The supposed conflict between science and religion is not only bad history, it also goes unsupported by on-going polls of the religious beliefs of scientists. As the story goes, empirical science uncovers inconvenient truths that religious people resist in a losing battle. But if there was a conflict between science and religion, and furthermore if science has uncovered findings inimical to religion, then one might expect a small and dwindling fraction of scientists who are religious. But a recent poll showed that a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power. And that is up from the 42% who responded similarly almost a century ago in 1914.

The problem is not so much that religion conflicts with science as it co-opts science. Evolutionary thinking was mandated by leading theologians and religious thinkers in the Enlightenment and Darwin's arguments for the truth of evolution followed suit. As David Masci, senior researcher at the Pew Forum, writes:

But although evolutionary theory is often portrayed as antithetical to religion, it has not destroyed the religious faith of the scientific community.

Indeed not.

But this is not to say evolutionists are predominantly religious today. For Darwin, as Richard Dawkins famously put it, "made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Ironically, the religiously motivated and justified theory of evolution has fueled atheism and today the camp is split. Here there is a conflict as the atheist evolutionists and theist evolutionists argue about their differences.

But as Henry Kissinger described academia, the battles are so fierce because the stakes are so small. From the outside the conflict between atheist evolutionists and theist evolutionists is rather meaningless. For the atheists, in spite of all their bluster, are no different than the theists in their religious beliefs. They call themselves atheists, but their convictions about god are as strong as anyone's. (see examples here and here).

So yes many evolutionists are atheists, but as usual the theology rules. Evolutionists are either theists who hold strong religious convictions or atheists who hold strong religious convictions. Either way the science suffers. I guess you could say there is a conflict between religion and science after all.

Proteins are the cell’s special machines that perform a variety of tasks. Some of them help to regulate the production levels of other proteins by influencing the transcribing of the DNA genes that code for the proteins. New research is investigating how one such transcription factor, GATA-1, works and, as usual, it isn’t simple.

Looking at baby red blood cells in mice, the research found the genes that GATA-1 influences are positioned together along the DNA molecule. GATA-1 binds to specific locations along the DNA molecule and genes that cluster around those locations tend to be induced or repressed by the binding of GATA-1. Genes not in these clusters are relatively unaffected. So if GATA-1 is to influence the production of certain proteins, then the corresponding genes need to be positioned in these regulatory clusters.

But why are some genes induced while others are repressed? One factor is how close the gene is to the GATA-1 protein. The closer genes tend to be induced whereas the more distant genes tend to be repressed. So the positioning of the genes is even more fine-tuned. Not only are the genes to be influenced found in the regulatory clusters, but their position within the cluster is important.

There are other factors as well. For instance, TAL1 is another transcription factor and when it is absent the nearby genes are usually repressed. This is usually accompanied by a modification of one of the histone proteins around which the DNA is wrapped. Specifically, the 27th amino acid in histone H3, a lysine, is trimethylated (three methyl groups are added to the side chain).

These and other factors help to explain how GATA-1 works to regulate protein production, and why some genes are induced while others repressed. But the observed factors do not fully explain the patterns of protein production. For instance, many repressed genes do not lack the TAL1 transcription factor. There is still more to be learned.

Evolutionists believe these protein regulation mechanisms and factors arose from molecular mishaps that were passed on. Those mishaps that luckily helped out persisted. The gene positionings, GATA-1 design, production and binding sites, TAL1, histone trimethylation machine, and other intricacies just happened to arise by happenstance. And they worked. Religion drives science and it matters.

Certain species of garter snake are remarkably immune to tetrodotoxin, a deadly compound that paralyzes and kills. That’s fortunate because the newt, one of the snake’s favorite meals, is loaded with the toxin. The resistance of these lucky snakes is due to tiny adjustments in a protein segment which otherwise is highly conserved across a wide range of animals. This high conservation, and the tiny variations in these snakes, constitute one of the many false predictions of evolutionary theory that lie hidden in journal papers. To understand this evolutionary quandary we first need a quick review of sodium channels.

What are sodium channels?

Nerve cells have a long tail which carries an electronic impulse. The tail can be several feet long and its signal might stimulate a muscle to action, control a gland, or report a sensation to the brain.

Like the many telephone wires wrapped into a cable, nerve cells are often bundled together to form a nerve. Early researchers considered that perhaps the electronic impulse traveled along the nerve cell tail like electricity in a wire. But they soon realized that the signal in nerve cells is too weak to travel very far. The nerve cell would need to boost the signal along the way for it to travel along the tail.

After years of research it was discovered that the signal is boosted by membrane proteins. First, there is a membrane protein that simultaneously pumps potassium ions into the cell and sodium ions out of the cell. This sets up a chemical gradient across the membrane. There is more potassium inside the cell than outside, and there is more sodium outside than inside. Also, there are more negatively charged ions inside the cell so there is a voltage drop (50-100 millivolt) across the membrane.

In addition to the sodium-potassium pump, there are also sodium channels and potassium channels. These membrane proteins allow sodium and potassium, respectively, to pass through the membrane. They are normally closed, but when the electronic impulse travels along the nerve cell tail, it causes the sodium channels to quickly open. Sodium ions outside the cell then come streaming into the cell down the electro-chemical gradient. As a result the voltage drop is reversed and the decaying electronic impulse, which caused the sodium channels to open, is boosted as it continues on its way along the nerve cell tail.

When the voltage goes from negative to positive inside the cell, the sodium channels slowly close and the potassium channels open. Hence the sodium channels are open only momentarily and, now with the potassium channels open, the potassium ions concentrated inside the cell come streaming out down their electro-chemical gradient. As a result the original voltage drop is reestablished.

This process repeats itself until the impulse finally reaches the end of the nerve cell tail. Although we’ve left out many details, it should be obvious that the process depends on the intricate workings of the three membrane proteins. The sodium-potassium pump helps set up the electro-chemical gradient, the electronic impulse is strong enough to activate the sodium channel, and then the sodium and potassium channels open and close with precise timing.

Toxic to evolutionary theory

Sodium channels are a great target for a biological toxin such as tetrodotoxin. Introduce a compound that clogs the channel and nerves and muscles lose function. That brings on paralysis, respiratory failure, and even death. Tetrodotoxin wreaks its havoc by binding to the opening of the sodium channel.

But for all its lethality, tetrodotoxin can be neutralized with merely a few changes to the sodium channel’s amino acid string. In fact, even swapping in a single new amino acid can do the job.

Such minor changes are found in various species, including three garter snakes, Thamnophis atratus, Thamnophis couchii and Thamnophis sirtalis, as detailed in research published last year.

These minor changes are found in segments of the sodium channel gene which otherwise is highly conserved across a wide range of species. From the garter snake to humans, these segments are identical, or nearly so.

For evolutionists, such strong similarity across so many species suggests strong selection at work. That is, very little variation in the amino acid sequence can be tolerated. As the authors explain:

Amino acid sequences within the [sodium channel segment] are nearly invariant across garter snakes and relatives and are almost identical to mammalian sequences, suggesting the locus is under strong purifying selection because of its critical functional role.

