Vatican accepts evolution as fact

Fatima Perspectives ^ | August 24th 2004 | Chris Ferrara

[AskStPhilomena]

In what appears to be its latest capitulation to worldly wisdom, the Vatican apparatus now assumes (contrary to the teaching of Pius XII in Humanae Generis) that the evolution of men from animals is a proven fact.

On June 24, 2004 Zenit.org reported that "Vatican Observatory has convoked a range of experts to reflect on a question that at times seems to be forgotten in scientific research: Is there purpose in evolution?" That is, evolution is now assumed to have occurred, and the only debate is over whether it has a purpose. The Vatican called a symposium of experts to meet on June 24-26 to discuss whether evolution has a "purpose."

The Vatican Observatory’s announcement of the symposium states that "in scientific circles, there is a very deep-seated distrust of teleological language, even though researchers may occasionally use the word ‘design’ in an attempt to grapple with the often astonishing adaptive complexes they study … Put crudely, the widely accepted scientific worldview is that human beings or any other product of evolutionary diversification is accidental and, by implication, incidental."

Well, that’s right, of course. And what is the Vatican’s response to this worldview? Read it for yourself, if you can believe it: "The purpose of this symposium is not to dispute this worldview, but to inquire whether it is sufficient and, if it is not, to consider what we need to know and ultimately how we might discover the requisite information with one or more research programs." So, the Vatican does not dispute the view that the emergence of human life is merely incidental to the process of "evolution," whose truth is now apparently assumed.

The symposium (whose results have not yet been published) was asked to address five questions:

-- Can we speak of a universal biochemistry?

-- How do levels of complexity emerge, and are they inevitable?

-- Can we properly define evolutionary constraints?

-- What does convergence [different species displaying the same traits] tell us about evolution?

-- What do we mean by intelligence? Is intelligence an inevitable product of evolution?

Notice that every question presumes that evolution has, in fact, occurred, even though there is abundant evidence showing no gradual transition from one form of life to another (as evolution supposes), but rather the sudden appearance of every basic form in the fossil record, which is precisely what one would expect to see if God directly and specially created each kind, as the Book of Genesis recounts.

In Humani Generis Pope Pius XII warned that "the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which through generation is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own."

Moreover, Pope Leo XIII taught in his encyclical letter Arcane Divinae Sapientiae (Christian Marriage) that Adam and Eve, and they only, are our first parents and that Eve was created from Adam's body:

We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep. God thus, in His most far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should be the natural beginning of the human race, from whom it might be propagated, and preserved by an unfailing fruitfulness throughout all futurity of time.

The Church says that no one may doubt these things. Yet how can these things be reconciled with the view that Adam and Eve (and who knows how many other humans) "evolved" from apes and that Eve was not formed from the body of Adam, as the Vatican now seems to suppose, in calling for a symposium to discuss the "purpose" of evolution.

So the question must be asked: Do those who are in charge of the Vatican’s approach to "modern science" still believe in what the Church teaches concerning the origin of the human race? Or are we witnessing yet another sign of the great apostasy in the Catholic Church beginning at the top, which was predicted by the Third Secret of Fatima?

[stop_killing_unborn_babies]

That is all assuming the rate of decay is constant and you cannot know that because you don't know past conditions affecting the element.

Just as with the speed of light being assumed to be constant, we are finding out now it's not.

Same holds true for isotope decay.

[js1138]

This page is URL: Click here

Last updated June 13, 2001
Maintained by Kathie Watson

RADIOMETRIC TIME SCALE

The discovery of the natural radioactive decay of uranium in 1896 by Henry Becquerel, the French physicist, opened new vistas in science. In 1905, the British physicist Lord Rutherford--after defining the structure of the atom-- made the first clear suggestion for using radioactivity as a tool for measuring geologic time directly; shortly thereafter, in 1907, Professor B. B. Boltwood, radiochemist of Yale Uniyersity, published a list of geologic ages based on radioactivity. Although Boltwood's ages have since been revised, they did show correctly that the duration of geologic time would be measured in terms of hundreds-to-thousands of millions of years.

