Upset Atheists

The Smithsonian Institutes's flyer advertising its IMAX theater. The dinosaur in the photo comes from the Creation Museum.
As I have been surfing the blogosphere over the past few days, I have seen three stories that relate to atheists being upset. I’ll start with the first one, which is both ironic and hilarious at the same time. It seems that the Smithsonian Institute has produced a flyer (shown on the left) promoting its IMAX theater. To entice the reader, there is a prominent picture of a dinosaur on the front cover. I am sure the marketing department chose the picture because it is so realistic. Here’s the problem for the Smithsonian: the picture is of a model from the Creation Museum, which promotes young-earth creationism! I find this particularly funny, since the Smithsonian has attacked the museum on its blogs.

For example, Sarah Zielinski wrote a post discussing how a group of creationist students from Liberty University visits the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History every year. She then mentions the “other side,” where a secular group of students from Indiana University visited the Creation Museum. She posts a video that the students made, and not surprisingly, rather than trying to address the evidence set forth in the museum, the students simply try to mock it. After the visit, the students stop at a restaurant about 10 miles away, and one of them says:

If there is a nexus of all the misinformation and propaganda against science and progressive education it is about 10 miles…education in general…it’s about 10 miles down the road.

Well, when the Smithsonian’s marketing department wanted to depict a dinosaur, it chose one from this nexus of misinformation. Not surprisingly, this hasn’t gone over well with some in the atheist community. For example, “The Friendly Atheist” mentions the founder of the museum, Ken Ham, saying:

*Sigh*

You win this round, Ham…

Smithsonian people, I know it’s just a picture of a random dinosaur and you would never endorse Creationism garbage, but you’re getting the image from people who wrongly believe dinosaurs lived with people.

To me, it’s not surprising that the Smithsonian unwittingly used a picture from the Creation Museum. While there are things in the Creation Museum with which I strongly disagree, overall, I found it to be significantly more scientifically accurate than most museums, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Thus, it’s not surprising to me that they found one of the Creation Museum’s dinosaur models to be an accurate depiction of a dinosaur.

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The “God Particle” Is A Stupid Name

The lines between these two charged particles represent the electric field that they produce. (Click for credit)
The media is abuzz with the announcement that two separate groups have discovered evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson, which has been called “the God particle.” That’s an unfortunate name, because the Higgs boson has nothing more to do with God than any other particle in His creation. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not that the Higgs boson is unimportant. Indeed, it is very important, and if the results announced really do indicate the existence of the Higgs boson, it is a major victory for the Standard Model of physics. It just has nothing special to do with God.

To understand what the Higgs boson is, think of something that is probably a little more familiar to you: the electromagnetic force. When two particles are charged, they affect one another through the electromagnetic force. If they are oppositely charged, they will attract one another, and if they both carry the same charge, they will repel one another. We can represent this interaction with a series of field lines, such as those given in the illustration above. Those lines show you the electric field, which causes the charged particles to interact with one another.

But how do these particles interact? How does one charged particle “know” that there is another charged particle out there, and how does it “know” whether to be attracted to it or repelled by it? The answer is that the charged particles exchange photons (particles of light). This exchange allows the electromagnetic force to work. If it weren’t for the exchange of photons, the two charged particles could not affect one another, so without the exchange of photons, there would be no electromagnetic force. In “physics speak,” we say that photons mediate the electromagnetic field.

The Higgs boson is, like the photon, a mediator. It is supposed to mediate the Higgs field, which is what the Standard Model of physics says determines the mass of every particle in the universe.

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Dr. Gowaty Answers Dr. Coyne’s Question

In one of his blog entries, Dr. Jerry Coyne asks the following question:

Sometimes I wonder why this small pack of loonies thinks that so many scientists—certainly at least 95% of biologists—are so deluded as to believe in Darwinism? Are we all simply victims of a 150-year hoax, a hoax involving fields as diverse as embryology, geology, morphology, genetics, biochemistry, and biogeography—all of which erroneously point to the same conclusions? Or do they think it’s a vast conspiracy in which scientists in their smoke-filled labs meet to push a theory that’s knowingly wrong—perhaps as a way to attain our real goal: universal atheism?