But if so little variation can be tolerated, then how did the sodium channel evolve in the first place? Vague evolutionary speculation, such as here and here, of course does not address this awkward question.

Also, how could those three lucky garter snake species survive the few mutations that must have occurred according to evolution. In other words, with evolution we must be believe that one or a few mutations occurred in the sodium channel segment which apparently cannot tolerate such change. These mutations would have been handy when the snake eventually consumed a newt, but in the meantime the mutations should not have been tolerable according to evolution.

Finally, the evidence suggests the multiple mutations work together. Alone, some of the mutations have little affect on helping the snake resist the tetrodotoxin, but together the mutations have a tremendous effect. The weak mutations alone would have been less likely to have been selected and therefore, according to evolution, essentially simultaneous mutations are more likely to have occurred. But this dramatically reduces the likelihood of such an event occurring at all. Religion drives science, and it matters.

The origin of complexity is a key problem in evolutionary theory. How did the blind process construct so many precise and elaborate biological designs? The evolutionary expectation has always been that Darwin's process of natural selection is the driving force that creates everything from biosonar to the brain. But new research indicates that much of the complexity found in the higher organisms is due not to natural selection, but rather to limitations on natural selection. It is yet another new evolutionary mechanism in a dizzying list of new, and ever more complex, mechanisms.

It probably should not be surprising that this new mechanism is as circuitous as a Rube Goldberg device. After all, the mechanism just happened to happen, and so is not exactly elegant. In fact, it consists of a rather unlikely series of steps, as follows:

1. Gene are sometimes duplicated, for reasons we don't fully understand (somehow evolution did that even though there was no reason, but it worked really well in the end).

2. Duplicate genes lead to excessive quantities of the protein. (bad)

3. Too many copies of the protein leads to dosage imbalance. (bad)

4. Small population size means inefficient selection. (usually bad, but good in this case)

5. Inefficient selection means the duplicate genes are not deleted quickly. (bad, but later good)

6. The duplicate genes become mutated. (good)

7. Some of these mutations affect expression levels via microRNA interactions, alleviating dosage imbalance. (good)

8. Some other mutations affect the protein structure, causing less compact, and less stable proteins. (bad, but later good)

9. These proteins are fortunately stabilized by binding with other proteins. (good)

10. These protein-protein interactions cause higher complexity. (good)

As you can see the process got off to a bad start. It did not look promising, but evolution has a way of finding a way to produce, one way or another. That's how evolution works--it creates complexity (see Step 10).

In this case, the complexity of the process almost matches the complexity of the designs it created. And interestingly, it dispenses with the outdated idea of natural selection driving the design. As one evolutionist explained:

the origins of some key aspects of the evolution of complexity may have their origins in completely nonadaptive processes.

Fortunately, evolutionists are rapidly determining how everything came about.

As you read these words a frenzy of activity is taking place as the light entering your eye triggers a dizzying sequence of actions, ultimately causing a signal to be sent to your brain. In fact, even a mere single photon can be detected in your vision system. It all starts with a photon interacting with a light-sensitive chromophore molecule. The interaction causes the chromophore to change configuration and this, in turn, influences the large, trans-membrane rhodopsin protein to which the chromophore is attached. This is just the beginning of the cellular signal transduction cascade.

The chromophore photoisomerization is the beginning of a remarkable cascade that causes action potentials to be triggered in the optic nerve. In response to the chromophore photoisomerization, the rhodopsin causes the activation of hundreds of transducin molecules. These, in turn, cause the activation of cGMP phosphodiesterase (by removing its inhibitory subunit), an enzyme that degrades the cyclic nucleotide, cGMP.

A single photon can result in the activation of hundreds of transducins, leading to the degradation of hundreds of thousands of cGMP molecules. cGMP molecules serve to open non selective ion channels in the membrane, so reduction in cGMP concentration serves to close these channels. This means that millions of sodium ions per second are shut out of the cell, causing a voltage change across the membrane. This hyperpolarization of the cell membrane causes a reduction in the release of neurotransmitter, the chemical that interacts with the nearby nerve cell, in the synaptic region of the cell. This reduction in neurotransmitter release ultimately causes an action potential to arise in the nerve cell.

All this because a single photon entered into the fray. In short order, this light signal is converted into a structural signal, more structural signals, a chemical concentration signal, back to a structural signal, and then back to a chemical concentration signal leading to a voltage signal which then leads back to a chemical concentration signal. There is, of course, a wealth of yet more detail which makes the information conversion process far more complicated.

Cellular signal transduction design is modular. Its many steps can be modified, or interchanged with alternative steps to provide solutions in other applications, such as the olfactory system. Within the vision system one can, for instance, modify the chromophore's color sensitivity—its action spectrum—so different colors cause their own specific signals.

An example of this is found in the so-called third eye (parietal eye) which is found in a variety of species. This eye is not an image forming eye but rather provides for light sensitivity. This system includes two antagonistic light signaling pathways in the same cell. Blue light causes the hyperpolarizing response as described above, but green light causes a depolarizing response.

How is this done? By the inhibition of the cGMP phosphodiesterase enzyme. Specifically, there are two opsins, one that is sensitive to blue light which activates the cGMP phosphodiesterase enzyme, and another that is sensitive to green light which inhibits the cGMP phosphodiesterase enzyme. It appears that initially these are two separate pathways and they come together at the point of influencing the cGMP phosphodiesterase enzyme.

The molecular components of this fascinating design are elucidated in a 2006 paper. In addition to reporting on their findings of this unique design, the final paragraphs propose an evolutionary explanation for the design. Here the paper turns from empirically based science to unfounded, non scientific speculation. Not surprisingly their evolutionary story begins with the heavy-lifting already accomplished and, in Lamarckian fashion, improvements are implemented as needed:

A G_o-mediated phototransduction pathway might already be present in the ciliary photoreceptors of early coelomates, the last common ancestor of lizard (vertebrate) and scallop (mollusk), because both have this pathway. Later, the ancestral vertebrate photoreceptor acquired a second G protein, either gustducin or transducin, for chromatic antagonism and perhaps other purposes. The parietal photoreceptor evolved subsequently and retained these ancestral features.

One can hardly blame evolutionists for their smuggling in of Lamarckian terminology. It sounds better than the Darwinian just-add-water account which holds that random biological variation produced a phototransduction pathway, and then produced myriad new proteins, which fortunately just happened to include a second G protein, which fortunately just happened to ... well you know the story.

