New Evidence Leaves Macroevolution Dangling

from here

BY ARTHUR CHADWICK and LEONARD BRAND

As scientists who accept the literal intent of the Genesis account of origins, we have faced many challenges to our faith during our undergraduate and graduate education, and later on as professional scientists. Sometimes these challenges left us shaken, puzzled, or otherwise uncertain about what to do with some particular piece of information. Often we were driven back to our knees and to God’s Word for reassurance that we were moving in the right direction. Always we were directed to analyze more carefully the data from which the challenge had been derived.

One of the major challenges has been the question of macroevolution. The theory of macroevolution asserts that the first living cells, and all types of life, are the result of nondirected, naturalistic processes without the intervention of an outside agency (God). This theory became dominant in the nineteenth century, when scientists knew nothing about the complexity of living cells. It might have been easy to believe a cell could have arisen spontaneously when it was viewed as little more than a fluid-filled sac.

Enter DNA

As we learned more of cellular complexity, including DNA, in the twentieth century, naturalistic scientists had no choice but to believe that this amazing system of molecules that undergirds all life originated by accident. What other theory was there? Certainly they could not accept the idea of a Creator, since their naturalistic assumptions prohibited this possibility. Now in the twenty-first century, three crucial discoveries have undermined the foundation on which the evolutionary origin of life forms seemed to be resting.

Discovery 1: The Human Genome Project

The Two Percent. In 1990 the Human Genome Project began as a massively funded effort by a large contingent of scientists to determine the entire information sequence of human DNA. Scientists discovered, much to their perplexity, that only a tiny fraction (about 2 percent, about 20,000 genes) of human DNA coded for proteins (contained instructions for making a specific protein), yet it was known that nearly 100,000 different proteins were made in human cells. That discrepancy demanded an explanation, and the explanation was stunning. It turned out that those portions of DNA that coded for an amino acid sequence in a protein (exons) could be combined in various ways to make different proteins. This explained how only 2 percent of our DNA could make so many proteins.

It became evident that there would have to be another level of control to determine which exons to stitch together, in which order to make the appropriate protein. Then there would have to be an additional level of control to regulate that, and so on. This multilevel DNA management system was completely beyond anything that had previously been visualized for the complexity of the genetic system.

The Ninety-eight Percent. What was the other 98 percent of the DNA doing? Evolutionary biologists had long ago decided the DNA that was not coding directly for proteins must be “Junk DNA.” This nonfunctional DNA, they declared, was being modified by random mutations to produce new genes that, when functional, would become part of the organism’s genome. By this process, over time, an amphibian could become a reptile, a reptile could become a mammal, and a mammal could become a human. In fact, “Junk DNA” quickly became a strong argument for evolution among biologists.

But trouble was on the way. A new massive, federally funded initiative, called the ENCODE project, was launched to find out what the 98 percent of the DNA that was not coding for proteins was doing. In September 2012 the project simultaneously published a series of papers on the results of their work.1 The consortium announced that at least 80 percent, and probably a lot more of the human DNA that had been thought of as “junk,” was functional DNA. It is not only functional, but also critically important.

Much of this 98 percent of the DNA that did not code directly for proteins was regulating the protein production system; it was part of the multifunctional control of the genetic system. Evolutionists were quick to condemn the report, in spite of the fact that more than 400 of the top molecular biologists in the world had been working on the project. But the results have held up scientifically and are now widely accepted.

The protein-coding genes, 2 percent of the DNA,2 are very similar in all animals. We share 70 percent of our protein coding genes (70 percent of 2 percent) with an acorn worm, 92 percent with a mouse, and up to 96 percent with a chimpanzee. The rest of the DNA (98 percent), clearly, is what makes a human different from an acorn worm, a mouse, or a chimpanzee. This was a huge blow to the theory of evolution, but was long ago predicted by creationists, who recognized that a designer was not likely to burden the cell with junk.

Imagine you go into a well-organized machine shop and observe how it functions. It has hundreds or thousands of drawers along the walls. In each drawer are tools or parts necessary for construction of anything that a machine shop can make. One drawer might have a particular size of drill bit; other drawers may contain specific sizes of machine bolts or washers or nuts. Each drawer has something unique but essential for the construction of a product. Not all products will require the use of all drawers.

These drawers represent the protein coding genes. They are important, even essential, but they cannot produce a thing without the machinist and the blueprint. When the machinist is given a blueprint, he gathers the necessary parts, turns on the needed machines, and, with the skill borne of experience and years, creates the required product. Without the machinist and the blueprint, the machine shop could not produce anything, ever. The machinist and the blueprint represent the regulatory DNA that makes up the majority of the genome. Evolution has no evidence to explain how that genetic system originated. But that’s just the beginning of problems for naturalistic explanations; there is more.

