John Sanford's declining genes

A creationist friend recently lent me a John Sanford DVD entitled 'The Mystery of Our Declining Genes', which I finally got round to watching this week.

Genetic Entropy

Sanford's main premise is that our genes are degenerating at an alarming rate

Sanford is the latest great hope for creationists; he is a pleasant and reasonable man and apparently a well-respected Cornell geneticist with sound academic credentials, who has moved from atheism through theistic evolution all the way to Young Earth Creationism. 'Declining Genes' is filmed from a 45-min lecture given to the unsurprisingly creationist Creation Ministries, in which he claims to be able to refute the evolutionary Neo-Darwinian synthesis completely by his theory of Genetic Entropy.

I must confess I didn't fully understand (or attend to) all of the talk. His main premise is that our genes are degenerating at an alarming rate, and that 'bad' or harmful mutations are so much more frequent than 'good' or beneficial ones that natural selection is like baling water out of a sinking ship. His view is that selection is God's method of slowing down the inevitable degradation and extinction of species rather than being capable of producing any actual positive developments. He's also put together a computer simulation called Mendel's Accountant (freely available to download) which he claims conclusively backs up Biblical timescales (and the ages of people in Genesis), and supposedly refutes standard evolutionary accounts.

Unfortunately as a layman I can't really interrogate Sanford's biology or his maths, so I'll have to leave that to others. However, so far my search of the web hasn't turned up any good refutations of - or indeed any proper engagement with - his ideas. My initial impression is that his arguments seem, at least on the surface, fairly plausible. However, I remember being equally impressed with Michael Behe's 'irreducible complexity' when I first came across it, and that concept has now been very effectively refuted.

A note of caution

I would just sound a note of caution to excited creationists that a single idea in one field, however impressive, is unlikely to be able to overturn all the overwhelming evidence for an old earth and for evolution across numerous other fields. If there is any weight in Sanford's findings, then they will stand out as a puzzling anomaly to address, but not as the paradigm-shifting argument-clincher that he seems to imagine.

I'm also slightly unsure about Sanford's assumptions - given that most creationists eschew the principle of uniformity, his calculations seem heavily reliant on being able to extrapolate back several thousand years from today's genetic decay rate. I'm not entirely convinced either that 'bad' mutations are necessarily as detrimental as he claims, but I'll need to leave that to more qualified people to clear up.

The second law of thermodynamics

Sanford seems to slightly misunderstand entropy, which is clearly crucial to his theory

Finally, I think that, along with many creationists, Sanford - not a chemist or physicist - does slightly misunderstand the second law of thermodynamics and the principle of entropy, which is clearly crucial to Sanford's theory. Entropy, they argue, must always increase according to the 2nd law; your house doesn't simply tidy itself (cue appreciative chuckles from audience). So the idea of natural selection being able to increase order is clearly laughable and evolution is disproved.

What they don't seem aware of, or are ignoring, is that within any specific system entropy can be decreased - at the expense of increased entropy in its environment. In biochemist Albert Lehningher's words:

"living organisms preserve their internal order by taking from their surroundings free energy, in the form of nutrients or sunlight, and returning to their surroundings an equal amount of energy as heat and entropy".

A useful related idea is Ectropy (the reverse of entropy), "a measure of the tendency of a dynamical system to do useful work and grow more organized" (Wikipedia). The Earth's ectropy is increased (entropy decreased) by the Sun's energy, and a living organism's ectropy is increased by taking in food.

So life could almost be defined as a system designed to decrease or reverse entropy internally while increasing it in the external environment.

Disquieting fundamentalism

Overall, I found watching 'Declining Genes' a strangely disquieting experience - not so much because of its challenge to my theistic evolutionary worldview, but because of its underlying fundamentalism and dogmatism. Sanford is a very pleasant, reasonable and mild-mannered man, and clearly far from unintelligent. But his wholesale adoption of fundamentalist beliefs, principles and jargon struck what seemed to me a jarring note.

He started by remarking on the 'sweet spirit' in the room, which to me sounded like an over-spiritual way of saying that the atmosphere was - unsurprisingly - friendly. He paid tribute to all the members of Creation Ministries who had faithfully been fighting for God's truth while he had been compromising with the world in espousing theistic evolution. And his whole talk was based on refuting the dangerous deception of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis with the unfailing truth of God's Word. There was no room for disagreement, middle ground or uncertainty. God's Word says, and of course the science has to back that up - how could it be otherwise? This kind of thinking scares me, especially in a man of science.