Evolution has to be true, and yet it is not well supported scientifically. If you ask how evolution occurred, you will be told there are various theories grappling with the problem. But if you ask if evolution occurred, you will be told that, without a doubt, it is an unequivocal fact. Evolutionists have metaphysical certainty about the truth of evolution, in spite of the empirical evidence. This is a consistent theme in the evolution genre. Here, for example, is the opening paragraph in a journal paper from last year on the evolution of vision:

The evolution of the eye has focused research interest ever since Darwin identified the eye with its ‘‘inimitable contrivances’’ as a vexing problem for evolutionary theory (1859). Gradual evolution seemed implausible because ‘‘intermediate’’ forms of the eye seemed unlikely to be adaptive and selectable. Since Darwin’s original challenge, however, a surprisingly large number of cases of independent evolution of image-forming eyes have been documented.

Translation: Contrary to evolutionary expectations, biology presents us with a wide variety of vision systems. They are too different to have evolved from a common ancestor. The evolutionary spin on this surprise is that vision must have independently evolved many times (after all, the fact that vision must have evolved, somehow, is not in question).

Furthermore, various living species with completely functional forms of eye organization are now known, which could be viewed as ‘‘intermediate’’ between a simple photoreceptive patch and the complex image-forming eye seen in cephalopods and most vertebrates.

On the other hand, they could not be viewed as intermediate. It all depends on whether we are following the evidence. In fact, the biochemistry of even simple, non image forming, eyes is profoundly complex.

Although the fact of repeated evolution of image-forming eyes, as well as the capacity for functional intermediates, is thus firmly established, the mechanism of the evolutionary process is still speculative.

Translation: We may have to contrive just-so stories to explain evolution, but we will continue repeating that it is a fact.

Textbook evolutionary theory holds that evolutionary change occurs gradually. It may speed up or slow down but change, when it occurs, takes small steps. But from the fossil record to observed adaptations in the field, biological data do not always cooperate with theory. In fact, populations do respond dramatically to environmental challenges in a time window measured in years—not millions of years—and single mutations or the management of existing genes effect such responses. A review from last week, entitled Revenge of the hopeful monster, summarized the situation as follows:

Experimental evidence has shown that individual genetic changes can have vast effects on an organism without dooming it to the evolutionary rubbish heap. Single-gene changes that confer a large adaptive value do happen: they are not rare, they are not doomed and, when competing with small-effect mutations, they tend to win. But small-effect mutations still matter—a lot. They provide essential fine-tuning and sometimes pave the way for explosive evolution to follow. As the molecular details unfold, theory badly needs to catch up.

For example, consider freshwater sticklebacks which can rapidly adjust their pelvic spine length, from generation to generation, depending on the environment. How does the fish achieve such dramatic body plan modifications?

The answer seems to be that a stretch of DNA that enhances the production of a particular protein is sometimes found to be cut out. The reduced production of the protein explains the reduction or loss of pelvic spine length.

But reduced levels of the protein should also cause all kinds of other nonsensical changes to the fish. Why aren’t they observed? The answer is that this DNA editing occurs only in the pelvis and not elsewhere. The result is a helpful design change rather than chaos. As the review explained:

With expression of [the protein] preserved in all other vital structures, freshwater sticklebacks could lose their pelvic spines without dire repercussions elsewhere.

And this design modification is observed to occur independently, in different stickleback populations.

This example illustrates the general finding of built-in adaptation capabilities in biology. In different species we find different mechanisms to effect design changes. As the review explained:

Large effect or small, evolution begins to look like an endless list of special cases, each a new challenge to Fisherian models.

Evolution as an endless list of special cases? Now we must believe evolution created finely tuned, built-in, design change levers that respond precisely to environmental shifts. And these design changes are supposed to be examples of evolution? Yes, the theory does badly need to catch up. And evolutionists, in their Darwinian Wonderland, are just the ones to fix the problem. You can’t make this stuff up.

Tandem repeats are short stretches of DNA that are repeated head-to-tail. "At first sight," explains evolutionist Marcelo Vinces, "it may seem unlikely that this stutter-DNA has any biological function." This is an example of how evolutionary thinking harms science. Since life is an accident, biology must be straightforward. If we do not immediately perceive how something works, then evolutionists typically think it is non functional junk. Over and over this evolutionary expectation has turned out wrong. And now again with tandem repeats:

unstable junk DNA allows fast shifts in gene activity, which may allow organisms to tune the activity of genes to match changing environments--a vital principle for survival in the endless evolutionary race.

The tandem repeats allow for swift adaptation to environmental demands, so cells with more repeats stand a better chance. As the evolutionists explain, "Their junk DNA saved their lives."

Of course none of this is impossible. But it calls for a healthy dose of serendipity. We are now to believe that evolution created these DNA sequence patterns which were useless for generations. Nonetheless evolution maintained them in the population. That was fortunate because one day, when the environment presented new challenges, they saved the day.

Or there is the preadaptation explanation. It holds that there are some previous functions that the design performed. Like Darwin's gardener we can't observe them anymore, but we can hypothesize.

Either way the result is that evolution created more evolution. Evolutionists now routinely speak of the evolution of evolvability. In other words, we must believe that evolution created the ability to evolve.

Impossible? Certainly not.

The obvious scientific conclusion? You've got to be kidding.

An undeniable fact? I have a bridge to sell you.

But evolutionists do mandate that it is a fact. And therefore they must conclude that what they thought was junk DNA has now saved the day. Evolutionists are flipping between absurdities in what is increasingly looking like a parody. The evolution literature looks more and more like a spoof. As if sensing the problem, the science writer reporting on the new research hastened to add that it is to be published in a reputable journal.

BOISE – Its timing was certainly awkward at best – a $120 million expenditure at a time when Idaho’s economy was tanking – but there’s little argument about the result.

The “people’s house,” Idaho's Statehouse literally gleams after its two-and-a-half-year facelift that brought the 98-year-old capitol building into the 21st Century while restoring its historical elegance.

The Statehouse had become a dingy, uncomfortable, even dangerous place prior to its restoration.

Originally designed by John Tourtellotte to let the sunshine in, the Statehouse was no longer the “Capitol of Light” Tourtellotte had envisioned. Thirty months and $120 million later, the moniker fits again.

Tourtellotte saw light as metaphor: “The great white light of conscience must be allowed to shine and by its interior illumination make clear the path of duty.” It’s no coincidence, of course, that laws requiring the government to conduct its business in public are called “sunshine laws.”

Not all of the restoration work is obvious to the visitor. There are new smoke alarms, electrical work, elevators, heating and cooling infrastructure and other vital but hidden improvements. Regardless of whether you agree that the scope of the renovation was justified, there was little choice when it came to the basic upgrades.

There also really can’t be much argument about the beauty of the restored building, regardless of one’s views on the cost. The building is open to the public and on a recent day the rotunda areas were full of Idaho companies showing off their wares, and public traffic was steady all day. It’s a spectacular space.

The House and Senate chambers also gleam, and the addition of new hearing rooms has made it more possible for the public to attend debates on bills and the conduct of other government business. There are new gardens and sidewalks east and west of the building.

