In 1951, the brilliant British scientist Alan Turing published a paper proposing a theory in chemistry called morphogenesis, which explains how cells are grouped together within an organism. According to Turing, oscillating chemical reactions predictable by mathematical formula are partially responsible for organizing cells to form organs, bone, and tissue. Of course, Turing's greatest claim to fame was his role as the leader of the team that remarkably broke the Enigma code during World War II, the secret German code once considered unbreakable, as depicted in the excellent film The Imitation Game. Unfortunately, Turing committed suicide only three years after his paper on morphogenesis was published, after his prosecution for the "crime" of being homosexual. Alan Turing didn't live to see the publication of evidence that would have validated his theory almost immediately. Only a few years after Turing's paper on morphogenesis was published, chemist Boris Belousov mixed potassium bromate with citric acid, discovering that the blended mixture changed colors as the fluids oscillated and chemicals reacted, which seems to prove Turing's theory. And as these videos illustrate, the phenomenon is actually very easy to replicate by experiment. However, when Belousov attempted to have his research published in 1951, the leading scientific journals flatly rejected his work, based on the assumption that the experiment results were "impossible." Only a single paragraph from Belousov's analysis was finally published four years later, in 1955. Alan Turing was already … [Read more...]
Echolocating night-hunting aerial interceptors
The book Evolutionary Wars contains a section bearing the title above. In layman's terms, it describes the method by which bats hunt insects at night. Author Levy writes, The most difficult task for nocturnal airborne predators is to detect, locate, intercept and successfully engage a moving target. To achieve success, the predator must acquire an almost continuous stream of information giving instantaneous data about the target's size, velocity, direction and altitude. (pg. 188) The complexity of the work involved for mere survival of the bat is astounding. Flying is only one complex function. By its description echolocating is several -- essentially using its "naturally" occurring sonar capability to navigate and hunt without being able to physically "see" it's prey. As part of a lengthy technical description of how bats eat insects, Levy says, If the echo returns at a lower pitch, the target is moving away; if the echo is at a higher pitch, the target is approaching. Each ear picks up the echo at a slightly different intensity and time. In this way, the bat's minuscule on board computer, it's 10 milligram brain automatically triangulates and gives in-flight directions for the intercept. Charles Levy implies a slight in his opinion of this remarkable creature when he describes the bat's brain by weight. Admittedly, only ten milligrams for a brain is only a tiny fraction of the weight of the brain an average human carries around in their head, is around three pounds. On the other hand, I've learned there are some birds that seem to be a bit smarter … [Read more...]
Eye of the beholder
Eye of the beholder Familiar with the expression "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"? Various forms of the phrase date all the way back to Greece in the 3rd century B.C. However, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford is generally credited with the first use of that exact phrase in her book Molly Bawn, originally published in 1878. The cliche simply means that different things will appeal to different people. The eye is a collection of tissue that forms an organ and provides visual feedback from our physical world. The ability to see an adversary who is fighting blind is almost always gives an unsurmountable edge to the fighter with unimpaired vision. Some biologists, notably Jerry Coyne, describe the eye as an imperfect creation or an organ that is easy to create. Coyne wrote, The human eye, though eminently functional, is imperfect - certainly not the sort of eye an engineer would create from scratch. Its imperfection arises precisely because our eye evolved using whatever components were at hand, or produced by mutation. Since our retina evolved from an everted part of the brain, for example, the nerves and blood vessels that attach to our photoreceptor cells are on the inside rather than the outside of the eye, running over the surface of the retina. Leakage of these blood vessels can occlude vision, a problem that would not occur if the vessels fed the retina from behind. Likewise, to get the nerve impulses from the photocells to the brain, the different nerves must join together and dive back through the eye, forming the optic nerve. This hole in the retina … [Read more...]
Microtubules of the brain
[AUTHOR'S NOTE: The bulk of the original content of this article was published at Examiner.com when I wrote as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner. Unlike previous articles from that source which were only re-formatted and lightly edited, new material has been added that has developed since the article was first published.] Microtubules of the brain How does our brain really work? Are brain cells special? How do brain cells store memories? Computers are modeled after the human brain, and like humans, they have both short-term and long-term memory. For short-term memory, computer allocates space in a storage cache to "remember" information...for example, a calculator application accepts input from a user and must remember the numerical values entered, the operand (in order to know whether to add, subtract, multiply, divide, etc.) and then must store the result of the operation to be displayed as feedback. However, when the application ends or the computer is turned off, the short-term memory is wiped out. Lost forever. As far as long-term memory is concerned for computers, a storage device is required, and the information is literally written to a computer chip, hard drive, flash drive, or some other permanent medium. If you store your data "in the cloud" it only means you're using storage provided by someone else, which might be convenient, but not very secure. Literally, somewhere there must be a physical device which stores your information to be recalled and reused at a later date. So with that in mind, how does a human brain record long-term … [Read more...]
Compounded improbabilities
[AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the final article originally published at Examiner.com in the series on the theory of evolution, on a favorite topic of mine: is it possible to quantify the luck that would be necessary to explain our existence, without invoking a supernatural Creator of all things? The secular approach to eliminating God from creation can take at least two different, diametrically opposed forms. The goal of both is to eliminate a problem called fine-tuning of this universe, described in this article. First, there is the multiverse hypothesis, which improves the probability of "this" (successful) universe by speculating an unknown number of unsuccessful universes were also created at the Big Bang anomaly. The other option is that it may be argued that the creation of the universe was actually deterministic (Grand Unified Theory, or GUT) assuming that this universe had no choice except to exist, and to enable complex life to exist.] Compounded improbabilities Cosmologist Sir Martin Rees has declared that “just six numbers” dictate the nature of our universe. For clarity and ease of discussion, these six values shall be referred to as “cosmic factors” for the remainder of this article. Apparently to avoid giving a divine Creator any credit, Rees said, These six numbers constitute a 'recipe' for a universe. Moreover, the outcome is sensitive to their values: if any one of them were to be 'untuned', there would be no stars and no life. Is this tuning just a brute fact, a coincidence? Or is it the providence of a benign Creator? I take the view that it is … [Read more...]
