Genesis v Evolution

[drpmjhess]

Well Petrus, as you might expect from my posts, I am quite set against dualism - I believe strongly in the unity of body and mind. Alec

Dualism has been a scourge of western thought for many centuries. It’s interesting that the Hebraic turn in theology has coincided with a more unified philosophical anthropology of the human person in the twentieth century, particularly “emergentism” which considers the properties emerging from increasing neural endowment. Rather than disembodied human “souls” being endowed with natural immortality – some floating to a “heaven” and others to a “hell” – theology can focus constructive attention on an eschatology involving the renewal of all creation.
Petrus

 

[drpmjhess]

Sorry – I must have missed you point. Can you please restate it?

 

[mich2]

If by your “assertion”, you mean your view that novel alleles come about in a population by means other than random mutation (and I include recombination in this), then I think you *are *wrong.

I have found an internet site which speaks of the issue; maybe you can help me understand a little better.
surrey.ac.uk/qe/Outline.htm

Within the article, it reads,:

Quantum Evolution

We have all been brought up on the neodarwinian synthesis of Darwinian natural selection with Mendelian genetics that states that the only significant lifestyle change to befall any microbe – mutations – are entirely random. The dogma states that mutations provide the raw material for evolution but natural selection provides the direction of evolutionary change. This dogma has been the central plank of evolutionary theory for nearly a century. But is it always true?

It seems to start by questioning whether mutation can be said to be random.

it continues…

**Cells may enter quantum states when they are unable to divide and replicate – perhaps they can’t utilise a particular substrate in their environment. They may collapse out of those quantum states when their DNA superposition includes a mutation that allows them to grow and replicate once more. In this way the environment interacts with, and performs a quantum measurement on the cell, to precipitate advantageous mutations. **

from this, a theoretical implication is made:

**From our viewpoint, inhabiting only one universe, the cell appears to ‘choose’ certain mutations. **

From what I understand it claims that life interacts with the environment through Quantum measurments making it seem as if it appears to choose certain advantageous mutations. This is more metaphysical in essence than simply a scientifical implication (in my opinion), and to advance the hypothesis a bit further in claiming hypothetically that the cell not only “appears to choose” but does indeed choose to mutate towards an advantageous environmental situation ought not to be viewed as being delusional.

It then goes on to explain the evidence:

Cairns examined bacteria that were deficient in their ability to utilise the milk sugar lactose. When he exposed these bacteria to conditions in which lactose was the only food source, they starved. The cells did not die but instead went into a kind of suspended animation state, called dormancy. Dormancy was a well-known phenomenon so Cairns was not surprised to find that his bacteria managed to survive in this state for many weeks. What did come as a surprise was the discovery that, after a lag period of a day or two, several of his bacterial cells managed to grow and replicate. These replicating cells had acquired a mutation that allowed them to feed on the lactose. What was even more surprising was his observation that the cells only acquired these lactose-eating mutations when lactose was available.

Now, the last statement

What was even more surprising was his observation that the cells only acquired these lactose-eating mutations when lactose was available.

… seems to agree with the assertion that the eyes evolved because light first needed to exist.

Andre

 

[hecd2]

I have found an internet site which speaks of the issue; maybe you can help me understand a little better.
surrey.ac.uk/qe/Outline.htm

Within the article, it reads,:

Quantum Evolution

We have all been brought up …But is it always true?

It seems to start by questioning whether mutation can be said to be random.

it continues…

**Cells may enter quantum states … **

from this, a theoretical implication is made:

**From our viewpoint, inhabiting only one universe, the cell appears to ‘choose’ certain mutations. **

From what I understand it claims that life interacts with the environment through Quantum measurments making it seem as if it appears to choose certain advantageous mutations. This is more metaphysical in essence than simply a scientifical implication (in my opinion), and to advance the hypothesis a bit further in claiming hypothetically that the cell not only “appears to choose” but does indeed choose to mutate towards an advantageous environmental situation ought not to be viewed as being delusional.

It then goes on to explain the evidence:

Cairns examined bacteria …What was even more surprising was his observation that the cells only acquired these lactose-eating mutations when lactose was available.

Now, the last statement

What was even more surprising was his observation that the cells only acquired these lactose-eating mutations when lactose was available.

… seems to agree with the assertion that the eyes evolved because light first needed to exist.

