Tag Archives: Jay Wesley Richards

Podcasts

Ann Gauger’s new peer-reviewed paper on Darwinian evolution

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Amazing new research paper by the Biologic Institute. The PDF of the paper, “Reductive Evolution Can Prevent Populations from Taking Simple Adaptive Paths to High Fitness,” is available here.

The MP3 file is here.

Participants

  • Jay Richards, Director of Research at the CRSC, (Discovery Institute)
  • Ann Gauger, senior research scientist at the Biologic Institute

About Ann:

Ann is a senior research scientist at Biologic Institute. Her work uses molecular genetics and genomic engineering to study the origin, organization and operation of metabolic pathways. She received a BS in biology from MIT, and a PhD in developmental biology from the University of Washington, where she studied cell adhesion molecules involved in Drosophila embryogenesis. As a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard she cloned and characterized the Drosophila kinesin light chain. Her research has been published in Nature, Development, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Topics:

  • Co-authored with microbiologist Ralph Seelke at the University of Wisconsion
  • Purpose: study whether bacteria can evolve the ability to fix a broken protein (e.g. – enzyme)
  • Two areas are broken in the enzyme
  • If you fix the first one, it works a little but not fully (slight advantage)
  • If you fix the second one, it starts to work fully (huge advantage)
  • It’s a “two-step adaptive path” – a textbook case for evolution
  • should be able to hit both mutations and get back full functionality
  • At the start of the experiment, the cell is churning out broken protein
  • there is a cost to the cell for create the broken protein
  • the cell can either go through the adaptive path and repair the protein
  • OR, it can shut off production of the broken protein
  • EITHER PATH gives a selective advantage
  • So what happens? The cells NEVER followed the adaptive path
  • They almost ALWAYS turn off the production of the broken protein
  • It happens in 30-50 generations, in 14 different cultures
  • Each culture had a different way of turning off the production
  • They tested on 10^12 cells
  • Only one cell made the first repair, none made the second repair
  • It’s more advantageous to STOP PRODUCING the broken protein as soon as possible
  • The first cell that gets rid of the non-functional protein first overtakes the whole culture
  • so, even adaptive paths that provide a benefit with one mutation are unlikely to be followed
  • The point: even promising theoretical adaptive pathways MAY NOT WORK in experiments

I wrote about Doug Axe’s recent research paper here. He is the Director of the Biologic Institute.

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Events

Upcoming apologetics events at Biola University and in South Africa

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American Heroes: The Virtues of Capitalism

Southern California

Biola University events for Southern California readers:

May

6 • FREE: The Virtues of Capitalism Book Event with Scott Rae and Austin Hill

14 • FREE: Signature in the Cell Event with Steve Meyer and his Critics

15 • The Cambrian Explosion: The Data Behind Darwin’s Dilemma
with Illustra Media and others

15 • Intelligent Design and Issues in Religious Liberty
with Richard Land, John Bloom, Craig Hazen, and others

Note the details of tonight’s talk:

The Virtues of Capitalism: A Moral Case for Free Markets
with Scott Rae, Ph.D. and Austin Hill, M.A.

Click Here for more details & to RSVP now!

Our country’s founding fathers took very seriously the selfish, fallen nature of human beings described in Holy Scripture. In a stroke of brilliance, they set up a system of governance and economics that harnessed this sinful nature for the betterment of humankind through competition in branches of government and between economic interests. Today everything seems turned on its head. Have we lost the ideas that undergird the greatest system of government and economics the world has ever seen? Is there hope for the economic well being of our children? Is it moral to be a successful business person? Dr. Scott Rae and Austin Hill will address these news-making concerns, based on their latest book.

Their new book became available this week. I ordered two! Scott Rae is, in my opinion, the top expert in bio-ethics at Biola University. To have him write about economics is a dream come true, for me. I love it when social conservatives and fiscal conservatives unite! Indivisible, to coin a phrase from the recently released collection of essays published by the Heritage Foundation, available as a free downloadable PDF document. Just FYI, Jay Richards’ “Money, Greed and God“, which I wrote about before, is now out in paperback.

