Timothy Wilken, MD writes: Recently Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, two otherwise exceptional scientists, have brought their “Dis-Belief in God” to the public sphere. They have been speared on by their emotional response to the recently popular Intelligent Design Hypothesis proposed by Michael Behe and embraced by the Creationists. …

The words ‘evolution’ and ‘Darwin’ are powerful polarizing triggers
even in today’s (2009) so called modern world. This has been primarily
because Darwin’s theory of evolution and the evolutionary science that
developed from it seem at first glance to refute the Holy Bible’s
narrative of God’s creation of Heaven and Earth and to threaten one’s
belief in God. …

The new arguments for intelligent design presented by Behe and other advocates usually involve three issues: 1) Complexity— The
probability that life could originate by chance, or that the complexity
of molecular biology or the human eye can be explained by random chance
is enormously unlikely. 2) Intelligence— There
is evidence for intelligence in the form of controlled choice which can
be found in all life forms—plants, animals, and humans—which cannot be
explained by random choice. And, 3) Purpose— There
is evidence of purpose in the form of goal seeking behavior which is
found in all forms of life and which cannot be explained by random
chance. …

This has provoked a new war of words in the ‘evolution versus creationism’ debate with Dawkins and Dennett making the case for complexity and intelligence without God, and Dawkins denying the need for purpose.

My readers know I am seeking the unification of humanity. I believe only by working together can we insure that our species will survive. I even see a day in the not too distant future when religion and science will walk hand in hand. …

But, if we are going to heal ourselves and solve our human crisis, we
must not fall into the ‘evolution versus creationism’ trap. This is
just another example of ‘either/or thinking’ and ‘mixing levels of
organization’. Many humans including a number of otherwise good
scientists are presently caught up in this trap.

One false assumption that results from this trap is the belief
that science must explain everything about life and its origins. After
all if ‘God’ is the alternative explanation for all in universe. Then
our ‘either/or’ thinking requires that for ‘evolutionary science’ to be
true, it too must explain all in universe. However recall from the
science section that to explain ‘ALL ’ in universe is very large task
indeed.

Evolutionary science (2009) does explain a great deal and many
of its aspects have been scientifically corroborated. However, Darwin
offered no explanation for the origin of life. And, evolutionary
science (2009) while explaining how simple organisms can become more
complex organisms, and how organisms have adapted to better fit their
environments, has not provided a clear step by step explanation for the
beginnings of life nor provided proven explanations for the development
of complex organs like the human eye.

When scientific theory does not answer a question placed to
it, one of two conditions may exist. First, the theory is incomplete
and when more is discovered and the theory expanded, it will better
answer the question. Or, two the theory may be wrong and there exists
an alternative explanation that better answers the question.

I believe that the first condition exists here. I believe that
evolutionary science (2009) is young and like many young theories it is
still incomplete. For example, it clearly needs integration with
synergic science. And, I believe when and as we discover more, we will
come to understand life and evolution better, and I predict we will
then develop better answers to these important questions. …

Richard Dawkins is perhaps one of today’s (2009) best living
scientists. However, he is ignorant of synergy, and so makes the
mistake of ‘either/or’ thinking. He is caught up in the ‘evolution
versus creationism’ trap. His failure to find evidence of a designer and his desire to be a
‘good’ scientist—true to his intellect—compels him to deny GOD. It
should therefore come as no surprise that he is an avowed Atheist. If
he were a better scientist, he would simply say: “I don’t know.”

Unfortunately,
Dawkin’s has been blinded by the religious zeal “not to
belief.” His emotional commitment to Atheism further damages his
ability to understand evolutionary biology objectively. However his
limitations do not prevent us from learning from his insights and
discoveries. Much of his truth is scientific truth. If we step
carefully to avoid Dawkins’ scientific mistakes, he still has
much to teach us. Most of his work is informative and useful. I will
quote extensively from his writings a
little later, but first lets examine what Dawkins has to say about purpose: 

Charles Darwin lost his faith with the help of a wasp: I
cannot persuade myself, Darwin wrote, that a beneficent and omnipotent
God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express
intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.
… The macabre habits of the Ichneumonidae are shared by their cousins
the digger wasps. … A female digger wasp not only lays her egg in a
caterpillar (or grasshopper or bee) so that her larva can feed on it
but, according to Fabre and others, she carefully guides her sting into
each ganglion of the prey’s central nervous system, so as to paralyze
it but not kill it. This way, the meat keeps fresh. It is not known
whether the paralysis acts as a general anesthetic, or if it is like
curare in just freezing the victim’s ability to move. If the latter,
the prey might be aware of being eaten alive from inside but unable to
move a muscle to do anything about it. This sounds savagely cruel but,
as we shall see, nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This
is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that
things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but
simply callous — indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

We humans have purpose on the brain. We find it hard to look at
anything without wondering what it is for, what the motive for it is,
or the purpose behind it. When the obsession with purpose becomes
pathological it is called paranoia — reading malevolent purpose into
what is actually random bad luck. But this is just an exaggerated form
of a nearly universal delusion. Show us almost any object or process,
and it is hard for us to resist the Why question — the What is it for?
question.

