The CC on Evolution: A Different Thread, I Hope

[Rbt_Southwell]

nota bene Alec:

Intra-phylum evolution presents a further puzzle for you Synthesizers. Consistently new organisms, whether among plant groups or animals, make their initial fossil appearance fully developed (and highly specialized!), last their time and POOF! disappear.

Rarely, if ever, are there fossil indications that competition by a new and better-adapted class of animals outstripped an outdated ancestor in the race for survival, thus driving the ancestor to extinction.

The fossil record regularly FAILS to give any hint at the basic anatomical levels that a change in morphology was in the offing.

Robert

 

[Rbt_Southwell]

The problem with your statement is that you are fundamentally wrong. Natural Selection is NOT a random process.

Oh dear, oh dear. You are wrong again. You obviously don’t know anything about quantum mechanics where the truly random and the uncaused effect occurs…

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

What I have in mind is a different kind of thread on evolution, and I hope it works out that way. I realize there have already been about 6,000 threads on evolution (or 16 billion, by some counts).

However, my question is more specific than arguing over evolution, young-earth creationism, and so on. All recent Popes have issued statements essentially supporting the ideas of evolution, the old earth, the old universe, etc. All recent Popes, in their statements, have also explicitly rejected any sort of scientific materialism, while still endorsing the central idea of long-term evolution.

So here’s the question: If the CC issues a proclamation that God’s creation of the universe used (and uses) the method of evolutionary processes—would you accept it?

Obviously, this question is addressed more or less only to Catholics in fellowship with the Church. I know non-Christians might not have any problem with this hypothetical proclamation. Further, I know non-Catholic Christians would not think a CC proclamation would be binding on them, anyway. So the question is really for Catholics. How many Catholics on this forum would reject the authority of the CC in this matter if it were to issue such a proclamation?

In principle, I see no problem - the questions would be, about what exactly was said, &, whether what was said exceeded the Church’s competence; given that the Church has no competence in the sciences as such, but only insofar as they raise issues which come within her competence to teach.​

But as the question is about something hypothetical, there is little one can usefully say. IMHO, & AFAICS, belief in creation through evolution does not contradict anything in the past teaching of the CC (so far as I know what that is ). If evolution were talking about living things from the same perspective as the Bible, there might be room for a real collision between them - it’s not, so there isn’t. (Though obviously that is just a beginning of what needs saying on the issue).

Evolution as a doctrine or a vision of reality does not (AFAICS) of itself necessarily imply any teleology or values in its subject matter - the revelation in the Bible, & our Faith as Christians, do. So the perspectives of evolution, & of the Faith, are simply different - they need no more be in conflict than (say) hearing, & moral goodness.

 

[Rbt_Southwell]

And what respectable mathematicians and physicists would they be?

 

[hecd2]

Yet, you give us a tautological reply and say it [natural selection] “modifies the frequency of alleles and traits [do you mean ‘genes’ here?] in descendant populations.”

No I do not mean genes. I mean alleles and traits. Furthermore, you obviously fail to understand the meaning of the word ‘tautological’.

What the heck is that!!??

It’s not my job to teach you basic biology. Neither alleles nor traits are difficult words to understand and neither of them mean genes. I should have thought that a basic understanding of biology would have been a prerequisite for discussing evolutionary biology, but apparently any Tom, Harry or Robert feels that they are entitled to have an opinion on evolution in spite of their profound lack of knowledge. Can I recommend that you read a textbook on evolution - I can recommend ‘Evolution’ by Mark Ridley or ‘Evolutionary Biology’ by Douglas Futuyama.

We can predict the effects of natural selection on allele frequency according to the rules of population biology.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

You attack bogeydogg’s statement about the "lack of fossil evidence’ proving our evolution from fish via a primate by stating that "There was enough fossil evidence in 1800 to show, quite reliably, that evolution had occurred."

 

[hecd2]

nota bene Alec:

Intra-phylum evolution presents a further puzzle for you Synthesizers. Consistently new organisms, whether among plant groups or animals, make their initial fossil appearance fully developed (and highly specialized!), last their time and POOF! disappear.

By intra-phylum I suppose you mean the emergence of the extant phyla, so let’s focus on that - all extant phyla, bar two, emerge in a 10 million year period in the Cambrian. It is true that there is little (not zero, but little) fossil evidence to link pre-Cambrian organisms such as the Ediacara biota, to Cambrian descendants, because pre-Cambrian organisms have no hard body parts and do not fossilise well. But so what? It is not true that phyla always disappear - humans, for example, are primates and mammals and tetrapods and vertebrates and chordates - that much is clear - chordates arise in the Cambrian like other phyla, but they belong to higher taxa too, with common ancestors, such as protostomes or deuterostomes.