South Africa

South Africa events from Mike Licona’s web site:

Monday, 10 May:

14:00 “The death of Jesus as a challenge to Islam” (North West University, Potchefstroom)
19:00 “The historicity of the resurrection” (North West University, Potchefstroom)

Tuesday, 11 May:

10:00-12:00 Colloquium: “The problem of differences: Do the Gospels contradict one another?” (UNISA, Pretoria)
19:00 Debate with Prof Pieter Craffert: “Was Jesus raised physically from the dead?” (University of Johannesburg)

Venue: University of Johannesburg
Location: B-Les 103
Cost: none

Wednesday, 12 May:

19:00 Debate with Prof Sakkie Spangenberg and Prof Hansie Wolmarans (HOD Greek & Latin Studies, University of Johannesburg) vs. Prof William Lane Craig & Prof Michael Licona: “How should we understand the narratives about Jesus’ resurrection?”

Venue: University of Pretoria
Location: Musaion Auditorium
Cost: R20 at the door

We have quite a few South African readers, so you all need to attend these events and then send me updates, and I can post them and give you credit. I am a big fan of Mike Licona.

UPDATE: Commenter Mary sends this link which has even more South Africa events.

Podcasts

Doug Axe publishes a new peer-reviewed paper on protein folding

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A new podcast from ID the Future is worth listening to.

Participants

  • Jay Richards, Director of Research at the CRSC, (Discovery Institute)
  • Doug Axe, Director of the Biologic Institute

The MP3 file is here.

Topics

  • the new BIO-Complexity peer-reviewed journal
  • new peer-reviewed paper challenges Darwinian account of protein folding
  • proteins are found in every living system
  • a protein is a chain of parts called amino acids
  • there are 20 amino acids used in living systems
  • it’s like a 20-letter alphabet used to make sentences (proteins)
  • if the sequence is just right, it folds up and has a function
  • the information about the functional sequences is in the genome
  • the “protein fold” is the 3D shape that a functional protein takes on
  • the folding problem is good because you can TEST Darwinian mechanisms
  • the problem is simple enough to be tested rigorously in a lab
  • Question: how easy is it to create a sequence that folds?
  • English is a good analogy to the problem of protein folding
  • you have a long string of characters (e.g. – 200 letters)
  • each “letter” can be one of 20 amino acids
  • if you assign the letters randomly, you almost always get gibberish
  • there are tons of possible sequences of different letters
  • it’s like a 200 digit slot machine with each digit having 20 possibilities!
  • the number of sequences that would actually make sense is tiny
  • protein folding is the same
  • Doug’s paper assesses how many “tries” could have been attempted
  • Doug’s paper calculates the total number of possibilities
  • cells have arrived a large number of functional sequences
  • but only a small number of the total possibilities could have been tried
  • this is called the “sampling problem”
  • there isn’t enough time to test all of the possibilities (see previous paper below)
  • how did living systems arrive at the functional sequences so quickly?
  • there are some possible naturalistic scenarios for solving the problem
  • Doug’s new paper shows that none of the naturalistic explanations work
  • the only explanation left is that an intelligence sequenced the amino acids
  • it is identical to the way that I can sequence letters to make this post

A picture is worth a thousand words

Here’s a video clip from the DVD Darwin’s Dilemma showing the process:

If you would like to know more about Darwin’s Dilemma, you can read Brian Auten’s review of Darwin’s Dilemma.

Who are these guys?

I wrote a post before on Doug Axe’s previous publications in the Journal of Molecular Biology, where he researched how many of the possible sequences of amino acids have biological function. His PhD is from Caltech, and his post-doctoral research on proteins was conducted at Cambridge University.

Jay Richards is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute and a Contributing Editor of The American at the American Enterprise Institute. In recent years he has been a Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute. His PhD is from Princeton University.

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