Why do so many Catholics accept evolution as fact?

[Techno2000]

The Electric Eel uses electricity to protect itself, how did it know it was going to need this for a defence,and how did it survive before it evolved electricity ?

 

[edwest2]

It’s exactly what is predicted by the theory of evolution. And over the course of many more millennia, the descendants of the chihuahua and the descendants of the great Dane, if their populations are reproductively isolated, and if further selective pressures to further differentiate them even more, could diverge into different species. As different as wolves and foxes, and eventually, such differentiation can continue and the differences become more pronounced. All from a subgroup of the same ancestral wolf population.

But anyway, there are numerous examples throughout history of evolution over millions of years. From apes, to many mammals (which exploded in population and diversity after the extinction of dinosaurs), to birds, and so much more.

Adaptation works. Evolution? I’ve got nothing to back that up. Yes, we have fossils, but they are fossils of complete, functional creatures.

Ed

 

[edwest2]

Two Great white sharks mate together and you still get Great white sharks , same with Dogs.

The same with bacteria. They have the in-built ability to trade genes. It’s called Horizontal Gene Transfer.

“Horizontal gene transfer is the primary reason for the spread of antibiotic resistance in bacteria[5][6][7][8][9] and plays an important role in the evolution of bacteria that can degrade novel compounds such as human-created pesticides[10] and in the evolution, maintenance, and transmission of virulence.[11] This horizontal gene transfer often involves temperate bacteriophages and plasmids.[12][13] Genes that are responsible for antibiotic resistance in one species of bacteria can be transferred to another species of bacteria through various mechanisms such as F-pilus), subsequently arming the antibiotic resistant genes’ recipient against antibiotics, which is becoming a medical challenge to deal with.”

The bacteria do not “evolve” into anything other than bacteria. They have a built-in mechanism to help deal with harmful foreign substances.

Ed

 

[Techno2000]

You have asked this question many times. You have received answers from many of us giving examples of animals that are in the process of evolving.

You have rejected those answers. Why do you continue to ask the question. You have plenty of answers, and you are now just wasting everyone’s time, your own included.

Short answer: every population is changing as the genetic makeup of that population changes.

rossum

That’s the problem I haven’t got a clear answer, can someone point to animal right now after billions of years have passed and say this animal is becoming something new ?

 

[edwest2]

We are in the future now… billions of years have already pass for something to happen.

You can pass through many, many, many different generations of bacteria and you still get bacteria. The bacteria who have never been exposed to this or that are still out there.

Ed

 

[edwest2]

If you’re simply not convinced, which points trouble you?

And for Creationism, I personally look at the entire fossil record. How do you explain it?

And it’s fair to say you’re not convinced, but make sure to realize that the best explanations of evolution will come from.evolutionists if you ever decide to look into it.

The fossil record contains a lot of dead animals that were fully functional in life. That’s all the fossil record is.

Ed

 

[edwest2]

Transitional Fossils Are Not Rare

Fossils with transitional morphology are not rare. Fossils illustrating the gradual origin of humans, horses, rhinos, whales, seacows, mammals, birds, tetrapods, and various major Cambrian “phyla” have been discovered and are well-known to scientists. …claims to the contrary are just a rehash of older creationist arguments on this point, relying on out-of-context quotes, confusion over terminology and classification, and ignoring inconvenient evidence.

Given the general rarity of fossils, fossils showing evolutionary transitions are not at all rare. This can be illustrated with a range of examples, of which the record of hominid fossils is especially striking. The skulls shown below display a clear, smooth transition from the early ancestors of modern humans to the modern form of the human skull.

Image doesn’t seem to be working but you can view it here:

Hominids are animals.

Ed

 

[edwest2]

Um, if it lived to adulthood it’s always going to be a complete animal. They don’t come out with mismatched pieces or something. They have slightly better eyesight or longer legs or something.

Even so, we have had things like Archaeopteryx for a long time. Even before we were nearly so sure that today’s birds are descended from dinosaurs, we had the bones of a proto-bird. Surely that counts even by your standards.

It sure doesn’t. Scientists missed a few details when trying to connect birds with dinosaurs.

sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609092055.htm

Ed

 

[edwest2]

Every person who wants to make pronouncements on evolution should be required to take at least an entry level geology class. This is not some branch of new age vodoo but very legitimate straightforward science.

Young people out there who have trouble wrapping your minds around this, take a geology class.
Get a sense of how old the earth is, how long the processes that shape our land take to shape it.
Learn what a fossil is.
Learn how organisms develop and evolve, because they do, and if you don’t accept that you remain in ignorance.

And none of it will threaten the Truth of Adam and Eve.

I’m ignorant of multiple dimension theory, so why is this so important?

Ed

 

[edwest2]

It’s not speculation.
It’s called science. You gather evidence, make logical deductions etc…

Think.
We would be still living in caves if we regarded legitimate discovery as “speculation”.

Think of all the biologists working today. All they have to work with is things that are alive today. Think about drug discovery. It’s still trial and error. And speculation doesn’t count. Any findings have to be visible and reproducible. The distant past, regarding living things, has only fossils, and the further back you go, the greater the margin for error. A person firing a gun at close range may miss a spot by an inch. Change that to a mile for a rifle and if you’re off by a tiny fraction, you may miss your conclusion entirely and hit something else.

Ed

 

[edwest2]

What’s unreasonable about this being our ancestor 540,000,000 years ago? And not just us, but all other vertebrates?

