Conference on Evolution

[StAnastasia]

Oh my, what a vast conspiracy that is!

Namesake, shall I assume this is your RSVP to our planned June 21 meeting in Area 51? The rest of us will all be assembled there (including the Vatican ambassador to the Elders of Sion), and there you will learn our true identity, the name of our home planet, and the nature of our mission on Earth.

Zygbroxyqk (who masquerades as StAnastasia)

 

[buffalo]

Namesake, shall I assume this is your RSVP to our planned June 21 meeting in Area 51? The rest of us will all be assembled there (including the Vatican ambassador to the Elders of Sion), and there you will learn our true identity, the name of our home planet, and the nature of our mission on Earth.

Zygbroxyqk (who masquerades as StAnastasia)

I knew it!

 

[grannymh]

I knew it!

And I had a full can of Pepsi

 

[Namesake]

i knew it! :d

aybabtu

 

[James_Edward]

After my brief visit to your thread and before leaving, here are my observations:

‘Conference on evolution’ is the subject but there is little discussion in the exchanges to warrant such a title.

Being a forum under the aegis of Catholic Answers one would have expected participants to refrain from uncatholic tactics. The almost total absence of charity in the exchanges is very sad, as is the constant use of sarcasm. This is not only dangerous to one’s persoal relationship with Almighty God but a terrible example for anyone looking in.

Objectivity, vital in discussing such an important subject is virtually absent. As a result, the grounds for intelligent discussion are removed. With the majority position of members being pro-evolution, one would have expected at least some evidence for evolution. Astonishingly, apart from affirmations that the evidence for evolution exists, no proof is advanced at all. On the contrary, when scientific proof of the impossibility of evolution is produced, the reaction is not to examine but to attempt to destroy it. The mantra of evolution being a fact is then continued. An example is the following:

When pointing out the proof against evolution by Prof. Maciej Giertych, a highly qualified geneticist and biochemist, hecd2 used the following tactic to discredit him:

If you…had ever taken the trouble to read and understand just one undergraduate text book on evolutionary biology you would have all the evidence necessary to know that Maciej’s claims are indefensible.

This statement is unworthy of anyone claiming to be a scientist. It is an attempt to cast doubt without an iota of research. If hecd2 has evidence let him give it, not attempt to discredit his peer by a sweeping generalisation. Such methods betray a clear inability to back up one’s accusations with scientific data.

On the other hand, when I offered peer-reviewed experimental empirical proof showing that rock strata formed at the same rate as the water current which transported the sediments, it was ignored and the discussion switched to trivialities not concerning evolution. Yet little reasoning is necessary to recognise that the logic of these ground-breaking experimental results invalidate the principles that underpin evolution theory. It is not long ages which determine the time needed to form a rock, but the time it takes for sediments to be transported and deposited by a water current. It follows that the fossils must have been laid down as fast as the strata. The fossils can not, therefore, be used as evidence for evolution. It is the application of fluid mechanics which is starting to revolutionise stratigraphy and show the fallacy of the principles of stratigraphy which omitted the vector of a water current. It is Berthault’s fundamental training in the laws of mechanics that has given him a head start in explaining stratification.

The fact that high ranking ecclesiastical prelates support evolution theory in no way changes the deal. Yet participants to the forum use their support as proof of evolution. These prelates are not scientists and, therefore, as vulnerable to error in such matters as most other non scientists. The only reason scientists cling to evolution theory despite the absence of proof is their unwillingness to examine the new evidence accumulating against it. They have the Dawkins mentality that evolution is a fact and needs no further research. Of course it is not a fact, but if he and others of the same mind removed their evolutionary blinkers they would have to abandon their evolutionary materialism. No matter how much irrefutable proof is produced their atheist world view filters it out. Our prelates are the victims of these prejudiced scientists.

I will not be reading any responses to this post as I will no longer be a member of the thread.

James

 

[hecd2]

‘Conference on evolution’ is the subject but there is little discussion in the exchanges to warrant such a title.

