In your faces evolutionists

We have been long told that most of the DNA we have is junk, useless leftovers with no function after millennia of mutation and selection. Apparently only gene coding DNA is functional. Thus it was in the 1980s, and 1990s, and even 2000s though some of the more astute were suspicious.

The creationists were more circumspect. Perhaps gene coding DNA was a small component of the genome but, they protested, all that DNA is there for a reason. We are designed and we are very complicated. Our lack of knowledge does not preclude that the rest of the DNA is functional, we just aren't finished looking. So the junk DNA scenario was disputed by creationists decades ago. Pseudogenes, they said, probably had a function and were not left over relics from our primate, mammalian or reptilian past. Other codes beyond the triplet codon to amino acid likely existed.

This week Nature published 6 papers of several they aim to publish on the ENCODE project, along with other related material at their site.

The publication has made this news though much of this kind of information has been known to several researchers. The importance of introns has been known for some time. That polymerases produce far more RNA than is translated into protein is documented, even if the reason the this has been elusive. Gene regulators and promoters have been known of for decades, though it turns out that enhancers do not exist solely adjacent to the gene, but at distances of hundreds of thousands of bases distant. Why? Well because the 3 dimensional configuration of DNA means that a distant "file" location may happen to be physically nearby.

Interestingly the design advocates were long claiming unknown function for junk DNA. After all, while a few mutations have accumulated since creation, 95% of our genome housing junk is not consistent with design, even broken design. Creationists were dismissed, but it turns out they were correct all along. And the evolutionists who insisted that our genome was predominantly junk are left looking the fool. So much for the off quoted adage,

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

Though I don't expect them to be questioning their dogma soon, rather adding some evolutionary spin,

Why evolution would maintain large amounts of 'useless' DNA had remained a mystery, and seemed wasteful. It turns out, however, that there are good reasons to keep this DNA.

Defining creationism

Creationism has a variety of definitions depending on who is using the term. Frequently it is used as a shorthand to Young Earth Creationism, sometimes to the consternation of those who hold to what they consider creationism but don't think the earth is young. Their complaint has some validity, but the cumbersome term Young Earth Creationism invites itself to be shortened. Biblical Creationism has been suggested as an alternative to Young Earth Creationism, especially considering that 6000 years is not really that young. I am not in favour of this. Though I think the Young Earth Creation position is biblical, it not as if other creationists all think their positions are unbiblical. Even if Old Earth Creationism turns out to be unbiblical it is premature to anticipate the outcome of the debate. Literal Creationism would be an alternative to Young Earth Creationism if it were not for the problem that literalism is frequently misunderstood to mean hyperliteralism.

I am not a great fan of eponyms though that is often the outcome. Descriptive labels are good. Perhaps the best labels are those invented by one's opponents so long the term is acceptable to its adherents.

Old Earth Creationism may include ideas such as Progressive Creationism and Gap Theory. I think it preferable to group the major positions logically, then discuss the variants within a general position.

Here are several positions. I have tried to describe the position as viewed by adherents, feel free to correct me if you think I have misconstrued your position.

Young Earth Creationism
Age of Earth
This is the position that God created the world ~6000 years ago, though some may hold to 10000 or 20000 years. The age is that of the earth, the age of the universe is variable, but it was made at the same time at the earth and the universe's age is the same as the earth's age when measured by earth clocks. It denies the big bang occurred.

Species Change
Young Earth Creationism rejects the grand theory of evolution, the idea that all of life came from a single ancestor through a variety of creatures over millions of years. While some claim that it holds to the fixity of the species, this is a less helpful definition due to consensus on how species are defined. Fixity of the genera would be more accurate. It claims that God created various kinds or types of animals so there is no common ancestor of all creatures.

Noachic Deluge
Young Earth Creationism holds that the Flood of Noah was global and is the cause of sedimentary rocks and much fossilisation of plants and animals.

Old Earth Creationism
Age of Earth
This position thinks that the age of earth is 4 billion years and the universe several billion years older. It subscribes to an ancient cosmology including the big bang theory and stellar evolution.

Species Change
Old Earth Creationism also rejects the grand theory of evolution, though they think that various flora and fauna appeared on earth at various times over the last several million years. This are often ascribed to ongoing creative acts. Species may go extinct and fossils are dated according to evolutionary geological scales. Radio-dating is accepted as reliable.

