Creation vs. Evolution: 2009

mercredi 23 décembre 2009

Welcome to Michael!

Mike Fan is welcome too.

If we get into comments debates on any post you are free to post links to it wherever you like.

lundi 31 août 2009

Both had to deal with Communists who were dogmatically for evolution. Both had to deal with them when they were destroying the Church, like murdering Russian Orthodox or like imprisoning Cardinal Mindszenty. Both (unless it was the successor of Tykhon in the case of Patriarchate of Moscow) allowed their flocks to not oppose evolution.

Also, Communists were for contraception. Patriarchate of Moscow allowed the pill in 1970's. Pius XII allowed periodical abstinence in the fertile periods. They broke with the past and with each other there.

ROCOR, notably Fr Seraphim Rose, opposed the Patriarchate of Moscow on precisely these two, among other accounts. Pius XII not only helped Wojtyla, but also Ratzinger to become famous theologians bending down to fashion - and later bishops and popes. The problem is: after two evolutionist popes, evolution starts to feel normal for Catholics, just as it feels normals for the Orthodox adhering to clergy until recently under Communism. And so do the deviations from traditional marital practise which not only is against pill (et c) but also for periodical abstince precisely the other way round, in infertile periods - when both spouses agree - or unrelated, when it is for prayer - like nights before a Sunday (especially if receiving Holy Communion) and so on.

But if deviation from the normal feels normal on both subjects and because ultimately of Communist persecutions ... how is truth being kept in Church? It seems to me, small groups on both sides of the schism preserve truth intact on both these issues. And both Paul VI and a recent Russian synod each preserved their half of the truth in what they condemned: the pill and the periodical abstinence imposed on the other spouse for sake of contraception. But Vatican and Moscow still feel evolution as something normal for a Christian to believe. Which it is not.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
ut supra

Why is teaching evolution so IMPORTANT?

Here is a link. http://o-x.fr/e0c (E zero C) is the short url for it.

Here is an extract (yes, it is Dawkins writing):

To return to the enlightened bishops and theologians, it would be nice if they’d put a bit more effort into combating the anti-scientific nonsense that they deplore. All too many preachers, while agreeing that evolution is true and Adam and Eve never existed, will then blithely go into the pulpit and make some moral or theological point about Adam and Eve in their sermons without once mentioning that, of course, Adam and Eve never actually existed! If challenged, they will protest that they intended a purely “symbolic” meaning, perhaps something to do with “original sin”, or the virtues of innocence. They may add witheringly that, obviously, nobody would be so foolish as to take their words literally. But do their congregations know that? How is the person in the pew, or on the prayer-mat, supposed to know which bits of scripture to take literally, which symbolically? Is it really so easy for an uneducated churchgoer to guess? In all too many cases the answer is clearly no, and anybody could be forgiven for feeling confused. Think about it, Bishop. Be careful, Vicar. You are playing with dynamite, fooling around with a misunderstanding that’s waiting to happen — one might even say almost bound to happen if not forestalled.

Playing with dynamite? Why? If evolution were true, if doubting it were outside the reasonable or the sane, as he says ... here:

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust.

... why is it so dreadfully catastrophic to disbelieve it?

When Sherlock Holmes heard Dr Watson explain about heliocentrism, and the latter made sure he had completely understood, he said: "now I shall be in a hurry to forget it". Why? "Because it makes no difference for life on this earth with which I am concerned." I am quoting A Study in Scarlet (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) from memory. But for our daily life now, what should be so important about billions or only thousands of years, of Adam or of some kind of apes (like Ramapithecus, not like its present day other descendants, according to evolutionism, chimps and gorillas)?

I was asking in French about Dawkins' colleague, Michel Onfray (short url http://o-x.fr/s5-): if there be no immortal gods, no heaven no hell, no angels and no devils, and no day of judgement, against whom is it then sinful to neglect the one world there is? Equally, if there be no creator, if we have no immortal souls, what is so grave about neglecting it? Whom are we then thankless against, and what are we then neglecting to take care of?

It used to be said for atheism, that precisely for this reason it was more tolerant than religion. We have just seen Dawkins rejecting tolerance and broadmindedness in this matter for the most bigotted narrowmindedness there is now, beside some versions of Islam and of Communism. Why?

I can only say: either it is a move to back up "the other side" against - the combination of Islam and Christian Fundamerntalists! - OR it is about "free sex", about "come on baby, were nothing but mammals, let's do it like they do in the Discovery Channel" - except that of course "free sex" is very unlike general mammal behaviour in excluding, often enough, babies. Either it is very partisan polemics or it is squint-eyed publicity for pills and other things that Christian couples do not even like to talk about.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Paris IV, BpI/G. Pompidou
18/31 August YooL 2009

PS, Here is Chesterton quoted on the matter (read link, scroll slowly down a page or two while reading). Short url: http://o-x.fr/e4e

mercredi 5 août 2009

What I did not write, and where you can find it

In English, I find no utility in writing myself about some things since it is all in E. H. Andrews' From Nothing to Nature, which I read at age twelve (I read books about evolution by evolutionists from age six and on). It's Swedish translation is called Ur Intet.

Same arguments are sometimes also available on Kent Hovind's drdino site (whose theology I am not bound to share beyond literal truth of Genesis), where he adds cryptozoology and "living fossiles" for non-exstinction of "fossile species". Links in parentheses are to categories of this site, since it is no use linking to chapters in an absent book. If I reread it, I can give chapter numbers).

stratigraphy see Fossils and Ancient Man Series
C14 dating see Radiometric articles
Uranium-Lead dating,
Thorium-Lead dating,
apart from these four, see here, Dr Dino Age of Earth related articles
nor about irreducible complexity of eyes, (see here)
and impossibility or so of life coming into existance from the non living, (see here)
nor about fossilic non-existence of intermediate forms between fish, quadrupede, bird, biped as forms of locomotion, (I did not find this on drdino)
nor about Flood Geology, (see here)

One more thing: it is for creationism - rebuttals of Darwinism, possible explanations of scientific problems in Bible account, not for evangelical theology that I turn to these authors. Nor for complete religious meaning of Genesis, which I rather seek in relation to Christ, in the Church Fathers. Light was created on a Sunday, because Resurrection and Pentecost were to happen on Sundays. Man was created along with irrational beasts, on a Friday, because on Good Friday Christ remade what went wrong with man's creation, but some refused to be remade and knew not what they did. Eve came from Adam's side when he slept, as the Church from the side of Christ opened by the lance, when he had given up his mortal life for us.

I may very well have repeated things stated by Chesterton about Monkey trial et c.:

On Darwinism and Mystery From The Illustrated London News 21st August, 1920. -- text (8K)
The Persecution of Religion From The Illustrated London News 8th March, 1924 -- text (9K)
The Advantages of having One Leg From Tremendous Trifles 1909 -- text (8K) -- html (8K)
Doubts About Darwinism From The Illustrated London News 17th July 1920 -- text (9K) -- html (10K)
American Fundamentalists and the English Journalists From The Illustrated London News 1st August 1925 -- text (9K) -- html (10K)
Compulsory Education and the Monkey Trial From The Illustrated London News 8th August 1925 -- text (10K) -- html (10K)

This here is from TFP Student Action, and says Peking Man and Java Man are probably as fake as Piltdown man, but it cannot be tested: here.

lundi 3 août 2009

Index to English Crea-vs-Evolu-series

As regards title, crea is short for creation or creationism, not for creatine (I had to delete a publicity for the latter in the comments, it is so irrelevant)

Théologie et philosophie (yes, English message, but French title, since once upon a time French did those things a little better) with a follow up here: Are Creationist Ministries condemned Protestant Bible Societies? (and are they still condemned?)
If the Quotes are Genuine ...

