Saturday, October 26, 2019
"In Christ"
Microevolution and macroevolution
What's the distinction between microevolution and macroevolution?
Traditionally the distinction is supposed to be at the species level. Micrevolution involves evolutionary changes within a species, while macroevolution involves evolutionary changes beyond a species. Such as when one species becomes another species. Or one species becomes two species (speciation).
- Yet, today, many scientists disagree with how to define a species. What, precisely, makes a species a species?
- Also, why is the focal point of macroevolution at the species level? Why is species where we draw the line between microevolution and macroevolution? After all, isn't evolution supposed to be akin to climbing Mt. Improbable? If so, then evolution is simply a gradual but continuous series of changes in one direction (give or take). Hence, why couldn't the line be drawn elsewhere?
- In fact, is it even a line so much as an outline or sketch? A fuzzy boundary?
- Moreover, aren't there multiple blurred lines?
- As such, the traditional demarcations between microevolution and macroevolution seem to overemphasize the significance and roles of species and speciation.
- Yet, if the borders are hazy enough between microevolution and macroevolution, then that could potentially affect the theory of evolution as a whole. After all, of what use are concepts like microevolution and macroevolution if the borders are so hazy? We might as well simply call microevolution "small change" and macroevolution "big change" for all the explanatory power these terms have.
- Macroevolution is supposed to be reducible to microevolution. Macroevolution is supposed to be the accumulation of small genetic changes over time (microevolution). Macroevolution is a continuous spectrum of microevolutionary changes.
All this requires genetic changes. How do genetic changes occur? There are several ways, but the primary driver of these small genetic changes is supposed to be random mutations. In addition, these genetic changes can't be deleterious mutations, or even neutral mutations, but they must be beneficial mutations, in order to drive phenomena like speciation. However, the vast majority of mutations are not beneficial mutations. And according to mathematicians, the problem isn't solved even if given hundreds of millions of years to work with.
Biological information
In this post I'm going to talk about biological information, which in turn is relevant in debates over evolution.
However this post is just an introduction. As such I'm going to simplify a lot of things. I realize I'm sacrificing technical accuracy but I'm doing so in order to get some main ideas across for those who might have zero background in all this but who wish to be able to make a foray into the debate over evolution.
Without further ado:
What lies at the heart of every living thing is not a fire, warm breath, not a 'spark of life'. It is information, words, instructions. If you want a metaphor, don't think of fires and sparks and breath. Think, instead, of a billion discrete digital characters carved in tablets of crystal. If you want to understand life, don't think about vibrant, throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology.(Richard Dawkins, "The power and the archives", The Blind Watchmaker)
- Let's start with a book, computer code, and DNA:
A book contains pages and text, but the pages are just paper and the text is just ink. Rather it's the words that convey the story. Not the words as text, but the words as information.
A computer program contains code, but code is fundamentally just a pattern of binary digits: 0s and 1s. Rather it's code as a set of instructions for a computer to execute that makes a program functional. Hence code isn't merely bits but code is information.
The DNA molecule contains four bases (adenine, cytosine, thymine, guanine), but these bases are ultimately atoms (e.g. carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen), and atoms are just physical particles. Rather DNA (as genes) is biological information which can be transcribed and translated to build an organism.
- These aren't mere arguments from analogy (pace Dawkins). I'm not saying text is like code which is like DNA. Rather this is a comparison of information. I'm suggesting the common denominator in all three is information.
- Yet information is invisible. We can't sense it, not directly, but it exists. How does that work on atheism/naturalism and evolution/neo-Darwinism?
- An atheist like Dawkins might argue information emerges from physical properties. Such as in the arrangement of words, code, or DNA.
However, even if so, what would cause the information to be arranged in a particular manner? How does inert matter arrange itself? What causes the letters of the English alphabet to form words if left on their own? What causes DNA to arrange itself in a particular genetic sequence if it is merely a non-living molecule? Let alone a molecule which self-organizes and self-perpetuates.
- Is it natural selection? Since when did natural selection act at the atomic level? How does natural selection act on subatomic particles?