If you had read and understood the thread, you would realise that the discussion is based *on *a conference on evolution held in Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University - it is not itself meant to *be *a conference on evolution.

Objectivity, vital in discussing such an important subject is virtually absent.

Whereas, of course, as an active apologist for the young earth creationist ideology of the Kolbe Center, you are a model of objectivity. Right.

As a result, the grounds for intelligent discussion are removed.

I am always willing to have an intelligent discussion, but when challenged on his assertions, Maciej disappeared, just as you have done.

With the majority position of members being pro-evolution, one would have expected at least some evidence for evolution. Astonishingly, apart from affirmations that the evidence for evolution exists, no proof is advanced at all.

In your haste to advance your rhetoric you might not have noticed that the discussion has not been about the evidence *for *evolution, but the supposed “evidence” against it, which, when given the same sort of sceptical scrutiny that any scientific hypothesis or critique should be able to withstand, collapses and turns out not to be evidence at all. Nice but failed attempt to bait and switch.

Having said that, whilst the evidence for evolution is too extensive to cover in a few posts on a forum, I am always happy to give a summary of one of the multiple converging lines of evidence that show that evolution is a fact: from palaeontology, biogeography, comparative anatomy, comparative physiology, cell biology, developmental biology, systematics, molecular biology, genomics, ecology, field zoology and botany, and so on - a huge quantity of evidence from multiple fields that is entirely self-consistent. Choose one and I’ll explain it to you.

On the contrary, when scientific proof of the impossibility of evolution is produced, the reaction is not to examine but to attempt to destroy it.

No “scientific proof of the impossibility of evolution” has been produced - and it is pure rhetoric to claim that it has.

When pointing out the proof against evolution by Prof. Maciej Giertych, a highly qualified geneticist and biochemist

Note fallacy of argument from authority

, hecd2 used the following tactic to discredit him:

If you…had ever taken the trouble to read and understand just one undergraduate text book on evolutionary biology you would have all the evidence necessary to know that Maciej’s claims are indefensible

In other words, you haven’t ever read a text book on evolutionary biology, you don’t know or you don’t care what the evidence for evolution is, or why thousands of biologists accept it for every one who doesn’t.

This statement is unworthy of anyone claiming to be a scientist. It is an attempt to cast doubt without an iota of research. If hecd2 has evidence let him give it, not attempt to discredit his peer by a sweeping generalisation. Such methods betray a clear inability to back up one’s accusations with scientific data.

You obviously have no idea about how science works. In referring you to a textbook, I was referring you to a summary of the evidence for evolution with scientific data from thousands of experiments and observations by tens of thousands of biologists. In Futuyama, for example, there are over 1500 references to scientific papers. And you want to set Maciej’s commonplace and erroneous creationist assertions (that the only evidence advanced for evolution is race formation, that increase in information by natural processes is impossible, that there are no transitional fossils, and that radiometric dating is fundamentally flawed) against that. Maciej made of all of these assertions, but is unable or unwilling to back a single one up. You can’t do science by unsupported assertion and you certainly can’t “prove” anything that way.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

On the other hand, when I offered peer-reviewed experimental empirical proof showing that rock strata formed at the same rate as the water current which transported the sediments, it was ignored and the discussion switched to trivialities not concerning evolution.

You gave what? Proof showing that rock strata form at the same rate as the water current? You don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about, do you? Why don’t you ask your mentor Guy to explain to you why what you have claimed here is pure nonsense. As for trivialities, I have done no more than reply to things that you raised, and point out that Berthault’s Russian papers have been ignored by the scientific community and that Berthault’s collaborator on the French papers, a much more prestigious sedimentologist than he, doesn’t agree with his absurd interpretation of the 1980s work.

Yet little reasoning is necessary to recognise that the logic of these ground-breaking experimental results invalidate the principles that underpin evolution theory.

