Not Germane to my Main Argument but a Side issue, on Proteins and Gene loci and Douglas Axe.

Douglas Axe is a member of the Discovery Institute, a proponent of Intelligent Design, and from the following video snippet and an interview I heard recently I gather that his main scientific focus has been on trying to find out how likely it is that evolution could come up with a new function, which apparently means a new protein. He doesn't use the term mutation but he must mean that such a transformatiion would come about through mutations. So he's testing the idea of random mutations as a main driver of evolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZiLsXO-dYo

How many changes, i.e. mutations I assume, to a given protein, would have to occur to bring about a completely new protein with a completely new function? He says he and his colleague concluded that it's outside the realm of possibility.

It seems like a good question but it raises further questions in my mind. isn't the locus, the stretch of DNA that defines a gene, determine the function? Doeesn't it govern the production of only two proteins if it's heterozygous, only one if homozygous> Mutations usually don't change the function of the protein at all despite changing the chemical sequence. These are "neutral" mutations. "Deleterious" mutations do something that interferes with the normal functioning protein which I don't understand on the genetic level, and the occasional "beneficial" mutation apparently changes the expression of the protein, but again I don't know what this means on the genetic level. It would be nice to be able to ask Douglas Axe to explain these things to me.

Is it the protein or the locus that determines the phenotypic expression? I've thought of it as primarily the locus, the space occupied by the gene on the DNA strand, that determines what it produces phenotypically. Perhaps I'm not appreciating the role of the protein, this is another question. Clearly the protein directly produces the phenotypic expression but I think of this as occurring within the determining space occupied by the gene. The very same protein if produced at a differeint locus would result in a different phenotypic expression determined by that different location. That's how I've been thinking about it. So Axe's focus on the structure of the protein as the determiner of function apparently apart from the locus or the gene itself, is a puzzle to me.

Thinking of it this way I think of the gene itself, the locus, the space occupied on the DNA strand, as the determiner of a very specific phenotype and this seems to fit everything I've read about this. We have a gene that determines, say, fur color. The protein gives the formula for WHICH fur color but it's the gene that says it has to be a fur color that is produced, it isn't going to be anyh other trait. It isn't going to produce a new fur texture if that gene is for color for instance.

So what is Axe thinking of when he investigates the likelihood of producing a new protein with a new function. Wouldn't any changes still be only an expression of whatever the gene locus governs? That is, changing the function of the protein isn't going to change anything that would further evolution. You'd get a novel fur color perhaps but you couln't really get anything deserving of the idea of new function.

But of course maybe I have this wrong in some important way.

But then my model is God's perfect Creation that has been corrupted by the Fall. In the original Creation DNA would function perfectly and not be subject to mistakes in replication, i.e. mutations. Mutations are part of the disease processes brought about by the Fall. If they sometimes produce something "beneficial" this is purely a fluke due to the fact that the whole system involves sequences of chemicals so that occasionally a beneficial sequence, which I suppose is most likely to be the recovery of an earlier function that had been lost in the mutational assault, but in general mutations are a disease process. Mercifully they usually have a neutral effect, not changing the function of the protein even if they change part of its sequence.

But overall mutations are destructive. I hypothesize that junk DNA is the result of the assault, as it were, of many mutations on a particular gene locus, ultimately rendering it completely unable to function. Mercifully, again, although this must have resulted over time in the loss of many valuable functions in the body, usually a given trait or function is the expression of many genes, not just one, so if one dies and enters the junk DNA cemetery as it were, the phenotypic function itself is not lost.

This is a different level of argument than I got into in my previous post which I'd normally avoid here but Axe's comments were intriguing.

Evolutionary Theory is the Emperor's New Clothes, but We're Good at Hallucinating Clothing.

Nothing new here, just reminded of the falsenesss of evolutionary theory and the certainty believers in it have,that will go with most of them to their graves. the reminder came from a former Christian, now atheist, saying science and history deconverted him -- oh hear the applause; and a talk show host's vacation in the Southwest USA among the dramatic buttes and arches and other such geological formations.

They let the science and history of the fallen mind take them away from God. History that is really prehistory that can't be accurately timed or properly interpreted either, from the present, unlike the history that works from known facts through multiple witnesses. The kind of science that is also about prehistory for which they have no witnesses and rely completely on mental constructs. They ignore of course the witness of the Bible. In fact they let the conjurings of the fallen mind discredit it.