The undisputed star of the show is the rotunda area under the dome, extending through four floors with an opening in the middle to allow an obstructed view from each floor up to the dome, which is 200 feet above the first floor. If you’re fortunate enough to visit on a sunny day, go to the third floor and walk around the rotunda – you’ll immediately appreciate why the Statehouse deserves its nickname.

It seems that evolutionists are forever repeating their refrain that evolution is both theory and fact. And for good reason—evolution is commonly misunderstood. On the one hand, evolution is a mechanistic explanation for the origin of species. That is the theory part of evolution and it is open to substantial revision. A wide variety of explanations are possible and even the venerable natural selection can be discarded if need be. The only requirement, it seems, is that the explanation must be mechanistic. Aside from that, most any explanation, no matter how fantastic, is fair game.

On the other hand, evolution is known to be true. That is the fact part of evolution. So the question of if evolution occurred has been settled, even if the question of how evolution occurred remains open to revision.

And this fact/theory distinction is not particular to evolution. Science is full of ideas that we all agree are true even if we don’t fully understand them. A favorite example is gravity, which physicists are still researching even though no one would doubt it is real. Evolutionists like to say that evolution is as much a fact as is gravity. Indeed, some have said that evolution is even more certain than gravity.

There is, however, an important difference between evolution and gravity. Gravity is a fact because we can observe it. Indeed we can feel it. Not so with evolution. Even evolutionists agree that the adaptation that we can observe is insufficient to explain the large-scale changes evolution needs.

So how do we know that evolution, and especially that large-scale part, is a fact? This is where evolution becomes metaphysical. For the past 350 years a number of theological and philosophical proofs have mandated the truth of evolution.

Evolution is commonly understood to be “just science” because its explanation is strictly mechanistic. But that is the theory part of evolution. The fact part of evolution is metaphysical. Here is an example.

In his book Why Evolution is True, Jerry Coyne explains why embryology proves evolution to be true. It is not that evolution predicted precisely what we observe in the developmental stages of the various species. In fact, evolution does not require what we observe to be true. Evolution could explain a wide variety of observables.

But as Coyne explains, what we observe cannot be explained by alternative, non mechanistic, theories. As Coyne reminds his reader, the facts of embryology “make sense only in light of evolution.” This is equivalent to an IF-AND-ONLY-IF-THEN statement, and it reveals the non scientific, metaphysical, aspect of evolution. Coyne writes:

Embryonic stages don't look like the adult forms of their ancestors, as Haeckel claimed, but like the embryonic forms of ancestors. Human fetuses, for example, never resemble adult fish or reptiles, but in certain ways they do resemble embryonic fish and reptiles. Also, the recapitulation is neither strict nor inevitable: not every feature of an ancestor’s embryo appears in its descendants, nor do all stages of development unfold in a strict evolutionary order. Further, some species, like plants, have dispensed with nearly all traces of their ancestry during development. … Yet we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Embryos still show a form of recapitulation: features that arose earlier in evolution often appear earlier in development. And this makes sense only if species have an evolutionary history.

Now, we’re not absolutely sure why some species retain much of their evolutionary history during development. The “adding new stuff onto old” principle is just a hypothesis—and explanation for the facts of embryology. It’s hard to prove that it was easier for a developmental program to evolve one way rather than another. But the facts of embryology remain, and make sense only in light of evolution. [78-9]

Skeptics argue this is bad science and evolutionists retort that it is good science. But in fact, it is not science at all. Coyne and the evolutionists rely on metaphysical premises to make this argument. Evolutionists say their idea is a fact, and their proofs are always metaphysical.

One problem with evolution is its strong bias toward viewing everything in biology as a kludge. When a newly discovered structure is examined, evolutionists take one look and conclude it is leftover junk. After all, blind, unguided mutations and other processes just happened to produce everything we see. The evolutionist’s going in position is that biology is a fluke. We’re lucky anything works.

As we have seen, this expectation pervades evolutionary thinking, and shows up again and again to be wrong. The once-we-thought-it-was-junk-but-now-we-see-how-it-works is a consistent theme in evolutionary thought. In recent years we've seen the so-called junk DNA turn up performing useful functions. More recently this story has repeated itself at the protein level. Designs that were once considered to be so much junk are now found to be essential. Evolution sure it helpful. Here is how one evolutionist described this latest rags-to-riches story:

Here we have a molecule that serves an important role in how cells function and survive, but it contains these puzzling 'junk' sequences that don't seem to have any apparent purpose. Our work suggests that this disorder is really a way of creating flexibility, allowing the protein to function as a molecular switch, a process that is thought to go wrong in certain diseases.

Evolution has provided researchers with convenient modular structures, areas that are repeated over and over again to make up proteins, and so we tend to dismiss the interspersed disordered sequences that don't seem to have any definable structure. Here we show that the weak molecular interactions in a disorganized protein equence are essential in giving this protein its unique attributes.

Well it is good to see that evolution has been helping researchers by providing convenient modular structures. At least evolution does something right.

The evolutionary expectation was that species adapt by unguided variation. Sometimes, it was thought, this blind process happens to stumble upon an improved design which has a reproductive advantage, and so becomes more prevalent in future generations. This evolutionary model could hardly be more wrong. We now have glimpsed the profound complexity of biology adaptation mechanisms. They are anything but a blind process and recent research adds yet more insight into this fascinating aspect of biology that contradicts evolution.

I've discussed this and other examples of how adaptation reveals an immense, yet unspoken, serrendipity in evolutionary theory. Evolution, so we must believe, just happened to create incredible mechanisms which, in turn, fueled evolution. Even evolutionists admit that these mechanisms are crucial to their story.

The recent research adds to this story by exploring the ability of bacteria to acquire resistance to multiple antibiotics using a genetic "copying and pasting" of resistance genes. Apparently unaware of the theory of evolution, this sophisticated design, as one writer put it, uses the antibiotics themselves to "trigger the synthesis of the bacterial enzyme that captures the resistance genes and enables their expression in the integron."

Unbelievable. Adaptation was always claimed as the no-brainer, empirical evidence for evolution. How can anyone doubt evolution when we can observe it right before our eyes? This claim has always been an absurd equivocation on evolution, for such adaptation has very little in common with the macro evolution narrative. The absurdity is reinforced by this growing body of knowledge revealing the deep complexity of adaptation.

Evolutionists are left scratching their heads, wondering how their know-nothing process was able to devise such a clever adaptation machine. They are left with the silly idea that evolution created the intelligent adaptation machine that then allowed for evolution. But if you won't tell anyone about this, then I won't either. Aren't the emperor's clothes beautiful?

COTTAGE GROVE, Ore. – I am officially, pitifully obsessed with this village on the southern edge of the Willamette Valley, where rivers and mountain ranges converge, the landscape is forever green and the townsfolk paint murals on their buildings.

I’ve been there precisely once for a couple of hours, but I’ve written an online novel set there and I have a serious hankering to go back for a longer stay. For some reason I feel compelled to refer to the residents as “townsfolk.” It’s got a restaurant called the Brothel Café – now that’s my kind of town. The climactic parade scene of the movie Animal House was filmed here – that’s my kind of town. It gets four feet of rain a year – seriously, that’s my kind of town.