Noachic Deluge
Old Earth Creationism states that the Flood of Noah was local, that the geological strata antedate the Flood by millions of years, and most fossilisation was not a result of the Flood.

Theistic Evolution
Age of Earth
This position thinks that the age of the earth and universe is billions of years. It holds to big bang theory and stellar evolution.

Species Change
Theistic Evolution thinks that all species arrives on this earth according to Darwin's General Theory of Evolution. All living things are linked by common ancestry. They deny the fixity of species, genera, orders etc. as new species are always evolving. Some hold to chemical evolution of life, others argue that the first cell was divinely created.

Noachic Deluge
Theistic Evolution holds no specific view on Noah's Flood. It may be mythical. If it occurred it was local at not responsible for sedimentary rocks or fossils. It denies that all land animals except those on the ark were destroyed. It may deny that all humans, except Noah's family died.

Summary
Young Earth Creationism and Old Earth Creationism deny the Grand Theory of Evolution, that is universal common descent is not a correct description of the history of life. Their differences concerning the appearance of life on earth leads to significant differences in theology however.

Old Earth Creationism and Theistic Evolution deny the earth is only several thousand years old. Both think that the universe is billions of years old, stellar evolution is correct and radio-dating is reliable

Intelligent Design
Intelligent Design does not fully fit into this scheme. It has been accused of being clandestine creationism. I am not certain this is fair as creationism is often meant to mean young earth creationism, and many advocates of intelligent design deny a young earth.

Intelligent design only has a position on biological evolution. It has no position on the age of the earth or Noah's Flood.

Intelligent design argues that features in living things that have the appearance of design have been designed by an intelligent designer. That is, design is real, not apparent. Their arguments include information content in the genome, irreducible complexity of biochemical pathways, and statistical impossibility of evolutionary required genomic changes.

Dragonfly aerodynamics

It has been questioned why dragonflies have 2 sets of wings. 2 pairs of wings add nothing to lift, it is thought the second pair decreases lift, nor manoeuvrability. Instead of an second set of wings, flies have halteres which function as gyroscopes and give them significant manoeuvrability. Dragonflies are still highly manoeuvrable—they can appear stationery from the vantage of their moving prey—they may just use a different mechanism to flies.

Modelling of dragonfly flight suggests that 2 sets of wings can decrease energy requirements if they beat out of phase.

Despite efforts at understanding the implications of flapping flight with two pairs of wings, previous studies have generally painted a rather disappointing picture: interaction between fore and hind wings reduces the lift compared with two pairs of wings operating in isolation. Here, we demonstrate with a mechanical model dragonfly that, despite presenting no advantage in terms of lift, flying with two pairs of wings can be highly effective at improving aerodynamic efficiency. This is achieved by recovering energy from the wake wasted as swirl in a manner analogous to coaxial contra-rotating helicopter rotors. With the appropriate fore–hind wing phasing, aerodynamic power requirements can be reduced up to 22 per cent compared with a single pair of wings, indicating one advantage of four-winged flying that may apply to... dragonflies...

So a second pair of wings decreases the energy requirements of dragonflies by a significant amount. A useful design feature and seen elsewhere in the biosphere—V formation bird flight decreases energy requirements by half by decreasing drag.

The illegitimacy of anti-supernatural causation

My recent post led to some discussion, mainly in response to my opposition in defining science as methodological naturalism. I think the previous use of the term Natural Philosophy was adequate for the time. It made it clear that it was the study of natural phenomena without the baggage of additional metaphysics that are unnecessary to the practice of science. The subsequent addition of historical science to operational science to encompass all "science" makes short descriptions more difficult.

My contention is that forcing singular past events to be natural (that is not supernatural) is artificial (not genuine) and arbitrary (not determined by necessity); in that if God did make an object, methodological naturalism would prefer the false explanation that man made it over the true explanation that God did. david w states

The difference is artificial if there can be evidence for supernatural causation. How... [can] we know if God made a house?

This is putting the cart before the horse. One cannot argue philosophically that God does not exist thus he cannot make anything thus nothing is made by God. One can argue philosophically the case for and against God, but if there is empirical evidence otherwise, that must be taken into consideration.

To ask what such evidence is for God, but deny that evidence is even possible within one's philosophy is disingenuous.

If God exists and he made man, and is at least as capable as man then he can make anything man can make. It does not matter whether or not we can identify a particular object is made by God, the fact is this is theoretically possible. And a definition that excludes God from producing something when it possible that he could, and thus God didn't, even if he did, is fallacious.

