Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution True? Part Three

[Aloysium]

there’s no macroevolution going on today.

I think this is a very important observation.

I cannot understand any Catholic favouring the position that evolution, as a means of creation, continues today. It would according to the Darwinistic view. Of course it could always be God’s will to make it happen. The idea that God allowed secondary causes in themselves to bring about new and different types of living being leads to the conclusion that these processes would continue today. It seems wrong headed. While we are each of us created eternal and unique, with each animals and plant a new being in time, the path that creation has taken is to bring about a new creation through us. Having rejected our sonship at our beginning, we are now on a journey back, which entails the creation of a new mankind, in and through Jesus Christ.

Darwinism which has nothing to do with any of this, would have it that macroevolution is continuing to happen. Given the rarity and unlikelihood of humanity’s appearance in nature, and that everything in nature seeks equilibrium, Darwinism would predict a return to a previous hominid level.

The reality of random genetic mutation actually would result, as it does within us individually, in the gradual genetic decline in humanity which even sexual reproduction could not prevent as mutations grow in frequency and as variation, with fewer isolated populations, becomes more scarce, all this occurring in the far future, which is what we are talking about.

We all have different reasons for participating in this thread. For me it is to get a clearer handle on who we are, which speaks to our relationship with the world and with God. The nature of the creative process, the role, central or peripheral, of successive generations in the creation of new forms of life, and it’s final purpose are revealed in what is happening right now. As so very difficult as these may be to discern, thank you for addressing this point.

 

[Techno2000]

If you move from Florida to Minnesota the environment changes. If you move from the coast to inland the environment changes. There are already millions of different environments on earth today. All of those millions of different environments change throughout the year and they also undergo long-term change. You are not thinking through your arguments carefully enough.

If I move from Florida to Minnesota that’s a (1) environmental change, and how is that going to kill off my reproductive abilities ?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Techno2000:

LeafByNiggle:

perfectly clear and precise

If it was then I wouldn’t be saying it vague.

Sure you would.

I can’t argue microevolution, because it’s perfectly clear and precise. Why can’t macroevolution be the same way?Just admit there’s no macroevolution going on today.

Since macro evolution has been going on gradually throughout time, why should it suddenly stop today? If you are looking for an experiment that can be started and completed in one year to demonstrate macro evolution, of course no such experiment exists. Your emphasis on the word “today” implies just that sort of demand. It is an unreasonable demand. If you want to investigate a phenomenon that normally takes thousands of years to play out you have to be willing to consider evidence from thousands of years ago.

If I move from Florida to Minnesota that’s a (1) environmental change, and how is that going to kill off my reproductive abilities ?

If you were a creature that could not tolerate freezing temperatures, you would be too busy trying to stay warm to think about sex.

 

[Techno2000]

Yes. Any place where one species is expanding its range at the expense of a different, but similar species. In the UK, grey squirrels are expanding their range at the expense of red squirrels. AIUI coywolves are increasing in numbers, which is another example.

Ok… get to the part about whole new species being created, I’m excited to see a new animal evolution has made for us. :hugs:

 

[Techno2000]

Since macro evolution has been going on gradually throughout time, why should it suddenly stop today? If you are looking for an experiment that can be started and completed in one year to demonstrate macro evolution, of course no such experiment exists.

No, the clock started billions of years ago.How much more time is needed for man to see a new species that evolution has produced ?

 

[Techno2000]

If you were a creature that could not tolerate freezing temperatures, you would be too busy trying to stay warm to think about sex.

If it can’t have sex hows it going to evolve ?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Since macro evolution has been going on gradually throughout time, why should it suddenly stop today? If you are looking for an experiment that can be started and completed in one year to demonstrate macro evolution, of course no such experiment exists.

No, the clock started billions of years ago.How much more time is needed for man to see a new species that evolution has produced ?

If you are willing to consider the fossil record as evidence, that evidence has already been shown.

LeafByNiggle:

If you were a creature that could not tolerate freezing temperatures, you would be too busy trying to stay warm to think about sex.

If it can’t have sex hows it going to evolve ?

The ones who don’t have the mutation that permits them to live in freezing temperatures will not reproduce. If you are driving at the point that the mutation must have existed before they moved North, you are right. But only slightly. If an entire population is suddenly transplanted to a region where none of them can reproduce, then they will not evolve in time. They will just all die out. But if the move to the North was gradual enough and lasted over generations, small mutations that gave only a slight advantage in the cold will be amplified by natural selection. So by the time they get to Minnesota, they will all have what it takes to survive there.

 

[Techno2000]

they will all have what it takes to survive there.

But it takes millions of years for evolution to do anything, how’s that going to help any creature to survive the cold when it needs to be able to survive right from the start.

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

Genesis is literally true, but just as with everything we read, it requires interpretation. Your point might be better stated as “misinterpretation of Genesis” or “literalistic interpretation”, or more accurately I think, “traditional interpretation”.

As written Genesis contains scientific errors. It has the earth in existence before the sun and other stars. It has birds before land animals. It may be theologically true, but in scientific terms it has the level of knowledge expected from Iron Age scribes on the fringes of the major civilisations. For example, both the Egyptians and Babylonians were aware of more of the planets than are mentioned in the Bible.

rossum

It’s the truth understandable by anyone capable of language, from stone age man to the future, when our cutting edge science will be so much phlogiston, passed on from Adam by those who maintained that dialogue with God, modified as we became various cultures and finally written on papyrus. One has to be able to hear the truth to know it.

 

[Aloysium]

Since macro evolution has been going on gradually throughout time, why should it suddenly stop today?

