I.D. IN DNA Deciphering Design in the Genetic Code

http://www.reasons.org/articles/fyi-i.d.-in-dna-deciphering-design-in-the-genetic-code

FYI: I.D. IN DNA Deciphering Design in the Genetic Code

Is this pilot behaving rationally? No one would question the point. He recognizes the improbability of wind and waves acting on the rocks along the shore to spell SOS.¹ Experience has taught the pilot that intelligible messages must come from intelligent sources. SOS, though not a word in the English language, represents the code for the universal distress message. The island inhabitant spelled out not just a word, such as "help," but a special code, SOS, on the beach knowing that anyone seeing it from the air would recognize its meaning.

The grass hut also convinces the pilot to radio for help. It provides further evidence that the rocks' arrangement on the beach is not the effect of chance, but rather the work of someone stranded on the island. Encoded information coupled with additional evidence for intelligent activity provides support for design that goes beyond the mere presence of information. It requires an intelligent agent to choose and employ the code. And, encoded information carries an implied sense of purpose.

Over the last 40 years, scientists have found the same type of evidence inside the cell that prompted the pilot's radio call for help. They have discovered that the cell's biochemical machinery is an information-based system. Moreover, the chemical information inside the cell exists as encoded information. The genetic code (the rules used to encode the cell's information) defines the cell's biochemical information system.

By itself, the cell's encoded information offers powerful evidence for an Intelligent Designer. And, like the islander's grass hut, recent discoveries provide additional proof validating the premise. Molecular biologists studying the genetic code's origin have unwittingly stumbled across profound evidence for Intelligent Design—a type of fine-tuning in the rules that form the genetic code. These rules impart to the genetic code the surprising capacity to minimize errors.

Error-minimization properties in the genetic code allow the cell's biochemical information systems to make mistakes and still communicate critical information with high fidelity. It's as if the stranded island inhabitant could arrange the rocks as SSO or OSS and still communicate the need for help.

Biochemical Information

Proteins

Much as the islander's message began with the rocks, the description of cellular information begins with proteins. Proteins, the "workhorse" molecules of life, take part in essentially every cellular and extracellular structure and activity. They help form structures inside the cell and in the cell's surrounding matrix. Among other roles, proteins catalyze chemical reactions, harvest chemical energy, serve in the cell's defense systems, and store and transport molecules.²

Molecules called polypeptides make up proteins. One or more of the same and/or different polypeptides interact to form proteins. Polypeptides are chain-like molecules folded into precise three-dimensional structures. The polypeptide's three-dimensional architecture determines the way one polypeptide interacts with other polypeptides to form a protein. The structure of the polypeptide consequently dictates its function.³

Polypeptides form when the cellular machinery links together (in a head-to-tail fashion) smaller subunit molecules called amino acids.⁴ The cell employs 20 different amino acids to make polypeptides. The amino acids that make up the cell's polypeptide chains possess a variety of chemical and physical properties.⁵ In principle, the 20 amino acids can link up in any of the possible amino acid combinations and sequences to form a polypeptide.

Each amino acid sequence imparts the polypeptide with a unique chemical and physical profile along its chain. The chemical and physical profile determines how the polypeptide chain folds, and, therefore, how it interacts with other polypeptide chains to form a functional protein. Because structure determines the function of a polypeptide, the amino acid sequence ultimately defines the type of work the polypeptide performs.

A polypeptide's amino acid sequence contains information. Just as letters form words, amino acids strung together form the "words" of the cell, polypeptides.⁶ In language, some letter combinations produce meaningful words and others produce gibberish. Amino acid sequences do the same. Some produce functional polypeptides, whereas others produce gibberish polypeptides that serve no role inside the cell.⁷

Treating amino acid sequences as information has become a fruitful approach for researchers seeking to understand the origin of proteins.⁸ It has also helped them characterize the functional utility of different amino acid sequences.

DNA

DNA, like polypeptides, contains information. In fact, DNA's chief function is information storage.

Like proteins, DNA consists of chain-like molecules known as polynucleotides.⁹ Two polynucleotide chains align in an antiparallel fashion to form a DNA molecule. (The two strands are arranged parallel to one another with the starting point of one strand located next to the ending point of the other strand, and vice versa.) The paired polynucleotide chains twist around each other forming the well-known DNA double helix. The cell's machinery forms polynucleotide chains by linking together four different subunit molecules called nucleotides. The four nucleotides used to build DNA chains are adenosine, guanosine, cytidine, and thymidine, familiarly known as A, G, C, and T, respectively.

DNA stores the information necessary to make all the polypeptides used by the cell. The sequence of nucleotides in the DNA strands specifies the sequence of amino acids in polypeptide chains. Scientists refer to the amino-acid-coding nucleotide sequence (for constructing polypeptides) along the DNA strand as a gene.¹⁰ Through the use of genes, DNA stores the information functionally expressed in the amino acid sequences of polypeptide chains. The DNA strands' nucleotides function as alphabet letters and the genes as words.