Fossil evidence is only one of many lines of evidence in support of the fact of evolution. Molecular evidence, such as homology of conserved elements such as ribosomes and small RNAs demonstrate the concept of common ancestry and put the date for the common ancestor of eukaryotes deep in the pre-Cambrian. We can see that eukaryote cells are obligate symbionts of archaea and eubacteria, which demonstrates evolution across kingdoms, never mind phyla.

Rarely, if ever, are there fossil indications that competition by a new and better-adapted class of animals outstripped an outdated ancestor in the race for survival, thus driving the ancestor to extinction.

That’s simply not true. To take a case very close to us, H sapiens clearly drove H neanderthalensis to extinction in Europe. There are many. many such cases.

The fossil record regularly FAILS to give any hint at the basic anatomical levels that a change in morphology was in the offing.

I have no idea what you are talking about. We can trace the evolution of the birds from the theropod dinosaurs or whales from mesonychid condylarths or tetrapods from sarcopterygii. Your idea that anatomy should ‘give hints that changes are in the offing’ - ie predict change before it happens is bizarre and not part of evolutionary theory

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

The subject was evolution as understood on the macro level, not the quantum level.

 

[hecd2]

Instead we have ‘punctuated equilibrium’ and mathematicians and physicists telling evolutionary biologists (like S J Gould) that there isn’t enough TIME on Earth for classic or neo-Darwin models to have evolved.

hecd2:

And what respectable mathematicians and physicists would they be?

Ilya Prigogine:

“The probability that at ordinary temperatures a macroscopic number of molecules is assembled to give rise to the coordinated functions characterizing living organisms is vanishingly small. The idea of the spontaneous genesis of life in its present form is therefore improbable, even on a scale of billions of years.”

In Physics Today,“Thermodynamics of Evolution,” 25:23 November 1972 and 25:38, December 1972. (with N. Gregoir and A. Babloyantz.

Wasn’t he award some kind of Nobel prize in Chemistry?

Oh - I thought you had dozens of “mathematicians and physicists” - I didn’t realise you had just one name of someone who basically didn’t agree with you. How pathetic.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for his work on thermodynamics a long way from equilibrium. I thought for a little while that you were thoughtful, but this proves that you are like all the rest of the thoughtless, quote-mining, uncritical posters of garbage from creationist sites. This quote from Prigogine is repeated on several centres of creationist ignorance, and here you are quoting it too. If you knew anything about Prigogine and his work, you would know that he worked on self-organisation and on stochastic irreversible processes. He is the last person to agree that evolution is thermodynamically impossible - his life’s work demonstrates the opposite - he worked on the mechanism of self-organisation. Your quote comes from the introduction to the two essays in the series that set out his solution to the information/thermodynamics problem as he sees it, and represent his definition of the problem he is about to address… Basically this is about as blatant a case of quote mining of someone whose views are actually directly counter to what is claimed by the miner as possible, a particularly disgraceful act when done knowingly.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[abu_kamoon]

I am not up on the latest evolutionary theory. Neither am I current with the most modern ideas on phrenology, astrology, alchemy or global warming. I know enough to know that they are based on nonsense.

If you put ten economists in a room, they will all disagree with each other. The reason for this is that real economics (classical economics) is no longer taught.

I believe that a lot of what passes for science today is not science. Were it science, it wouldn’t keep changing. Science is supposed to be the search for truth. The best idea doesn’t qualify as the truth.

Latin names for imaginary creatures, and scientific sounding “ages” don’t impress me. I guess I must look ignorant to an evolutionist. I tend to be skeptical. Evolutionists strike me as a gullible lot.

If you know history, “science” has been wrong many times. It wasn’t really science that was wrong, it was people’s arrogance. It was a lock of humility that caused these people to cling to error, and disgarage anyone who disagreed.

This is the opposite of true science.

 

[cpayne]

Well, folks, all I can say is that my hopes for the thread (remember the title and the OP?) didn’t quite work out. Ah, well; you all seem to be enjoying yourself. So long.

 

[hecd2]

‘Common ancestor’ would be the missing proto-hominid (conjectured to exist by neo-Darwinists) which humans and apes evolved from via random mutations and natural selection, while ‘common descent’ would be classic (as promoted by Huxley: remember his horse chart??!!) Darwinism having changes across the phyla from fish to man.

