Creationist Wisdom #99: DNA’s Half-Life

ONCE again, dear reader, we bring you the view from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) — the granddaddy of contemporary creationism. They have this new article at their website: Intact DNA Discovered in Ancient Salt Deposits. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us:

Researchers recently analyzed bacterial DNA that was found in small pockets within various salt deposits. The focus of their research was to compare differences in DNA sequences taken from different geological ages. However, the very fact that DNA — with its short half-life — was found at all comes as a surprise to those who were thoroughly convinced of the material’s great ages.

DNA has a half-life? We know about half-life as a measure of radioactive decay. The term is also used, although with far less precision, in various biological contexts, often in reference to something like the shelf-life of drugs or blood plasma. But DNA half-life?

Anyway, the article is about the discovery of what is said to be intact DNA from 419-million-year-old bacteria. The find is briefly described in Discovery News: World’s Oldest Known DNA Discovered.

Let’s read on to see what else the creationists have to say about it:

This raises another question that is equally difficult to reconcile with evolutionary time. The bacteria are known to have been in isolated pockets within solid salt deposits. There are no cracks leading to or from these pockets, so the salt-loving species of bacteria must have come from a tiny population that was trapped there since the vast salt deposit was formed. That’s what makes its DNA valuable to the investigators, since the specimens have been isolated from outside influences. But living bacteria, like any other living thing, produce metabolic waste that becomes toxic. Why did they not poison themselves to death in mere thousands of years?

A fair question. We continue:

Despite lingering questions like these, Melanie Mormile of Missouri University of Science and Technology told Discovery News: “There is better and better evidence that these organisms can somehow survive for these amazing amounts of time.”

Yes, that’s what she was quoted as saying. Here’s her page at Missouri University of Science and Technology: Melanie Mormile, Ph.D. But what does she know? She’s only a scientist, and we assume she’s also a — gasp! — “Darwinist” too. We need some creationist insight from ICR:

Both common sense and science, though, argue that they could not have survived.

Really? Okay. They go on to conclude:

Therefore, a more reasonable conclusion from this data would be that there is better and better evidence that these “amazing amounts of time” are actually too amazing to be true.

Perfectly reasonable — for a creationist. You noticed, of course, how ICR mocked Melanie’s “there is better and better evidence” phrase. Classy.

According to the article in Discovery News, the scientists who found the bacterial DNA in salt tracked the salt to a mine in Saskatchewan, and the source rocks in the mine formed when a sea dried up around 300 million years ago. What does ICR say about that? They don’t mention it.

Here’s ICR’s final paragraph — pretty much what you were expecting:

This miniscule amount of bacterial DNA seems to send a massive message about the young age of the salt deposits in which they were found. And what better mechanism to explain the formation of such huge salt deposits containing still-fresh bacteria populations than a recent, worldwide, watery cataclysm?

There you are — evidence for the Flood and a 6,000 year-old earth just keeps piling up. (Well, something keeps piling up.)

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Discovery Institute: Tantrum at Year’s End

THE neo-theocrats have another of their “Bah, humbug!” blogs post at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids). This one is by that scientific giant, Jonathan Wells — about whom we wrote The Genius of Jonathan Wells.

Without further introduction, dear reader, we present some excerpts from his year-end rant: PBS: Pushing Bad Science. With bold font added by us, and with a few of his links left out, Wells says:

As 2009 comes to an end, so does the delirium of “Darwin Year.” From “Darwin Day” on February 12 (Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday) to November 24 (the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species), Darwin’s disciples spared no expense (using mostly taxpayers’ money) in their exuberant celebrations, even though most of Darwin’s ideas were mistaken and his contributions to science were insignificant compared to those of hundreds of others—including (to name just a few) Isaac Newton … [list of worthies omitted].

Quite an opening — delirium, Darwin’s disciples, taxpayers’ money, mistaken ideas, insignificant. Let’s read on:

What Darwin promoted was not empirical science but materialistic philosophy.

Actually, it was empirical science, and much of it has held up very well, in spite of continuous testing whenever a new fossil is found or another creature’s DNA is explored. We continue:

But the assumption that everything can be explained by natural causes is characteristic of materialistic philosophy. This is why atheists want to establish Darwin Day as a secular alternative to Christmas.

Darwin Day instead of Christmas? We hadn’t heard of such a proposal, but new holidays are constantly being promoted by various groups — far more than there are available days in the year. Aside from that, which Wells tossed in as an emotional distraction to fire up his natural fan base, the philosophy of metaphysical naturalism probably does assume that “everything can be explained by natural causes,” because that philosophy asserts that no other causes exist.

Science, however, is not congruent with metaphysical naturalism. Whatever personal beliefs a scientist may have about supernatural affairs — and some definitely have a wild streak — a scientist’s professional work is concerned only with natural phenomena. That isn’t because he’s philosophically required to reject the existence of fairies and angels, but because there’s no way to verifiably observe supernatural entities or test their influences on the natural world.

Then Wells gets around to the matter suggested by his article title — “bad science” pushed by PBS:

The U. S. “Public” Broadcasting System (PBS) has a long history of promoting materialistic philosophy disguised as empirical science. In 1980, PBS brought us Carl Sagan’s thirteen-part Cosmos series, which featured Sagan — in the name of Science — assuring us that “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”

That must have driven the creationists crazy. We can imagine them screaming at their television sets: “There’s more than the cosmos! Much more — there’s also Oogity Boogity!” Maybe that’s true, but until the Discoveroids devote their resources to inventing an angel detector, we won’t be able to study the supernatural side of things. Moving along:

In 2001, PBS broadcasted the seven-part series Evolution. The first episode featured atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett praising “Darwin’s dangerous idea,” which according to Dennett “eats through just about every traditional concept” — including the concept of God. (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, p. 63) At the time, the Discovery Institute published a scene-by-scene viewer’s guide that documented the flawed science and anti-religious bias of the series, yet PBS’s Evolution is still being used to indoctrinate students in U. S. public schools.

