Evolution! Did we come from monkeys?

[ScottH]

Orogeny:

So, that wasn’t a parody?

Nope,
Do you feel Genesis is a parody?

Without Genesis 3, there is no need for a savior, or even the first promise of one.

Benedict and I agree on this issue.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his homily delivered at St Peter’s Square during his inaugural Mass on Sunday 24 April 2005 said, “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.”

 

[ScottH]

Dear GOD!

I just realized something-

Me- “Joe Non-Catholict”- just pointed out how a Catholic Pope was clearly correct on a given theological subject.

…we are truly living in the end times!

 

[buffalo]

Steve Andersen:

Of course He could But He went through an awful lot of trouble to make the earth look exactly as if the sediments were laid down over billions of years so we better believe that if we know what’s good for us.

Science is only looking at the past through the lens of science which by definition is self limiting.

 

[buffalo]

Orogeny:

Good ol’ God the Trickster!

God is not a trickster for He cannot deceive or be deceived. However, our own arrogance can deceive us, so we must be careful in pronouncements about the past.

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

ScottH:

…Benedict and I agree on this issue.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his homily delivered at St Peter’s Square during his inaugural Mass on Sunday 24 April 2005 said, “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.”

Then Benedict and you and I agree. Evolution is neither casual nor meaningless.

 

[Steve_Andersen]

ScottH:

LOL- “get ye to a texbook”- Funny. Those same publishers are also saying in other texbooks …

No reason for strawman arguments
I of course meant a college level, peer reviewed, geology textbook

Just because grade school level texts in the soft sciences are subject to political monkey business is no reason to dismiss hard science texts. they are less subjective

….Read the study by John Baumgartner during his days at Los Alamos on this topic.

His model for runaway subduction only worked if he used artificial values for geological materials. It failed when real values were used

ScottH:

Also- ……. the coelacanth….
(There’s a big oops. I know the carnegie museum of natural history has since relegated their specimen to the unseen basement of their museum as apposed to admitting their display error- claiming it proof of evolution.)

:banghead:
You’re kidding with this right? That statement could only be made by someone without even a basic grasp of what evolution is.

Reptiles evolved from amphibians…does that mean there shouldn’t be frogs still around?

When they say that all land vertebrates are descended from coelacanth-like animals, that does NOT mean that each and every coelacanth evolved into a land vertebrate.

One way populations speciate is when they are isolated from each other. If a population of coelacanth found a niche with little or no pressure to adapt to they could have easily stayed relatively unchanged to the present. No big mystery there.

From turtles to cockroaches, there are many species that have been fairly stable for quite a while.

…… And we just see so many catastrophic floods creating sandstone burial today?

Yes, of course. Fluvial deposits are laid down every day and they will be sedimentary rocks in a few million years.

ScottH:

Look at the Hell Creek formation up against the rockies-

You’re just messing with me aren’t you? I know you aid your original post was “cut and paste” but you should read these things first. Of course fossil formation is more likely in flood plains! Under your theory they should be distributed everywhere evenly

Hells creek is an ordinary fluvial deposit. The geology is quite well known.

………Here’s what one scholar- Daniel C. Dennett-

A philosophy professor with no biochemical background

………Translation- “We may not know what we are talking about- but I have faith the Biblical Christians know even less… but there may be disagreements here with my calibration.”-

Of course there are disagreements on calibration!
What do you think science is?

Mitochondrial eve and Y chromosome Adam have been identified (curiously they are separated by about 100 k years so “Mommy’s baby Daddy’s maybe” has apparently been a way of live for some time )

………Go “slow burial” a chicken bone in the back yard. In two years, let me know if anything is even left, let alone a fossil….

Sigh

Are you somehow surprised that fossilization is a rare occurrence? Or that certain environments favor formation more than others? Is this supposed to be earth shattering news?

Did you even look at the link I gave you on the type of fossils and the various way they are formed?

Oh and for the record I was observing a pile of bones in my neighbor’s yard for a period of 10 years. They were slowly being buried under a nice think layer of leaves. They may well be in someone’s museum in a million or so years.

 

[Orogeny]

ScottH:

Nope,
Do you feel Genesis is a parody?

No, nor is it a science text. Genesis does a great job of explaining that God created everything. It does nothing to explain how He did it.

Benedict and I agree on this issue.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his homily delivered at St Peter’s Square during his inaugural Mass on Sunday 24 April 2005 said, “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.”

Then you and I and the Pope agree that God is the creator of everything.

The Pope, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, also issued this study:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html

Pay special attention to paragraphs 62-70. I agree completely with this document.

The problem I have with your post specifically is the geology part. You might want to learn a little geolgy if you want to use it as an argument for your beliefs.

Peace

Tim

 

[ScottH]

Joseph Bilodeau:

Then Benedict and you and I agree. Evolution is neither casual nor meaningless.

Nor is evolution proven, or witnessed.