Because God rested after the sixth “day”.

We also fell, and with us creation; and now things are corrupted and in a state of decay.
There is a Way out, or should I say, in.

I am amazed how ideologies prevent us from seeing things as they are. One has to be vigilant, hope and pray to be blessed in the graces of the Holy Spirit.

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

, it sounds like you are distorting the truth, allowing a lie to enter as a possibility by masking it by simply saying that God did this.

So you want us to acknowledge God’s role in creation but don’t like when say God did it? I don’t understand your objection. To me it’s like the apple and gravity example Ben mentioned.

Rather than simply making the claim that God created us, this means you and I both here communicating, using random mutation and natural selection, which is the essence of Darwinism, please explain what you mean, because it is a contradiction.

There is so much more and those processes are more what we see in what is adaptation today - survival within a process of devolution rather than acts of creation.

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

Just to make sure we’re talking about the same thing if we are to engage in a dialogue, I would require some acknowledgement that you do understand that the qualifications imposed by the Church on any theory of evolution, make the current scientific “theory”, that which is being taught in the schools, incompatable with our faith.

I guess that’s why Catholic Schools teach the scientific theory of evolution and not your theories, and guess what…the Pope isn’t saying a thing about it. He hasn’t called it a lie. He hasn’t called it materialistic. He said the evidence supports it.

Why can’t you just be honest about the facts instead of misleading people into thinking that the scientific theory of evolution is not compatible with the Church? If it wasn’t, the Pope would have said so. Unless of course you really don’t understand what the scientific theory of evolution is?. The qualifications that were made in regard to the theory of evolution were not revisions of the theory itself but rather it was a rejection of the materialistic interpretations added by atheists.

The Pope is not a scientist. As another random Internet denizen here, I am not using appeals to authority, but rather our God-given reason.

Darwinism conflicts with the teachings of the church. The failings of this theory have been repeated often enough here and in previous threads. It is bad science and is an illusory perception of reality.

Present your view how the Word of God acted through Darwinism if that is your belief. The sort of rhetoric you are using here will convince absolutely no one who is of a different opinion.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

they will all have what it takes to survive there.

But it takes millions of years for evolution to do anything.

No, it takes millions of years for evolution to do something big enough to impress you as macro evolution. Evolving better tolerance for cold you would call microevolution, and can take place in only a few generations.

how’s that going to help any creature to survive the cold when it needs to be able to survive right from the start.

Evolution does not help any one individual creature survive. It helps the descendants to survive. They don’t all need to survive “from the start.” Only some of them need to survive.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Since macro evolution has been going on gradually throughout time, why should it suddenly stop today?

Because God rested after the sixth “day”.

We also fell, and with us creation; and now things are corrupted and in a state of decay.
There is a Way out, or should I say, in.

I am amazed how ideologies prevent us from seeing things as they are. One has to be vigilant, hope and pray to be blessed in the graces of the Holy Spirit.

If want to play that game, then don’t pretend you are also playing the game of science. It has different rules.

 

[rossum]

If I move from Florida to Minnesota that’s a (1) environmental change, and how is that going to kill off my reproductive abilities ?

You obviously fail to understand natural selection. It is based on relative reproductive rates. While a zero reproductive rate is always bad, merely having a lesser rate than your direct competitor will also eliminate that variant over time. In the spreadsheet I posted, there was a 1% difference in reproductive rate: where one variant had 100 mature offspring, the other variant would have 101 mature offspring. That small difference is enough for natural selection to work.

In the case of cold, one variant might have to devote 1% more energy to keeping warm and hence 1% less energy to reproducing.

rossum

 

[IWantGod]

Darwinism conflicts with the teachings of the church.

I don’t think you know what the Church teaches, you are just seeing things through your own personal interpretation of it. All i know is what the Pope and the church authority told me. So unless you are saying he is a heretic, i think you should humbly refrain from saying that the scientific theory of evolution is in conflict with church teaching.

If it was, the Pope would have explicitly said so, which is a legitimate argument in the context of what does and does not conflict with church teaching…

Or at least admit that you are no-longer speaking for the church, but rather you are promoting your own sola-scriptura

 

[rossum]

Ok… get to the part about whole new species being created, I’m excited to see a new animal evolution has made for us.

A new species of animal? I have already shown you the Marbled Crayfish, which is the result of one mutation. Alternatively try Tauber and Tauber (1977) Sympatric Speciation Based on Allelic Changes at Three Loci for a new animal species after three mutations.

rossum

 

[rossum]

If it can’t have sex hows it going to evolve ?

Ahh… At last. You are beginning to understand natural selection.

rossum

 

[Techno2000]

Techno2000:

LeafByNiggle:

they will all have what it takes to survive there.

But it takes millions of years for evolution to do anything.

No, it takes millions of years for evolution to do something big enough to impress you as macro evolution. Evolving better tolerance for cold you would call microevolution, and can take place in only a few generations.

how’s that going to help any creature to survive the cold when it needs to be able to survive right from the start.

Evolution does not help any one individual creature survive. It helps the descendants to survive. They don’t all need to survive “from the start.” Only some of them need to survive.

The descendants would need to survive the environment they are born into, waiting a few generations would be too late.

 

[mVitus]

Rather than simply making the claim that God created us, this means you and I both here communicating, using random mutation and natural selection, which is the essence of Darwinism, please explain what you mean, because it is a contradiction.

I honestly fail to see the contradiction. What exactly is seen as a contradiction with God making us through evolution? Remeber that random is as it regards our observations.