Nut cutlets are not the only food - 10 reasons to eat meat

Okay, I confess. I'm not a vegetarian. I never have been and strongly suspect I never will be. Shockingly, I love eating meat. In today's increasingly environmentally-aware, er, environment it often seems that I'm expected to feel guilty about my carnivorous preferences. So what follows is a poorly-argued, shoddily-evidenced defence of meat-eating as part of an omnivorously-balanced diet.

1. Nature. Meat-eating has a long and noble tradition in nature that stretches all the way back to T. Rex and beyond. I for one have no intention of arguing with T. Rex. Yes, okay, this is a daft argument; cannibalism and incest also have long and noble traditions in nature. My very slightly serious point is that, at the least, meat-eating is a well established part of the ecological order and of the food chain. Come on, you know it's not green to mess with nature! :-) And God appears to sanction and uphold carnivorousness - Psalm 104 talks of lions seeking their food from God.

2. Human physiognomy and history. Humans are biologically omnivores - we're designed to eat both meat and veg, not just one or the other. And as far as we can tell, Homo has indeed been a hunter since he or she first became sapiens, and probably before. Again, this doesn't mean we have to eat meat - but I'd say it strongly argues that it's more natural for us to include some meat in our diet than to be entirely vegetarian.

3. Health. Vegetarians all die at a horribly young age. No, of course they don't really. But the idea that a vegetarian diet is inherently healthier than an omnivorous one and that vegetarians live longer is equally a groundless myth. And my entirely uneducated guess is that though it's perfectly possible to have a fully balanced diet as a vegetarian, it's probably easier as an omnivore.

4. Environment. Vegetarians fart more - it's an incontestable scientific fact. That's more harmful methane gas in the atmosphere, irresponsibly increasing the greenhouse effect and contributing to global warming, not to mention polluting the local atmosphere with foul smells.

A recent Cranfield Uni study also suggested that switching from local beef to imported tofu or Quorn could raise the risk of rainforest destruction. We're all aware that intensive livestock farming damages the environment - but so does intensive arable farming. The answer is not to stop growing crops or raising cattle but to find better ways of doing both.

5. Taste. It's a small and selfish thing, but to many of us veggie food is what the BFG would call 'revoltsome uckslush'. I'm not against the occasional nut cutlet, veggie burger or vegetable curry/lasagne, but for me an entirely non-meat diet would be like having to listen to only folk rock, or having to wear only corduroy. A small price to pay for saving animals and the planet, you might say, and maybe I'm just a big selfish baddie, but a lifetime without meat looks to me like a desert not a garden.

6. The Bible. The Bible is absolutely chock full of meat-eating. It's even a Levitical command, part of the prescribed Old Testament worship of Yahweh. Admittedly, right at the very start in Gen 1:29 God does prescribe a vegetarian - actually a vegan - diet. But within 9 chapters he's changed this decree and in Gen 9:4 he specifically gives humans every living creature as food (later restricting it to 'clean' animals). The only examples of vegetarianism I can think of in the Bible are the enforced manna diet of the desert wanderings, Daniel refusing the King's meat for reasons of purity from pagan sacrifice, and John the Baptist's famous locust-and-honey sandwiches.

7. The example of Jesus. Jesus ate meat - both fish and lamb for definite, and he even ate fish after his resurrection. He went as far as declaring all foods clean, and in Acts Peter has a heavenly vision commanding him to eat 'unclean' meats. (Of course this is symbolic but that shouldn't detract from its literal aspects.) Admittedly Jesus was not faced with issues such as battery farming and deforestation, but in principle he appeared to endorse the eating of meat. And symbolically of course, Jesus is our perfect Passover lamb, so the eating of meat (lamb at least) has an added theological and memorial dimension.

8. Moral well-being and freedom. In today's climate, being a vegetarian puts you firmly on the moral high ground and lays you open to the deadly spiritual danger of self-righteousness. For humility's sake, eat meat.

Slightly more seriously, unnecessary guilt is not spiritually or emotionally healthy. The apostle Paul enjoins us to 'Eat everything in the meat market without raising questions of conscience' (1 Cor 10:25). In other words, and taking the verse slightly out of context, we don't need to feel bad about eating particular foods. Most of us have more than enough guilt in our lives to be going on with; let's free ourselves of feelings of moral shame over meat-eating.

