Fossil Challenge Old Evolution Theory

[edwest2]

Appeal to reason? You mentioned faeries and angels, clearly suggesting I’m not reasonable.

All over the internet, on the atheist forums, the creation/evolution forums, and comments made by brights, free thinkers, secular humanists and others, I see the same pattern.

Clearly, a large scale plan to create universal acceptance for the Theory of Evolution is going on. Why? To educate people? The evidence is clearly to the contrary. One poster on one forum advocated “vicious [verbal] attacks” on all who resist the ToE.

This is the “by any means necessary” campaign that is to be waged daily, unabated, in perpetuity, but not for the truth, or evidence, but for a Naturalistic worldview in the ushering in of a Second Enlightenment.

Believe me, for quite some time I’ve been getting free college level answers to my questions. I do know what I’m talking about. But, apparently, I’m considered to be dumber than a teenager because I don’t understand ‘enough.’ It seems to me, as long as that teenager states “I believe,” then that’s all there is to it. As a matter of fact, while perusing a particular teenager’s biology textbook, I ran across the rather startling comment that bones proving certain things about evolution “will never be found.” An irrational, let’s predict the future comment if I ever saw one, and this from a public school book.

As a fellow human being, I’d like to mention that at some point your soul will be required of you. All of us will stand before the Creator of things.

I respect knowledge and science, but without God, these things can and will be misused.

God bless,
Ed

 

[KarenNC]

True, there are many things I could place my faith in, evolution being one of them. Faith is a gift and that gift has been given to me in Christ Jesus and my mother the Holy Catholic Church for how to follow Him.

I’m glad you have the gift of faith. Humans also have the gift of reason.

Did you bother to go to the link and see what it said? It is really very straightforward.

 

[hecd2]

Appeal to reason? You mentioned faeries and angels, clearly suggesting I’m not reasonable.

Indeed so, as fairies are at least as believable with just as much evidence as there is for dragons, gryphons, unicorns, amphisbaenae, basilisks, leviathans, mermaids. (As for angels - they are a formal part of the Catholic system of belief - you can lump them with fairies, leprechauns, obeah men, witches, witch doctors, the Green Man,. gremlins - or you can say that all these pagan beliefs are superstition and angels are part of the formal catholic belief system. Which is it?)

I notice that you have failed (surprise, surprise) to address my considered critiques of your claims. Here they are again, just so we don’t forget:

I think it’s unlikely that mutations are ‘directed’. In science we have found a little bit of evidence for directed mutations - the strongest provided by Barry Hall’s seeming evidence for directed hypermutation in starving bacteria, but subsequent work has shown that the mutations were undirected. See also work by John Cairns and Patricia Foster. I can give you a full list of references for this work, except that I know you won’t look a single one of them up.I suspect that you don’t even know what I’m talking about.

Can you explain, with references, why you think that we need an INFINITE number of mutations for evolution to work.

You made a modestly good critique, if your population is 4 animals (it has many other problems but the population of four trumps all other errors), but most viable populations are tens of thousands. Are you saying that in a population of 100,000 animals there is no variation of coat thickness and therefore none that have a thicker coat? Did you know that you carry about three viable mutations in your protein encoding genome, and do you also realise that individuals can have variations in more than one characteristic? Your idea about how evolution works is grotesquely wrong

It seems that you are full of rhetoric, but when it comes to discussing specific scientific concepts you are nowhere to be seen.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[KarenNC]

As a matter of fact, while perusing a particular teenager’s biology textbook, I ran across the rather startling comment that bones proving certain things about evolution “will never be found.” An irrational, let’s predict the future comment if I ever saw one, and this from a public school book.

Do you still have access to the book? Without context (such as a full citation of exactly what the book said, not just a single phrase), it’s impossible to tell if that is an “irrational” comment. Not every change is going to show up in bone structure because not every change is related to the bones, so no, in that case the “bones” showing it “will never be found.”

 

[edwest2]

Hello Alec,

You are simply following the pattern I’ve seen so many times on different forums. Clearly, the goal is not science but the furtherance of atheism. My beliefs are at issue here, not science.

Since the genetic changes are undirected, yes, you would need an infinite number to finally arrive at something that the animal in question would need, much less novel body parts/organs. A bit of simple math and random number generation factoring in neutral and detrimental mutations, and the possibility of an extinction event should the “needed” mutation not arrive in time. Also factor in a dynamic environment with predators, weather, risk of accidents and disease.

It is very simple really. As I wrote before, that I simply believe is the goal, not science. I fear God, but I do not fear evolution.