Discovery 2: Epigenetics

Until a few years ago, biology dogma was that genes controlled everything, and that it was genes that determine who one is and what one could become. Now that has changed. For generations students of science have been indoctrinated to believe inheritance from outside of DNA (also known as Lamarckism) would be an absurdity: an example would be a giraffe acquiring a long neck because its ancestors kept reaching for higher leaves in the trees. However, beginning about two decades ago, scientists began to recognize another level of control that turned portions of DNA on or off, without changing the information in the DNA.

These epigenetic modifications, from outside of DNA, affected an animal’s anatomy, function, and even behavior.3 In 2014, scientists studying behavior in mice were able to show convincingly that when a mouse learned an aversion to a specific pleasant odor (animals were shocked when the odor was presented), this aversion could be passed on through three or four generations of offspring. The title of the editorial comments in the scientific journalNature voices the thought that will occur to any Bible reader: “Epigenetics: The Sins of the Fathers.”4

In the example of the mice and in other epigenetic effects the hereditary outcome is not the result of any mutations or other change in the DNA. The epigenetic chemical changes are passed to future offspring as long as they are needed, and the changes may be reversed in future generations. For example, a parent’s diet, behavior, or stress level during pregnancy can affect their offspring without any DNA mutations, and these changes can be passed on to subsequent generations.

Epigenetics presents a dramatic challenge to evolution. Evolution requires all new genetic information to arise by random changes. Without a Creator, the genetic process cannot know in advance what the animal will need. But epigenetics allows the environment to induce changes that will be beneficial, without the help of natural selection. What kinds of control mechanisms and design are involved in developing a system so sophisticated that it can pass on behavioral information that persists, without a change in genes? This is a serious difficulty for evolutionary theory as it has been taught for 100 years. But there were more challenges to come for evolution.

Discovery 3: Orphan Genes

Orphan gene” was coined to designate protein-coding regions (that is, genes) in an animal that were not found in any related animal type, or maybe not in any other species. In other words, there were no similar “ancestral genes” the orphan gene could have evolved from. It is just there, doing a task unique to that animal, like allowing a honeybee to make honey.5 It looks like the animal was designed with that gene because that specific animal needs it. Orphan genes are pervasive in all life forms and pose a critical, perhaps even fatal, obstacle to those seeking to explain the origin of life forms by the evolutionary process.

With continued research the total number of orphan genes identified and recognized has continued to increase, and at present may be as high as 10 to 30 percent of all known genes. More than 1,000 orphan genes are recognized in humans. At least some of these orphan genes are very important; one of them is responsible for the large brain in humans.6

An explanation consistent with the evidence is that the genes were part of the original creation, and their existence in the individual taxa is because of original design. Perhaps some of these orphan genes could be genes that became activated because of altered environmental conditions on the earth after the entrance of sin (epigenetics). In any case, they represent a sobering challenge to the theory of naturalistic evolution.

A Better Explanation

Evolutionary theory claims that new and different types of organisms, such as fish, reptiles, and mammals, originated without a Creator. This theory is now facing serious challenges because of the sophisticated mechanisms of molecular biology that have been unveiled during the past half century. Evolution theory remains alive because it is on artificial “life support,” in the form of philosophical commitment to naturalism, with its assumption that life did not have a Creator. Three recent discoveries, epigenetics, the ENCODE project results, and orphan genes, have further undercut the intellectual feasibility of “life support” for macroevolutionary theory. For many individuals, naturalism and macroevolution are still the only acceptable explanation for life, but this commitment is based increasingly on philosophy, not on adequate evidence. We hope to convince the adherents of evolution that there is a better and viable alternative that not only has explanatory value in science, but holds the promise of eternal life to those who accept it.

