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Seeker1961
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The man is on “the House Science, Space and Technology Commitee”. Really??? How can you have someone on that committee who doesn’t believe in science??
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HansTrappist
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Well, it depends on what one means by “evolution.” That term tends to get thrown around rather equivocally.
If by saying “evolution is true” one means that common descent and natural selection are true then, yes, “evolution” is true.
But if by saying “evolution is true” we mean that random mutation gave rise rise to complex, intelligent life then, no, “evolution” is not true.
It gets even more interesting when you start talking about the origin of human beings. Modern scientists still haven’t reached a consensus on, shall we say, the birthdate of Adam. But they keep revising their estimates to an earlier and earlier date, actually approaching the Biblical estimate of around 4000 B.C.
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Faith1960
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Are you sure about that?
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BroomWagon
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He’s been in the news on Creationism before.
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Faith1960
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What exactly is it in particular that Broun disasgrees with about embryology?
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cornbread_r2
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As I understand the science, one can’t separate natural selection from random mutation and still be talking about the modern concept of biological evolution. The two components are inseparable.
I’m unaware of any non-confessional scientist who even speculates about Adam’s birthdate. It seems that the reason that there is no consensus among other scientists is because changes within species – on their way to becoming a different species – are so incrementally subtle that there is no sharp dividing line – it’s a smudge.
Based on genetic studies of groups such as the aboriginal Australians and other groups, it is becoming apparent that modern humans have been geographically isolated into distinct racial groups for about at least 40,000 years. If that’s true, then the Biblical Adam couldn’t have existed after that time. If you have information to the contrary I’d like to see it.
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HansTrappist
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Sure about what?
About the age of humanity being about 6000 years old. Not totally sure, but there is pretty solid evidence. For instance:
Mitochondrial DNA mutation rates were measured directly (Parsons, Thomas J., et al., A high observed substitution rate in the human mitochondrial DNA control region, Nature Genetics vol. 15, April 1997, pp. 363-367). The mutation rate in a segment of the control region of mitochondrial DNA was directly measured by comparing mitochondrial DNA from siblings and from parents and their offspring. Mitochondrial DNA was found to mutate about 20 times faster than previously thought, at a rate of one mutation (substitution) every 33 generations, approximately. In this section of the control region, which has about 610 base pairs, humans typically differ from one another by about 18 mutations. By simple mathematics, it follows that the human race is about 300 generations old. If one assumes a typical generation is about 20 years, this gives an age of about 6000 years. cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/humanity.html
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grannymh
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As an update…
May I gently ask readers to check out #37 in Humani Generis. This section is not about a geo sphere or a biosphere. It is about the specific Catholic doctrines which are specifically attacked by a specific form of the 21st century evolution model.
vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html
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Faith1960
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Do you have any information that’s more recent?
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HansTrappist
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No.
This was from a cursory search.
It is a fascinating question and there doesn’t really seem to be a consensus on it.
I’ll keep looking. It is so much fun:nerd:
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grannymh
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No longer can people talk about evolution as a one-size-fits-all explanation. For example. The evolution model is responsible for a lot of good in the medical arena. Now, when the question is “Does the Church allow belief in evolution?” is asked, it is absolutely necessary to name or describe what is being evolved.
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cornbread_r2
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And something from a site that doesn’t have unc.edu (or something similar) in its url, but then has to include a disclaimer stating that: “This material does not necessarily represent any organization, including the University of North Carolina and the State of North Carolina.”
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Voltaren
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This is nothing other than indefensible creationist lies.
evolutionpages.com/Mitochondrial%20Eve.htm
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Voltaren
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Here is some information on this particular set of lies from the creationists.
talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB621_1.html
You have to wonder how much longer we will continue to treat creationists as anything other than vile liars.
talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB621_1.html
You have to wonder how much longer we will continue to treat creationists as anything other than vile liars.
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cornbread_r2
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Maybe Catholics can’t, but I sure as heck can.
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grannymh
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I was pointing out that people talking about evolution need to know the evolution of what…
For Catholics, it depends on *what *is evolving and if the what intersects with a Catholic doctrine. That, my friend, is not so simple because some, not all, Catholics are not aware of basic Catholic doctrines. Add to that the interesting middle position Catholicism holds in reference to Original Sin. All I can say is that Catholicism has to be basically logical in its beliefs in order to have survived the centuries. And yes, it is obvious that actions of individual Catholics are not always logical. And like granny at times, some are very cranky.
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HansTrappist
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Natural selection simply says that the more fit organisms will survive.
The best evidence of what random mutation is capable of doing is from the studies on such organisms as Malaria and HIV. What we see in these cases is not evolution, but rather devolution.
Michael Behe (I know, he is on the blacklist; but he is a phenomenal scientist and just happens to be a good Catholic man) explains all of this in his book* The Edge of Evolution*. He says:
Time has always figured prominently in Darwinian explanations. Although few changes can be noticed in our own age, Darwinists say, over vast stretches of geological time imperceptible modifications of life can add up to profound ones. It’s no wonder that we don’t see much coherent variation going on in the biology of our everyday world - evolutionary processes are so slow that a human lifetime is like a moment. The work on malaria and HIV upon which I base much of the argument for the edge of evolution has mostly been done in the last fifty years. So how can it tell us anything reliable about what could happen over millions or even billions of years?
Time is actually not the chief factor in evolution - population numbers are. In calculating how quickly a beneficial mutation might appear, evolutionary biologists multiply the mutation rate by the population size…
The numbers of malaria cells and HIV in just the past fifty years have probably greatly surpassed the number of mammals that have lived on the earth in the past several hundred million years. So the evolutionary behavior of the pathogens in even such a short time as a half century gives us a clear indication of what can happen with larger organisms over enormous time spans. The fact that no new cellular protein-protein interactions were fashioned, that mutations were incoherent, that changes in only a few genes were able to help, and that those changes were only relatively (not absolutely) beneficial - all that gives us strong reason to expect the same for large organisms over longer times.
Still, are the numbers we’ve examined enough? A hundred billion billion (10^20) malarial cells and HIV viruses is certainly a lot, but it’s miniscule compared to the number of microorganisms that have lived on the earth since it first formed. Workers at the University of Georgia estimate that 10^30 single-celled organisms are produced every year; over the billion-year plus history of the earth, the total number of cells that have existed may be close to 10^40. Looked at another way, for each malarial cell in the past fifty years there have been about 10^20 other microorganisms throughout history. Can we extrapoloate from malaria and HIV to all of bacteria? To all of life?
Sure. We do of course have to be cautious and keep in mind that we are indeed extrapolating, but science routinely extrapolates from what we see happening now to what happened in the past. The same laws of physics that work here and now are used to estimate broadly how the universe developed over billions of years. So we can also use current biology to infer generally what happened over the course of life on earth. Since we see no new protein-protein interactions developing in 10^20 cells, we can be reasonably confident that, at the least, no new cellular systems needing two new protein-protein interactions would develop in 10^40 cells - in the entire history of life. The principle that we use to make the extrapolation - that the odds against two independent events is the multiple of the odds against each event - is very well tested.
…Until an organism is found that is demonstrated to be much more adept than the malarial parasite at building coherent molecular machinery by random mutation and natural selection, there is no positive reason to believe it can be done. And the best evidence we have from malaria and HIV argues that it is biologically unreasonable to think so.
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Voltaren
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It does not matter what religion a person is in regard to evolution. If a religion conflicts with evolution, it is the religion that is wrong.
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buffalo
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Really now…
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HansTrappist
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Am I supposed to take your word?
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