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

[whatistrue]

Even if you don’t consider Genesis 1 and 2 to be historically true, you still must admit spiritually that it is speaking of our first parents

You mean like I did in the first option I mentioned?

 

[NSmith]

So then you believe that homo sapiens existed who did not have souls? Or at least you think that this doesn’t present any theological problems?

I am not trying to trap you, I know of several prominent Protestant writers that believed there was a whole pre-Adam world with its own civilizations. Julian the Apostate also taught this, as well as Apollonius the Egyptian. But Christians have not supported this view until the Enlightenment.

 

[whatistrue]

Or at least you think that this doesn’t present any theological problems?

I do not think that it poses any theological issues, and there have been several Popes who seem to have agreed. Next?

But Christians have not supported this view until the Enlightenment.

Perhaps the fact that it wasn’t until recent times (after the Enlightenment as you call it) that we were able to determine the physical part of the development of what became full humans.

 

[NSmith]

You’re free to hold this belief. I think that it has a lot of problems, and do not agree.

Perhaps the fact that it wasn’t until recent times (after the Enlightenment as you call it) that we were able to determine the physical part of the development of what became full humans.

Evidence for ancient civilizations existed prior to modern paleontology. It is presented by the ancient proponents of polygenism, like the two that I mentioned, as proof that Scripture is not authoritative. The evidence has taken on a different character in modern times due to a rising respect for the sciences, but it is substantially the same claims that Christians have always faced and the same line of argumentation is used.
Christians did not attempt to reconcile infallibility of Scripture with pre-Adam human cultures until the 1800’s because Protestant theologians felt that the science was too difficult to dispute, so in that case you are correct that it was done in light of scientific claims. As far as I know there are no Catholic theologians that have seriously considered the possibility of pre-Adam human beings.

 

[whatistrue]

I think that it has a lot of problems, and do not agree.

And I guess that you are allowed to disagree with St. John Paul II and other Popes. Thanks, but I will listen to the scientists on science, and the Popes and Magisterium on doctrine and dogma. But maybe that’s just me.

 

[NSmith]

I have read St. Pope John Paul II’s work and he does not teach that pre-Adam human beings existed. I am not aware of any place that he mentions it. Do you have an example that I might have missed?

 

[whatistrue]

does not teach that pre-Adam human beings

Nor did I say that. I said “pre-humans became ‘Man’ with the infusion of an immortal soul”. And I didn’t say that Pope St. John Paul II or anyone else taught that pre-Adam humans existed. I said that he and other Popes teach that evolution as currently understood is not incompatible with Christianity so long as you accept certain truths that were specifically listed, such as that each individual soul is created immediately by God. Please only argue against what I actually say if you wish to continue the discussion.

 

[NSmith]

Thanks for clarifying. Then the examples of symbolic thought and art work demonstrated by neanderthals and denisovans does not imply a rational soul in those species? And what of the homo sapiens that lived prior to the events of the Fall? Were they also ensouled? What, then, distinguishes us who have souls from our forefathers that did not have them? And are the descendants of those other humans without souls still with us today? (ginger jokes, haha)

 

[rossum]

However, saying that it is possible and saying that it happened are two different things. And statistically, the probability that what you’ve described would occur often enough to result in added complexity is so close to zero as to be negligible.

I would need to see your probability calculation before agreeing with you on this. You will need to include both population size and the average number of mutations for a new individual in your calculation. For humans, that is about 75 mutations per individual in a 7 billion population, which gives 75 * 7e9 = 5.25e11 mutations. Divide that by the 3e9 number of base pairs in the human genome and you get 175 mutations per base pair spread over the population. That is a lot of mutations spread over a lot of different environments.

So then you believe that homo sapiens existed who did not have souls? Or at least you think that this doesn’t present any theological problems?

Homo sapiens is a scientific classification, not a biological one. That appears to be one of the options allowed in Humani Generis:

1. For these reasons 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, on the part of men experienced in both fields, 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 - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. (emphasis added)

Adam had “nostrils” before God breathed, so his physical body was already formed.

$0.02

 

[whatistrue]

Then the examples of symbolic thought and art work demonstrated by neanderthals and denisovans does not imply a rational soul in those species?

Did you perhaps miss where I said we cannot tell from this vantage whether a give human-like creature had or did not have a soul? I leave such things up to God.

 

[NSmith]

Alright. If you’re comfortable with that perspective then who am I to dissuade you? I am not comfortable conceding so much concerning the historicity of Adam and Eve, the historicity of Noah and the flood, and the account of human civilization given in Genesis. This appears to be a distinction between us that will not be resolved. But I am encouraged that you at least do not dispute Original Sin or other dogmas.

 

[whatistrue]

Even in seeming to accept that my position is not evil, you still misrepresent it. I am done.

 

[NSmith]

I’m confused. Didn’t this whole discussion start because you were disputing my reading of the Genesis accounts? If we actually agree about the Genesis accounts then why have we been debating?

 

[whatistrue]

then why have we been debating

You were putting forth a literalistic view. I disagreed.

What I am talking about now is that you seem to shade what I actually say to suit your own narrative or what you believe that I really meant and respond to that, rather than responding to what I actually did say. That is why I am done.

 

[fhansen]

I’m quite the amateur here but I’ve been reading “The Science of God” by Gerald L. Schroeder with a physicist, a biologist, and an engineer to name three, and we’re all impressed for the most part with his application of scientific knowledge to Genesis. There’s a lot packed into this book.

