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StAnastasia
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Although I believe God acts as creator, as redeemer and as sanctifier (among other roles and models) I at my parish we use the formula “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
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edwest2
Guest
I don’t think the Pope supports the idea of an unguided Creation. He has also said, referring to the secularly miscontexted statement made by Pope John Paul II, “but it is also true that evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.”
All Catholics need to understand that.
Peace,
Ed
All Catholics need to understand that.
Peace,
Ed
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mpartyka
Guest
I think the question must be asked, though, “At what point does enough positive evidence amount to our rendering a ‘proven’ verdict on evolution?” For me, the tipping point came with Daniel Fairbanks’ 2007 book Relics of Eden. In it he describes clear genetic markers in both human and chimpanzee DNA that can only reasonably be explained by common descent, and once you accept common descent, there’s really no reason to object to macroevolution anymore – though we don’t necessarily know how it happened, we at least know that it happened.
–Mike
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StAnastasia
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No theory is “complete and scientifically proven.”
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buffalo
Guest
That is because the both have the same creator.
Do Human and Chimpanzee DNA Indicate an Evolutionary Relationship?
…
Jonathan Marks, (department of anthropology, University of California, Berkeley) has pointed out the often-overlooked problem with this “similarity” line of thinking.
Because DNA is a linear array of those four bases—A,G,C, and T—only four possibilities exist at any specific point in a DNA sequence. The laws of chance tell us that two random sequences from species that have no ancestry in common will match at about one in every four sites. Thus even two unrelated DNA sequences will be 25 percent identical, not 0 percent identical (2000, p. B-7). Therefore a human and any earthly DNA-based life form must be at least 25% identical. Would it be correct, then, to state that daffodils are “one-quarter human”? The idea that a flower is one-quarter human is neither profound nor enlightening; it is outlandishly ridiculous! There is hardly any biological comparison that could be conducted that would make daffodils human—except perhaps DNA. Marks went on to concede:
Moreover, the genetic comparison is misleading because it ignores qualitative differences among genomes… Thus, even among such close relatives as human and chimpanzee, we find that the chimp’s genome is estimated to be about 10 percent larger than the human’s; that one human chromosome contains a fusion of two small chimpanzee chromosomes; and that the tips of each chimpanzee chromosome contain a DNA sequence that is **not present in humans **(B-7, emp. added).
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mpartyka
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No, you don’t understand, and it’s going to be difficult to explain.
Let’s say that the word HIPXPOPOXTAMUS was a gene – the "X"s represent introns. When a gene retrotransposes (i.e., makes a copy of itself to some other place in the genome), two things happen: First, any “introns” (i.e., junk stuck in the middle of a gene) get erased – so, in this case, the copy of HIPXPOPOXTAMUS becomes HIPPOPOTAMUS. Second, the new copy has a trailing “A”-tail attached to it – so, the final form of the copy is HIPPOPOTAMUSAAAAA.
Basically, what this means is that if you find a “clean” gene with a trailing “A”-tail, you know it’s a copy and not an original. Now, keep in mind that these copies can wind up being inserted anywhere in the genome, and the probability that two copy events in two different species will put copies in the exact same places in the genome of each species is incredibly small. It’s really just not going to happen. The truth is, if you see a copy located in the same place in the genomes of two different species, the only way that copy could have gotten there in both genomes is if (1) both species were descended from a common ancestor species and (2) the copy event actually took place in the common ancestor species, and was transmitted down to both descendant groups once they split off from each other.
The long and short of it, then, is that humans and chimpanzees have plenty of copies of genes located in the exact same places in their genomes. This simply could not happen if humans and chimpanzees had totally separate lineages. The only way this could happen – the way it did happen – is that the copy events all took place in a common ancestor species that later split up into humans and chimpanzees.
–Mike
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buffalo
Guest
…or they were both subject to the same cause of the mutation.
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mpartyka
Guest
What? This isn’t Marvel Comics I’m talking here! You don’t expose a bunny and a squirrel to gamma radiation and get a Hulk-Bunny and a Hulk-Squirrel. Even if a single “mutative cause” (whatever that would be) were to trigger the same gene in two different species to make a copy of itself, those copies could still end up anywhere in the species’ genomes – the odds of copies’ landing in the exact same place are next to impossible. Yet humans and chimps have oodles of gene copies in the same spots in their genomes. Not only that, but some of these copies are defective, and the same defects are present in each genome! “Game over, dude! Game over!”
