Beware the So-Called "Noahide Laws"!

 

HARS ( Human Accelerated Regions ) Humans Have Disproportionate Amount of Genomic Changes

Many animals have regions where their genomes are different from other animals even in regions which are "conserved" in other branches of the "tree of life". But none to the degree of humans. We have regions which are different in us that are conserved in everything else, including chimps.

This paper is a good starting point for understanding them. There is much more to learn as we first learned about them in 2006.

Here is a description from the paper ...

HARs are short, ∼260 bp on an average, stretches of DNA, to 97% noncoding. They are conserved in vertebrates, including Pan troglodytes, but not in Homo sapiens, in whom the conserved sequences were subjected to significantly, in many cases dramatically, higher rates of single nucleotide substitutions (Hubisz and Pollard 2014).

If something is conserved in all vertebrates then it is very strong evidence that it is vital to keep as-is, yet humans and humans alone have dramatically higher rates of coding differences. Not just in single-nucleotide substitutions either.  

As became clear starting in 2003 (Locke et al. 2003), the human genome is also subject to an important number of complex genomic rearrangements, including segmental duplications, that can also, because of their large size, affect coding genes (Fortna et al. 2004), in particular, create new functional paralogs (Charrier et al. 2012; Dennis et al. 2012, 2017). An example is given on figure 1b. Human-specific deletions may also remove regulatory sequences (McLean et al. 2011). An example is shown on figure 1c. The study of the patterns of human-specific large structural variants is currently in its infancy (Dennis and Eichler 2016), but it has already become clear that the impact of these variants in the context of human evolution is paramount.

Did Neanderthals have these changes? Not all of them. They did not measure the deletions and re-arragnements, but in terms of single nucleotide substitutions they were missing 8.3% of them- the full suite is literally only present in our species. The tests for other things such as hCondels showed a bigger gap- Neanderthals lacking 12% of them. And the tests were not sophisticated enough to spot what may be the biggest difference of all- large scale re-arrangement of sections of the genome.   

Humans are a distinct, unique, and relatively recent species. 

Is it Time to Invoke A "God of the Gaps" Argument for the Cambrian Explosion?

I am preserving this answer I made in a social media post because it sums up well the case I have sometimes made that a reasonable conclusion is the Cambrian explosion shows that naturalism isn't a good total explanation for the life we see on earth.......

When I say I am using science to challenge scientific conclusions, that's just how regular science is done. But what it can't do, and I am not claiming that it can, is say "so the scientific conclusion is that there was a supernatural act here". I am NOT claiming one can get to that point with science. Science, as it is conceived of today, is a search for NATURAL cause and effects only. It is utterly blind to God's direct action (that not done through Laws of nature which if He is, then He set up to operate) . This even if God were standing right in front of it.

Let's pretend that we were there at the account of Christ's first public miracle, turning water into wine. , if we were at the wedding in Galilee where Christ changed water into the best wine without ever touching vessels belonging to other people and even sending other people's servants to fetch water from a third-party source, science STILL cannot conclude that this was a divine act. ALL it can say is "we don't know what the natural cause of this event was but we can keep searching". It would be an anomaly.

I nevertheless claim that in that situation it would be reasonable to suppose that this Jewish religious figure had indeed performed a miracle. It doesn't mean that I think the search for natural causes should be banned. We could go right on looking for them. IOW, it would not stop science or scientific study of the question. But it is an acknowledgement that it is reasonable to think there may not be a "scientific" solution. To science, it would be an anomaly. That's as far as science can go, but it isn't as far as we as humans can go. Science may not be able to conclude it was a miracle, but we can.

Whether or not other claims of miracles were valid or invalid would be irrelevant to our evidence here. Whether or not other people had prayed for miracles and received none would likewise be irrelevant. The evidence that this religious figure provided a miracle just to save the host embarrassment might mean that He has access to God that the other folks praying for a miracle do not have. We need not consider their failures. Maybe they are mostly clowns that God doesn't entrust with His supernatural power. I don't claim to be fit for it either.

