Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution

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To reggiem:

You have defined the issue well. It is the spread of atheism. Let’s review:

Promotion of this belief system is constantly being repackaged, so once it’s discovered in its current form it puts on a new disguise and adopts a different name. On an atheist forum, one atheist advised others to use names like free thinker or secularist, not the more well known atheist. That way, people would be less alarmed.

What some scientists want to promote may seem like an intellectual appeal but it is actually an appeal to the ego. “You are too smart to believe in anything without evidence.” The person who hears this may begin to fear God less because he may begin to think that this may somehow be true while forgetting that what he is actually being offered is an alternate belief system.

Reason: No reasonable person could believe in a god or gods.

Rational: No rational person could believe in something without evidence. Strangely, whenever I bring up the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I’m met by silence. But I’ve discovered this on other forums as well. The truth is often ignored or loudly shouted down, one or the other. Or the truth is denied even in the face of evidence.

Science: The new god. Science will guide you, heal you and bring you new computer games.

Evolution: The most sacred of sciences. Religion has nothing to say about it and should religion ever enter the science lab, ‘biology would be destroyed.’ This from a past reply to one of my comments.

The Catholic Church views faith and reason as complementary. This is the way Catholics should view it. But I am always wary of those who come here that put a coating of God over their ‘purely science’ pill and ask me to swallow it. As if, right now, today, I must swear that all that needs to be known about evolution to this point renders parts of the Holy Bible symbolic and renders the work of God symbolic. As Jesus Christ is both man and God, so His works are actual and not symbolic.

Finally, it must be known that the Church has faced this problem before with Communism:

vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19031937_divini-redemptoris_en.html

Christopher Hitchens was quoted in the National Catholic Register that if he saw a miracle he would doubt the evidence of his own eyes. That was quite honest. But, here I should mention a statement from one of the two men crucified along with Jesus: “You’re dying and you don’t fear God?”

We are called to evangelize the world but we will always be faced with the persistent work of the devil who clouds men’s minds and convinces them to prefer themselves over God.

Peace,
Ed
 
God bless, Ed! All we are doing is taking the interpretation of “evidence” as presented by evolution’s true believers, and calling it gratuitous extrapolation and rubbish. WE cannot decide how God created the universe, as Greg suggests! Thank you, Rob 🙂
 
Uh, we can’t decide? Science has value but not when it is used to drive an anti-God agenda. When science replaces faith, a Technocracy will result that will fight those who resist.

The word Ignorance has replaced the term ‘religious people.’ Also, ignorance refers to belief. So, Catholics must accept evolution as written in the Biology textbook.

Peace,
Ed
 
RACJ said:
God bless, Ed! All we are doing is taking the interpretation of “evidence” as presented by evolution’s true believers, and calling it gratuitous extrapolation and rubbish. WE cannot decide how God created the universe, as Greg suggests! Thank you, Rob 🙂
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Good point regarding the interpretation of evidence, Rob. Too much of what is claimed for evolution is a materialistic-bias in the interpretation.
 
Calliso said:
As exciting as this potentially is I think they are making too much noise in the media a bit too soon. From what I have heard this hasn;t really been peer reviewed and what not yet. It would be pretty embarressing if on further study they found they had to retract the missing link statement.
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The findings have been peer reviewed and the paper is available to the public. There is media hype, as always with such discoveries. It is not correct for anyone to call this fossil “the missing link”. It is just one more link, but a significant one, in the natural history chain.
 
edwest2 said:
Science has value but not when it is used to drive an anti-God agenda.
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No, the value of science is not diminished when others exploit it to their own atheistic ends. The God-denying ideologies promoted by atheists are what lack value.
 
The biology textbook is mostly lacking in value. This is related to it drawing conclusions that cannot be demonstrated by science. It shows a clear anti-God bias. It appears the people responsible for viewing the text prior to publication have either ignored or support the conclusions. If they were against such conclusions then they took no action.
reggieM said:
I did a little research and I think we can prove quite easily that mainstream evolution does not support the evidence of intelligent design in nature at all. Evolution is defined as a blind, undirected process built mainly on randomness. There is no plan or purpose for evolution – this contradicts the claim that “everything is designed” and that there is design to be found in nature.

We can see this in current biology textbooks:

“[E]volution works without either plan or purpose — Evolution is random and undirected.”
(Biology, by Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine (1st ed., Prentice Hall, 1991), pg. 658; (3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1995), pg. 658; (4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998), pg. 658; emphasis in original.)

“Humans represent just one tiny, largely fortuitous, and late-arising twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life.”
(Stephen J Gould quoted in Biology, by Peter H Raven & George B Johnson (5th ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pg 15; (6th ed., McGraw Hill, 2000), pg. 16.)

“By coupling **undirected, purposeless **variation to the **blind, uncaring **process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.”
(Evolutionary Biology, by Douglas J. Futuyma (3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc., 1998), p. 5.)

“Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that **matter is the stuff of all existence **and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.”
(Biology: Discovering Life by Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller (1st ed., D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152; (2nd ed… D.C. Heath and Co., 1994), p. 161; emphases in original.)

“Adopting this view of the world means accepting not only the processes of evolution, but also the view that the living world is constantly evolving, and that evolutionary change occurs without any goals.’ The idea that **evolution is not directed **towards a final goal state has been more difficult for many people to accept than the process of evolution itself.”
(Life: The Science of Biology by William K. Purves, David Sadava, Gordon H. Orians, & H. Craig Keller, (6th ed., Sinauer; W.H. Freeman and Co., 2001), pg. 3.)