The next 40 years was a period of expanding research on the nature and behavior of atoms, leading to the development of nuclear fission and fusion as energy sources. A byproduct of this atomic research has been the development and continuing refinement of the various methods and techniques used to measure the age of Earth materials. Precise dating has been accomplished since 1950.

A chemical element consists of atoms with a specific number of protons in their nuclei but different atomic weights owing to variations in the number of neutrons. Atoms of the same element with differing atomic weights are called isotopes. Radioactive decay is a spontaneous process in which an isotope (the parent) loses particles from its nucleus to form an isotope of a new element (the daughter). The rate of decay is conveniently expressed in terms of an isotope's half-life, or the time it takes for one-half of a particular radioactive isotope in a sample to decay. Most radioactive isotopes have rapid rates of decay (that is, short half-lives) and lose their radioactivity within a few days or years. Some isotopes, however, decay slowly, and several of these are used as geologic clocks. The parent isotopes and corresponding daughter products most commonly used to determine the ages of ancient rocks are listed below:

Parent Isotope	Stable Daughter Product	Currently Accepted Half-Life Values
Uranium-238	Lead-206	4.5 billion years
Uranium-235	Lead-207	704 million years
Thorium-232	Lead-208	14.0 billion years
Rubidium-87	Strontium-87	48.8 billion years
Potassium-40	Argon-40	1.25 billion years
Samarium-147	Neodymium-143	106 billion years

The mathematical expression that relates radioactive decay to geologic time is called the age equation and is:

Dating rocks by these radioactive timekeepers is simple in theory, but the laboratory procedures are complex. The numbers of parent and daughter isotopes in each specimen are determined by various kinds of analytical methods. The principal difficulty lies in measuring precisely very small amounts of isotopes.

The potassium-argon method can be used on rocks as young as a few thousand years as well as on the oldest rocks known. Potassium is found in most rock-forming minerals, the half-life of its radioactive isotope potassium-40 is such that measurable quantities of argon (daughter) have accumulated in potassium-bearing minerals of nearly all ages, and the amounts of potassium and argon isotopes can be measured accurately, even in very small quantities. Where feasible, two or more methods of analysis are used on the same specimen of rock to confirm the results.

Another important atomic clock used for dating purposes is based on the radioactive decay of the isotope carbon-14, which has a half-life of 5,730 years. Carbon-14 is produced continuously in the Earth's upper atmosphere as a result of the bombardment of nitrogen by neutrons from cosmic rays. This newly formed radiocarbon becomes uniformly mixed with the nonradioactive carbon in the carbon dioxide of the air, and it eventually finds its way into all living plants and animals. In effect, all carbon in living organisms contains a constant proportion of radiocarbon to nonradioactive carbon. After the death of the organism, the amount of radiocarbon gradually decreases as it reverts to nitrogen-14 by radioactive decay. By measuring the amount of radioactivity remaining in organic materials, the amount of carbon-14 in the materials can be calculated and the time of death can be determined. For example, if carbon from a sample of wood is found to contain only half as much carbon-14 as that from a living plant, the estimated age of the old wood would be 5,730 years.

The radiocarbon clock has become an extremely useful and efficient tool in dating the important episodes in the recent prehistory and history of man, but because of the relatively short half-life of carbon-14, the clock can be used for dating events that have taken place only within the past 50,000 years.

The following is a group of rocks and materials that have dated by various atomic clock methods:

Sample	Approximate Age in Years
Cloth wrappings from a mummified bull Samples taken from a pyramid in Dashur, Egypt. This date agrees with the age of the pyramid as estimated from historical records	2,050
Charcoal Sample, recovered from bed of ash near Crater Lake, Oregon, is from a tree burned in the violent eruption of Mount Mazama which created Crater Lake. This eruption blanketed several States with ash, providing geologists with an excellent time zone.	6,640
Charcoal Sample collected from the "Marmes Man" site in southeastern Washington. This rock shelter is believed to be among the oldest known inhabited sites in North America	10,130
Spruce wood Sample from the Two Creeks forest bed near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, dates one of the last advances of the continental ice sheet into the United States.	11,640
Bishop Tuff Samples collected from volcanic ash and pumice that overlie glacial debris in Owens Valley, California. This volcanic episode provides an important reference datum in the glacial history of North America.	700,000
Volcanic ash Samples collected from strata in Olduvai Gorge, East Africa, which sandwich the fossil remains of Zinjanthropus and Homo habilis -- possible precursors of modern man.	1,750,000
Monzonite Samples of copper-bearing rock from vast open-pit mine at Bingham Canyon. Utah.	37,500,000
Quartz monzonite Samples collected from Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California.	80,000,000
Conway Granite Samples collected from Redstone Quarry in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.	180,000,000
Rhyolite Samples collected from Mount Rogers, the highest point in Virginia.	820,000,000
Pikes Peak Granite Samples collected on top of Pikes Peak, Colorado.	1,030,000,000
Gneiss Samples from outcrops in the Karelian area of eastern Finland are believed to represent the oldest rocks in the Baltic region.	2,700,000,000
The Old Granite Samples from outcrops in the Transvaal, South Africa. These rocks intrude even older rocks that have not been dated.	3,200,000,000
Morton Gneiss [see Editor's Note] Samples from outcrops in southwestern Minnesota are believed to represent some of the oldest rocks in North America.	3,600,000,000

 

Interweaving the relative time scale with the atomic time scale poses certain problems because only certain types of rocks, chiefly the igneous variety, can be dated directly by radiometric methods; but these rocks do not ordinarily contain fossils. Igneous rocks are those such as granite and basalt which crystallize from molten material called "magma".

When igneous rocks crystallize, the newly formed minerals contain various amounts of chemical elements, some of which have radioactive isotopes. These isotopes decay within the rocks according to their half-life rates, and by selecting the appropriate minerals (those that contain potassium, for instance) and measuring the relative amounts of parent and daughter isotopes in them, the date at which the rock crystallized can be determined. Most of the large igneous rock masses of the world have been dated in this manner.

Most sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, limestone, and shale are related to the radiometric time scale by bracketing them within time zones that are determined by dating appropriately selected igneous rocks, as shown by a hypothetical example.

Literally thousands of dated materials are now available for use to bracket the various episodes in the history of the Earth within specific time zones. Many points on the time scale are being revised, however, as the behavior of isotopes in the Earth's crust is more clearly understood. Thus the graphic illustration of the geologic time scale, showing both relative time and radiometric time, represents only the present state of knowledge. Certainly, revisions and modifications will be forthcoming as research continues to improve our knowledge of Earth history.

[stop_killing_unborn_babies]

IMHO there is no accuarate way to date rocks, period.

Well, that's not entirely true, Bill Slick Klinton once considered dating a 800YO mummified girl.

[stop_killing_unborn_babies]

I'm sorry, did you say something.

Must not have been that important.

[Dominick]

The speed of light is speculated to change one part in 2x10^23 parts IF they can prove the fine constant changed. Even then, at the distances that are in the single paper, this doesn't affect the flow of time and the distances.

The rate of decay of an isotope is not going to change for a sample. I agree leaching can be a problem on the microgram scale, but for large quantities, it doesn't change. It would be similar to 5 moles (6x10^23 atoms) of lead weighing anything other than 14 ounces.

[stop_killing_unborn_babies]

Yes indeed, the premise of evilution, that in the beginning was nothing and then nothing exploded into something that evolved into something else.

No, evolution does not state any such thing.

Oh yes, the evilutionists great disclaimer, much like Slick Willy's disclaimer..."I did not have sex with that woman..."

[Dimensio]

That is all assuming the rate of decay is constant and you cannot know that because you don't know past conditions affecting the element.

In other words, even though there is absolutely no reason to assume that the rate of decay has ever changed and quite a bit of evidence that it is constant, you want to assume that it isn't constant because you don't like the implications otherwise.

Just as with the speed of light being assumed to be constant, we are finding out now it's not.

No, some scientists have hypothesized that the speed of light is not constant. It hasn't yet reached the level of "theory", and moreover their hypothesis still does not support the <10,000 year-old universe model that many creationists insist it supports.

As an aside, I do find it interesting that a number of creationists like to repeatedly point out that evolution is "just a theory", and thus any and all doubt in it is perfectly justified, yet they're willing to instantly embrace a notion that has barely reached the title of "hypothesis" when it seems to support their agenda.