In some cultures, hunters thank the animal they've killed for providing them with meat and clothes. I rather like this idea - eating meat but with a sense of gratitude, even obligation, to the animal.

9. Animals are not humans. Animals are amazing, wonderful and fascinating and I love them. If I'd followed my teenage choice of career path, I'd be a nature reserve warden or a Bill Oddie. We have a duty of care to nature and animals in general. But let's not sentimentally anthropomorphise our furry friends. They are not human or equal to humans. Jesus said a person's life is worth that of many sparrows. Animals are not fully self-conscious, morally responsible beings. As already noted, they behave in some pretty horrendous ways. Animal populations do sometimes need to be controlled and culled. Some animals in some places are pests - rats for example. I don't believe that killing animals for food or to control populations is necessarily morally wrong, though it is of course unpleasant and should be done humanely.

 10. Most vegetarianism is partial and inconsistent. If we're to embrace vegetarianism because killing animals is wrong, full stop, then to be consistent we should follow the Jainist ways and never swat mosquitoes or wasps, never kill slugs on our plants, and perhaps even never take antibiotics. Of course, some do go to these lengths and I applaud their integrity. But most of us choose to draw the line somewhere; I just choose to draw it at a slightly different point to my vegetarian friends.

*

Okay, okay. I'm not seriously saying that it's spiritually or environmentally better to eat meat. With all Christians I look forward to the day when the Kingdom comes, the lion lies down with the lamb without taking a bite first, and all pain and death finally ceases. In that day I suspect we won't eat meat, and perhaps neither will we wear clothes - another result of Adam's sin, according to Genesis. And in the meantime, if we do eat meat, we need to do so responsibly; by all means let's campaign for better living conditions for farm animals, more humane methods of slaughter, and less environmentally-damaging ways of farming.

But for now, I'll keep my clothes on and continue to 'eat anything sold in the meat market', with the possible exceptions of offal and giblets.

Chance and choice

Reflections on the interplay of divine will, natural chance and human freedom.

Is everything that happens, everything we do, everything that exists completely fixed and determined; or is it utterly random and chaotic; or is it all up to us, a matter of will and decision? Do we live in a universe organised by divine command, blind chance or creaturely choice? Do we follow a set path to an inevitable destiny, or a random meandering to who knows where - or do we choose our own path and destination?

As usual, my irritatingly indecisive answer is 'a bit of all three'. I can't sign up either to total determinism, utter randomness or supreme creaturely free will, but rather to a complex interplay of all three elements.

Creator, cosmos and creatures

The three elements could be seen as standing respectively for the role of God, the universe/nature, and humans:

• God is arguably eternal and perfect and, in his own essence (though not necessarily in his relationship with his creation), unchanging.
  
  
• The universe (nature) seems at its most essential level to be random. The sub-atomic quantum world appears to be deeply and fundamentally chaotic, and randomness or chance - or else a pattern so complex it defies our deciphering - seems best to describe the behaviour of weather systems, radioactive decay, gene shuffling in sexual reproduction, and so many other natural phenomena.
  
  However, there is another side to this equation; everything in nature also obeys the natural laws and set processes of physics, chemistry and biology, so law and randomness walk hand in hand, randomness forever giving law something fresh to act on.
  
  
• Humans (and to an extent other creatures) seem to have at least a degree of genuine freedom and ability to make real and meaningful choices with significant consequences for themselves, other creatures and the world. Some would argue that every choice we make is completely predetermined by our genes, our nurture and our present circumstances, but I believe that there is always an element - however small - of free and uncoerced choice. 

Paradoxical sovereignty

God's sovereign rule is one of freedom not coercion

I find it fascinating that God, in his sovereignty and unchanging perfection, does not impose a set order on nature or on human life but gives the freedom of chance (randomness) to the one and the freedom of choice to the other. This suggests to me that God's sovereign rule is a rule of freedom not coercion, and that his unchanging perfection is simultaneously and paradoxically a dynamic diversity. (This perhaps ties in with Aquinas's comment on divine simplicity, that God's infinite simplicity would necessarily appear to finite minds as infinite complexity.)

Of course, randomness - 'chance' - does not necessarily equate to meaninglessness. A roll of the die can produce six different outcomes but each of those outcomes can have a valid meaning or significance. Similarly, complexity need not necessarily equate to chaos; even the most apparently chaotic arrangement can form a meaningful pattern to the infinite mind of God.