I think there is reason to think that God made some objects. But definitive evidence, or even any evidence, that God made something is not necessary to allow that possibility. We allow for that possibility in other situations, such as an unknown culture, or the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

It must be recognised that we are looking at effects, thus inferring the source. Extensive knowledge, or any knowledge, about the source is not required beforehand. It is in studying the effect that we theorise about the source.

The only test of any analysis is its truth

I am currently reading America's Great Depression by Murray N. Rothbard. He makes an interesting comment concerning critiques of Austrian economic theory. If it was included in the first edition, this comment was made in 1963:

Hayek believes that Mises's theory is somehow deficient because it is exogenous—because it holds that the generation of business cycles stems from interventionary acts rather than from acts of the market itself. This argument is difficult to fathom. Processes are either analyzed correctly or incorrectly; the only test of any analysis is its truth, not whether it is exogenous or endogenous. If the process is really exogenous, then the analysis should reveal this fact; the same holds true for endogenous processes. No particular virtue attaches to a theory because it is one or the other.

I found this reminiscent of the intelligent design debate. My substitutions bolded.

Evolutionists believe that intelligent design theory is somehow deficient because it is non-naturalistic—because it holds that the generation of genetic information stems from interventionary acts rather than from acts of the organism itself. This argument is difficult to fathom. Processes are either analyzed correctly or incorrectly; the only test of any analysis is its truth, not whether it is naturalistic or non-naturalistic. If the process is really non-naturalistic, then the analysis should reveal this fact; the same holds true for naturalistic processes. No particular virtue attaches to a theory because it is one or the other.

Dysteleology

Evolutionists often argue against a designer by pointing to poor design in plants, animals, and humans. In his recent book By Design, Jonathan Sarfati makes the following points (my paraphrase):

1. This is not a scientific argument, it is a theological one. It is not saying anything about design but about the designer.
2. The examples offered are usually not bad design but a problem with our ignorance. We don't understand the design. If we understood the full function of the organ then the good design would be obvious.
3. Features need to be considered together and not in isolation. It is not one aspect that is being optimised but several.

These are profound points.

As an analogy consider a car, an object that is designed.

1. Pointing out why you think a car functions suboptimally does not prove the car is not designed, it says that you think the designer did a poor job.
2. Not understanding how spoilers work does not mean their presence is poor design, rather it reveals good design when you becomes aware of flow dynamics.
3. Designing for speed and crash safety are competing themes. The fastest car may be unsafe in a crash. The strongest car may be slow. A car may be optimal for speed, safety, space, and fuel efficiency; though not maximised for any single one of these features.

Physics is descriptive not prescriptive

It is important to remember the laws of physics come from observations. We observe regular patterns and attempt to come up with mathematical models that explain the data and predict related phenomena. The predictive component is validates the model, it suggests that the model is more likely to represent reality. Explaining anomalous data is less impressive because models can usually be adjusted to fit. Models with simple equations, symmetry and covering more fields are generally favoured.

Kepler and Newton came up with orbital equations and gravitational theory that explained the movement of the the planets. Using gravitational laws we can predict the movements of the moon around the earth to great accuracy.

But the moon does not orbit the earth because of these equations, the moon orbits the earth and these equations describe the movements.

God set up the universe to function how it does. But God also sustains it, this means that it is not wound up and would run without him, if God removed his sustaining power the universe would instantly cease to exist. Anti-theists complain that this means we cannot do science, that we are at the whim of a God. Well we are dependant on him, but that does not mean that the universe is irregular and unpredictable. Leaving aside the fact that an atheist view of the universe gives us no reason to even trust our senses, if God is not capricious, then we can rely on his usual providence. We can therefore examine the universe with an assumption of a constant God who set up the world with a high degree of predictability.

This predictability has been known by all cultures and predates the scientific method—the scientific method gives a tool to gain underlying knowledge and make predictions based on models. As the earliest scientists said, they were thinking God's thoughts after him. Isaac Newton stated,

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being.

Because God sustains the universe he can manipulate it at his will. Not that he necessarily does this on frequent basis. This intervention we refer to as (specific) providence if God's hand guides specific events according to his will, or even at our request; we refer to it as miracle if it involves the overriding of physical law. Both the general upholding of the universe and a specific change to how the world usually operates are of equal ease for him. If God can stretch out the fabric of space then the multiplying of loaves and fish is of little difficulty.

