New intelligent design feature in the ostrich - its neck makes it feel cool in the heat

 

New intelligent design feature in the ostrich - its neck makes it feel cool in the heat.

But this is what the New Scientist says:  "It may have evolved partially as an adaptation to wildly variable climatic conditions."

This is in contrast to what we know of intelligent design in which some details cannot be explained away by trusting in the evolutionary standards such as mutations  and natural selestion, 

 Source: 

Buehler, jake. 2022, Ostrich necks act as a radiator to control their head temperature New Scientist 25 March. 

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How do we measure the fitness of animals?

 

Image courtesy of Jerry Thompson CC BY 2.0

  Joel Kontinen

How do we measure the fitness of animals?

Fitness is at the core of evolutionary theory, but Darwinist claim that it is difficult to measure accurately.

They say that it is difficult to measure the long-term fitness of animals, but they did it due to twenty years of precise field observations of a wild passerine bird population

These researchers used their study to come to grips with fitness.

But they could not find the answer. Natural selection that Darwin used in evolution did not give the results they wanted.   

Source:       

Ziva Alif et al. 2021. What is the best fitness measure in wild populations? A case study on the power of short-term fitness proxies to predict reproductive value bioRxiv 19 November .

Why Evolution is Different

Joel Kontinen

Why evolution is different. Natural selection can only provide small changes but they can't change an animal into something else.

This video shows how natural disasters can turn a planet into what we see around us. But can they?

Evolution, however, relies on the assumption that order improves over time. Evolutionists have argued that Earth is not a closed system because it does get energy from the Sun, but an influx of raw energy rarely if ever brings about order and progress.

Mathematics Professor Granville Sewell (University of Texas, El Paso) has written several papers on the second law.

Evolutionists Think That Natural Selection Is Forming A New Species of Himalayan Wolves

The Himalayan Wolves Image courtesy of Madhu Chetri, CC BY-SA 4.0.


Joel Kontinen

Evolutionist think that natural selection takes thousands of years for form new species, However, the real world shows that it is faster than that.

Now, it seems that high-altitude genes could turn Himalayan wolves into a new species.

The study is about the faeces of the wolves, which were sequenced by scientists

Together, these findings suggest the high-living wolf should be considered a distinct species—or at least as an “evolutionary significant unit,” the researchers write. And they support previous research suggesting these little-studied canids are the oldest lineage of modern wolves, having diverged from other wolves between 630,000 to 800,000 years ago.

High-altitude genes could turn Himalayan wolves into a new species, They showed that Himalayan wolves carry specialized genes that help them overcome a lack of oxygen, including ones that strengthen the heart and boost the delivery of oxygen through the blood.

This could be due to the animal’s hidden genetic disposition that gives it the energy to move in high attitudes.

Source:

Morell, Virginia, 2020. High-altitude genes could turn Himalayan wolves into a new species. Science 20 February.

What Makes Evolution Go Backwards?

Sometimes a tree can break Darwin’s plans.



Joel Kontinen

One of evolution’s truths is that it always goes forward. However, a trait than causes it to degrade and bring evolution to a standstill is also generally understood as evolution.

In other words, evolution has no clear focus. IT

In an articled in Science Daily, the evolutionist David Fisher shows that traits can also degrease: “The research appears in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, where lead author David Fisher shows that the increased evolution of selfless traits -- such as sharing food and keeping watch for one another -- is mathematically equivalent to the decreased evolution of individually beneficial traits.”

He then goes on to explain.

“For example, a fast-growing tree may take all the sunlight, water and nutrients out of the environment, causing its neighbours to grow slowly. In the next generation, more trees are fast-growing but are also nasty neighbours. As a result, negative social effects are much more prevalent, and so everyone's growth is reduced.”

This is natural selection doing what it should not do. as Michael Behe says, things don-t evolve, they devolve in the Darwinian world.

Source:

McMaster University. What makes evolution go backwards? Science Daily (19 March 2019).

Skepticism About Darwinian Evolution

Darwin.



Joel Kontinen

For decades, evolutionists attempted to explain virtually everything in the animal kingdom as a result of natural selection acting on random mutations.

“Over 1,000 doctoral scientists from around the world have signed a statement publicly expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution. The statement, located online at dissentfromdarwin.org, reads: ‘We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.* ”

Nonetheless, the researchers at the Third Way and the Royal Society in England are careful not to sound too anti-Darwin, even if they reject the random mutation and natural selection that Darwinism requires.