---

1. ENCODE. Thirty papers published at the same time in scientific journals, including eight articles and reports in Nature 489 (Sept. 6, 2013): 45-113. See also N. Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015).
2. J. Cohen, “Relative Differences: The Myth of 1%,” Science 316 (June 29, 2007): 1836.
3. B. G. Dias and K. J. Ressler, “Parental Olfactory Experience Influences Behavior and Neural Structure in Subsequent Generations,” Nature Neuroscience 17 (2014): 89-96. Cf. D. Noble, “Physiology Is Rocking the Foundations of Evolutionary Biology,” Experimental Physiology 98 (2014): 1235-1243. Doi: 10.1113/expphysiol.2012.071134.
4. V. Hughes, “Epigenetics: The Sins of the Fathers,” Nature 507 (Mar. 6, 2014):22-24.
5. B. R. Herb, F. Wolschin, K. D. Hansen, M. J. Aryee, B. Langmead, R. Irizarry, G. V. Amdam, and A. P. Feinberg, “Reversible Switching Between Epigenetic States in Honeybee Behavioral Subcastes,” Nature Neuroscience 15, no. 10 (2012): 1371-1373. Cf. W. C. Jasper, T. A. Linksvayer, J. Atallah, D. Friedman, J. C. Chin, and B. R. Johnson, “Large-scale Coding Sequence Change Underlies the Evolution of Postdevelopmental Novelty in Honeybees,” Molecular Biology and Evolution 32, no. 2 (2015): 334-346.
6. M. Florio, M. Albert, E. Taverna, T. Namba, H. Brandl, E. Lewitus, and W. B. Huttner, “Human-specific Gene ARHGAP11B Promotes Basal Progenitor Amplification and Neocortex Expansion,” Science 347, no. 6229 (2015): 1465-1470.

---

Arthur Chadwick, Ph.D., is research professor in the Biology and Geology Department at Southwestern Adventist University, Texas. Leonard Brand, Ph.D., is professor of biology and paleontology at Loma Linda University, California.

BAS: Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? Special Collection

Many scholars believe the Dead Sea Scrolls were either written or collected by a sect of Jews called Essenes, who are described by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo. However, the scrolls themselves make no explicit reference to the Essenes. Scholars infer the connection because of the congruence of Essene philosophy and doctrine as reflected in the scrolls and as described in Josephus and Philo.

The Essenes lived from about the second century B.C.E. to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E. In this, they were no different from many other Jewish movements that disappeared with the Roman suppression of the Great Jewish Revolt. After 70 C.E., only what would become Rabbinic Judaism and a movement of Jews that would become Christianity survived.

Many scholars who believe the scrolls were written by the Essenes suggest that Qumran was an Essene settlement. But it is by no means universally agreed that Qumran was Essene. All scholars agree, however, that the group of scrolls is “sectarian”; that is, they represent the views of non- mainstream (Temple) Jews. Whoever wrote these sectarian scrolls was bitterly opposed to the Jewish priests who controlled the Temple in Jerusalem.

BAS editors have arranged a special collection of articles from Biblical Archaeology Review exploring the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls and what this tells us about the Qumran community, Rabbinic Judaism, Jesus’ philosophy and the modern scholarly community. These articles present diverse textual and archaeological evidence supporting and rejecting the “Essene Hypothesis.”

Go here to read a summary of these articles.

Theological Education in 21st Century: an Orthodox bishop’s perspective

Article from here

Thursday, 15 January 2009 19:00

I am presenting excerpts of a lecture delivered by Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev at the Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, October 21, 2008. This work was made known to me by a friend, Paulist Father Ron Roberson heads the Orthodox desk for the US Bishops ecumenical office in Washington, DC. The emphasis I added to the lecture are the ideas that are striking deserve greater attention by us. The keys are “personal encounter,”  and the lex orandi tradition and being conscious of the great divorce of faith and reason. Thanks for your patience.

According to a classical definition by Evagrius, ‘If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian’. In traditional Orthodox understanding, theology is not a science, or a scholarship, or an academic exercise. To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship.

Theology ought to be inspired by God: it ought not to be the word of a human person, but the word of the Spirit pronounced by human lips. A true Christian theologian is one who is able to be silent until the Holy Spirit touches the strings of his soul. And it is only when the human word falls silent and the word of the Spirit emerges from his soul, that true theology is born. From this moment ‘a lover of words’ is transformed into ‘a lover of wisdom’, a rhetorician into a theologian.

According to St Gregory Nazianzen, not everyone can be a theologian, but only the one who purifies himself for God. Not all can participate in theological discussions, but only those who are able to do it properly. Finally, not every theological concern can be discussed openly.

Discussion of theology is not for everyone, I tell you, not for everyone – it is not such inexpensive and effortless pursuit… It must be reserved for certain occasions, for certain audiences, and certain limits must be observed. It is not for all men, but only for those who have been tested and have found a sound footing in study, and, more importantly, have undergone, or at the very least are undergoing, purification of body and soul.