Indeed, the conclusion that Berthault’s work invalidates all of modern geology results from little reasoning. I explain why here:
evolutionpages.com/berthault_critique.htm

It is not long ages which determine the time needed to form a rock, but the time it takes for sediments to be transported and deposited by a water current. It follows that the fossils must have been laid down as fast as the strata. The fossils can not, therefore, be used as evidence for evolution. It is the application of fluid mechanics which is starting to revolutionise stratigraphy and show the fallacy of the principles of stratigraphy which omitted the vector of a water current. It is Berthault’s fundamental training in the laws of mechanics that has given him a head start in explaining stratification.

But Berhault’s flume experiments do not show this, no matter how many times he and his scientifically naive supporters like you repeat it, because:

• his experiments are neither original nor revolutionary, because the sorting of sediments into laminae according to particle size and density in a turbidity event is already known to occur, and it is already well known that such a sequence can be deposited in a short period.
• his experiments do not support a radical reinterpretation of geology, because, although some sediments can be deposited rapidly, it is known that many, particularly marine and lacustrine sediments are deposited slowly, and because the strata themselves contain substantial evidence for slow deposition
• the geological column contains deposition mechanisms that lie outside the processes that Berthault investigated
• ecological and hydraulic sorting of fossils is not a credible hypothesis - fossils are not found sorted either by ecological or hydraulic properties.
• radiometric dating supports the immense age and chronological ordering of strata.

I will not be reading any responses to this post as I will no longer be a member of the thread.

Cheerio. Have a good life. Till we meet again.

Alec
evolutionpages.com/berthault_critique.htm

 

[StAnastasia]

Cheerio. Have a good life. Till we meet again.Alec

Alec, I attended a superb conference today featuring Francisco Ayala, on the subject of God and evolution. Francisco noted that at the 2005 Dover trial Judge Jones twice admonished Michael Behe for lying under oath, and that behe justified lying on the grounds that it was for a greater good. I’ll have to read more on this, as I missed that aspect of the trial.

The bulk of the conference was spent on the problem of evolutionary suffering and theodicy.
What is your own view on the various theodic strategies that have been forwarded to account for animal suffering? I know you do not consider yourself a theist, but I’m wondering whether any of them strike you (from a genetic perspective) as more cogent than others.

StAnastasia

 

[grannymh]

Alec, I attended a superb conference today featuring Francisco Ayala, on the subject of God and evolution. Francisco noted that at the 2005 Dover trial Judge Jones twice admonished Michael Behe for lying under oath, and that behe justified lying on the grounds that it was for a greater good. I’ll have to read more on this, as I missed that aspect of the trial.

The bulk of the conference was spent on the problem of evolutionary suffering and theodicy.
What is your own view on the various theodic strategies that have been forwarded to account for animal suffering? I know you do not consider yourself a theist, but I’m wondering whether any of them strike you (from a genetic perspective) as more cogent than others.

StAnastasia

I’d love to read what Francisco Ayala said on God and evolution. I recently analyzed one of his older presentations from an advertising/sales promotion point of view.

Easter blessings,
granny

 

[StAnastasia]

I’d love to read what Francisco Ayala said on God and evolution. I recently analyzed one of his older presentations from an advertising/sales promotion point of view.

Easter blessings,
granny

Grannymh,

Evolutionary And Molecular Biology : Scientific Perspectives On Divine Action, Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, Francisco J. Ayala, Editors. Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory; Berkeley, Calif. : Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1998

Francisco J. Ayala, Darwin’s Gift. Joseph Henry Press, 2007.

More items later; he’s written over 600 articles – it’s hard to keep up! Right now he’s working on the problem of the evolution of malaria in Africa; I didn’t realize malaria is still one of the biggest scourges in the world, causing a million and a half deaths per year. Francisco is working to see how it has evolved to try to anticipate drug treatments that might be effective.

StAnastasia

 

[zian]

Namesake, shall I assume this is your RSVP to our planned June 21 meeting in Area 51? The rest of us will all be assembled there (including the Vatican ambassador to the Elders of Sion), and there you will learn our true identity, the name of our home planet, and the nature of our mission on Earth.

