Evolution

[reggieM]

Have another look at that:Today, there exist on earth BOTH Americans and Europeans. But if some Americans descended from Europeans, why do Europeans still exist?

I would hesitate to suggest that Americans are a more evolved species than Europeans.

The Darwinian idea is that one species had to evolve from its ancestor due to random environmental factors which along with random mutations allowed the new species to survive (by selecting the “more fit”).

If the ancestor species can survive quite well without having to evolve, then this refutes the concept of natural selection.

Humans evolved supposedly from apes because they were more fit for survival as humans rather than as apes. The concept is supposed to show that the ancestor went extinct and the new species survived with the new traits.

So, it’s a perfectly correct question to pose. Why did the ancestors not need to evolve? They survived quite well without having to become humans. In fact, apes have stayed the same since the beginning of recorded history. They eat the same things, do the same things, have the same intelligence.

They didn’t go extinct. Therefore, there was no need for them to evolve.

Another thought on the European-to-American transition … we can see that Europeans gave birth to Americans. But we do not see apes giving birth to human beings. They just give birth to apes.

 

[rossum]

Will humans eventually evolve into something non-human?

That depends on how you define “human” and “non-human”. Humans are certainly evolving; we are corrently evolving responses to HIV, malaria and the fat-rich western diet.

If species cannot mate with different species, how can evolution be possible?

Firstly many new plant species are produced by hybridizing two existing species. Plant geenetics is not the same as animal genetics.

Secondly, most new species branch off existing species. A common scenario is that a small population of the old species becomes isolated and develops a new characteristic. That may result in the origin of a new species. Answers in Genesis have an example: Brisk Biters which covers the evolution of Culex molestus from an isolated population of Culex pipiens.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Exactly - please predict what we humans will evolve into. This challenge will be unanswered.

Evolution is a response to a changing environment. Please specify, in detail, exactly how the environment will change over the time period you are interested in. This challenge will be unanswered.

I will venture to predict that humans in malarial areas will continue to evolve responses to malaria.

rossum

 

[reggieM]

Evolution is a response to a changing environment. Please specify, in detail, exactly how the environment will change over the time period you are interested in. This challenge will be unanswered.

That does seem to be very good evidence that evolution is, indeed, a random process after all.

 

[buffalo]

Evolution is a response to a changing environment. Please specify, in detail, exactly how the environment will change over the time period you are interested in. This challenge will be unanswered.

I will venture to predict that humans in malarial areas will continue to evolve responses to malaria.

rossum

That would be adaptation. No one is arguing adaptation.

The planet gets colder.

 

[rossum]

An example: Bees. How can they recognize a flower?

By sight and smell, pretty much the same way we recognise a flower.

How do they know how to interact with it?

Detect food. Go to food. Eat food. Not that difficult really.

And the flower. How is it that it contains material useful to insects like bees?

Flowers that do not will not get pollinated and will have no seeds for the next generation. Flowers that do will get pollinated and will have seeds to produce a new generation. Evolution 101.

rossum

 

[reggieM]

That would be adaptation. No one is arguing adaptation.

The planet gets colder.

Since Darwinists cannot predict what will happen, it certainly makes me wonder what real use the theory has. It’s all about looking after the fact and claiming something evolved.

Additionally, the claims about how “evolution is not random” are easily refuted with this. Evolutionists cannot predict what environmental changes will occur – it’s as accidental and random as the weather itself.

Even if the environment could be predicted, nothing is said about what human beings will evolve into.

We’ve been trying to stay warm in the winter but we remain as susceptible to frostbite now as always.

 

[edwest2]

I think the idea that humans are still evolving is incorrect. If you look at photos of Chinese people living in northern China and compare them with those in the south, there are differences. Humans have built-in responses to changes in the environment. A sugar beet grown in ideal conditions can yield up to 60% sugar but most sugar beets yield less.

Improvement in diets, sanitation and medicine have increased life spans.

Peace,
Ed

 

[rossum]

I would hesitate to suggest that Americans are a more evolved species than Europeans.

Correct, it is the other way round.

The Darwinian idea is that one species had to evolve from its ancestor due to random environmental factors which along with random mutations allowed the new species to survive (by selecting the “more fit”).

You are omitting natural selection, which is a non-random process.

If the ancestor species can survive quite well without having to evolve, then this refutes the concept of natural selection.

The ancestor species is normally well adapted to its environment. Speciation tends to happen when either the environment changes or a sub-population moves into a different environment. “Living fossil” species tend to live in very slowly changing environments so they do not need to evolve very much to remain adapted to their environment.

Humans evolved supposedly from apes because they were more fit for survival as humans rather than as apes. The concept is supposed to show that the ancestor went extinct and the new species survived with the new traits.

