New Covenant

Intentionally planned...

Irreducible complexity (IC) is a concept which, essentially, states that any operating system, when reduced to its lowest state of functional operation, cannot operate when any individual part of its system is removed. The common mousetrap is given as an example of IC; take away any of its parts (e.g., the base, the hammer, the spring, the catch) and it cannot function as a mousetrap. Michael Behe, in his book Darwin's Black Box, proposed that the bacterial flagellum is a biological example of irreducible complexity. His argument is, essentially, given that the neo-Darwinian model of evolutionary theory progresses through natural selection combined with genetic mutation, it is improbable that an irreducibly complex system, one that is composed of interrelated functional parts, arose by chance.

There are, of course, several arguments against Behe's claims. One argument essentially claims that it is logically possible for an irreducibly complex system to evolve by chance (see my response here and here). While certainly a true statement, it does not necessarily (or sufficiently) address the issue of probability. Another argument proposes intermediate steps, within the evolutionary process of the flagellum, which involve co-adapted function for the various parts of the system we now see - co-adapted function we are, conveniently, no longer privy to. And still another argument (aka the Boston argument) builds on the co-adapted function argument by proposing a scenario for building the flagellum through a series of functionally intermediate steps - surprisingly, or not, intentional steps.

I'd like to address the idea of past potential functional intermediates, and their relation to design intentions, with the reality of engineering and construction.

A.R.T. Syndrome...

While the origin of A.R.T. Syndrome (aka ARTS) is widely debated, one thing is certain, its effects are without prejudice with regards to race, gender, national origin, etc. The impact of ARTS, when fully manifested, can be devastating. Once infected, an individual may find himself coming to conclusions that are embarassingly inane.

Evolution, God, and Aslan...

When discussing special creation, with evolutionists, one typically encounters questions along the lines of,

Why, if God is so intelligent, would he have to destroy the dinosaurs to make way for the mammals?
Why, if God is so intelligent, would he create all those bipedal primates prior to creating humans?
Why, if God is so intelligent, would he have to intervene with supernatural acts within his creation?

Why, indeed.

It seems to be beyond the pale for these critics to understand the basic notions of intentions, pleasure, interest, and the like. Is it so difficult to understand that, even though one has the power to lift 200 pounds, one can choose to lift only 5? Is it so difficult to understand that, even though one has the capability of buying a dinner, one can take pleasure in cooking the dinner themselves? Is it so difficult to understand that, even though one can send their child to a boarding school, one may take an interest in raising their child themselves?

Abstract Solar...

A view of the open dome and the stairway leading up to it, which houses three solar telescopes, at the newly renovated Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, CA. Inside the observatory, at the west rotunda, visitors can view a real-time white light image of the sun (weather permitting), a diffracted spectrum image, and a filtered red spectrum image (allowing for real-time observations of solar prominences).

Man seems to have always had an interest in the Sun. One of the exhibits at the observatory illustrated how mankind has used the sun, moon, and stars to measure time for both the short and long term. What a wonderful opportunity that provided me, as a homeschooling parent, to reiterate to our children that Genesis 1 indicates that God made the sun, moon, and stars to "be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years". It would seem that God is interested in being intimately involved with his creation, even if such involvement means taking the time to create entities so huge, and so distant from this planet Earth.

Besides that, how very cool it is to learn about his creation!

- photograph © 2007 A. R. Lopez
 

The things we have, and the happiness we lack...

We have too many things (things which, by the way, we expect to have).

How did our culture and society get into this state? Consider that, since the end of World War II, we have seen nothing but the safety of peace. Yes, there was Korea, Vietnam and, now, the Global War on Terror, but those actions cannot be categorized along with the direct threat (on our existence) that Nazi Germany posed. Consider that, since the end of World War II, we have seen nothing but economic prosperity. Yes, there have been downturns, but there hasn't been anything remotely close to the Great Depression, much less what most of the rest of the world exists in.

Peace and prosperity. And what do we have to show for it?

$38,000 kid's birthday parties?  From the Time article,

An industry has grown up around birthday parties for the younger set. Greeting card company Hallmark estimates that people spend over $600 million on kids' cards, gift-wrap and partyware every year. Companies like Libby Lu have make-over parties, Build-A-Bear stores have private party rooms and there's even a museum that allows kids to dissect sheep's eyeballs. It can cost from $500 to $1,000 to hold a party at one of these venues — or $38,000 if you want to rent out famed toy store FAO Schwartz for a sleepover.

..."A lot of parents feel they're on a birthday-party treadmill that gets faster every year. They're afraid their birthday party won't measure up and their child will be disappointed."

We are conditioning our children to expect happiness - in the form of abundance. To be sure, peace and prosperity are not the only culprits here. Technology, combined with a global marketplace has allowed for a plethora of things to enter our lives, under the auspices of being needed. If you're over 40 you probably remember, as a kid, the cheap things that would be stamped Made in Japan. It would seem that now, our greed for things, to satisfy our need for happiness, has rendered us virtually dependent on foreign production. Yet, the ultimate impact is now no longer cheap.