The impossible real

everything that happens is both mathematically impossible and inevitable

Looked at from one end of the telescope, everything that happens is mathematically impossible. The odds, viewed from the beginning of time, of my sitting here at this moment writing this or you sitting there reading it are incalculably infinitesimal - zero, in effect. The odds of your or my being here at all are infinitesimal. By any odds, we shouldn't exist. But we do; and viewed at this present moment from the other end of the telescope our being here and doing this is definite, actual, even (in a sense) inevitable - it simply is what is happening; its probability at this point is 1 (i.e. 100%).

And of course we don't know how wide the parameters of freedom are set - how many alternative pathways chance and choice have been allowed to get from the moment dot to this present moment; how many alternative endings and outcomes there could have been and could yet be; whether the final, ultimate outcomes and destinies are all set and it's only the paths to them that are free.

Nonetheless I believe very deeply in real and meaningful freedom to act and to choose within the framework of God's sovereignty and the universe's serendipity. Perhaps our choice, or our ability to choose, is meant to form the bridge between the fixedness of God and the fluidity of nature; the command of God and the chaos of the cosmos. Or perhaps the randomness of nature is what allows us the freedom to choose within the sovereignty of God.

Or perhaps I'm just talking rubbish about things that are far too big for me to have a clue about...

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• The Sovereignty of God
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Spirit and matter

Reflections on the sacredness and significance of matter...

More than the sum of its parts

there is to all things an invisible spiritual component

I believe that everything in this world is more than the sum of its (visible) parts. For there is to all things an invisible spiritual component or dimension which transforms and transfigures the ordinary into the extraordinary, the mundane into the miraculous. It is the eternal element in the everyday. It is what gives meaning and life to mere things.

Reductionism

If we look at anything in an (ontologically) reductionist, materialist way we can reduce it to a set of component parts with no meaning, purpose, significance, value or life. As Wordsworth put it, 'we kill to dissect' - or rather, in dissecting we lose the essence of the composed creation. A human can be deconstructed into flesh, bones and organs or further down into cells, then genes, then chemicals and finally atoms and their components; or else humans can be seen as 'just' apes or mammals.

A comedian once quipped "life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh". Thoughts can be reduced to electro-chemical impulses; love can be explained as evolution's means of ensuring the survival or reproductive success of genes or species; Beethoven's 9th can be disassembled into a set of sound waves.

Incidentally, I don't believe there is such a thing as 'just' anything, whether it's sound waves, sinews or cells. Even these component parts have a kind of selfhood; they are something important even in and of themselves.

But furthermore, we know instinctively that all these sets of component parts are not what humans, thoughts, love, life or symphonies are - merely what they're made of:

"In our world", said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."
"Even in your world... that is not what a star is but only what it is made of." (C.S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader)

The meaning of love?

It may well be true that romantic love is, on a biological or evolutionary level, merely the means by which humans are induced to pair up, mate and bring up their offspring, ensuring the survival of their genes. Viewed in this way it is a mere phantom, a meaningless but biologically-useful trick played on us by our DNA. But it can be both that and something more, for there is a spiritual as well a physical component to everything; an eternal as well as a temporal aspect. Human romantic love can - and I believe does - have a reality, meaning, significance and value that transcend and suppress its utilitarian biological function.

even animals are not merely animals

Human beings are not merely animals; indeed, even animals are not merely animals. Our bodies and actions matter. Sex is not merely a meaningless and transient physical act; perhaps even eating and excreting have a sacredness, linking us all in the great chains and cycles of life in which all living creatures participate and interdepend.

Matter matters

So matter matters. Matter matters in its own right, simply as itself, and it matters because of the spirit which fills, vivifies, lifts and transfigures it. Matter is spirit's body, its means of expression in a physical universe, the instrument through which its music plays.

Perhaps then almost nothing is entirely meaningless - even the most apparently random of chance events...

A poem

The body's more than earth by nature formed,
The brain is more than cells by sense informed,
The mind is more than brain's projection-screen
Where visions, dark subconscious-bred, are seen;
The Earth is more than soil swinging through space,
And man is more than monkey aping grace,
And music's more than heard-vibrating air;
For Truth is more than Reason can lay bare:

Beside, beyond, above body, brain, mind,
Unseen, ignored, rejected; undesigned
Designer, Maker, Lover, Source of love
and light and life, without whom none can live -
O Spirit, may we hear your soundless call;
For spirit is the greater part of all.

