The mixed message of creation – beauty and suffering – is deciphered in Christ. You can be reconciled with your Creator at the foot of the cross.
Beetle (Illustra Media)
Gene that Led to Insect Body Plan Alleged 02/21/2002
The Feb 21 issue of Nature contains two papers that speculate about how insect body plans, with just three segments and six legs, might have evolved from critters with lots of segments and legs. Their experiments suggest that just a few DNA changes were sufficient to allow early insects to lose limbs.
Evolutionary stories like this seem so ridiculous in light of the emerging vistas of cellular complexity coming to light (see next headline for example). This latest theory is about a loss of structure, if anything (fewer limbs), not a gain of information. What about all the other new structures that characterize insects: wings, compound eyes, guidance and control systems, and countless other autonomous robotic subsystems? Number of segments and number of legs is nothing compared to these hurdles for evolution to explain without design. The Hox genes studied in these papers are interesting, but they are only like master control switches during development. Like if-then routines in software, they do not write code, but just direct how existing code functions.
Presto! Prestin Wins the Gold in Molecular Motor Race 02/21/2002
A “new type of molecular motor, which is likely to be of great interest to molecular cell biologists” has been discovered. Named prestin, this protein motor, made up of 744 amino acid units, is a speed demon, ferrying negative ions across cell membranes in millionths of a second. It appears to function as part of the mechanical amplifier in the cochlea, helping the ear to achieve its “remarkable sensitivity and frequency selectivity.” Nature Molecular Biology Reviews describes the unique features of this biological machine:
Prestin is a new type of biological motor. It is entirely different from the well-known and much-studied classical cellular motors in that its function is not based on enzymatic processes, but on direct voltage-to-displacement conversion. The action of prestin is also orders of magnitude faster than that of any other cellular motor protein, as it functions at microsecond rates.
Prestin has an external voltage sensor that causes it to respond. ts action apparently mediates changes in length of the outer hair cells of the cochlea, greatly amplifying the responsiveness of vibrations reaching the inner ear. The illustration in the article shows how the cochlear amplifier works to provide variable, automatic, amplitude-dependent response. The “gain” on low-level signals can be 1000-fold, but intense signals are not amplified. This allows the brain to hear very faint signals but not get saturated by loud ones.
Update 02/26/2002: A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes prestin further and finds that it is dependent on regulation by thyroid hormone.
Interesting that other cellular motors are called “classical”: the whole field of molecular motors is almost brand new. Every time a motor is found in living cells is cause for astonishment. There are hundreds of them. This one goes directly from voltage to force, without requiring other enzymes. If it is true that prestin is crucial in the inner ear amplifier system, it is another one of a host of finely-crafted parts that enable us to hear, by converting mechanical waves in the air to electrical signals sent to the brain.
Sound begins as miniscule pressure waves in the air. These are first channeled by the outer ear into a tunnel, where they set up vibrations in the eardrum, then are transmitted mechanically through three lever-action bones to the inner ear, then are amplified by hair cells in the cochlea (each responding to its own characteristic frequency), which open and close ion channels that send electrical pulses down the auditory nerves. The brain, then, sorts out all this information to determine frequency, amplitude, direction, and meaning.
Delays in hearing could be dangerous. The rapid response of prestin and all the other components of our amazing sound system helps us to hear in real time. Scientists are just now beginning to understand the details of operation of the long-mysterious cochlea, with its keyboard-like rows of inner hair cells and outer hair cells that expand and contract in perpendicular directions. It is far more wondrous than we could have imagined; who would have thought it included direct-drive motors with microsecond response? See also our Feb. 7 headline on this subject.
Human Brain Not Bigger than Ape Brain 02/20/2002
It’s not the volume, but the wiring, claims a new study in Nature Neuroscience, summarized by Scientific American. A team from the University of California at San Diego studied MRI scans of 24 monkeys and apes and 10 humans, and found that the frontal cortex, the supposed seat of human wisdom and understanding, was not proportionally larger than expected for a primate of our stature. This undermines evolutionary theories that an enlargement of the frontal lobe is what gave early humans the capacity for increased cognition and intelligence.
It is simplistic to assume that the size of the bucket is a measure of the quality of the contents. None other than evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould in The Mismeasure of Man has berated early evolutionists for using brain size as a judge of intelligence. Time to revise the TV documentaries (again): “A lot of the story is entirely unknown, and the results of a new study suggest that some of what scientists thought they knew may actually require revision” (emphasis added). Well I’ll be. Shazam.
