National Academies book on evolution

[reggieM]

I’ll explain why that is so hard to believe in a bit.

I hope you will accept the quote that I just posted.

There’s this from Commonweal Magazine (hardly “creationist”):

What Darwin’s Champions Won’t Mention
commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=1871

Adrian Desmond and James Moore in their 1991 biography, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, make clear that natural selection was intended as more than a theory of life’s origins. “‘Social Darwinism’ is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event, tarnishing Darwin’s image,” they write. “**But his notebooks make plain that **competition, free trade, imperialism, racial extermination, and sexual inequality were written into the equation from the start-Darwinism was invented to explain human society.”

And from Crisis Magazine (Catholic):

crisismagazine.com/march2005/book5.htm

the first appearance in German of Darwin’s Origin of Species, the intellectual elite understood quite clearly the eugenic and racial implications. And this is probably the most salient point made by Weikart. Darwinism as applied to the moral sphere was a movement not of brown-shirt thugs, but of the intellectual upper class—the top medical doctors, chemists, economists, botanists, anthropologists, psychiatrists, ethnologists, jurists, and even geographers in Germany’s best universities. **The call for eugenic elimination of the unfit **and for war as a means of evolutionary purification did not ring from the beer halls but from the halls of academe.

This is an interesting site that explores the topic:

[thedarw(name removed by moderator)apers.com/oldsite/number12/Darw(name removed by moderator)apers12HTML.htm](http://www.thedarw(name removed by moderator)apers.com/oldsite/number12/Darw(name removed by moderator)apers12HTML.htm)

the fact remains nevertheless that he did indeed propose in his second major work, The Descent of Man, that certain races of human beings were actually sub-species, that a race war among mankind’s different races, with the extermination of one race and the survival of another, would bring beneficial results in evolutionary terms, and he did explicitly state that black people were intermediate on the evolutionary ladder between apes and white people. He also wrote that it was his hope that in the near future blacks, aborigines, and the African gorillas would become extinct, thus enhancing the evolutionary potential of the Caucasian race.

Support for ethnic cleansing idea by Charles Darwin:

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” (Descent of Man, Chapter Six: On the Affinities and Geneology of Man, On the Birthplace and Antiquity of Man) "

Here is Charles Darwin’s opinion of the Irish, taken from his Descent of Man:

“A most important obstacle in civilised countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior class has been strongly insisted on by Mr. Greg and Mr. Galton, namely, the fact that the very poor and reckless, who are often degraded by vice, almost invariably marry early, whilst the careful and frugal, who are generally otherwise virtuous, marry late in life, so that they may be able to support themselves and their children in comfort. . .Those who marry early produce within a given period not only a greater number of generations, but, as shewn by Dr. Duncan they produce many more children. Thus the reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society, tend to increase at a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members. Or as Mr. Greg puts the case: 'The careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits…”(Descent, Chapter Five: On the Development of the Intellectual and Moral Faculties During Primeval and Civilised Times: Natural selection as affecting civilised nations.)"

For example, in a letter to one William Graham dated July 3, 1881, Charles Darwin wrote:

I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed by the Turk, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.

 

[reggieM]

there is not a snowball’s chance in hell

Given the probabilities that Darwin’s theory tosses around so blithely, that sounds like pretty good odds to me.

posting on piddly little listservs

I wouldn’t refer to CAF that way. I feel this is a great means of communicating the Catholic faith to many sincere and interested people.

And when evolutionary biologists contribute to cures for half a dozen diseases

One would think that 100,000 evolutionists would have contributed to cures for 6 diseases by now, but the only area they claim contributions (antibiotics) was discovered by an Italian scientist who rejects evolution.

I also think the fact that you place these “contributions” in a future tense means quite clearly that we’re still waiting for some real value from evolutionary theory. As other scientists have admitted, evolutionary theory has no commercial value at this point. I predict that it never will have (since it is false).