Certainly, there are some families that simply cannot afford to hold a Build-A-Bear party for their kids. Interestingly enough, these families are forced, by the economics of the situation, to find less expensive means with which to celebrate a child's birthday. I would venture to say that these families have found out that one of the most cherished memories a child can have is to simply have several of her friends come over, share a fun meal, play a few games (maybe even play - outside?), and open a few presents. What a concept!

For those who choose otherwise, in this age of peace and prosperity, there is always BirthdaysWithoutPressure.org

Reality Glory...

A swallowtail caterpillar preparing, as it consumes the leaves of a fennel plant, for its potential transformation into a swallowtail butterfly.

We found many of these little fellows in our yard - they like fennel plants. Life is hard on them, though, as gophers like the fennel plant as well. Birds, on the other hand, like the swallowtail caterpillar, and it is not unusual to see the caterpillar's numbers dwindle from day to day. Rescuing a few of these guys, we placed them in a butterfly incubator, along with a daily supply of fresh fennel. In time, with suspended chrysalis, they performed their transformation dance, eventually emerging as swallowtail butterflys. Life renewed, our pleasure fulfilled, we granted them their well earned freedom, from their safe confines, into the landscape of our front yard.

What an envigorating experience it was, to see an aspect of the handiwork of God, creator and designer of the natural realm. The integrated complexity of even a small section of the ecosystem we live in is truly amazing. Yet not even the slightest motion of a cog, nor the barest turning of a wheel, goes without notice, or approval, of the One who created it.

How wondrous is their transformation... a renewal of sorts... life anew. Hope. Hope for what is to come. From the cursed bondage of corruption, to the hope of the future of glory, we rest assured.

(also ref. Imago Articulus & WeeklyShot)

- photograph © 2006 A. R. Lopez

Another grammar lesson for U...

Piggybacking off my earlier post on a grammar lesson per the Sonlight curriculum, here's a typical activity sheet for our 1st grader:

Dictation

The son took it all and went far away.
My son was lost, but now he is found.

Exercise

1. Pretend you're not sure the son took it all. Turn that part of the sentence (the son took it all) into a question.
2. Write three words that rhyme with took.
3. Alphabetize the words the, son, took, it, all, and, went, far, and away.
4. Circle the antonyms in the second sentence.
5. The second sentence is a compound sentence. Rewrite it as two smaller sentences.
6. Draw a box around the homonym of sun.
7. Underline the excalmatory sentence.

The Rev. Albert Mohler wrote a post, recently, titled Defining Literacy Down - Do Your Kids Read Books? He wrote about the dismal state of affairs our youth find themselves in with regards to reading - generally they just don't like to do it. He echoes a point I wrote about (ref. Technically Savvy, Practically Mundane) when he states,

Young people are adept at using the Internet and they are avid consumers and users of electronic media in all forms. They will watch a DVD rather than read a book -- even the book upon which the film is based.

Seeing backwards...

An interesting post at The Technology Liberation Front. Tim Lee writes about a software patent for software that allows visual programming. The abstract for the patent is

A method for programming a computer to execute a procedure, is based on a graphical interface which utilizes data flow diagrams to represent the procedure. The method stores a plurality of executable functions, scheduling functions, and data types. A data flow diagram is assembled in response to the user input utilizing icons which correspond to the respective executable functions, scheduling functions, and data types which are interconnected by arcs on the screen. A panel, representative of an instrument front panel having input and output formats is likewise assembled for the data flow diagram. An executable program is generated in response to the data flow diagram and the panel utilizing the executable functions, scheduling functions, and data types stored in the memory. Furthermore, the executable functions may include user defined functions that have been generated using the method for programming. In this manner, a hierarchy of procedures is implemented, each represented by a data flow diagram.

This is interesting because it utilizes a sort of backwards approach to a problem. Instead of the code being written with characters (a particular software language), it is graphically portrayed, and then translated into the necessary code. Some of the more artistically minded folk out there may consider this a better approach to software development. Personally, I think that, all things being equal, such a method would ultimately be less powerful than the traditional computer language approach.

Data can be represented in many different forms. For my occupation I deal with various datasets which have to do with a particular project in terms of its current and projected cost and schedule status (note: this is not the same as accounting, which typically is concerned with current and past values). For years we have dealt with the various methods and means with which to display the values in our datasets. The various methods can depend on many factors, such as target audience or level of detail, not to mention the mundane, but powerful factor of the project manager's whim. [sidenote: Joe Carter linked to an interesting site which displays a plethora of charting examples]

This backwards approach, as Tim Lee notes, is not necessarily a new idea. Back in the early 1990s I tested software which allowed us to utilize CAD drawings of a nuclear power plant, animate the installation of various components, and then have the software return a schedule of the work. Even today, as part of our homeschooling approach, we use the software Inspiration, which provides the ability to outline a research assignment by means of a user created chart. The software can then translate the chart into a standard outline form.

For people who are visual-learners, this type of an approach can be very illuminating. For people who are a bit more analytical in their thinking, this type of an approach can help open up new vistas, new ways of looking at a particular problem.

Part of our home education mission is to teach our children how to see, especially how to see from different points of view. It's a lesson that applies far beyond a simple outline for one's school assignment of the week.