Are Creationists a “Small Minority” Threatening School Science? 02/19/2002
Rodger Doyle in Scientific American claims creationists are changing school standards although being a “small minority.” Answers in Genesis responds that Scientific American is guilty of distortions and perpetuation of myths in its story.
Doyle’s report has a color-coded map of United States evolution-teaching standards that is interesting (interpret with caution). Read both sides and think critically.
New Dinosaurs Raise New Questions 02/18/2002
Paul Sereno, dinosaur hunter, speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science last week, surprised participants with descriptions of exotic new dinosaurs his team has uncovered in Niger, including super-croc, tiny “duck crocs,” and a 45-foot fern-mowing sauropod with 1000 needle-shaped teeth. He claims the fossil record of dinosaurs has been transformed in the last decade, but mysteries remain:
“Why did it take 50 million years for dinosaurian predators and herbivores to reach their maximum body size but mammals only a handful?“ he asked. “And, why is there so much empty ecospace during the Mesozoic, in comparison to mammals during the Cenozoic? Where are the burrowers, the climbers, the aquatic specialists?”
The answers, Sereno suggested, lie in the posture and body size of early dinosaurs and the constraints these imposed on all subsequent evolution. Computer simulation of the fragmenting dinosaur world, Sereno says, will help us unravel the large-scale rules at work.
Sereno also showed a wishbone from a primitive carnivore which he claims establishes an evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds, even though the bone played a “very different role” between them.
The word “primitive” has embedded evolutionary assumptions. The “primitive carnivore,” like every other creature, was a highly complex animal well adapted to its habitat. If it had a wishbone for a very different role than used in birds, only faith makes it an evolutionary link to birds. Left unexplained are the many differences, such as scales v. feathers, and the totally different lung design between reptiles and birds, a difference that molecular biologist Michael Denton has described as an unbridgeable gap for gradualistic evolution (each step needing to provide more fitness than the prior model).
What Sereno has showcased is a variety of interacting, well-adapted creatures with remarkable diversity. But there is more diversity today between insects than between dinosaurs. Diversity is not evolution. The fitting together of these bones into a family tree is a belief imposed on the evidence, as illustrated by Sereno’s unanswered questions. Sereno presumes they will be answered by studies of body size and posture of early dinosaurs. But why would body size or posture constrain evolution? There is a wide diversity of sizes and postures in every group of animals today; if size or posture were constraints, would not fitness favor extremes? If not, does evolution explain anything at all? The idea is self defeating.
The computer modeling Sereno advocates cannot substitute for field observation. As we have seen before, such computer modeling is usually built on a priori assumptions of evolution, then used to demonstrate evolution. Thus it is a case of petitio principii. The observational facts of diversity and adaptation cannot be claimed as exclusive properties of evolutionary theory.
Window for Life is Narrow, Claims Astrobiologist 02/18/2002
Norman Pace at the University of Colorado at Boulder, renowned astrobiologist and recent winner of a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation, said at the Boston AAAS meeting this week that the best chances to find life beyond earth are outside our solar system. Neither Mars or Europa look promising, he feels.
Pace knows a lot about organisms that can survive extreme environments on earth, but no one knows that life exists anywhere else. Like many astrobiologists, he defines life in terms of evolution: he speaks of “the intrinsic fragility and complex organic systems coupled with the powerful force of natural selection….” The fragility and complexity of life are unquestionable. Natural selection, however, is not a powerful force. It is not a force at all. Whoever believes natural selection can create life and evolve it into sentient beings is engaging in the fallacy of chance of the gaps.
Renowned Inventor Calls Pastors to Preach Against Evolution from the Pulpit 02/17/2002
Exclusive Dr. Raymond V. Damadian, our featured creation scientist of the month, sharing his testimony at Frazier Park Evangelical Free Church in California, described how prayer played an essential role in the development of the MRI scanner. Founder and president of Fonar Corporation, Dr. Damadian told how he had grown up convinced of evolution until he began reading creation evidences in books such as those by Henry Morris. He turned his final comments toward pastors: “The battle of the beginning, as John MacArthur calls it – and our theologians cannot run from it. They need to learn this evidence and preach it from the pulpit. The Battle for the Beginning is not the property of the scientists.”
