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Last week the University of Manchester issued a press release with the somewhat sensational title, "St Bernard study casts doubt on creationism." Picked up by several, though not all, science news outlets, such as Wired News and Discovery, the story was based on a study of St Bernard skulls published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. While the study is interesting and worthwhile, the role it plays in "disproving" creationism is a bit harder to pin down--though I'll do so for you by the end of this post. First, an explanation of the study and a few comments:

Authors Abby Drake and Christian Klingenberg conducted their study of morphological evolution by examining 47 St Bernard skulls dating from 2001 to as far back as 1885. By using computer techniques that compared "landmark" points around the skull, the researchers could statistically analyze the rate and extent of evolution (or "change," more appropriately) over 116 years. St. Bernards were especially useful for the study because they are known to have originated in the mid-17th century (when monks at the Great St. Bernard Pass in the  Swiss Alps began breeding them). Records of the breeding history have been kept since the late 1850's. The pedigree included: A bulky body, large skull, high cheekbones, a short and wide muzzle, and prominent eye ridges. With those characteristics in mind, the monks and other dog breeders began crossing dogs that best matched the desired "St. Bernard" standard. Consider the following two skulls. The first is of a St Bernard from around 1892.

 Compare that with the skull below, from a more recent St Bernard--about 1976. Notice the high brows and the steep transition from the muzzle to the forehead.

 The obvious differences in the skulls highlight the point the authors of the Proceedings B study make, which is that selection (in this case artificial selection) can produce significant morphological change in a relatively short amount of time. The amount of shape-shifting that occurred in the skulls was measured by something called Procrustes distance (0.084 units), and according to the authors is comparable to the rate of evolutionary change that has occurred in "average body shapes among fish populations separated by periods up to 4000 years or between tooth shape divergence of mammal taxa separated by thousands to millions of years." They continue:

Episodes of particularly strong selection can achieve even faster divergence, as suggested by selection experiments on wing shape in Drosophila [fruit flies] or observations on bill size and shape in Darwin’s finches. The results from our study of St Bernard dogs are remarkable in that they indicate that a sustained response to such selection can be maintained for many generations.

Again, the point is clear and well taken--the right circumstances of selection can produce change quite quickly. However, the question creationists and ID theorists have raised is "are there limits to change?" And the study itself would seem to indicate so: 

Interestingly, there appears to be no trend for centroid [overall] size of the skull, even though the breed standard specifies that the head should be ‘massive’ and the size of the head is presumably under selection. Because body size and the sizes of structures such as the head usually are associated with heritable variation that provides the potential for a response to selection, the apparent lack of a response raises the question whether some constraint may have prevented an increase of skull size in St Bernards.

. . . . 

The historical change in St Bernards shows that selection by breeders can produce sustained change of shape in one direction, and thus can produce morphological alterations comparable to the differences between taxa that have been diverging for much longer times. Morphological variation in dogs is comparable to diversification in higher taxa, and dogs can therefore serve as a model system for studying the mechanisms involved in the evolution of morphological disparity.

To swipe a controversial title, is there an edge to the evolution of St. Bernards? Given the right artificial selection, could the breed be grown, say, 75% larger over the next hundred years? And like those "higher taxa," could Bernards be changed into, say, ponies? I'm as interested as any Darwinist in discovering what evolutionary potential--or boundary--exists in organisms, so I think such a simple experiment would be worthwhile. And just imagine the possibilities if St Bernards are truly being morphed by mutation, as the authors hint:

The more or less linear trend in the shape variable that corresponds to historical change indicates a sustained response of skull shape to the selection imposed by breeding. There is no evidence for a slowing down of the trend, as it has been found in many artificial selection experiments. Unfortunately, the available data do not allow us to decide whether a sufficient amount of genetic variation still persists from the initial, heterogeneous breeding stock or whether genetic variation is replenished continuously by new mutation.

