Is Darwin's Theory Of Evolution True? Part Two

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If God created everything, then everything we do is a kind of religious study whether we know it or not. There’s no scenario in which avoiding the scientific process and insisting on ignorance will lead anyone to a greater understanding of reality as God has created it.
 
If a scientist could successfully demonstrate that the Theory of evolution is wrong, he/she would be known as one of the greatest who ever lived. I suspect that the people who were fired did so because they were unwilling to adhere to due diligence in their studies.
 
I think the fact that physical reality moves from potential to various particular ends that actualize in intelligible ways supports the idea that the root of all reality is an intelligent cause so long as that cause is absolutely distinct from the essence of its effect (the effect is essentially not made of its cause).

However, i don’t believe the physical data supports intelligent design (which is something else entirely), certainly not in a way that is intelligible and measurable. You have to make assumptions about what physical reality can or can’t do without any proof. There has been a host of physical phenomena that at one point or another was believed to be evidence of a divine hand. Nobody today thinks the rainbow is directly put there by God every time it appears because we have worked out the processes involved in its actuality. In biology we are doing the same thing.
 
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Random physical activity leads to disorganization. That’s what happens when we die; with the organizing principle that is the spirit gone, it all reverts back to random chemical activity.

The idea that from genetic perfection containing all possible human traits, humanity emerges, seems to best fit what we see. That’s creation.

A recent genome study of the remains of an ancient North American indigenous girl was reported in the latest issue of Nature. The analysis of her DNA placed her midway between modern Native Americans and ancient Siberian’s clarifying how the migration of people into North America occurred. This is possible because the pattern of mutations, or small errors, that accumulate in DNA down through the generations, combined with demographic modelling, make it possible to draw connections between different groups of people over time.

As fresh and new as a baby is, the information contained in the nuclei of its cells is degraded from that which was present in its ancient forebears.

In fact gene loss is being found to be a pervasive source of genetic variation that can cause adaptive phenotypic diversity.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2016.39
In other words, the accumulation of errors does not lead to complexity although it can help with adaptation to changes in the environment.

The data fits better into the Design model. The standard theory of evolution on the other hand relies on assumptions that are counter-intuitive unless one has accepted them as fact. And, it’s materialist foundations are a turn-off.
 
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benjamin1973 said:
If a scientist could successfully demonstrate that the Theory of evolution is wrong,
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I’m not quite sure what you mean by wrong.

The sun continues to rise in the east in spite of the fact that we imagine it to be the centre around which the planets spin. Apples fall from trees and space-time is curved.

We relate to the world through our understanding.

In some respects evolution is wrong I think it self-evident that randomness or chaos does not organize itself into complex structures. That’s what happens; so in order for matter to become living, an organizing principle called the soul must shape the material form.

Evolutionary theory is a way to put the pieces of the maze together. I think it does a poor job of doing so because it does not fit the totality of the truth which is God. Where people say it does, it’s more like they’ve tacked Him in to the picture. He is the picture and this, His creation reveals His glory. True science, and ways of understanding the Big Bang would be one example, although it does not include God in its formulations, His presence can be definitely felt.
 
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rossum said:
Random mutations are just doing what random mutations do: random things. Some of those random things turn out to be beneficial in future.
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No matter what happens, Darwinism explains it even when it doesn’t. The whole theory of natural selection is that a change that is beneficial to an organism is passed to its progeny because the change has given the organism a higher probability of surviving. That is, a change is passed on if it benefits the organism in the present. Even if it is a neutral change there is no reason it should be passed on preferentially because it confers no advantage.

This is the same type of argument climate change believers use to explain record heat waves and record cold spells.
 
Aloysium said:
Random physical activity leads to disorganization.
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Not always. Place a salt solution out in the sun, let the water evaporate due to normal random physical activity and the organisation of the salt molecules will increase as they go from a disorganised aqueous solution to a very organised crystal lattice.
Aloysium said:
As fresh and new as a baby is, the information contained in the nuclei of its cells is degraded from that which was present in its ancient forebears.
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False. Our very ancient forebears were less able to resist diseases such as smallpox and the Black Death. Better to say “changed” than “degraded”. Some changes are good, some changes are neutral and some changes are deleterious. By using a value-laden word like “degraded” you are importing assumptions into your argument.
Aloysium said:
In fact gene loss is being found to be a pervasive source of genetic variation that can cause adaptive phenotypic diversity.
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Read your reference again. It is talking well above the level of evolution within a single species:
How relevant has gene loss been in the divergence of phyla?
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If gene loss were relevant to evolution within Homo sapiens then the Alaskan girl you referenced would have had more genes than modern populations. Likewise ancient Egyptian or Andean mummies would have extra genes that are no longer present in modern populations. We do not see that. Phyla are at a much higher level. We are Chordates while insects are Arthopods; that is the level of difference between phyla, where gene loss is a known mechanism. It is not relevant mechanism for micro-evolution within a species.

rossum
 
Ender said:
The whole theory of natural selection is that a change that is beneficial to an organism is passed to its progeny because the change has given the organism a higher probability of surviving.
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Not exactly. More correct to say, “a change that is beneficial to an organism is passed to its progeny because the change has given the organism a higher probability of reproducing.”

