The Book of Works

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR to all.

I will be back in early January. Meanwhile I hope all your holiday celebrations are full of joy, and (if you are lucky) peace.

Sy

You and I share quite a few common ancestors not that far back in time.  OK, you are now asking, what is this guy talking about? You might know a good deal about your own genealogy, and there isn’t anyone named Garte anywhere to be found in it. So I will explain.

Remember that everyone has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, etc. So the number of your ancestors doubles at each generation going back.  If we assume every generation takes about 20 years, then 100 years ago you had 32 ancestors. 200 years ago you had about 1000. Of course this can’t keep going on very long because by 800 years ago you should have 1,000,000,000,000 ancestors, and there wasn’t even a fraction of that number of people alive in 1200 AD. This phenomenon is called “pedigree collapse”, and it  means that the number of your ancestors (which starts out as = 2^n where n is number of generations) has to  flatten out as n gets bigger.

How does that happen? As you go back in time you begin to find that some people show up more than once in your ancestor list. That’s because the same guy who is your mother’s father’s father’s mother’s father is also your father’s father’s mother’s mother’s father. And so on.  Since this is true for each of us, it’s only a matter of a few generations (for people who share a European heritage, for example) to find out that my father’s mother’s mother’s mother’s father is the same guy as your etc. etc. The further back you go the more likely this is. When you go back about 800 years, it is almost certain. This is why it is true that we are all descendants of Charlemagne.  If the awful book Da Vinci Code was correct in its premise that Jesus had a child, then we would  ALL be His direct descendants.

Since most African Americans have some European ancestry, they are included in the close family. For people whose ancestry is completely African or East Asian or Australian, we have to go further back in time to find common ancestors. How far back is back? A recent paper in Nature has calculated that the most recent common ancestor of  ALL humans (not an easy calculation to do) probably lived no earlier than 50,000 years ago, and possibly even as recently as 10,000 years ago.

Therefore we are related to some degree. We are all one family in a real sense. So while saying “All men are brothers” is a nice philosophical concept, saying “all men (and women) are cousins” is literally true. Kind of makes you think.

In science, there are many laws that are described mathematically. Some are established from experimentation; others are derived theoretically from other known laws. It has often been pointed out that it is quite remarkable that nature operates in  ways that can be accurately described by mathematical equations.

These equations can be categorized into two classes. Some are purely relational between different measurable and deterministic parameters. The idea that a force exerted by an object is equal to the product of the mass and the acceleration of the object is accurately captured by the simple equation F = ma. Each component of the equation is measurable.

The equations in the other category are just as valid, just as true experimentally, but they are somewhat less simple in that they require the addition of an entity that is not measurable. These additional components are called constants, and they may be determined by experiment or mathematical derivation, but they do not change, and they have no physical reality themselves.

An example is the gas law PV = nRT, which consists of 4 measureable parameters (the pressure, volume, temperature and quantity of a gas) and R, the gas constant. The equation doesn’t work without the constant. This is not a question of units, by the way. You can define the other parameters using any kind of units you wish, but when you do the measurements, you will find that PV = nT is never true.

There are many such equations in chemistry and physics, and many such constants. One of the best known is π, a constant of geometry. The area of a circle is determined by its size; namely, its radius or circumference. Its area is

A = πr².

But what is π? Where did it come from? We don’t know the answer any more than we know why Plank’s constant (h), so important in atomic theory and quantum mechanics, is what it is. We don’t even ask the question, because we know there are no answers.

The values of the physical constants can only be determined by experimental observation. One of the most important such constants is the speed of light. Establishing that this is a constant required some sophisticated experiments and came as a surprise at the time. Knowing what the value of the constant c is allows us to determine many things, including the relationship between mass and energy, as formulated by Einstein:

E = mc².

But why does light travel at that speed always, and not faster or slower? That question is not part of science as we understand it. .

For me, the philosophical (not scientific) importance of constants lies in the fact that the reason for their values is not subject to scientific enquiry. The idea that there are things that lie outside of scientific investigation – which used to be assumed when speaking of human-related phenomena such as art, music, love, beauty, and so on – has become controversial. Scientism, the belief that all reality is covered by science, has become popular, especially among militant atheists and extreme reductionists.