 As it turns out, Bernards are particularly susceptible to a unique host of health issues, such as eye disorders, seizures, heart disease, eczema, and bone problems, including hereditary bone cancer. If mutation is doing its work on St. Bernards, evolution obviously has a few kinks to fix.

So what does this study show? It proves that artificial selection, and by analogy natural selection, can produce morphological change over time. Does it challenge creationism? Not in the least, because biblical creationism not only accepts, but promotes the concept of natural selection--except that young earth creationists believe morphological change can happen (or happened in the past) more quickly than most evolutionists suppose. It seems then that St. Bernard study co-author Christian Klingenberg was severely misinformed when said in his university's press release:

"Creationism is the belief that all living organisms were created according to Genesis in six days by 'intelligent design' and rejects the scientific theories of natural selection and evolution.

"But this research once again demonstrates how selection — whether natural or, in this case, artificially influenced by man — is the fundamental driving force behind the evolution of life on the planet."

Yet a simple glance at the website of Answers in Genesis, the major organization behind the creationist movement in America, shows that creationists wholeheartedly accept natural selection. Where Klingenberg heard otherwise is a mystery, and I'd like to hear from him if has a source at hand for his statement.

What creationists disagree with is the claim that the morphological change in St. Bernards is rightly "comparable to diversification in higher taxa." Creationists argue that simply because change is seen to occur on a small scale in a single species, isn't licence for that change to continue indefinitely and without bounds, until a particular species changes into something radically different, forming a new family of animals.

So while natural selection may be a fundamental driving force behind the (micro)evolution of life on planet, it doesn't explain the origin of that same life.

Other news: Homer Jacobson recalls his 1955 paper on the origin of life after it is cited by creationists; some of the best wildlife photos of the year have been selected; and, Vivek Wadhwa claims U.S. shortage of science and engineering grads is nothing but a myth.

St. Bernard photo from Wikipedia, used under creative commons license/St. Bernard skull photos provided, copyright Abby Drake.

 That is what you think it is--smoke from the California wildfires that have taken at least two lives and hundreds of homes. The fires are being driven by high winds, evident by the dust cloud also visible in the image above.

Answers in Genesis has an article about Sweden's new ban on teaching creationism alongside evolution. And because private schools in Sweden receive government grants, even Christian schools have to abide by these rules.

Chuck Colson did a BreakPoint commentary a few days ago to talk about Behe's book The Edge of Evolution, and about how the New York Times asked Behe's intellectual enemy Richard Dawkins to review it (a review that consisted partly of scientific rebuttal and mostly of insults, I'd add). "That would be roughly the equivalent of the New York Times asking me to review one of Dawkins’s books," said Colson. "Fat chance." I was interested to hear Colson's intimation that he doesn't personally accept common descent.

 Slashdot posted a story that linked to this essay paralleling Darwinian evolution with self-correcting information systems like Wikipedia, prediction markets, and recommendation systems. It's ironic the author of the essay chose something like Wikipedia to represent evolution by natural selection, because, after all, Wikipedia works because of intelligence. And rather that causing the "survival" ability of Wikipedia to occasionally improve, mistakes and misinformation are always detrimental, and need to corrected by designers, who understand the language and have a rigidly specific goal in mind (accuracy--information corresponding with a reality outside the wiki system).

In that light, Wikipedia is actually more descriptive of creationism than neo-Darwinism. I'm so glad he thought of it.

NASA wildfire image created by Jesse Allen.

A new species of titanosaur--and with a neck around 56 feet long, one of the largest--is being unearthed in Argentina. You can view photos of the fossils here and a video version of the story here.

 NASA has scheduled the launched of the shuttle Discovery for next Tuesday--although an inspection turned up microscopic cracks on the vehicle's heat shields.

The Washington Post reports a new strain of antibiotic-resistant staph virus is currently killing more Americans than HIV. The virus Staphylococcus aureus is causing "a significant public health problem." I visited an elderly man who was succumbing to a staph infection a couple weeks ago. Who knows if this was the strain he had.