Cottage Grove is not exactly booming. Home prices are low, incomes are low, many of the buildings are old. This, of course, is a good share of its charm. It’s a real town where the homes and businesses reflect a pride of ownership. It’s on the edge of the Cascade Range a twisty 70 miles from the Pacific Ocean. It’s got a paved bike trail on a former railroad bed, an impressive collection of covered bridges and a decided dearth of snootiness. It oozes quaintness and charm, though I’m sure any high school senior in town would probably tell you she’s counting the days to move on to the big city.

In this case, the big city is Eugene just 20 minutes up the freeway and probably, as they say, a world away for young people who haven’t yet learned to appreciate the virtues of their small hometown.

One of my favorite spots in town is the enormous and ugly yellow National Guard Armory, which sits a block off of Main Street like the crazy aunt who comes downstairs from time to time. I can’t say for sure, but you get the sense that the people of Cottage Grove like the armory just the way it is, scabs of missing paint and all.

This is Red State Oregon – lots of pickup trucks and flannel shirts and antlers on the walls. Downtown is not full of cutesy boutiques selling Irish lace or Indonesian teak. Nope, there are small shops that do not open on Sunday, the day of the week I happened to visit. I stopped a teenage girl on the deserted Main Street who was walking barefoot down the sidewalk in a 50-degree drizzle and asked her if there was a courthouse in town, since I wanted to get a picture of it to illustrate my book.

"Not a regular one," she said. I pretended to understand what that meant and thanked her. Turns out, I learned later on the Internet, court is held once a week in city hall. That is my kind of town. Regrettably, it wasn't until a few days after my visit that I learned, while talking to the distillers of Idaho vodka at the Idaho Statehouse, that there is a major distillery in Cottage Grove. Now that is really my kind of town.

There are precious few fast-food joints and a place called the Koffee Kup, with a sign – just like the armory – that needs a paint job and isn’t likely to get it soon.

But speaking of paint, downtown is full of spectacularly beautiful murals. They are not paint-by-number jobs – these enormous paintings are works of art. Even the old Coco Cola and Dr. Pierce’s liver pills signs have been re-done. I want to find the people responsible and give them a hug.

I have developed this fantasy of late about living in a cottage – pun clearly intended – in this nice town, puttering around for a cup of coffee and getting up on a Sunday morning for a drive to the coast, but I suspect I’d grow weary of that after awhile. It’s perhaps best left a fantasy.

Ever tire of chasing down all those evolutionary fallacies? Dustin Penn and co workers have solved the problem by collecting them in one place: at the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) website. Their goal is to improve public education and understanding of evolution. If that means revealing the various strawmen, mischaracterizations, twisting of science, and other logical fallacies, then they have greatly succeeded.

Of course Penn and helpers are quite enthusiastic about evolution, because after all:

Darwin presented a massive amount of evidence from a wide variety of disciplines to show that evolution is a fact. Species change over time.

There you have it. Species change over time, so evolution must be true. An excellent demonstration of evolutionary logic.

The fact of evolution is no longer debated among scientists, as the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

And that overwhelming evidence would be? Oh, I forgot already, species change over time. Right.

Penn’s next penetrating revelation is that Darwin’s theory of natural selection “not only explains how the diversity of species has arisen, but also the complex, design-like properties of organisms.” No citation given for that one, but no matter, after all species change over time right? In fact, as Penn summarizes:

For many scientists and scholars, Darwin's theory is “the single best idea that anyone has ever had.”

That one did have a citation. It came from that objective sage Daniel Dennett.

Although you would never know it, Penn and co-workers point out that evolution is the key to just about everything in the life sciences, and even more:

Today, evolution provides the conceptual foundation that integrates all of the biological sciences, including genetics, molecular and cell biology, developmental biology, physiology, behavioral biology, ecology, and paleontology. Evolutionary biology is increasing being integrated into the social sciences, as it is central for efforts to understand human origins and behavior. Evolution has many practical implications and it has contributed to important advances in applied sciences. In the biomedical sciences, evolution plays an increasing role in research on HIV, influenza, and other infectious diseases, and in the discovery of genes that cause disease and treatments. Evolution has been critical for understanding the emergence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics and other drugs. Evolution has contributed to advances in agriculture, such as development of crops and livestock and pest management (the evolution of pesticide resistance). Evolution even influences research in biotechnology, and fields outside of the life sciences, including the development of computer technologies and information sciences (evolutionary algorithms).

Strange that biotechnology developers don’t actually use evolution in their work. But surely the influence must be there.

The discussion also includes the usual evolutionary confusion about theories, laws, facts, and evidence. The reader learns that “evolution is not a theory in the colloquial sense of the word, which implies a mere hypothesis, conjecture, or speculation.” No, Darwin’s theory is “a comprehensive explanation strongly supported by evidence, and useful for making predictions.” No mention that those predictions were false, but that’s an aside.

The reader next learns that “Scientific theories are not less than scientific laws, contrary to what is often assumed.” That’s helpful, particularly in light of the next flash of insight: “Scientific laws describe facts whereas theories explain them.” If this seems confusing, just consider that “Darwin’s Theory, for example, explains the fact of evolution.” That should clarify things, and if it doesn’t, the reader is left with this hilarious attempt at objectivity: “It is crucial to understand that evolution — like all facts in science — remains open to question.”

Right, evolution is open to question, just like those veering atoms were open to question to the Epicureans. Evolution has made so many false predictions we’ve stopped counting, but rest assured, it is always open to question. Its truth is never actually questioned, but it is always open to question.

But what is really amazing is that evolution created science itself:

The most important lesson from this controversy is that science is a precious gift, and the greatest accomplishment of human intellect for solving nature's mysteries.

It’s truly amazing that evolution created the brain by which those evolutionists learn truths like evolution. How precious.

PORTLAND, Ore. – An afternoon in Portland’s Chinatown makes one thing painfully clear – despite obvious efforts of a remarkable group that have made a garden blossom where it shouldn’t, this place isn’t what it used to be.

On the weekend of Chinese New Year, the handful of blocks comprising Chinatown is quiet, populated by as many vagrants as tourists. At one point, a man pushing a baby stroller came alongside my son-in-law, who also was pushing a stroller with his one-year-old seated inside, and inexplicably showed him the switchblade he had stored in one of the stroller’s compartments.

“You should carry one just in case someone tries to snatch your kid,” he said, and he walked on.

We stop at the House of Louie so I can buy a couple of char siu bao, a  steamed dumpling of barbecued pork in fluffy bread that I developed a taste for during two years in Hong Kong in the late 70s.They are good, but much leaner than the ones in Hong Kong. We stop and watch some Ping-Pong outside the restaurant and head into the center of Chinatown, which is, frankly, pretty grim.

In a gift shop selling Chinese trinkets, the man behind the counter hesitated when we asked whether there would be a parade or lion dancers for the New Year.