I've got an atheist friend named Wesley. We once worked together. He too kept saying "there is no evidence for God or His actions". I kept trying to get him to say what he would consider valid evidence for God. He kept refusing to be pinned down. Finally, in exasperation, I said "what if an angel appeared to you today and told you that the God of the bible is the Creator of the universe?". He said "I would assume that I was having a psychotic episode."

That's closed minded. He has made his mind up in advance that nature is all that there is, and nothing will change his mind about that, even his own mind and eyes are not to be trusted over his a priori conclusion that there is no God. Well, so far as I know, he is still an atheist. Because of the evidence? No. He won't let himself be anything else, regardless of evidence.

If that's you, there is no point in proceeding. There is no amount of logic, fact, or reason, that could shake Wesley of his conclusion. Evidence only works on people open to evidence, and he wasn't. If any natural explanation, no matter how desperate, is preferred over any supernatural explanation no matter how reasonable, then it isn't a problem of the evidence, it is a problem of the spirit. Last I talked to him he was going through a lot of trials, and I hope that he has changed, but I don't know.

So what am I trying to do with the Cambrian explosion? I NOT trying to prove with science that "God did it". I am trying to show with science that it is REASONABLE to conclude that the Cambrian explosion is an anomaly for which there is no good naturalistic explanation. That's as far as science can go. Logic, reason, and fact, will have to take it from there. But one cannot do that if one starts with the assumption that nature is all there is and so all thought of supernatural causes are wrong. That is very tight circular reasoning. It is assuming the answer to the question before it is asked.

Now when you appealed to all of the questions that men once attributed to direct divine action that we now know are the laws of nature at work, that was a long way of saying that I am making a "God of the Gaps Argument". And I am. But while such arguments can be invalid, I contend they are not invalid when certain parameters apply. If it is a question on which we have little natural knowledge (as was the case on almost everything a few hundred years ago) then yes, a God of the Gaps argument is a bad argument. If it is a problem we were not aware of until recently, so that science has not had much time to find a natural explanation, then yes, a God of the Gaps argument is a bad argument. But that isn't the case here. Listen to this quote from Charles Darwin...

//“[As to] why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods before the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer. The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained.”//

So science has been aware of this problem for a very long time, and has being trying to find a reasonable natural explanation for a very long time. One hypothesis was that ancestors for these creatures existed, we just hadn't found their fossils yet. Another was that they were there, but conditions were not right to make fossils until the Cambrian. Those were proposed natural explanations for the lack of evidence to support the origin of animal phyla.

Well they kept looking and after 150 years what they found was the worst possible outcome for naturalism. It could hardly be a bigger disaster. They DID find fossils in pre-Cambrian layers (so the hypothesis that things were there but they could not fossilize was out). But the fossils they found were of Vendian forms, which most of them are honest enough to admit are not good ancestors for what we see spring up in the Cambrian. I am prepared to show why the minority who think they do are reaching for straws. Further, the more they look, the more explosive the Cambrian Explosion got. It wasn't stretched over the whole Cambrian period, but just a fraction of it. Then they keep making finds like the Annelid find I have been trying to discuss- things they thought did not come along for 200 million years show up way early. I am prepared to show this happens again, and again, and again.

After 150 years of being aware of the problem, and all their looking only makes the problem worse, I say a reasonable person, one with an open mind and not utterly committed to the idea there is no supernatural no matter how big the anomalies get, should be open to the idea that the reason they are only in a deeper hole after 150 years of digging is that there is no natural explanation.

To see me at my grizzled worst and what I mean on the God of the Gaps in more detail... https://youtu.be/fsEeO5SPIGM?si=dl4M0GLIhVMYjf9n

What Happened to the Armenian Farmers in 3900 BC?

 

From this paper...

The Vanevan pollen record offers the possibility to detect three phases of local-scale agriculture. The earliest indicators of agricultural practices are occasionally recorded during the LAPZ Van 2 and base of Van 3 from ca 8000-7150 cal BP (late Neolithic). The second phase of local-scale farming is recorded more strongly to the turn of zones Van3 and Van 4 between ca 6990 and 6790 cal BP (Early Chalcolithic).

