Monthly Archives: January 2013

LIFE: More Complexity Keeps Showing Up

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Researchers Hit On New Territory

The following clip comes from a science list serve. The link is likely proprietary, but give it a click if you like. To be fair, the article is about a new area and information about disordered proteins may run into serious dead ends. For example, the lab systems used to study the proteins may be examining artifacts of what the proteins truly look like in living cells.

But the key point that catches our attention is this: Even in the disorder, as perceived, is function. That function, like turning on and off various processes in cell metabolism, have to fit a specific order. Switches randomly turning on and off create only chaos … and thus potential disorder of metabolism itself. And yeah, if we point to design, in the sense of something intelligent, with regard to disordered proteins, someone will say this disproves intelligent design! Really? Think about it!

What appears disordered is yet in the earliest stages of research. And fascinating stuff … like areal biological brain teaser. Yet, the active sites in these new found proteins contribute to an expansion of controls in cells. As the circuits in cells become more complex with switches, pathways, and controls … why then insist such complexity can only come from random evolution?

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Researchers hope to unlock secrets of disordered protein
Scientists are working to understand how disordered proteins interact with other proteins, with the hopes of unlocking mysteries of certain diseases or possible treatments. Flexible strands of protein were long thought to be destroyed proteins until researcher Richard Kriwacki combined them with other proteins to create structure. Now it’s thought that “intrinsically disordered proteins” may play major roles in controlling cellular processes in the body. “Just like in physics, the protein universe seems to have this dark matter we have neglected, which now turns out to be important in cells,” said Peter Tompa, a protein chemist and one of the lead researchers in the project. Science News (1/24))
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We live in a society that is growing more thick skinned to the presence of God … yet real thinkers will dive into the details to consider the full implications. This clip of news says something really perplexing and incredible has shown up in the research. That’s what research should do! Even if the disordered nature turns out to be more ordered inside the living, intact, system … it’s still all about the incredible nature to life … even a springboard to something more than a mere material state of being. The data may not point to an identifiable Intelligent Designer, but we say leave the window of thought open to such a prospect.

Director, WindowView.org

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Space Truth, Artifact, or Human Hope

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Here is a recent science list serve post about recent photos from Mars along with the link to the related full article.
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Mars rover spots formations resembling flower, snake
The Mars Curiosity rover has sent back images of what appear to be a flower-like shape embedded in a rock and a snake-shaped rock stretching across the Red Planet, causing a stir among NASA officials and space enthusiasts alike. Guy Webster, a spokesman for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the flower-like object “appears to be part of the rock, not debris from the spacecraft.” Space.com (1/5)
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http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/eemXCjrxogCfpMtvCidmrhCicNLJJS?format=standard
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A WindowView Perspective:

Let’s think beyond the post and think about the bigger picture on scientific exploration and what some humans, scientists included, are thinking.

Early on photos from Mars gave an impression of pyramidal shapes and even a face like mount, small mountain, or rock formation. Was the face an image from an ancient Mars based civilization. Some would like to think so. The best approach is to look for the basics and evidence for all conditions even those that might support life. As NASA missions have become more sophisticated, the examination of the planet becomes more fundamental and less sensational in it’s orientation. Evidence for water on the planet would be the more reasonable start to understanding the potential for life on Mars. But water alone does not make life.

There are intriguing questions we can ask:

1) If we find that conditions on Mars were previously favorable to the survival of life forms, does that necessarily imply life was there?
2) If we found, in future missions, evidence of microbial life, what conclusions are we to make of the evidence? ( Keep in mind microbial life from earth ejecta could have reach Mars and thus provide an explanation.)
3) Regardless of missions to date, when will NASA be able to create surface cores and retrieve the cores for closer examination?
4) At what point do we stop ourselves in interpretation based only on what the data do provide?