Zygbroxyqk (who masquerades as StAnastasia)

woo hoo, can I come to!!

I can bring my Weber grill !!!

 

[StAnastasia]

woo hoo, can I come to!! I can bring my Weber grill !!!

Sure, zian, but grilled alien is not on the menu!

 

[hecd2]

Alec, I attended a superb conference today featuring Francisco Ayala, on the subject of God and evolution…The bulk of the conference was spent on the problem of evolutionary suffering and theodicy.
What is your own view on the various theodic strategies that have been forwarded to account for animal suffering? I know you do not consider yourself a theist, but I’m wondering whether any of them strike you (from a genetic perspective) as more cogent than others.

StAnastasia

Well, I am not sure what benefit either of us would derive if I were to wade through individual theological propositions to solve the dilemma - needless to say, most of them are, to me, unsuccessful, and in some cases, absurd or even downright objectionable.

What I can say is that pain performs a biological function which enables organisms to avoid trauma - it seems clear that pain evolved as a host protection mechanism.

As for the more general problem of suffering in the world, it seems to me to be entirely consistent with a blind, uncaring universe. My observation of the existence and causes of suffering, the sheer pointless cruelty of many natural events, leads, amongst other considerations, to my worldview. Organisms are subject to the caprice of nature, including natural catastrophes, illness, parasites and predation. In fact the very existence of complex animals depends entirely on predation from top to bottom.

Then, there is the problem of human evil: despite the sophistication of our theory of mind, our empathy and our ability to conceptualise, we are able to do frightful things to one another. It seems that evolution has left us with some tendencies - including a tragic willingness to regard outgroups as less than human - which might have had a degree of usefulness in evolutionary history but which we now need to understand and combat.

I am sure the conference offered more detailed and thought through proposals for addressing the question. What is your perspective on it?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[StAnastasia]

Abbadon, I’ll check with a cosmologist friend, but it is my understanding that black holes aren’t just out there – they are always associated with a collapsed star which then grows by sucking in other stellar material. So most galaxies probably have a black hole at their centers, but there is no center of the universe in which a black hole might be located. I’ll get back when I hear from him, unless you get back to me first.StAnastasia

Abbadon, if you are still around, I have the information I promised you about black holes.

 

[StAnastasia]

What I can say is that pain performs a biological function which enables organisms to avoid trauma - it seems clear that pain evolved as a host protection mechanism.
As for the more general problem of suffering in the world, it seems to me to be entirely consistent with a blind, uncaring universe. My observation of the existence and causes of suffering, the sheer pointless cruelty of many natural events, leads, amongst other considerations, to my worldview. Organisms are subject to the caprice of nature, including natural catastrophes, illness, parasites and predation. In fact the very existence of complex animals depends entirely on predation from top to bottom.]

Alec, I quite agree with you that in most respects the problem of evil is intractable. Your point about the biological purpose served by pain is quite correct, although I would agree with you that the fact of a child suffering horrific pain from terminal cancer is more consistent with a blind, uncaring universe than with God as a loving father. And your point about predation from to to bottom is true – I thought about this during my parish’s Seder Dinner last night, reflecting on the life of the lamb wasted that we might revel (to paraphrase Alexander Pope).

One approach is that of Tom Hosinski, a Holy Cross Father who is also a process theologian. He argues that God limits Godself in creating a universe of freedom; that God cannot in the order “He” has established intervene. A God who could intervene to relieve the pain of a child suffering from cancer but who declined to do so would not be worthy of the title “Father,” at least as we apply that title to human males.

Another approach is that of Robert Russell, who said at Saturday’s conference that he believes no theodicy is sufficient that is not eschatological in nature. In other words, all theodicies fail when they confine themselves to the temporal; only in the eschatological working out will we be able to comprehend a God who suffers with us, and who has chosen to instantiate an evolutionary order that entails eons of apparently useless and unustifiable suffering.

And you might well find even this “theodicy” unsatisfactory.