Karyogrammata (Greek title means: description chromosome numbers/chromosome configurations, and includes all posts from deretour that relate to the subject in English) - theme continued on I had a dream one night ... and Another Possibility

Includes post Non-replies, which refers to Citing, again Ian Johnson, which is included in:

Minor messages on English Crea-vs-Evolu series the last part of which is the comments on first big post. What about Dinosaurs?

Whew, eight messages boiled down to three, plus one index message!
What I did not write, and where you can find it
Why does this matter?
A: the beauty and harmony in complexity of creation is one argument for the existence of a Creator. Evolution may be accepted by Christians, but it is mainly accepted because of atheism, though that is (only) indirect(ly so) in Christians accepting it.
B: if our evolutionary past is mud, amoeba, trilobite, fish, amphibian, reptile, rat-like first mammal, primates, apes, "Lucy" - where is then our dignity?
And God's justice and mercy if cats chase little birdies and both kittens and birds die without anyone previously sinning. No, Adam sinned before this happened.
C: if our evolutionary future is collective world wide glory, where is then our freedom?
Resist Meta Man! is about this third problem. So is another blog's Distributism vs. Evolution which is a review of one aspect of three major works of Chesterton.
Why is teaching evolution so IMPORTANT? is about the freedom of thought and of parenting which modernity is abandoning.
Tykhon and Pius XII ... is about the reaction of Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches.

Newer parts:

On other blogs:

Other languages:

Pour francophones tendance monoglottes, sur un autre blog

Statistics for this page

Minor messages on English Crea-vs-Evolu series

Citing, again, Ian Johnston
Ancient Sea Scorpion, News Stor with Comments
Good News, bad news, old news
Comments on above
Comments on first post (the long one)

Citing, again, Ian Johnston:

He claims to have proven species to species evolution, like this:

First, there is variety in the natural world (that is self-evident). Second, all living individuals must have come from a living parent (no one has ever been able to prove the contrary). And third, simple species were around long before more complex species (any inspection of fossilized sedimentary strata confirms this point).

Second is invalid in the modality must. The burden of proof rests not on alleged alternative possibility, but on alleged necessity. God almighty, if such there be, obviously (by definition) can create an individual without using the normal procedure of a parent or two.

Third presupposes that geological layers be accepted as temporal in successive small disasters, rather than local in one great flood. For which there is cumulative historic evidence outside Genesis too. But this point has been made over and over again by creationists, only some do not want this point to be made in class.

Ancient Sea Scorpion (News story, with comments)

series---see comment for full index

"LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have found the fossilized claw of a 2.5-metre (8-foot) sea scorpion, a nightmarish creature living before the age of dinosaurs.

The discovery of the 390-million-year-old specimen in a German quarry suggests prehistoric spiders, insects and crabs were much larger than previously thought, researchers at Britain's Bristol University said on Wednesday."

...

Read on at source.

Comment: how is it dated at 390 million years? Historic dating, i e written record? No, nay, never, that has not been going on for 400 000 000 years or more. Dendrochronology? Nix, that stops short at 20 000 years before present - and if the matches are not all of them absolutely sure, it might even be compatible with Biblical chronology.

Radiocarbonic dating? Nope. In a 390 million old fossile, if such a thing is, there can be no measurable C14, if the method is at all reliable. Which means that a fossile dated at 390 millions cannot contain measurable amounts of C14.

Uranium/lead or thorium/lead proportions? I do not think fossiles contain uranium or lead; thorium or lead, though I might be mistaken.

My hunch is: age was identified by geological layer according to a method not without absurdities.

A: fossiles are divided into layers. Sedimentation lines help, each one being a layer in miniature. Essentially though, the layers that count are divided according to fossiles contained. A fossile out of its typical layer or layers is thought of as accidentally misplaced.

B: the total age of a chronological layer, defined as above, is calculated according to its age where it is thickest. Period is period - and times runs no different on two different places, right? Only, see underlined criterium above. One cannot really know that all fossiles of layer Jurassic was before of all of layer Tertiary all over the world. It is presumed as known, in order to facilitate this age dating. It is not known.

C: the age of a layer, where it is thickest, is calculated according to the slowest known rate of sedimentation, though higher rates are known even today and can be presumed for natural disasters, like deluge.

D: the total age is then caculated by adding the ages of layers, including the ones missing then and there.

Which means that if all the presumed layers had been in place in that quarry, one would have had to dig very much deeper to find anything as old as 390 million years.

Source for this critical explanation of geological dating, with critique on other dating methods: From Nothing to Nature (It was years since I read the book, though.)

Comment: if it is actually younger, have humans seen things like that? Well, heroic legend tells of men confronting monsters, does it not? And Assyrian sculptural art shows monster scorpions, does it not?

Read this too:

"An enormous sea-scorpion more than two metres long once roamed the shallow seas of what is now Germany, according to palaeontologists.

One of the beast's 30-centimetre petrified claws was found at a quarry near Prum, Germany.

The scientists said the claw belonged to a prehistoric relative of the modern scorpion that lived in the sea around 400 million years ago." Source

So, it is not a giant sea scorpion that has been found, only a claw that could belong to one! That is paleontological method in a nutshell.

/Hans Lundahl edited

PS: newslinks seem to have expired, since then ... Here is a new one ...

Good News, bad news, old news:

Father Stephen tells the good news that the Bible is all about

St Peter tells part of the bad news that parts of the Bible are about

Father Stephen may have been in fear about the flood. The fearful thing is not if it were incorrect, but if, it being correct, we should merit even worse things. Which is why I believe in both flood and baptism as believed by 2000 years of Holy Church.

A commenter (David) wrote:

Since I’m not a scholar, I have to trust other posters that say prefigurment = patristic and patristic = only valid interpretation, end of story. I just don’t see it.

Thing is, yes, patristic interpretation is only valid interpretation, but no, prefigurement is not all there is to patristic interpretation. Every event throughout history (including Life of Brian, the movie, and the holy life of Fr Bryan Houghton, centered on Holy Liturgy; including the Mosaic rites for Iôm Kippûr that prefigure Crucifixion as well as the new ones introduced after the destruction of Jerusalem that postfigure baptism) has some connection with Christ, this being especially true for those deigned to be recorded in either Patriarchal, Mosaic, priestly/royal and of course Apostolic traditions. But this does not mean they are not events that are in the prosaic way of seing things other than the christology they prefigure or post-figure. And patristic interpretation knew this. St Augustine of Hippo wrote that it is heretical to believe the flood only as about Noah's time or only as about the Church outside which there is no salvation, but Catholic to believe it as about both. Here is another part of what he wrote too, but scroll down to chapter 27.

Same David:

If there was a real human being Jonathan and we actually have a reasonable facsimile of his actual words and deeds, to say that he’s some prefigurment of Christ is to deny, in part, his personhood.

Well, no. Being persons means being created in God's image. In image of divine persons. So prefiguring Christ does not take away personhood from King David, who was meek with his enemy Saul, who reigned among gentiles before getting his own back with the Jews, who killed lions to protect his lambs, et c.

Father Stephen wrote:

The same fear drives the concern for the Flood of Noah and the age of the planet (not to mention any possible hint of evolutionary science). Thus the earth must be young, the flood must be literal (with perhaps a still existing Ark on Mt. Ararat). Science has an answer that it must prove, rather than a question to be answered. The agenda of such fundamentalist science is set by the need to refute anything that possibly undermines a peculiar view of Scripture. One flaw and the entire house of cards comes tumbling down.

