July 2014 : Proslogion

Geneticists’ Bias Causes a Big Mistake

This is one way to visualize a coding section of RNA. It has a start codon that tells the cell to start making a protein, followed by a recipe for that protein. Then there is a stop codon, to tell the cell that it is done making the protein.

You’ve heard it many times before. The vast majority of DNA is junk. Of course, the ENCODE project showed how wrong that notion is. Now that we know the vast majority of DNA is functional, you might wonder how in the world the idea of “junk DNA” became so popular among scientists. I suspect there are many reasons, but some recent research has revealed one of them – a bias regarding what it means for DNA to be functional. The research was done on molecules called long non-coding RNAs, which are commonly referred to as lncRNAs.

What are lncRNAs? Well, let’s start with what RNA is. The genes that your body uses are in your DNA, most of which is found in the control center of the cell, called the nucleus. In order for your cells to use those genes, they must be copied by another molecule. This process is called transcription, and the molecule that performs transcription is RNA. Once it has transcribed the gene, RNA leaves the nucleus, at which point it is often referred to as messenger RNA (mRNA), because it is sending a message to the cell.

What’s the message? It is a recipe for building a protein. That recipe is put together in informational units called codons, and it goes to a ribosome, which is a protein-making factory in the cell. The ribosome reads the codons, translating them one-by-one into a protein. Not surprisingly, this process is called translation. How does the ribosome know when to start building the protein? There is a start codon that tells it to start. How does it know when to stop building the protein? There is a stop codon that tells it to stop. As a result, you can think of messenger RNA in terms of the illustration above – it contains a start codon, a recipe for a protein (the blue bar in the illustration), and a stop codon.

So how does this relate to lncRNAs? Well, messenger RNA is referred to as “coding RNA,” because it codes for the production of proteins. LncRNAs are called “non-coding RNAs,” because it was thought that they do not code for proteins. Now there are lots of RNAs that are thought to be non-coding, but lncRNAs are relatively long. That’s how they get their name. Well, it turns out for at least some lncRNAs, every part of their name (except RNA) is wrong.

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The 2014 Valley Home Educators Convention

This is me at my publisher's booth talking with two homeschoolers. — This is me at my publisher’s booth talking with two homeschoolers.

This past weekend, I spoke at the Valley Home Educators Convention in Modesto, California. It’s a mid-sized convention that is always well-run and a delight to attend. I gave a total of six talks: Why I believe in a Young Earth, Creation vs Evolution: Religion vs Science or Religion vs Religion, Homeschooling: The Solution to Our Education Problem, Why Homeschool through High School, What about K-6 Science?, and ‘Teaching’ the Jr High & High School Sciences at Home. They were all well attended, and I got several good questions. However, I did have one talk (I forget which one) after which no one asked a single question. I don’t recall that ever happening before.

I was a bit concerned about giving the first talk, because it tends to ruffle some feathers. In the talk, I make the (rather obvious to me) point that the young-earth interpretation of Scripture is not the only orthodox interpretation that submits to Scriptural authority. I demonstrate this several different ways, including by pointing out that some of the early church fathers (like Origen) interpreted the days in the creation account to be figurative and not literal. By the 1100’s a figurative interpretation of Genesis was widespread in the church. Other church fathers (like Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius of Alexandria, Augustine, and Hilary of Poitiers) believed that the days had nothing to do with the passage of time but instead were used as a means by which the things that were created could be ordered in terms of priority.

This, of course, goes against what some of my fellow young-earth creationists teach, so sometimes, the content of the talk is greeted with quite a bit of anger. At this convention, however, no one seemed to get angry. In fact, I didn’t get a single hostile question after the talk, which surprised me. Everyone who spoke to me about that talk later said they appreciated how I handled such a hot-button issue. I did get an interesting question related to the talk from someone who came to my publisher’s booth, and it’s the question I want to address in this post.

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An Update on Mark Armitage and the Inquisition

Mark Armitage giving a talk at a meeting of the Creation Science Fellowship. (click for source)

Last year, I discussed how Mark Armitage fell victim to the evolutionary Inquisiton. In July of last year, he published a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Acta Histochemica. In that paper, he reported finding soft tissue in a Triceratops fossil that is supposedly 65 million years old. Remarkably, the soft tissue was composed of tiny, fragile cellular structures which showed no evidence of being mineralized. In addition, there was no doubt that this tissue came from the Triceratops, as it has exactly the microscopic structure one would expect for bone tissue.

