Evidence for Evolution

[rossum]

Rossum, do you doubt the Intelligent Design underlying the fact that the blood vessels are on the outside of the heart, so that they are more accessible to cardiac surgeons?

Of course not. He is the same designer who put a major river through the centre of most of our major cities to bring water to the inhabitants and to help with riverborne trade. Such a thoughtful designer. He even made our ears stick out so that our hats would not slip down over our eyes. How could anyone doubt His existence?

rossum

 

[drpmjhess]

Of course not. He is the same designer who put a major river through the centre of most of our major cities to bring water to the inhabitants and to help with riverborne trade. Such a thoughtful designer. He even made our ears stick out so that our hats would not slip down over our eyes. How could anyone doubt His existence? rossum

O Great Rossum, truly you speak of evidence most undeniable of a wisdom greater than ours. But tell me, how could the Infinitely Wise Designer have been so absent-minded as to place the world’s richest oil fields – which are the birthright of Sarah’s son – under the sands of Hagar’s son? Could not He have foreseen that this would one day humble Christ’s America before Ishmael’s throne, requiring the blooming Bush to send the flower of her manhood annually as a sacrifice, slaughtered on the heathen altar of energy independence? Can you manifest to us the occult wisdom in this eternal plan?

Petrus

 

[The_Barbarian]

Golda Meir once asked: “How wise could Moses have been? He led us to the one place in the Middle East with no oil!”

 

[mapleoak]

My truck evolved better gas mileage over time. The more of that rusted and fell away, the better it got!

Evolution is at work, even in non-living species.

 

[buffalo]

O Great Rossum, truly you speak of evidence most undeniable of a wisdom greater than ours. But tell me, how could the Infinitely Wise Designer have been so absent-minded as to place the world’s richest oil fields – which are the birthright of Sarah’s son – under the sands of Hagar’s son? Could not He have foreseen that this would one day humble Christ’s America before Ishmael’s throne, requiring the blooming Bush to send the flower of her manhood annually as a sacrifice, slaughtered on the heathen altar of energy independence? Can you manifest to us the occult wisdom in this eternal plan?

Petrus

To bring good out of a bad situation.

 

[drpmjhess]

That is absolutely wonderful!
I think I’m going to print that up and hang it on my fridge.
I salute you! :tiphat:

---

Okay, scratch that, the line about biting the male’s head off is the one going on the fridge. I nearly fell off my chair when I read that one.

Thanks, sideline. I have heard from biologists that there is genetic (if not individual) survival value in allowing one’s head to be eaten off only partially. I can’t understand how allowing partial decapitation became progressively encoded over the generations into the Praying Mantis genome – there must be a doctoral dissertation in that, if it hasn’t already been sorted out!

Petrus

 

[rossum]

Can you manifest to us the occult wisdom in this eternal plan?

America is being punished for its sins. For America did rebell against righteousness and upon the invention of the automobile, did fail to follow the correct rules laid down by the LORD and did falsely ordain that drivers drive upon the wrong side of the carriageway. God will continue to punish America until it comes to its senses and drives on the right (which is to say the left) side of the road.

rossum

 

[mapleoak]

I can’t understand how allowing partial decapitation became progressively encoded over the generations into the Praying Mantis genome

I can’t understand how that could happen either. Maybe because it can’t.

America is being punished for its sins. For America did rebell against righteousness and upon the invention of the automobile, did fail to follow the correct rules laid down by the LORD and did falsely ordain that drivers drive upon the wrong side of the carriageway. God will continue to punish America until it comes to its senses and drives on the right (which is to say the left) side of the road.

rossum

Actually, God hears the senseless slaughter of millions of unborn children in America, and has heard them crying out for vengeance
since before time began. Things may have been very different for America had it not been plagued with this problem (speculation only).

 

[Brian_Millar]

I completely agree, abortion is murder, according to the bible, the moment of conception is where the human life begins, the debate is mute in my book, it’s not the childs fault they were not concieved in a manner convienient for the parent, it is innocent, and indeed, calling out for vengance, for their lives have been cut short and that fullness and richness that was owed to them has been mercilusly taken away from them. We have alot of blood on our hands, and out of these bunch that are being killed, we have cut off our own hands in the process, for many of them could have made a difference in our world and perhaps even solved our world problems, yet they have no opportunity to do so because we killed them.

 

[buffalo]

Let’s design humans. We will take three pairs and we will do the following:

1. One pair we will take to a remote island in the Pacific and lock them in a hut with one smll window. We will give them food daily.
2. One pair we will take and put in the garden of Eden without any instructions.
3. One pair we will put in the Garden with specific instructions.

We will wait for several years.

Some things that could happen:

Pair 1 has children and because we no longer feed them decide to eat them.

Pair 2 lives large with arrogance, plundering the land. They have children who are spoiled

Pair 3 lives humbly, they procreate and settle the land with respect.

Now, we designed all these pairs equally with good intent.

So before we mock the designer we should be careful.

 

[The_Barbarian]

The problem is, you seem to think God did #3 in a literal sense. If so, it hasn’t turned out the way you said it would.