- Moreover, even if a few letters could, somehow, by chance, arrange themselves into words, and words into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into chapters, and chapters into a book, each subsequent step would seem to prove increasingly challenging. It's the old question of how long it takes for a monkey to type out the works of Shakespeare.
- There may need to be new information at each subsequent step. A phrase like "In the beginning" may have arranged itself randomly, not to mention somehow well enough to convey meaning, but the sentence "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" contains more information. Namely "God created the heavens and the earth".
Likewise it's one thing to have a single gene, but it's a lot more to have an entire genome. Let alone an entire organism.
Hence a question which needs to be addressed is from where does this extra information come? Who or what is adding extra words or sentences or paragraphs into our book? Who or what is injecting additional information into each subsequent step?
Otherwise is the information self-generated somehow, like an artificially intelligent computer writing new code for itself? How so? That seems highly implausible in the earliest lifeforms which surely would have not been anything like an A.I. computer.
- Any time information is generated, there needs to be some way to check it for errors. Quality assurance. Yet could one physical entity (an error checking mechanism) have (more or less) co-evolved with another physical entity (e.g. a molecule like RNA or DNA)? How could a complex error-check have evolved roughly simultaneously with a presumably simple molecule in the origin of life?
Luke, the beloved physician
Luke introduces himself as well as the apostle Paul. A quibble is the post might give the impression that the Christian should court suffering.
Knocking In The Enfield Case
Since the layout of the Hodgsons' house is significant in some of the contexts I'll be addressing below, click here to see a floor plan. I'll be citing Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair's tapes a lot in the discussion that follows. I'll use "MG" to designate a tape from Grosse's collection and "GP" to designate one from Playfair's, so that MG2B refers to tape 2B in Grosse's collection, GP60A refers to 60A in Playfair's, and so on.
If you click here, you can listen to some of the knocking and watch a few witnesses discussing its characteristics. However, the large majority of the knocking on the tapes doesn't sound as unusual as what's played in the clip I just linked, and the knocking didn't always move around the way Grosse describes. It did sometimes have those characteristics, though, as well as other traits I'll be discussing below. I suspect the qualities of the knocking varied for reasons similar to why an individual's speech patterns, diet, dress, and other characteristics vary in everyday life. The poltergeist could have behaved differently on different occasions depending on how much energy it had at the time, its mood, what it was trying to accomplish, and so forth.
Friday, October 25, 2019
The populist RadTrad insurgency
Where was God?
Dying illusions
Dodging a bullet
My great-grandfather was a soldier. He fought in WWI in the Battle of Somme. One of the worst battles of our time. You know...like…if a bullet had gone slightly to the left or right I may not even be here–which is a sobering thought.
Falling on a grenade
Calvinism doesn't teach that God created the reprobate for the purpose of their going to hell.
It's true that God intends the reprobate to end up in hell, but that doesn't mean hell is the goal of reprobation.
To take a comparison: consider a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades. That kills him. That's the last thing he did. That's the end-result. But that wasn't the goal of his action–"Yea, I wanna get my guts blown out!". Rather, the aim was to shield his comrades by absorbing the explosion. Dying was a side-effect of his intentions. A means to an end.
God can create the reprobate in large part for what they do in this life. As agents, they make certain things happen. They help to drive the plot of world history.
How old was Mary?
Anne Georgulas
(Anne Georgulas, above, is James Younger's mother.)
We've already made a few posts on James Younger: first post, second post, third post, fourth post. I believe this is our fifth post on the case.
If you could make your mother sinless...
Thursday, October 24, 2019
James Younger update
BREAKING: the judge in the #ProtectJamesYounger case has ruled that the father will have a say over medical decisions, including the "transition" of his son. This is the best outcome we could hope for in a horrible situation all around. I think our outcry made a real difference.— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) October 24, 2019
Refuting Catholic authority
Waking up from wokeness
Transgenderism is breaking up some traditional Democrat voting blocks.