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• Reality as Sacrament and Icon

The Sovereignty of God

What does God's sovereignty really mean and does it take precedence over his love? Does everything happen according to God's will?

The Sovereignty of God is a cornerstone doctrine for Conservative Evangelicals (CEs) like J.I. Packer and John Piper. In my view though, they both misinterpret God's sovereignty and over-emphasise it at the expense of other more important aspects of his divine nature and being.

Extreme Sovereignty

In very over-simplified terms, the conservative view of Sovereignty is roughly:

a) God, to be God, must be utterly Sovereign and in control of everything. (Omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence are implied by divine sovereignty; some would also add impassibility - that God cannot be changed or moved.)

b) God can - and does - do exactly whatever he wills and whatever pleases him.

c) God's Will and rule are ultimate, absolute, eternal, immutable, fixed, unfailing, inescapable. He does not repent or change his mind.

d) Everything that happens is God's will - whatever happens is according to or as a result of God's perfect Will and sovereign purpose. (If it is not his direct will, it is his indirect will; if it is not his active will, it is his passive or permissive will.)

e) God's ways, will and words are perfect and cannot be questioned by us.

Predestination and Inerrancy follow logically from the conservative view of Sovereignty

Also following directly and logically from this view of divine sovereignty are two further key CE doctrines:

i) Scriptural Inerrancy: God's Word is perfect, fixed and eternal.

ii) Predestination: God has chosen from before time those people who he will - and will not - save and redeem; those whose ultimate destiny is joy in the Kingdom of Heaven and those who will be eternally lost and punished in Hell. This choice is fixed and has nothing to do with the merit or faith of the people involved; it is purely a matter of God's unsearchable grace towards the undeserving.

Self-limited Sovereignty

To me, the CE view of sovereignty feels like a kind of spiritualised Determinism, more akin to the Islamic views of Allah and the Qu'ran than to the uniquely Christian view of God. It also seems to me to derive more from Hellenistic philosophy and logic than from Hebrew or New Testament thought and experience.

Taking the same points (a)-(e) as above, I would make the following definition of God's sovereignty:

God's sovereignty includes the right to limit the exercise and expression of his own omnipotence

a) God is Sovereign and in control; but to be in control is not the same as to be controlling. God's sovereignty includes the right and ability to limit the exercise and expression of his own omnipotence and omniscience under particular circumstances as his purposes require it. (For example, Jesus was neither omnipotent, omniscient or omnipresent during his life on Earth.) So instead of the absolute rule of a benign divine dictator, there is a complex interplay between God's sovereignty, creaturely freedom and - enabling these otherwise conflicting factors to mesh - divine grace.

b) Following on from this, God can of course do whatsoever he wills, but he may not. For example, if his will for a specific situation or person conflicts with the general laws he has laid down for how the world works, including creaturely choice and moral responsibility, he may choose to forego his primary will in that situation. In other words, God may choose (by his perfect will!) to self-limit his sovereignty, subjecting it to other principles or aspects of the divine nature such as love and mercy.

c) While God's overall will may remain fixed, his specific will in the current imperfect world is often provisional, flexible and dynamic. The created world and its inhabitants have the freedom not to obey God's will, and also sometimes his perfect will is not compatible with the constraints and imperfections of this world. In such cases, God's purposes are not defeated but have to go by longer and more circuitous routes. God is more than creative enough to have contingency plans for circumstances in which his primary and even secondary or tertiary will is not done.

Only in God's fully-realised Kingdom will God's will always be perfectly done

d) Again, far from all that happens in this world is what God wills, whether directly or indirectly, actively or passively. Much of what happens is in direct conflict with or opposition to God's will. Only in God's fully-realised Kingdom will God's will always be perfectly done. Why else does Jesus urge us to pray 'Your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven'?

e) God's will is indeed perfect - whatever God wills must be good and right. Nonetheless, I believe God is usually very happy for us to question his will - if that means active engagement rather than submitting passively to whatever happens. And certainly we need to question whether particular events and circumstances are God's will simply to be accepted or instead something we need to battle against and overcome.

Secondary Sovereignty

God's sovereignty and omnipotence take second place to his love and goodness

I don't have any problem with God being Sovereign, only with the primacy of Sovereignty over other aspects of his nature and character. In my view his sovereignty and omnipotence take second place to some of his other qualities, primarily his love and goodness. Therefore where his sovereignty is in conflict with his love, it is his love that wins.

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