God bless,
Ed

 

[hecd2]

Since the genetic changes are undirected, yes, you would need an infinite number to finally arrive at something that the animal in question would need, much less novel body parts/organs. A bit of simple math and random number generation factoring in neutral and detrimental mutations, and the possibility of an extinction event should the “needed” mutation not arrive in time. Also factor in a dynamic environment with predators, weather, risk of accidents and disease.

As I thought. It’s rather peculiar that population geneticists and evolutionary biologists who spend a lifetime studying this stuff in minute detail don’t think that one needs an infinite number of mutations to arrive at something useful, whereas you, who know less than nothing about the subject (cf your silly example with a population of four) think that one does. I knew that you wouldn’t be able to give me a single respectable reference for your wrong idea. In fact, this idea is one that you have made up yourself, from personal incredulity, and you cannot defend it either theoretically or empirically. In fact, it is patent nonsense.

It is very simple really. As I wrote before, that I simply believe is the goal, not science. I fear God, but I do not fear evolution.

That’s fine. You can believe whatever you like, with or without evidence. But you shouldn’t pretend you have a reasoned scientific argument against what you don’t believe a priori, when all you have, in fact, is an argument forged from ignorance.

Alec
wwwevolutionpages.com

 

[Steve40]

I should like you to suggest to me one proposition of science that you think is *proven, *ie shown to be true under all conditions beyond all doubt. (you won’t be able to - I will always be able to point to a condition under which any scientific proposition is doubtful). By the way, the word you are trying to use is empirical not emperical. As any other scientist, or any philosopher of science will tell you, conclusions based on empirical data can be far more tentative than theoretical conclusions.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

The conservation of energy is pretty well proven. It would be nice to point to a condition where this isn’t true. The energy has to come from some place and go someplace. Energy balance is a root understanding of many physical processes.

Thanks for the correction on empirical. The misspelling must have been due to my accent.

 

[MojeIme1981]

Are you saying that in a population of 100,000 animals there is no variation of coat thickness and therefore none that have a thicker coat? Did you know that you carry about three viable mutations in your protein encoding genome, and do you also realise that individuals can have variations in more than one characteristic?

this sounds like an explanation of how micro-evolution works. (small mutations are passed to further generations). Well no one is objection that. Creationists agree with it and they actually need micro-evolution for their theories as well. Micro-evolution can be proofed and observed virtually every day.

But “macro-evolution” is actually the stumbling religion here:
answersingenesis.org/docs2002/1022re2ch3.asp:
“…With such verbal sleights of hand [using micro-evolution to proof macro-evolution], evolutionists gloss over their complete lack of evidence for so-called ‘macroevolution.’ Their supposed ‘evidence’ doesn’t speak for itself; it must be interpreted…”

 

[hecd2]

The conservation of energy is pretty well proven. It would be nice to point to a condition where this isn’t true. The energy has to come from some place and go someplace. Energy balance is a root understanding of many physical processes.
quote]
Sure, in the classical world. Nevertheless, I told you that whatever you put forward, I could point to conditions in which your ‘proof’ would not necessarily hold:

1. Energy is not conserved in nuclear and nucleon reactions but mass-energy is (under some conditions)
2. In the quantum world, energy is not instantaneously conserved, for example during the life of virtual particles
3. In the ra[pid inflation of the universe driven by a scalar inflaton fields or a force with an equation of state -1

Basically it is not proven in the same way that we can prove that the angles in a Euclidean triangle sum to 180 degrees

Alec
http://www.evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

this sounds like an explanation of how micro-evolution works. (small mutations are passed to further generations). Well no one is objection that. Creationists agree with it and they actually need micro-evolution for their theories as well. Micro-evolution can be proofed and observed virtually every day.

I was merely responding to someone else claiming that evolution could never explain thicker coats because one would need an infinite number of mutations. At least you don’t agree with that person’s garbage.

macro

-evolution" is actually the stumbling religion here:
answersingenesis.org/docs2002/1022re2ch3.asp:
“…With such verbal sleights of hand [using micro-evolution to proof macro-evolution], evolutionists gloss over their complete lack of evidence for so-called ‘macroevolution.’ Their supposed ‘evidence’ doesn’t speak for itself; it must be interpreted…”
If you get your opinions from the truly appallingly bad Answers in Genesis website, then you are bound to be misled. Evidence for evolution as an explanation for species diversity (macro-evolution if you wish) is vast and includes the fossil record, biogeography, nested hierarchy of species, cladistics, evo-devo, molecular biology, molecular homology, transposable elements, cell biology, population genetics, - I can go on and on. The evidence speaks for itself so clearly that the only people who oppose the idea are those who have decided, a priori, because of their religious beliefs,that they are not prepared to accept the evidence.