Not surprisingly, the correct answer isn’t given by Coyne. He is not the victim of a hoax, nor is he part of some wild conspiracy. Instead, he and those like him are simply stuck in a failed paradigm.

Someone who knows a lot about how people can be stuck in a failed paradigm is Dr. Patricia Adair Gowaty. She is the lead author of the study that demonstrated the flaws in the experiment used to construct the now-debunked Bateman’s Principle. Here’s how she sees the effect of paradigms:

Paradigms are like glue, they constrain what you can see…It’s like being stuck in sludge — it’s hard to lift your foot out and take a step in a new direction.

That’s why people like Jerry Coyne are so hopelessly devoted to evolution. They are stuck in its sludge, and they simply can’t take a step in a new direction, regardless of the fact that the data are clearing pointing that way.

The Latest Evolutionary “Truth” To Be Debunked

A sperm about to fertilize an egg. Note the large difference in size
(Image in the public domain)

In 1948, English geneticist Angus John Bateman published what became an incredibly influential paper in the biological community. In that paper, he reported on his experiments with fruit flies. Using those experiments and referencing other scientists’ observations, he concluded that, in general, males are promiscuous in their mating habits, while females are more choosy about their mates. This rule, he said, should be applicable to both animals and plants.1

What’s the reason for this supposed trend? It’s because sperm are small and easy to produce, while eggs are large and more difficult to produce. Notice the picture at the top of this post. It shows a sperm about to fertilize an egg. Note how small the sperm is relative to the egg. Indeed, the egg is so large compared to the sperm that only a portion of the egg can be shown in the picture. A male, then, invests little in producing his sperm, so it is most advantageous for him to mate with as many females as possible. The female, however, invests a lot in the production of an egg cell, so she must be choosy as to the males with which she mates.

In the intervening 60 years, Bateman’s principle has been considered unquestionable truth in the evolutionary community. I was taught it as “scientific fact” when I was at university, and many scientists go so far as to call it a law. For example, in her book on behavioral mechanisms in evolution, Emory University’s Dr. Leslie Real writes:2

Behavioral ecology has few overriding general principles that have survived empirical investigation for very long. One of the more persistent claims is that females will generally be more choosy than males in their selection of mates. Male fitness will thus be limited by access to females (leading to increased competition among males), while female fitness will be limited by resources available for offspring production and development. This general claim has been elevated to the status of a law and often appears in the literature as “Bateman’s principle,” named after A. ]. Bateman (1948).

There’s only one problem. Bateman’s Principle is definitely not a general rule in nature, and more importantly, we now know that Bateman’s original study was fundamentally flawed.

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CHARGING Towards an Understanding of Autism

There are many myths about medicine these days. Some are harmless, but many can lead to all sorts of problems. One very harmful medical myth is the idea that autism is caused by childhood vaccination. Although many careful studies have demonstrated that there is just no link between vaccines and autism, you can still find many websites that try to argue that vaccination causes autism. A while back, I participated in a debate hosted by one such website.

In the debate, I discussed and explained the studies that show there is simply no link between vaccines and autism. I also pointed out that some of the authors involved in these studies have a proven track record for finding a link between a vaccine and a serious medical condition, so it is hard to believe that they would miss a link between vaccines and autism if there is one. Not surprisingly, the website that hosted and heavily promoted the debate removed all mention of it afterwards, because the debate clearly showed the error of the idea they they are trying to promote.

Fortunately, real scientists are searching for the actual cause of autism, and lots of progress has been made. I recently ran across a study that addresses autism and the health of the mother during pregnancy. As a result of that study, I learned about a very interesting program that was started in 2003 and is just beginning to produce some very interesting results. It is called the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) study. The study recognizes that there seem to be both genetic and environmental risk factors for autism, and it is designed to produce rigorous research that will help us understand both.