Andre

This is all reasonably sensible stuff dating back to 1999 that attempts to explain how Hall’s and Cairn’s directed mutations could arise if we consider the cell to be a quantum particle in superposition (although I do think that the idea that cells enter a state of superposition only when they are starving is a little bizarre - most people would say that the suspension of metabolism is a classical effect promoted by enzymes and cell signalling - and nothing to do with quantum superposition).

But I don’ t think that these explanations are needed. More recent work by Patricia Foster who worked with Cairns (see Foster, Adaptive Mutation in E coli, Journal of Bacteriology, August 2004, p. 4846-4852)
has shown that although the mutational rate goes up when bacteria are starving on a novel substrate, the rate of the beneficial mutation does not go up any more than similar mutations nearby on the genome - there is no “direction” going on.(Quote from the paper:“Fairly early on in our studies, Cairns and I eliminated the hypothesis that mutations were “directed” toward a useful goal.”) It is not true that the cells only acquire the appropriate mutation when lactose is available - it is true that the mutation only fixes and spreads when lactose is available (but that is natural selection in action). The fitness landscape is obviously different depending on which substrate the bacteria grow. In the same way that the most primitive precursor to eyes, a light sensitive patch, would not have been conserved if light had not been available (and animals that adapt to live in darkness often lose their sight and end up with vestigial eyes) - the fitness landscape favours sight if light is available but not in the dark.

I wouldn’t say that “eyes evolved because light first needed to exist” - I would say: “eyes evolved because light exists and eyes confer a fitness advantage”

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Orogeny]

I’m not sure why salvation is only for humans, except because it was humans who wrote the Bible and the Nicene Creed (“for us men and for our salvation”).

Well, once we find a Bible or Creed written by some other species, I will include them in my statement. Until then, I have absolutely no reason to believe that salvation is not only for humans.

I think God is far bigger than our puny, anthropocentric conceptions allow, and She/He probably has eschatological plans for the rest of the universe more significant than merely tossing it on the creational cutting room floor!

That has, in my mind, nothing to do with salvation. The fact that salvation is available only to humans also carries the burden of acknowledging that we are also the only species that needs salvation and can, in fact, be damned. I don’t believe that other species run the risk of damnation, so no salvation is necessary. I think that exlcudes them from being tossed to the creational cutting room floor.

Peace

Tim

 

[Orogeny]

Hi Tim,

You never fail to amaze me, YOU are always RIGHT! One of the brightest of the bunch. Where is PHIL? !!!

Consider me your sister.

Peace to you, little brother

HA!!! I need to show this post to my wife!!!

Peace

Tim

 

[mich2]

This is all reasonably sensible stuff dating back to 1999 that attempts to explain how Hall’s and Cairn’s directed mutations could arise if we consider the cell to be a quantum particle in superposition (although I do think that the idea that cells enter a state of superposition only when they are starving is a little bizarre - most people would say that the suspension of metabolism is a classical effect promoted by enzymes and cell signalling - and nothing to do with quantum superposition).

Whether the mutations are aquired by quantum superimposed states or cell signalling, it seems that mutations are due to the cell being interactive with it’s environment, and are not accidentally random. Such a process of evolution seems to fit an intelligent design doesn’t it?
Again, by intelligent design, we need not to speak of Divine cause, but at least a driving force existing, enabling life to interact with the universe in a greater manner.Such a process has a direction and purpose, the purpose being life’s interaction with the universe, and the direction being towards an increasingly complex manner, where humans come to develop the capacity to contemplate upon itself.
Now while one might state the chemical reactions involved seem random, if one looks at the process holistically, then the processes develop in a way to have a direction and purpose.
I’ve read that physicists have implimented a cosmological constant responsible for accelerating the expansion of the universe without having a clue as to why it could be, but accepts it on the grounds that observation point towards such a direction. Do we not have enough evidence to at least hypothize that the evolutionary force has a direction and a purpose?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

Andre

 

[buffalo]

I am sorry, but you seem to be missing the point rather badly.

All you have done here is to repeat your original assertion in its original form. This does nothing to resolve the dilemma that results from accepting your assertion.

Let me break it down into small simple steps in a different way in the hope that you understand the issue.