StAnastasia

 

[grannymh]

Alec, I quite agree with you that in most respects the problem of evil is intractable. Your point about the biological purpose served by pain is quite correct, although I would agree with you that the fact of a child suffering horrific pain from terminal cancer is more consistent with a blind, uncaring universe than with God as a loving father. And your point about predation from to to bottom is true – I thought about this during my parish’s Seder Dinner last night, reflecting on the life of the lamb wasted that we might revel (to paraphrase Alexander Pope).

One approach is that of Tom Hosinski, a Holy Cross Father who is also a process theologian. He argues that God limits Godself in creating a universe of freedom; that God cannot in the order “He” has established intervene. A God who could intervene to relieve the pain of a child suffering from cancer but who declined to do so would not be worthy of the title “Father,” at least as we apply that title to human males.

Another approach is that of Robert Russell, who said at Saturday’s conference that he believes no theodicy is sufficient that is not eschatological in nature. In other words, all theodicies fail when they confine themselves to the temporal; only in the eschatological working out will we be able to comprehend a God who suffers with us, and who has chosen to instantiate an evolutionary order that entails eons of apparently useless and unustifiable suffering.

And you might well find even this “theodicy” unsatisfactory.

StAnastasia

I have recognized God in the wilderness of Alaska and I see His beauty in metaphysical poetry.

But, I do not comprehend making a choice (consistent or otherwise) between a transcendent being and the universe itself which is described as an emotional life-like thing who is blind and uncaring. Even if I were a non-theist, it would be like comparing apples and carrots.

Easter blessings,
granny

 

[StAnastasia]

But, I do not comprehend making a choice (consistent or otherwise) between a transcendent being and the universe itself which is described as an emotional life-like thing who is blind and uncaring. granny

Grannymh, all I can say is, “Huh? I don’t understand.”

 

[StAnastasia]

Grannymh, all I can say is, “Huh? I don’t understand.”

Grannymh, that is to say, I did not understand your post.

 

[hecd2]

One approach is that of Tom Hosinski, a Holy Cross Father who is also a process theologian. He argues that God limits Godself in creating a universe of freedom; that God cannot in the order “He” has established intervene. A God who could intervene to relieve the pain of a child suffering from cancer but who declined to do so would not be worthy of the title “Father,” at least as we apply that title to human males.

I still see big difficulties with this. Is the concept of a omniscient, omnipotent God who voluntarily limits Himself from intervening in the natural order, when He can clearly see the consequences of that order working itself out without his intervention, morally any different from that of a God who chooses from moment or moment to intervene or not? Suffering, in all its appalling guises, is an inevitable consequence of the order that exists. It seems to me that either concept of God is complicit in the suffering. Is the suffering in the Universe which is independent of mankind, or which is visited on mankind independently of his exercise of free will, a necessary condition of a “universe of freedom”?

Another approach is that of Robert Russell, who said at Saturday’s conference that he believes no theodicy is sufficient that is not eschatological in nature. In other words, all theodicies fail when they confine themselves to the temporal; only in the eschatological working out will we be able to comprehend a God who suffers with us, and who has chosen to instantiate an evolutionary order that entails eons of apparently useless and unustifiable suffering.

And you might well find even this “theodicy” unsatisfactory.

Yes I do, because it falls into the “trust me, it’ll be alright on the night” category of solution. I think that if intractable philosophical problems exist then we should acknowledge them as barriers to believing in the proposition, not sweep them under the carpet with all the other inconvenient “mysteries”. It might not be so for others, but I have to confront the world and my existence as I observe it, not as I fantasise that it might be. The eschatological solution requires a leap of faith which grossly exceeds a reasonable epistemic philosophy.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

But, I do not comprehend making a choice (consistent or otherwise) between a transcendent being and the universe itself which is described as an emotional life-like thing who is blind and uncaring.

It’s a metaphoric way of speaking - I do not mean to imply that the universe is a living being or emotional - just that observation leads to the rejection of design and purpose and the collapse of teleology. That is what I meant by the universe unfolding in an uncaring way.

Alec
evolutionpages.com