But the existence of fundamental physical constants proves scientism to be wrong. We don’t need to invoke the emotions one feels when listening to Beethoven, or the source of the creative genius manifested in poetry or painting, to know this. We don’t need to try to defend the concept of love as being more than an evolutionary adaption to reproductive challenges in early hominids. We can look at science itself, to see its limits quite clearly. We need simply ask why π, h, R, c, etc have the values that they have.

We can also ask what the universe would be like if the constants were different, and the answers are both shocking and troubling. In many cases, changing certain constants, even by a small fraction, would lead to a radically different form of reality, usually one in which (among many other changes) there would be no life possible at all. But unless we admit teleology into science – which is forbidden – this answer allows no real insight into the question of why the constants are what they are.

Still, the question cannot be denied as a question, and the answer cannot be denied as being beyond scientific enquiry. This, by itself, demolishes the principle of scientism, for it establishes the reality of questions that are not subject to scientific analysis. Once we drop the illusion that the scientific method as we know it is the only and all-powerful path toward understanding truth, we can make a great deal of progress in learning what other truths await our grasp.

When I was a child we used to go for summer vacations to the small New England village where my grandfather owned a house not far from the ocean. During one walk along the beach, I found a nice piece of driftwood. With one of my grandfather’s sharp knives I whittled it into the shape of a boat, added a mast, and glued on a small block as a cabin. My parents said it was wonderful. My grandfather, an old-world craftsman whose ideas of child rearing were from the century before last, picked up the boat, looked at it critically for a while, and then gave it back to me. “Does it work?” he asked. So we went to the shore and put the boat in the water. It floated. It didn’t capsize, and it moved. He picked it up, nodded and pronounced “Good. Good work”. That was the praise that stuck with me, the praise that meant the most.

But what did he mean when he pronounced my handiwork as good? Did he mean that it was the opposite of evil, that my small wood project had some inner moral quality? Of course not; he meant that it worked well, as intended.

What does God mean when he describes His own (slightly more elaborate) creative efforts in Genesis 1? The text repeats, again and again, that God saw that what he had done was good. Does that mean that the world He had made and populated with fish, birds, animals and people was morally good, without evil?

The first time God declares that something he did was good involves the creation of light. God saw that the light was good. I don’t see how light contains the quality of moral goodness. The next time God pronounces His work as good is when he divides the land from the sea. That was a very useful thing to do for the sake of future humans and all the other animals who will breathe air and live on land. But I don’t see why having dry land rather than just ocean is better in the sense of essential goodness.

God then pronounces His successive creation of plants, the moon, sun, stars, fish, birds and animals to be good. Again, does this mean that the living creatures of the Earth and the components of the cosmos are the embodiment of goodness, or was God saying he had done a good job? Unlike the case for life and dry land, one could argue that God had made the lions, wolves, and bears to be gentle animals who were naturally good. That is the interpretation we often hear in discussions about what things were like before the Fall. Or does the text mean that all of the creatures He created were good for something else, still to come?

God then makes humans. God does not say that humans are good. Not specifically.. The text does say that God looks at everything including humans and pronounces it all as very good. It doesn’t say everything was very good except for people. But there is no mention of the creatures God made in His own image being good.  Why is that? Is He not sure?

I think the answer is clear. The meaning of “good” (tov) in Hebrew is exactly what it is in English – all of the meanings. When God saw that each of his creations was good, he saw them in the same way my grandfather saw my boat – he saw that they worked. And what does God’s creation work for? For us. For the coming of a conscious, intelligent, spirit-bearing, God- praising creature that God created everything for. The light, the land, the sun, moon and stars, the plants and other animals, all of this was good for us.

That is why he didn’t pronounce humans to be good- that would make no sense. Of course humans are good for humans. But the whole of creation, everything that was made, was very good. Very good for us. Because God’s design of this universe, of this planet, of the laws of physics, chemistry and biology that govern it all, all of that is good for our existence and our thriving. And as we study our world and learn its secrets, all we can do is agree and worship the One who made it possible for us to be here, to live, love and praise His glory.

If anybody reads this who actually knows something about theology, I would love to see your comments. Clearly this is not my field, just my thoughts.