It makes for bad science and even worse Biblical interpretation.

The problem about nervousness, trying to prove an answer and bad science is not unique to the fundamentalist side. Indeed, if, as I think, Darwinian side is anyway obliged to prove what is false, their science will by that suffer even more than by people trying to prove what is correct.

Father Stephen, in a previous post quoted St Irenaeus:

And for this reason, when at this present time the Law is read by the Jews, it is like a myth, for they do not possess the explanation [exegesis] of all things which pertain to the human advent of the Son of God: but when it is read by Christians, it is a treasure, hid in a field, but brought to light by the Cross of Christ, and explained ...

Myth in that epoch meant simply story. St Irenæus was not saying that Jews were wrong about history, only that they lacked the key to history. As is still the case. Romulus and Remus would agreably have been called a myth back then, but Romulus and Remus were taken as historical. History meant research, as in comparing different versions, myth was any version just accepted - in Aristotle's Poetics it means both traditional story and story-line/plot of a tragedy. Chronicle, as in writing down the most indubitable events as soon as one knows they happened is yet another thing. Point is: myth is not opposed to true history, but true historic events can be known by chronicle, myth or "history" i e historic research. From Jewish as well as Christian perspective, Pagan myths about creation and flood appear as more or less right in story line but not a clue about the meaning. In St Irenæus, it is all historic events other than Incarnation that need exegesis to be truly understood. Jews are not so much more privileged than Pagans, after all. At least not after their rejecting Christ, who is the keystone of all created reality. When it comes to the banal question "did it happen or not happen" neither Jews nor Pagans, neither OT or Pagan myths, need be seen as totally off the hook. To St Augustine, their was no doubt Romulus and Remus lived, problem is the Pagans thought their luck came from descending from Venus through Æneas and Romulus from Mars. To St Irenæus, talmudic or rather closely pretalmudic thought about OT events is about as worthless as paganism.

In comments to that earlier post, David wrote:

but I’d love to see someone offer up an extremely challenging passage (pick a favorite time where Israel is told to commit genocide or something equally offensive to a modern mind like the destruction of Sodom) and view it in it’s liturgical and/or Christ prefiguring context.

Why not take destruction of Egyptian army? The drowning soldiers of Pharao "are" the drowning demons at Gadara, which prefigure baptismal exorcism. As for Sodom's, why not pick up St Augustine's De Civitate Dei (XVI, scroll down to chapters 29 and 30)? In his De Trinitate, the two angels (out of three that had visited Abraham) were the Son and the Holy Spirit. Though that work contains a conclusion that differs from St Photios about a more closely trinitarian matter.

Comments on above:

Hans Lundahl a dit...
from "Father Stephen wrote: The same fear drives ..." was added today, down to "Though that work contains a conclusion that differs from St Photios about a more closely trinitarian matter."
25 février 2009 05:10
Hans Lundahl a dit...
Here is a third post of Father Stephens
25 février 2009 05:16
Hans Lundahl a dit...
Here is another guy who has no clue about History, another pagan believer in Mars and Venus, by the way ...
25 février 2009 05:49 Hans Lundahl a dit...
Somewhere St Augustine argues against the existencer of antipods.Antipods of Milan (where he studied under St Ambrose), those of Hippo Regia - a city further south - being obviously further north.
23 mars 2009 03:35

Comments on first post (the real long one):

Hans Lundahl a dit...
Orthodoxy and Creationism by Deacon Andrew Kuraev
23 décembre 2008 09:26
Hans Lundahl a dit...
Genesis and Early Man, by Fr Seraphim Rose against Dr Kalamiros
23 décembre 2008 09:29
Hans Lundahl a dit...
"An article entitled The Eternal Will was printed in The Christian Activist Volume 11, Fall/Winter 1997. It was a lecture given by Dr. Alexander Kalomiros on evolution vs. creationism and his interpretation of the traditional teachings by the Fathers of the Orthodox Church about Genesis. This is a response to Dr. Kalomiros by Fr. Seraphim Rose. It has been excerpted for length by Frank Schaeffer."(from article)

dimanche 2 août 2009

Karyogrammata

Chromosome numbers, first published on Communities dot com · · · Undisputed facts · Hypothesis I · Hypothesis II · Hypothesis III · Hypothesis IV · Overall criticism

Update on Chromosome numbers · · · Talkorigins explains on human-chimp situation · my footnotes on this post · a little excursus on French language history

Speciation observed - but not in mammals · · · a wannna-read

Non-replies · · · comments part on non-replies, mostly links about chromosomal polymorphism

Chromosome numbers - the summing up · · · Kent Hovind's list of chromosome numbers of different species, plus one other linkComments part

Chromosome numbers, first published on Communities dot com:

series---see comment for full index

Undisputed facts:

mammal a, say man, has 46 chromosomes
mammal b, say chimp, has 48 chromosomes
mammal c, say a lemur, has over 80 chromosomes.

They are all mammals, all chromosomes go diploid they are all supposed to have a common ancestor - *the first primate (none identified, but that is another problem)

---
Hypothesis I 46>48 or: 23*2>24*2

Stage one: 46>47
- by trisomy from one parent the new individual has the usual haploid set from another the haploid set has an extra chromosome, because both from one pair came along but this does not mean the new individual has 23 pairs and an extra foreign to pairs: it means that one of the 23 ordinarily pairs is trisomatic;

stage two: 47=47 or>46(=original 46)

if the individual formed in stage one couples itself with individuals that still have 46, the offspring will from that individual have either the ordinary haploid set or the set with two chromosomes for one pair-to-be, giving either individuals of 46 chromosomes or those that have the same trisomy as trisomic parent;

stage three: 47>48 or=47 or>46(=original 46)

Mendel's laws would indicate 25% 48 chromosomes, 50% 47 chromosomes, 25% 46 chromosomes But even so, the original pairs will not have changed. The two extra chromosomes will still be at one with two normal ones - one pair that should have been will be a tetrasomy;

stage four: 48=48?
How does this stabilise at 48, at a tetrasomy?

stage five: 48=22*2+1*4>24*2?
How does a tetrasomy become two pairs?

---
Hypothesis II 48>46 or: 24*2>23*2

stage one: 48>47 from one parent the offspring has ordinary set (1, 2, 3 ... 24), from other one with fusion (1/2, 3 ... 24) How does this hang together? 1 and 2 from the one parent should each have a centromere, while 1/2 from the other has only one. That is unworkable. End of hypothesis II, I think. The stage three 47>46 is not likely to happen at all.**

Including mammal c - and that must be in order to account for all mammals - means accounting for this difficulty not only once, but several times.

---
update, March 21/April 3:

Hypothesis III 46>48 or: 23*2>24*2, but by fission, not trisomy.

Stage one, 46>47?:
from one parent a chromosome has been inherited divided into two. Problem: it had only one centromere part, and each chromosome needs one in mammals (poultry have microchromosomes without centromeres, mammals have not).

Adjusting hypothesis:
the half that did not get one from whre it should got a centromere by chromosome crossing. Problem: that means it has gained a bit, but also lost a bit, whether from the chromosome's partner or from quite another chromosome

Correlate: that means there is chromosomal unbalance in this individual. Chromosome N meets either chromosome Na or chromosome Nb. It cannot meet both. Say it meets chromosome Na, that means chromosome Nb is superfluous and potentially damaging. And single. There is no guarantee whatsoever it will get along where chromosome Na goes in terms of ovula or spermatozoa. Supposing the mammal that has this superfluous chromosome outside the pairs will live to develop such and hand them on.