That was too much for the High Priests of Science. The Inquisition struck, and Armitage was fired from his position at California State University. Armitage himself commented on the post, indicating he was convinced that his firing was directly related to the paper and he would sue the university.

Today, I ran across an announcement from The Pacific Justice Institute indicating that he has filed the lawsuit. The announcement includes something Armitage mentioned in his comment – that a university official proclaimed:

We are not going to tolerate your religion in this department!

A staff attorney for the Pacific Justice Institute is quoted as saying:

It has become apparent that ‘diversity’ and ‘intellectual curiosity,’ so often touted as hallmarks of a university education, do not apply to those with a religious point of view.

That isn’t news to me. It isn’t news to a lot of other Christians who happen to be scientists, either. It will be interesting to see how this lawsuit progresses.

A Historian Asks: Is it okay to lie about history for a good cause?

Pinocchio, the beloved character in Carlo Collodi's novel, had a nose that grew when he lied. (click for credit) — Pinocchio, the beloved character in Carlo Collodi’s novel, had a nose that grew when he lied.
(click for credit)

Not too long ago, the Fox network aired a reboot of Cosmos. The first version, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, was a thirteen-part series hosted by Dr. Carl Sagan. The reboot, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, was a thirteen-part series hosted by Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. While both series were mostly about science, they each mentioned the history of science from time to time. While I can’t comment on the first series, I can say without a doubt that the new series was spectacularly awful when it came to science history.

It started off badly when the first episode elevated Giordano Bruno to the status of scientific hero and martyr. The problem is, of course, that history tells a completely different story. Bruno was a champion of all sorts of strange ideas (such as that Satan would be redeemed by God and that Jesus was a magician, not the Son of God), and when he did discuss science, it was clear he didn’t understand it very well. He ended up being a martyr for magic and the occult, not for science. In addition, the serious natural philosophers of the day, like Kepler and Galileo, opposed Bruno.

Perhaps the worst treatment of science history by the new Cosmos was its discussion of Newton. Dr. Tyson actually claimed

Newton’s laws of gravity and motion revealed how the sun held distant worlds captive. His laws swept away the need for a master clockmaker to explain the precision and beauty of the solar system. Gravity is the clockmaker. [Episode 3: “When Knowledge Conquered Fear”]

Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, the Master Clockmaker was the reason Newton came up with his Universal Law of Gravitation. Unlike the philosophers of the past, Newton believed that all motion should follow the same basic set of principles. This led to his Universal Law of Gravitation as well as his Laws of Motion. Why did Newton believe this? According to Dr. Morris Kline:¹

The thought that all the phenomena of motion should follow from one set of principles might seem grandiose and inordinate, but it occurred very naturally to the religious mathematicians of the 17th century. God had designed the universe, and it was to be expected that all phenomena of nature would follow one master plan. One mind designing a universe would almost surely have employed one set of basic principles to govern related phenomena.

So rather than sweeping away the need for a Master Clockmaker, the laws he discovered were firmly rooted in the belief that there is a Master Clockmaker.

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A Great Story I Heard During a Radio Interview

This is Vivienne McNeny, the Sociable Homeschooler. (click for her radio show website)

I just finished an interview with Vivienne McNeny, host of an internet radio show called The Sociable Homeschooler. It was a delightful interview for many reasons, not the least of which is that Mrs. McNeny has a wonderful personality and is great at interviewing people. At the beginning of our time together, she told a story that was very encouraging to me, and at least a part of that story should be encouraging to many homeschoolers as well.

She and her husband homeschooled their children, and although they are both focused on the arts, their youngest son, Simon, was focused on science. They used my high school curriculum for science, but they also read my book, Reasonable Faith: The Scientific Case for Christianity together. She says that her son enjoyed the book, and when he went to college, he referenced it in a paper he wrote for one of his science professors, Dr. Collin Thomas. Dr. Thomas requested a copy of the book, and Simon gave him one. He said that he really enjoyed the book, even though he is not a Christian.

Now, of course, that part of the story was encouraging to me, but the rest of the story should be encouraging to many other homeschooling parents. She said that this professor used to feel sorry for homeschooled students…until he started getting them in his college classes. Now he thinks they are better college students than his publicly-schooled students. She interviewed him on her radio show approximately two years ago, and the interview is fascinating. If you have time, I encourage you to listen to it in its entirety. It starts at 15:20 on the recording that is posted on the website.