Central Dogma of Molecular Biology

No discussion of biochemical information systems would be complete without considering information "flow" inside the cell, known as the "central dogma of molecular biology."¹¹ This concept describes how information stored in DNA becomes functionally expressed through the amino acid sequence and activity of polypeptide chains.

Found inside the nucleus of complex cells, DNA can be compared to the reference books found in a library. The information stored there cannot be removed but must be copied, or transcribed. DNA does not leave the nucleus to direct the synthesis of polypeptide chains. Rather the cellular machinery copies the gene's sequence by assembling another polynucleotide, messenger RNA (mRNA).¹² This single-strand molecule is similar, but not identical, in composition to DNA. One of the most important differences between DNA and mRNA is the use of uridine (U) in place of thymidine (T) to form the mRNA chain. Scientists refer to the process of copying mRNA from DNA as transcription.

Once assembled, mRNA migrates from the nucleus of the cell into the cytoplasm. At the ribosome, mRNA directs the synthesis of polypeptide chains.¹³ The information content of the polynucleotide sequence is translated into the polypeptide amino acid sequence–– much like translating Spanish into English.

The analogical language used to describe the flow of information in biochemical systems is no accident. Biochemical systems are information systems.

The Genetic Code

Life's Encoded Information

One may wonder how the sequence of nucleotides in DNA translates into the sequence of amino acids in a polypeptide. There seems to be a mismatch between the storage and functional expression of information in the cell. A one-to-one relationship cannot exist between the four different nucleotides of DNA and the 20 different amino acids used to assemble polypeptides. The cell overcomes this mismatch by using a code comprised of groupings of three nucleotides to specify the 20 different amino acids.¹⁴

The cell uses a set of rules to relate these nucleotide triplet sequences to the 20 amino-comprising polypeptides. Molecular biologists refer to this set of rules as the genetic code. The nucleotide triplets, or "codons" as they are called, represent the fundamental communication units of the genetic code. In the same way that the stranded islander used three letters, SOS, to communicate his plight, the genetic code uses three nucleotide "characters" to signify an amino acid. The genetic code is essentially universal among all living organisms.

Sixty-four codons make up the genetic code. Because the genetic code only needs to encode 20 amino acids, some of the codons are redundant. That is, different codons code for the same amino acid. In fact, up to six different codons specify some amino acids. Others are specified by only one codon.

Interestingly, some codons, called stop codons or nonsense codons, code no amino acids. (For example, the codon UGA is a stop codon.) These codons always occur at the end of the gene, informing the cell where the polypeptide chain ends. Stop codons serve as a form of "punctuation" for the cell's information system.

Some coding triplets, called start codons, play a dual role in the genetic code. These codons not only encode amino acids, but also "tell" the cell where a polypeptide begins. For example, the codon GUG not only encodes the amino acid valine, it also specifies the starting point of the polypeptide chain. Start codons function as a sort of "capitalization" for the information system of the cell.

The Genetic Code and Intelligent Design

Observed information on the island leads the pilot to reasonably conclude that an intelligent agent designed it with a purpose. The information content of DNA and proteins, the molecules that ultimately define life's most fundamental structures and processes, leads to the inescapable conclusion that an Intelligent Designer with purpose in mind is responsible for life. This conclusion is as rational as the one made by the pilot when he spotted the message on the beach and radioed for help.

The genetic code, the set of rules that translate the stored information found in DNA into the functional information of proteins, provides further support for an Intelligent Designer. All codes require an intelligent agent to develop the set of rules defining the code.

The set of rules that define the genetic code, universal to all life, reveals still more amazing evidence for design. The genetic code displays a fascinating capacity to resist the errors that naturally occur as the cell uses information or transmits information from one generation to the next. Qualitative inspection of the code only partly exposes its fine-tuning. Recent studies employing methods to quantify error-minimization properties in the genetic code bring this new evidence for Intelligent Design squarely into focus.

Mutations

Why does the error-minimization capacity of the genetic code provide such a powerful indicator for Intelligent Design? Translating the stored information of DNA into the functional information of proteins is the genetic code's chief function. The genetic code's failure to transmit and translate information with high fidelity can be devastating to the cell. Briefly considering how mutations affect cells facilitates understanding.

A mutation refers to any change that takes place in the DNA nucleotide sequence.¹⁵ DNA can experience several different types of mutations. Substitution mutations are one common type. In a substitution mutation, one or more of the nucleotides in the DNA strand is replaced by another nucleotide. For example, an A may be replaced by a G, or a C may be replaced by a T. This substitution changes the codon that the nucleotide is part of. The amino acid specified by that codon changes, leading to an altered chemical and physical profile along the polypeptide chain. If the substituted amino acid possesses dramatically different physicochemical properties from the native amino acid, the polypeptide folds improperly. This improper folding impacts the polypeptide, and hence yields a protein with reduced or even lost function. Most mutations harm cellular health because they significantly and negatively impact protein structure and function.