1. Either the church has infallibly declared the doctrine of EFAS or it hasn’t.
2. If it hasn’t, then Catholics are free to believe whatever they conscientiously hold on the subject. (This is a distinct possibility - you are far from establishing that EFAS is an INFALLIBLE doctrine - but let us suppose for the sake of argument that it is).
3. If it has, then either:
4. Infallible teachings can change
   OR
5. The current Church leadership are heretics

BECAUSE:

1. Currently, the Church does not teach that EFAS must be believed by all Catholics. And that, is simply a fact.

It is not necessary for the leaders of the Church to declare infallibly that EFAS is false in order for them to be deemed heretical provided EFAS has been declared infallibly. (It seems to me to utterly bizarre to have a system of belief in which authority is determined by precedence - but that is the scientist in me speaking and is not relevant to this argument). The current Church leadership promotes a heresy simply by teaching that it is acceptable for a Catholic to reject EFAS and accept biological evolution of the bodies of humans if EFAS were to be an eternally infallible doctrine of the Magisterium. In other words, the dilemma of points 4 and 5 of this mail applies to popes and senior members of the College of Cardinals from the 1950s to today, if we accept your assertion that EFAS is an infallible teaching of the Church.

You still haven’t replied to the simple question.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

Prove point 6.

 

[buffalo]

This all about the creation of the human soul, not about the creation of the human body (and specifically the creation of the female human body in the person of Eve), so it is quite irrelevant to this discussion.

Alec
evolutionpages.com/Mteve_not_biblical_eve.htm

Catholic theology affirms that that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention.

This statement is not talking about the soul.

 

[buffalo]

Nor will it ever be. It is science and not part of the faith.How can a Cardinal even suggest in a formal paper that humans evolved from a population and not be in direct conflict with the quote you posted? Your post stated: How does Cardinal Ratzinger’s document not directly contradict that statement which you are posting as an infallible proclamation by a pope?

I suggest that the statement by Pope Pelagius I is not considered an infallible statement or a dogma by the Church. If Pope Benedict doesn’t consider that to be either, then neither will I.

Peace

Tim

That has been my point for several years here on these boards. Something doesn’t square.

However, are Pope Benedicts statments infallible regarding this. Can we trash the Tradition and constant teaching of the Church? How could she so badly confuse Divine Revelation?

 

[hecd2]

Whether the mutations are aquired by quantum superimposed states or cell signalling, it seems that mutations are due to the cell being interactive with it’s environment, and are not accidentally random.

They are random with respect to fitness. In other words, when the bacteria are stressed all sorts of mutations occur randomly (as my quotation from Patricia Foster shows - the mutations are NOT directed). Those very few baterial cells that acquire a beneficial mutation (instead of a neutral or deleterious one), are then able to metabolise their substrate and happily return to a state of exponential growth.

Such a process of evolution seems to fit an intelligent design doesn’t it?

The process that actually occurs fits no Intelligent Design claim except in the sense that the laws of the Universe are such that in replicating entities, random variation and natural selection make the population, over time, more fit to the environment.

Again, by intelligent design, we need not to speak of Divine cause, but at least a driving force existing, enabling life to interact with the universe in a greater manner

.The driving force is natural selection.

Such a process has a direction and purpose, the purpose being life’s interaction with the universe, and the direction being towards an increasingly complex manner, where humans come to develop the capacity to contemplate upon itself.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here, but there is enough evidence from purely scientific studies to support the notion of self-organisation of matter, of which mutation and selection represents an important element. Nothing about these bacteria require us to create any metaphysical concept beyond the known properties of evolutionary biology.

Now while one might state the chemical reactions involved seem random, if one looks at the process holistically, then the processes develop in a way to have a direction and purpose.

If you look at any population, from bacteria to people, adapting to an environment through straightforward evolutionary biology, you can say the same. The random process is mutation, the directed process is selection.

I’ve read that physicists have implimented a cosmological constant responsible for accelerating the expansion of the universe without having a clue as to why it could be, but accepts it on the grounds that observation point towards such a direction.

I think you mean that we have no clue as to “what” dark energy could be.

Do we not have enough evidence to at least hypothize that the evolutionary force has a direction and a purpose?

The evolutionary process has a direction, which is that in a static fitness landscape, populations evolve more fitness over generations by the action of random mutation and natural selection (NS is NOT a random process). As for purpose, science has nothing to say about ultimate purpose.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

This statement is not talking about the soul.

Read it again
Alec

 

[drpmjhess]

Catholic theology affirms that that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention.