And let me ask you this. Since you accept small evolutionary change, can you a) propose an exact limit to how far those changes can go, and b) propose a natural mechanism that limits the change at whatever level you have suggested in a)?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Pauli]

Does Evolution ever consider the question of why there is anything in existance at all? Why is there a Universe? Why an earth? Why humans, or any life? Where did everything come from?

Evolution has no god, just chance, random, a “thing,” that made it all.

But if God is the one who created all this and keeps it in being, it’s a different story, a much more beautiful one.

 

[Steve40]

Steve40;2581613:

The conservation of energy is pretty well proven. It would be nice to point to a condition where this isn’t true. The energy has to come from some place and go someplace. Energy balance is a root understanding of many physical processes.
quote]
Sure, in the classical world. Nevertheless, I told you that whatever you put forward, I could point to conditions in which your ‘proof’ would not necessarily hold:

1. Energy is not conserved in nuclear and nucleon reactions but mass-energy is (under some conditions)
2. In the quantum world, energy is not instantaneously conserved, for example during the life of virtual particles
3. In the ra[pid inflation of the universe driven by a scalar inflaton fields or a force with an equation of state -1

Basically it is not proven in the same way that we can prove that the angles in a Euclidean triangle sum to 180 degrees

Alec
http://www.evolutionpages.com

So basically you are saying if we can’t see it, observable and repeatable we can’t prove it. Just because the source or disapation of energy can not be observed it does not mean that it doesn’t occur. We have to have faith. For those who believe in evolution faith must come easily.

 

[edwest2]

God created all things.

God bless,
Ed

 

[dixieagle]

I can’t understand why people want to be Catholics and Evolutionists at the same time. They are incompatible religions. You have to reject Genesis completely to accept the latest Evolutionary theology.

Evolutionism is just an explanation for creation without a Creator. If you have enough faith to believe in evolution, what do you need God for? Evolution is NOT science. If it were science, it wouldn’t constantly be revising its theology as new discoveries prove it wrong.

Imagine if the Catholic Church were to continually revise its beliefs. How much credibility would it have? How can any of you believe in the fairy tale of evolution? Do you really think your ancestors were some kind of apes?

The fact that there are churchmen who apparently believe this nonsense is a result of Modernism. Papal Encyclicals warn against Modernism and the novelties it introduces. The problem with these churchmen is that they have lost their faith. Because they have lost the foundation of their faith, they are ready to fall for anything.

OK - I’ve read about all the baloney I can stomach about Catholics who accept evolution being deluded, etc. My son-in-law is a brilliant young evolutionary biologist AND a lifelong, devout and extremely active Catholic, as is our daughter. He shakes his head when good Catholic people make statements denying the possibility of evolution and display mind-blowing …ignorance, for lack of a less inflammatory word. He refers to evolution as "God’s ‘modus operandi’ which makes eminently good sense to me.

I simply do not understand why Christian people work themselves into such a dither about this subject. If one has real faith it is completely irrelevant what scientists discover, unearth, theorize. We try so hard to put limits on God to make his creation conform to what our puny minds can grasp.

There’s a lot of being “more Catholic than the Pope” surrounding this issue. If the Holy Father doesn’t condemn belief in the theory (btw, in scientific usage, “theory” does not mean the same as “hypothesis”, or “just a guess” but something that explains certain facts based on careful observation, experimentation and reasoning, and has come to be generally accepted) then why all the angst?

As Catholics, we must believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, but we are in no way bound to accept the total literalness of it. The six “days” of creation could be six nanoseconds or six eons - it is truly not important if we simply believe that God is the Prime Mover.

 

[Steve40]

There’s a lot of being “more Catholic than the Pope” surrounding this issue. If the Holy Father doesn’t condemn belief in the theory (btw, in scientific usage, “theory” does not mean the same as “hypothesis”, or “just a guess” but something that explains certain facts based on careful observation, experimentation and reasoning, and has come to be generally accepted) then why all the angst?

As Catholics, we must believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, but we are in no way bound to accept the total literalness of it. The six “days” of creation could be six nanoseconds or six eons - it is truly not important if we simply believe that God is the Prime Mover.

The problem is if we accept what is not proven over Scripture you can accept anything that is not proven over Scripture and be lead into modernism. Until it is proven we should just take the Bible at God’s word. It is a wise and old rule dating back to St. Augustine.

 

[MojeIme1981]

…only people who oppose the idea are those who have decided, a priori, because of their religious beliefs,that they are not prepared to accept the evidence.

I say exactly the same for evolution-believers.

And let me ask you this. Since you accept small evolutionary change, can you a) propose an exact limit to how far those changes can go, and b) propose a natural mechanism that limits the change at whatever level you have suggested in a)?