That is why science is unable to disprove miracles. Miracles are not within the domain of operational science. Miracles are God's specific activity, not his general activity. We cannot observe regularity in miracles to formulate physical law. However they are provable, just via another method: testimony. Proof of miracles is via witnesses.

Miracle is also proof of the supernatural. Science can say the the world operates "like so" under the normal scheme of things. Observations that contradict what we know may be due to miracle and science can say nothing against it—science does not describe specific providence, only the general. Dead men do not come back to life according to biological science, but there is nothing to prevent God doing this in a specific case if he so wishes.

The design argument

The heavens declare the glory of God,/
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)

In essence this is straightforward. In everyday life it is apparent that many things are designed by men. We recognise design. And we know that designed objects have a designer. The parallel is that we see many other things that are not designed by men but are clearly designed.

We recognise design by purpose or intent. While a splatter painting may have been drawn by an artist there is no clear intent so whether or no it was designed is not clearly apparent. However the more intent something has the more clearly it was designed.

Information content is a helpful way of assessing design. The higher the information content the more obvious it is designed. Information is based on specification and complexity. So if something is ordered it is not particularly complex. If something is complex based on the number of bits to store it, it is may or may not be specified. So storing 100 addresses is specific, 100 random letters is not. A measure of information can be made by the the storage capacity required to hold the generator of the data. For a story it is the data (ie. every single letter, though thru lossless compression it may be possible to minimise information content) as a story is specified and not predictable. However large quantity data that is predictable (⅓ in decimal), calculable (π, e) or random has a low information content.

The issue with random numbers or noise needs more explanation. It is low information because describing a random number generator requires little information. To describe any single random number will require as much data as an equivalent length story. The reason this is not high information is that it lacks any specificity. The binary data that describes a jpeg picture may appear random but it is specific, it stores data about a specific object.

People don't perform these calculations rigorously but as information content ranges over multiple orders of magnitude design is easily recognised. A smoothed rock is easily distinguishable from a carving. We can tell a painting from spilled paint (usually). We know that a book has an author.

So it is clear that design can be seen even if the designer is not known. The existence of a designer can be inferred from design. So when one sees all the design in this world that is not from the hands of man the logical conclusion is that a designer exists and he is other than man. One may claim this designer is other than the Grand Designer; whether that be an angel, a lesser god of a pantheon, an extraterrestrial being. But whatever the immediate source, these beings are still creatures and the ultimate source must be the Creator.

Evidence for God

Romans introduces us to how general revelation can point people to God.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. (Romans 1:18-20)

What is the form of this revelation? His eternal power and divine nature. So there are things (perceived) in this world around us that point to attributes of God which in and of themselves are not visible.

What points to God's eternal power? Those things which may suggest to us God is powerful. The size of the earth, the stars of space, the creatures of this world. Creations that speak of design.

What points to God's divine nature? Those things in this world which reveal the image of God in creation. The behaviour on animals, the behaviour of humans, love, goodness, the hatred of murder and falsehood. Attributes that speak of morality.

I have left out the distortion of these due to the Fall as this is not of God's doing. So broken design and immoral actions while in existence may not point to God directly, though they may do indirectly.

Now there may be other aspects further than design and morality that Paul is alluding to here, but these seem to me to be the 2 that are enough to convince men about God. And while there may be many proofs of God's existence, it is possible that these 2 are the most powerful.

There is another reason to suspect that design and morality are the 2 classes of evidence that Paul is referring to, further in the passage Paul states the results of denying them. Romans continues

So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:20-25, 28-32)

In not acknowledging God people now sin in the areas that they deny. They reject design so they worship the designed rather than the designer and they reject morality so they act immorally but claim their actions are eumoral (morally good).

So it is possible the strongest evidence for God's existence and our obligation to him come from the existence of design and morality. These are not the only arguments that could be made for God's existence, but they are arguments that all have some appreciation of. The kalam argument (all effects need a cause) is a strong argument but it relies more heavily on philosophy and abstract logic; therefore it is less easily grasped by all people. Whereas we are forced to face the moral argument by our consciences daily, and design is apparent in many things of varying complexity which, again, we see daily.

And it is possible that the reality of design and objective morality are the aspects of the general revelation of God that is most attacked.