I’ve just realised that in all his talk about the lack of fossil evidence for the emregence of phyla, Robert doesn’t even understand what phyla are! Having agreed with him that there isn’t a lot of fossil evidence for the emergence of phyla (although there is some, and there’s lots of other kinds of evidence), I now discover, by looking back up the thread, that he wasn’t really talking about the emergence of phyla at all. Here he is, saying that changes from fish to man are across the phyla, when, in fact, fish and man are in the same phylum Chordata – actually they are in the same sub-phylum, Vertebrata and super-class Gnathostomata. If Robert had asked the question “is there fossil evidence of evolution within a phylum?” then the answer would have been, “yes, tons of it”. We have good, and sometimes great fossil evidence for the major transitions all the way from fish to man (fish to tetrapod, amphibian to amniote, the emergence of synapsids, early mammals, the emergence of placental mammals, the emergence of primitive primates, the divergence of monkeys, the catarrhyni/platyrrhini split, the emergence of hominidae, and then a continuous progression of fossils from Ardipithecus ramidus to archaic Homo sapiens).

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Koru]

As to “young-earth creationism,” that was not mentioned in your original question, but, from my experience among other Catholics (RCIA, CCD, college level instruction, KofC, et cetera) I have yet to meet someone who LITERALLY believes the earth’s geological age to be around 6000 years old.

Robert

I’m a KofC and I believe that the earth is under 10,000 years old

 

[Rbt_Southwell]

I’m a KofC and I believe that the earth is under 10,000 years old

Koru;

Now I have read (almost) everything!

Robert

 

[Koru]

Koru;

Now I have read (almost) everything!

Robert

There are more than just me…

 

[Rbt_Southwell]

Oh - I thought you had dozens of “mathematicians and physicists” - I didn’t realise you had just one name of someone who basically didn’t agree with you. How pathetic.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

Alec;

Let’s dispense with the name calling. As to the others, I have misplaced my papers, but (the wife willing) I will find them and list them by this weekend.

You might have missed the point about phyla. Of course I know that mammals and lizards are of the phylum Chordata. But the point I was trying to make was that the fossil evidence we do have challenges the classic concept of Darwinism.

The most glaring example is the Cambrian explosion (which encompassed the globe) some 530 million years ago.

Here’s the rub: jointed legs, food-gathering appendages, intenstinal structures, gills, eyes with optically perfect lense, notochords all “evolved” simultaneously.

All 34 animal Phyla that exist today appear as a single burst in the fossil record during the Cambrian event. And radioactive dating of rocks from that period places all development within a 5 million year window.

Argue ‘latent library’ and I will agree with you. But the question remains: how can ‘random’ mutations outside of the probable realm of earth time result in this variety WITHOUT an intelligent, supranatural force?

You can call It or Him or Her the cosmic muffin for all I care. But I cannot find evidence (outside of theoritical constructs) of anything but what most of us call God on this website.

Robert

 

[Ignatius]

What I have in mind is a different kind of thread on evolution, and I hope it works out that way. I realize there have already been about 6,000 threads on evolution (or 16 billion, by some counts).

However, my question is more specific than arguing over evolution, young-earth creationism, and so on. All recent Popes have issued statements essentially supporting the ideas of evolution, the old earth, the old universe, etc.

Incorrect. You are not understanding what is being said. You must listen to what is said with the mind of the Church if you hope to understand. The Church does not suport old earth creationism.

God Bless.

 

[edwest2]

The basic, root question is why is it so important for Catholics to accept the evidence for evolution? There is more here than science. We are talking about an ideology.

The Catholic Church holds that God creates from nothing. I would like to ask all Theistic Evolutionists exactly where does God intervene in evolution?

God bless,
Ed

 

[zian]

I don’t know, Ed, but I’ll ask Him first chance I get.

 

[PhilVaz]

Ed << The basic, root question is why is it so important for Catholics to accept the evidence for evolution? >>

Same answer to the basic, root question as to why it is important for Catholics to accept the earth is round, goes around the sun, is billions of years old, and that diseases are caused by germs, not demons. Basic astronomy, basic geology, basic biology, basic medicine. Truth is important. Truth cannot contradict truth. Faith and reason go together. And your computer operates by microprocessors, digital circuits, chips, electronic digital signals, and not angels running around in there.

Ed << I would like to ask all Theistic Evolutionists exactly where does God intervene in evolution? >>

Doesn’t really matter if we can p(name removed by moderator)oint where or have a fully worked-out explanation on where or how or just when, only that God indeed created everything and guides all creation. For example:

God was moved by His Goodness to create the world. (De Fide)
The world had a beginning in time. (De Fide)
God alone created the world. (De Fide)
God keeps all created things in existence. (De Fide)
God, through His Providence, protects and guides all that He has created. (De Fide)

We don’t ultimately know “how” God created – that’s where science comes in. Catechism says this:

1. The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers…
2. The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin…

But I would say at the creation of the universe (Big Bang), at the creation of first life on earth, and at the creation of the first soul sometime in the evolutionary timeline with the first human being. Also at every true miracle and supernatural event. I am currently studying the "Incorruptibles" and skeptics attempts to explain those and other phenomena.

However, if science figures out how life got here naturally, this wouldn’t affect my faith.

Phil P