Slavery and sodomy
Interesting: "Where the Bible mentions [same-sex sexual] behavior at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely grant that. The issue is precisely whether the biblical judgment is correct. The Bible sanctioned slavery as well and nowhere attacked it as unjust.. https://t.co/52jL6NDgRu— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) October 23, 2019
It doesn't work for Christians committed to Biblical inerrancy and/or Christians with the hermeneutical sophistication to draw relevant distinctions.
Kenny on Noble
Anthony Kenny on Denis Noble:
When I was a bachelor don at Balliol I shared a staircase with Denis Noble, who was a physiology tutor: my rooms were on one side of the staircase and his on the other. We were both courting at the time, and so would also meet each other's fiancées on the stairs. We shared students as well as premises. There was an honour school called PPP: Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology. Denis taught the students physiology and I taught them philosophy. At meals in college we often discussed topics of common interest: Denis was not only a physiologist but as competent a philosopher as any of my colleagues.
In those days, there was a broad consensus that the sciences formed a hierarchy in which each level was to be explained in terms of the one below it: psychology was to be explained by physiology, physiology by chemistry, and chemistry by physics. This scientific strategy was called 'reductionism', since all sciences were ultimately to be reduced to physics. The idea was pithily expressed by Jim Watson, one of the discoverers of DNA: 'There are only molecules – everything else is sociology.'
Reductionist science chalked up victory after victory, as more and more lower-level mechanisms were discovered to explain higher-level processes. One such discovery was made in 1984 by the young Denis. He explained the pacemaker rhythm of the heart in terms of the flow of ions of potassium and calcium through protein channels. This achievement established his credentials as a reductionist biologist. However, he did not long continue to be a card-carrying member of the fraternity. He soon realized that in the heartbeat there was not only upward causation from the molecular level to the cellular level, but also downward causation from the cell influencing the molecules. Denis chaired the meeting at which I challenged Dawkins on the explanatory power of genes, and he took my side in the argument.
After I became Master of the college I ceased to share students with Denis, and so we had less opportunity for scientific discussion. However, our paths remained entwined at an administrative level. For two years, Denis served as my vice Master. This period included the year in which Mrs Thatcher was proposed, and then rejected, for an honorary Oxford degree. Denis was a founder of the Save British Science campaign which protested against the Thatcher government's cuts to the science budget, and he took a leading part in the campaign against the proposal. After the proposal was rejected, 200 alumni wrote separate letters to Balliol, either to applaud or to condemn the decision of Congregation. Denis and I divided between us the burden of replying. I, who had voted in Council in favour of the degree, wrote to the pro-Thatcher correspondents, while Denis wrote to the rest.
In retirement, I have been delighted to resume philosophical and scientific discussions with Denis. He has now come a long way from his reductionist beginnings. In his latest book, Dance to the Tune of Life, he enunciates a principle that he calls 'biological relativity'. This states that in biology there is no privileged level of causation: living organisms are multilevel open systems in which the behaviour at any level depends on higher and lower levels, and cannot be fully understood in isolation. Levels are distinguished from each other by their degree of complexity. If we start with atoms, we move upward through the levels of molecules, networks, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, whole-body systems and whole organisms.
One of the goals of reductionism was to eliminate from science all teleology or goal-directedness. In fact, Noble argues, teleology is ubiquitous in nature. However, it operates in different ways at different levels. At the purely molecular level, the protein-membrane network that sustains cardiac rhythm has no goal: its function only becomes clear at the level of cells. In its turn, the cellular activity serves a purpose that only emerges at the still higher level of the cardiovascular system.
While he remains a thoroughgoing Darwinist, Denis challenges the neo-Darwinism of Dawkins. He rejects the assumption that natural selection working on chance variations in genetic material is entirely sufficient to explain all evolutionary change, and has followed up the critique of The Selfish Gene that we began in his Holywell Manor drawing room years ago. In Dance to the Tune of Life, he argues that genes are not agents – selfish or unselfish: they are only templates – mere organs of the living cell:
There is nothing alive in the DNA molecule alone. If I could completely isolate a whole genome, put it in a Petri dish with as many nutrients as we may wish, I could keep it for 10,000 years and it would do absolutely nothing other than to slowly degrade.