Maybe there’s something wrong with this example?

 

[buffalo]

The problem is, you seem to think God did #3 in a literal sense. If so, it hasn’t turned out the way you said it would.

Maybe there’s something wrong with this example?

Perhaps. You know the point I was trying to make. We do not know the original design. so it is extremely difficult to know what characteristics have proliferated and which have not.

Perhaps the first praying mantis’ did not do it this way. Call it evolution, devolution or what ever, what we know is that over time things adapt and change.

 

[drpmjhess]

So before we mock the designer we should be careful.

Buffalo, no one’s mocking design. We’re only mocking facile assumptions about design, like the fact that IDers resemble eager children shouting about the happy insects “buzzing joyously in Paley’s vicarage garden,” while quietly omitting mention of decapitated still-copulating Praying Mantises.

Jack Haught’s “theology of promise” is far more in concordance with Catholic thought than Behe’s theology of design. The universe is not finished, but it’s replete with promise.

Petrus

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
The problem is, you seem to think God did #3 in a literal sense. If so, it hasn’t turned out the way you said it would.

Maybe there’s something wrong with this example?

Perhaps. You know the point I was trying to make. We do not know the original design.

We don’t even have any evidence that there was a “design.” God, being omnipotent, is a Creator, not a “designer.”

We do, however, know a great deal about the early living things, from which (as Pope Benedict said) other things have descened.

so it is extremely difficult to know what characteristics have proliferated and which have not.

Fortunately, things like transitionals, genetics, molecular biology, and other sources of information can help. Would you like to learn about some of it?

Perhaps the first praying mantis’ did not do it this way.

Um…the evidence is that they did not. I’m going from memory here, but I believe that this is common among mantids that are ambush predators, not cursorial or generalist hunters. DNA phylogenies indicate ambush predation evolved once, from which a major radiation of species evolved. There are certainly examples of males being taken by the larger females in other families of mantids, but I don’t know of one in which decapitation is necessary. However, copulation is managed in (all?) insects from a ganglion lower in the body, and it’s likely that it would work well in any case where signals from the ganglia in the head were eliminated.

I need to read up a bit and see what’s out there. I’m not an entomologist, and my primary interest when I studied it, was in the area of medical entomology and parasitology. Don’t know of any mantids involved in that sort of thing.

 

[buffalo]

Barbarian observes:
The problem is, you seem to think God did #3 in a literal sense. If so, it hasn’t turned out the way you said it would.

Maybe there’s something wrong with this example?

We don’t even have any evidence that there was a “design.” God, being omnipotent, is a Creator, not a “designer.”

We do, however, know a great deal about the early living things, from which (as Pope Benedict said) other things have descened.

Fortunately, things like transitionals, genetics, molecular biology, and other sources of information can help. Would you like to learn about some of it?

Um…the evidence is that they did not. I’m going from memory here, but I believe that this is common among mantids that are ambush predators, not cursorial or generalist hunters. DNA phylogenies indicate ambush predation evolved once, from which a major radiation of species evolved. There are certainly examples of males being taken by the larger females in other families of mantids, but I don’t know of one in which decapitation is necessary. However, copulation is managed in (all?) insects from a ganglion lower in the body, and it’s likely that it would work well in any case where signals from the ganglia in the head were eliminated.

I need to read up a bit and see what’s out there. I’m not an entomologist, and my primary interest when I studied it, was in the area of medical entomology and parasitology. Don’t know of any mantids involved in that sort of thing.

It is true God is a creator. Creating man in His own image implies design. Catholic teaching is that Adam and Eve had better bodies than we do now. Catholic teaching was that their behaviors were more pure. Corruption set in after the fall.

 

[drpmjhess]

It is true God is a creator. Creating man in His own image implies design. Catholic teaching is that Adam and Eve had better bodies than we do now. Catholic teaching was that their behaviors were more pure. Corruption set in after the fall.

Except that the mythological “Fall” was not an historical event in time, and therefore can be interpreted in a variety of interesting theological ways.

 

[buffalo]

Except that the mythological “Fall” was not an historical event in time, and therefore can be interpreted in a variety of interesting theological ways.

The Catechism states it is. Another heresy by our resident heretical theologian.

**390 **The account of the fall in *Genesis *3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.

 

[The_Barbarian]

It is true God is a creator. Creating man in His own image implies design.

No. You’re assuming that. God is not a little demiurge designer. He is the omnipotent Creator, who does not have to figure out things.

 

[edwest2]

God is a creator. The Bible tells us this.

God bless,
Ed

 

[drpmjhess]

The Catechism states it is. Another heresy by our resident heretical theologian.
**390 **The account of the fall in *Genesis *3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.

Heresy, schmeresy!

Buffalo, what was this event? When did it happen? Who was this mythical single pair, given that Alec has shown us that without a minimum hominid population of around 10,000 individuals, Homo sapiens would have encountered a fatal genetic bottleneck? Short of assuming a Young Earth position and rejecting the whole of biology, geology, and paleontology, how do you propose to reconcile the old catechism with what we know from science to be true?

Petrus
Heretics ‘R’ Us, Inc