February 25, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

There is an online game called
Photoshop Tennis, which
illustrates some valuable points about evolution. The game works basically like
this: A pictures is posted by someone, and others doctor the picture
slightly(?), one after another, using Adobe Photoshop. The results are sometimes
interesting, thoughtful, or funny. Darwin
himself made an appearance, in honor of his 199th birthday, but that one,
because of its strongly understood theme, is not typical of the works found at
Photoshop Tennis. That "theme" even seemed to some to require mention of the
Bible. The underlying concept has an obvious parallel with Darwinian evolution,
in that each picture is only slightly altered, and eventually major change has
taken place. But there are non-parallels, which may not be as obvious. Take for
instance Black & White or how about Mutant Fish.
First, the changes, no matter how slight, are not truly random. No one would
believe that the added person or bird or whatever in a picture is the result of
random digits dropped in. For one thing, they are recognizable. (They have
information.) All are obviously intentional and intended by someone exactly
where they are placed. Intelligence is required, regardless of how weird, or it
couldn’t happen. Second, the additions each take the picture into a new
direction. The more additions, the more bizarre and less meaningful the picture
becomes. For information to accumulate in a meaningful way, with any semblance
of direction, intelligence is not enough. There must be a united or integral
intelligence. In other words, one intelligent designer. This conclusion does not
require the Bible, just logic.

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February 20, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

This first paragraph is rather technical, so some readers
may wish to skip to the second. I waded into some deep water with my last post,
and need to sort out the technical responses. The responses, mostly to my
chagrin, were well-stated and deserve a reply. I promised to check out the
objections, and found the following: Cells have indeed been found
without mitochondria, the energy-producing organelles that power most of
what happens in cells as we know them. These are amitochondrial (meaning
"without mitochondria") parasites that generate their ATP (energy packs) from an
organelle called a hydrogenosome. Not that Wikipedia is the ultimate authority,
but I read there that hydrogenosomes are suspected of evolving from mitochondia.
This is also suggested by the observations of
Peyretaillade et. al, who conclude that the prokaryote-like features within
these organisms "may be derived rather than primitive characters." If that is
the only case, then organisms that do not possess mitochondria cannot be boasted to
represent cells before mitochondria. My core point remains, i.e., the idea that
there once was an ancestor of all cells that had no mitochondria lacks support.
The strongest "evidence" seems to me to be that cells with mitochondria exist,
and if we assume that Darwinian evolution is true, then all life came from
simpler life, and the simplest life must have come by chance from non-life,
therefore there must have been an organism before with no mitochondria, and if
it generated some energy pack simpler than ATP, it is yet to be even
theoretically explained. Again I confess, I am in over my head, but if this
logic is not correct, someone please set me straight.

But speaking of setting me straight, another blogger
pointed out that oxygen-processing is not required by all cells. I’m nailed on
that one, and I have even written about such organisms in previous posts myself!
I should have stuck with the energy issue, and my point would not have gotten
lost with my credibility.

Most of my credibility was lost on the particular article I
chose as my Exhibit A. There apparently was quite a bit more wrong with the
article than the creationist position. I would ask readers to note, however,
that the Chronicle article and the article objecting to the Proteomic
submission did as I suggested camp on the creation or anti-evolution issue to
the neglect of the deeper, and I would say more serious problems of plagiarism
and breaches of grammar and logic. The seriousness of the other issues makes the
point even stronger that they should not have been upstaged by objections to
Darwinism.

I will leave my February 8 entry as is, because a) I have
begun it with a caveat about my short-falls, but more importantly because b) it
and the responses to it illustrate what this blog is all about, namely academic
freedom. This is what is supposed to happen: When statements are made in the
name of science, we should applaud the raising of objections to unsubstantiated
remarks. Therein lies the only possibility to advance science.

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February 8, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

(There are apparently major oversights in my following entry, but I will not strike or revise it yet. Mainly because the comments I am receiving have been very constructive, and I want to give them serious attention before taking action. In the mean time, I encourage anyone reading this entry to also read the comments. I have posted all, but I have a request: As you comment, please give some references for your position, so all may benefit. No misinformation was intended on my part, and I am glad to see the effectiveness of blog peer review at work.)

"If there were any real evidence contrary to evolution, we
would find it in the scientific research journals, right?" Consider the
following article which may not see the printed page next month. It is entitled
"Mitochondria, the Missing Link Between Body and Soul: Proteomic Prospective
Evidence," and passed review for Proteomics, "a well-regarded molecular-biology
publication," according to the
Chronicle of Higher Education. At least it was well-regarded until this
slipped through the filter. Editors made a horrible mistake: They allowed an
article to slip through that contains a few phrases like "single common
fingerprint initiated by a mighty creator." (Please note that the word "creator"
is lower case.) If you go to the blogs which slam the article, the authors, the
journal, and the editors, and there are many, you will find a variety of
objections, to include grammar (the authors are dealing in a second language),
but make no mistake about the real objection- -the one that led to all the
search for other problems. Take for instance,
Pharyngula, a blog which leads into its attack of the editors by saying
plagiarism get past them. It gives one sentence as an example of this flaw, but
then dedicates most of the article to restating and discussing whole paragraphs
that leak words like "wisdom" into the discussion of mitochondrial
workings. This particular blog sees no logical connection between the
description of the ubiquitous mitochondria and the possibility of a creator, but
buys whole heartedly the theory that this source of power for the cell holds its
place as the result of having been swallowed by a more primitive cell form in
the primordial sea. According to that
theory, there once was a cell form that had no mitochondria, but upon
swallowing one (prokaryotic
bacteria are basically free-floating mitochondria), it became a new more
advanced form of cell, which has reproduced with mitochondria ever since. No
incredulity is wasted on the fact that the cell form without mitochondria has
never been found in fossil or living form, and that no one can even explain
how such a cell could survive without the
oxygen-processing provided by mitochondria.

But I digress. The real issue is the dual no-no of
suggesting that evolution cannot explain everything and that the only logical
alternative to that there might be a designer. This is brought home as the real issue
in Pharyngula by its closing reference to
Revista, a journal that made the mistake of publishing authors who suggest
intelligent design might have merit and thereby lost status. Forget the hype
over plagiarism and grammar. The Chronicle of Higher Education’s "Daily Report" for Feb 7,
2008 introduced its link to the article in question by saying, "’Proteomics’ has made
available online a paper on mitochondria that includes language in opposition to
the theory of evolution." That is the real crime.

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