Why do so many Catholics accept evolution as fact?

[Aloysium]

Do you believe all life that we see today came from Primordial soup?

The answer would depend on the definition of “came from” and “primordial soup”.

Clearly the dust that is the material dimension of our being, would have initially come together through a joining of complex molecules into others that would be far more complex. We break down our food into components that are joined together to form our body. Everything that constitutes our material being had its origin in something else. There would be something akin to a soup of organic molecules in which such events could take place.

As to “came from”, see the above. If the word implies merely the physical properties attributed to the molecules, that would be nonsense. We are not here as a result of random events. This is intuitive, a basic fact of reality which is not proved or disproved, being similar to the reality of our own existence in ourselves, and ultimately God as its Source.

 

[NM505StKate]

Where did the soup come from ?

Don’t know.

 

[NM505StKate]

The answer would depend on the definition of “came from” and “primordial soup”.

Clearly for the dust that is the material dimension of our being, it would have initially have come together through a joining of complex molecules into others that would be far more complex. We break down our food into components that are joined together to form our body. Everything that constitutes our material being had its origin in something else. There would be something akin to a soup of organic molecules in which such events could take place.

As to “came from”, see the above. If the word implies merely the physical properties attributed to the molecules, that would be nonsense. We are not here as a result of random events. This is intuitive, a basic fact of reality which is not proved or disproved, being similar to the reality of our own existence in ourselves, and** ultimately God as its Source.**

You mean we evolved to suit our environment? Also my emphasis; you would need to prove god exists else this is god of the gaps argument.

 

[Techno2000]

Don’t know.

I can see you are a Honest person.

 

[Aloysium]

You mean we evolved to suit our environment? Also my emphasis; you would need to prove god exists else this is god of the gaps argument.

No and no.

We understand the world by creating rules which try to reflect the structures that underlie the appearance.

If there were no God, there would be no computer on which I materialize my thoughts into words, that you more or less can understand across the chasm that separates our individual being.

My existence and capacity to perceive, think and act is grounded in His act of creation.

The huge gap is in our scientific knowledge, which in its modern form tells us very little about who we are. The more one knows, the more the mystery reveals itself. We know very, very little and in the darkness we project what we know.

 

[frobert]

Do you believe all life that we see today came from Primordial soup?

My beliefs do not substitute for the science which you are avoiding.

Additionally, why should I answer any of your questions when you are obviously deflecting answering any questions put to you?

 

[Techno2000]

My beliefs do not substitute for the science which you are avoiding.

Additionally, why should I answer any of your questions when you are obviously deflecting answering any questions put to you?

What is your question ?

 

[yppop]

Here is my two cents for what it is worth:

We can examine the evolutionary history of reality by analyzing the most obvious generic characteristic, namely, the increasing complexity of matter with time. Complexity is one of those concepts that is almost impossible to define and measure but simple to contemplate intuitively. The general observation is that complexity has risen slowly throughout history except for several dramatic increases when complexity increased by orders of magnitude in a short geological time. These dramatic increases, have the appearance of creation events. Throughout the entire span of the universe we can identify five stages each of which begins with a creation event followed by a much longer stasis period of slowly rising complexity. The five stages begin with the creation of: 1. the universe (cosmogenesis); 2. the earth (geogenesis); 3. life (abiogenesis); 4. multicellular life (somagenesis); and the mind ( noogenesis).

It is my belief that God was directly involved with the creation events and primarily involved as a sustainer of reality during the stasis periods through the process of evolution. This does not mean that God was not creating during the stasis periods; that would make me an “intermittent deist”, and I am not. I believe that there were many instances that God was apparently directly involved with lesser sudden increases of complexity during the stasis periods. For example, the triple-alpha process that produces the abundance of carbon; the fortuitous abundance of water on the earth, eukaryotic cells; meiosis and sexual reproduction, the introduction of core processes such as ontogeny, homeostasis, morphogenesis; plants, and any number of “missing links”. There are innumerable “gaps” in the tree of life that have to be filled with God’s help.

I believe in evolution as far as it takes us, but it never will explain the creation events both large and small. The main reason is simply that the theory of evolution is based on the modification of an existing body plan that results in new species; the creation events are all associated with the actualization of new and unique body plans or processes.