Surviving for 200 years at the price of being infertile will pass exactly 0 copies of your genes on to future generations. Better to have a shorter life with more offspring; that way more copies of your genes will get into future generations.
Ender said:
Even if it is a neutral change there is no reason it should be passed on preferentially because it confers no advantage.
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Correct. See Kimura’s Neutral Theory for the way evolution deals with neutral mutations. You are correct that Natural Selection ignores neutral mutations.

rossum
 
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buffalo said:
We now know speciation is loss of function that now makes them distinct.
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So, dolphin’s loss of the function of not being able to hold their breath for a long time is what makes them distinct.

So, human’s loss of the function of being able to easily walk on all-fours is what makes them distinct.

So, plant’s loss of the function of starving to death in the presence of sunlight is what makes them distinct.

Understood.

rossum
 
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From “Catholic Answers”:
Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that “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 . . . 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—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are… – Adam, Eve, and Evolution | Catholic Answers

BTW, this is covered in more detail here: The Vatican's View of Evolution: Pope Paul II and Pope Pius
 
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I confess … that all men from Adam onward who have been born and have died up to the end of the world will then rise again and stand “before the judgment-seat of Christ,” together with Adam himself and his wife, who were not born of other parents, but were created: one from the earth and the other from the side of the man (… ) Pope Pelagius I.
 
This, our Holy Mother the Church believes and teaches: When God was about to make man according to his image and likeness in order that he might rule over the whole earth, He breathed into the body formed from the slime of the earth the breath of life, that is, a soul produced from nothing… . And blessing the first man and Eve his wife who was formed by divine power from his side, God said: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth” (Gen. 1: 28) Vatican Council 1
 
What is the true origin of marriage? That, Venerable Brethren, is a matter of common knowledge. For although the revilers of the Christian faith shrink from acknowledging the Church’s permanent doctrine on this matter, and persist in their long-standing efforts to erase the history of all nations and all ages, they have nonetheless been unable to extinguish, or even to weaken, the strength and light of the truth. We call to mind facts well-known to all and doubtful to no-one: after He formed man from the slime of the earth on the sixth day of creation, and breathed into his face the breath of life, God willed to give him a female companion, whom He drew forth wondrously from the man’s side as he slept. In bringing this about, God, in his supreme Providence, willed that this spousal couple should be the natural origin of all men: in other words, that from this pair the human race should be propagated and preserved in every age by a succession of procreative acts which would never be interrupted. And so that this union of man and woman might correspond more aptly to the most wise counsels of God, it has manifested from that time onward, deeply impressed or engraved, as it were, within itself, two preeminent and most noble properties: unity and perpetuity Pope Leo XIII
 
Pontifical Biblical Commission’s Responsum of June 30, 1909

Whether, in particular, the literal historical sense (sensus litteralis historicus) may be called in question (vocari in dubium possit), where it is a question of facts narrated in these chapters (ubi agitur de factis in eisdem capitibus enarratis) which involve the foundations of the Christian religion (quae christianae religionis fundamenta attingunt), as are, among others, the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time; the special [or, particular] creation of man; the formation of the first woman from the first man (formatio primae mulieris ex primo homine); the unity of the human race; the original happiness of our first parents in a state of justice, integrity and immortality; the precept given by God to man in order to test his obedience; the transgression of the divine precept under the persuasion of the devil in the guise of a serpent; the fall of our first parents from the aforesaid primaeval state of innocence; and the promise of a future Saviour?

Response: In the negative (Negative)
 
Vatican council II cites Leo XIII in Providentissimus as recalling the age-old wisdom of Augustine

"But if some dispute should arise [between faith and science], the same Doctor sums up the rule to be followed by the theologian: If they have been able to demonstrate some truth of natural science with solid proofs, let us show that it is not contrary to our Scriptures; but if they maintain anything in any of their treatises which is contrary to Scripture (that is, to the Catholic faith), let us believe without hesitation that it is completely false, and if possible find a way of refuting it "
 
Catechism

“Each for the other” - “A unity in two”

371 God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. The Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him."242 _None of the animals can be man’s partner._243 The woman God “fashions” from the man’s rib and brings to him elicits on the man’s part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."244 Man discovers woman as another “I”, sharing the same humanity.

372 Man and woman were made “for each other” - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be “helpmate” to the other, for they are equal as persons (“bone of my bones. . .”) and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming “one flesh”,245 they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth."246 By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator’s work.247

373 In God’s plan man and woman have the vocation of “subduing” the earth248 as stewards of God. This sovereignty is not to be an arbitrary and destructive domination. God calls man and woman, made in the image of the Creator “who loves everything that exists”,249 to share in his providence toward other creatures; hence their responsibility for the world God has entrusted to them.
 
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This type of science is not a god. Few seem to understand that. Natural selection is blind. It has no goal. It doesn’t matter who lives and who goes extinct.
 
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