Qualitative Design Evidence

The genetic code's redundancy appears to be well thought out rather than haphazard. Genetic code rules incorporate a design that allows the cell to avoid the harmful effects of substitution mutations. For example, six codons encode the amino acid leucine (Leu). If at a particular amino acid position in a polypeptide, Leu is encoded by 5' (pronounced five prime, a marker indicating the beginning of the codon). CUU, substitution mutations in the 3' position from U to C, A, or G produce three new codons, 5' CUC, 5' CUA, and 5' CUG, all of which code for Leu. The net effect produces no change in the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide. For this scenario, the cell successfully avoids the negative effects of a substitution mutation.

Likewise, a change of C in the 5' position to a U generates a new codon, 5'UUU, that specifies phenylalanine, an amino acid with similar physical and chemical properties to Leu. A change of C to an A or to a G produces codons that code for isoleucine and valine, respectively. These two amino acids also possess chemical and physical properties similar to leucine. Qualitatively, the genetic code appears constructed to minimize errors that result from substitution mutations.

Quantitative Design Evidence

Recently, scientists from the University of Bath (U.K.) and from Princeton University worked to quantify the error-minimization capacity of the genetic code. Early work indicated that the naturally occurring genetic code withstands the potentially harmful effects of substitution mutations better than all but 0.02 percent (1 out of 5000) of randomly generated genetic codes with codon assignments different from the universal genetic code.¹⁶

This initial work overlooked the fact that some types of substitution mutations occur more frequently than others in nature. For example, an A-to-G substitution occurs more frequently than does either an A-to-C or an A-to-T mutation. When researchers incorporated this correction into their analysis, they discovered that the naturally occurring genetic code performed better than one million randomly generated genetic codes. They also found that the genetic code in nature resides near the global optimum for all possible genetic codes with respect to its error-minimization capacity.¹⁷ Nature's universal genetic code is truly one in a million—or better!

The genetic code's error-minimization properties are actually more dramatic than these results indicate. When researchers calculated the error-minimization capacity of one million randomly generated genetic codes, they discovered that the error-minimization values formed a distribution where the naturally occurring genetic code's capacity occurred outside the distribution.¹⁸ Researchers estimate the existence of 10¹⁸ possible genetic codes possessing the same type and degree of redundancy as the universal genetic code. All of these codes fall within the error-minimization distribution. This finding means that of 10¹⁸ possible genetic codes, few, if any, have an error-minimization capacity that approaches the code found universally in nature.

Obviously concerned about the implications, some researchers have challenged the optimality of the genetic code.¹⁹ The teams from Bath, Princeton, and elsewhere, however, have effectively responded to these challenges.²⁰

A Force Behind the Genetic Code

Based on their research results, the Bath and Princeton scientists concluded that the rules of the genetic code could not be a frozen accident. A genetic code assembled through random biochemical events would not possess near ideal error-minimization properties. These researchers argue that a "force" shaped the genetic code. Instead of looking to a supernatural explanation for the genetic code's origin, however, they appeal to natural selection. They believe random events operated on by "the forces of natural selection" over and over again produced the genetic code's error-minimization capacity.²¹

Can the Genetic Code Evolve?

Other scientific work questions the likelihood that the genetic code evolved. In 1968 Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, in a classic paper, convincingly argued that the genetic code could not have undergone significant evolution.²² The rationale for Crick's position is easy to understand. Any change in codon assignment leads to changes in amino acids in every polypeptide made by the cell. This wholesale change in polypeptide sequences would result in large numbers of defective proteins. Nearly any conceivable change to the genetic code would be lethal to the cell.

Even if the genetic code could change gradually over time to yield a set of rules that allowed for maximum error-minimization capacity, is there enough time for this process to occur? Biophysicist Hubert Yockey has addressed this question.²³ He calculates that natural selection would have to explore 1.40 x 10⁷⁰ different genetic codes to hit upon the universal genetic code found in nature. Yockey estimates the maximum time available for the code to originate as 6.3 x 10¹⁵ seconds. Put simply, natural selection lacks adequate time to find the universal genetic code. It would have to evaluate about 10⁵⁴ codes per second.

Other researchers suggest that the genetic code's origin coincides with the origin of life. Operating within the evolutionary paradigm, a team headed by renowned origin-of-life researcher Manfred Eigen estimated the age of the genetic code as 3.8 + 0.6 billion years.²⁴ Current geochemical evidence places life's first appearance on Earth at 3.86 billion years ago.²⁵

The Supernatural Origin of the Gentic Code

The genetic code—the set of rules used by the cell to translate information stored in DNA into the information used by polypeptides—possesses a virtually unique optimality in its capacity to resist errors caused by mutation. The genetic code in every way defies explanation as a frozen accident produced by random biochemical events, or as the fortuitous outcome of an evolutionary process directed by the blind forces of natural selection. Genetic code evolution would be catastrophic for the cell. Given the rapidity of life's origin, time is too short for natural selection to come across the well-designed universal genetic code found in nature. The genetic code seemingly originates at the time life first appears on Earth. All this evidence dictates the conclusion that an Intelligent Designer is responsible for the genetic code.