Stage two, 47=47 (or >46): same problem as for hypothesis I. Plus the fact that it may be Nb that joins with the N from non-mutated parent.

Stage three, 47>48 (or=47, or>46):
Here is where possibly Na meets Na and Nb meets Nb. Though it is extremely unlikely. And Where functions of Na and Nb diversify rather than having the functions of N plus a non-useful N+function.

Stage four, 48=48:
In order for this to happen, the individual from Stage three must meet another individual that also has the new chromosome couples Na+ Na and Nb+Nb. Which is even less likely in that first crucial generation. But where this to happen, stage five were no problem.

---
Hypothesis IV, 48>96 or 2*24>4*24>2*48:
Polyploidy is not observed in mammals. Poultry and lizards, as well as fish have been observed to give rise to triploid individuals, either infertile or parthenogenetical females. Batrachians have tetraploid and octoploid varieties (notably of a kind of salamander). But mammals are strictly diploid. Probably the placental implantation gets disturbed when the chromosome number is too diverse between mother and offspring. Poultry, lizards and batrachians have no placentas.

Stage one, 2*24>4*24 (or rather 3*24, if the production of gamete was correct from other parent) will therefore not happen.

Stage two, if stage one had happened, would be one gamete from tetraploid parent, 2*24 meeting one from ordinary parent not mutating, i e 1*24 would end the line, because the result would be, again, 3*24, i e an individual outside all future sexual reproduction. Or the extremely unlikely chance of meeting another 2*24 straight away, preserving overall 4*24 and making it synonymous to stages two, three and four.

Stage five, 4*24>2*48:
Here we are talking near impossible. Or forget about "near". Here it is a question of not one, but 24 tetrasomies diversifying to each two pairs.

---
Overall criticism: we do not find mammal populations (as far as the present author knows) with stable tetrasomies. Still less with half the genome in tetrasomies and the other half diploid. We do not find mammal species diversifying even like 46>48 or 48>46 within known observation. **

Dog races (breeds, therefore populations) have been diversified as much as any mammal within the historic observation man has had over dogs, for however long it is both species have existed. A dog has the same chromosome number as a dog.

The only suspicions would be man 46 alongside apes (chimps, gorillas, orang utangs) 48 and horse 48° alongside Przewalski's horse 46°. But these have not diversified within known historic observation like dog breeds. Their diversification is only presumed by evolutionists. What Darwin observed on ring species in terms of dove species in Europe and possibly finches on Galapagos Islands would therefore seem to be limited to species indirectly but fertilely interbreedable by sharing same chromosome numbers. Furthermore, Wikipedia which gives a lot of species constants for animal species does not include chromosome numbers, which is a species constant. Why? Because drawing attention to chromosome numbers might raise doubts about evolution, I suspect.

°Once I read, though it may have been a misprint, that these were the chromosome numbers for horse and Przewalski's horse. On internet sources I find nothing on Przewalski's horse, but I find horse as 64. Which is which, now?

*but see update on okapis
**diversifying within human observation means diversifying in the timespan observed by us
update: here's an article where is claimed evolution could have been disproven but hasn't

Update on Chromosome numbers:

Talkorigins January 99 was the last look I had on Chromosome numbers, my earlier post depends on that info. Talkorigins July 05 adds information, if you scroll down a bit.

Yes, it seems that uneven chromosome numbers from different parents do occur in okapis, and that one chromosome from one may mate with two chromosomes from other: individuals with 22, 23 or 22.5 chromosome pairs (44, 46 or 45 chromosomes). No other mammals than okapis have been sighted so far*. The variations in number would still seem to come about by fusion or - though not in this case - polyploidy. And apart frogs, it would seem that rodents too can be polyploid.**

I take the freedom to quote the last talkorigins, after he has answered on chromosome numbers:

Here's your budding tree.
common ancestor       Chimp ancestor (single individual)
_____________________/
                   \
                    Human ancestor (single individual)
No, surely the branching involved entire breeding populations -- one band, or a few bands, of apes moving into a new territory far from the lands where other members of their species lived. As noted, at the branch point, both populations would have been apes of the same species; they wouldn't become different species until after the branch point, after geographical separation left them free to evolve in two different directions. Remember that, just as there was no "first French speaker" struggling to make himself understood in a nation of classical Latin speakers, so there was no "first human" or "first chimpanzee," but only a gradual change over many generations from the same ancestral species.***
Can you take it from there? What's the pathway? At this point, can the chimp ancestor still interbreed with either the common ancestor or with the human ancestor? It has to interbreed with something in order to produce more offspring after its own kind, so where does the partner come from?
Most evolutionists hold that most speciation events are "allopatric," meaning that they occur after the ancestral population has split into two groups that could interbreed if they met, but which no longer meet up. Afterwards, mutation, genetic drift, and selection to different environments gradually change the populations into different species. No particular mutation (unless you count polyploidy) is likely to produce a new species. A better (though still oversimplified) approach would be to think of a whole series of mutations, some beneficial, most neutral (but they still made us different from chimps), that each made the bearer a tiny bit more "human" (or, in the other lineage, a tiny bit more "chimp"). No single gene would have made its bearer much different from other members of his species, or unable to interbreed with them.

The scientist seems to have missed the point that "Zoe" had probably read my argument (with God knows how many intermediates) as implied in post 3 about Chromosome numbers: the whole point of her discussion was that there had to be a first individual with a different point of chromosome numbers from its parents and otherwise possible mating partners.

Though the okapi example and that of Przewalski's horse vs domestic horse interbreeding make the impossibility less heavy, it is at least a question of very rare occurrence and in mammals other than rodents polyploidy seems to have no rôle in augmenting chromosome numbers, and the fusions seem to have to have occurred very often if they are to account for all lessenings of chromosome numbers.

Of course I totally agree that single gene mutations do not as a rule interfere with interbreedability. There are lots of single genes where pa and ma were different, same applies to apples (anyone read the book Botany of Desire? It seems apples and men are species where you can count on sexually produced offspring being sensibly different from their origin and indeed unpredictable because of all chromosome differences and recombination possibilities): even in my late guinea pigs, a wavy haired white male, angora guinea pig, I think, a straight haired female golden aguti, a "curly" haired female called "Bianca Croce" with a white cross on darker colours (hence the name) produced varied and fertile offspring. But I am pretty sure they had the same chromosome numbers.

Hans Lundahl

Aix en Provence
Monday of Holy Week
8/21 April 2008

PS: Tried to notify the source of the second statement (the one here quoted), but his e-mail was outdated.

*and mice, sorry, another update will be due, here it is, along with evening primroses.

**Here is that quote:

polyploidy is duplication of the entire genome; plants speciate this way all the time, but it's rarer for animals (though there are strongly supported examples for frogs, rodents, and other vertebrates; presumably, they can't form a new species unless they can either reproduce parthenogenically, or unless polyploidy happens often enough that eventually it produces two members of the same species at the same time and place)

it is left unclear whether polyploid rodents would include only individuals or parthenogenic lines or any new species - note also that in polyploidy it is a question of all chromosomes, terefore same chromosomes doubled, whereas in doubling or halving of chromosomes other than doubling of all, the chance of two independently getting same modification is close to nil.