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About That Habitable Planet…

This NASA image represents an artist's conception of what the first four planets around Gliese 581 were thought to look like in 2010. (click for larger version) — This NASA image represents an artist’s conception of what the first four planets around Gliese 581 were thought to look like in 2010. (click for larger version)

Gliese 581 is a star that exists about 20 light years away from earth. It became important in the astronomy community back in 2005, when a planet (dubbed Gliese 581b) was detected orbiting it.¹ Two years later, two more planets (dubbed Gliese 581c and Gliese 581d) were found there.² Two years after that, a fourth planet (Gliese 581e) was found.³ All of that was interesting, but it didn’t catch much attention outside of the astronomy community.

Then something amazing happened. A year later, Dr. Steven Vogt and his colleagues found two more planets (Gliese 581f and Gliese 581g) orbiting the star. The amazing thing is that one of those planets (Gliese 581g) was found in the habitable zone of the star! What does that mean? If a planet is too close to its star, it will get very hot. If it is too far from its star, it will remain cold. Life as we know it requires a fairly narrow range of temperatures to exist, so if a planet is to host life, it can’t be too close or too far from its star. It must be in a position that is “just right,” and we call that position the habitable zone of the star. Gliese 581g was in that zone, and even more amazing, it had a mass that was only 3.1 times as much as earth’s mass!⁴

What did that mean? It meant that Vogt and his colleagues had found the first planet that might be enough like earth to support life. Since it was only 3 times as massive as earth, it was expected to be rocky (like earth), and since it was in the habitable zone, it could have the right temperature to support life. Of course, there are lots of other requirements for a planet to be able to support life as we know it, but that was ignored in all the excitement. NASA released an image (shown above) of what the four inner planets orbiting the Gliese 581 might look like. Notice that the most prominent planet is Gliese 581g, and notice how similar it looks to earth. Dr. Vogt said:

Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent.

I blogged about this planet back in 2010, noting that it might not even exist. Well, it turns out that the latest, in-depth study of Gliese 581 confirms that Gliese 581g, along with Gliese 581d and Gliese 581f, don’t exist.

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Academic Freedom and Christian Colleges

This sign contains the English translation of Wheaton College's motto, "Christo et Regno Ejus." (click for credit) — This sign contains the English translation of Wheaton College’s motto, “Christo et Regno Ejus.”
(click for credit)

On June 30, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article by University of Pennsylvania English professor Peter Conn entitled, “The Great Accreditation Farce.” In that article, which Binghamton University history professor Adam Laats calls a “hatchet job,” Dr. Conn tries to argue that Christian colleges which require their faculty to sign a statement of faith should not be given accreditation. After all, he says:

Skeptical and unfettered inquiry is the hallmark of American teaching and research. However, such inquiry cannot flourish—in many cases, cannot even survive—inside institutions that erect religious tests for truth. The contradiction is obvious.

Now I have to admit I have some sympathy for that argument. In a post I wrote nearly three years ago, I highlighted one Christian university that does not make its faculty sign a detailed statement of faith: Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana. In that post, I said Anderson University “gets it” when it comes to what a university is all about – honest, open inquiry. In my view, a detailed statement of faith restricts the search for truth, and that’s not what a Christian university should be about. Certainly, a Christian university should be staffed by Christian faculty, but it should not restrict that faculty’s fields of inquiry with a detailed statement of faith.

Even though I have some sympathy for Dr. Conn’s argument, it is wrong on at least two counts. First, while I would never teach at a university that requires a detailed statement of faith, that doesn’t mean such a university shouldn’t receive accreditation. After all, the purpose of accreditation is not to make sure the university is a bastion of skeptical and free inquiry. Instead, according to The U.S. Department of Education:

The goal of accreditation is to ensure that education provided by institutions of higher education meets acceptable levels of quality.

This has little to do with how much skeptical and unfettered inquiry is going on at the institution. Instead, it has everything to do with the quality of the classes, the depth of the material covered, and the standards to which the institution holds its students.

The other reason Dr. Conn’s argument fails is more important: Using his argument, very few (if any) secular colleges could be given accreditation, because they don’t allow skeptical and unfettered inquiry, either.

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When it Comes to Temperature, You Might Not Be Able to Trust the Data!

Temperatures for the state of Maine from 1901 to a few years before the present, according to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). The two graphs were downloaded at different times and indicate completely different results.

In 2013, certified consultant meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo was putting together a talk and wanted to show a graph that illustrated how the average temperature of the state of Maine had changed over time. He went to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and downloaded the data. As shown in the top graph, the average temperature showed no trend (warming or cooling) for more than 100 years. This year, he was preparing a talk and wanted to update the graph. He went back to NOAA’s NCDC and downloaded the exact same temperature record, including more recent years.