Source:

Evolution News, 2019. Skepticism About Darwinian Evolution Grows as 1,000+ Scientists Share Their Doubts. Evolution News And Science Today,(4 February).

New Epigenetics Study: Male Guinea Pigs Pass on Adoptive Responses to Environmental Changes

Guinea pig. Image courtesy of Laniik, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

In wild guinea pigs, “epigenetic modifications specific to individual environmental factors are passed on to the next generation. The study is published in the scientific journal Genes.”

They taught that natural selection and mutation would do the trick. As Ann Gauger tells us, “DNA is copied into RNA, then RNA is translated into protein. Consequently, proteins cannot exist without DNA. However, DNA cannot exist without proteins either.”

However, epigenetics did the job much easier:

Alexandra Weyrich and her colleagues studied “two groups of male wild guinea pigs. One group was fed a protein-reduced diet for two months, the other group was exposed to an increase in ambient temperature of ten degrees (Celsius) for the same period.”

“Epigenetic modifications can translate environmental changes much faster provided the genome already contains the necessary flexibility for an adequate response. During epigenetic modifications, the genetic code is not altered but specific genes are activated and strengthened or shut down through several chemical processes.”

Mutations cannot cause Darwinian evolution – they arise too slowly. And, as Gauger tells us, natural selection cannot make make us humans from a chimpanzee like forefather.

Source:

Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V (FVB) 2018. New epigenetic study: Guinea pig fathers pass on adaptive responses to environmental changes Phys. org (28 December).

Millions Of Years Without Any Proof

Marine Iguana, Image courtesy of RAF-YYC, CC BY-SA 2.0.




Joel Kontinen

“MILLIONS of years before the Galapagos Islands existed, there was another archipelago in the same stretch of water off the west coast of South America. And it seems those long-vanished lands probably shaped the evolution of some of the unusual Galapagos wildlife that later inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.”

How does he know this? For instance, the marine iguana, seems to be have come about earlier than the Galapagos Islands. And for a reporter who is well-versed in millions of years, that might should just right, but Darwin missed a lot, for example the finches gow by epigenetics, and he did not know that natural selection eliminates but it doesn’t create.


Source:

Barras, Colin, 2018..Lost ‘Darwinia’ islands could be origin of species in the Galapagos. New Scientistt (25 December).

Butterflies Boost Their Hearing with an Unusual Strategy

Image courtesy of D. Gordon E. Robertson, CC BY-SA 3.0.


Joel Kontinen

The world abounds with intelligent matter that cannot have come about by natural design. For instance, some butterflies aid their hearing so that it “enlarges its wing veins to pick up sounds it wouldn’t otherwise hear—a strategy that may be critical to its survival.”

Rcently, “researchers collected 30 common wood nymphs (Cercyonis pegala)—which have unusually swollen forewing veins—and played them low-frequency sounds” to them. “When the forewing vein was damaged, the wood nymphs’ ears were less sensitive overall, particularly to low frequencies between 750 and 5000 hertz, the team reports today in Biology Letters.”

They researchers suggests that “the audio boost may help wood nymphs pick up a broader range of frequencies in their forest environment, which could be critical for detecting potential predators.”

Not like the work of the blind watchmaker. This strategy needs intellectual wisdom, which only God can give.

Source:

Schembri, Frankie, 2018.These butterflies boost their hearing with an unusual strategy. Science (16 October).

New Evolution Story: Plants Cannot Talk, They Depend on Animas to Eat Their Fruit

Image courtesy of C.J Trew, Public Domain.



Joel Kontinen

Plants evolved scents and colours to say eat me to lemurs and primates. They cannot talk, so they depend on non-verbal signals to reach these animals.

Recent research has shown that certain plants have evolved ways to talk to animals. Researchers have found that “ripe figs emit potent scents”, Other fruits have evolved vibrant red and orange fruits that are easier for primates and birds to watch, the same team reported in Biology Letters.

That is something that plants cannot do. Natural selection can’t cause this.

Sometimes, Darwinism can be futile: We have four legs, as we have have a belly.

Source:

Schembri, Frankie. 2018. Plants evolved scents, colors to say ‘eat me’ to lemurs, primates. Science (10 October).
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Epigenetics Fuels Adaptation in Darwin’s Finches

Small ground finch (Geospiza fuliginosa). Image courtesy of Putneymark, CC BY-SA 2.0.