***But there was a first speaker for every change that differentiates Latin from French! There was a first speaker to drop the final nasalisation in "servum" (-um like -om in Portuguese bom) coming up with roughly servu (as in Sardinian/Corsican) or servo (as in Italian/Spanish), there was a first speaker to drop the vowel altogether (as in French/Occitan), and each first speaker had to make himself understood: and there was a first writer to decide not to write "ser(f)s, serf" as "servus, servum" but as "ser(f)s, serf", and he did it because he wanted it read and pronounced by people who did not have Francogallic Romance as a mother tongue when speaking on a certain occasion to people who did: the Occasion was the Oaths of Strasburg. The other side of the oath was written in passable phonetic approximation of Old High German, like Ripuarian Frankish or something. And passably phonetic approximations were again possible because Alcuin had come from York to teach the French to pronounce written "servus, servum" as, precisely "servus, servum" when speaking in Church. Other difference: we know people who spoke more or less Classic Latin gave rise to speakers of French, Occitan, Catalan, Castillian, Italian, Sardinian, Corsican: because we have the terminus a quo as well as the terminus ad quem (like the Gentle and magnanimous Frenchies that surround me here) under close observation by mainly themselves, including as writers, a capacity in which they sometimes survive their death. We know there was an Ausonius of Bourdeaux, to whom Classic Latin was essentially good grammar, and we know there was a Dante Alighieri of Florence to whom speaking Latin meant using the invention of speaking grammatically, an "invention" he describes in terms reminiscent of Esperanto - all the while using "si" "oc" and "oïl" to distinguish the languages he thinks of as real vernaculars (recognisable as Spanish/Italian, Provençal, French). And between them we know Alcuin and the oaths of Strassburg. Before Alcuin and after Ausonius we know that Gregory of Tours wrote bad Latin and Fredegar worse - as if they spoke Frenchily but wrote nearly Latin. After Alcuin we have the varied literary works in diverse Romance languages coming up, Song of Roland nearly two hundred years before Dante wrote Vita Nuova and Divina Commedia. We know all these individuals as we will never know Lucy - because either Lucy didn't write, or if she did her writing has not survived or if it did it is not put in relation to her sceleton. We know writers of old centuries as well as we know bloggers of foreign continents. At least as well as we know bloggers we have never written to or who have no possibility to write back. There are things we can never know about someone, because he is far away in place or time, because they are not directly there in the text, or because they have not been written down, but there are things we do know, because they have been written down. Lies cannot be totally excluded in all circumstances, but neither can those or other fakes in face-to-face intercourse. And what language someone writes when he writes himself is hard to fake. You may write a foreign language, but you may not write above your level in it, though you may sometimes improve it.

Speciation observed - but not in mammals

Talkorigins claims speciation has been observed ... in plants and invertabrates. Exactly not in mammals who are exactly the type of animals where polyploidy is excluded. One event includes a diploid variety having as many chromosomes as a tetraploid would have - but noone observed it becoming diploid. The botanist found the new species among his plants:

5.1.1.1 Evening Primrose (Oenothera gigas)
While studying the genetics of the evening primrose, Oenothera lamarckiana, de Vries (1905) found an unusual variant among his plants. O. lamarckiana has a chromosome number of 2N = 14. The variant had a chromosome number of 2N = 28. He found that he was unable to breed this variant with O. lamarckiana. He named this new species O. gigas.

If he found it, how can he be sure it was offspring of his previously studied plants? Because, you see, if the new chromosome number had been not 2n=28, but 4n=28, it would have been a very simple case of polyploidy. Here the question is: how did the 28 start out as 4*7 and end up as 2*14? Also, it is not specified (ha ha) if he could breed Oenothera gigas at all. There is of course cloning ...

As for diverse chromosome numbers (a k a karyotypes) in mice, they do not make different species, it seems. Do not ask me when and where Mus musculus domesticus with 2n=40 and such with 2n=22 have crossbred, but they count as same species, hence they have the same Latin name. A new chromosomal race of the house mouse, Mus musculus domesticus ...

A want-to-read: creationist Jack Cuozzo's book about Neanderthal man.

Non-replies

Emanuela Solano has not replied on question whether mice with different caryotypes have been observed to interbreed, which I sent her after reading link in "Speciation observed, but not in mammals". Ian Johnston has not replied to my argument immediately below the quote.

I have given both the opportunity to do so, by mailing them.

series and tinyurl to this one --- see comments Why is this a problem for evolution? Genes mutate. In each population, sometimes the mutation, sometimes the unmutated gene and sometimes both prevail. If a population splits in two, they will mutate into different ways. If enough genes are different, at last the populations will be genetically too different for mating to occur with offspring viable and fertile. They are two different species. This link is to an article - in fulltext - dealing with an experiment where speciations is seen as having been directly observed. Read their definitions carefully. "Even though behaviorally isolated species ..." "behaviorally isolated" - well that would make different human cultures count as different species too. SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? CHROMOSOMES Genes bunch in chromosomes, and chromosomes are counted in whole numbers. And the number of chromosomes is fairly fixed, and yet mammals have different numbers of chromosomes. In most species, mammal or not, chromosomes are diploid (Greek for twofold, meaning all of the chromosomes) in the cells making up a single body, haploid (Greek for simple, meaning in all of the chromosomes) in sex cells. Triploid (Greek for threefold, meaning in all of the chromosomes) individuals occur in plants, fish, lizards, birds, they are infertile or selffertilising females, both ways are roads out of sexual reproduction and therefore evolution as usually understood. Diploid chromosome setups mean that chromosomes go in pairs that hang together at the centromere and branch off to telomeres. Centromeres (middle pieces) and Telomeres (end pieces) are like full stops in genetic information. It is DNA bundled too tight for readability. But they are essential for the RNA-readings of the arms - an arm is whatever part of a chromosome is between one Centromere and one Telomere. Chromosomes have one centromere and two telomeres, except (if I recall correctly) Y-chromosomes that have only two telomeres, one of which counts as centromere because bundling with such of the X-chromosome.
Less chromosomes	More chromosomes
Normally for diploid beings:
Sex cells forming halve the number of chromosomes into only one for each pair.	Sex cells meeting and forming new individuals double the number of the sex cell chromosomes, getting back to normal.
Not Normally for diploid beings:
Haplosomy (onefold in one single pair) going on to asomy (none in that pair)? Asomy means total lack of one chromosome and means non-viability of embryon. So haplosomy is a non-way. Unless, which is not very likely, all the vital information of a chromosome had been transferred to chromosomes of another pair. In mankind, Y-chromosome haplosomy is not viable, but X-chromosome haplosomy gives infertile or less fertile women. But they are same pair, XX a normal woman, XY a normal man. Robertsonian chromosome fusion, is this how it works? Have I proven too much? Mice go in different chromosome numbers, and they seem to be yet one species. Okapi may have one or two chromosome pairs or even a pair and a half, for same parts of genome.	Chromosome fission - as complex as fusion (study diagrams and handwritten text on image left), plus where does the new centromere or the new telomeres come from? (P Z Myers claims new centromere comes from locus duplication - but that does not explain new telomere on the intra-centromere side of each split) Trisomy (three chromsomes in one single pair) - means handicap, sometimes to fertility (in sex chromosomes) sometimes to other chromosomes. But a trisomy, even if extended after a generation to tetrasomy, does not mean two pairs where there was one, only four chromosomes to a pair, and that is handicap. Polyploidy: triploidy see above. Tetraploid and octoploid individuals occur in amphibians and plants - that are typically greater or stronger or twice as complex as diploid samples. Mammals are neither amphibians nor plants. Even if they could be polyploid, which seems not to be the case, that would not open the way for new pairs forming. Each four chromosomes are the four chromosomes of a pair, not the two by two chromosomes of two pairs.
Theories should in principle be falsifiable. If evolution is a theory, chromosome numbers - as well as other similar creationist arguments - are not theories, but falsifications of this theory. I think chromosome numbers is such a difficulty (if not downright disproof) that that is why Scientists are very shy about putting on the web articles for free about this subject. On my comments to Non-replies I have been looking for such using a scholar google. Time after time I have only got to the abstract of an article that is readable for paying subscribers only. See list at end of comments.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
en dépt^nt13 ou 84
30 May/11 June AD 2009

PS, A list of different chromosome numbers from a creationist site:

The Evolution of Species by Means of Increasing Number of Chromosomes
-or-
The Preservation of Complex Life Forms in the Struggle for Life

-By Dr. Kent Hovind-

Number of Chromosomes:

Fern 480 The ultimate goal.