This conclusion becomes even more compelling when one considers that encoded information demands an intelligent agent not only to generate the information, but also to design and apply the set of rules that constitute the code. The remarkable fine-tuning of the genetic code provides cohesive corroborative evidence for the biblical Intelligent Designer. Like the SOS rock formation and the grass hut on the beach, the genetic code offers every indication that a Creator deliberately and purposefully shaped the message.

Sidebar

The scientists from the University of Bath and Princeton University, fully aware of Francis Crick's work, still rely on evolution to explain the genetic code's optimal design because of the existence of nonuniversal genetic codes. While the genetic code in nature is generally regarded as universal, some nonuniversal genetic codes exist—genetic codes that employ slightly modified codon assignments. Presumably these nonuniversal genetic codes evolved from the universal genetic code. Therefore, researchers argue that genetic code evolution is possible. For the most part, however, the codon assignments of the nonuniversal genetic codes are identical to that of the universal genetic code with only one or two codon assignments being different. It is better to think of the nonuniversal genetic codes as deviants of the universal genetic code.

Does the existence of nonuniversal genetic codes imply that wholesale genetic code evolution is possible? The answer is no. Careful study reveals that codon changes in the nonuniversal genetic codes always occur in relatively small genomes, such as mitochondrial genomes, and involve either: (1) codons that occur at low frequencies in that particular genome; or (2) stop codons. Changes in assignment for these codons could occur without producing a lethal scenario, since only a small number of polypeptides in the cell or organelle would experience an altered amino acid sequence. Thus, it appears that limited evolution of the genetic code can take place, but only in special circumstances.¹

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Follow the path of the unsafe

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Ann Coulter Remembers: Phyllis Stewart Schlafly, 1924-2016

http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2016-09-05.html

September 5, 2016 - Phyllis Stewart Schlafly, 1924-2016

She was valedictorian of her high school class and won a full scholarship to a Catholic womens college, but decided it was not challenging enough, so she worked her way through Washington University. With no scholarship money, Schlafly earned spare money as a model and also as a machine-gunner at a St. Louis ordnance plant -- at that time the worlds largest. 

She earned straight As from Washington University and graduated a year early, Phi Beta Kappa and Pi Sigma Alpha (the National Political Science Honor Society). Her undergraduate political science professor wrote that her intellectual capacity is extraordinary and her analytical ability is distinctly remarkable . . . I have no hesitation whatsoever in saying that [Schlafly] is the most capable woman student we have had in this department in ten years. 

Schlafly then attended Harvard graduate school on a scholarship, earning a Masters degree in political science in seven months. She received As in constitutional law, international law, and public administration, and an A- in modern political theory. (And this was long before Everyone-Gets-An-A grade inflation.) 

Though Harvard Law School did not admit women, Schlaflys professors urged her to stay and attend law school. Alternatively, they proposed that she earn her doctorate. (Imagine the Harvard faculty meetings if she had stayed on and become a professor there!)

Her constitutional law professor at Harvard called her brilliant -- and consider that this was back when Harvard was a serious place, so it meant something. The professor who intervened on her behalf, Benjamin Wright, was a distinguished constitutional historian -- the sort of legitimate scholar who probably wouldn't have a chance of being hired by today's Harvard. 

Schlafly said no thanks to Harvard Law and instead went to Washington, D.C. for a year, where she worked at the precursor institution to the American Enterprise Institute. It was the only time this monumental American political figure lived in the nations capitol. 

After D.C, she returned to Missouri in 1949, married Republican lawyer Fred Schlafly, and raised six amazingly accomplished children in Alton, Illinois, where she lived until Fred's death in 1994.

In 1977, when being harangued by Dr. Joyce Brothers on the Merv Griffin Show, Schlafly mistakenly claimed Harvard Law School had been admitting women since at least 1945 and said she knew that because she almost went there. In fact, Harvard Law School did not begin admitting women for another several years. But in 1945, Harvard was prepared to make an exception for Phyllis Schlafly.

Years later, when Schlafly was testifying against the Equal Rights Amendment, the woman who almost became the first woman ever to graduate from Harvard Law School was ridiculed by potty little state legislators for not having a law degree. Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN), for example, called her one of those women with absolutely no legal training stand there brandishing law books, telling people what ERA 'really' means. 

So in 1976, at age 51, while writing her syndicated column, raising six children, defeating the E.R.A. -- and in the middle of writing an 800-page book assailing Henry Kissinger -- Schlafly went to Washington University Law School in St. Louis. She graduated near the top of her class and won the award in Administrative Law. 

Though Schlafly is most famously associated with her stunning, nearly miraculous, defeat of the E.R.A., she has played a pivotal role in a broad range of political controversies for more than half a century. 