It’s very unreasonable. It assumes great morphological changes for no particular reason.

Ed

 

[goout]

Think of all the biologists working today. All they have to work with is things that are alive today.

That’s
Not
True

Ask a biologist.
Is there one on the forum here? Please chime in.

 

[goout]

Your opinion only.

Ed

Ed, you have a responsibility to educate yourself in the science if you are going to refute it. And I’m not talking about google.
Start with a basic geology or earth science course which can give you a sense of time and go from there.
Please.

 

[NM505StKate]

Really? Nineteen pages that can be summed up in: “There is evidence that shows evolution to be true. Hundreds of thousands of experiments have been done that prove it as a fact. Even the popes accept it to be true.” No wonder this is a banned topic.

 

[PseuTonym]

a non-functioning pseudogene is not subject to error-correction by natural selection.

How does one establish that something is a “non-functioning pseudogene”?

If the claim “a non-functioning pseudogene is not subject to error-correction by natural selection” is reliable, then it could be used to establish that some genetic change resulted from a process other than natural selection.

Guinea Pigs also have a broken GULO gene. However, it is broken in a different way. The broken primate versions are all broken in the same way.

If the statement “the broken primate versions are all broken in the same way” is literally and absolutely true with no exceptions, then we have a section of DNA with no variation in the population, and we also somehow know that no mutation arises in the population for that section of DNA. In that case, (having no variation and no mutations), future natural selection simply cannot affect that section of DNA. What other parts of the genome are absolutely fixed in that way? You should be able, via a process of elimination, to narrow down the possibilities for future evolution of species from human beings, species that may exist when we are extinct.

 

[rossum]

Gills don’t change into lungs. They have no “reason” to.

They didn’t. Our throat/stomach changed into lungs/swim bladders. Any fish that fed on (or above) the surface would swallow some air. That air could be useful for flotation or for oxygen supply in deoxygenated water. Lungs and swim bladders evolved from that. Blame evolution whenever you choke, because your lungs and stomach both branch off the same pipe. Bad design explained by evolution.

And if I were an organism that lived in the water, and somehow, acquired the ability to move on land - what do I eat? What if something eats me? I’d stick to the water.

Plants were on land before animals. If you were the first land animal (an insect or crustacean probably) then there was no other animal to eat you, they would have arrived later. Like flying fish, leaving the water can be an escape from water-borne predators.

rossum

 

[rossum]

You can pass through many, many, many different generations of bacteria and you still get bacteria. The bacteria who have never been exposed to this or that are still out there.

So, Ed. you have no problem with eukaryotes evolving from eukaryotes, or (as in the news) deuterostomes evolving from deuterostomes?

Yes, they are still bacteria, but they are new species of bacteria. New species of bacteria (and of eukaryotes) are evolving all the time.

Chimps and humans are both mammals. Does that mean you have no objection to common ancestry between the two, “You can pass through many, many, many different generations of mammals and you still get mammals.”

rossum

 

[edwest2]

Ed, you have a responsibility to educate yourself in the science if you are going to refute it. And I’m not talking about google.
Start with a basic geology or earth science course which can give you a sense of time and go from there.
Please.

Many people here have been kind enough to provide many examples, and data, over the years. And I appreciate that. However, speaking as a professional researcher who has been under deadline to provide accurate information, I’ve had to contact actual people or do detailed academic research, very quickly. Two weeks is my usual deadline for a defined subject and a list of requirements.

It would be safe to say that I’ve learned to scan a lot of documents and rapidly separate the wheat from the chaff. Evolution is not reproducible.

My number one question: Why is this so important? I have yet to receive a good answer.

Ed

 

[rossum]

How does one establish that something is a “non-functioning pseudogene”?

Humans are susceptible to scurvy because we cannot make vitamin C. Primates, and other mammals with a functioning version of the gene are not susceptible to scurvy. It sure looks non-functional to me.

If the claim “a non-functioning pseudogene is not subject to error-correction by natural selection” is reliable, then it could be used to establish that some genetic change resulted from a process other than natural selection.

Correct. Mutation is not natural selection. Mutation increases the diversity in a population’s genome. Natural selection reduced diversity. They are very different processes.

If the statement “the broken primate versions are all broken in the same way” is literally and absolutely true with no exceptions, then we have a section of DNA with no variation in the population, and we also somehow know that no mutation arises in the population for that section of DNA.

There is a STOP codon in the same position in all the broken GULO-P pseudogenes, near the beginning. That is what I meant by “broken in the same way”.

In that case, (having no variation and no mutations), future natural selection simply cannot affect that section of DNA.

It is still subject to mutations and to neutral drift. It is no longer subject to natural selection. If you are going to talk about evolution, then you really should know this already. Mutation, natural selection and neutral drift are three basic and fundamental processes in evolution.

rossum

 

[NM505StKate]

Many people here have been kind enough to provide many examples, and data, over the years. And I appreciate that. However, speaking as a professional researcher who has been under deadline to provide accurate information, I’ve had to contact actual people or do detailed academic research, very quickly. Two weeks is my usual deadline for a defined subject and a list of requirements.

It would be safe to say that I’ve learned to scan a lot of documents and rapidly separate the wheat from the chaff. Evolution is not reproducible.

My number one question: Why is this so important? I have yet to receive a good answer.

Ed

But Ed scientists have recorded it happen and have tests to back it up.