White Ash 138

Carp 100

Goldfish 94

Sweet Potato 90
Turkey 82

- Chicken 78
- Dog 78
- Duck 78 Identical Triplets!

Horse 64

Cow 60

Silkworm 56

Cotton 52

Amoeba 50

- Chimp 48
- Tobacco 48 Identical Twins!

Human 46

Bat 44

Wheat 42

Soybean 40

Cat 38

Starfish 36

Apple 34

- Alligator 32
- Onion 32 Identical Twins!

Frog 26

- Opossum 22
- Redwood 22
- Kidney Bean 22 Identical Triplets!

- Corn 20
- Marijuana 20
- Carrot 20 Identical Triplets!

Lettuce 18

Honeybee 16

Garden Pea 14

- House Fly 12
- Tomato 12 Identical Twins!

Fruit Fly 8

Penicillium 2

Source: DrDino/Kent Hovind - after reading which I searched in Talkorigins.org and got this. Which is where my argument comes from.

Credits to user Jon for giving me the opportunity to refind it.

comments part:

Hans Lundahl a dit…
"http://o-x.fr/292" = biologist P Z Myers saying this is no problem.He gives a diagram, but no medical or veterinarian cases where chromosome fission has happened before eyes of researchers. Fusion does happen: cancer, Downs, fertility problems. I DID look up Robertsonian fusion on a scholar google, as he said I should.What he considers sufficient evidence might be related or (to creationists simply) similar species, in which the corresponding parts (remember, there are non-corresponding parts as well) of total genomes are stocked on different numbers of chromosomes. Like his example on an earlier post, where two chimpanzee chromosomes are supposed to correspond to one fusioned human chromosome, because of corresponding genetic material on them.
13 juin 2009 07:45
Hans Lundahl a dit…
This is from a man Myers calls an "ignorant" creationist: Evidence for Fusion in a Human Chromosome Tells you LITTLE TO NOTHING about whether Humans Share a Common Ancestor with Living ApesUsually Darwinists argue for human-ape common ancestry based upon alleged "shared errors" in human DNA and ape DNA. But the chromosomal fusion evidence is not a “shared error” argument for human / ape common ancestry, because apes do not have a fused chromosome. The human chromosomal fusion argument focuses on a fusion event that is specific to the human line, and therefore provides a highly limited form of evidence for human / ape common ancestry.Ignorant of biology or not, he is at least knowledgeable in textual criticism establishing of manuscript history --- as well as logic. Whether there are common transcription errors had by both apes or men or no, the fusion of #2 (if indeed it was a fusion) is special to man. Whether this fusion adequately explains how men can have evolved from a common ape ancestor or not, it does not prove we actually did.
13 juin 2009 08:14
Hans Lundahl a dit…
That was from "http://o-x.fr/-53" --- And the Miller Told His Tale: Ken Miller's Cold (Chromosomal) Fusion (Updated)
13 juin 2009 08:16
Hans-Georg Lundahl a dit…
This is now accessible on http://o-x.fr/tcu
28 juillet 2009 12:26
Hans-Georg Lundahl a dit…
An extra check on chromosome numbers per species ...

mardi 23 juin 2009

Théologie et philosophie

1 an answer to the question if thomism is opposed to evolution because specific forms are not accidental

2 an answer to a longer answer, after having already answered some turns, which unfortunately defending the compatibility of thomism and evolution a) sciences of physical causes b) newness of animals and plants c) six recent days d) a question of historical truth e) Teilhard de Chardin and Jacques Maritain

New responses
a) Chromosomes b) submission to ecclesiastical authority c) Patristics d) infallible criterium

Third stage responses
a) St Cyprians authority is about ... what? b) the authority of St Justin the Philosopher c) Egyptian Patristics d) a summing up of your use of patristics so far e) further inconsistencies f) "It does not increase ones faith nor make one moral if they believe or disbelieve in evolution."

- want to read all of the debate? Look at source, immediate or original

1 an answer to the question if thomism is opposed to evolution because specific forms are not accidental

Materialism is opposed to thomism precisely in considering corporeal things as accidents of protons, neutrons and electrons in the combinations known as atoms and ions.Even without thomism - is it biologically possible for mammals with one chromosome number to evolve from ammals with a clearly different one?hints:

a) all mammal individuals are diploid, that is: chromosomes go in pairs

b) each chromosome belongs to its own set, which in mammals means: its own pair

c) three or one chromosomes in one pair are a malformation, not the beginning of one pair more or less

d) chromosomes are only counted in natural numbers, not in infinitesimal fractions anyway (yes, genes are infinitesimal fractions of chromosomes, and yes, the chromosomes do change genes, or so people who study presumed chromosome evolutions say; but the issue is the chromosomes, not the individual genes)
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2 an answer to a longer answer, after having already answered some turns, which unfortunately defending the compatibility of thomism and evolution

R. H.,I am forced to answer briefly, and I have not much to say, but it is to the point(s).

a) physical causes, sciences thereof

Aquinas certainly acknowledged them. Would that mean he would have accepted evolutionism? Less sure. Evolution presupposes the knowledge of a physical timeline of billions of years. Aquinas helf that what is neither present and perfectly visible and tangible cannot be perfectly known. That includes distant things, that includes past and futre, that includes the hidden. It also includes a possibility, which in thomistic terms would involve a very antithomistic proposition, i e that the essences of the different kinds of plants and animals differ only accidentally and one could therefore evolve from the other by accident, just as red-haired and brown-haired men have accidentally evolved from the same Adam, maybe the same post-flood survivors. This possibility is as unmendelian as it is unthomistic. Mendel knew of recombinations and of qualities that followed suit and did not recombine. Later research has identified the numbers of phenotype recombinations with the chromosomes that define the numbers of genotype recombinations. A lemur, a rat, a dog and a man have quite different chromosome numbers. These are numbers of whole pairs. A pair is not constituted by its number of chromosomes [alone] (two in any mammal) but also by their functions, each chromosome of one pair having in common with the other a specific set of functions. Superfluous and lacking chromosomes in one pair come nowhere near constituting new pairs or reducing the number of pairs (except if two different chromosomes - i e from different pairs - are recombined around one "new" centromere [new as new to both, but old for one of them]: even that would happen only from one parent first time, and the individual would from the other parent inherit a set of chromosomes that has the old dsitribution), variation in chromosome numbers include malfunctions, some of them lethal, some inhibit fertility, some simply make the new individual abnormal....
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b) newness of animals and plants:

"Species, also, that are new, if any such appear, existed beforehand in various active powers; so that animals, and perhaps even new species of animals, are produced by putrefaction by the power which the stars and elements received at the beginning. Again, animals of new kinds arise occasionally from the connection of individuals belonging to different species, as the mule is the offspring of an ass and a mare; but even these existed previously in their causes, in the works of the six days."

One by one, now:

"so that animals, and perhaps even new species of animals, are produced by putrefaction by the power which the stars and elements received at the beginning."