Joel Kontinen

Darwin’s finches should definitely be included in the list of arguments evolutionists should not use.

The tiny changes in beak size are not due to mutations and natural selection.

While they are featured in many Darwinian stories, facts do not support such storytelling.

New research suggests that the changes are due to epigenetics.

As a report posted on GenomeWeb puts it, “epigenetic variation between urban and rural populations of Darwin's finches … could underlie their adaptation to a new environment.”

The article goes on to say:

“The Galápagos Islands only recently underwent urbanization, leading the researchers to wonder how organisms there are coping with speedy environmental change. By examining populations of two species of Darwin's finches, researchers from Washington State University and the University of Utah uncovered morphological differences between urban and rural populations of Geospiza fortis as well as epigenetic differences between urban and rural populations of G. fortis and G. fuliginosa. However, as they reported in BMC Evolutionary Biology last night, they found little genetic variation.”

They did not find much morphological change in the birds.

“But when the researchers compared DNA methylation patterns — generated using methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP) sequencing — they did find differences between rural and urban populations in both species.

The genes associated with the differentially methylated regions the researchers identified were typically involved in metabolism, cell signaling, and transcription, though they also differed by species. In particular, they noted that some differentially methylated regions were associated with genes in BMP/TGF-beta pathway. BMP4 expression, they added, has previously been linked to beak shape in Geospiza.”

Earlier research has also discovered that epigenetic factors help organisms to adapt to their environment.

Source:

GenomeWeb. 2017. Epigenetic Differences Found Between Urban, Rural Populations of Darwin's Finches. (24 August).

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Epigenetics: The Non-Darwinian Development of the Fruit Fly

Fruit fly development does not follow Darwinian thinking. Image courtesy of André Karwath, CC BY-SA 2.5.





Joel Kontinen

Epigenetics is a big hurdle for orthodox Darwinism, in which random mutations and natural selection are supposed to run the show.

But often they don’t.

Darwinian mechanisms cannot improve the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) that is full of amazing technology.

New research suggests that epigenetics trumps Darwinian processes.

According to research highlights article in Nature:

“Environmental factors can modify the activity of genes in adult organisms without changing the underlying DNA sequences, but if and how these ‘epigenetic’ changes are passed between generations is not well understood.

Nicola Iovino at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany, and his colleagues investigated the inheritance of epigenetic modifications through proteins that DNA wraps around, known as histones.

They created fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) embryos lacking the enzyme Enhancer of zeste — one of a set of proteins that alters histone H3 by attaching methyl groups to create an epigenetic mark called H3K27me3.

Manipulated embryos showed similar levels of H3K27me3 at fertilization to those in unmanipulated ones at the same stage, confirming that both groups had inherited the modification from their mothers. But embryos lacking Enhancer of zeste could not propagate H3K27me3 during early cell divisions. They showed abnormal development and died before reaching adulthood. The authors suggest that inheriting H3K27me3 helps flies to regulate the timing and location of gene expression during early development.”

Darwin had next to nothing to do with this scenario. So, perhaps it’s high time to say good bye to his outdated thinking.

Source:

Nature Research Highlights. 2017. Epigenetics aids fly development (14 July).

No Credible Darwinian Explanation for the Origin of Consciousness

It’s hard to get consciousness from rocks, but evolutionists have to try.



Joel Kontinen

Consciousness is a ghostly thing in a naturalistic world.

A new paper nonetheless attempts to explain its purpose in a purely Darwinian way.

However, it can only offer some speculations as to why humans are conscious creatures. New Scientist mentions a few advantages of consciousness:

“It may have evolved to help us learn and adapt to changing circumstances far more rapidly and effectively.”

The magazine quotes philosopher of mind Thomas Metzinger at the University of Mainz in Germany, who suggests: “The capacity for rapid, effective learning would almost certainly be something that evolution would have selected and maintained.”

Not a single word about the origin of consciousness. Obviously, natural selection cannot select a trait that does not exist.

It thus seems that in this research, the beef is missing.

New Scientist has previously admitted that evolution does not explain consciousness. Now it seems that its reporters have forgotten what they have said.

Source:

Ananthaswamy, Anil. 2017. Consciousness helps us learn quickly in a changing world. New Scientist (27 June).