 

[NSmith]

The figure for mutations in a pair that I have seen is 5 x 10^-10 per pair per year. Only mutations that become fixed in a population are effective, and estimates for this are dependent on Markov chain models but a simple model would be 200 in succession. Only mutations that are inheritable are passed on, and not all mutations become common to every cell of an organism. I can’t find any research that gives a simple model, so I’ll generously say half of mutations are inherited. The vast majority of mutations are deleterious, some are neutral, and the tiny minority are beneficial. Let’s generously say that 1% are beneficial.
The chance of a mutation becoming fixed in a single lineage over a lifetime of 80 years would be
(23 pairs * 80 years * 510^-10 mutations per year per pair * .5 proportion of inheritable * .01 proportion of beneficial) ^ 200 successions which is so small my calculator gives me 0.
If we want to multiply this by the number of cells in a human body, which is estimated at 30 trillion, my calculator gives me … 0.
If we assume that every mutation is beneficial and that every mutation in the body is inhertiable, we get 0.
If we assume that it only takes 40 successive transmissions of the mutation to become fixed instead of the usual estimate of 200, we get 1.110^-228.
If we assume that it magically spreads to the population after only 2 successions then we get 8.4*10^-13.

The genetic models that they use are vastly, vastly more complicated than what I’ve summarized. But this complexity seems to be obfuscating the fact that we’re taking about something that just doesn’t ever happen. Not once in a trillion years.

 

[NSmith]

I’ll check it out, thanks!

 

[Richca]

An old earth theory either of millions or billions of years does not equal or automatically mean the darwinian theory of evolution of species. God could have created the various species of plants and animals over many millions or billions of years. Indeed, the Genesis 1 creation narrative reads that God’s creative work in the creation and formation of the world in its first completeness lasted over time, at least 6 days. As you mentioned in a later post, the days of Genesis 1 do not necessarily only mean 24 hour days. For one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day with the Lord. The fossil record supports creationism as the fossils of ancient species of various animals or plants appear abruptly and complete in the record.

Concerning the genealogies in Genesis 1-11, if we assume that human beings have been on the earth for 50,000, 100,000, 200,000 or more years, than the sacred writer obviously left out some generations, many generations. Personally, I don’t have a problem with this. It would have made the genealogical narrative extremely long and beside the sacred writer’s intention. It appears that the sacred writer’s intention was to trace the line of Seth, the son Adam and Eve had after Abel was killed by Cain, to Noah. St Augustine in his book ‘The City of God’ interprets the line of Seth and the line of Cain as representing two cities or we might say two kinds of human beings. The line of Seth are those who worship God and who are God fearing, this is the City of God. The line of Cain are the worldly people, the city of the world and the kingdom of Satan, those who take no notice of God, unrepentant sinners, and whose end is destruction such as happened in the Flood. This is a warning to us who live today for there are four last things, namely, death, judgement, heaven, and hell.

We may also consider that in the genealogies of Genesis 1-11, we find patterns concerning numbers that are symbolic of something intentionally placed there by the sacred writer/s. There are patterns in the ages of the various patriarchs and I’m not sure at the moment without further research of the sacred text, but there may be patterns or symbolic numbers of the number of generations that are in the text such as the total generations or the number of generations between the patriarchs or certain partriarchs.

 

[NSmith]

Actually my whole exercise was based on an improper understanding. Only born mutants are important, because mutations throughout the life of an individual aren’t typically passed on.
That figure is 1.25*10^-8 per base pair per generation. (Estimating the human mutation rate from autozygous segments reveals population differences in human mutational processes)

So if we repeat the exercise without the 80 years and without the inheritability proportion, because these were mistakes, we get:
23 pairs * 1.25*10^-8 mutations per pair per generation * 1 generation * .01 proportion of beneficial = a rate of 2.875*10^-9 for a beneficial mutation per generation.
That doesn’t even account for the whole question of it becoming fixed in the genome. This number is actually 3 in one million. If the chance of a positive mutation becoming fixed is less than 1 the proportion gets even smaller, and I can guarantee that it does, I just don’t understand the equations that they are trying to use to explain fixation.

The above calculation includes all mutations, not only those that are introducing something novel to the genome. Alterations to existing data aren’t an increase in complexity. But I can’t find any research that is actually making any distinction.

 

[rossum]

Only mutations that become fixed in a population are effective,

This is incorrect. I have inherited a lactase persistence mutation, which is perfectly effective: I can digest milk as an adult. That mutation is not fixed, only about 30% of the human population has a version of lactase persistence – there is more then one version.

Similarly there are mutations for adaptation to high altitude, which I do not have. Those mutations are different in Tibet, the Andes and East Africa, but all three variants are effective and none of them are fixed in the human population.

For a local fixation you need to recalculate for every local population and use the correct population size.

The vast majority of mutations are deleterious, some are neutral, and the tiny minority are beneficial. Let’s generously say that 1% are beneficial.

Again incorrect. The majority of mutations are neutral. The majority of the non-neutral mutations are indeed deleterious. Your 1% beneficial might be too high for a well-adapted population. Where the population has moved to a different environment, or the environment has recently changed, then the beneficial figure might be higher because there is more scope for improvement.

You need to find better sources here.