 

[reggieM]

SpiritMeadow – please don’t miss this informative post on your hero Charles Darwin.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=3235182&postcount=420

 

[Aramis]

Reggie:

Richard Dawkins explains the adaptive benefit of the same things that Darwin is accused of being a proponent of.

Neither is terribly much FOR such things, but as scientists, acknowledge that there must be some reason they occur, and must be some form of postive adaptation.

 

[reggieM]

Neither is terribly much FOR such things,

Aramis – well, that’s not how I read Darwin’s comments where he openly states that he “hopes” the more “civilized” races will survive and the “savage” races will die.

Yes, there is some “adaptive” advantages to killing off the unfit. Hitler saw that logic clearly. But it’s far from a Christian view of life, and even in just human terms it’s inhuman.

I can understand how and why people want to defend Darwin and they will cover-up these gross immoralities. I’m not even talking about his personal life, but his public statements and what he actually hoped to achieve through his scientific work.

It’s a matter of record and it has serious consequences.

Darwin at Columbine

As the attorney for the families of six of the students killed at Columbine, I read through every single page of Eric Harris’ jounals; I listened to all of the audio tapes and watched the videotapes, including the infamous “basement tapes.” There cannot be the slightest doubt that Harris was a worshiper of Darwin and saw himself as acting on Darwinian principles. For example, he wrote: “YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE??? Natural SELECTION! It’s the best thing that ever happened to the Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms . . . but it’s all natural! YES!”

Elsewhere he wrote: “NATURAL SELECTION. Kill the retards.” I could multiply examples, but you get the picture.

It was no coincidence that on the day of the shootings Harris wore a shirt with two words written on it: “Natural Selection.”

I am not suggesting that Auvinen’s and Harris’ actions are the inevitable consequences of believing in Darwinism. It is, however, clear that at least some of Darwin’s followers understand “survival of the fittest” and the attendant amorality at the bottom of Darwinism as a license to kill those whom they consider “inferior.” Nothing could be more obvious.

 

[drpmjhess]

I wouldn’t refer to CAF that way. I feel this is a great means of communicating the Catholic faith to many sincere and interested people.

You mean duping and misleading people, don’t you?

 

[reggieM]

Duping and deceiving???

"Philip Johnson is sympathetic to Stephen Jay Gould (who died in 2002), admiring his erudition, literary pizzazz and willingness to dissent from his establishment peers. “The man is in a difficult position,” Johnson says today. “You can mine Gould’s writings, and he, at one point or another, has denied in print every tenet that is important to Darwinism.” He disavowed evolutionary gradualism, admitted the fossil record was poor, and argued that science was frequently the biased and self-interested opinion of elite scientists. When creationists capitalized on Gould’s disclosures, the Darwinians lambasted him for writing as he did. Gould’s response was to come out stronger against the creationists. This is the dynamic that had resulted from Gould’s “difficult position,” Johnson claims. “I think one reason he’s had to take a very aggressive stance is because he is vulnerable himself.”

The sparring between the two men rose to a higher intensity when Johnson loaded his book Darwin on Trial with Gould quotes. For example, after citing how Gould told readers to “suppose” things about a specific case of evolution, Johnson says, “We have to do all this supposing, according to Gould, because it is just too hard to ‘invent a reasonable sequence of intermediate forms…, between ancestors and descendants in major structural transitions.’” Elsewhere he describes the fight between Gould and the British zoologist Richard Dawkins over whether abrupt mutations cause evolution:

“Gould supposes what he has to suppose and Dawkins finds it easy to believe what he wants to believe, but supposing and believing are not enough to make a scientific explanation. Taking on Gould’s three proofs for evolution—microevolution, nature’s imperfection and fossils—Johnson comments, “Nobody needs to prove [the fact] that apples fall down rather than up, but Gould provides three proofs for the fact of evolution.” And of course he quotes Gould’s more famous disclosures, including that “the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record” is the “trade secret of paleontology”. When it became clear that a third of the pages in Johnson’s 220- page book cite Gould, a friend of the Harvard paleontologist said he should have gotten credit by having his name on the book cover.

