Transitional Fossils and the Theory of Evolution in relation to Genesis Accounts

[Eric_Hyom]

Eric_Hyom:

Evolution is not goal driven.

Except for the goals of survival and reproduction.

Single cell life can survive and reproduce. Now set up a computer to predict how a skeletal system could form. You can’t do it unless you first program thousands of goals. Evolution is not goal driven.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

Now set up a computer to predict how a skeletal system could form. You can’t do it unless you first program thousands of goals. Evolution is not goal driven.

No, we could. Evolution is a deterministic process. The problem we have is that it’s near impossible at this point in time to account for every single influence on evolution. We’d need to know, with precision, models for: Star birth, death, and radiation output, all asteroids and impactful interstellar objects, the Sun’s changing energy output, the rate at which the Moon goes away from Earth, the folding of proteins, the assembly of biomolecules, and a lot more that don’t come to mind. The model can exist, we just can’t make it yet because we don’t have all the required pieces.

 

[rossum]

Single cell life can survive and reproduce. Now set up a computer to predict how a skeletal system could form.

Certainly. First you need to provide the parameters for setting up the simulation. That means describing every life-containing environment on the earth from the first appearance of life until the appearance of the first skeletal systems. Of course the environmental data should contain full details of temperature, currents, solar flares, cosmic ray densities etc. Basically, anything and everything that could impact on living organisms.

Without the necessary data to (name removed by moderator)ut it will not be possible to get accurate results from any simulation.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

No, we could. Evolution is a deterministic process. The problem we have is that it’s near impossible at this point in time to account for every single influence on evolution. We’d need to know, with precision, models for: Star birth, death, and radiation output, all asteroids and impactful interstellar objects, the Sun’s changing energy output, the rate at which the Moon goes away from Earth, the folding of proteins, the assembly of biomolecules, and a lot more that don’t come to mind. The model can exist, we just can’t make it yet because we don’t have all the required pieces.

Fair enough, but all this lack of evidence suggests we don’t know how evolution happened purely by natural causes.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Certainly. First you need to provide the parameters for setting up the simulation. That means describing every life-containing environment on the earth from the first appearance of life until the appearance of the first skeletal systems. Of course the environmental data should contain full details of temperature, currents, solar flares, cosmic ray densities etc. Basically, anything and everything that could impact on living organisms.

Without the necessary data to (name removed by moderator)ut it will not be possible to get accurate results from any simulation.

So your evidence for evolution seems to be lacking all this information.

 

[buffalo]

Single cell life can survive and reproduce.

Where does the animating principle come from?

 

[buffalo]

No, we could. Evolution is a deterministic process.

There goes random mutations.

 

[buffalo]

Without the necessary data to (name removed by moderator)ut it will not be possible to get accurate results from any simulation.

So we need lots of information to do this… lots and lots of it…

 

[rossum]

So your evidence for evolution seems to be lacking all this information.

Not at all. We can observe the effects of evolution, it is just that we cannot see all of the early causes. We can observe evolution happening now, as with MRSA and herbicide resistant plants.

You have the same problem. If God created all living things (except Himself) then we can observe the effects – a large number of living organisms. You cannot provide any details of how God caused all those different species to emerge. Nor have I seen any details of whatever mechanism God used being observed today. Did God create MRSA or did He leave it to evolution?

Evolution can provide some details, though not all details. You cannot provide anywhere near as much detail. Did God create sponges before or after He created seagulls? What evidence can you provide? Or do you use the same evidence as we have for evolution? Evolution can certainly answer that question.

 

[rossum]

So we need lots of information to do this… lots and lots of it…

Which is why no sensible scientist approaches the question that way. There are questions that cannot be answered because the data is no longer available. For example, the contents of the Annals of the Kings of Israel, referenced in the Bible, can now lo longer be determined because that book is lost.

 

[buffalo]

Not at all. We can observe the effects of evolution, it is just that we cannot see all of the early causes. We can observe evolution happening now, as with MRSA and herbicide resistant plants.

You again are referencing adaptation. No one argues it.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

Fair enough, but all this lack of evidence suggests we don’t know how evolution happened purely by natural causes.

No, we know the mechanisms by which it occurred and what influenced it to happen that way, we just can’t replicate it ourselves.

Tell me, how did the solar system form?

 

[buffalo]

No, we know the mechanisms by which it occurred

Have you not even read the last two papers submitted here today? No, we don’t know.

 

[buffalo]

Another article about gene loss and adaptation.

Recent major surveys show that reductions in genomic complexity — including the loss of key genes — have successfully shaped the evolution of life throughout history.

“If you imagine a car in your mind, of course it has wheels, right? Now, what if I told you I found a car that has no wheels?” Cañestro asked. “We found a situation in which the things we thought were essential are not there, even though the structure [they make] is still there. And that makes you rethink the essentiality of some of the genes.”

Their results suggest that even early animals had [relatively complex genomes] because of an unprecedented spurt of gene duplication early in life’s history. Later, as lineages of animals evolved into different phyla with distinct body plans, many of their genes began to disappear, and [gene loss continued] to be a major factor in evolution thereafter. In fact, the loss of genes seems to have helped many groups of organisms split away from their ancestors and triumph over new environmental challenges.

In a [recent study] that looked at different forms of genes in Arabidopsis plants from all over the globe, researchers in China and California found that about 66% of protein-coding genes had broken versions, known as loss-of-function variants.