The desire to see purpose everywhere is a natural one in an
animal that lives surrounded by machines, works of art, tools and other
designed artifacts: an animal, moreover, whose waking thoughts are
dominated by it own personal goals. A car, a tin opener, a screw driver
and a pitchfork all legitimately warrant the What is it for? question.
Our pagan forebears would have asked the same question about thunder,
eclipses, rocks, and streams. Today we pride ourselves on having shaken
off such primitive animism. If a rock in a stream happens to serve as a
convenient stepping-stone, we regard its usefulness as an accidental
bonus, not a true purpose. But the old temptation comes back with a
vengeance when tragedy strikes — indeed, the very word strikes is an
animistic echo: Why, oh why, did the cancer/earthquake/hurricane have
to strike my child? And the same temptation is often positively
relished when the topic is the origin of all things or the fundamental
laws of physics, culminating in the vacuous existential question Why is
there something rather than nothing? …

The mere fact that it is possible to frame a question does not
make it legitimate or sensible to do so. There are many things about
which you can ask, What is its temperature? or What color is it? but
you may not ask the temperature question or the color question of, say,
jealousy or prayer. Similarly, you are right to ask the Why question of
a bicycle’s mudguards or the Kariba Dam, but at the very least you have
no right to assume that the Why question deserves an answer when posed
about a boulder, a misfortune, Mt. Everest or the universe. Questions
can be simply inappropriate, however heartfelt their framing. …

And, so we see that like many evolutionary scientists Dawkins adds
the denial of purpose to his denial of God. Dawkins and company are
indeed walking a fine tightrope. He begins the preceding discussion
with strong denial of purpose, but then almost immediately finds it
necessary to qualify his denial with a number of permited exceptions to
the exclusion of purpose. His reductionistic bias forces him to lock
the front door to purpose, but expediency requires that he let it in
the back door “in a special, metaphorical sense.”  Young could have been describing Dawkins when he said: “The
notion of purpose or teleology is forbidden in science, among
biologists especially, who, while they must be strongly tempted to
invoke it at every turn, avoid it as reformed alcoholic avoids a drink.”

So we see that even today 2009, Dawkins like many evolutionary
biologists is under the influence of the reductionistic bias and cannot
acknowledge the role of purpose in universe, and yet he invokes it at
every turn, but hides it by speaking of ‘good‘ design rather than ‘purposeful‘ design.

We cannot criticize Dawkins for invoking purpose. Evolution
cannot be explained without it. However, his need to deny and hide
purpose is a scientific mistake resulting from his ignorance of synergy
and his commitment to the reductionistic bias. Recall reductionistic
science focuses on ‘parts’ and not on ‘wholes’. Purpose is found in the
‘wholes’ and not in the ‘parts’. Reductionistic science is blind to
purpose. …

Once you start looking for purpose you will find that like
syntropy — it is everywhere in universe. Simple processes have simple
purposes. Complex processes have complex purposes. Purpose simply
implies a ‘goal’. Purposeful behavior is just goal seeking behavior.

Reductionistic science — the science of the ‘part’ has been
responsible for most of the past advances in human knowledge. However
it is an incomplete picture of universe. Reductionistic science suffers
from an ignorance of the ‘whole’ — from an ignorance of synergy. This
ignorance produces errors of ‘either/or thinking’ and ‘mixing levels of
organization’. As we review the current thinking of evolutionary
biology, we must step carefully to avoid these errors.

The
gene is a “part” of the human organism. But understanding the gene does
not mean you understand cells, tissues, organs, systems of organs,
organisms, and groups of organisms, etc. etc..

Nor do you understand how each of these other “parts” relate to each other, and how they interact.

Our
estimate of the number of human genes currently stands at ~22,500
(estimates have ranged from 20,000 to 150,000). These genes are static
instructions (blueprints for constructing proteins which serve as the
building blocks of cells).

The human body contains ~60 trillion
cells, organized into hundreds of tissues, organized in to dozens of
organs organized into seven major systems of organs, and all of this is
governed by an ~100 billion neuron brain. The organism is a dynamic
living thing changing a trillion trillion times in its lifetime.