“I think maybe next week,” he said.

He was equally uncertain when we asked whether he’d recommend eating an early dinner at the House of Louie.

“Well, I haven’t been there in two years,” he said. In other words, “don’t go.”

“The best (Chinese) restaurants are over on the east side” of the Willamette River, he added.

Still, we went to the nearly empty Golden Horse restaurant and the food was plentiful and good. But San Francisco this is not.

The one oasis is the Lan Su Chinese Garden, which takes up a full city block on the edge of Chinatown, surrounded by tallish buildings. While not as spectacular or expansive as the Portland Japanese Garden west of downtown, its attention to authentic detail is remarkable. It was a chilly February day and my family waited for me outside, so my time there was too short.

Sadly, much of the rest of Chinatown is in disrepair or for sale.

So, more about the Chinese Garden. Opened in 2000 by the city of Portland (in what one might presume to be a last, desperate attempt to save this section of downtown), the garden is really more architectural than horticultural, with a traditional teahouse and other buildings made of native Chinese wood and other materials. There are rocks mined from Lake Tai near Suzhou (Portland’s Chinese sister city), live bamboo and other plants native to China. Even in the gloom of mid-February camellia trees are blooming.

About 20 percent of the 40,000-square-foot garden is water, called Lake Zither (a type of zither called a guzheng is responsible for creating much of traditional Chinese music), mimicking ancient Chinese gardens of the Suzhou area. The structures inside the garden were built by workers from Suzhou.

In short, it’s strikingly beautiful and authentic, and strangely out of place in what otherwise appears to be a dying section of Portland.

We celebrate another Darwin birthday, this time with the false prediction of gradualism. See Section 5.4 here. As always, readers should review Section 1, the introduction, so they understand the purpose and context of the document.

Imagine if, back in 1859, Charles Darwin explained that evolution proceeds in fits and starts. Species rapidly appear as if planted there, and then go unchanged for eons. There would have been, as we say today, no bounce. In fact Darwin would have been laughed off the stage, and he knew it. Darwin had to present a narrative of gradualism. Funny thing is, the fits-and-starts narrative is today precisely what evolutionists tell us.

It seems strange that the absent minded process of evolution would leave a trail of contradictory evidence. For instance, evolution has not squared very well with the fits-and-starts pattern of the fossil record. Why should biology's evidence make evolution appear to be unlikely? Is evolution trying to deceive us? Or perhaps it is merely testing our faith. Well now we know. Enter junk DNA.

As I have mentioned before, a few years back evolutionists began to think that retroviruses could play important roles in evolution. This idea has now taken hold in a much bigger way, with the discovery of Genomic Drive. Amazing new research found that transposable elements, comprising about half of our genome and once thought to be so much junk, are the drivers behind evolution itself.

Now it makes sense that species suddenly appear and then don't change for eons. It is because those transposable elements occasionally awaken to action. The once junk DNA has gone from the dog house to the starting lineup. It turns out that transposable elements supply the genomic drive behind biology's wonders. Mutations are out, jumping genes are in.

In fact, this junk DNA is now thought to have a critical role in ensuring the survival of biological lineages. And how do they work their magic? The answer is easy. Transposable elements, they say, "do their survival work by reformatting and rearranging DNA genomes to sometimes create significant adaptive mutations that undergo natural selection." It is amazing that evolution so cleverly created its own Genomic Drive. Now, evolution is even more of a fact.

Michael Reiss has published important new work on the relationship between biology and religion. It's good to see these important religious influences being investigated. Here is a summary of this important relationship and influence:

Belief in evolution is widespread and gaining significance in a number of countries. My research examines the characteristics of science and of evolutionary beliefs and the possible relationship between science and religion. I argue that evolution is sometimes best seen not as a misconception but as a worldview. In such instances, the most to which a science educator (whether in school, college or university) can normally aspire is to ensure that students with evolutionary beliefs understand the scientific position. In the short term, the scientific worldview is unlikely to supplant an evolutionary one for students who are firm evolutionists. We can help students to find their biology courses interesting and intellectually challenging without their being threatening. Effective teaching in this area can help students not only learn about biology but better appreciate the way science is done, the procedures by which scientific knowledge accumulates, the limitations of science, and the ways in which scientific knowledge differs from other forms of knowledge.

The damage from religious beliefs seems to be spreading faster than it can be contained. But there is reason for hope. Such beliefs can be countered with rational thinking and science. Do not give up.

Evolutionists have a wide range of explanatory mechanisms from which to draw when trying to figure out how the species evolved. But sometimes these supposed mechanisms look more like a cover-up than an explanation. For instance, the differences between the human and chimp DNA instructions are not sprinkled, more or less at random, throughout our genome. Rather, these differences are found in clusters. Even more interesting, at these locations the chimp's genome is quite similar to other primates--it is the human that differs from the rest, not the chimp. Evolutionists refer to these clusters as human accelerated regions (HARs) because they believe the human genome evolved from a human-chimp common ancestor. These HARs cause several problems for evolution. For instance, we must believe that evolution magically caused rapid changes to occur right where needed to improve function and eventually create a human. As one evolutionist wrote:

The way to evolve a human from a chimp-human ancestor is not to speed the ticking of the molecular clock as a whole. Rather the secret is to have rapid change occur in sites where those changes make an important difference in an organism’s functioning. HAR1 is certainly such a place. So, too, is the FOXP2 gene, which contains another of the fast-changing sequences I identified and is known to be involved in speech.

This is truly a whopper of a just-so story and you can read more here and here.

Now, evolutionists are again appealing to this accelerated evolution "mechanism" to explain the origin of a toxic protein found in the saliva of a North American shrew. The protein chops up other proteins using a novel mechanism, and evolutionists are saying that it "evolved adaptively via acquisition of small insertions and subsequent accelerated sequence evolution."

There you have it--evolution happens. But that's not all. Evolution implemented the same clever design in a Mexican lizard. Amazing.

This is yet another example of a striking design repeat in biology, but this time it is via accelerated evolution. Evolutionists have not calculated the probability of blind mutations doing this not once but twice, probably because it doesn't matter. After all, evolution is a fact.

It has long been understood that elaborate explanations can always be contrived in order to explain observations. But why should we believe they are true? The backward motion of planets can be explained by a series of epicycles, designed specifically to fit the peculiar motion. But with heliocentrism no such adjustments are required—the backward planetary motion is a natural outcome. So while complicated narratives are needed for bed-time stories and soap operas, parsimony is valued in science. Nature, and only nature, should be explained. Scientists become suspicious when a theory becomes increasingly complex to accommodate failed expectations—when particular explanations are needed to adjust to contradictory findings.

Falsifications can also be a sign of problems if they are common. If a theory makes predictions that are consistently wrong, then suspicion again arises. Regardless of how much complexity is needed to explain the contradictory findings, a steady stream of such findings, in itself, can indicate weakness.