The prior evening, Dr. Damadian was featured speaker at the annual George F. Howe Creation Symposium at The Master’s College. He described the development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), the invention that earned him entry into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He explained how it works, and shared the prospects for the near future, when surgeons will be able to precisely target therapeutic agents directly to cancers while working in MRI Operating Rooms which Fonar Corporation has recently developed. But Damadian spent a good deal of time also describing creation evidences that have convinced him of the absolute authority and trustworthiness of the Bible. He said that, putting it gently, evolution is a fraud and that “an undevout scientist must be mad.” He reprimanded Christians who have never read the Bible cover to cover, stressing that reading it all, without qualification, is essential to understanding its true sense and full message.
Early Man (and Theory): Evolve or Perish 02/15/2002
How Neanderthal Man might look in Manhattan (Grok/XI)
Just as early man had to adapt to changing climates rapidly to survive, theories of the evolution of early man are also evolving quickly, but not in any particular direction. In two News Focus articles on “Becoming Human” in the Feb 15 issue of Science, Michael Balter discusses current controversies about what distinguishes humans from apes. The longer article, “What Made Humans Modern?” reaches no conclusions but just watches the political football game that modern anthropology has become. Cambridge anthropologist Daniel Lieberman thinks skull and face shape are the defining characteristics of modern humanity, but others retort that the first signs of culture and intelligence come tens of thousands of years after anatomically modern humans appeared.
Some think a few genetic switches made the difference, others argue that many changes had to take place. Some think changes had to be slow and gradual (evolutionary), others propose human intelligence experienced a big bang (revolutionary). Some think modern man arose out of Africa, others think humanness arose in different parts of the world simultaneously (here’s one claiming Europe as the seat of human evolution). Some trust the molecular clock, others don’t. Some think Neandertals were brutish, some think they were as smart as modern humans. It seems every idea has its critics, every solution breeds new problems, and each new discovery overturns previously sacred beliefs. Balter covers the fruitcake with this frosting: “There may be few sure answers so far, but one thing seems certain: Sometime during the last 200,000 years or so, evolution blessed us with the wisdom to ask the questions.”
Balter’s second article in the same issue, “Why Get Smart?” discusses the theory of some anthropologists that intelligence evolved in response to rapid climate changes.
To us humans, it may seem that smarter is always better. But only once in the history of life on Earth did natural selection favor the evolution of brains sophisticated enough to send people to the moon, paint the Mona Lisa, or wonder about their own origins. However that evolution unfolded … most anthropologists think that advanced human cognition was no evolutionary accident but an adaptation to a challenging environment.
Balter discusses Richard Potts’ theory of “variability selection,” the emergence of capabilities to deal with rapidly changing environments. He quotes Steven Pinker, “The minds of our ancestors were not hardwired with specific strategies for felling mastodons but with more general categories….”
Balter’s concluding line from the first article easily qualifies for Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: “There may be few sure answers so far [understatement], but one thing seems certain [name anything that seems certain in the article; if the observations are contradictory, how can the conclusion be certain?]: Sometime during the last 200,000 years or so [plus or minus 195,000 years], evolution blessed us with the wisdom to ask the questions.” Good grief; what is evolution, a goddess?
Do you see what is going on here? Lack of evidence is juxtaposed with authoritative pronouncements. We spend some time on this News Focus series in Science (see also next headline) to point out the contrast between the vacuum of evidence and the almost ex cathedra authority with which these scientists speak. Here we are, almost 150 years beyond Darwin’s Descent of Man, and paleoanthropology is still at square one. But in spite of this fact, evolutionary anthropologists speak out of both sides of their mouths to mislead and confuse. On one side they moan and groan over the paucity of evidence and all the contradictions. On the other side, they speak with glib naïveté about how humans evolved, assigning godlike powers to climate or skulls as if they can produce brains capable of abstract reasoning and building rockets to the moon. Evolutionists have something better than God to work their miracles: chance!
So convinced are they that humans evolved from animals, despite the utter lack of evidence, that all this cognitive dissonance is viewed as normal. It wouldn’t occur to them in their wildest dreams to consider that God created man for a purpose, even though that is what the majority of Americans believe. No, that would not be “scientific.” See our Baloney Detector on the Best-in-Field Fallacy. When creation has been ruled out from the starting gun, and all you have on the track are the lame, the blind and the disoriented, then any one of them that is ahead an inch at the moment is by default the reigning world champion.