The first question can also be applied to planet Earth. After all, many conclusions are drawn from the presence of life, but the ability to describe how even the most primitive life forms might have an origin by material means is elusive at best. The arguments over evolution—as an explanation for the origin of life—are often bypassed with the foregone conclusion that it just happened. That’s assumption. Selection and change in existing organisms is an observable phenomenon, also associated with the term evolution, and that is not assumption.

If evidence from conditions on Mars suggests life, then that is only a first step in defining what the data really say—including about origins to life. After all, we are still facing that dilemma here on Earth in the midst of teaming life forms. And the more we study extinct or extant forms on Earth, from microbe to vertebrate, the more complexity we find … and assumptions are it just happens. Science journals are filled with complex examples for life and life systems, but we educate ourselves from a material perspective, thus we say it had to have happened from material means alone … and this includes by chance, by trial and error, and transitions for which there is limited or no evidence.

Looking deeper into Mars surface will be necessary and more telling than the recent spectacular surface missions. Hey, it’s all exciting stuff. What a marvel to even see the Red Plant close up.

But the real question goes back to a material perspective. Just watch scientists default to material explanations, even when these fall short. Finding evidence for past or present life any where else in the solar system, or beyond, stands to be the materialist’s opportunity to invalidate the Bible by science. But not finding evidence for life any where else doesn’t validate the Bible or pose a negative reflection on science. The Bible is another unique data set of another type. Yet, trying to disprove God is not a new invention. Holding fast to a material framework as if science has all the answers is also not a new invention.

The real complete picture of what conditions are on Mars will take more than the photos we have thus far. Upon reflection, the science post refers to a flower and snake shapes, but neither is this flower nor snake. The references however go to the underlying possibility or desire that science explains all, when in fact both scientific and theological perspectives together yield a complete and larger picture of our existence. This is the overall WindowView approach … not closing off, but opening the full view. This allows the evidence from science and scripture to give a unified and harmonious picture wherein life is with purpose and meaning and not by chance and meaningless.

Give it some thought … after all it’s you who looks through the window!

Director, WindowView.org

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A Coral Group Sings Change Tune

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Sadly, a swim along the shore of a tropical island … these days … brings us to an encounter with change in the form of vanishing coral reefs.

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St. Croix and all the islands of the Caribbean suffer the same plight. Water temperatures, chemistry, and perhaps other factors now lay waste once fertile reefs. Some evidence of the occasional brain coral or fan still populated the more vanquished areas. In some areas vast under water fields of Elk horn coral lay bleached and lifeless.

There are on our planet select areas that support dense living coral, but even the Great Barrier Reef in Australia now is undergoing dramatic change.

The Bible states we are to be stewards. Elsewhere it refers to the earth wearing out like an old coat. And regardless of whether change is directly due to human activity, or other factor, is less relevant when we take a sobering look at the fact that three decades ago, yes THREE, the corals were all relatively healthy … all over the planet. Change comes quicker than we want to acknowledge.

What is the value to coral life, or any life for that matter? How integrated is coral to the greater scheme of all life on earth? … so as a Ph.D. Biologist I’ll just chime in and say it is all so integrated as to be on purpose. To visibly see one part fade brings the thought that earth’s life support is fading.

While not wanting to sound dour, reality speaks through visual data. Follow the evidence … where does it lead us? One thing about WindowView is we say: “Look, Think, and Discern!” Discern based on your window observations! Snorkel the shoreline and LOOK for yourself. We did … today.

There are signs that some corals are resistant to factors that bleach and kill all others. But would the resistant ones bring back the larger reefs? Not soon perhaps.

The coral today sing a tune that grows softer … to nearly a whisper. To this we say: “Take some time to think about life and its importance!” Are you here by chance or purpose? And if on purpose … how will you respond? Remember, WindowView is about looking … but it’s your window through which you see the evidence for life, relationships, and purpose that really matters the most. Might this be the bigger view where there is a Science and Scripture Harmony … Welcome to WindowView!

Director, WindowView.org

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