The CHARGE study has already produced at least three very important and somewhat surprising results.

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You Cannot Promote Truth With Lies!

Not long ago, I wrote an article about how Dr. Richard Dawkins attributed a quote to St., Augustine, but the quote turned out to be 100% false. A while before that, I wrote an article about how an evolutionist and a young-earth creationist both mangled quotes by C.S. Lewis in order to make it sound like Lewis believed things that he didn’t believe. Well, here’s yet another example of someone using made-up quotes in an attempt to prove her point of view.

This article comes from World Net Daily, which is not exactly a paragon of responsible journalism. It was written by Marylou Barry, and it tries to make the case that scientists don’t believe in evolution because of the evidence. Instead, they believe it because they dogmatically reject the idea of a Creator. This, of course, is absurd, as there are many, many Christians who believe in evolution. If belief in evolution is based on the rejection of a Creator, no Christian would accept it. Nevertheless, Marylou Barry tries to make the case, and she does so by quoting famous scientists. Some of the quotes sounded a bit odd to me, so I did some checking. It turns out that many of them are either made up or taken completely out of context.

Let’s start with a simple one. Ms. Barry reports:

“Evolution is unproved and improvable, we believe it because the only alternative is special creation, which is unthinkable,” wrote the late Sir Arthur Keith, physical anthropologist and head of the Anatomy Department at London Hospital.

Since she doesn’t bother to source any of her quotes, I had to do a bit of research. The only source that has been given for this quote can be found in Comparative Views on Origins. The author (Brock Lee) claims that this quote comes from the forward to 100th anniversary edition of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, 1959.1 The problem with this reference is that Sir Arthur Keith died on January 7, 1955. That’s a full four years before this book was supposed to have been published! Keith did write an introduction to an edition of The Origin of Species that was published by J. M. Dent. However, it was published in 1928, and Keith’s introduction does not contain anything even approaching the quote that Barry gives. In the end, then, this is simply a made-up quote, and it doesn’t belong in any legitimate discussion of evolution.

Now if this were just one example among many quotes, I might be able to overlook Barry’s irresponsible behavior. Unfortunately, several other quotes in the story are either made up, edited, or taken way out of context.

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The Northeast Homeschool Convention

This past weekend, I spoke at the Northeast Homeschool Convention, the last of the 2012 Great Homeschool Conventions. While it had the lowest attendance of all the Great Homeschool conventions, there was a lot of enthusiasm, and I had a great time talking to (and with) home educators and their children.

For example, I had a wonderful conversation with a young lady who had just finished her junior year of high school. She told me that she really liked physics, but she didn’t like the mathematics associated with it. As a result, she had a hard time deciding what she would major in when she went to university. After talking with her for a while, I told her that it sounds like she enjoys science in general, not specifically physics. I suggested that she should go for a “natural science” major, which is common at many universities. Then, as she pursued that major, she might find the specific area of science that has the right mix of characteristics for her. During the course of the conversation, I found out that she was attending the University of Washington on a full-ride scholarship in gymnastics!

Of course, in addition to speaking with home-educating parents and their children, I also spoke to them. I gave a total of six talks at the convention, and (as always) I had a question/answer time after each. One of the talks was called Life and Its Amazing Design. In that talk, I discuss how the design I saw in nature convinced me of the existence of God, even when I was an atheist. I also discuss how that same observation convinced noted atheist philosopher Dr. Antony Flew that God does, indeed, exist.

Those who try to shut their eyes to the design that clearly exists in nature often try to point out what they think are “bad designs,” and vestigial structures are often given as examples. The problem is that very few vestigial structures really exist. In the talk, I discuss how at one time, evolutionists thought there were as many a 83 vestigial organs in the human body.1 However, over time, important functions have been found for all but one (the male nipple). In the course of making this point, I highlight the function of the appendix, as biologists still misinform the public that it is a vestigial organ.