Buffalo, this is an Interesting idea. What would this intervention look like? Had we been there, would it have been observable? Would it have occurred at the quantum level, or the genetic level, or the neurological level? How would the first “human” be different after intervention from its “non-human” parents? Would it be a genetic mutation, or a larger cranial capacity

Chilean biologist Rafael Vicuna asserts that probably 70,000 years ago God infused a soul in to a “suitably prepared hominid.”
For theology the task is to articulate precisely what “infusion” means and what it involves.

Petrus

 

[hecd2]

Prove point 6.

The argument of an ostrich.

I have already pointed out that the current Church leadership accepts the possibility of human bodies evolving from pre-existing non-human life, so they cannot be teaching that EFAS is a required belief of Catholics. How can they if they say these things:

Humani Generis of Pius XII:
“For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter”

JPII: "Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.

Benedict: “While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution.”

It’s abundantly clear that the current Church leadership accepts at least the possibility that the scientific theory of evolution is correct, and, more importantly, does not teach that Catholics must believe EFAS.

Now can you prove that Benedict has taught and teaches that Catholics are required to believe that Eve was created historically and literally from the side of the sleeping adult Adam?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Abraxsis]

You cannot deny scientific fact of the world being older than 6,000 years. radio carbon-12 dating shows fossils to be millions of years old. The lack of “transitional” fossils is irrelevant because of this.

With that said it doesnt mean the Bible is wrong in what it says either. Science and religion go hand in hand. Science can tell you what is going on but religion tells you why. For example there are stories in the Bible that are not meant to be taken literally. Genesis may be one of those stories that has metaphorical meaning. Also, it is interesting to note that civilization as we would classify it today in text books began around the same time the Bible says the “world” was created. Perhaps it meant human civilization was created. All the prehistoric events and life had to have occured to make the world right for humans to live in. hasnt anyone ever thought of that?

 

[Orogeny]

That has been my point for several years here on these boards. Something doesn’t square.

I know, but you asked.

However, are Pope Benedicts statments infallible regarding this. Can we trash the Tradition and constant teaching of the Church? How could she so badly confuse Divine Revelation?

No, Pope Benedict has not spoken infallibly about this, but he clearly did contradict the statement from Pope Pelagius I. That leads me to believe that he (Pope Benedict) doesn’t think that Pope Pelagius’ statement is infallible teaching or church dogma.

Peace

Tim

 

[buffalo]

Buffalo, this is an Interesting idea. What would this intervention look like? Had we been there, would it have been observable? Would it have occurred at the quantum level, or the genetic level, or the neurological level? How would the first “human” be different after intervention from its “non-human” parents? Would it be a genetic mutation, or a larger cranial capacity

Chilean biologist Rafael Vicuna asserts that probably 70,000 years ago God infused a soul in to a “suitably prepared hominid.”
For theology the task is to articulate precisely what “infusion” means and what it involves.

Petrus

That’s what the Pope speaks about in “the ontological leap”.

Who prepared the suitable hominid and the question was aked before as to why particualr ones were chosen. (Could this relate to the chosen ones?)

 

[buffalo]

Now can you prove that Benedict has taught and teaches that Catholics are required to believe that Eve was created historically and literally from the side of the sleeping adult Adam?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

No I cannot. I cannot prove the current Popes have infallibly taught either way. So we are at a loggerheads.

But we must consider the constant teaching of the Church.

 

[buffalo]

I know, but you asked.No, Pope Benedict has not spoken infallibly about this, but he clearly did contradict the statement from Pope Pelagius I. That leads me to believe that he (Pope Benedict) doesn’t think that Pope Pelagius’ statement is infallible teaching or church dogma.

Peace

Tim

Perhaps the curect Pope did not research the past writings. Perhaps JPII didn’t either. One has to wonder if either had hashed this out as much as we have. Perhaps he is relying on the current academicians.

…69. The current scientific debate about the mechanisms at work in evolution requires theological comment insofar as it sometimes implies a misunderstanding of the nature of divine causality. Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that, if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality. A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (*Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is * both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles…It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).

 

[edwest2]

No, it is quite clear. God guides all processes. What is also clear is a desire to exclude God or any “intelligence” from evolution. It would damage the credibility of a long built up ideology that promotes God did not do it.

God did it. Period.

God bless,
Ed