Chimpanzees are adapted for a forest environment with lots of trees. A chimp can climb a tree a lot faster than you can. Humans are adapted to a plains environment with few trees. We can run over clear ground faster than a chimp and we are more efficient walkers. Chimps’ ancestors stayed in forests while our ancestors moved out onto the plains and became adapted to the new environment.

So, it’s a perfectly correct question to pose. Why did the ancestors not need to evolve?

The question is reasonable, though the use of “need” is incorrect. Evolution adapts a population to its environment. Because our ancestors moved from a forest to a plains environment evolution adapted them to the new environment.

They survived quite well without having to become humans. In fact, apes have stayed the same since the beginning of recorded history. They eat the same things, do the same things, have the same intelligence.

Recorded history is a very short time in ape generations. We have fossils of many extinct ape species.

Another thought on the European-to-American transition … we can see that Europeans gave birth to Americans. But we do not see apes giving birth to human beings. They just give birth to apes.

In scientific terms humans are apes - we are members of the Hominidae. My parents were apes and I am an ape. Apes do give birth to humans every time a human is born.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.” Stephen Jay Gould

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Correct, it is the other way round.

Chimpanzees are adapted for a forest environment with lots of trees. A chimp can climb a tree a lot faster than you can. Humans are adapted to a plains environment with few trees. We can run over clear ground faster than a chimp and we are more efficient walkers. Chimps’ ancestors stayed in forests while our ancestors moved out onto the plains and became adapted to the new environment.

rossum

How come humans don’t look like baboons then? Baboons don’t live in trees.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.” Stephen Jay Gould

It’s a very shaky “science”.

 

[reggieM]

Because our ancestors moved from a forest to a plains environment evolution adapted them to the new environment.

There are human beings who have always lived in forest or jungle environments though. They are the same as other human beings who live in mountains, plains, tundra or deserts.

Additionally, when we look at the difference between humans and apes, saying that it’s just a matter of “modifications” due to environmental adaptations radically understates the differences.
In Catholic terms, we’d say that humans are on a different order of being than apes are. This is true of humans who live in every environment.

In scientific terms humans are apes - we are members of the Hominidae. My parents were apes and I am an ape. Apes do give birth to humans every time a human is born.

That may be the correct scientific terminology (I wouldn’t question that), but I find it an inhuman (perhaps a good pun) way to think about things.

Scientists may wonder why there is a significant part of the population that has a true aversion to the scientific culture – and there are many who are opposed to science itself.

Scientists who go around claiming “apes give birth to human beings” (as I’m sure many scientists would) are simply insulting people.

They will claim “you shouldn’t be insulted by the truth”.

But people will recognize that it is not the truth.

For a scientist to claim that “a human being is an ape” and “an ape is a human being” is to prove that he or she does not know what a human being is or what an ape is.

If it takes an advanced degree in science to understand the “truth” that human beings are actually apes, then it should be easy to see that the definition is a rhetorical one – based on arbitrary distinctions.

If it is true that scientists cannot understand the ontological difference between human beings and apes though – then we shouldn’t be surprised by the sometimes-hostile reaction people have against scientists.

I would encourage such responses myself because the consequences of defining human beings as “apes” are extremely damaging, as I see it.

(This rant is not directed at you, but at “the way things are” in the culture today).

 

[CHRISTINE77]

There are human beings who have always lived in forest or jungle environments though. They are the same as other human beings who live in mountains, plains, tundra or deserts.

Additionally, when we look at the difference between humans and apes, saying that it’s just a matter of “modifications” due to environmental adaptations radically understates the differences.
In Catholic terms, we’d say that humans are on a different order of being than apes are. This is true of humans who live in every environment.

That may be the correct scientific terminology (I wouldn’t question that), but I find it an inhuman (perhaps a good pun) way to think about things.

Scientists may wonder why there is a significant part of the population that has a true aversion to the scientific culture – and there are many who are opposed to science itself.

Scientists who go around claiming “apes give birth to human beings” (as I’m sure many scientists would) are simply insulting people.

They will claim “you shouldn’t be insulted by the truth”.

But people will recognize that it is not the truth.

For a scientist to claim that “a human being is an ape” and “an ape is a human being” is to prove that he or she does not know what a human being is or what an ape is.

If it takes an advanced degree in science to understand the “truth” that human beings are actually apes, then it should be easy to see that the definition is a rhetorical one – based on arbitrary distinctions.

If it is true that scientists cannot understand the ontological difference between human beings and apes though – then we shouldn’t be surprised by the sometimes-hostile reaction people have against scientists.