Sometimes, losing a gene can be adaptive. (yup)

“This is interesting because it suggests that evolution may be more predictable and deterministic than we thought,” Jedd said. (what? )

Quanta Magazine

Title is somewhat suspect as to what the article actually says.

 

[Duke12VonFalkenburg]

It’s both.
Creation- Space, Matter, and Time being created out of nothing. “ In the beginning there was nothing and darkness was on the face of the deep… and God said Let there be light!”

The greatest miracle in the Bible has already occurred and we have scientific evidence for it…

I just mentioned it. The creation of the universe out of nothing. Physicists today are admitting the scientific truth that Space, Matter, and Time had a beginning out of nothing. So, whatever created Space, Matter, and Time can’t be made of Space Matter and Time. What is
-Spaceless, -Timeless, -Immaterial, -Powerful, -Personal, -Intelligent?

GOD

Think about this everyone. If he can create the whole show out of nothing then everything else in the Bible is at least within the realm possibility.

Evolution- I have two points to make about this. First I have to say is that Biological evolution is simply irrelevant to the truth of Christian Theism. Genesis 1 fits all manner of different interpretations and one is by no means committed to a 6 day creationism.The creationist picture of the world’s formation is not a necessary component of Christian belief. St. Augustine in the A.D. 300s wrote a commentary on Genesis and pointed out that the days do not need to be taken literally nor need the creation be a few thousand years ago. Indeed he suggested that God made the world with certain special potencies that would gradually unfold over time and develop. This interpretation came 1,500 years before Darwin.

Barrow and Tipler two physicists who wrote the Anthropic Cosmological Principle lists 10 steps in the course of Human Evolution and each of which is so improbable that before it would occur the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and incinerated the Earth. They calculate the probability of the development of the human genome to be somewhere between 4 to the negative 180th power to the 110,000 power and 4 to the negative 360th power to the 110,000 power! So, if evolution did occur on this planet it was literally a miracle and therefore evidence for the existence of God.

Evolution has no bearing whatsoever–as far as I can tell–on anything relating to Jesus Christ. To me, the account of creation in Genesis is a way of explaining something that was completely beyond the understanding of ancient man. God is creator, but His method is rather irrelevant.

“There are no difficulties in explaining the origin of man in regard to the body by means of the theory of evolution. According to the hypothesis mentioned it is possible that the human body, following the order impressed by the Creator on the energies of life, could have gradually been prepared in the form of antecedent living beings [i.e. living beings that existed prior to humanity].”

St. John Paul II , “Humans are Spiritual and Corporeal Beings”, April 16, 1986.

 

[Freddy]

Another article about gene loss and adaptation.

Recent major surveys show that reductions in genomic complexity — including the loss of key genes — have successfully shaped the evolution of life throughout history.

“If you imagine a car in your mind, of course it has wheels, right? Now, what if I told you I found a car that has no wheels?” Cañestro asked".

And here’s an image of what is termed Canestro Evolution:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Is this information what you want us to accept? Looks like all those creatures had a…what was the term…common ancestor.

Yet again you link to someone who bases his work on facets of science that you directly reject. Does this ever end…?

 

[buffalo]

Is this information what you want us to accept? Looks like all those creatures had a…what was the term…common ancestor.

Yet again you link to someone who bases his work on facets of science that you directly reject. Does this ever end…?

One again ignoring the previous two papers.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Is this information what you want us to accept? Looks like all those creatures had a…what was the term…common ancestor.

Yet again you link to someone who bases his work on facets of science that you directly reject. Does this ever end…?

One again ignoring the previous two papers.

Ignoring tbe papers? You are ignoring the basis on which they are written.

F: ‘But this paper says the planet is billions of years old’.
B: ‘Ah, ignore that bit.’
F: ‘And this says that we have a common ancestor with apes’.
B: ‘But you’re missing the point’.
F: ‘And this one says that evolution has been taking place for hundreds of millions of years’.
B: ‘You should skip that part’.
F: ‘And this guy you quoted says man has been around for hundreds of thousands of years’.
B: ‘Well he has to say that to get funding’.
F: Embarresed silence.

 

[buffalo]

Ignoring tbe papers? You are ignoring the basis on which they are written .

Ignoring the salient points of the paper - and the point is extreme early complexity and subsequent loss of genes and function as time goes on. Ignore the devolution arrow.

The latest science is affirming IDvolution.

An explosion of complexity -God “breathed” the super language of DNA into the “kinds” in the creative act.

This accounts for the diversity of life we see. The core makeup shared by all living things have the necessary complex information built in that facilitates rapid and responsive adaptation of features and variation while being able to preserve the “kind” that they began as. Life has been created with the creativity built in ready to respond to triggering events.

Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on Earth have the same core, it is virtually certain that living organisms have been thought of AT ONCE by the One and the same Creator endowed with the super language we know as DNA that switched on the formation of the various kinds, the cattle, the swimming creatures, the flying creatures, etc… in a pristine harmonious state and superb adaptability and responsiveness to their environment for the purpose of populating the earth that became subject to the ravages of corruption by the sin of one man (deleterious mutations).

IDvolution considers the latest science and is consistent with the continuous teaching of the Church.

Common descent i don’t argue. I argue against universal common descent.

 

[Freddy]

Common descent i don’t argue. I argue against universal common descent.

So you agree or disagree with the diagram detailing millions of years worth of evolution? You know, the one named after the guy to whom you linked. The guy you quoted. The one you are asking us to trust.