 You've heard of dinosaur tracks, but how about reptile tracks? A fossil slab containing a jumble of reptile trackways has been found in Canada and is being touted as the earliest evidence for the existence of reptiles, supposedly pushing the evolution of the cold-blooded animals back another 1 to 3 million years "earlier than previously thought." This has got to drive the people who make those phylogeny charts nuts.

You already know about this, but here's a link or two to Al Gore's Nobel. He won the prize the same week a UK judge ruled Gore's global warming documentary was "alarmist"--but could nevertheless be shown to school students. The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" blog lists the judge's conclusions concerning exaggerated or inaccurate facts in the film, but says it's "way too early" for a Pinocchio ruling. Come on, not even a level one or two?

A couple appendix news links. In spite of the novel bacteria "holding place" theory outlined in the stories, some scientists are still insisting the appendix is vestigial from some earlier, more primitive function. We just can't win. . .

Liveblogging the Wednesday night debate in Alabama between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox. I'm listening over the Moody radio network. . .

[Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and the author of The God Delusion and other books. Lennox is a Christian apologist and scientist and his book God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? is soon to be released. Both men are Oxford educated.]

My thoughts, added after the debate, in italics. . .

Dawkins is beginning the debate and giving a short bio. He was born in South Africa into an Anglican family. His family's faith was never crammed down his throat, but he gave up his religion when he 1) realized it was simply by chance that he born into a Christian family, and 2) met Darwinism. [I think I also remember Dawkins saying he was sent to boarding school at some age. Poor guy. That explains everything. . .]

Because of his position as a scientist and philosopher, he feels especially qualified to address the question of existence.

Update: Lennox was born into a Christian family, but made the point that he never felt his parents were withholding ideas or truth from him, as Dawkins implies religions do.

Lennox explains his position as being opposite of Dawkins', and quotes Dawkins' book that would place him (Lennox) in the category of "deluded."

Lennox says, "But which is a delusion, atheism or Christianity? That is for us to decide according to the evidence."

 Update: Dawkins says that when you see the beauty of the world, you have a natural "religious" desire to be amazed, to worship something. He says science is seeking to "emancipate" humans from that innate desire or "temptation." He believes it was a triumph of science to show people that the feeling they have that all things were created is simply a delusion--instead, all things have a materialistic origin and can eventually be explained by science. [In other words, Dawkins believes science--by which he means Darwinism--soothes that itchy feeling people normally get that "God's invisible qualities have been clearly seen, being understood from {creation}." Romans 1. So although we naturally believe in God, Dawkins thinks we should try to supress that feeling, and embrace Darwinism and materialism to help us do so.]

Dawkins: "Science says, 'let's roll up our sleeves and work on it.' Religion says, 'God did it.'"

Dawkins says religion stifles scientific efforts to discover truth.

[There is some truth to what Dawkins' says here: Where religion offers an answer to a philosophical question, people feel no need to invest in a scientific explanation. However, proposing a scientific explanation doesn't show us that the religious answer was untrue. If creation is true, it will continue to be true whether or not Darwin's theory works.]

Update: Lennox distinguishes between blind faith and evidence-based faith. Faith in a "flying spaghetti monster" would be blind, because there's no evidence for it. In contrast, Christianity is faith-based in real things, like science, history, and other believable evidence.

Lennox says it's important to realize science has limits--it can't tell us whether it's morally right to put poison into our grandmother's tea, but can tell us it would kill her if we did.

There are two kinds of "gaps."--Those that science closes and those that it opens. [Meaning science doesn't explain things like morality and meaning, I presume.]

Lennox says theistic religion was not historically responsible for hindering science, but instead for driving it.

Tells Dawkins he is confusing agencies (God) with mechanisms (natural selection, I presume). Mechanisms, when properly understood, bring glory to the God that created them.

 Update: Dawkins attempted to rebut Lennox's point about blind faith and evidence-based faith, but either didn't understand or didn't agree with Lennox's argument that all beliefs have an element of faith in them.