–Mike
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buffalo
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StAnastasia
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Come on Buffalo – quoting Uncommon descent in a scientific debate has the credibility of assigning Adolf to draw up a retirement plan for German Jewry.
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edwest2
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Human shares genes with bananas, so what? If you look only to science for answers, you’re missing the big picture. After the Fall, Creation became corrupted. It’s in the Bible.
What people should remember is this: similar body plans, similar instructions.
Peace,
Ed
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edwest2
Guest
I strongly encourage you to follow what the Church teaches: science and faith are complementary.
Peace,
Ed
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StAnastasia
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Ed, I’m not sure what planetary locus you’re posting from, or what you’ve missed. For a quarter of a century. the core of my pedagogy in a Catholic university context has been that science and faith are complementary.
StAnastasia
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edwest2
Guest
Your posts show otherwise. Your interpretation of the Bible seems to depend more on secular-humanist psycho-social dynamics (which could change once another “expert” appears). You rarely quote the word of God and seem to be enthralled with Modernism.
I have watched the Catholic Church gradually become corrupted by false reinterpretations over the last 40 years. Too many Catholic institutions of higher learning have secular leaders, and as I read in the Michigan Catholic: How can the leadership of a Catholic University give something authentically Catholic to their students if they don’t have it to give?
Peace,
Ed
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StAnastasia
Guest
Ed,
(1) Yes – I’m a card-carrying modernist, or post-modernist.
(2) I quite agree with you about the distressing fact that Catholic universities are often no longer led by Catholics. I have taught in universities run by three different orders. The Jesuits have always insisted on having a Jesuit president. The Dominicans have been less insistent on this, although we had a long-standing campaign to protect the Catholic identity of the college. I now teach in a college where the head has to be a member of the order, and the faculty are very supportive of this.
StAnastasia
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Camron
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buffalo
Guest
I know, I know, but I cannot help myself.
Here is another:
“Life’s Conservation Law: Why Darwinian Evolution Cannot Create Biological Information”
ABSTRACT: Laws of nature are universal in scope, hold with unfailing regularity, and receive support from a wide array of facts and observations. The Law of Conservation of Information (LCI) is such a law. LCI characterizes the information costs that searches incur in outperforming blind search. Searches that operate by Darwinian selection, for instance, often significantly outperform blind search. But when they do, it is because they exploit information supplied by a fitness function—information that is unavailable to blind search. Searches that have a greater probability of success than blind search do not just magically materialize. They form by some process. According to LCI, any such search-forming process must build into the search at least as much information as the search displays in raising the probability of success. More formally, LCI states that raising the probability of success of a search by a factor of q/p (> 1) incurs an information cost of at least log(q/p). LCI shows that information is a commodity that, like money, obeys strict accounting principles. This paper proves three conservation of information theorems: a function-theoretic, a measure-theoretic, and a fitness-theoretic version. These are representative of conservation of information theorems in general. Such theorems provide the theoretical underpinnings for the Law of Conservation of Information. Though not denying Darwinian evolution or even limiting its role in the history of life, the Law of Conservation of Information shows that Darwinian evolution is inherently teleological. Moreover, it shows that this teleology can be measured in precise information-theoretic terms.
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grannymh
Guest
three questions:
How far back in history is the common ancestor of humans and chimps?
Are you referring to a common ancestor of a fully defined human and a fully defined chimp?
How would you describe the two parents of this common ancestor?
It would be most helpful if you included the sources for your answers. Thank you.
Blessings,
granny
All human beings are worthy of our profound respect.
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mpartyka
Guest
I think the current estimate is 5 million years back.
Yes, I’m referring to, for example, the most recent common ancestor of myself and the chimp that got shot to death a few months back while attacking a woman.
I’m not sure that I can describe them, never having seen such animals myself, but I would presume they didn’t walk upright, use tools, or have language beyond basic grunts and screeches.
I think the most valuable books of recent origin that I’ve come across so far are:
Endless Forms Most Beautiful and The Making of the Fittest by Sean Carroll
Relics of Eden by Daniel Fairbanks
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald Prothero
These books were all published within the last 5 years, so they contain the most recent genetic and other data supporting evolution and common descent.
–Mike
P.S.: The “HIPPOPOTAMUS” analogy is my oversimplified version of an actual case described in Relics of Eden.
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edwest2
Guest
I suggest you get a copy of Chance or Purpose by Cardinal Schoenborn. Many books about evolution do not provide the very necessary Catholic dimension which clearly infringes on the scientific realm. You were not brought into being by a cold, uncaring universe that did not have you in mind.
Peace,
Ed
Peace,
Ed
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