 

[reggieM]

And of course he quotes Gould’s more famous disclosures, including that “the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record” is the “trade secret of paleontology”.

Gould didn’t say that. And if he did, he didn’t mean it the way creationists said since they’re only “quote mining” by taking his actual words and posting them. This proves that creationists are evil. Plus scientists are right – they told us that they were. Evolution is a fact. Gould would never say such things. Those quotes are taken out of context. Read a book. He never meant anything he said about that. Plus, he changed his mind. That was a long time ago – back in the 1990s. Everything is different now. Evolution is still a fact, even though some of the things that proved it was a fact changed. It only changed a little. Evolution predicts more than one thing at a time. So what? It says the coin will either be heads or tails. It’s a fact, how can you deny it? Don’t you understand anything about science? Give me some proof that evolution is wrong. No, not that proof – some other things. Only someone with a creationist agenda would quote mine like that.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Gould didn’t say that. And if he did, he didn’t mean it the way creationists said since they’re only “quote mining” by taking his actual words and posting them.

Carefully edited, of course, to make it look like he meant what he did not. For example, Gould says that transitionals are abundant in the fossil record.

Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.
Stephen Jay Gould, Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes, p.261

BTW, Gould also cites some examples where fossils are so numerous as to provide a continuous record even at the species level. He mentions horses, forams, and ammonites as examples.

This proves that creationists are evil.

It proves that some of the leadership is evil. But most creationsts are guilty of no more than gullibility. And some aren’t either. There are a few who admit the evidence, but say that their religious beliefs overrided the evidence.

Gould would never say such things. Those quotes are taken out of context.

See above. You’ve been snockered again. Does it make you angry? Angry enough to quit trusting those guys?

Evolution predicts more than one thing at a time.

So does physics. So does chemistry.

So what?

I don’t know. If you don’t know why this is the case, you weren’t paying attention in seventh grade.

It says the coin will either be heads or tails.

More precisely, it says that the coin toss will depend on the interaction of the population and the environment. That’s been tested many times, and it always works.

The rot goes right to the top, too. Phillip Johnson’s claim that gradualism is essential to Darwinism is false, and he knows it, because he’s been directly reminded that Darwinians have been of different opinions about the balance between gradualism and more sudden evolution. Huxley, for example, disagreed with Darwin on it.

But he was betting that you didn’t know it. He won.

 

[reggieM]

Gould says that transitionals are abundant in the fossil record.

“**The extreme rarity **of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology … The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Statis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear… 2. Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed’. 6 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. " Gould, “Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History, Vol. 5, 1977”

---

What Gould actually meant here was that transitional forms are not extremely rare at all – they’re actually in a massive abundance. Additionally, we have complete records of the slow gradual changes in species that fully complete evolutionary trees. There is no inference involved at all since this is all based on the evidence in the fossils. Species actually arise gradually, not suddenly. They don’t arise fully formed either.

Ok, I guess I missed that part!!

 

[The_Barbarian]

What Gould actually meant here was that transitional forms are not extremely rare at all – they’re actually in a massive abundance.

Yes. As he points out we have an abundance of transitional fossils. That’s what he said.

Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.
Stephen Jay Gould, Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes, p.261

Additionally, we have complete records of the slow gradual changes in species that fully complete evolutionary trees.

When there are enough individuals fossilized. Horses, for example, show very slow and gradual change over time. But they are large, live where fossilization is relatively frequent, and lived in huge numbers.

I should probably point out that some of the horse transitions were as sudden as those of other animals for which transitional forms are scarce or absent. If there are huge numbers of individuals during the transition, in environments likely to produce fossils, then it’s very likely that we will be able to see the incremental change, even if it was rather rapid. So one looks sudden, and one gradual, when in fact, they both happened at the same rate.

There is no inference involved at all since this is all based on the evidence in the fossils.