Spontaneous generation of animals (like flies and toads) has since that time been rejected. It is as unscientific today as it was unbiblical then. "omne vivum ex ovo."*

"Again, animals of new kinds arise occasionally from the connection of individuals belonging to different species, as the mule is the offspring of an ass and a mare; but even these existed previously in their causes, in the works of the six days."

And mules are infertile. There can therefore never be a population of mules, only a collection of them.

St Augustine gives another example: thorny bushes, toads, flies, et c appeared after the fall as fullgrown individuals, punishing Adam, God having only created them "in ovo" or embryonically before the fall.

*I am not saying strictest sticking to Bible's words be necessary to orthodoxy: I am merely observing that when that old teacher accepted compromising with them to accomodate what was then science, he has not been confirmed by more recent science - like the chrystalline spheres of the heavens, which St Basil explains why Moses didn't mention, though the scientists back then had apparently proven their existance: these scientists back then have not been confirmed by more recent astronomers.
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c) six recent days

Some few Church Fathers - Origen, therein defended by St Augustine - said God created all in one single instant (at least embryonically, some species growing to fullgrown individuals only later) and the six days are six mental "dawnings" of the different aspects of that one instant work on the angels observing it. Most say the six days were six days. Thomas say both may be true, the one instant observed in six mental dawnings on angelic knowledge referring to embryonic individuals, the six real days referring to full grown individuals.

I know no Church Father of the First Millennium to have suggested the six days might be what Pius XII in Humani Generis considered possible: six much longer periods.

That discrepancy was once one of my motives for rejecting the papacy of that man, while still accepting papacy as such.
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d) a question of historical truth

apart from the question of scientific truth - which leaves the question totally open as to time frame, closed as against kind to kind evolution - apart from the questions of secondary causes which is accepted* whatever you may believe on age dating and macroevolution, apart from the question whether the solution offered by Humani Generis is orthodox or not, there remains a question of HISTORICAL truth

heathen traditions from most places all over the world confirm the details rejected in the name of "scientific progress": a fairly recent creation, a degeneration of men thereafter, a flood, and a repopulation of mankind

*that God sometimes acts through such causes, not that he were bound to exclusively do so
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e) Teilhard de Chardin and Jacques Maritain

They seem to think that science as known now is the same in base as science as known back then, only the research is better. That is where I think they got it wrong.

Some of the new methods are rather methods of qualified guessing than of real deduction, real observation. They are methods which Aquinas and Aristotle would have rejected as unscientific. The old, less than scientific statements (chrystalline spheres, spontaneous generation) were so by lack of possibility of observations correcting them. They made the best of available evidence. The new ones are unscientific by making the best of evidence that is so clearly off topic.

Unfortunately this post was the only response that kept my promise of briefness. Until I just lengthened it.
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New responses:

a) Chromosomes:

"You discussion on chromosomes assumes that any new variation that results in something of a new species would have to be abnormal in the sense of somehow being defective. This is a huge assumption. The truth is that mutation leads to evolution because genes are crossed over in the process from one chromosome to the other."

I am not assuming it. I am concluding it, for those changes which involve changes of chromosome numbers, from what I know as a fact about changes of chromosome numbers from normal in men.
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b) submission to ecclesiastic authority*:

"Must be convenient to just reject the insights** from encyclicals as you see fit."

I did not reject his encyclicals and his bull before coming to believe believe that he was a heretical non-pope or anti-pope, nor afterwards, but at the same time.

*Which is neither a philosophical, nor a patristic argument
**according to how Pio Nono defined papacy, the Holy Spirit was not given so that Popes might expound new doctrines revealed by Him, but ....
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c) Patristics:

"What about St. Cyprian of Carthage:
"'As the first seven days in the divine arrangement containing seven thousand of years, as the seven spirits and seven angels which stand and go in and out before the face of God, and the seven-branched lamp in the tabernacle of witness, and the seven golden candlesticks in the Apocalypse, and the seven columns in Solomon upon which Wisdom built her house l so here also the number seven of the brethren, embracing, in the quantity of their number, the seven churches, as likewise in the first book of Kings we read that the barren hath borne seven'"

Likely to refer to the seven thousand years of human history (including the eighth millennium anno creationis which just started some 200 years ago or more) rather than to timelength of creation week as such. Certainly such a reference is there in De Civitate Dei by St Augustine. Have you really checked the context of the quote, or have you just taken on faith that it be applicable to creation week as such?

"And it was a popular notion among the some of the Early Church Fathers to quote the psalm referring to a day as a thousand years to the lord in reference to Adam in the garden as St. Justin Martyr does."

Now here I would have liked a quote!

"Now if we are talking about a six thousand year creation as believed by at least one Church Father, maybe more, this seems to directly contradict your earlier notion that all Early Church Fathers believed in a short creation."

Which one? St Justin Martyr or St Cyprian of Carthage? The quote not given or the quote that may be taken out of context?
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d) infallible criterium:

"Now maybe you have some infallible ability to determine whether encyclical letters or unorthodox but until the Church condemns it I prefer to entertain the possibility."

Vincent of Lerins? Commonitorium? I will not condemn a man as heretic for believing evolution till a general council condemn it, but I will not hold that it is an orthodox interpretation of Genesis or that it does not at least imply grave heresies about God as creator and as good - implications that the individual Christian believer who accepts evolution need of course not be aware of in some cases, but which cannot be absent in all cases either.
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Third stage responses:

a) St Cyprians authority is about ... what?

a more extensive quote from treatises 11:11 - here:

"What, indeed, do we find in the Maccabees of seven brethren, equals alike in their lot of birth and virtues, filling up the number seven in the sacrament of a perfected completion? Seven brethren were thus associating in martyrdom. As the first seven days in the divine arrangement containing seven thousand of years,(9) as the seven spirits and seven angels which stand and go in and out before the face of God, and the seven-branched lamp in the tabernacle of witness, and the seven golden candlesticks in the Apocalypse, and the seven columns in Solomon upon which Wisdom built her house( l) so here also the number seven of the brethren, embracing, in the quantity of their number, the seven churches, as likewise in the first book of Kings we read that the barren has borne seven." (unfortunately recurrent footnotes 9 and 1 were neither clickable nor otherwise identifiable on page)

Cyprian is indulging in numerology of a type little used nowadays. As well as in allegoric application. Saying that the seven days (of creation week) contain seven thousand years (of created history after creation and fall) is not tantamount in any way whatsoever to saying that the seven days were really not seven days in the ordinary sense, but seven thousand years. You got him wrong. Familiarise yourself with allegorical method and with numerology before you try to use this as an alternative timeline for creation week. Oh, and: the title of the treatise is not "Hexaëmeron" or "Work of six days" it is "Exhortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortunatus." and chapter 11 is entitled: "11. That it was before predicted that the world would hold us in abhorrence, and that it would stir up persecutions against us, and that no new thing is happening to the Christians, since from the beginning of the world the good have suffered, and the righteous have been oppressed and slain by the unrighteous"

From the beginning of the world. Not at the beginning of the world. Sorry; if you are not intellectually dishonest on your own behalf in citing this as an alternative timeline for creation week as such, at least you are authority-thumping on behalf of someone intellectually dishonest, someone groping for straws to find patristic support for longer timelines. You may of course say that the chapter headings were added by some editor: indeed they were, but they are appropriate. The heading "work of the six days" would have been heavily inappropriate to the chapter as to the treatise as a whole.