Weird Darwinian Story: Brightly Coloured Fruit Enabled Our Ancestors to See Colours

A recent Darwinian story features a rhesus macaque. Image courtesy of Einar Fredriksen, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).




Joel Kontinen

In Darwinian stories, the tail often wags the dog.

As the evolution of humans from ape-like creatures is dogma, Darwinists credit evolution for most if not all similarities we have with apes and monkeys.

The latest story features colour vision in us and in rhesus macaques. It is based on observing these monkeys in the wild.

An article in Science explains:

“A common genetic variation makes some females have three types of cone cells and others have two. Studies with captive macaques has shown that trichromatic females are faster than their dichromatic peers at finding fruit.”

The article moves quickly from fact to fiction: We have colour vision because some macaques evolved this trait.

What these stories never include are our unique traits.

While apes might be good at swinging from trees, they could never run a marathon.

Unlike us, they were never created in God’s image to walk and run upright on two feet.

Unlike apes, we have a chin, and the golden ratio in us speaks of ornate design that cannot be explained away by Darwinian mechanisms.

Source:

Price, Michael. 2017. You can thank your fruit-hunting ancestors for your color vision.. Science (19 February),

Snow Vole Upsets Darwinian Expectations

A snow vole. Image courtesy of Dodoni, Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Natural selection is a greatly overused explanation for almost any trait in living organisms.

However, Darwinian expectations seldom match facts. A paper published in PLOS BIOLOGY begins with the sentence: “In natural populations, quantitative trait dynamics often do not appear to follow evolutionary predictions.”

That’s right. The research is on the size of snow voles (Chionomys nivalis).

Timothée Bonnet and his colleagues at the University of Zurich observed the tiny rodents for ten years and found out that while bigger voles had more offspring, this did not lead to an increase in body size in the next generation.

It seems that environmental factors and perhaps epigenetics are running the show.

In recent years, natural selection has taken a lot of flak from both evolutionists and dissenters. (See details here, here, here and here.)

So, this might be a good time to dump Darwin altogether.

Source:

Bonnet, Timothée et al. 2017. Bigger Is Fitter? Quantitative Genetic Decomposition of Selection Reveals an Adaptive Evolutionary Decline of Body Mass in a Wild Rodent Population. PLOS BIOLOGY 15.

The Darwinian Roots of Lethal Violence

Ape morality? Image courtesy of Eleifert, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Evolutionists do not seem to have a solution for violence.

A new paper published in Nature sees lethal violence in humans as a trait we inherited from our (assumed) animal ancestors over millions of years of Darwinian processes.

This is a handy way of blaming evolution for our evil deeds.

The logical (Darwinian) take away lesson from this study is that since violence ts natural, we might as well forget its moral implications.

But that is not what the researchers have in mind. They cannot consistently follow their worldview, as deep down they realise that violence is wrong.

A little voice within us tells that killing is wrong.

It does not make much sense in a Darwinian world that does not allow for immaterial explanations.

But it is exactly what we would expect in the biblical worldview.

We could actually blame the acceptance of evolution for a lot of bloodshed. It is no secret that belief in Darwinian evolution has caused several major wars and even holocausts.

Source:

Gómez, José María et al. 2016. The phylogenetic roots of human lethal violence. Nature 538, 233–237.

Environment Trumps Mutations in Madagascar Carp

Cyprinus carpio. Image courtesy of Alexander Francis Lydon, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

If Darwinists insist on describing the changes occurring in the common carp (Cyprinus carpio) as evolution, then it certainly is not of the Darwinian variety.

In Medieval Europe monks selectively bred carp that had fewer scales so the fish would be easier to prepare and cook.

While monks might not have been too fond of scales, fish need them as they protect them from parasites.

Some of these so-called mirrow carp were eventually set free in Madagascar in 1912.

A paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows that while the carp had a loss-of-function mutation resulting in “reduced scale cover”, they are now mostly covered with scales.

It seems that the environment helped them to regain something they once had. Nothing new is introduced; no evolution is occurring.

Thus, environmental factors trump mutations.

There was a time when most Darwinists believed random mutations and natural selection ran the show.

Now, they’re not too sure. Things like epigenetics and quality control in cells are prompting some prominent scientists to discard old orthodoxy.

No wonder the Royal Society is arranging a conference that will take a critical look at neo-Darwinism.

Source:

Panko, Ben. 2016. Carp undergo ‘reverse evolution’ to get their scales back. Science (23 August).