“The ‘blind’ watchmaker is natural selection. **Natural selection is totally blind **to the future. “**Humans are fundamentally not exceptional **because we came from the same evolutionary source as every other species. It is natural selection of selfish genes that has given us our bodies and brains “Natural selection is a bewilderingly simple idea. And yet what it explains is the whole of life, the diversity of life, the apparent design of life.”
(Richard Dawkins quoted in *Biology *by Neil A. Campbell, Jane B. Reese. & Lawrence G. Mitchell (5th ed., Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), pgs. 412-413.)

“Of course, no species has 'chosen’ a strategy. Rather, its ancestors ‘little by little, generation after generation’ merely wandered into a successful way of life through the action of random evolutionary forces. Once pointed in a certain direction, a line of evolution survives only if the cosmic dice continues to roll in its favor. “[J]ust by chance, a wonderful diversity of life has developed during the billions of years in which organisms have been evolving on earth.
(Biology by Burton S. Guttman (1st ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pgs. 36-37.)

“It is difficult to avoid the speculation that Darwin, as has been the case with others, found the implications of his theory difficult to confront. “The real difficulty in accepting Darwins theory has always been that it seems to diminish our significance. Earlier, astronomy had made it clear that the earth is not the center of the solar universe, or even of our own solar system. Now the new biology asked us to accept the proposition that, like all other organisms, we too are the products of a random process that, as far as science can show, we are not created for any special purpose or as part of any universal design.”
(Invitation to Biology, by Helena Curtis & N. Sue Barnes(3rd ed., Worth, 1981), pgs. 474-475.)
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Peace,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
The biology textbook is mostly lacking in value. This is related to it drawing conclusions that cannot be demonstrated by science. It shows a clear anti-God bias. It appears the people responsible for viewing the text prior to publication have either ignored or support the conclusions. If they were against such conclusions then they took no action.
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Your argument does not invalidate the science behind the theory of evolution, but it does shed light on agendas that have pervaded our literature (assuming that those quotes retain their implications when read in context).
 
Michaelo, what science? The point of science is to lead to more profound questions, not to stifle with nihilistic conclusions. Darwin’s theory states that we are products of a cosmic mistake, you have to accept this on his terms, you really can’t have it both ways or make up your own.
 
M0nkey said:
Michaelo, what science?
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The numerous mechanisms of evolution.
The point of science is to lead to more profound questions, not to stifle with nihilistic conclusions. Darwin’s theory states that we are products of a cosmic mistake, you have to accept this on his terms, you really can’t have it both ways or make up your own.
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It is ID that stifles scientific inquiry. Rather than exploring the physical processes responsible for the complexity of various natural phenomena, proponents of ID are content with simply concluding that God somehow did it and are quick to condemn those who do pursue the former as enemies of the faith.
 
ID does what? Have any scientists stopped going to work because of ID? Have any scientists stopped publishing because of ID? This is pure hyperbole.

The reason ID is attacked, the only reason, is because it brings up the factual idea that anything designed requires a designer. The great fear is that people might think it’s God as regards human beings. Can’t have that.

Peace,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
ID does what? Have any scientists stopped going to work because of ID? Have any scientists stopped publishing because of ID? This is pure hyperbole.
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The conclusion reached by ID certainly doesn’t encourage further scientific exploration.
The reason ID is attacked, the only reason, is because it brings up the factual idea that anything designed requires a designer. The great fear is that people might think it’s God as regards human beings. Can’t have that.
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Please recall the bounds of empirical science, which many criticize ID for overstepping.
 
Michaelo said:
The conclusion reached by ID certainly doesn’t encourage further scientific exploration.
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This is completely false and very easily refuted.
Probably the greatest scientists in history, Sir Isaac Newton fully accepted Intelligent Design. In fact, his recognition of design in nature pushed him forward to more exploration.

“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” - Sir Isaac Newton

The introduction to Newton’s *Principia *gives a detailed explanation of his Intelligent Design views.

Newton and Intelligent Design

Provost’s Colloquium Tuesday, January 31, 2006

The idea of intelligent design goes back to at least Plato and has played an important role in the development of the physical sciences. Newton uses the ID argument in his Optics and has a discussion of the nature of God in Principia. We have Newton’s letters to Bentley (ca 1692) on the ID argument.

This is just one example of many. The fact that the universe conforms to rationality and mathematical formulas is a classic Intelligent Design argument that impressed Einstein.

Christian theology, which taught that the universe is the product of a rational intelligence, is the foundation of science today.
 
reggieM

In your most recent post, you state that ID encourages exploration of physical processes, but in the context of evolution, it is theistic evolution that does this. In accordance with its traditional usage in this discussion, ID begets the conclusion that complex natural phenomena originated via metaphysical means, thereby rendering further exploration of physical mechanisms unnecessary.
 
Michaelo said:
reggieM

In your most recent post, you state that ID encourages exploration of physical processes,
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That is correct. ID explores physical processes.
In accordance with its traditional usage in this discussion, ID begets the conclusion that complex natural phenomena originated via metaphysical means,
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Yes, as the teaching of the Church has proclaimed since the apostolic era and as Pope Benedict proclaims to day. In fact, Christian theistic-evolutionists say the same thing. Some complex phenomena that occur in nature are the product of God’s divine power.
thereby rendering further exploration of physical mechanisms unnecessary.
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Again, that is proven false by the references I already provided.
 
Since when has science been define as “further exploration of physical mechanisms?” Can you see an atom? If our understanding of the world were purely materialistic we would have stifled our understanding long ago. It is only because we believe that there is more to it than that, that we are able to further inquiry into the known and the unknown; what you can see smell and touch and vice versa.
 
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