Actually on AiG (answersingenesis.org/tj/v5/i1/kind.asp) more times was stated that the term micro-evolution is misleading. The reason why I didn’t object to your coat-thickness example is because this is the kind of change for which probably can easily be proven that it is just a variation within the existing genetic-pool of the observed kind. No new information is added.

now I will just make some citations from the above page:

“…By saying ‘we [creationists] accept micro but not macroevolution’ we risk reinforcing the perception that the issue is about the amount of change, which it is not. It is about the type of change…”

“…Microevolution, that is, a change, no matter how small, which is unequivocally the right sort of change to ultimately cause real, informationally ‘uphill’ change, has never been observed…”

“…Francisco Ayala (Associate Professor of Genetics, University of California), was quoted as saying:
… but I am now convinced from what the paleontologists say that small changes do not accumulate…”

“…We do not know of a single mutation giving such an increase in functional complexity. Probabilistic considerations would seem to preclude this in any case, or at least make it an exceedingly rare event, far too rare to salvage evolution even over the assumed multibillion year time span…”

“…The very small number of ‘beneficial’ mutations actually observed** are simply the wrong kind of change for evolution**—we do not see the addition of new sentences which carry meaning and information…”

read the full text for yourself.

 

[rossum]

The problem is if we accept what is not proven over Scripture you can accept anything that is not proven over Scripture and be lead into modernism. Until it is proven we should just take the Bible at God’s word. It is a wise and old rule dating back to St. Augustine.

The problem you have is that scripture itself is not “proven” in the sense you want. All scripture is interpreted by humans, and your interpretation of Genesis is one interpretation among many. Since the Pope has not mandated any particular interpretation of Genesis then your interpretation has no more authority than ony other Catholic’s interpretation.

By insisting on a YEC-style interpretation of Genesis you are in danger of turning non-Catholics such as myself away from Catholicism:“In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to be observed, as Augustine teaches. The first is, to hold to the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it if it be proved with certainty to be false, lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing.”

Summa
Your insistence on an unscientific interpretation of Genesis places obstacles in the way of scientists believing.

rossum

 

[edwest2]

Jesus Christ is the core of our faith. What did He do while on earth? Raised the dead, gave sight to the blind, commanded the wind. How does anyone “limit” God by saying He can do these things? How do we limit God by saying He cannot create the earth and populate it in six 24 hour days?

It is very relevant what scientists do since they can and have overstepped ethical and moral boundaries that speak to the value and dignity of all human life.

The insistence that I should accept evolution tells me it is a belief system that I must accept as if it were part of the Gospel. It is not and I will not accept it. Jesus Christ is more important than evolution, and if the basis of your faith requires a belief in evolution, ask yourself why.

Is it rational to believe that a man can turn water into wine? That the host and wine literally become the body and blood of Jesus Christ at every mass? And what do those who are anti-Christian want? Man’s Knowledge and Reason will save us, not your invisible man in the sky or your ancient book of myths. The next time you get an emotional high over the latest scientific discovery, or article in Nature, or archaeological dig, ask yourself which “truth” is more important to you.

“But you don’t understand, this is s-c-i-e-n-c-e, the font and source of all wisdom that will lead us into the beautiful tomorrow when man will be free of the delusion of superstition and irrational beliefs.”

Rational number 1) Evolution, which posits all life came from nothing. Which will lead to…
Rational number 2) No invisible man in the sky is needed for anything. Bow down to the knowledge of men.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, go to any forum on the internet, evolution is more important than anything you believe, and you must believe it or you will be attacked:
ignorant
willfully ignorant
cretard
IDiot
moron
fundamentalist
knows 1000 times more science than you do

The posts here are about spreading a belief system.

Have a look here: secularhumanism.org

God bless,
Ed

 

[Teflon93]

The posts here are about spreading a belief system.

God bless,
Ed

True, but it is also true that facts are facts and beliefs beliefs. The portion of evolution which is factual is greater than zero. Natural selection clearly does exist and is evident in biology. There have been many practical applications of it—say, racehorse breeding.

There are many who try to extend evolution beyond the factual, beyond the theoretical, to the metaphysical. Richard Dawkins is one. He is a materialist and an atheist and evolution is his theology.

Now, the fact that there are some significant number of Dawkinses out there doesn’t mean that facts about evolution are not facts. The sky is blue even if a lunatic says it is blue.

What separates Catholics from Luddites is we render unto Darwin what is Darwin’s and unto God what is God’s. It would be nice if more Darwinists refrained from casting Darwin as God, but it is not necessary.

 

[edwest2]

Is it a fact that the host and wine change into the body and blood of Christ at mass?

Horse breeding has nothing to do with evolution. The mixing of the genes means they are compatible creatures in the first place. Just as two humans of different ethnic types breed and the offspring has characteristics from both. The point is, the parents are human and the offspring will be human with traits from both parents.

God bless,
Ed