Nothing new here, just reminded of the wonderful formations of the Southwest and how they scream "Flood" to my mind, but for some reason to others seem to be a certain debunking of anything biblical. To my mind the sedimentary strata themselves, so particularly visible all over the Southwest, are clear evidence of the worldwide Flood of Noah. How they manage to convince themselves they were laid down over long ages of time, one kind of sediment followed by a different kind of sedimenbt, in itself demonstrates the fallenness of the fallen mind. But the Southwest also exhibits sculpted formations that scream "water" again to my mind. My biblically informed mind. Why can't they see it? Mostly sandstone swirled into something that's even called a "wave." "Arches" that are carved out of once-wet sandstone, eroded by wind and weather over millennia into those shapes but clearly originally the work of a huge volume of moving water. The "hooddoos" that were originally a stack of stratified sediments that over time eroded into those spooky-looking humanlike forms. Made up of strata differentially eroded according to the hardness of the particular layer of sedimetary rock. The monuments of Monument Valley and all the other buttes scattered around the West. Like the Tepui of South America. Obviously, yes obviously, originally deposited by the Flood in enormous sheets of different sediments, segments of which were then left standing as the receding Flood waters carved away the surrounding deposition. Or possibly water draining from one of the gigantic lakes left after the Flood, which is one theory. The draining lakes do explaibn the badlands to the north so they may also explain the Grand Canyon and the Monuments and other buttes, but the draining Flood water itself is just as likely in some cases. Earthquakes caused by tectonic shifting as a result of the Flood lifting the land and breaking dams etc. etc. etc.

Anyway, just LOOK at the formations. WATER formed them. Just LOOK at Planet Earth wherever the geology is exposed to view: it's a wrecked planet. All geology demonstrates the wreckage. I've written about this for years and then I saw a creationist film by Del Tackett in which he said he sees the world as wrecked. Does he really or did he plagiarize it from me? (In the same film he used the phrase "the catness of cats" which I originated on the EvC forum. Did he come up with it independently or did he see it at EvC and like it and steal it?) I've never heard anyone else talk about the earth in such terms and most people want to affirm the beauties of Earth because it is God's creation and don't like the idea of its wrecked character, although that was due to human sin and not the original Creation. Once I saw the wreckage I saw only the wreckage. The beauty is in living things, in plant life and animal life, and in human creations, architecture, art. The geological foundation itself is nothing but wreckage to my eye. Proves nothing of course, but to my mind it should. You should be able to see it as I see it.

There's plenty of evidence in the geological facts too that can be argued one by one, but that overview works for me without the rest of it. Besides the strata the fossil contents of the separate sedimentary layers even more loudly screams "Flood." The Bible says the Flood was intended to kill all things living on the land and there it is, confirmed in the rocks. Some sea life survived the Flood although most of that died too, but the land life was wiped out, and there it all is in the rocks. How do you look at flat layers of different kinds of sediment with different kinds of fossils in them and manage to cconvince yourself they represent great ages of time in which those fossils were living things? How? It's absurd beyond absurd. If the mere fact of it isn't absurd enough, try thinking through how strata full of fossils that span huge swathes of the planet, even whole continents, could have formed at all. Think it through honestly. It's impossible on the idea of geological ages.

Oh well. They are going to go on believing the impossible. This fallen world is going to go lumbering on until God brings it all to justice in the end.

It was the formations of the Southwest that I wanted to write about but since we're talking about evolutionary theory the biological side of it should also be mentioned. Just mentioned. As with the geological evidence, there's tons of biological evidence as well, but I always like to find the bottom line if I can. In the biological arena I think it's in the fact that evolution itself leads to a condition in which further evolution becomes impossible. I use two examples, domestic breeding and endangered species. Endangered species are often endangered because they are no longer able to produce genetic variations. The cheetah is endangered for that reason. And what this means is that genetically it possesses too many "fixed loci" or homozygous traits. In the case of the cheetah this came about because of a genetic bottleneck, that is, the entire population of cheetahs is descended from a very few individuals.

Domestic breeding used to work toward "purebred" animals which are characterized by the same condition of fixed loci for the chosen traits. Homozygosity for the salient traits of a breed was practically the definition of a purebred. This is a stable condition that guarantees that those traits will remain constant in the populaton as it continues to grow and interbreed, that unwanted traits won't show up in the breed. In this fallen world this is an unhhealthy situation for the animal, often produces genetic diseases and weaknesses so when they finally realized that they stopped aiming for purebred status and now introlduce other animals into the breed to improve its health, sacrificing perfectioh of traits.
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My argument is that these examples demonstrate what evolution really is. In nature you get variations within a species because new populations form that are more or less isolated from the main population which permits new traits to become characteristic that distinguish it from the original population. Darwinism explains these variations as brought about by Natural Selection or the survival of the fittest. In actuality there is no survival problem in most cases, you just get a new population that happens to develop its own characteristics because it is reproductively isolated from the original population. Adaptations certainly occur but more by a natural gravitation to appropriate environmental supports than by any selective pressure. It's a form of selectioh in a sense but it's a random selection in the wild.