The third is related in the end of LPAZ Van 4 from ca. 6480 to 5930 cal BP...... 
Occurrences of crops and grazing pollen indicators disappear during LPAZ Van 5 :
only Centaurea cyanus, Rumex acetosa and Juglans are recorded from ca 4890-4520 cal BP

They are saying that this site had crops and pasture until 3900 BC, at which point it turned into a mire and trees vanished. Crops vanished. Grass pollen vanished. Only a few such plants appear about 1,000 years later!

Consistent with the time and place I suspect for the deluge of Noah. 

 

Have they Changed the Relationship Between Theory and Law?

 Look at this public school textbook from the mid 1990s.

The Push to Re-Translate Genesis 1:1 and

 

A large mass of modern scholarship now claims that Genesis 1:1 has been mistranslated for more than 20 centuries and are now in the process of attempting to get what they claim is the correct translation into new editions of bibles and torahs. What is the basis for their claim? At last we have the details, and as bad as you might think it is....the reality is probably worse! 

*********** Link to Amazon page of book on Early Genesis https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XRLDYJB 

Original Torahtimes channel video on Gen 1:1 that I referenced • Genesis 1:1 corre...  

In favor of a traditional translation or one like it... Professor Shlomo Karin on Genesis 1 https://www.torahmusings.com/2011/04/....

IF Light Gets "Tired", Do We Need "Dark Energy"?

 If Zwicky's "Tired Light Theory" is partly back on the table, then do we need "Dark Energy"? The cosmos could be expanding because light is pushing against it. Dark energy would literally be EM energy, including light. The rate of the universe's expansion would increase because in stars, matter with gravity would be converted into light without it. And that light would push against space time like air in a balloon. Gravity would have to be an artifact of differences in EM fields at ultra-small wavelengths as I have stated elsewhere and would loose effectiveness at great distances to do normal red-shift stretching. 

 I don't buy the "older universe" in the link. I think spacetime is curved and they are looking at light from galaxies that has made more than one circuit around the cosmos, 

Update, I don't think "tired light" is the right way to put it. Rather, if I am right about the connection between ultra-short wave EM radiation and quantum adjustments in subatomic particles producing a tiny net attraction we call gravity, 

These are just placeholders for related ideas I want to think about later and ponder if the dots connect and how..

"the Ultraviolet Catastrophe"  

BUT I do think that classical Newtonian gravity breaks down by being somewhat stronger at a low force but I still suspect that at a very low force is starts to vanish altogether, explaining the expansion of the universe when combined with light pressure at longer wave lengths (which I hypothesize don't get so weak that something analogous to the ultraviolet catastrophe makes their energy mostly vanish. At least not at distances as small as the current size of the universe. 

I postulate there is a "sweet spot" for the gravitational effect of these tiny waves that corresponds to what is being found at the distance of distant binary pairs. They find that gravity seems to be stronger than Newton would expect at these distances. So, Classical Newtonian physics breaks down at ultra-tiny ranges, works for ordinary ranges at non-relativistic speeds, but does not work once you get to wide-binary distances because it is stronger than Newton predicts, but becomes weaker than Newton predicts at ultra long distances due to something analogous to the "Ultraviolet Catastrophe". 

It makes sense if gravity is a result of these tiny tiny EM waves that are overcome by quantum forces at super-close range, interfere with each other some at normal ranges (producing the force expected from classical Newtonian physics) but at interstellar ranges are low enough in density that the interference is minimized and thus the force is stronger than Newton expected it to be, But at extreme ranges the waves get so tiny that quantum effects cause them to increasingly become zero. At some range, gravity goes away. We can know this range based on how large we think the universe was when cosmic expansion began accelerating rather than slowing down.

UPDATE: This newly proposed model for dark energy is a lot like I have been saying- that so called "dark energy" is really light pressure, photons exert a push against the cosmos. His description is more complex of course.