All science depends on inferences. But the evidence is quite comoplete and unequivocal in the case of horse evolution, particularly in the line that led to the sole surviving genus, Equus.

Species actually arise gradually, not suddenly.

Sometimes. That was Gould’s point. It isn’t always punctuated equillibrium.

They don’t arise fully formed either.

All organisms are “fully formed.” What would a partially formed organism be like?

 

[drpmjhess]

"** There is no inference involved at all ince this is all based on the evidence in the fossils. Species actually arise gradually, not suddenly. They don’t arise fully formed either.
Ok, I guess I missed that part!!**

ReggieM, resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!

 

[Aramis]

All organisms are “fully formed.” What would a partially formed organism be like?

Quite a few organisms survive without being fully formed; we call the resulting disability a birth defect. Thalidomide is notorious for causing this. So are dozens of other toxins. Some are just plain bad genetics.

 

[inthecloud]

The idea that language evolves would be anathema to them.

I know but my mother tonge Spanish is a evolutive development of a well documented literary language, Latin, so that is easy to prove, and Latin, Celtic, Greek, Armenian, German, Slavic, Sanscrit and other languages evolved from a common tongue that the experts, using the known rates of human language variation, comes from the Indoeuropean language that must have come from another language about 7,000 years ago. And many scientist now thing that all humans languages might come from a tonge spoken by the first modern humans more than 100,000 years ago.
A surprising argument for evolution and mutation and a Old Earth.

 

[drpmjhess]

A surprising argument for evolution and mutation and a Old Earth.

Oh – I thought all languages have evolved in the 4,500 years since the regrettable Tower of Babel incident.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Quite a few organisms survive without being fully formed; we call the resulting disability a birth defect.

Hmm… don’t see any of those in the fossil record. For the same reason it’s difficult to get complete transtitions between species. Since we were talking about fossils, I’m wondering why you changed the subject.

Thalidomide is notorious for causing this. So are dozens of other toxins.

All sorts of accidents can interfer with normal development. However, we don’t see any of those forming species, since they don’t change the genes of these organisms.

Some are just plain bad genetics.

Might be. Or maybe good genetics. In humans, there have been quite a number of good “bad genetics” events. Would you like to learn about some of them?

And if you can, tell us about that animal in the fossil record that is not “fully formed.”

 

[reggieM]

“**The extreme rarity of transitional forms **in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology … The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Statis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear… 2. Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed’. 6 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. " Gould, “Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History, Vol. 5, 1977”

 

[Aramis]

Hmm… don’t see any of those in the fossil record. For the same reason it’s difficult to get complete transtitions between species. Since we were talking about fossils, I’m wondering why you changed the subject.

Because someone claimed we never see incompletely formed organisms.

Given the low rate of fossilization, I’m not bothered by it.

And as for transitional forms, I believe it’s Long Lake that has a species of amphibians (newts or salamanders) which have speciated such that the northern ones can no logner interbreed with the southern ones, but both north and south can interbreed with east and west subspecies.

Likewise, speciation is apparently occuring in certain forests where urbanization has cut off habitat.

There is enough evidence for me. Maybe not you, but that says more about you than me, since the evidence is quite hefty.

I won’t say it’s conclusive… but I will say it’s close to conclusive.

The Bits that are being cited by the Creationist crowd are discussed by “devout evolutionists” as areas for further refinement, not reasons to doubt the whole of the intellectual construct.

To be honest, having known several theologians, they take a similar approach to theological “truth” that science takes to scientific “truth”: we will never have all the evidence, but that does not stop of from developing our theory, based upon the evidence at hand, putting it out for peer review, and modifying based upon new evidence as it arrives.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Because someone claimed we never see incompletely formed organisms.

I’d still like to see an incompletely formed organism in the fossil record. Apparently, no one knows of one.

And as for transitional forms, I believe it’s Long Lake that has a species of amphibians (newts or salamanders) which have speciated such that the northern ones can no logner interbreed with the southern ones, but both north and south can interbreed with east and west subspecies.