Evolution has a long history of false predictions leading to rising complexity. The evolutionist’s claim that all of this is a sign of good science, of learning how evolution actually occurred, is not consistent with evolution’s many falsified predictions and complex adjustments.

One example of this is the evolutionary history of placental mammals. In recent decades this history was investigated by comparing the DNA sequences from different placentals. But the results were conflicting. Now, recent research has once again investigated this evolutionary history, this time using the much touted DNA retroelements which promise to provide a much clearer picture. But again, evolutionists must resort to convoluted explanations in order to fit the data to their theory:

We believe that the most parsimonious interpretation of the current data is that the ancestral placental populations were characterized by severe ancestral subdivisions and rejoinings, leading to a complex mosaic of phylogenetic relationships in recent species. Effects of alternating divergence, hybridization, introgression, and incomplete lineage sorting might complicate our search for a clear dichotomy at the base of this tree and leave us with an indistinct, effective “soft” polytomy, leading sometimes to one or the other solution depending on the size of the data set and the particular markers examined.

Evolution is now its own best parody. Evolutionists think nothing of these sorts of explanations and repeatedly use them when needed. But elaborate explanations can always be contrived in order to explain observations. Why should we believe they are true? As with heliocentrism, evolution erects so many "epicycles" in order to fit the data. Religion drives science and it matters.

One of Charles Darwin's predictions was that evolution occurs gradually via variations within populations. His friend Thomas H. Huxley was concerned that Darwin had assumed "an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum [nature does not make leaps] so unreservedly." But Darwin's theory would have been much less compelling without it. Imagine if evolution had included the caveat that saltations—rapid leaps—can occur by unknown mechanisms such that new fossil species can appear fully formed. This would have destroyed Darwin's premise that species evolve by natural processes and we wouldn’t be talking about him today. Yes the fossil record suggested that nature does take jumps, but it was safer for Darwin to question the data than to admit them into his theory.

In order for evolution to succeed Darwin would need to steer clear of the supernatural, or anything that could be interpreted as supernatural, and argue for a strictly naturalistic origin of species. Darwin could hardly argue for a naturalistic origin, and then propose a theory that suggested a supernatural interpretation.

In its first century evolution maintained Darwin's hope that the fossil record was incomplete. Aside from a few heretics such as Richard Goldschmidt and his hopeful monsters, most evolutionists carefully avoided the problem of stasis and abruptness in the fossil record. But scientific evidence doesn’t go away.

Today the specter of saltational evolution persists, and probably is here to stay. In recent years evolutionary studies have increasingly appealed to saltational evolution to explain a variety of biology’s wonders. For the angiosperm flower to Cirripedes (a Darwin favorite) and the turtle, evolutionists are saying saltational evolution should be considered in addition to the many other explanatory mechanisms.

Of course the appeal to hopeful monsters is certainly not evolution’s first or only use of one-time or strange events. From history changing endosymbiosis events to meteorite impacts, evolution is the story of contingencies. So why not a saltational event now and then? As evolutionist Ernst Mayr wrote, "Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques" for explaining evolutionary events and processes. Anything can happen in this theory.

Evolutionist Marc Hauser has an important new paper on: The Origins of Evolutionary Storytelling: Evolved Adaptation or By-Product? The work is, as usual, extremely sophisticated and complex. As a service, here is a summary of the research and findings, without all the big words:

Considerable debate has surrounded the question of the origins of evolutionary storytelling. One proposal views evolutionary storytelling as an adaptation for cooperation, whereas an alternative proposal views evolutionary storytelling as a by-product of evolved, non-storytelling, cognitive functions. We critically evaluate each approach, explore the link between storytelling and mendacity in particular, and argue that recent empirical work in the history of mythology provides stronger support for the by-product approach. Specifically, despite differences in mythological background, individuals show no difference in the pattern of their preference for unfamiliar mythological scenarios in particular, and level of mendacity in general. These findings suggest that evolutionary storytelling evolved from pre-existing mythology and proclivity toward mendacity, but that it may then have been subject to selection, creating an adaptively designed system for solving the classic problem of looking in the mirror.

You were probably taught in high school biology class that life arose from a primordial soup--the twentieth century's rendition of Darwin's "warm little pond." Most textbooks show pictorial-type drawings of the early earth as a dynamic environment, full of activity. Sunlight is beaming through the clouds with its all important energy-bearing ultra violet rays; rain is pouring down as lightning strikes bring more needed energy to the surface; volcanic activity creates hot spots with yet more energy and a few stray comets might be seen bringing their organic chemicals to seed the life-giving processes. The evolution machine is revving up its engines. Another figure might have illustrated an experimental arrangement mimicking those early-earth conditions. A primordial soup of various organic compounds brewed as sparks were set off in a gaseous mixture above steaming water. There's only one problem: it doesn't work.

Charles Darwin had speculated that life may have begun in a warm little pond with protein compounds ready to undergo more complex changes. Strangely enough, a century later experiments were found to confirm this vision. It appeared that Darwin just happened to be right and the headlines proclaimed that scientists had created "Life in a test tube."

But a plethora of problems were ignored in the process which textbooks eventually had to acknowledge. The 2004 version of George Johnson's high school text, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, for instance, includes the primordial soup section but adds a caveat.

In its Principles of Evolution unit, the student reads the usual narrative of organic molecules forming spontaneously in chemical reactions activated by energy from solar radiation, volcanic eruptions, and lightning. The text recounts the success of primordial soup experiments in synthesizing certain organic compounds and concludes:

These results support the hypothesis that some basic chemicals of life could have formed spontaneously under conditions like those in the experiment.

But this traditional life-in-a-test-tube narrative is then followed by an awkward caveat. As the next section explains,

Recent discoveries have caused scientists to reevaluate [the experiment]. We now know that the mixture of gases used in [the experiment] could not have existed on early Earth. ... Some scientists argue that the chemicals were produced within ocean bubbles. Others say that the chemicals arose in deep sea vents. The correct answer has not been determined yet.

That's a refreshing admission. Now a new evolution paper goes further. As one author put it, commenting on the paper:

Despite bioenergetic and thermodynamic failings, the 80-year-old concept of primordial soup remains central to mainstream thinking on the origin of life. But soup has no capacity for producing the energy vital for life.

"It is time to cast off the shackles of fermentation in some primordial soup," commented another author.

These evolutionists believe deep sea vents are the answer. The vents provide chemical gradients that early life would have used before learning how to create their own gradients. Of course we have no idea, beyond speculation, how this actually could have happened. The cell's energy transfer process (referred to as chemiosmosis), using nutrients to synthesize its own chemical energy (ATP), is astonishingly complex. But no matter, it must have happened:

Far from being too complex to have powered early life, it is nearly impossible to see how life could have begun without chemiosmosis ...

The eighteenth century philosopher and evolutionary thinker David Hume argued that the problem of evil trumped the problem of complexity. Nature may be complex, but it must have evolved because god would not have created this wretched world. Now, two centuries later, complexity is simply dismissed because evolution must have occurred.