Theology, according to St Gregory, is nothing other than the ascent to God. Gregory uses the traditional image of Moses on Mount Sinai to emphasize that the true theologian is only someone who is able to enter the cloud and encounter God face to face. In this multi-dimensional, allegorical picture Moses symbolizes the person whose theology emerges from the experience of an encounter with God. Aaron represents someone whose theology is based on what he heard from others; Nadab and Abihu typify those who claim to be theologians because of their high position in the church hierarchy. But neither acquaintance with the experience of others nor an ecclesiastical rank gives one the right to declare oneself a theologian. Those Christians who purify themselves according to God’s commandments may take part in a theological discussion; the non-purified ought not.

Thus, purification of soul is a necessary precondition for practicing theology. Its central point is summed up in the following dictum: ‘Is speaking about God a great thing? But greater still is to purify oneself for God’. Here, purification (katharsis) is not opposed to theology: rather, theology is that ascent to the peak of Mount Sinai which is impossible without purification. What is required for practicing theology is not so much intellectual effort, neither external erudition, nor wide reading, but first of all humility and modesty. According to Gregory, humility is not to be found in someone’s external appearance, which may often be deceitful, and perhaps not even in how someone is related to other people, but in his attitude to God. The humble, in Gregory’s judgment, is not he who speaks but little about himself, or who speaks in the presence of a few but rarely; not he who ‘speaks about God with moderation, who knows what to say and what to pass over in silence’.

In other words, everyone can be a good Christian, but not everyone is able to investigate the depths of doctrine, where many things should be covered by an apophatic silence. Everyone can contemplate on matters of theology, but not everyone can be initiated into its mysteries.

All Christians must purify themselves for God: the more a person is purified, the more discernible are the words of the Spirit in his mouth.True theology is born out of a silent and humble standing before God rather than out of speculations on theological matters. We can see that this understanding is radically different from what we normally mean by ‘theology’. One of the tragic consequences of the divorce between Christian theory and praxis, between faith and knowledge, is that nowadays knowledge about theological subjects does not necessarily presuppose faith. You can be a theologian and not belong to any church community; in principle, you do not need to believe in God to receive a theological degree. Theology is reduced to one of the subjects of human knowledge alongside with chemistry, mathematics or biology.

Another divorce which needs to be mentioned is that between theology and liturgy.
For an Orthodox theologian, liturgical texts are not simply the works of outstanding theologians and poets, but also the fruits of the prayerful experience of those who have attained sanctity and theosis. The theological authority of liturgical texts is, in my opinion, higher than that of the works of the Fathers of the Church, for not everything in the works of the latter is of equal theological value and not everything has been accepted by the fullness of the Church. Liturgical texts, on the contrary, have been accepted by the whole Church as a ‘rule of faith’ (kanon pisteos), for they have been read and sung everywhere in Orthodox churches over many centuries.

Throughout this time, any erroneous ideas foreign to Orthodoxy that might have crept in either through misunderstanding or oversight were eliminated by church Tradition itself, leaving only pure and authoritative doctrine clothed by the poetic forms of the Church’s hymns.

Several years ago I came across a short article in a journal of the Coptic Church where it stated that this Church had decided to remove prayers for those detained in hell from its service books, since these prayers ‘contradict Orthodox teaching.’ Puzzled by this article, I decided to ask a representative of the Coptic Church about the reasons for this move. When such opportunity occurred, I raised this question before one Coptic metropolitan, who replied that the decision was made by his Synod because, according to their official doctrine, no prayers can help those in hell. I told the metropolitan that in the liturgical practice of the Russian Orthodox Church and other local Orthodox Churches there are prayers for those detained in hell, and that we believe in their saving power. This surprised the metropolitan, and he promised to study this question in more detail.

During this conversation with the metropolitan I expressed my thoughts on how one could go very far and even lose important doctrinal teachings in the pursuit of correcting liturgical texts. Orthodox liturgical texts are important because of their ability to give exact criteria of theological truth, and one must always confirm theology using liturgical texts as a guideline, and not the other way round. The lex credendi grows out of the lex orandi, and dogmas are considered divinely revealed because they are born in the life of prayer and revealed to the Church through its divine services. Thus, if there are divergences in the understanding of a dogma between a certain theological authority and liturgical texts, I would be inclined to give preference to the latter. And if a textbook of dogmatic theology contains views different from those found in liturgical texts, it is the textbook, not the liturgical texts, that need correction. Even more inadmissible, from my point of view, is the correction of liturgical texts in line with contemporary norms. Relatively recently the Roman Catholic Church decided to remove the so-called ‘antisemitic’ texts from the service of Holy Friday. Several members of the Orthodox Church have begun to propagate the idea of revising Orthodox services in order to bring them closer to contemporary standards of political correctness. For example, the late Archpriest Serge Hackel from England, an active participant in the Jewish-Christian dialogue, proposed the removal of all texts from the Holy Week services that speak of the guilt of the Jews in the death of Christ (cf. his article “How Western Theology after Auschwitz Corresponds to the Consciousness and Services of the Russian Orthodox Church,” in Theology after Auschwitz and its Relation to Theology after the Gulag: Consequences and Conclusions, Saint Petersburg, 1999; in Russian). He also maintains that only a ‘superficial and selective’ reading of the New Testament brings the reader to the conclusion that the Jews crucified Christ.

