Top Vatican official says Catholic scientists should “come out”

_{Denyse O'Leary

May 21, 2017

Intelligent Design, News, Religion, Science}

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From John L. Allen, Jr., at Crux Now:

Most basically, Consolmagno said, it’s important to maintain the proper distinction between what science can prove, and what faith can add.
“God is not something we arrive at the end of our science, it’s what we assume at the beginning,” he said, adding emphatically: “I am afraid of a God who can be proved by science, because I know my science well enough to not trust it!”

More.

Excuse us. Faith can add nothing to what cannot be demonstrated. Many popular theories such as the multiverse, Darwinism, alt right eugenics, cannot be demonstrated at all.

So, translation from Consolmagno: Not to worry, we really are theistic naturalists: Nature is all there is. But we do still have a right to holler fer Gawd in our spare time. Don’t we?

Yes, so long as we ignore the fact that naturalism is rotting science.

See also: Pope Francis and science

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Comments

Bob o`H At last you got it , well almost you said we need a real palaeontologist to answer the question re Archaeopteryx , but that would be of no benefit as unless the palaeontologist has some way to test and verify his conclusions ,what he says is just his/her opinion. That is what I have been saying all along unless you have some way to test and verify what is being claimed you cannot be sure any palaeontologist is correct in their assertions. So is there any way to be sure , as WD 400 at 47 used words such as primitive,ancestor,measurable characters,descendants ,all are based on opinion not tests. Show me some test that lets me know that something is ancestral to something else that some fossil is ancestral to another fossil and that they are not all just different species , who lived died and were fossilised . If Archaeopteryx is transitional because it has bird and lizard type body parts, then the duck billed platypus must be the holy grail of transitional forms.Marfin_{May 26, 2017
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wd400 -
asauber, Well, Archaeopteryx is one…
I think we need a real palaeontologists here. I thought crocs (i.e. crocodilians, the order rather than the family. Or the footware) were a sister taxon to birds. I guess the relevant question is whether we would call the LCA a croc.Bob O'H_{May 26, 2017
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Hmmm, back to the science I see Dionisio. From this brief insert, magnanimity is not your forte. You do understand my faiure was in checking sources, not a fundamental failure in argument? And I'm happy you've found redemption in the Lord; I truly want no part of it;)rvb8_{May 26, 2017
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cmow @66: Well done! Let's be magnanimous in victory. Let's show compassion to those who don't see clear. Let's be forgiving. God loves us all on any side of the arguments. But redemption is only available through faith in the Savior.Dionisio_{May 25, 2017
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wd400 @65: Let me repeat my questions @63: Do you believe this has been satisfactorily resolved for any similar case? Can you name a case where this problem has been satisfactorily resolved? Please, answer simply yes or no. No need to elaborate on your answer. Thank you. Now, based on what you wrote @65, can we agree that your answers to both questions are NO? Did I get that right?Dionisio_{May 25, 2017
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rvb8, No worries. Thanks and apology accepted.cmow_{May 25, 2017
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D1 and D2 needn't be any different than the common ancestor. If you are getting around to asking do we know every change in every development system that brought about a particular evolutionary transition then the answer is of course not. Our level of understanding of development is not so detailed as to allow that.wd400_{May 25, 2017
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wd400 @63: Watch your reading comprehension. The number was 1090. Let's call 'CA' the last universal common ancestor of crocs/gators and birds. Let's call 'D1' the first descendant from CA on the crocs/gators branch. Let's call 'D2' the first descendant from CA on the birds branch. Let's call Dev(x) the developmental process of the biological system 'x' Let's call Delta(x) the spatiotemporally combined changes applied to the Dev(ca) of the immediate ancestor 'ca' of a biological system 'x' in order to get Dev(x) Then we could write the fundamental evo-devo problem as: Dev(D1) = Dev(CA) + Delta(D1) Dev(D2) = Dev(CA) + Delta(D2) Do you believe this has been resolved for the crocs/gators - birds case? Please, note that Dev(x) and Delta(x) include regulatory networks, signaling pathways, epigenetic markers, morphogenetic mechanisms, asymmetric segregation of intrinsic cell fate determinants, and any kind of molecular or cellular mechanisms associated with the developmental processes. Do you believe this has been satisfactorily resolved for any similar case? Can you name a case where this problem has been satisfactorily resolved? Any questions so far? Do you need assistance to understand the formulation of this problem? I'm sure other folks here can give you a hand with this.Dionisio_{May 25, 2017
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The common ancestor of crocodillians and birds lived around 250 million years ago. It's a long way from my specialist area, but I understand it might have looked quite crocodile-like (something like a phytosaur). I am not about to click on link 1009 of one of threads you've built as a monument to folly. If you have a simple question I can try to answer it.wd400_{May 25, 2017
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wd400 @61: What's the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) to crocs/gators and birds? Can you resolve the problem referenced @40 for this case? Probably it would be easier to do it for d1= the first transition on the branch to crocs/gators and d2 = the first transition on the branch to birds. Agree?Dionisio_{May 25, 2017
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Dionisio, I think you are a little confused. Modern species are not transitional with respect to each other, so the broad-beaked finch species are not transitional to the other finches (nor the other way around). For what it is worth, the broad and blunt-beaked characters are derived, which is to say these traits evolved from more typical beaks.wd400_{May 25, 2017
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Is the short beak finch transition to the long beak finch or the other way around? :)Dionisio_{May 25, 2017
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asauber, Well, Archaeopteryx is one...wd400_{May 25, 2017
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asauber, Can they resolve the evo-devo problem referenced @40 at least for the case of the common ancestor to the crocs/gators and birds? Are you aware of any serious case they have got at least close to resolve? BTW, what's the common ancestor to the short and long beak finches? :)Dionisio_{May 25, 2017