The latest fad in science is the transition of velociraptor-like dinosaurs into birds. (So much so that the discovery channel now is placing “hairy feathers” on them.)

But heres the claim:

Some dinosaurs evolved into birds. Yet full blown birds that we find today are already found in the same strata as velociraptor?

So one species can mutate into an already existing species? Fascinating.

…and quite a jump in science fiction. Flight requires more than just wings. It also requires a cardiovasclar system and specialty organs - not to mention a certain thrust to weight ratio of the potenitally flying creature.

…and that all just happens by “chance mutations?”

Uh…sure.

Also- one of the main cruxes of evolution is that lesser species become higher species over time- or they die.

God claims that we have FALLEN, and are not “improving.”

One scale has us going UP, the other has us going down.

Despite evolutionary “slight improvements”- isnt it funny that no human has ever been reported to have broken the 120 year barrier that God put on our lifespans back in Genesis 6:3

And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.

---

(this despite many scientific advancements…technology…and new medicines.)

Guess we havent “evolved” to that point yet.

 

[Orogeny]

buffalo:

God is not a trickster for He cannot deceive or be deceived. However, our own arrogance can deceive us, so we must be careful in pronouncements about the past.

I am being careful. My acceptance of geology is based on a very large body of study by many, many others as well as my own study. The evidence is there. Unless God planted it to deceive us, we are not misinterpreting that which is plainly evident.

Peace

Tim

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

ScottH:

Nor is evolution proven, or witnessed…

Proven, of course not.

…and fundamentalist creationism (or whatever alternative idea you might favor) is?

Witnessed, well, science is the attempt to understand and explain phenomena that can be observed and measured. That’s as close to witnessing as science can get in this regard.

…and the witness to fundamentalist creationism (or whatever) is?

 

[buffalo]

Joseph Bilodeau:

Proven, of course not.

…and fundamentalist creationism (or whatever alternative idea you might favor) is?

Witnessed, well, science is the attempt to understand and explain phenomena that can be observed and measured. That’s as close to witnessing as science can get in this regard.

…and the witness to fundamentalist creationism (or whatever) is?

AHHHH! Now this essentially neutralizes both arguments. Now who you gonna call on? Revelation???

 

[wanerious]

ScottH:

Some dinosaurs evolved into birds. Yet full blown birds that we find today are already found in the same strata as velociraptor?

If so, then obviously it was not velociraptor that was the ancestor of birds, but some other older dinosaur species. What’s wrong with that?

So one species can mutate into an already existing species? Fascinating.

What is fascinating is your seemingly obstinate refusal to learn even the most basic science. Do you really think that these problems concern professional scientists? That you are the first to bring up these questions? A little humility might serve you well. It is far more likely that you have many basic errors of understanding than an entire population of very smart people who have devoted their lives to this profession have all failed to grasp what you apparently know so well.

Flight requires more than just wings. It also requires a cardiovasclar system

check

and specialty organs - not to mention a certain thrust to weight ratio of the potenitally flying creature.

What “specialty organs”? What is that certain thrust to weight ratio? Do all birds have the same ratio? Is it possible that some are better or worse at certain types of flying, or gliding, than others?

…and that all just happens by “chance mutations?”

Certainly not. It must be combined with the manifestly un-random pressures of natural selection.

Also- one of the main cruxes of evolution is that lesser species become higher species over time- or they die.

You misrepresent the science. Species only change to better compete and thrive. There are plenty of examples of “devolution”, or organisms becoming “simpler”, over time if it gives them some competitive advantage. You are clearly setting up a straw man. Here it is:

God claims that we have FALLEN, and are not “improving.”

One scale has us going UP, the other has us going down.

… and down it goes.

Despite evolutionary “slight improvements”- isnt it funny that no human has ever been reported to have broken the 120 year barrier that God put on our lifespans back in Genesis 6:3

Well, there was recently a French woman who lived to be 125. I don’t remember if she had died yet. Anyway, why would a longer lifespan necessarily be passed on to descendants? What competitive advantage is that? One may think of reasons to devalue longer-lived segments of society, since their descendants must care for them for a longer period of time.

 

[buffalo]

wanerious:

What is fascinating is your seemingly obstinate refusal to learn even the most basic science. Do you really think that these problems concern professional scientists? That you are the first to bring up these questions? A little humility might serve you well. It is far more likely that you have many basic errors of understanding than an entire population of very smart people who have devoted their lives to this profession have all failed to grasp what you apparently know so well.

What is really fascinating that these same scientists that have devoted their lifetimes have only a few pieces of a puzzle that is a thousand pieces and can declare they know what the complete puzzle looks like. Fascinating indeed. Humility would also serve them well. To understand what they know is the tip of the iceberg of scientific discovery and virtually nothing about the supernatural.

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

buffalo:

AHHHH! Now this essentially neutralizes both arguments…

No, it is merely a recognition that science is based on evaluation of available data, which may change. Very rarely can anything be defined so specifically from a scientific standpoint that future refinement of that understanding is not possible.

buffalo:

…Now who you gonna call on? Revelation???