Each new population should demonstrate a tendency toward a reduction of genetic diversity, with those formed from the smallest number of individuals demonstrating the extreme reduction of genetic diversity in the number of fixed loci or homozygous traits.

Yeah I repeat myself about all this, over and over and over. I've argued it in great detail too, this is just an overview. The point is pretty obvious, though, it seems to me. Variation, which isn't evolution but gets called that, or "microevolution," always tends toward decrease in genetic diversity. This is the evidence that species are desigend to vary and that variation decreases genetic possiblities of further variation. Evolution is, quite simply, genetically impossible. No, mutation isn't the answer. If it were the cheetah would not be endangered and purebred aimals would not be stable but always morphing into something else which they never do.

Yeah it's been proved. But as in today's currupt politics if they don't want it to be true they won't let it be true.

Critical Race Theory in the Church

Sean McDowell interviews Samuel Sey, Canadian Christian blogger originally from Ghana. Solid biblical responses to questions about CRT in the churches. Yes it's even being accepted in some churches. Sey says clearly why it is contrary to the gospel of Christ. He makes the simple laser-sharp point that it's racism and that racism is partiality which is concdemned in the Bible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nnKB4MoTUM

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An earlier interview of Sey by Alisa Childers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-eXeIc6jlA:

Here's his blog site:
https://slowtowrite.com/

More Revelations and Protests Against Critical Race Theory

There are now quite a few incidents of parents protesting CRT before their local school board which can be found at You Tube. This one is a Chinse woman at her school board protesting that CRT is the American version of the nightmare she lived through in Mao's China: She is seen talking to the school board and being interviewed by Sean Hannity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZwli4WdZmI

James Lindsay is a scholar of the history of CRT who can be found in many interviews at You Tube. Here he is interviewed by Allie Beth Stuckey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xhxItXRPf0

That one is veru long but this is a much shorter interview by Charlie Kirk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gP4FP3kgZM

And here's James Lindsay interviewed by.Benjamin Boyce gets into more than usual detail about the source of the craziness in Herbert Marcuse, Foucault and postmodernism, the Frankfurt School (I'm glad to sere the Franfurt School now identified in this discussion as the pernicious influence it was. I posted on it a number of times as the source of Political Correctness, which was sort of the spearhead of the intimidation tactics that we're seeing now in the aggressive Cancel Culture, that show its origin in Communism. Apparently it took the turn into Anti-Racism to broaden the discussion of Communism as the source of Leftist politics over the last few decades. We've gone pretty rapidly from BLM and Antifa to Wokeness, Anti-Racism and Critical Race Theory indoctrination in the schools.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hbA7AzKzTw

The Frankfurt School was the hub from which the different expressions of today's leftism spread out, mostly through the universities where sixties radicals became professors and indoctrinated whole generations in their Anti-American ideology. But it goes back to American Commuism in the early twentieth century and even further back to Marx. I always thought of postmodernism as somehow allied with it but Lindsay describes them as separate movements that now work together.

Marxism creates class conflict under the guise of analyzing it. It makes up an oppressed class and pits an oppressor class aainst it. The classical form of it was bourgeoisie against proletariat or business against working class. In the American context it's invented a number of oppressed classes, Radical Feminism for instance for women, The Women's Liberation Movement, then we got Gay Rights and now all of a sudden its Transgender Rights, which even trash Women's Rights as biolgoical males are allowed to compete against biological women in sports through the insanity of calling themselves female. But the big one is Racism. Now the white race is the Oppressor CVlass and everything associated with the Whtie Race is targeted for destructionj. They always targeted Western Civilization anyway but now it's beause supposedly it's nothing but an expression of Whiteness. Wouldn't you expect some natural corrective to such murderous insanity to keep it in check? Not a reasonable expectatrion in today's world.