How frustrating it must be to produce material that the rational world regards as worthless. Here’s more:

Now PBS is about to jump on the departing Darwin Year bandwagon with another special, “What Darwin Never Knew,” scheduled to air on December 29.

Wells included a link to a Discoveroid blog article about the new PBS show. Instead of wasting your time with that, here’s what the National Center for Science Education says about it: What Darwin Never Knew.

What else does Wells have in his article? Quite a bit, but little of it is worth your attention. For example:

If the developmental genes of insects and mammals are similar, then — as Italian geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti puts it — why is a fly not a horse?

The standard Darwinian answer still attributes differences to DNA mutations. But biologists have now generated all possible developmental mutations in fruit flies, and the evidence shows that there are only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly. Not even a new species of fruit fly, much less a horse fly or a horse.

We’ve found that all of Wells’ writing is more or less at that level. Click over there and read the whole article — if you like that sort of thing. We’ll leave you with his final paragraph:

The American people deserve better from their “Public” Broadcasting System.

We too have gripes about using tax money for PBS — and for a thousand other things — but that’s not the issue here. Wells’ complaint seems to be of a more theocratic nature — he’s upset that the government isn’t promoting his personal religious views.

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Intelligent Designer on Holiday

Death Takes a Holiday (1934)

WE know how to handle the news that creationists are forever stirring up. But the noticeable lack of news about The Controversy this weekend has kept us especially busy here at the CITADEL — The Curmudgeonly Institute for Tactics, Advocacy, and Defense of the Enlightenment Legacy — the global nerve center for monitoring events throughout the Creosphere, where your Curmudgeon is headquartered in his secret underground control room.

What could be causing such an unnaturally quiet news period? It’s certainly not that the creationists have given up their madness and accepted reality — that’s never going to happen. Suspecting that there might be trouble brewing, we began scanning for news far beyond our usual search criteria.

Was there anything historically special about today? Not really. It was on 27 December 1831 that Darwin embarked on the HMS Beagle, but that couldn’t be it. If the other Darwin anniversaries this year didn’t stun the creationists into silence or drive them to violence, the Beagle‘s departure date certainly wouldn’t have any effect.

So we sent our operatives out with instructions to disguise themselves as paparazzi. They went to rock concerts, night clubs, stylish restaurants, and glitzy parties — strange events and venues where science types aren’t usually to be found. And one of them hit pay-dirt!

Therefore, dear reader, your Curmudgeon is the first in the world to report why The Controversy has been so languid lately. The reason is this: The Intelligent Designer is romantically involved with the Tooth Fairy.

Thanks to our diligent operative in Seattle, we have the evidence on tape. Much of it is unintelligible due to rap music in the background, but the tape clearly corroborates this much of our operative’s report:

“We were made for each other,” gushed the tipsy, tutu-clad Tooth Fairy, as she gazed adoringly into the vacant face of the Designer.

“Yes,” the Designer said, “it’s true. It was our destiny. Either one of us alone is formidable, but together — we’re simply fabulous!“

So that’s the big news this weekend. We doubt that a relationship such as theirs — based on literally nothing — can long endure, but while the currently-enthralled pair are keeping each other distracted from their regular activities, all will be quiet in the Creosphere.

How long can this unnatural coupling go on? Each of the supernatural sweethearts is riddled with deficiencies — non-existence being merely one of their more obvious shortcomings — so as soon as they become disenchanted with each other there should be a resumption of the usual of news about The Controversy.

Update: See Intelligent Designer on Holiday, #2.

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Creation the Movie: Darwin Does Detroit

YOU have heard about Creation, the new movie about Charles Darwin. The main character is played by Paul Bettany; Jennifer Connelly has the role of Darwin’s wife, Emma.

Our last posts on this subject were written when the film was showing only outside the US. Two months ago, in 1st Month’s Box Office Results we reported on the film’s UK results. It wasn’t a box-office smash. A few weeks before that we reported “Creation” Movie Gets US Distributor.

The film seems to have arrived in the US. The first American review we’ve seen appears in the Detroit News, a failing newspaper in a failing city. It’s titled ‘Creation’ film distorts history through evolutionary eyes.

It required the labor of three geniuses to write this review: Ted Baehr, Jeff Holder and Tom Snyder. At the end of their piece we are told:

Ted Baehr is founder and publisher, Jeff Holder is managing editor and Tom Snyder is editor of Movieguide, a family guide to movies and television.

That’s an impressive lineup. This review is presumably the best work that Detroit has to offer. We’d like to give you some excerpts from the article, but that paper is owned by Media News Group, and they’re suing bloggers who excerpt their stories without permission. So you’ll have to click over there to read it for yourself.

We’ll just give you a bit of description. They start out by blaming the Controversy between evolution and creationism on the media. All this time you’ve been thinking it was caused by the creationists. Well, we’ve all learned something today.

They’re also surprised that the film isn’t about Genesis — you know, that word “Creation” in the title. Imagine their shock when they realized it was about Darwin — the God killer.

They’re very upset that Darwin is shown as the hero of the movie. It’s possible, we suppose, to show the science-deniers as heroes. Such a film’s happy ending would be a final scene in which the scientists were being burned at the stake while the virtuous townsfolk — wielding torches and pitchforks — joyously cheered in triumph.

Wait — it gets better. Then the Detroit movie reviewers then tell us where Darwin went wrong — he ignored the fall of mankind and subsequent curse of God.

This may be hard to believe, but Detroit’s movie reviews are even worse than their economic problems.

Copyright © 2009. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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