To
imagine that these genetic static blueprints control dynamic human
behavior is about as naive as as thinking that the design blueprint for
an automobile will control where and how that automobile is driven over
its lifetime with multiple owners and uses.

Which gene controls
how a Michael Jordan plays basketball? — How an Albert Einstein
formulates physics? — How a Michelangelo carves marble? — How Yo-Yo Ma
plays the cello?

You cannot understand human behavior without
examining all the parts, and understanding how each and every “part” of
the system relates to each and every other “part.” Then you must
understand how these parts form “wholes” that combine with other
“wholes” to form “systems” that combine with other “systems” to form
the whole organism.

Do not view my comments as critical of Dawkins and Dennett.
That is not my intention. If I had lived their lives and had their life
experiences, I would most sincerely believe as they do. I am writing
later, and I have the benefit of the synergic perspective.

However, it must be clear to the reader, I am not an atheist.
Although much of what humans call religion today is nonsense, I do
believe that there exists ‘that’ in universe that is larger than
ourselves. I am also in belief that there is a ‘source’ to the
complexity, intelligence and purpose that we find everywhere in our
examination of living universe. And, I am comfortable to call that
source God. So while I share Dennett’s disbelief in ghosts, elves, the
Easter Bunny, black magic and life after death, I do believe in
God. And, while I do consider myself to hold a naturalist as opposed
to a supernaturalist world view, I find God and Purpose quite at home
in my view of Nature. (05/24/09)
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Paul Hawken speaking to the 2009 graduates of the University of Portland: Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means
to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is
declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a
mind-boggling situation — but not onepeer-reviewed paper published in
the last thirty years can refute that statement.

Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This
planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have
misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or
air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the
thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship
earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on
one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no
need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food — but
all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of
the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice
to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are brilliant and the Earth is hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or
limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night
blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating.
Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of
planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by
people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and
check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When
asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is
always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on
earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you
meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of
the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I
see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront
despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some
semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet
Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot
with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity
is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking
place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies,
refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude
of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are
working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty,
deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and
more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.

Rather
than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to
disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the
scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true
size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to
billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in
force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople,
rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers,
fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims,
concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians,
street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as
the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves
us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that
says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a
tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered
from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s
willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine,
and reconsider. …

Ralph Waldo Emerson once
asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand
years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become
religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by
the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch
television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of
each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has
never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years.
Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the
universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in
terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing,
challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The
generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got
distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every
moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You
couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the
world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when
it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and
run as if your life depends on it. (05/24/09)
more…

BBC Medical Science — Mexico City has lifted all restrictions imposed last month, following an outbreak of swine flu across Mexico. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said no new infections had been reported for a week in the capital and there was no longer a need to wear mask in public places.

The city virtually ground to a halt at the height of the flu emergency, with schools, bars and cinemas closed. Mexico’s flu death toll rose by three to 78 on Thursday, officials said. Some 4,000 people have been infected.

Authorities in the sprawling capital on Thursday lowered its four-level alert system from “yellow” to “green” - the lowest level.

“We can calm down now,” Mayor Ebrard said. “Now you can come to the city without any risk,” he said, adding that there was “no longer any need” to wear masks in public places. However, the mayor urged residents of the city to remain.

The World Health Organization said on Thursday that 41 countries had reported 11,034 cases of swine flu , or influenza A (H1N1) infection, including 85 deaths. (05/24/09)
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BBC Ecological Science — Chile has enjoyed one of the most dynamic economies in Latin America in recent years, largely based on a booming export sector. But new studies by Chilean scientists suggest climate change could pose huge challenges for the country. The scientists say their models show projected temperature increases of at least 1C to 1.5C and a drop in rainfall of at least 10 to 15% in the next 40 years.

These changes could have a particular impact on agriculture in Chile’s central zone, home to a large part of the country’s population.

“Agriculture is the most exposed sector, particularly the forestry sector, and the vines and fruits in the central region which are reliant on irrigation schemes,” Professor Fernando Santibanez from the University of Chile told the BBC.

Chile is the world’s largest exporter of copper, but wine, fruit and forestry products feature strongly, accounting for about a quarter of its exports. Prof Santibanez says Chile’s world-famous wines could be particularly vulnerable to the expected changes in the climate.

“Vines are sensitive to heat stress,” he says. “Hotter temperatures can cause too fast a ripening process which can affect productivity and the quality of the wine.”