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wd400, Which fossils are transitional between crocs and finches, since you brought them up for comparison purposes? Andrewasauber_{May 25, 2017
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cmow, I am here to publish a full retraction and apology to you. The 6th edition does indeed have a new chapter 7, entitled Miscellaineous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection. It appears to be an extension of chapter 6, Difficulties of the theory; I'm deeply sorry if I impungned your character; sorry.rvb8_{May 25, 2017
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Is alligator transition to crocodile or crocodile transition to alligator?
No.wd400_{May 25, 2017
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Is alligator transition to crocodile or crocodile transition to alligator? :)Dionisio_{May 25, 2017
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Asauber, I am fairly confident that if you were to look at, say, crocodiles and finches you could note some differences? Transitional fossils are those that help us understand the order in which the differences between related lineages (crocodiles and alligators are the closest living relative of birds) evolved. As a simple example, Archy lets us know feathers predate the toothless bill that all modern birds have.wd400_{May 25, 2017
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wd400, If everything is transitional, there's no subset of transitional, and you are just confused. Andrewasauber_{May 25, 2017
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cmow, Did your politely dissenting interlocutor's comment @50 also refer to my comment @43? But (s)he didn't comment on the last sentence @43, did (s)he? Was the comment @50 selective? Or perhaps (s)he implicitly agreed with the last sentence @43? :) BTW, I don't care much about a concoction of pseudoscientific afterthoughts compiled into an old paper. Have never read it and don't plan to read it either.Dionisio_{May 25, 2017
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cmow, Dionisio, in this 6th edition of (1872) what is this new Chapter 7 called, and what is its subject matter? No Dionisio, cmow has been caught in an embarassing mystake, and is now attempting to lie and invent book chapters that don't exist to cover his ineptitude. Please cmow, inform the world of this new and mysterious Chapter 7. Of course searching online is ID's chosen method of 'in depth' research, which subsequently explains your profound lack of knowledge of a founding document of evolution.rvb8_{May 25, 2017
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Which is transition, the short or large beak finch? :)Dionisio_{May 25, 2017
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Asauber,
If there is such a thing as Evolution then everything is transitional and subject to morphing into something else.
Sure. There are almost certainly transitional species alive today. We just can't yet know which ones and what transitions they mark!wd400_{May 25, 2017
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Bob and WD400- How do you know and how do you test a fossil is transitional.
You estimate a phylogeny based on measurable characters, then see which traits are primitive (like the shared ancestor), derived (unique to the fossil and different from an ancestral form) and shared-derived (different from the ancestor by shared by multiple descendants). Transitional fossils are those that contain a mixture of primitive traits that have been lost by all members of some group (for Archy that's stuff like having teeth) and the shared-derrived traits that unite that group (eg. feathers).wd400_{May 25, 2017
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transitional
If there is such a thing as Evolution then everything is transitional and subject to morphing into something else. Andrewasauber_{May 25, 2017
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wd400 @ 39:
They key point is that a fossil needn’t be a direct ancestor to be transitional.
Sounds to me like a surrender of the objective evidentiary purpose of a "transitional form", much like the watered-down, non-predictive, a priori current definition of "vestigial organs". All I need is some combination of traits to exist in some creature at some time, call "STASIS!", and then; "Hey, look: Darwin was right after all!" Which is, of course, absurd. I don't even need a good combination, as the "cousin" status covers many discrepancies.LocalMinimum_{May 25, 2017
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Bob and WD400- How do you know and how do you test a fossil is transitional.Marfin_{May 25, 2017
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Wow! cmow seems to know more about Darwin's book than his politely dissenting interlocutor, right? Anyway, the challenge presented @40 remains in place.Dionisio_{May 25, 2017
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rvb8, I am referring to a copy of the 6th edition (1872). I suspect you are referring to the first edition. The 6th edition includes a new chapter 7, so that every subsequent chapter after that is renumbered plus one. So my references and chapter titles are correct given my source. Sadly, I will not make a fortune. Regardless, we are reading Darwin's same words, I think, and you see his answers to the objections as the brilliant foresight of a genius; I see his answers as non-scientific, non-inductive, Darwin-of-the-gaps, storytelling. We may have to agree to disagree on that. You say in comment @24 that Darwin had no doubt in the veracity of his theory. Maybe we define 'doubt' differently, but clearly he had misgivings about the fossil record. I think chapters 10 and 15 (9 and 14 for you?) are riddled with examples of this. For example, from chapter 10:
The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations, has been urged by several palæontologists, for instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and by none more forcibly than by Professor Sedgwick, as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection.
Now it is true that Darwin confessed ignorance on this -- how could he not, given that there really was much exploration to be done? From chapter 15:
But it deserves especial notice that the more important objections relate to questions on which we are confessedly ignorant; nor do we know how ignorant we are. We do not know all the possible transitional gradations between the simplest and the most perfect organs; it cannot be pretended that we know all the varied means of Distribution during the long lapse of years, or that we know how imperfect is the Geological Record.
Nevertheless, Darwin stuck faithfully to his theory, despite the lack of evidence on this point, trusting that the fossil record would eventually redeem him. (As Hebrews 11 says, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.") But, how have the fossil finds of the last 150 years answered this fatal objection? The fossils of the Cambrian stratum (or the lack of pre-Cambrian fossils) do not support Darwin's theory. Evolutionary biologists aren't even arguing this anymore; instead they are constructing wishful thinking theories and excuses as to why the Cambrian explosion doesn't support Darwinism -- e.g., oxygen levels spiked, and so on. Fwiw, I haven't read Darwin's Doubt, but from what I know, Meyer has the right of it.cmow_{May 24, 2017
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