Schlafly managed her first congressional campaign in 1946, at age 22. The year after she married, she ran for Congress herself, losing to a popular Democratic incumbent. She ran and lost again against another popular Democratic incumbent in 1970. These may be the only quixotic battles she failed to win.

During 1970 congressional race, her opponent ceaselessly sneered that Schlafly should be home raising her children. Schlafly responded: My opponent says a womans place is in the home. But my husband replies, a womans place is in the House -- the U.S. House of Representatives. Today, feminists think they invented that line.

In 1964, she wrote A Choice, Not An Echo, which sold an astounding three million copies. (The average nonfiction book sells 5,000 copies; the average New York Times bestseller sells 30,000 copies.) This book would change the Republican Party forever. In this respect, it was not unlike many battles Schlafly would wage: First, she would conquer the Republican Party, then she could conquer the nation. 

A Choice, Not An Echo, is widely credited with handing Barry Goldwater the Republican nomination for president. Goldwater lost badly in the general election -- but the Republican Party would never be the same. Goldwaters nomination began the retreat of sell-out, Northeastern Rockefeller Republicans -- who wanted to wreck the country with slightly less alacrity than the Democrats. 

Without Schlafly, without that book and that candidacy, it is unlikely that Ronald Reagan would ever have been elected president. 

Later in 1964, she collaborated with Admiral Chester Ward on another book, The Gravediggers. This book accused the elite foreign policy establishment of cheerfully selling out the nations military superiority to the Soviet Union. It sold an astounding 2 million copies. 

Also with Ward, Schlafly co-authored the extremely influential (and extremely long, at over 800 pages) Kissinger on the Couch methodically assailing Kissingers foreign policy. As with her crusade against the E.R.A. -- being waged simultaneously -- Kissinger on the Couch would turn conventional wisdom upside down. 

Until then, attacking Kissingers beloved Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty (SALT) was the secular version of challenging the Pope on infallibility -- or, I suppose, challenging a proposed constitutional amendment that purported to give women equal rights. But she was right, she was persuasive, and she overturned popular opinion.

Indeed, Schlafly has written prolifically about American foreign policy and military affairs, writing extensively about ICBMs and defense treaties. She was an early and vigorous proponent of a missile defense shield. 

Meanwhile, feminists engaged in cliffhanger debates about whether it was appropriate for feminists to wear lipstick. 

That Phyllis Schlafly is the mortal enemy of a movement that claims to promote women tells you all you need to know about the feminists. That many people alive today are unaware of Schlaflys achievements tells you all you need to know about the American media.

Almost no one remembers this now, but when Schlafly turned her attention to the E.R.A., no reasonable person would have supposed that the amendment could have been stopped. In 1971, the House passed it by 354 to 24. The next year, the Senate had passed it by a vote of 84 to 8. Thirty states had approved it in the first year after it was sent to the states for ratification. Only eight more states were needed, within the next seven years. There was little question that the E.R.A. was about to become our next constitutional amendment.

But the E.R.A. had not yet faced Phyllis Schlafly. Beginning in 1972 and over the next eight years, thanks to Schlafly and her magnificently patriotic organization, the Eagle Forum, only five more states ratified it. In the same time period, five states rescinded their earlier ratifications, for a net total of zero ratifications. 

Not surprisingly given her background, one of Schlaflys most devastating arguments against the E.R.A. was that it would end the female exemption from the draft. Though the amendments proponents sneered that this was preposterous, she was right. Law professors would soon be making the exact same point in the likes of the Yale Law Journal. 

She unflinchingly pressed points that polite people thought it bad taste to talk about. Academics prefer to approve the general sentiment and not think about any messy details or facts. Thus, for example, Schlafly questioned how ERA would affect gays, abortion, adoption, widows benefits, divorce law, and the military. She had an instinctive knack for pulling at the string that quickly unravels liberal nonsense. 

Schlafly was composed, brilliant and relentless. Among her campaign initiatives against the ERA, Schlafly sent quiches to all the U.S. Senators who voted for the ERA with a friendly note saying, Real men don't draft women. A subscriber to the Phyllis Schlafly Report wrote to her in 1972: "We beat ERA in Oklahoma today and all we had was your report. I just went to the Capitol and passed it around and we beat it."

Schlaflys arguments trumped the political platforms of both parties, both Republican and Democratic presidents and their wives, and a slew of Hollywood celebrities including Carol Burnett, Marlo Thomas, Phil Donahue, Alan Alda, and Jean Stapleton. As Schlafly said, they have the movie star money and we have the voters. 

Or, as George Gilder said, the only person on the other side was Phyllis Schlafly, but that was enough.

Reviewing a history of the sexual revolution in the New Yorker, John Updike wrote: If the court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, legalizing abortion, was . . . the crowning achievement of the sexual revolution, the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, which ran out of time in 1982, with only three more states needed for ratification, was the legal triumph of the counter-revolution, led in this instance by Phyllis Schlafly . . ." 