My answer to the question posed in the OP is: I believe in evolution as a plausible but partial explanation of what is observed in the fossil record.
Yppop

 

[Techno2000]

I believe in evolution as a plausible but partial explanation of what is observed in the fossil record.
Yppop

Can we observe transitional fossils in the fossils record for the animals that we see today ?

 

[rossum]

Can we observe transitional fossils in the fossils record for the animals that we see today ?

Yes. Whales, horses, wolves/dogs and humans are obvious examples.

There are many earlier examples. Tiktaalik is a transitional for all tetrapods. Cambrian Lobopods, like Xenusion, are transitional for Arthopods, Onychophorans and Tardigrades. Being from the Cambrian they have a wider range of descendants, who have had more time to diversify into modern clades.

We have a number of dinosaur-bird transitionals, mostly from China.

The recent Saccorhytus coronarius is transitional for all deuterostomes, including ourselves.

rossum

 

[cornbread_r2]

You all might find this recent video interesting and informative.

 

[NM505StKate]

No and no.

We understand the world by creating rules which try to reflect the structures that underlie the appearance.

If there were no God, there would be no computer on which I materialize my thoughts into words, that you more or less can understand across the chasm that separates our individual being.

My existence and capacity to perceive, think and act is grounded in His act of creation.

The huge gap is in our scientific knowledge, which in its modern form tells us very little about who we are. The more one knows, the more the mystery reveals itself. We know very, very little and in the darkness we project what we know.

I can agree with your first sentence. I disagree with your second because we have technology that gave us the computer and the science for the technology. They didn’t suddenly appear. Our existence is what we make it. Yes there is a gap in our knowledge and it probably won’t be filled in our lifetime but exploring that gap is what makes it so amazing. Filling that gap, in my opinion, with god stifles learning. Why explore when all we need is god to explain everything?

 

[NM505StKate]

Here is my two cents for what it is worth:

We can examine the evolutionary history of reality by analyzing the most obvious generic characteristic, namely, the increasing complexity of matter with time. Complexity is one of those concepts that is almost impossible to define and measure but simple to contemplate intuitively. The general observation is that complexity has risen slowly throughout history except for several dramatic increases when complexity increased by orders of magnitude in a short geological time. These dramatic increases, have the appearance of creation events. Throughout the entire span of the universe we can identify five stages each of which begins with a creation event followed by a much longer stasis period of slowly rising complexity. The five stages begin with the creation of: 1. the universe (cosmogenesis); 2. the earth (geogenesis); 3. life (abiogenesis); 4. multicellular life (somagenesis); and the mind ( noogenesis).

It is my belief that God was directly involved with the creation events and primarily involved as a sustainer of reality during the stasis periods through the process of evolution. This does not mean that God was not creating during the stasis periods; that would make me an “intermittent deist”, and I am not. I believe that there were many instances that God was apparently directly involved with lesser sudden increases of complexity during the stasis periods. For example, the triple-alpha process that produces the abundance of carbon; the fortuitous abundance of water on the earth, eukaryotic cells; meiosis and sexual reproduction, the introduction of core processes such as ontogeny, homeostasis, morphogenesis; plants, and any number of “missing links”. There are innumerable “gaps” in the tree of life that have to be filled with God’s help.

I believe in evolution as far as it takes us, but it never will explain the creation events both large and small. The main reason is simply that the theory of evolution is based on the modification of an existing body plan that results in new species; the creation events are all associated with the actualization of new and unique body plans or processes.

My answer to the question posed in the OP is: I believe in evolution as a plausible but partial explanation of what is observed in the fossil record.
Yppop

Okay if god was directly involved there should be evidence of it. We would have something that shows of god existing because of our laws of nature.

 

[frobert]

You all might find this recent video interesting and informative.

If you want others to invest over an hour in a video, a title and brief synopsis would be helpful

 

[frobert]

Can we observe transitional fossils in the fossils record for the animals that we see today ?

Your question was answered by myself and others you should read what others write before diverting the discussion with your questions.

 

[edwest2]

Yes. Whales, horses, wolves/dogs and humans are obvious examples.

There are many earlier examples. Tiktaalik is a transitional for all tetrapods. Cambrian Lobopods, like Xenusion, are transitional for Arthopods, Onychophorans and Tardigrades. Being from the Cambrian they have a wider range of descendants, who have had more time to diversify into modern clades.

We have a number of dinosaur-bird transitionals, mostly from China.