This is called a “ring species.” Interestingly, an extinction of an intermediate population can retroactively change a microevolutionary event into macroevolution and produce a new species.

And yes, as Gould says, there is an abundance of transitional forms in the fossil record.

Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.
Stephen Jay Gould, Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes, p.261

Gould’s theory of punctuated equllibrium began with the observation of Ernst Mayr that aberrant populations are found in out-of-the way places. It then added the observation of the population biologists that small, isolated populations tend to be both genetically different than general populations (small sample, less variation) and tend to evolve faster ( greater variation within the population).

Hence, most speciations involve a small number of isolated organisms, which appear quite quickly in geologic time, leaving few fossils. The above is the part that the guys who misled Reggie didn’t tell him.

And, as Gould says, there are certainly populations that do show long, gradual evolution, such as horses. This is why he says that species-level transitions are “generally lacking”, not “absent.” If Reggie’s guys are right, there wouldn’t be any at all like that.

 

[reggieM]

I won’t say it’s conclusive… but I will say it’s close to conclusive.

That’s a far more reasonable and honest assessment of the situation than I’ve seen from many who are arguing here in favor of evolution. Certainly, many feel that the evidence given is sufficient for them to believe evolutionary theory. But it’s definitely not for me. Even your reference to the breeding of newts seems like such a minor bit of information to add by way of reacing a conclusive argument.

Your approach is measured and it thus strikes me as more scientific than those who argue in extreme terms about the “fact” of evolution – even taking those “facts” to (what I consider) absurd conclusions about the nature of man and the origin of life and the universe.

At some point, every theistic evolutionist has to draw a line also, certainly Catholic evolutionists have to place some strict limits on the process. That is actually a radically different approach than the majority of mainstream evolutionists (that is, non-theistic) take.

But again, thanks for a thoughtful reply. You would at least say (it seems) that there’s some (however slight) room for doubting that evolutionary theory is correct at all.

The Bits that are being cited by the Creationist crowd are discussed by “devout evolutionists” as areas for further refinement, not reasons to doubt the whole of the intellectual construct.

Ok, but I think you’re being overly generous in describing the outright refutation of ideas that were once promoted as “fact” as being merely “refinement”. There have been many reversals in this theory. These reversals may be refinements – that is, making the theory better. But they may also be just as incorrect as the ideas that were championed not long ago.

As the item I posted said, Gould refuted virtually every major component of evolutionary theory at one point in his writings. He did that in a circumspect manner. Creationists exposed his comments and broadcast them, so then Gould backtracked.

But I think we saw this in other areas. Ken Miller’s textbook gave blatantly erroneous information on a very serious matter (the origin of life and the universe as “blind” with the definite statement that God was not involved). That text was used in teaching students for 8 years before he had it removed. The explanation for that “mistake” was that he blamed his co-author.

Or we could look at someone like Jacques Monod:

“Chance alone is at the source of all novelty, all creation in the biosphere,…”
“Pure chance, only chance, absolute but blind liberty
is at the root of the prodigious edifice that is evolution…”

• Jacques Monod, “Chance and Necessity” (1970)

Now we hear that Monod’s belief is totally wrong and evolution is not based on chance. But Monod’s theory was taught for years as the basis of evolution.

Richard Dawkins then says that evolution cannot be chance, and he proves that by observing the universe and life and saying that it looks so obviously designed, that chance could not have possibly created it. Therefore (instead of proposing an intelligent creator) he says that “evolution is not due to chance alone”.

So yes, that might be a refinement, but it could also be totally wrong, just as Monod was “wrong” about the very fundamentals of evolution.

I’ve recently heard the term “Big Front Loaders” (BFL’s) as a means of describing those who believe that God created the evolutionary process at the beginning so that it would all work out as it has done now.

I don’t understand that view myself. Again, it may be correct, but in all of our “discussions” here I haven’t seen anyone explain what is meant in the BFL position, except that natural laws alone create all things and God is not involved (except that He front loaded everything).