Car Evolution: Gross Misuse of the E-Word

This museum specimen did not evolve through a Darwinian pathway.




Joel Kontinen

An article recently posted in the UCLA Newsroom suggests that we can use evolution to explain “the ‘births’ and ‘deaths’ of every American-made car and truck model from 1896 to 2014.”

The researchers invoke the fossil record to make their case:

“Applying an evolutionary biology approach worked so well because the automotive industry’s technological records are very similar to the paleontological fossil record,” says Michael Alfaro, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

However, the thinking behind the two approaches is diametrically different. Whereas Darwinian evolution is supposed to have no ultimate goal or direction, with natural selection acting on random mutations to come upon a solution of sorts, each car make and model was designed by human engineers, who used their intelligence in the task.

One of the things that evolution does not do is designing.

With the passing of years, the cars looked different, as engineers found new ways of improving them, for instance.

Things change, but calling it evolution is a gross misuse of the E-word.

Evolution is without doubt one of the most misused of all words, due to its variety of meanings. And all too often Darwinists tend to muddy the waters and use different definitions of evolution in the same article.


Source:

Wolpert, Stuart. 2016. Technique from biology helps explain the evolution of the American car. UCLA Newsroom (24 June).

Peppered Moths Making News Again – But They Aren’t Evolving

The dark variety of the Peppered moth. Image courtesy of Olaf Leillinger, Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA-2.5).



Joel Kontinen

The peppered moth (Biston betularia) is one of the most famous icons of evolution that Darwinists have treasured since the Victorian times.

Recently, a paper published in Nature examined the genetic changes that made the peppered moth famous. Dr Ilik Saccheri, at the University of Liverpool, one of the co-authors of the study, believes that a mutation occurred in a transposable element (TE or transposon) probably in 1819, helping the moth to adapt to a darker industrial world.

While the darker moths were better able to survive in cities, the lighter variety did not die out, and since the 1960s, their numbers have increased considerably, as the air in urban centres has become cleaner.

Whereas evolutionists are fond of parading the peppered moth as an example of rapid evolution, it might be more logical to think of it as an illustration of adaptation. No change of the Darwinian variety occurred. As in the case of Darwin’s finches, it had to do with a tiny change that didn’t even last long.

The Biston betularia shows that there’s hardly any solid evidence for Darwinian change but much more for the ability of organisms to adapt to challenging environments.

Source:

Webb, Jonathan. 2016. Famous peppered moth's dark secret revealed. BBC News (1 June).

Evolution: The Best Designer Of All Time?

Evolution did not produce this dog, but humans did change it a bit – through artificial selection, also known as animal breeding.





Joel Kontinen

"Evolution, to me, is the best designer of all time,” says Frances Arnold, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), who was recently awarded the Millennium Technology Prize for pioneering an approach Darwinians call directed evolution.

The name of this approach is an oxymoron. Darwin’s watchmaker is supposed to be blind, as Richard Dawkins would say.

The BBC explains what this is all about:

“With her engineering background, Prof Arnold wanted to make new, useful, problem-solving proteins. So she took her cue from the way nature does the same thing.”

It’s a long way from nature to evolution. They’re definitely not the same thing. The amazing features we see in the animal kingdom look as if they are intelligently designed.

The obvious conclusion: they are.

But the BBC article goes on to quote professor Arnold:

"I looked at it and said, well, nature didn't actually design enzymes... How does this happen? You make mutations randomly, you look through a large number of things for the ones that have the properties you're interested in, then you repeat the process.”

This is a bit problematic, as mutations are hardly ever beneficial. And they might not even be random.

Prof. Arnold continues:

“And you iterate, accumulating beneficial changes over multiple generations - pretty much like we've done for cats, dogs, cows, chickens, you name it."

There is a name for this: it’s called artificial selection, also known as animal breeding.

It is neither random nor Darwinian.

What Prof. Arnold does might be very beneficial, but it is definitely not directed evolution.

Evolutionists have tried to squirm away from what is obvious by proposing more or less bizarre solutions, for instance, that natural selection is akin to predestination, evolution is smart, complexity just happens or evolution was experimenting.

None of them address the serious drawbacks of neo-Darwinism.

Source:

Webb, Jonathan. 2016. Evolutionary engineer Frances Arnold wins €1m tech prize. BBC News (24 May).