The recent Saccorhytus coronarius is transitional for all deuterostomes, including ourselves.

rossum

Yet all of these were functional creatures at the time they lived. That’s all. I saw an excellent photo of an insect trapped in amber. It had compound eyes, wings and multiple legs. It was not on its way to being anything else. It knew what was food and what was not food.

The transitions aren’t transitions. We still have almost all of these creatures alive today except the dinosaurs and the woolly mammoth. The Dodo is a recent loss. And how many species have gone extinct in the last hundred years?

Are humans worse off because we can no longer eat the Dodo? No, of course not. The same for other predators.

Fossils from China? The Chinese have built an industry out of giving people what they expect/want. paleodirect.com/fake-chinese-fossils-fossil-forgery-from-china/

Ed

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Where did the soup come from ?

God.

Genesis ch.1

 

[Roseeurekacross]

I think God had a great time creating, and evolving his creations.
There is nothing that says God cant enjoy, and experiment. We see how God was distressed so much with His creatures, that He wiped most out, save Noah. The unleashing of His rampaging Angels to do His bidding, is all through the Bible.

We also see where God is very pleased with the efforts of His creation.
Why cant God decide a giant koala is not the best model, so evolves that koala creation into a little creature that can hang out in gum trees.

Why cant God make a Primordial Soup, mix a few elements together and get oxygen going, salt water, etc. Create Gold as an element for His Ark.

You guys arguing for either/ or,

 

[Usagi]

Yet all of these were functional creatures at the time they lived. That’s all. I saw an excellent photo of an insect trapped in amber. It had compound eyes, wings and multiple legs. It was not on its way to being anything else. It knew what was food and what was not food.

What are you even talking about? If it survived to pass on it’s traits to offspring, of course it was a functional creature. For “transitional fossils” are you imagining mismatched grotesques with no actual survivability? Even the most basic understanding of heredity should tell you that those aren’t going to be the ancestors of anything.

The transitions aren’t transitions. We still have almost all of these creatures alive today except the dinosaurs and the woolly mammoth. The Dodo is a recent loss. And how many species have gone extinct in the last hundred years?

Again, what are you talking about? Nothing about evolution requires that parent species cease to exist just because a distinct species has diverged from them. The daughter species needs to out-survive its forebear in one particular environmental situation, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t populations of the parent species elsewhere that are doing just fine.

Then again, we don’t actually have a lot of the same creatures around today that were around millions of years ago. This seems like a variant of the “if humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes” fallacy. Both we and all modern apes are descended from a common primate ancestor that is not itself still extant. If dogs are descended from wolves, it was from a now-extinct ancestral canid that we call a wolf for convenience, not from the modern wolves that exist alongside dogs today (and which are equally distant and “evolved” descendants of that common ancestor). But even if a recognizable form of the primate ancestor or the canid ancestor were still around, that wouldn’t stop them (as a species, not as the current individuals, obviously) from having been the genetic ancestors of a bunch of similar species.

 

[rossum]

Yet all of these were functional creatures at the time they lived.

Of course. The definition of a transitional requires that the organism be functional.

I do not know what definition of transitional you are using, but here is the one I use:

A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a life form that exhibits traits common to both an ancestral group and its derived descendant group.

Tiktaalik exhibits traits of its ancestral group (Sarcopterygian fish) and its derived descendant group (Tetrapods). Hence, Tiktaalik is a transitional.

The transitions aren’t transitions. We still have almost all of these creatures alive today except the dinosaurs and the woolly mammoth.

Then those Americans who claim descent from Europeans are lying because there are still Europeans alive today? There is no requirement for earlier clades to ge extinct just because a new clade has descended from them. Coelacanths and Lungfisn are both Sarcopterygian fish and neither is extinct despite that fact that their group is ancestral to tetrapods.

Fossils from China? The Chinese have built an industry out of giving people what they expect/want. paleodirect.com/fake-chinese-fossils-fossil-forgery-from-china/

So, every painting everywhere is forged because at least one painting has been forged. You do realise that there have been forgeries of holy relics as well?

Yes, there are forgeries, and experts are generally good at spotting the forgeries, as shown in the website you linked to. The forgeries appear on E-bay, and are not found in proper palaeontological digs. There are plenty of genuine fossils from China. Even the notorious ‘Archaeoraptor’ was a composite of genuine fossils, which were separated out and studied separately.

rossum