I will be traveling for the holiday so I will not be posting anything until Monday Nov. 30. I hope all who read this have a great Thanksgiving. Peace and joy to all.

After eating, I was feeling pretty good. I swam down to the castle, where, as usual, Blackie and Angel were having their daily discussion, or argument (depending on their respective moods). Same topic of course, – science vs. religion. Blackie is a scientist and atheist, while Angel is an ardent believer. (Me, Im an agnostic. Meaning I don’t know and I don’t care.)

“There must be a God” Angel was saying, not for the first time, “A God that takes care of us, provides us with everything we need, a God that created the universe, and created it just right for us to live in”

Blackie shook his head “Nonsense. We live in a purely natural world. There are good scientific reasons for everything that exists, and everything that happens”

“Oh really?” Angel retorted “So where does our food come from?” Blackie almost snickered in triumph. “Ha, I have explained this to you. I have made careful and reproducible observations. The food arrives every day between 7 and 8 AM. It is a natural process clearly related to the appearance of light which occurs just before then.”

“And what about the great shadow from outside?” Angel asked

“The so called shadow is simply a recurring distortion in the light patterns from the natural effects of the regular cycle of light and dark. We don’t know what the shadow is yet, but I’m confident we will eventually discover its source. There is certainly no need for you to always go to the edge and worship the shadow, because I have found that even when you don’t, the food arrives anyway. See, how science can overcome superstition?”.

“Well, I remember one time that no food arrived after the light came. And the shadow didn’t arrive either”.

Blackie said, “Oh really, I remember no such time”. I actually remembered this happening twice, but I will say that our memory capacities are all different, and mine is the best.

Angel continued “So what is your explanation for how perfect the universe is. The temperature is always 80 F, we never get bothered by cloudy water or algae, we have all kinds of room to swim in, and no nasty predators who try to eat us. Don’t you think that God must have set this up and is continually maintaining the world for our comfort and safety?”

“Oh yeah, so what about Molly? If there is such a loving God, why did Molly die?”.

Molly died yesterday, and was floating on the surface all day, until just before darkness, when her body disappeared.

Angel said, “I don’t know, but Im sure God does. Anyway, where did Molly go after she died? I bet you cant answer that?” Blackie couldn’t, none of us could. But he did answer her earlier question.

“The universe appears to be perfect because but if it weren’t this way we wouldn’t be here to notice it, would we. It’s called the ichthyopic principle.”

“So you think its possible that the universe just happened to be the way it is, despite the very low probability of everything being just right?” I asked Blackie, truly curious.

“Its because this is only one of millions or billions of universes.” Blackie replied. “The others have all kinds of different conditions”. He swam over to the edge and bumped his nose against it. Angel and I joined him.

“There is something out there.” He said. “Probably many more universes”.

Angel said, “That might be, but if there are, then God created them and is helping them also.”

Blackie threw his fins in the air. “I give up”, he said. “You just want to believe in your imaginary sky daddy. What do you think Gouri?” he asked me. I shrugged (not a simple thing for me to do) and said “I have no idea. But I do know one thing. If that shadow is God, he should get a new tie.”

I believe in human exceptionalism. I believe that human consciousness, creativity, intellect, imagination and other characteristics are emergent qualities with no true analogy in the animal world. I believe this as a matter of religious faith (imago Dei), but even more so as a scientific principle. In fact, I have always believed that human beings were special, far more than naked apes, even when I was an atheist.

In recent years, being pro-human has gone out of style. We now hear that humans are nothing terribly special, that various animals can do everything we can do and more. Some even state that humans are essentially bad: greedy, uncaring, destructive and dangerous to the planet.

It might come as a shock to some, but the truth is that science is not always objective and free from cultural and social influences. Nor are scientists. There is therefore a strong tendency among many scientists following current cultural trends to find scientific arguments supporting the Theory of Human Mediocrity. I will give one example.