It was almost unfair for Schlafly to train her analytical mind on the feminists. But what the feminists lacked in linear thinking, they made up for in their hegemonic control of the mainstream media. 

No matter. Throughout her career, Schlafly refused to be intimidated by mediocre opinion makers decreeing what the bien pensant were supposed to think. She would take positions that almost no academic would defend, not because it was wrong, but simply because it was so contrary to acceptable opinion. 

The most unfathomable aspect of Schlaflys success to todays political activists is that she mobilized a vast army of women -- and she did it without the Internet. Not without reason, she has been called the greatest pamphleteer since Thomas Paine. (But unlike Paine, she never went bad.)

The story behind Phyllis Schlaflys biography provides a good snapshot of Schlaflys power to inspire. The books author, Carol Felsenthal, had written a book review for the Chicago Tribune in 1977 ridiculing Schlaflys ninth book, The Power of the Positive Woman as irrational, contradictory, and simple-minded. 

And then something extraordinary happened. Felsenthal says: Two days later, the letters of protest started coming, and they kept coming -- from people who were enraged that I had insulted Our Savior, as one letter writer called Schlafly, or Our Wonder Woman, as another called her. 

Felsenthal noted that her newspaper, The Chicago Tribune did not even run a letters column for book reviews, so these werent for publication. Though Felsenthal had written hundreds of columns before this, she said she could count on one hand the number of letters they provoked. These women, she said, were writing for one reason only -- to convert me, to make me see the light. 

Naturally, Felsenthal became fascinated with the woman who could arouse such passionate support. The end result was Felsenthals meticulously researched, definitive biography of Phyllis Schlafly, titled: Phyllis Schlafly: The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority. Charmingly, the toughest part of Felsenthals project was overcoming Schlaflys resistance to the very idea of a biography. 

There is no major national debate in the past half-century in which Schlaflys powerful, salubrious influence is not manifest.

She staunchly opposed abortion, gambling and gay marriage and equally strongly supported Ronald Reagan and the strategic defense initiative. One of the rare times she disagreed with Reagan was over the idea of having another Constitutional Convention. She was right and she won. In 1996, Schlafly supported Pat Buchanan for president and in 2008 she supported Duncan Hunter, specifically opposing Mike Huckabee.

On March 11, 2016, Schlafly officially endorsed Donald Trump for president.

Schlafly wrote about a complicated issues with insight and clarity. Time and again she would disembowel a 500-page legalistic monstrosity with a short syndicated column. Like an Olympic athlete, her talent was to make it seem easy.

She was as proficient as any law professor in the seriousness of her arguments. This is all the more impressive because she is writing for busy people -- housewives and politicians -- people who probably wouldn't mind a more purely rhetorical effort. But she never condescended to her audience. People who dismiss her as a mere rabble-rouser either havent read her work or have no idea what actual "scholarship" would be. 

The sheer breadth of the issues Schlafly took on is astonishing. It is impossible to think of anyone alive today who addresses such a range of topics in any depth. Most public figures focus on one or two issues and stick with those. Not Schlafly -- and with no detriment to her analysis. (If anyone on the left did this with Schlaflys skill, there would be monuments, Time magazine Person of the Year awards, and hagiographic Hollywood movies.)   

Schlafly commented on her boundless energy, saying, "It solves a lot of problems if you're busy."

For someone who spent so much time attacking liberal policies and received so much abuse in return -- Schlafly was remarkably free from ad hominem (or ad feminem) rhetoric. She was spat upon, burned in effigy and had a pie thrown in her face. Bomb threats were called in to her speeches. Feminist Betty Friedan once told her, "I'd like to burn you at the stake." Feminist Midge Costanza said Schlafly and Anita Bryant would make "a fine set of bookends" for Hitler's "Mein Kampf."

But Karen DeCrow, who debated Schlafly more than 50 times as president of the National Organization for Women from 1974-77, said she enjoyed those debates. "Phyllis is smart, so it was fun, DeCrow said. I never found Phyllis to be unpleasant, unfriendly or uncooperative." Felsenthal reports that during an interview, feminists surrounded Schlafly, spat at her and shoved middle fingers in her face. She says Schlafly "didn't pause, she didn't even blink." 

Schlaflys retorts were more subtle, once noting during a debate on the ERA before jeering Brown University coeds that "another sexist difference between men and women, is that women hiss." But she never got personal or vicious -- as they did with her. She was a true lady. 

Though conservative women in later generations are often compared to Schlafly, all of us combined could never match the titanic accomplishments of this remarkable woman. Schlafly is unquestionably one of the most important people of in the twentieth century and a good part of the twenty-first. Among her sex, she is rivaled only by Margaret Thatcher. 

Schlafly once said that what shed most like to be remembered for is converting this nation to where it's as normal for parents to teach their kids to read before they get to school as it is to teach them to ride bikes." Based on her own successful home-schooling of her children, she has written wildly popular phonics instruction guides with tapes and a workbook.