Moreover, DNA is not sealed off from the outside world: it is subject to modification from within the organism and from the environment. Human beings and other animals are not lumbering robots but autonomous agents who can affect not only their environment but also the make-up of their own genome.
In 2017, Denis organized a joint conference between the Royal Society and the British Academy on the new trends in evolutionary biology. Despite attempts made to block it by outraged neo-Darwinists, the conference was well attended and excited all the participants. I am proud to have had a hand in the early stages of its organization. Its proceedings have recently been published by the Royal Society in its journal Interface Focus.
To this day, Denis and I continue our discussions on the relationship between philosophy and science. We both agree that the notion that science is necessarily and uniquely reductionist is not an empirical discovery, but a philosophical postulate. We both agree that teleology is undeniable and ubiquitous, but that we do not know, and perhaps cannot know, whether this is simply a fundamental feature of nature, or whether there is some supreme level at which it has an explanation. Certainly science cannot tell us whence the universe originated, and whether it has an ultimate goal. In his latest book, Denis suggests that even in asking these questions we have reached a boundary across which we cannot go.
(Brief Encounters: Notes from a Philosopher's Diary, pp 185-188.)
Kenny on Dawkins
Anthony Kenny on Richard Dawkins:
Richard Dawkins and I have been Oxford colleagues for most of our lives, and have been sparring with each other for many years. We agree with each other that most of what religious people believe is false, but unlike Richard I accept that religious beliefs may be quite reasonable, even if untrue. While I am not competent to challenge any of Richard's scientific statements, and while I regard his The Extended Phenotype as one of the last century's finest books of popular science, I believe that he greatly exaggerates the power of genetics to explain human life and thought. We first clashed in a seminar at Holywell Manor, chaired by Denis Noble, shortly after The Selfish Gene appeared. Richard thought that now the DNA code had been cracked, we would be able to understand the book of life. 'Do you think that a knowledge of the English alphabet is all you need to understand Shakespeare?', I asked him.
When I read The God Delusion I found I agreed with about 90 per cent of what it said, but that the area of disagreement meant that the two of us came to quite different positions about the rationality of religious belief. I will mention just one example. I am an agnostic about the existence of God, whereas Richard is an atheist and believes that he can prove that God certainly does not exist. A designer God, he maintains, cannot be used to explain the organized complexity we observe in living beings, because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. He calls this argument 'The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit', in tribute to Fred Hoyle, who once said that the probability of life originating on earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747. God, according to Dawkins, is the ultimate 747.
A traditional theist would say that Dawkins' argument misrepresented the notion of God in two ways. First of all, God is as much outside the series complexity/simplicity as he is outside the series mover/moved. He is not complex as a protein is; nor, for that matter, is he simple as an elementary particle is. He has neither the simplicity nor the complexity of material objects. Second, he is not one of a series of temporal contingents, each requiring explanation in terms of a previous state of the universe: unchanging and everlasting, he is outside the temporal series. What calls for explanation is the origin of organized complexity: but God had no origin, and is neither complex nor organized.
I made this point in a lecture to the Royal Institute of Philosophy in 2007. A few years later I was asked to take part in a debate, in Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre, between Richard and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The topic of the debate was 'the nature of human beings and their ultimate origin'. As an agnostic, I was supposed to be a neutral chair holding the balance between the Christian and an atheist. But as the debate proceeded I began to think that the kindly archbishop was letting Richard get away with some pretty feeble arguments, and so I began to intervene on the other side. When Richard again produced his Boeing 747 argument, I protested that he was confusing two kinds of complexity – complexity of structure and complexity of function. A cut-throat razor was a much simpler structure than an electric shaver, but unlike the shaver it could also function as a cut-throat as well as a razor. The archbishop, fingering his beard, said that he did not feel competent to adjudicate between us.