The Merlot grape is thought to be amongst those sensitive to changes in the climate. More generations of harmful insects created by a temperature increase of just 1C could also affect grape production. The value of Chile’s wine exports has boomed in the last 20 years from about $2m (£1.2m) to $1.5bn last year. The UK, for example, now imports more wine from Chile than from South Africa. …

Another area of great concern is the long-term availability of water. As in other Andean countries, the rate at which many of Chile’s glaciers are melting has increased significantly in recent years, due mainly to temperature rises.

Climate scientists say Chile is probably less dependent on glacial melt for water supplies than some areas of neighbouring Peru or Bolivia. However, they worry that the combination of more demand, less rainfall, less melting snow, and less water trapped in glaciers could combine to cause a serious decline in water availability, particularly in the summer months.

Sebastian Vicuna, executive director of the Global Change Research Centre at the Catholic University in Santiago, has calculated that the Maipo River - by far the largest source of irrigation and drinking water for the central region - could suffer a severe decline in its flow in the summer months. Based on hydrological simulations, he says that by 2065 the water in the river could have fallen by 70%, from 170 cubic metres per second to no more than 60.

“We are particularly concerned about the impact of global warming on our hydroelectric supplies,” he told the BBC. “More than half the energy supply to central Chile comes from hydroelectricity generated by water coming from three basins where there will be much less water.” (05/24/09)
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BBC Ecological Science — The oldest and largest trees within California’s world famous Yosemite National Park are disappearing. Climate change appears to be a major cause of the loss. The revelation comes from an analysis of data collected over 60 years by forest ecologists. They say one worrying aspect of the decline is that it is happening within one of most protected forests within the US, suggesting that even more large trees may be dying off elsewhere.

James Lutz and Jerry Franklin of the University of Washington, Seattle, US and Jan van Wagtendonk of the Yosemite Field Station of the US Geological Survey, based in El Portal, California collated data on tree growth within the park gathered from the 1930s onwards. Their key finding is that the density of large diameter trees has fallen by 24% between the 1930s and 1990s, within all types of forest.

“These large, old trees have lived centuries and experienced many dry and wet periods,” says Lutz. “So it is quite a surprise that recent conditions are such that these long-term survivors have been affected.”

Large trees are not only older, but they play a distinct and important role within forest ecosystems. Their canopies help moderate the local forest environment while their understory creates a unique habitat for other plants and animals. Older, larger trees also tend to seed the surrounding area and crucially are able to withstand fires, short term climatic changes and outbreaks of insect pests that can kill or weaken smaller trees.

But the study by Lutz’s team suggests they are no longer faring well. In a study published in Forest Ecology and Management, the researchers collated all the data that existed on tree growth with the Yosemite National Park. In particular, this included two comprehensive surveys: one conducted in the mid 1930s and another during the 1990s.

“Few studies like this exist elsewhere in the world because of a lack of good measurements from the early 20th Century,” says Lutz.

Including 21 species of tree recorded by both surveys, the density of large diameter trees fell from 45 trees per hectare to 34 trees, a decline of 24% in just over 60 years. White Firs (Abies concolor), Lodgepole Pines (Pinus contorta) and Jeffrey Pines (Pinus jeffreyi) were affected the most. Smaller size trees were unaffected.

“One of the most shocking aspects of these findings is that they apply to Yosemite National Park,” says Lutz. “Yosemite is one of the most protected places in the US. If the declines are occurring here, the situation is unlikely to be better in less protected forests.” (05/24/09)
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BBC Science & Technology – Expect “shock and awe in science” from a repaired and upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. This is the prediction from a Nasa astronomer who has worked on the mission since its inception.

If all goes completely to plan on Hubble Servicing Mission 4, the orbiting observatory will be reborn as the most productive telescope in history, with even greater powers to probe the Universe’s deep history and help cosmologists make sense of one of their biggest problems - “dark energy”.

Over five long days of well rehearsed but exhausting work on Hubble, the astronauts on the shuttle Atlantis have the task of installing a new panoramic camera and a latest-generation spectrograph. A spectrograph is an instrument for measuring the chemistry, temperatures and motions of celestial objects. The servicing spacewalkers also have the goal of bringing back to life what was Hubble’s most important camera (the Advanced Camera for Surveys) and another defunct spectrograph. Both of them were knocked out by electronics failures.

According to David Leckrone, project scientist at Nasa Goddard Spaceflight Centre: “For the first time since 1993, Hubble will have a full set of first class hi-tech scientific instruments onboard. It’s not just one camera and one spectrograph. It’s a variety of instruments covering a lot of capabilities and are used for different purposes.”

Any astronomer around the world can apply for time to observe with the orbiting telescope. Dr Leckrone has high hopes for the combination of massed human brain power and the telescope’s new and repaired hardware. (05/24/09)
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