The most fitting epitaph to Phyllis Schlafly is the last line of her profile at the Eagle Forum website, which concludes: The mother of six children, she was named 1992 Illinois Mother of the Year. You know she means it, and yet you also suspect she takes devilish pleasure knowing that the prominence given the award must drive feminists crazy.

Schlafly could have rested on her laurels after writing A Choice, Not an Echo. She could have rested on her laurels after defeating the E.R.A. Indeed, she could have rested on her laurels on any number of occasions over the past half century. America can be thankful that she did not.

Upon Ronald Reagans election in 1980, Senator Jesse Helms said, God has given America one more chance. With Schlafly and her long career, God gave America dozens of chances. 

Schlafly is survived by her six children, sons John, Bruce, Roger, and Andrew, daughters Liza Foreshaw and Anne Cori, 16 grandchildren and three great grandchildren. 

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Shortage of school psychologists in Georgia threatens academic and mental health needs

The effects the shortage of school psychologists has on families in Georgia are as numerous and unique as the problems children can face. 

Matthew J. Vignieri is a school psychologist in Hall County and co-chair of the Advocacy Committee of the Georgia Association of School Psychologists.

In this essay, he discusses an issue that gets little public attention in Georgia, the shortage of school psychologists.

By Matthew J. Vignieri

School psychologists in Georgia are struggling to meet the demands of high caseloads due to a severe shortage of professionals in the field.  These mental health specialists are typically employed by school systems and apply practical principles of psychology to improve educational outcomes.  A critical component of their work includes psychological evaluation, where they administer and interpret assessments of intelligence, psychological processing, and/or emotional well-being; the importance of these measures is accentuated by federal mandates requiring that they be utilized as part of a student’s eligibility for special education services.

Due to the shortage, school psychologist struggle to meet deadlines for these evaluations and have little time to utilize other aspects of their training including counseling and consultation with schools, families, students, and community providers.  Ironically, their ability to help develop and implement academic, social, emotional, and/or life-skills interventions can prevent many common problems from occurring in the first place, thus reducing the need for special education evaluations and services.  Regardless, having so few school psychologists ultimately leads to high evaluation caseloads which therefore make it difficult for an individual psychologist to assist in ways aside from assessment.

The effects that the shortage has on families in Georgia are as numerous and unique as the problems children can face.  One issue centers on the time it takes for a student to be assessed.  A child with a learning disorder may struggle in a general education setting for years before being evaluated and found eligible for specialized instruction. By that time, they are multiple grade levels behind their peers.

In some cases, catching up is impossible.  Children with emotional needs are worse off in many ways, as therapeutic services are not yet offered as part of special education plans.  Their parents may have to wait months for assessment results that are needed to make informed decisions regarding private mental healthcare.

National and state leaders in the field are still working to understand the extent of the shortage.  While there are close to 770 school psychologists overseeing Georgia’s estimated 1.6 million students, there are more than 50 available positions across the state.  Many of these positions will likely go unfilled during the 2016/2017 school year.

Determining the complex reasons behind the shortage is a work in progress, but it is certain that training comes into play somewhere. Over the past five years, an average of 27 school psychologists graduated from one of three training programs at Georgia State University, Georgia Southern University, or the University of Georgia. This past year only 18 students in total graduated from these programs.  Several of these will leave the public sector and/or state entirely in search of better work conditions, higher pay, and the ability to practice more broadly; all of this is available to some extent in surrounding states.  On the other end of the career timeline, the fact that a large percentage of school psychologists are eligible for retirement within five years is a factor that will compound the shortage in Georgia in the future.

It is likely that there is no one solution to increase the number of school psychologists across the state; doing so will necessitate a combined effort between national and state leaders in the field, legislators, school psychologist trainers, school administrators, and community members.  As some members of the public are unaware that school psychologists even exist, primary efforts must be towards promoting the practice, and thereby the shortage, more effectively. School psychologists, myself included, must try harder to attend school board meetings and meet with local and state legislators.  We must go beyond simply writing policy-makers, to sitting down face to face, extending our services, and building relationships.  And by all means, it is imperative that we become more active in local, state, and/or national school psychology and educator associations.

At the university level, school psychology trainers must put forth greater effort toward improving the internship process for certification in the field.  There is an abysmal lack of paid internships in Georgia, which leaves many prospective school psychologists with no choice but to finish their training in other states.  For example, the school psychology program at Ohio University is strategically partnered with their state’s Department of Education to offer internships with a salary close to $40,000.  Interns in Mississippi earn between $25,000 and $30,000 per year.  Georgia’s school psychology training programs are encouraged to form a coalition to improve the internship process via strong partnerships with not only with the Department of Education but every school system across the state.

As with many educational initiatives in our society, funding is one barrier toward increasing the numbers of school psychologists in Georgia.  While the recent passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act provides several new opportunities for financing school psychologist’s efforts to improve school climate, federal House and Senate Appropriations Committees must commit to fully funding such initiatives.  Therefore, I implore legislators at all levels to support full funding for ESSA Title IV, particularly Part A.