In reality, he argues, it was Pontius Pilate and the Roman administration who are chiefly responsible for Jesus’ condemnation and crucifixion. This is just one of innumerable examples of how a distortion of the lex credendi inevitably leads to ‘corrections’ in the lex orandi, and vice versa. This is not only a question of revising liturgical tradition, but also a re-examination of Christian history and doctrine. The main theme of all four Gospels is the conflict between Christ and the Jews, who in the end demanded the death penalty for Jesus. There was no conflict between Christ and the Roman administration, the latter being involved only because the Jews did not have the right to carry out a death penalty. It seems that all of this is so obvious that it does not need any explanation. This is exactly how the ancient Church understood the Gospel story, and this is the understanding that is reflected in liturgical texts. However, contemporary rules of ‘political correctness’ demand another interpretation in order to bring not only the Church’s services, but also the Christian faith itself in line with modern trends.

The Orthodox Tradition possesses a sufficient number of ‘defense mechanisms’ that prevent foreign elements from penetrating into its liturgical practice. I have in mind those mechanisms that were set in motion when erroneous or heretical opinions were introduced into the liturgical texts under the pretext of revision. One may recall how Nestorianism began with the suggestion to replace the widely-used term Theotokos (Mother of God) with Christotokos (Mother of Christ), the latter was seen as more appropriate by Nestorius. When this suggestion was made, one of the defense mechanisms was activated: the Orthodox people were indignant and protested. Later, another mechanism was put into operation when theologians met to discuss the problem. Finally, an Ecumenical Council was convened. Thus, it turned out that a dangerous Christological heresy, lurking under the guise of a seemingly harmless liturgical introduction, was later condemned by a Council.

To rediscover the link between theology, liturgy and praxis, between lex orandi, lex credendi and lex Vivendi would be one of the urgent tasks of theological education in the 21st century. The whole notion of a ‘theology’ as exclusively bookish knowledge must be put into question. The whole idea of a ‘theological faculty’ as one of many other faculties of a secular university needs to be re-examined. The notions of ‘nonconfessional’, ‘unbiased’, ‘objective’ or ‘inclusive’ theology as opposed to ‘confessional’ or ‘exclusive’ must be reconsidered.

Hilarion Alfeyev was born on July 24, 1966 in Moscow. He studied violin, piano and composition. He graduated in 1991 with a Master of Theology from the Moscow Theological Academy. In 1995, Alfeyev earned a doctorate from the University of Oxford (UK) under the supervision of Bishop Kallistos Ware writing defending a thesis titled “St Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition.”

He entered the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he was tonsured as a monk, ordained a deacon and a ordained priest in 1987. His bishop assigned him to serve as parish priest in Lithuania, including two years as dean of Annunciation Cathedral in Kaunas.

From 1995 to 2001 Hilarion Alfeyev served as Secretary for Inter-Christian Affairs of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate. He also taught part time at Smolensk and Kaluga Theological Seminaries (Russia), at St Vladimir’s and St Herman’s Theological Seminaries (USA) and at Cambridge University (UK).

On 27 December 2001, Alfeyev was elected a bishop and consecrated by His Holiness Alexy II, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia in January 2002. The Patriarch assigned him to serve as an Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Sourozh in Great Britain until the Holy Synod decided, only a few months later, that he was to be nominated as Head of the Representation of the Russian Orthodox Church to the European Institutions in Brussels. Since May 2003 he has served as Bishop of Vienna and Austria, administrator of the Diocese of Budapest and Hungary, in addition to his position in Brussels, which he continues to hold.

Bishop Hilarion has authored numerous musical compositions including “St Matthew Passion,” grand oratorio for soloists, choir and orchestra, with performances at the Great Hall of Moscow Concervatory, the Auditorium Conciliazione, Rome and at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne. Equally well received was his 2008 “Christmas Oratorio,” performed in Washington, Boston and New York and later in Moscow.