[Dimensio]

Your inane retort does not, in any way, support your contention that evolution is false. It does, however, strongly lend support that you are desperately trying to distract attention away from the painful fact that you are fundamentally ignorant regarding the theory of evolution and thus nothing that you say about it can be trusted.

[stop_killing_unborn_babies]

The speed of light is speculated to change one part in 2x10^23 parts IF they can prove the fine constant changed. Even then, at the distances that are in the single paper, this doesn't affect the flow of time and the distances.

I agree the jury isn't in yet, but Paul Davies and others have initial calculations that lightspeed was possibly 1000X faster in the not too distant past. That would affect distance and time flow considerably.

It would be similar to 5 moles (6x10^23 atoms) of lead weighing anything other than 14 ounces.

Seems you are leaving out gravity and electromagetism there.

[stop_killing_unborn_babies]

I'm sorry, did you say something?

Must not have been very important.

[stop_killing_unborn_babies]

Maclom Muggereidge was right. Many in Western "science" have educated themselves into imbecility.

Muggeridge could have been paraphrasing the Apostle Paul pointing out that the "intellectuals" of his day thought themselves to be wise but became fools.(Romans)

[Dimensio]

Fine, I'll stop replying to you. You clearly have nothing of any value to offer and you are fundamentally ignorant regarding the theory of evolution, however you feel so threatened by a scientific theory that you very clearly do not understand in any way, shape or form, that you see fit to use lies and inane non-sequiturs in the hopes that you'll fool people into thinking that there is something wrong with the theory rather than something wrong with you.

I don't like to waste my time on liars, since they will just lie about previous statements to avoid losing an argument. You are a very obvious liar, and so I will have nothing more to do with you.

[stop_killing_unborn_babies]

In other words, even though there is absolutely no reason to assume that the rate of decay has ever changed...

Of course that was said because a constant rate fits the agenda. quite a bit of evidence that it is constant

It may be constant from the time of it's first reading. Does that mean that the atomic clocks that have slowed down prove time is slowing down?

[stop_killing_unborn_babies]

I'm sorry, did you day something?

Must not have been very important.

[PetroniusMaximus]

***Well, actually, the entire NT is susceptible to error.***

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
- Jesus, Matt 24

"For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."
- Jesus, Matt 5

"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."
- Jesus, John 17

"But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God:"
- Jesus, John 8

"And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not."
- Jesus, John 8



... please take the time to read the few verses above carefully. Are these words of Jesus lies or are they the truth?





***...a doctrine referred to as "verbal plenary inspiration". This means every word of the Bible is inspired by God.***

You mean as in...

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
- Paul, 2 Tim 3



***I emphatically believe that this teaching is ... factually and theologically wrong; ***

How so?

[Dimensio]

I have come to the conclusion that I would be more likely to get an honest and intelligent discussion regarding President Bush from Michael Moore than I would be to get an honest and intelligent discussion about evolution from the FReeper calling itself "stop_killing_unborn_babies".

[horatio]

LOL!

Pretty much sums it up, doesn't it?

[PetroniusMaximus]

***None of this can explain why we see galaxies that are millions of light-years away if the universe is less than 10,000 years old.***

God created Adam a mature man - blood already flowing through his veins...

...God created the universe "mature" so to speak.

[horatio]

Interesting. Did God create the dinosaurs already extinct and fossilized?

[balrog666]

Fine, I'll stop replying to you. You clearly have nothing of any value to offer and you are fundamentally ignorant regarding the theory of evolution, however you feel so threatened by a scientific theory that you very clearly do not understand in any way, shape or form, that you see fit to use lies and inane non-sequiturs in the hopes that you'll fool people into thinking that there is something wrong with the theory rather than something wrong with you.

I don't like to waste my time on liars, since they will just lie about previous statements to avoid losing an argument. You are a very obvious liar, and so I will have nothing more to do with you.

Well said. I think I'll save this to use later.

Funny how 90% of the other thread posters are content to let such a twisted, petty, and fundamentally ignorant person as pro-choice-whacko or whatever, take the lead in their argument.