Conservatism was Herbert Marcuse's target, and the Frankfurt School's in general. They were paranoid about Nazism and projected their fear onto benign western conservativms. Thus conservatives became fascists, now white supremacists etc etc etc. It's all definitional, all word magic, all emanating from the ideology. Very little in Marxism has anything to do with the real world, it's all abstract mental conjuring, all "theory," no actual lived fact; all they want is an Oppressor and the fact that they made it all up doesn't matter. It certainly wields power in the real sworld although it's based on a lie. There are now people saying they want to kill white people. They make use of a completely irrational illogical diaboligical "reasoning" to make it impossible for anyone to show them wrong. As Lindsay says in one of the interviews above, the first one I think, there is a formula for genoicide in this thinking. As in Rwanda the propaganda against the Tutsis called them "cockroaches" over and over and over until the Hutus thought it the height of righteousness to slaughter them all. The power of lies.

UPDATE: Might as well add Jan Markell's most recent Understanding the Times radio show I just heard, since it's on the same topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erQfGgY-yAk&t=1402s

She starts off with some clips of leftists talking about how they have the job of deprogramming 75 million "Trumpists." The arrogance is breathtaking. Absolutely not one shred of a thought that their judgment could be wrong, or at least that we have the right to our own opinion. They could have used the more orthodox Communist term "reeducate" -- it's the same idea.

The COVID Crimes: Why Aren't They Being Prosecuted for Crimes Against Humanity?

The suppressors of effective treatments for COVID such as the antivirals HCQ and Ivermectin that could have saved as many as 85% of those who have died..

The Emergency Use Authorizers of untested "vaccines" when effective treatments were available.

Those who covered up the source of the virus in a Chinese lab and vilified those who called it out.

Those who keep pushing these untested "vaccines" despite their extraordinarily high rate of lethality and injury which would ordinarily demand their recall from public use.

Those who pushed for the economically destructive lockdown that was unnecessary when all that was needed was protection of the vulnerable ones, the elderly and those with co--morbidities.

> Those who push for the "vaccination" of children and young healthy people who do not get seriously ill from the virus, especially when one of the possible side effects of these new drugs may be interference with fertility.

Political Crimes Against America: Why Aren't They Prosecuted for Treason?

Marxism is treason. Any ideology that wants to change the American system itself, wants to change its fundamental character, which happens to be what made it the greatest nation on earth, is treason. But it's treated as just another political position. No. It's treason. That's all I want to say.

The Massive Homelessness Problem in the Big Blue Cities: Ideologically Driven Stupidity

Chrisopher Rufo interviewed by Manhattan Institute:

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Drug addiction, mental illness, misguided compassion, ideologically driven stupidity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
tHk3wBF826o

Somewhere back there a few decades ago people on the Left just stopped thinking. That's my assessment. They stopped thinking and applied irrational ideologies to real problems that should by now have been recotgnized as the souce of the failures they are. that's happenbing on the Left in all the big issues of the day. Critical Race Theory is an insane ideology that has no grounding in reality so it can only destroy. There may be some pusshing it who know that and are happy with it but most people who accept it just think well it's liberal so it must be good or something like that. I don't know how they think, mostly I don't think they think at all. Kill all the white people, hip hip horray, that will solve everything. America had all the wrong ideas you see, the Constitution is trash, the founders were evil, we the liberals are the only good peopkle on the planet and everybody else should be shut up[, put in shackles or killed. Really, that is what Leftist ideology comes down to. They have all the wrong explanations for everything, based strictly on their wrongheaded ideologist. Some are sincerely deceived, wshich is scary enough, but some are conscienceless manipulators.

Then there is the COVID insanity. Pushing untested vaccines that have a huge incidence of injury and deaths beyond any level ever tolerated in such drugs before, while antiviral treatments have been outlawed, the medical profession intimidated into refusing them to people although they could have saved maybe 85% of the lives that have been lost. Most of them sincerely believe the propaganda I guess, but it must be a strain because the evidence is out there against it. Then this crazy mask thing that's got people up in arms against each other on both sides. The lockdown that wasn't necessary. Who is running this show? The devil himself of course.

This is a fallen world but it's really only in the last few decades that the full horror of fallenness has started to manifest. Here and there people are waking up. Chrisopher Rufo woke up. But it's still a fallen world and we know from scripture that in the end all the evil potential in this world is going to come together in one final murderous horror show. I'm still going back and forth, is the trend to the Great tribulation inexorable, will we have a reprieve, will enough people wake up to put it off for a long time, is America going under for good, are those protesting it going to prevail or wikll they be silenced etc etc etc.

The insane homneless tent city situation is just one symptom of this massive degeneration into total chaos and violence that can be the only possible outcome.

The scariest thing is that most people are blindsided by all of it, have no idea what's going on, think eventually things will get back to normal, aren't thinking in terms of protecting themselves against a horrific diseaster that can't be too far in the future.

A sudeen and total collapse of everything people depend on.
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I hope I'm wrong. I hope the sane people will prevail.