5. Any Little Feat show. These guys don’t play concerts. For one thing, they usually play small venues – clubs, bars, small auditoriums. For another, they play a completely different set list every night, even when they’re on a regular tour, choosing from hundreds of songs they know. Some jams will go on for 15 minutes or more and incorporate two or three different songs, plus a whole lot of improvisation. After seeing a Little Feat show for the first time, an acquaintance said they were “a lot like the Grateful Dead, only real musicians.” I have a signed copy of the classic Little Feat album, “Dixie Chicken,” on my wall at home, plus one of their set lists (from a gig in Jackson Hole, Wyoming). Even if you’re not a fan of jam music, if Little Feat comes to town, go see them. I personally guarantee you won’t be disappointed. Tragically, founding drummer Richie Hayward, whom I've met several times and whose inimitable style drives the band, has liver cancer (which usually does not have a good prognosis). He's only 63.

4. Sweet Georgia Brown at the now-defunct Blue Note jazz club in Las Vegas. This was such a perfect night. It was a very small venue, sort of like a jazz club from the 50s. Sweet Georgia Brown is a little-known blues singer who belts it out with the gusto of Aretha, though surely with not as much raw talent. Anyway, it was a great night made greater by the fact that Georgia invited folks up on stage to dance with her during her rendition of Proud Mary, and Kathleen kicked off her shoes and got up there and blew the place away.

3. KISS and Uriah Heep in concert, Salt Lake City, 1977. Don’t give me any crap about this. I was 18 and KISS had just released Destroyer and they were the biggest band on the planet. Plus, I actually liked Uriah Heep (and I still do). Uriah Heep opened and, honestly, they were so much better than KISS that I don’t understand why the boys in makeup and platform shoes let them on the stage. (Go find some ‘70s Heep and listen to Ken Hensley shake the world with his Hammond B3.) The music was so loud that my ears rang for days and I’ll probably have future hearing loss from that evening alone. All of the people on our row were smoking pot (and we even helped them pass the joints along), but my buddies and I were good Mormon kids and didn’t partake. Alas, we didn’t know about the effects of second-hand marijuana smoke, so we were pretty looped by the time the show was over. We went to an IHOP, where one of our group ordered strawberry waffles and a root beer float. I thought it was so funny that I tumbled onto the floor in laughter. I really don’t recall much about the drive home.

2. North Park Apostolic Pentecostal gospel choir. Kathleen dragged me to this huge church north of San Diego one Sunday. I was skeptical and more than a little intimidated. I grew up listening to Mo Tab (Mormon Tabernacle Choir) and classic rock, with a little heavy metal thrown in when I didn’t think my parents were listening. On Saturday night we had seen blues guitarist Robben Ford in a small club and I figured I had my music fix for this trip. Here’s how ignorant and biased I was (and probably still am) – since the church was in a relatively seedy area of suburban San Diego and I was driving my brand-new BMW 330xi, I feared for its life in the parking lot. I’m an idiot. Kathleen prevailed, and when we pulled in the lot held its share of modest automobiles, but more than a fair share of Mercedes, Cadillacs, Audis, Jags and, yes, BMWs. In fact, my car didn’t turn a head in that lot. But you’re here for the music. After a warm welcome by the folks at the door (and later by the preacher, who had us stand up and introduce ourselves in the 800-seat auditorium, undoubtedly never having had a nice couple from Idaho on the premises), we sat in the pews and listened to 45 minutes of the some best music I’ve ever heard. This is not because I was necessarily moved by the spirit (we eventually left when some of the nice people on the stand began speaking in tongues), but because the singers and musicians were spectacularly gifted and deeply passionate. They blew Robben Ford away (sorry, Robben).

1. The Eagles in concert. I know, I know. The Eagles. They were expensive and highly rehearsed, but that turned out to be the magic. They played for three-and-a-half hours and, near as I could tell didn’t miss a note (this was in San Jose in 2005). Precise harmonies, expert musicianship, the right amount of in-between chat with the audience and superb sound made for an unforgettable night.

Runners-up (in no particular order): Cowboy Junkies at Grand Targhee; Journey at Sun Valley; Regina Belle at Blues Alley in Georgetown, D.C.; Moody Blues with the Utah Symphony at the old Salt Palace; house band night at the House of Blues, New Orleans; Lyle Lovett and his Large Band at Grand Targhee; Santana at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas; Lynyrd Skynyrd at Indianapolis (long story, that); house blues band in a small basement club in Chicago; walking down Bourbon Street any time, any season.

Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s recent piece in the New York Times on the interaction between religion and science is worth the time. Smith, literary critic at Duke and English professor at Brown, has several thoughtful observations on this often inflammatory topic. For instance, Smith urges that apparent conflicts between science and religion

need not exist in the ongoing lives and experiences of individuals. For neither logic nor rationality requires that all our ideas, impulses, affections, and acts be mutually aligned all the time.

Yet she rightly suspects problems in approaches that compartmentalize religion versus science, or attempt to make them complementary.

The former, as exemplified in Stephen J. Gould’s nonoverlapping magisteria, fails to capture the relation between them and “though seeking to counter views that lead to the dismissal of religion in the name of scientific knowledge, goes some distance to reinforcing them.” Smith continues:

Indeed, I’m inclined to say that Gould’s proposed partition of the territory (that is, facts and accounts of the natural world to science, values and instructions for moral conduct to religion) is, like many political partitions, objectionable in principle and unworkable in practice.

Finally and most seriously, I think that the idea of science and religion as counterpoised monoliths deepens prevailing misunderstandings of both. As I emphasize throughout the book, the kinds of things that can be assembled under the term “religion” are exceptionally diverse. They range from personal experiences and popular beliefs to formal doctrines, priestly institutions, ritual practices and devotional icons — Neanderthal burial rites to Vatican encyclicals. The same can be said of “science,” a term that embraces a wide range of quite different kinds of things — general pursuits and specialized practices, findings and theories, instruments and techniques, ideals and institutions (not to mention a share of devotional icons and ritual practices).

Smith also laments how her thoughtful views (my description, not hers), and the nuanced topic of the interaction between religion and science itself, are so often caricatured. Comments to an earlier column so often missed the point:

A good number consist of off-to-the-races polemics on science and religion having little to do with either the book or column. Others object to my presumed views based on inappropriate surmise.

Welcome to the debate. From newspaper headlines and TV news reports to blog comments, the complexities of both religion and science, not to mention their interaction, are so often lost. But complex they are:

Science and religion, in Gould’s account, are nicely balanced and occupy equally valuable pieces of land, but they remain monoliths — precisely, as one commentator puts it, “rocks of ages.” In “Natural Reflections,” I seek to pulverize both of those rocks, not in order to annihilate them but in order to reveal their complex, copious, varied, and changing composition.

And one of those complexities, so often ignored from the start, is the religion that makes its way into the column labeled as science, and the science that makes its way into the column labeled as religion.