What we know (or knew at one point) about the history of Homo Sapiens is that they emerged as a species about 200,000 ya, in Africa, and didn’t do very well for a long time. Their numbers declined, partly as a result of climate change caused by some major volcanic eruptions. There is genetic evidence that our species might have been on the path to extinction, with populations reduced to about 2000 to 10,000 individuals world wide. By 50,000 ya that had changed. The population exploded, and so did human technology. Humans began the long process of colonizing and then ruling the entire planet. They displaced all other extant hominins, and started on the long road to domination of the world-wide environment. For a long time, the evidence showed that this change was dramatic and relatively sudden, and it was called the Upper Paleolithic Revolution (UPR). Jared Diamond described this as “The Great Leap Forward” in his book The Third Chimpanzee.

But the UPR is in current disfavor, and according to some, has been debunked. The problem with the UPR is that it conveys a sense of something unusual, something special about modern humans. Whether it was due to a mutation or an act of God, the UPR goes against the concept of people being just another boring species that evolves slowly, step by step, in a long continuum. And so now we hear about evidence that Neanderthals had all the attributes of Sapiens, that Sapiens and other Homo species had advanced cultural attributes like language, burial of dead, and diverse stone technologies long before 50,000 ya. In fact, many paleontologists seem to be joining a race to see who can find the most evidence pushing back the origins of modern human behavior as far as possible.

All of this research is aimed at disproving the currently out-of-favor idea that people are exceptional. I don’t know if the newer results are really better than the older models or not, because quite frankly, I don’t trust agenda-driven science. It may in fact be true that Neanderthals were thinking about the philosophical implications of mathematical theory, or the aesthetic parameters of complex artistic forms, and so on. It may be true that the change from non-speaking, not completely human behavior to us was slow and gradual. I actually don’t think that matters. What does matter is that the change happened. We are not naked apes. How we got the way we are is of great interest, and the question deserves to be addressed without bias, or preconceived ideas.

In a previous post (The Reality of Biological Information), I discussed some of the many mechanisms that allow for the production of NEW genetic information without getting into specific examples. In this post I will cite several examples of new genetic information resulting from mutations during evolution. This is a tiny fraction of the total number of such mutations that are known to have produced new information during evolutionary history.

1. New genes that arose at the origin of vertebrates

When the first vertebrates emerged more than 500 Ma [million years ago], a great deal of new genetic information was created that allowed for many biological novelties, such as the neural crest. Recent genome-wide analyses has provided convincing evidence of two rounds of whole-genome duplication (WGD) early in vertebrate evolution. This led to the presence of 2, 3, or 4 orthologous [ similar] genes for every single invertebrate proto-ortholog. Subsequent evolution was able to utilize the abundance of genetic raw material for further diversification, which led to the emergence of several vertebrate novelties, such as a well-organized brain compartment. Please note that all of this information is based on experimental data.

Many new genes were derived from the additional copies of existing genes after the WGD events. Other genes arose de novo at the base of vertebrate evolution. The ENC gene family (involved in the formation of the vertebrate brain cortex) are among a group of genes that experienced saltatory [“sudden jump”] evolution at the emergence of vertebrates.

2. The Globin genes

The well-known blood proteins (globins) that vertebrates use to carry oxygen, hemoglobin ( Hb), myoglobin, and cytoglobin  also trace their origins to the whole-genome duplication events in the origin of vertebrates

In the Hb gene lineage, a tandem gene duplication gave rise to the proto a- and b-globin genes, which permitted the formation of multimeric Hbs composed of unlike subunits (a2b2). The evolution of this heteromeric quaternary structure was central to the emergence of Hb as a specialized oxygen-transport protein because it provided a mechanism for cooperative oxygen-binding and allosteric regulatory control. The new composite protein eventually allowed for warm-blooded animals like birds and mammals.

3. The gene for language: FOXP2.

The FOXP2 gene is known to play an important role in the development of speech and language. The FOXP2 protein sequence is very strongly conserved in mammalian evolution generally, but human FOXP2 differs by two amino acids from that of chimpanzees, gorillas, and macaques, all of which have identical sequences. These two differences in the human protein are due to point mutations in the seventh exon of the gene’s DNA sequence. Further genetic analysis of the gene indicates that this mutated version of the FOXP2 gene had undergone positive selection in human evolution. The genetic data suggest that this highly valuable new protein resulting from mutation occurred around the time of the appearance of modern Homo sapiens and is related to the ability to produce the orofacial movements required for speech.