The same process holds true with our understanding of Divine Revelation. It’s called Development of Doctrine.

 

[ScottH]

Joseph Bilodeau:

No, it is merely a recognition that science is based on evaluation of available data, which may change.

So its a “faith” unto itself then, is it not- or a guess? Admittedly- the data is very incomplete, yet surmises are made, and presented, and believed or not believed, yet known to be very incomplete.

Thats having a “faith” in something.
Joseph Bilodeau:

The same process holds true with our understanding of Divine Revelation. It’s called Development of Doctrine.

So you are equating secular science to something the Holy Spirit does? Development of doctrine? Hmmm… didn’t Luther develop a doctrine too? Yet how is he viewed on these forums?

Whats the message, Joe?

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

ScottH:

…The latest fad in science is the transition of velociraptor-like dinosaurs into birds. (So much so that the discovery channel now is placing “hairy feathers” on them.)…

This “fad” is probably at least partially due to recent discoveries of dinosaur fossils in China, which, while not birds nonetheless posessed feathers or featherlike structures, in an exceptionally good state of fosil preservation

amnh.org/science/specials/dinobird.html

 

[buffalo]

Joseph Bilodeau:

The same process holds true with our understanding of Divine Revelation. It’s called Development of Doctrine.

True enough. This is where it gets sticky - **DID WOMAN EVOLVE FROM THE BEASTS?
A DEFENSE OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

** The purpose of this paper is to defend a doctrinal thesis which is quite simple, very clear, very classical, but now very unpopular—not to say openly scorned and derided. I will argue that the formation by God of the first woman, Eve, from the side of the sleeping, adult Adam had, by the year 1880, been proposed infallibly by the universal and ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church as literally and historically true;**so that this must forever remain a doctrine to be held definitively (at least) by all the faithful. **I would express the thesis in Latin as follows:
***Definitive tenendum est mulierem primam vere et historice formatam esse a Deo e latere primi viri dormientis.***

 

[Orogeny]

buffalo:

True enough. This is where it gets sticky - DID WOMAN EVOLVE FROM THE BEASTS?
A DEFENSE OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

The purpose of this paper is to defend a doctrinal thesis which is quite simple, very clear, very classical, but now very unpopular—not to say openly scorned and derided. I will argue that the formation by God of the first woman, Eve, from the side of the sleeping, adult Adam had, by the year 1880, been proposed infallibly by the universal and ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church as literally and historically true;so that this must forever remain a doctrine to be held definitively (at least) by all the faithful. I would express the thesis in Latin as follows:

Definitive tenendum est mulierem primam vere et historice formatam esse a Deo e latere primi viri dormientis.

I believe this paper trumps that paper. Please read the very bottom of the document and note who approved it.

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html

(see paragraphs 62-70)

Peace

Tim

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

ScottH:

So its a “faith” unto itself then, is it not- or a guess? Admittedly- the data is very incomplete, yet surmises are made, and presented, and believed or not believed, yet known to be very incomplete…

We can know that the data we have are the data we have. We can not quantify the data we do not have in any absolute sense, so we cannot say whether our data are “very” incomplete or “slightly” incomplete, or whatever. Science is based on the data we have, not the data we haven’t.

ScottH:

…Thats having a “faith” in something…

Possibly, if that’s how you choose to define the word. One might say that one has “faith” that the chair one is sitting on will not suddenly change to a gaseous state of matter and drop the sitter down hard on his butt, because the available data suggests that the materials from which his chair is built have not been observed to behave this way under the conditions in which the sitter uses his chair. And your point is?

ScottH:

…So you are equating secular science to something the Holy Spirit does? Development of doctrine? Hmmm… didn’t Luther develop a doctrine too? Yet how is he viewed on these forums?..

I am pointing out that human understandings of natural knowledge are not dissimilar to human understandings of Divine knowledge. As co-Creator with the Father and the Son, it would not be incorrect to state that the Holy Spirit directs biological evolutionary processes together with the other two Persons of the Trinity. I am not aware of what contributions Martin Luther may have made to the field of biological evolution, nor what his qualifications in this field might have been.

ScottH:

…Whats the message, Joe?

As we do not know each other, I would appreciate it if you would extend me the courtesy of not presuming familiarity by taking uninvited personal liberties with my name.

 

[ScottH]

Joseph Bilodeau:

Possibly, if that’s how you choose to define the word. One might say that one has “faith” that the chair one is sitting on will not suddenly change to a gaseous state of matter and drop the sitter down hard on his butt, because the available data suggests that the materials from which his chair is built have not been observed to behave this way under the conditions in which the sitter uses his chair…

…As we do not know each other, I would appreciate it if you would extend me the courtesy of not presuming familiarity by taking uninvited personal liberties with my name.

Huge difference, Mr. Bilodeau- we can see a chair, but none of us has personally witnessed evolution.