The change was dramatic, as shown in the bottom graph. The data showed a clear warming trend. Was this dramatic changed caused by more recent years added to the new graph? No. It was caused by the old data! Between the times D’Aleo had downloaded the data, the temperatures for some of the previous years had been lowered, and the temperature for some of them had been raised. However, it seems that more of the earlier years were lowered and more of the later years were raised (or lowered less). As a result, the message of the graph had changed remarkably. Where just one year previously, the data showed no warming over the past century, that same data now show a significant warming trend over the exact same time period! As he states:

Does anybody know what the REAL temperature of Maine is/was/is supposed to be? I sure as [**BLEEP**] don’t. I don’t think NCDC really does either.

What caused Mr. D’Aleo to share this experience? It was a revelation that started with Steven Goddard (aka Tony Heller).

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Flu Shot During Pregnancy Produces Unexpected Benefits

If this woman gets a flu shot, it may produce benefits for her child. (click for credit)

I try to keep up with the medical literature, but a chemist who reads this blog, Dr. Jonathan D. Sarfati, made me aware of a couple of studies that I had missed over the past couple of years. Those two studies led me to a third study, and when all three of them are put together, they make a strong case for pregnant women getting the flu shot. I know there is a lot of misinformation out there related to the flu shot, but the evidence makes it clear that the shot is not only safe but also very beneficial, especially for pregnant women.

The first study Dr. Sarfati sent me was published in The American Journal of Public Health back in 2012. The authors used used Ontario’s birth record database (called BORN) to analyze more than 55,000 single-child births that took place in Canada during what the authors call “the 2009–2010 H1N1 pandemic.” They specifically looked at which mothers got the H1N1 flu vaccine. They found that 42% of the mothers did get the vaccine, while the rest did not. They also found that the mothers who received the vaccine were 28% less likely to deliver before their full term and 19% less likely to have a child with a low birth weight. The most striking finding, however, was that mothers who got the vaccine were 34% less likely to have a stillborn child.¹

Now this study was specifically focused on a time that health-care officials labelled as a pandemic. Does the flu shot offer the same benefits to the children of pregnant women during non-pandemic flu seasons? Another Canadian study indicates that it does. That study looked at a different database (one in Nova Scotia) for births that occurred from November 1, 2010 to March 31, 2012. There were more than 12,000 births during that time period, and only 19% of the mothers in the group had the flu shot. Nevertheless, they were 25% less likely to give birth to preterm infants and 27% less likely to give birth to infants with low birth weights. Unfortunately, only live births were considered in the analysis, so the risk of stillborn infants was not addressed.²

These two studies together make a very strong case that for the sake of their unborn children, pregnant women should get the flu shot. The other study that Dr. Sarfati sent me was a bit less conclusive (in my opinion), but it does suggest a link between the flu shot and autism. However, it’s not the link anti-vaccination advocates are looking for.

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The Appalachian Home Educators Conference

The view from Charlie's Bunion, which is a rock formation on the Appalachian Trail. — The view from Charlie’s Bunion, which is a rock formation on the Appalachian Trail.

This past weekend, I spoke at the Appalachian Home Educators Conference. I gave a total of eight talks over three days, which is a lot! Six of the talks were solo: Being a REAL Environmentalist, Why Homeschool Through High School, What About K-6 Science?, “Teaching” High School at Home, “Teaching” the Junior High and High School Sciences at Home, and Teaching Critical Thinking. I also did two talks with Diana Waring: Homeschooling: The Environment for Genius and Textbook Myths and How to Deal with Them.

In addition to having a great time talking with homeschoolers, I got a chance to spend some time in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The highlight was an 8-mile hike (4 miles there and 4 miles back) on the Appalachian Trail to a rock formation known as “Charlie’s Bunion.” The rock formation itself isn’t all that spectacular, but the view from it is! The picture above gives you some idea of what I saw. It was truly gorgeous.

Of course, the conference was the reason I went, so let’s get back to that. The talks went well, and I got a lot of great questions. One student who had used some of my books and then went to a secular university came up to me while I was at my publisher’s booth. He had a whole list of questions he wanted to ask me after spending a year learning science from an evolutionary point of view. I enjoyed answering his questions, and I was so happy that he was willing to take the time to get a different opinion instead of just blindly accepting what his professors told him, as is (unfortunately) the case for so many university students.

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