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b) authority of St Justin the Philosopher

I reproduce your quote in full, just adding some little at the end:

With the Lord “one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4).
Furthermore light was created on day one but the sun not until day for.
Adam was told he would die on the same day that he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil but he lived to be 930 years old. He died within 1000 years which seems to indicate that the days being referred to might be a thousand years each.

You asked about the quote from St. Justin Martyr quoting the psalm referring to a day as a thousand years to the lord in reference to Adam in the garden.

"For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years [Gen. 5:5]. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression ‘The day of the Lord is a thousand years’ [Ps. 90:4] is connected with this subject" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 81 [A.D. 155]).

There you go. And if that isn’t enough to satisfy you skepticism that Church Fathers believed different things about the time frame of the creation narrative I’ll do you a favor of providing a few more quotes to think about. This one is from Irenaeus in agreement with St. Justin Martyr:

"And there are some, again, who relegate the death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since ‘a day of the Lord is a thousand years,’ he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5:23:2 [A.D. 189]).

Indeed so. Only, the day when Adam ate the fruit and died, being indeed a thousand years old, happened after the seventh day on which God rested, thus after the days of Creation Week. Hence, St Justin is no authority for reading six thousand years into creation week.
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c) Egyptian patristics

What about the possibility of St. Clement of Alexandria speaking of “an indefinite and dateless production”?

"And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist? . . . That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: ‘This is the book of the generation, also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth’ [Gen. 2:4]. For the expression ‘when they were created’ intimates an indefinite and dateless production. But the expression ‘in the day that God made them,’ that is, in and by which God made ‘all things,’ and ‘without which not even one thing was made,’ points out the activity exerted by the Son"(Miscellanies 6:16 [A.D. 208]).

And here is Origin arguing against taking the six days literally as six twenty-four hour days: "For who that has understanding will suppose that the first and second and third day existed without a sun and moon and stars and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? . . . I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance and not literally" (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:1:16 [A.D. 225]).

St Clement of Alexandria talks about the dateless and indefinite production. The context seems to indicate that the first production of things could not be dated in relation to previous events. It is no breach in the consensus that the six days were no longer than six ordinary days.

Origen is remarked about twice by St Augustine: once for the ingenuity of supposing God made all things in one single instant (i e much shorter than six days, absolutely no longer), which means that St Augustine having presumably read all Origen had to say about it concluded that he had opted for a one-instant creation. Which, unlike a seven thousand year or seven billion year creation is not at variance with patristic consensus of first millennium.

The second thing is that he remarked Origen for believing only the allegorical sense of Old Testament passages like the flood, the Antiochenes for believing only the literal sense of passages like the flood, but St Augustine held that a Catholic should believe both: both that those eight people were actually rescued by the arc, all without perishing (literal sense), and that all who are saved are so by the Church, all without perishing (allegorical sense).
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d) a sum up of your use of patristics (as seen so far in this debate)

After a scrutiny of you for patristic examples for a longer timespan of creation week than a week, I conclude that it holds not.

I never claimed patristic consensus is for the six days only, I said it is for either that or a one instant creation. The authority of Origen - which is not the authority of a canonised saint! - along with that of St Augustine - which is - go for the one instant creation. St Clement is unclear. Both other examples are such of allegory and prophecy about happenings after creation and fall, not of exposition of creation week as such.
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e) further inconsistencies

"I am not trying to read evolution into the Genesis account. I consider evolution a theory of science. As I said before I don’t dogmatically hold onto the theory of evolution. If new data and a new scientific theory came out that best dealt with this evidence, I imagine I would adopt it."

The Genesis account, taken literally, is an account of the beginnings of things visible, including all the animal species. So is Evolution. Labelling the one science and the other spirituality does not change that both taken literally are accounts of among other things, the beginnings of animal species. Now: the beginnings of all the animal species cannot be another thing or have another timeline than the beginnings of all animal species.

You are also pretending to bow down in science only to data and to coherent explanation.

I have already told you that evolution of a species with one number of chromosome pairs into a species with another number of chromosome pairs is a major difficulty. These data are not new, but they may be so to you. You interpreted me as presuming rather than concluding (from humdrum medical data about chromosome syndroms, Downs, Klinefeldt's, et c) that this would involve an evolution passing in each and every such case by at least one - actually more than one generation of - chromosomatically abnormal individuals. Survival of the unfittest, so to speak. If you want to pretend at some honesty in science (I am not talking theology now) read up on chromosomes.

What may also be news to you, though absolutely not to a creationist - yes, I am absolutely still talking about science, not theology here - is that age dating presupposes relying on data we actually do not have: like, for C14, did the atmosphere back when these bones (say the ones in Atapuerca) were alive contain approximately the same percentage of C14 - it has been measureed for a much shorter time - or, for geological dating, are Jura and Trias really remnants from different periods, rather than remnants of different collections of species wrongly classed as period faunas.

And here I remark that Aquinas (my Church does not recognise his canonisation, though I personally find him a holy man, not far from St Photius the Great in character and cultural type, though less learned, perhaps, in classics, and more learned, perhaps, in Aristotle) did not recognise as science the "knowledge" of something past/future/faraway/hidden and at same time contingent.

If something is contingent, it can be known only if visibly and tangibly at hand. Secondary to that is the memory of such knowledge in the individual who had it, tertiary to that knowledge is the transmission of such memory, by spoken or written word, enforced perhaps by pictoiral or other non-verbal means. It is not classed as science, it is individual knowledge of an individual thing or occurrence.If something is known without having to be physically at hand, it is that insofar as the knowledge is typical, not individual: and therefore necessary, not contingent. Past things are not necessary. Eternal (or quasieternal, i e uninterrupted since creation) past-present-and-future things are.

Clearly - and I am speaking as a scientific disciple of the Aquinate, not as a theological one - the claim that birds descend from ornithopod reptiles, who along with sauropod reptiles descend from batrachians, is not an example of eternal, necessary truth: we do not find the frogs or salamanders hatching eggs that become alternatively velociraptors or geckos, neither do we find regularly that velociraptors hatch eggs that become archaeopteryges, or that those hatch eggs that become birds as we know them. Rather, we find neither velociraptors or archaeopteryges around (or if, they have not been identified as such): we find geckos hatching geckos, we find salamanders hatching salamanders, we find birds hatching birds of their own kinds, with the possible - it is viennese history from a time that modern zoologists regard as unreliable, a k a legend - the basilisk, hatched by a cock.back to content

f) "It does not increase ones faith nor make one moral if they believe or disbelieve in evolution."

If you contend yourself with believing evolution, without concluding anything from it, adversely to traditional exegetics ... to traditional view of species as fixed (Teilhard notably believed mankind was evolving to "point Omega") ... to traditional eschatology ... and traditional views of the innocence of all visible creation before Adam's fall; if overmore you ask no questions about the implications in theory of knowledge by accepting evolution as scientific, if you do not accept other similar non-scientific but nowadays academic methods - notably psychology and psychiatry that deal heavy-handedly with what is hidden in the heart of the human neighbour, notably demographic ecological and other futurologic expertise; in short, if you accept evolution with a childish faith without asking questions, without concluding, I think it may be perfectly anodine. But such a limited faith in evolution is, at least in adults, above a certain level of instruction, rare; or otherwise my experience in discussing evolution misleads me.

When you argue with atheists, they know perfectly well that your belief in evolution as a fact, or your limited belief in the closely literal sense of Genesis, is a novum in the Christian Church. They will three out of four times say to themselves or between themselves that you are right about the beginning of all animal species, but that the people you accept as religious authorities were wrong. When you argue without arguing against evolution on the scientific level, when you indeed encourage their belief in modern scientific methods.

Hans
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Creation vs. Evolution

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