I would encourage such responses myself because the consequences of defining human beings as “apes” are extremely damaging, as I see it.

(This rant is not directed at you, but at “the way things are” in the culture today).

Yes, and it is really stupid to teach it in grade school. Most children don’t have critical thinking skills. They just believe everything their teacher says, without wondering if it really makes sense or not, so they can get a good grade on the test. It’s a super easy way to indoctrinate the next generation. Until I really thought about it, I just accepted evolution because I was taught it in school. But now it seems preposterous, and you’re right, if it’s so difficult for the average joe to understand, it’s pretty stupid to think they would accept it. Also, evolution theory is not a pure science, like mathematics or physics. It’s very speculative and there is very little tangible evidence for it.

 

[buffalo]

Huge Genome-scale Phylogenetic Study Of Birds Rewrites Evolutionary Tree-of-life

 

[rossum]

Huge Genome-scale Phylogenetic Study Of Birds Rewrites Evolutionary Tree-of-life

That would be more correct as: Large genome-scale rewrites a part of the tree of life but headline writers need to make it seem much more significant than it actually is in order to sell more advertising. You seem to be reading too much into a headline. The article itself is more accurate. To quote:The largest ever study of bird genetics has not only shaken up but completely redrawn the avian evolutionary tree.
[Emphasis added]
All other parts of the evolutionary tree, more than 95% of it, remain unchanged. Only the birds have been rearranged; mammals, insects, crustaceans, molluscs, bacteria, archaea, protists, plants, fungi etc. are all unafected.

Genome sequencing is relatively new so we are still working our way through all the existing species applying the new technique. The new tree is more accurate than the old tree.

rossum

 

[rossum]

There are human beings who have always lived in forest or jungle environments though.

Evidence please. We have no fossils at all of early Homo from forest environments. We do have fossils of early Homo from plains environments. Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion?

They are the same as other human beings who live in mountains, plains, tundra or deserts.

No. Humans who live in mountains are adapted to high altitude living and can cope with the thin air at altitude better than plains dwellers. Please check your facts before making incorrect assertions. Errors are not a good way to convince scientists of anything. See An Ethiopian pattern of human adaptation to high-altitude hypoxia for details.

That may be the correct scientific terminology (I wouldn’t question that)

It is.

For a scientist to claim that “a human being is an ape” and “an ape is a human being” is to prove that he or she does not know what a human being is or what an ape is.

No, it just means that the scientist is using a scientific shorthand, where “ape” means “member of the Hominidae”. In non-scientific circles “ape” means “all members of the Hominidae except humans”. There is no great issue here, just a different definition of the same word in different contexts.

If it takes an advanced degree in science to understand the “truth” that human beings are actually apes,

No, it takes a few seconds on google: “Hominidae”.

(This rant is not directed at you, but at “the way things are” in the culture today).

Evolution is part of science. When discussing evolution it is better to use scientific terminology. Yes, this does mean that you will have to study some biology in order to be able to talk sensibly about the subject. Studying biology will also help you to avoid mistakes like not realising that some humans are adapted to living at high altitudes.

rossum

 

[Church_Militant]

“often err”? That is simply not true. And they should do so. Pope John Paul II defined the correct relationship between science and religion.

“Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.”

If truth cannot contradict truth it must flow in both directions. Men of science need to be at least cognizant of other areas of reason that we human beings still need.

God bless,
Ed

This is a misinterpretation of what His Holiness means.

He means that when science does its job…in its own field that the scientific facts shed needed light onto areas where religion needs it.

He further rightly means that religion (again in their own field) actually speaks to those moral issues that must guide science away from the idolatry of science for its own sake which is essentially amoral.

 

[reggieM]

Evidence please. We have no fossils at all of early Homo from forest environments. We do have fossils of early Homo from plains environments. Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion?

query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804E4DC173BF931A25754C0A9679C8B63

Of particular importance, experts on human origins say, is the evidence that these early hominids lived in a relatively wet and cool **forest **because the prevailing theory had been that hominids evolved in grasslands after forests disappeared. The forest was a hostile environment of shifting terrain, exploding volcanoes and menacing lava flows.

 

[edwest2]

Incorrect. The Church has its own Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Science does not dictate to the Church. And since science cannot recognize what is contained in the deposit of faith, it is narrow and incomplete regarding the full truth. That is one of the purposes of this forum. When the mind of man is exalted above God, that is idolatry. When science draws inferences from its studies and presents those inferences as facts in opposition to the deposit of faith, especially as it regards man’s true identity, it is simply wrong. It is serving an ideological, not a scientific purpose. Claims have been made that science cannot demonstrate - no God being one of them.

God bless,
Ed