Once appropriated, Georgia legislators must do everything possible to bring the state’s decades old funding formula for school psychologist positions into alignment with National Association of School Psychologist recommendations that one psychologist serve no more than 1000 students; the fact that school psychologists in Georgia have been funded at a state-wide ratio of 1:2475 for almost a quarter-century is completely unacceptable.

I challenge community members to imagine what Georgia would look like if it were possible to have a school psychologist in every single school building.  What is the potential for other sectors of our society after 10 years of teaching children in a manner that not only improves their academic well-being, but their emotional development and social potential?  I believe that Georgia is able to lead the way here, and increasing the number of school psychologists is just one step of many in a direction that will be of benefit to our society’s most important resource: our children.

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http://yournewswire.com/tens-of-thousands-of-scientists-declare-climate-change-a-hoax/

Tens of Thousands Of Scientists Declare Climate Change A Hoax

A staggering 30,000 scientists have come forward confirming that man-made climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the elite in order to make money. 

One of the experts is weather channel founder, John Coleman, who warns that huge fortunes are being made by man-made climate change proponents such as Al Gore.

Natural News reports:

In a recent interview with Climate Depot, Coleman said:

“Al Gore may emerge from the shadows to declare victory in the ‘global warming’ debate if Hillary Clinton moves into the White House. Yes, if that happens and the new climate regulations become the law of the land, they will be next to impossible to overturn for four to eight years.”

Climate change proponents remain undeterred in their mission, ignoring numerous recent scientific findings indicating that there has been no warming trend at all for nearly two decades.

Al Gore’s dire predictions of the melting of polar ice on a massive scale have proved to be completely false. In fact, in 2014 – a year that was touted as being “the hottest ever” in the Earth’s history – there were record amounts of ice reported in Antarctica, an increase in Arctic ice, and record snowfalls across the globe.

Debunking the “97 percent” lie

On top of those “inconvenient truths,” the White House’s assertion that 97 percent of scientists agree that global warming is real has been completely debunked. Several independently-researched examinations of the literature used to support the “97 percent” statement found that the conclusions were cherry-picked and misleading.

More objective surveys have revealed that there is a far greater diversity of opinion among scientists than the global warming crowd would like for you to believe.

From the National Review:

“A 2008 survey by two German scientists, Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, found that a significant number of scientists were skeptical of the ability of existing global climate models to accurately predict global temperatures, precipitation, sea-level changes, or extreme weather events even over a decade; they were far more skeptical as the time horizon increased.”

Other mainstream news sources besides the National Review have also been courageous enough to speak out against the global warming propaganda – even the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece in 2015 challenging the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) pseudoscience being promulgated by global warming proponents.

And, of course, there are the more than 31,000 American scientists (to date) who have signed a petition challenging the climate change narrative and 9,029 of them hold PhDs in their respective fields. But hey, Al Gore and his cronies have also ignored that inconvenient truth, as well.

Many of those scientists who signed the petition were likely encouraged to speak out in favor of the truth after retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist John L. Casey revealed that solar cycles are largely responsible for warming periods on Earth – not human activity.

Al Gore and cronies continue getting richer from the global warming hoax

But the global warming crowd continues to push their agenda on the public while lining their pockets in the process. If you’re still inclined to believe what Al Gore has to say about global warming, please consider the fact that since he embarked on his crusade, his wealth has grown from $2 million in 2001 to $100 million in 2016 – largely due to investments in fake “green tech” companies and the effective embezzlement of numerous grants and loans.

You might want to take all of this information into serious consideration before casting your vote in the November election.

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Exceptionalism and Religious Freedom

https://youtu.be/YjntXYDPw44

https://www.good.is/articles/jordan-andersons-legendary-clapback

‘Letter from a Freedman to His Old Master’

via Facebook

In 1825, at the approximate age of eight, Jordan Anderson (sometimes spelled “Jordon”) was sold into slavery and would live as a servant of the Anderson family for 39 years. In 1864, the Union Army camped out on the Anderson plantation and he and his wife, Amanda, were liberated. The couple eventually made it safely to Dayton, Ohio when, in July 1865, Jordan received a letter from his former owner, Colonel P.H. Anderson. The letter kindly asked Jordan to return to work on the plantation because it had fallen into disarray during the war.

On August 7, 1865, Jordan dictated his response through his new boss, Valentine Winters, and it was published in the Cincinnati Commercial. The letter entitled “Letter from a Freedman to His Old Master” was not only hilarious, but it showed compassion, defiance and dignity. That year, the the letter would be republished in the New York Daily Tribune and Lydia Marie Child’s The Freedman’s Book. 

The letter mentions a “Miss Mary” (Col. Anderson’s Wife), “Martha” (Col. Anderson’s daughter), Henry (most likely Col. Anderson’s son), and George Carter (a local carpenter). 

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jordon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve - and die, if it come to that - than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jordon Anderson

Learn more about Jordan Anderson here. 

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