Polemics

Pseudogenes: how Darwinian mythology negatively impacts the progress of science

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The latest discovery that falsifies Darwinian religion wasn’t without cost. Our search for cures for cancer was negatively impacted by more of their prejudices about pseudogenes.

Uncommon Descent explains the new discovery and why Darwinians opposed it. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Because they are generally noncoding and thus considered nonfunctional and unimportant, pseudogenes have long been neglected. Recent advances have established that the DNA of a pseudogene, the RNA transcribed from a pseudogene, or the protein translated from a pseudogene can have multiple, diverse functions and that these functions can affect not only their parental genes but also unrelated genes. Therefore, pseudogenes have emerged as a previously unappreciated class of sophisticated modulators of gene expression, with a multifaceted involvement in the pathogenesis of human cancer.

And the paper concludes:

The function of the great fraction of the human genome (98%) composed of sequences that do not encode proteins remains a mystery. Pseudogenes are technically part of this fraction, and the examples described here clearly demonstrate that they perform a broad and multifaceted spectrum of activities in human cancer. Therefore, the name pseudogenes, which underlies their close sequence similarity with parental counter-parts, should not imply a negative connotation. They might be “pseudo” genes because they do not encode a protein or because they encode a protein that does not function in the same way as that encoded by their cognate genes. Nonetheless, they are functionally disabled but can perform different functions than their parental gene counterparts.

Here are a few of the more recent errors made by religious Darwinians:

Why do these people believe weird things in the absence of evidence, only to have their speculations falsified when the gaps in our knowledge are closed by scientific progress? Well, evidence doesn’t matter to people who are motivated by naturalistic faith. Like belief in a flat-Earth, the delusion of naturalism is not accountable to scientific evidence. They believe what they want to believe. It’s not up for debate. For some people like Richard Dawkins, a prior lifestyle commitment makes theism (and the moral law!) an impossibility a priori. So there is at the root of atheism a fundamentalist close-mindedness that leads to intellectual dishonesty – not just deceiving others but deceiving themselves. They cannot admit to what reason and evidence is telling them. And it really does affect our progress in many areas, such as cancer research.

The war between atheism (anti-rational hedonism) and science is everywhere, across many scientific disciplines. Science makes discoveries about the Big Bang, the fine-tuning, the origin of life, the usefulness of non-coding DNA, pseudogenes, etc. Instead of accepting what science says and living consistently with science, the naturalist turns to speculations about something coming from nothing, multiverses, aliens, “junk” DNA and other irrational nonsense. The truth of the matter is that atheists will literally believe anything no matter how irrational it is.

News

Unmanned drone observed Benghazi attack, no help sent for 7 hours

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From CBS News. (H/T Bad Blue)

Excerpt:

The closer we get to the election, the harder Republicans in Congress are pushing for answers to a big question: What really happened in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya last month that killed the U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans?

Some lawmakers are asking why U.S. military help from outside Libya didn’t arrive as terrorists battered more than 30 Americans over the course of more than seven hours. The assault was launched by an armed mob of dozens that torched buildings and used rocket propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47 rifles.

CBS News has been told that, hours after the attack began, an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and that the drone and other reconnaissance aircraft apparently observed the final hours of the protracted battle.

The State Department, White House and Pentagon declined to say what military options were available. A White House official told CBS News that, at the start of the attack, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “looked at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies.”

But it was too late to help the Americans in Benghazi. The ambassador and three others were dead.

According to the CI operatives in the video above, including a former station chief, the Situation Room in the White House would have been immediately informed of the attack. They could have ordered an air strike to push the attack back. They could have ordered the drone to open fire. But they did nothing. This is not surprising given the other actions of the administration to undermine our national security.

But why did they do nothing? Could it be that the Obama administration was afraid of the backlash from the terrorists? Could it be that they were afraid of the perception that killing Bin Laden did nothing to stop Al Qaida? Could it be that they knew immediately that it was weakness and disarmament in Benghazi that had provoked the evil terrorists to attack? Could it be that this terrorist attack undermined their “Arab Spring”?

It will be interesting to see much of this comes up in the foreign policy debate tomorrow (Monday) night.

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News

Conservative government reforms public sector pensions in Canada

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (evil!)

From the National Post.

Excerpt:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says planned changes to the pension plan for members of Parliament won’t take effect until after the next election, noting it would not be fair to change the rules during the current term.

[…]The object, the finance minister says, is for members of parliament and public servants to contribute 50% of the cost of their pensions.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement says changes to the MP pension plan will see them paying almost four times more in contributions.