During the question/answer time, a student said the common evolutionary response is that vestigial structures don’t have to be useless. Instead, they can evolve to perform some new function as the old function becomes unnecessary. I agreed with him that this is the common evolutionary response. However, I cautioned him that this is a very new response. It is certainly not what evolutionists thought throughout most of the history of the evolutionary hypothesis.

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Tragedy and Faith

My nephew, Nathan, who recently passed away.
Tragedy. There’s just no other word for it. My nephew, who was only 18 years old, died in an automobile accident. He and some friends were on their way to a fish camp to celebrate the end of school. They weren’t drinking. They weren’t doing drugs. The driver probably was speeding. They hit a rut in the road, and the truck they were in flipped over…into a swamp. Thankfully, there were people close by who were able to get the teens out safely…except for my nephew. He drowned before he could be rescued. His life ended after a mere 18 years.

Not too long ago, my aunt died. Her death was not a tragedy. She lived a full, happy life. She married, had a wonderful son, and truly enjoyed her life to the fullest. She had a strong faith, and she positively impacted a lot of other people. It was hard to say goodbye to her, and I miss her a lot, especially when I am playing cards at her favorite hangout, the American Legion Post in Lapel. But death is a part of life, and you expect it for people who are getting on in years.

Nathan was not getting on in years. He was in the prime of his life. He was taken from this earth before he could get married, have children, or even start a career. His parents will never know the joy of experiencing his college graduation, his wedding day, or the birth of his children. There will forever be a hole in their hearts, because a huge part of their lives was taken from them far, far, far too soon. Parents should never have to bury their children. It just isn’t right.

So what are Christians to do when faced with such a tragedy? Are they supposed to wonder why God took Nathan so young? Are they supposed to come up with some reason for why this had to happen? Are they supposed to make sense of it all? I don’t think so.

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Cells Might Actually Communicate with Each Other Using LIGHT!

This is a magnified image of a paramecium like those used in the experiment. (Click for credit)
I was reading an article on Dr. Cornelius Hunter’s blog the other day, and he mentioned a 2009 study of which I was not aware. I was surprised by what Dr. Hunter wrote, so I read the study myself and became even more surprised. Quite frankly, I nearly fell off my chair. I try to stay relatively informed on major advances in the sciences, but somehow, I missed this one entirely.

What am I talking about? It involves cellular communication. Biologists have been studying how cells communicate with one another for quite some time. In order for any multicellular organism to survive, the cells must cooperate with one another. As a result, they must communicate. Generally, this is done through chemical means: one cell releases a chemical into the environment, and other cells interact with that chemical, producing an effect. In the human body, for example, your insulin-producing cells (technically called the islets of Langerhans) release insulin into your bloodstream. When cells in your liver, muscle, and fat tissues detect the insulin, they respond by absorbing sugar from the blood. This regulates your blood sugar levels.1

Even when not part of a multicellular creature, cells in groups often communicate with one another. When bacteria group together in a colony, for example, they communicate with one another so that they can do things like forage for food as a group and form coherent structures such as biofilms.2 Once again, however, most of the research that has been done on how this communication takes place focuses on chemicals that the cells release into their environment.

The study to which Dr. Hunter referred looked at an entirely different means of cell-to-cell communication, and if its conclusions are correct, the method is nothing short of amazing.

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More Evidence Against Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos

In September, a high-energy physics group released some results indicating that they saw neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. This is a violation of Einstein’s special relativity, so it was met with much skepticism. Earlier this year, the group announced that it had found a problem with its experimental setup, and it wasn’t clear whether or not their result was valid. Well, another group has performed a similar experiment at the same laboratory, and they found that the neutrinos were not moving faster than light. I think it’s now safe to say that the faster-than-light neutrino result was incorrect.