Update: Dawkins disagrees with the concept of NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria). [Here Dawkins was saying he believes science should bear on religious beliefs, because, for example, a miracle should be believed or disbelieved based on whether it can be empirically shown to have occurred. Lennox agreed. So do I. That's why the Bible so strongly emphasizes eyewitness accounts. If you believe the Bible, although you're ultimately trusting God, you're also trusting those who saw certain events happen and wrote them down.]

Lennox argues that faith is even required to do science, because you have to start with the assumption that the universe can be intelligently studied and understood.

He criticizes Dawkin's reductionism--believing all things, including the mind, is reducible to basic atomic processes--is absurd, because Dawkins has no reason to trust his own thoughts if they are merely the result of random, meaningless firings of the brain.

Lennox says the physical constants (which are fine-tuned for our existence) give evidence of design.

He says the Bible has for centuries showed us that the universe had a beginning--which was never verified scientifically until science found the evidence of the big bang. Of course I disagree with Lennox's argument here, since I'm a big bang skeptic. [But I do believe the Bible revealed many things that have only been scientifically verified in modern times.]

Update: Dawkins says it's a futile explanation to argue that fine-tuned physical constants are evidence for a designer. Just because life is fine-tuned or improbable is not proof of creation.

He invokes the anthropic principle and the multi-verse theory as suitable, if imperfect, explanations for these questions.

Lennox addresses Dawkins criticism of a "created God," and says no one believes such a thing. God is by definition uncreated. He quotes John 1:1-3.

Lennox says science can study the material mechanics of processes, but doesn't explain "why" things happen.

Update: Dawkins says Lennox is missing his point of a "created God". Dawkins explains he is arguing that you can't just say God explains everything--and then not explain God.

Dawkins is responding to the moderator's question about a quote from The God Delusion that faith is harmful to children. He says children are harmed when their parents teach them their beliefs--such as participating in jihad--must be accepted without question because it is their religion. He says he isn't arguing that the majority of religious beliefs or practice are harmful. [I think this can sometimes be true--but aren't children also harmed when they decide to be "skeptical" about their parent's instructions not to play with matches, or not to do drugs? Christianity doesn't only answer life's big question, it provides a moral and social framework that allows people to live healthy, productive lives. Does Darwinism?]

 Update: Lennox expresses shame that events such as the Crusades are associated with Christianity, and argues such people were not truly following Christ, since Christ taught his kingdom was not of this world. [That's a rather blanket statement and simplifies the circumstances of the Crusades, but I digress. . .]

He agrees in principle that children are harmed when they are taught to accept religious beliefs without questioning them, and says he's grateful his parents allowed him to approach Christianity with an open mind.

In response to Dawkins' book's proposition that people "imagine a world without religion", Lennox asks people to imagine a world with no Lenin, no Hitler, or no Pol Pot--three atheistic rulers. 

Dawkins expects people to differentiate between tyrannous atheists and nice atheists such as himself, Lennox says, but doesn't seem to differentiate between separate religions like Christianity and Islam. Why not?

 Update: Dawkins says atheism itself didn't motivate the rulers above, something else "evil" inside them was. In contrast, he says deeply-held religious beliefs can compel people to do hideous acts, and therefore religion itself is dangerous.

Dawkins passionately objected when Lennox charged him with having a religious conviction to his atheism. Lennox says atheism is a religion, just like anything else. I agree. Dawkins is frustrated, either not agreeing or not understanding Lennox's point.

 Update: On the question of morality, Dawkins says people who base their morality on the Koran or the Bible must have hideous ethics.

Dawkins says he doesn't himself have an absolute explanation for the existence of morality, but offers an evolutionary explanation--sexual desire--a the primitive basis of altruism and moral behavior.

Lennox counters that without an absolute definition of good or evil, Dawkins can't condemn Pol Pot or the 9/11 terrorists. They must have simply been responding to their genes.