Richard and I have always got on amicably face to face, but have not been afraid to be rude to each other in absence or in print. At dinner, after the Sheldonian debate, I remarked to Richard that moving from The Extended Phenotype to The God Delusion was like moving from the Financial Times to The Sun. This did not go down well, and led to a frosty exchange of emails. Later, Richard took part in a debate in Sydney with Cardinal Pell. At some point in the debate, I am told, the cardinal referred to my critique of the argument for atheism: 'Ah, Kenny', Richard said. 'He is a qualified obscurantist.' Well, I do have a doctorate in theology, which I suppose from Richard's point of view is a professional qualification in obscurantism.
(Brief Encounters: Notes from a Philosopher's Diary, pp 183-185.)
Catholic exodus
A reason for the hope that is in you
John Lennox gives an encouraging talk with (mostly) good advice and helpful examples on how to talk to people about Christianity:
Lennox notes the #1 reason people leave the church (in England) is because they don't believe their questions have been addressed. In that vein, Lennox mentions he sometimes simply does a Q&A on whatever questions a congregation wants to ask instead of preaching a sermon to them. Here's the video:
Lennox writes more on these issues in his little book Have No Fear: Being Salt and Light Even When It's Costly.
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Can I get a witness?
Dad tries to save son from transgenderism
If we’re hearing all the relevant information about this story (and I urge “if,” because I haven’t seen the full trial transcripts circulated), it’s one of the worst state abuses of power I have ever heard of -- an act of child abuse encouraged and facilitated by the state. https://t.co/LqBFRUfWD2
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 23, 2019
And to piggyback on Steve's post as well:
1. If all the reports are accurate, then I couldn't agree more. It's maddening, infuriating, lamentable. The kid has no more hope for a happy childhood.
2. Not to mention by all accounts I've read the 7 year old boy doesn't want to be a girl but his mother is forcing her choice onto the boy. Does this set a precedence for parents to transition their children into a different sex against their children's wills? At this point, it looks like progressives are arguing women should be able to abort their child even as newborns no longer in the womb and women should be able to turn their children into whatever sex they wish their children to be despite biological realities. Is there anything women can't do to their children according to progressives?
3. The mother is a pediatrician who should know better. However she's a terrible and evil person. Indeed, it seems to me there are many women like her.
4. Women have had a loud and clear voice for generations, but who will speak on behalf of men? Men seem to be increasingly unfairly discriminated against in our society. Boys and men are increasingly tyrannized by third wave feminists and progressives in general. For example, Christina Hoff Sommers has documented a lot of this.
5. I don't know if there's any more hope for the father to win a court case. I don't know if he can appeal. Or even take it to the Supreme Court.
6. However, if there are no more legal options open to the father, and assuming most people bow to the evil judicial decision, then if it were me I think I'd consider trying to "kidnap" my son (in fact both of my sons since they're twins) and fleeing to another state or even another nation. I realize this is desperate, but I don't know what else the father can do. It seems he's only left with hard choices for his sons: a choice between state-sponsored child abuse under an evil mother in the US vs. a more normal childhood under a good father but living life on the run. But I think this kind of "kidnapping" is arguably justifiable on Christian ethics.
7. Remember this case whenever you hear liberals and progressives say things like "transgenderism doesn't harm anyone", "transgenderism is not a mental illness", "everyone should get a choice", "it's their choice, not yours", "you're bigoted against transgendered peoples", etc. The truth is liberals and progressives are always pushing their abnormal values onto normal people, but acting like they're the victims when normal people dissent.
What is death?
The following is an excerpt from Louis Pojman's book Life and Death (1992), pp 158-164. It discusses criteria for death as well as organ transplantation. I strongly disagree with Pojman on these matters. However, he gives a decent enough summary of the main categories for death and related issues that I'll quote it here. In addition, Pojman's argument (which was made in 1992) doesn't seem substantially different from how progressive ethicists argue today. I'll have to interact with Pojman at a later time.
Venial sin
One Catholic teaching almost all Protestants should easily accept: mortal and venial sin. This explains the existence of small sins we all regularly commit (venial sins, Jas. 3:2) and big sins “saved Christians” do not regularly commit like adultery or murder (mortal sins).— Trent Horn (@Trent_Horn) October 19, 2019