Strategies...

From Counterterrorism Blog, A Big Week in Jolo,

The US-Assisted Armed Forces of the Philippines had a morale boosting week. Today, the Philippine Government announced that US investigators had positively matched Khadaffy Janjalani’s DNA. The AFP had been certain that Janjalani, the leader of the Abu Sayyaf, had been wounded in a firefight on 4 September 2006. Two ASG captives led them to an unmarked grave and investigators took a sample of DNA. In the night of 16 January, Philippine Special Forces killed Jainal Antel Sali, jr. @Abu Solaiman, the top military planner. Sali was implicated in the kidnapping of US citizen Jeffrey Craig Schilling in 2000 on Jolo island; kidnapping 20 hostages including three Americans from the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan in 2001, one of whom, Guillermo Sobero he decapitated. Of particular gratification to the US military advisors, Sali was responsible for a string of bombings in Zamboanga City in October 2002, one of which killed a US Special Forces personnel, one of the few casualties the Americans have sustained.

Strategies: The global war on terror cannot be won by fighting with conventional methods. We must take the fight to the terrorist organization, seeking out the wretch before the wretch comes to us. These roaches with cellphones must be hit, again, again, again, and again. (also see here).

Abstract Blue...

The corner of a roof, against a deep blue sky, on a vacant building in Chama, New Mexico.

Blue on blue. Cracked, chipped, and peeling paint. Just a rundown, vacant old building, wasting away at 8,000 feet above sea level.

How near to our lives is the juxtaposition of this building against the sky? Next to the simplistically pure beauty of God, do we waste away, cracked and chipped? Manmade artifacts, decaying in the thin air of higher elevations. Color that is close, and yet so far from the real thing. Layers of paint that, while they mimic the hues of reality, have nothing near its steadfastness.

Curse this bondage of corruption...

- photograph © 2006 A. R. Lopez

Reality Turkey...

Melting butter, basting and coating, quietly browning a Christmas turkey amidst smoking, wine soaked wood chips. A roasting pan filled with celery, onion, apple, arugula, brocolli, carrots, wine, and water. Two hours in an oven, two hours with the charcoals, and then two hours back in an oven.

Moist, tender, richly flavored delight.

Sometimes - most of the time - good things take time and effort. While such a notion may seem obvious, it also seems to be lost on our society. An elaborate meal, such as the Christmas turkey, can serve to not only bring pleasure to our senses, but to bring a lesson in delayed satisfaction.

Strategies

as in... Strategies to winning a global war on terror. As opposed to sending in complete battalions of soldiers into a country:

• Consider the engagement in Afghanistan following 9/11.
• Consider the CIA killing of an al Qaeda chief suspected in the bombing of the USS Cole.
• Consider the recent attack in Somalia which, although not fatally netting the director of al Qaeda's 1998 US Embassy bombing (also, see here), did consider damage to the enemy nonetheless.
• Consider the detaining and killing of high value targets in Afghanistan, Kenya, Pakistan and the Phillipines.

Wretchard, at The Belmont Club, writes,

Just as the Israelis found that it was better to intercept the suicide bomber rather than to rely on stopping him at the point of attack, it is possible that the battle against the IED really takes place offstage. The night raid, the pinpoint attack, the snatch -- killing the killers -- this is the counter to the IED. Little has been said about this, and little should be. It is a war in the shadows against the shadowy enemy. But enough can be deduced from open sources to understand the principles involved.

Would it not be in our best interests to focus our resources on operations intended to eliminate the upper echelon of our enemies? Operations that would throw their organizational structure, as well as their organizations, into a chaotic disarray? If so, then our mode of operation should never become simply that of response but, rather, that of decisive engagement.

What we need to remember is, that is exactly what our enemy attempted to do to us on the 11th day of September, 2001. 

[a form of this post was originally posted at RedBlueChristian]

Naturalism's Fatal Flaw...

Originally posted at RedBlueChristian:

The Christian should care for the environment not simply because it is the wise thing to do, but because it honors God.

The Naturalist, someone who believes the late Carl Sagan's line about the universe being all there is, was, and ever will be, ostensibly cares for the environment but is ultimately unable to explain why. True, they will say it is the ethical thing to do, and I certainly agree with them on that point, but they are at a loss to provide a coherent reason why it is the ethical thing to do (from a strictly natural point of view). Despite attempts to give an evolutionary explanation, the reason ultimately becomes, JUST BECAUSE. Hints of divine revelation notwithstanding, it can be amusing, in a way, to peruse the responses adherents to Naturalism give to, not only our status as human beings, but our responsibilities as well.

Krauze, over at Telic Thoughts, relates what one naturalist with the National Park Service wrote in the Los Angeles Times.

"We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the earth… Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along."

The end of the world is near!...

Originally posted at RedBlueChristian:

As Christians, I believe, we have a God-given mandate to manage the environment he created. Rampant misuse and abuse of the environment is neither prudent or wise. Our fulfillment of the Great Commission, as well as our helping of the needy, is best accomplished by maintaining a selfless devotion to God. A devotion which should manifest itself in all areas of our life.

Selfishness, however, continues to rear its ugly head.