Evolution and Darwin against Religion and God

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buffalo said:
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Bradskii:
Can Group A breed with Group B? No - they have lost the ability to breed with the evolving group.
Can Group B breed with Group A? No, They have lost the ability to breed with the group that is not evolving.
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LOL
Can Group A breed with Group B? No - they have lost the ability to breed with the devolving group.
Can Group B breed with Group A? No, They have lost the ability to breed with the group that is not devolving.
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I guess that you don’t realise that you are using your argument to prove your argument. It’s quite a tight little circle. You are using the term ‘devolving’, which you use to show that something has been lost, to show that something has been lost.

It’s exactly like saying: ‘They have lost the ability to breed with the group with which they have lost the ability to breed’.

If devolving is losing the ability to breed, then Group A losing the ability to breed with Group A/B is…?

Look at it this way. If Group A fails to evolve, they may go extinct. Evolution only occurs to benefit those evolved. It’s unidirectional. Group A is quite often losing an advantage that the other group has obtained. Talk to Lucy. She’ll tell you.

Standing still is
 
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I really shouldn’t even be involved in this thread, but there is no such thing as “devevolution”. Loss of interfertility is not a loss of function, it’s a loss, through a number of mechanisms, of fertilization to take place. Usually it’s chromosomal in nature; either mismatched chromosome numbers which interferes with meiosis when gametes are produced (rendering sperm and eggs unviable) or larger structural changes in the descendant population’s chromosomes, making even fertilization impossible.

Neither the parent or daughter populations necessarily lose any biological functions. Quite the opposite, some times daughter populations gain advantage through genetic change.
 
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niceatheist said:
Quite the opposite, some times daughter populations gain advantage through genetic change.
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Quite right. A point which Buff fails to understand. If a species evolves, it is for a reason. He misses the whole point of evolution. It is to ensure that those most fit survive. So if you have a species where some of them are evolving, it is only because the evolving species are being fitted to their environment.

So what does that mean for those who do not evolve? Who are NOT changing to best fit the environment?

Answer on a postcard to Bradskii c/o Catholic Answers Forum.
 
buffalo said:
The mistake you make it to think the site is only about evolution, though much of it is. It may take a while for you to realize the reason Penrose is quoted.

I will let him speak for himself:
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This is fallacious. The odds of you having the exact DNA you now have are even more remote. And yet, here you are. The odds of the universe being the way it is are astounding. And yet here it is. It is pointless to calculate the odds of something happening that has already happened–because no matter what the odds, it DID happen.
 
buffalo said:
Here is St Augustine on prime matter:
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This is precisely why you shouldn’t teach creationsim (or whatever name you currently call it) in schools.

From a strictly religious viewpoint, it’s interesting to hear St. Augustine’s musings. But he wasn’t a scientist, and even if he were, he’s about 1600 years behind! He belongs in religion class. Science belong in science class. They are (and should be) distinct.
 
LateCatholic said:
But Evolution does pose some interesting dilemmas in terms of Original Sin, most theories of the Atonement, the historicity of many historical religious figures, the Flood, and so forth.
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Only if you interpret the Bible literally. And doing so, although allowed, is NOT the general view of the Church. Again, see Dei Verbum and the Catechism.
 
Erikaspirit16 said:
This is fallacious. The odds of you having the exact DNA you now have are even more remote. And yet, here you are. The odds of the universe being the way it is are astounding. And yet here it is. It is pointless to calculate the odds of something happening that has already happened–because no matter what the odds, it DID happen.
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Yeah, that is the ol’ odds of 1 argument. The issue is what are the odds of the starting conditions being this precise.
 
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Erikaspirit16 said:
he’s about 1600 years behind! He belongs in religion class
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“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
― Robert Jastrow, [God and the Astronomers]
 
buffalo said:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsfs.2017.0015
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Interesting article, but you failed to quote the most relevant part from the introduction:

“The theory of evolution is the fundamental conceptual framework of biology all scientific explanations of living phenomena must be consistent with. As it does not describe a universal law regarding a single natural phenomenon, such as gravity, but rather the principles of organismal change over time, based on the highly complex (name removed by moderator)uts and interactions of a multiplicity of different factors, evolutionary theory cannot be expected to remain static but is subject to change in the light of new empirical evidence. This is a normal process of scientific advancement and not a heretical undertaking as it is sometimes perceived to be.”

Couldn’t have said it better.
 
I am trying to relate the terms mutation, micro evolution and macro evolution. Does this extended card game metaphor relate the terms as you have defined them.

mutation
a new 46 card hand resulting from the shuffling of the deck of cards (gene pool).
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micro evolution
a better hand than the last one based on where the game being played now (environment sensitive). If the game is now in the arctic then the “harrier” hand is better. If played in the tropics then the “harrier” hand is worse.
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macro evolution
a change in the deck of cards (either a new gene pool or a special shuffle which allows hands not possible before.)
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o_mlly said:
I am trying to relate the terms mutation, micro evolution and macro evolution. Does this extended card game metaphor relate the terms as you have defined them.

mutation
a new 46 card hand resulting from the shuffling of the deck of cards (gene pool).
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I guess it’s a reasonable analogy, just don’t carry it too far. Different taxonomical orders have varying rules on reproductive processes like meiosis. Arthropods like insects may have differing number of chromosomes based on sex, so trying to create general statements get tricky. But generally once reproductive isolation happens, geographical or genetic, that means gene flow between the two related populations all but stops, and the populations will evolve independently of each other. While there is still gene flow, even a very modest amount, it’s likely there won’t be a speciation event, though the population will still evolve, and speciation events happen more as the population’s genetic character changes. This may have been what happened with genus Homo. It seems clear that there was at least some interfertility between members of the genus, as evidenced by Neanderthal and Denosovian DNA in modern humans outside sub-Saharan Africa. Yet it is still probably reasonable to say that Neanderthals were a different species than modern humans, based upon pretty significant morphological differences.
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Bradskii said:
So what does that mean for those who do not evolve? Who are NOT changing to best fit the environment?
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In the real world, everything is fit for its environment, if not, it dies… end of story.
 
edwest211 said:
Communion and Stewardship disagrees.
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In what way? Communion and Stewardship expressly states that evolution is not incompatible with Catholic faith. It goes so far as to say that even if evolution appears to incorporate some random elements, it is still from God because all things are from God, and to the extent evolution is random it is because God made it so. I don’t see how that is at odds with what Erikaspirit is saying, or with modern evolutionary theory.
 
Science explicitly denies God a truly causal role. Communion and Stewardship mentions that:

“In continuity with previous twentieth century papal teaching on evolution (especially Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis ), the Holy Father’s message acknowledges that there are “several theories of evolution” that are “materialist, reductionist and spiritualist” and thus incompatible with the Catholic faith. It follows that the message of Pope John Paul II cannot be read as a blanket approbation of all theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which explicitly deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life in the universe. Mainly concerned with evolution as it “involves the question of man,” however, Pope John Paul’s message is specifically critical of materialistic theories of human origins and insists on the relevance of philosophy and theology for an adequate understanding of the “ontological leap” to the human which cannot be explained in purely scientific terms. The Church’s interest in evolution thus focuses particularly on “the conception of man” who, as created in the image of God, “cannot be subordinated as a pure means or instrument either to the species or to society.” As a person created in the image of God, he is capable of forming relationships of communion with other persons and with the triune God, as well as of exercising sovereignty and stewardship in the created universe. The implication of these remarks is that theories of evolution and of the origin of the universe possess particular theological interest when they touch on the doctrines of the creation ex nihilo and the creation of man in the image of God.”
 
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