He says MP contributions will jump to about $39,000 from the present level of about $11,000 and the bill would delay retirement age for a full pension to 65 from the present 55.

The changes, for a while at least, will create a two-tier system — with some existing MPs still being able to collect pension benefits at age 55. After the next election, all new MPs who qualify for the plan will have to wait until they are 65 before getting full pension benefits.

It was also expected that the bill would include cost-saving measures to change the federal employee pension plan so that new workers who join the public service starting in 2013 will see the normal age of their retirement raised to 65 from 60.

Clement says the changes will move public service and MP pension contributions to a 50-50 split, similar to private sector plans.

He says the changes will save taxpayers $2.6-billion over five years.

The bill passed the House of Commons today, and is on its way to the Conservative-controlled Senate. Harper will sign it, and then drink a chalice brim-full with the tears of his pathetic socialist enemies, as is his custom since gaining the majority in 2011.

Also, Conservative Party MP Pierre Poilievre (Nepean-Carleton = evil!) has been pushing the right of workers not to have to join a union, nor to have to pay union dues against their will:

While chieftains at the government’s largest union celebrated a separatist victory in Quebec on Wednesday, a Conservative MP said he will push for legislation to allow workers to opt out of paying dues.

Ottawa MP Pierre Poilievre says by supporting the Parti Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire and other activities, the NDP-friendly Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) is not acting in the interests of the majority of its 172,000 members.

Poilievre’s riding is home to thousands of government workers – some of whom have expressed their disbelief to him over the use of dues to fund political and militant activity, including supporting student protesters in Montreal.

He says he will advocate for passage of a private member’s bill in Parliament that would force unions to open their books to learn how dues are spent.

And while he is a parliamentary secretary and can’t introduce private bills, he will encourage and help others draft legislation that would allow union members the choice of paying dues.

“It stands to reason that the law should not force workers against their will to pay union dues to radical causes of PSAC union bosses,” he said.

“Workers should have the right to know how their union dues are spent and if they don’t like what they see, the freedom to opt out of paying them.”

Previously, the evil Harper banned per-vote subsidies for political parties:

The Conservatives’ budget bill tabled Tuesday will end taxpayer-funded subsidies for federal political parties, a proposal that helped spark the 2008 coalition crisis but was promised again by the Tories in the spring election campaign.

[…]The 2011 Tory election platform cited $27.4 million as the cost to the taxpayer last year of the current $2 per vote subsidy.

[…]The other parties generally, but the Bloc Québécois in particular, do not match the Conservatives’ ability to fundraise from grassroots party members. An end to the party subsidies puts parties that are not effective at grassroots fundraising at a major financial disadvantage.

Returns filed with Elections Canada for 2010 show the Conservative party raising $17.4 million from some 95,000 donors. Other parties were far behind: the Liberals raised approximately $6.4 million from over 32,000 donors, while the NDP raised $4.3 million from just under 23,000 donors. The Bloc Québécois, then the third-largest party in the House of Commons, raised only $640,000 on its own from fewer than 6,000 donors.

And the evil Harper planned to banning loans to political parties from unions:

The Harper government’s plan to ban corporate and union loans to political parties will further tighten a revenue-raising vise on the opposition parties. The Liberal Party will be especially squeezed, as it prepares for a leadership race in 2013.

The goal of the legislation, which was introduced into the House Wednesday by Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal, is “to reduce the potential for undue influence of wealthy interests in the political process,” according a government release.

But the effect could be to further widen the gap between the Tories’ revenue-raising efforts and those of other parties, who badly trail in total campaign contributions from individual donors.

[…]Individuals will still be allowed to lend money, but their combined loans and donations will not be allowed to exceed the $1,100 annual contribution limit.

Banks and other accredited financial institutions will be able to lend money to parties and candidates, and political parties can lend money to constituency associations or candidates. But the terms must be publicly disclosed, including the amount, interest rate and the names of the lenders and guarantors, allowing other parties and the media to know who is in hock to whom and for how much.

Political contributions from unions are already banned.

We don’t see that level of aggression down here, do we? Canada even requires photo ID for voting, so there is no voter fraud. And they are reforming their immigration and welfare programs to eliminate fraud there, too. Unreal. It’s like they actually think that being conservative means… being conservative. Instead of kow-towing to the leftist media at cocktail parties.

It seems like Canada is embracing the free enterprise system at a time when we are turning our backs on it. And they’ve been reaping the benefits: smaller deficits, less spending and lower unemployment. We will get our chance in November to try and catch up to their financial success if we can kick our socialist President out.