 Update: Dawkins says that even though we wouldn't want the world to be evil and meaningless, that doesn't prove there is a moral absolute. He says the "selfish genes" are ugly but make beautiful results. Humans can "rise above" the fundamental ruthlessness of Darwinian processes. (By being altruistic, enjoying the pleasures of sex while using contraceptives to prevent Darwinian reproduction, etc.)

 Update: Lennox wraps up by saying Dawkins' world is devoid of meaning, morality or justice. Like a garden, the world is ordered and gives evidence of intelligent design. He concludes by saying his faith is based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ--which if the resurrection is untrue, the terrorists on 9/11 ultimately got away with what they did.

Dawkins says his own point is proved by Lennox's conclusion--that the scientific-sounding Lennox really bases his worldview on his belief in the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He ends by praising Charles Darwin's breakthrough in showing people that they don't have to believe in a creator god to marvel at the grandeur of the universe.

. . . . . .

Overall, I thought Lennox was strong in his position and defended the Christian faith well. I'm not sure what position he takes on evolution in general--whether he is a literal creationist, day-ager, theistic evolutionist, or whatever other camp there is. Lennox didn't focus on creation or evolution much; instead he talked a lot about philosophical points such as morality, the existence of God, the meaning of the universe, the nature of faith, and so on.

I should point out that although I disagree with Dawkins almost in entirety, I think he's being completely consistent with his own foundational beliefs. In contrast to others who, like Francis Collins, hold to Christianity but don't think the Bible is true in matters of science. Dawkins is more consistent than the myriad of those who sit on the fence between Dawkin's position and a complete trust in the revelation of God's Word. If I myself was in Dawkins shoes, being an atheist and an evolutionist, I'd be asking the same questions and coming to the same conclusions he does. I'd think Christians were nuts, too. And I'd be asking the fence-sitters: Why believe in Jesus Christ if the Bible contains proven fairy tales?


Go here to hear people's responses to the debate. Though the site seems to be overloaded, you'll supposedly be able to order an audio copy of the debate at www.fixed-point.org.

 Another stunning image from the Earth Observatory--this is of Dinosaur National Monument, a park on the border of Colorado and Utah where untold numbers of dinosaur fossils lie entombed in the Morrison Formation. The Monument contains the world's largest display of in situ--still in the ground--dinosaur fossils.

I've excavated dino fossils there myself (on private land, not in the park), and had the privilege of discovering what the paleontologist on the team identified as a theropod tooth. Our team also worked on coaxing a large sauropod out of the hillside. I found my first nest of scorpions there. Ah, fond memories. . .

The image above is a composite of several photos taken from the International Space Station. You can easily see the topography of the area, which, taken with the mass fossil deposit, bears all the evidence of rapid sediment deposition and extensive erosion. Global flood, anyone?

For more info on the image, plus the standard uniformitarian nametags, go here. (High-res version here.)

 Image courtesy ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center.

Many scientists have been skeptical over ancient Polynesians' naval navigation abilities, but recently more and more evidence has seemed to indicate the ancient mariners were more skilled than we give them credit for. A study of 19 adzes, made with stone from various pacific islands--including Hawaii--lends considerable weight to the idea that early Polynesians were capable of navigating thousands of miles of open water.

National Geographic has a photo gallery of some of the best science images of 2007, and also of a freak wildebeest pileup during a river crossing that drowned some 10,000 of the animals.

The saber-toothed cat had a weak bite compared to modern lions, a new study shows. That's surprising to those of us who like to think of all extinct animals as extra-tough, extra-large and extra-powerful.

British researchers think the Incas fattened up the children they were preparing to sacrifice. It never ceases to amaze me how some people continue to admire Early American cultures such as the Incan and Mayan civilizations in spite of the perverse human sacrificial religious system they followed. Let's be realistic.

No roundup would be complete without the most recent story on Arctic ice melt, which was especially extensive this year. Read and develop warming theories as you like.

In the first such observation in space history, a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun was caught ripping the tail off a comet. That's gotta hurt.