4. Other Human Specific Genes.

Researchers have found a large number of new genes that have mutated to produce new information found only in humans, and not in Neanderthals or Denisovans. These are structural genes that code for proteins and enzymes used in cells. There is an even larger group of new human genes that change the way other genes are expressed.  Some examples of new genetic information, all arising from mutations, are given below.

The primate-specific ASPM gene is related to increased brain size and/or other features of human brain. KRTH is a gene for hair keratin. In humans a single  base pair mutation leads to differences in the pattern of hair growth between humans and apes. MAOA (Monoamine oxidase A) is a critical synaptic protein that mediates nerve transmission. In humans a mutation caused a single amino acid change that led to alteration of the protein structure and binding properties. This could be involved in difference in neurological function between humans and other primates. The COX gene family, which code for mitochondria cytochrome oxidase subunits, has undergone rapid evolution in hominids. Specifically, in humans the COX5A gene allows for enhanced oxidative phosphorylation, which could support increased brain energy consumption

I do not expect any “creation scientists” to be swayed by any of this material, since their entire view of science is so distorted that it is not possible to discuss actual scientific ideas or data with them. I post this for the sake of people who have been unduly influenced by their pseudoscientific claims, in particular the constantly repeated central claim that evolution has not and cannot produce new or useful genetic information. This claim is simply false and I hope that the examples above will convince those truly seeking the truth about God’s creation to see that lie for what it is.

REFERENCES

Feiner N, Murakami Y, Breithut L, Mazan S, Meyer A, Kuraku S. Saltatory Evolution of the Ectodermal Neural Cortex Gene Family at the Vertebrate Origin. Genome Biology and Evolution. 5:1485-1502 2013

http://abc.cbi.pku.edu.cn/reference/storz-jf-mpe-2012-globin.pdf  Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution

http://www.rawstory.com/2013/12/scientists-list-the-specific-genes-that-make-us-human/

http://genome.cshlp.org/content/15/12/1746/T3.expansion

Preuss TM. Human brain evolution: From gene discovery to phenotype discovery. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jun 26; 109(Suppl 1): 10709–10716

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111019182044.htm

I have given many talks in my life – at symposia, seminars, conferences. I always liked public speaking (being the egotist that I am), but my favorite part was the questions. Some were easy. Sometimes I got a question that actually opened a new way of looking at things for me. And, at least once for every talk, I got a question that I answered with “I don’t know.” Usually I would elaborate: we haven’t done those experiments yet, or the literature is contradictory, or I haven’t even thought of that issue before, or the data is equivocal, or even that I know someone has addressed this but I don’t remember what they found. I had no problem admitting my ignorance, and no one ever held it against me. Admission of not knowing is an integral part of science. I have heard top level scientists say that same thing many times.

Although I have done no new research for many years, I still say “I don’t know”, especially when asked questions related to my Christian faith. Examples: If you think evolution is true, how could there have been sin in the world before the fall of man? I don’t know. If you believe God created the universe, who created God? I don’t know.

Is this OK? Aren’t we supposed to have all the answers? No, we aren’t. It’s nice to have some answers. Like “Scripture never says that Adam was the first man” or “My faith in Christ as savior is not subject to objective proof”. I actually do have a lot of answers, and I keep working on finding more. But I know I will never have them all.

In science we have learned that every answer leads to new questions. I think that is also true in theology, and for me that is a strong pointer to God. We are not supposed to know everything, but we are supposed to keep learning. It is the process of learning, about the natural world, about God, about our souls and our bodies, that makes us human and obedient to God’s will, as His image bearers.

There are some people who seem to have all the answers. Some are scientists, and some are theologians or philosophers. When anyone says that all is clear and they will explain it to you, walk away: they aren’t worth listening to. They are wrong. They are no longer seekers of truth, but advertisers of a product. To find the truth, we must take wrong turns, get lost, go up blind alleys, make mistakes. In other words, we must learn. And in our lifetimes, this learning will never end. That is the beautiful truth of our constantly surprising, always challenging universe, designed by a Creator whose omniscience is reflected in the unending complexity of every aspect of reality.