The topic of evolution, especially as it relates to the human person, is complex and can be difficult to navigate. To better understand a sound Thomistic approach to the question, please visit this page: aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/theory-of-evolution
It would be beneficial to those interested in this topic to compare what is being presented here with what is being presented at the Kolbe Center for Creation.
@@reginald4776 Some friars featured on Aquinas 101: Science and Faith are also on the staff of the Thomistic Evolution website, which is included in the link above. One of the TE's latest resources includes an online disputatio with Mr. Hugh Owen from the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation. We hope this resource is edifying! www.thomisticevolution.org/disputed-questions-2/
@@ThomisticInstitute Thank you. I was aware of the exchange that Mr. Owen participated in on that site. I just wanted to inform individuals that there certainly are other sound Thomistic , and cogent, views that attempt to resolve this question besides those which are presented here and at Thomistic Evolution.
Thank you Prof. Öberg! As a Catholic undergrad studying neuroscience, it is inspiring and encouraging to see those of the faith in mainstream academia.
Great video, we need more Catholic scientists present in the public eye. This is a form of evangelization! God has blessed her with a deep understanding of His love and creation. I pray that He continues to do so. Praise Jesus!
St. Thomas said if you get a concept wrong in the beginning and use perfect logic thereafter you will never come to truth. We should be open to revisiting our original concepts. It never hurts if we are seeking truth.
I would like to hear a little more from the Thomistic Institute how non-living material elements can give rise to life, without violating the axiom that it is impossible to communicate to another what one does not have... I would also like to receive the reference in the work of St. Thomas, where he prescribes the possibility that lower beings arise "spontaneously" from inanimate matter, as a result of natural processes, without direct and extraordinary divine intervention.
@@ThomisticInstitute I look forward to the video! I am very curious to know how the material cause (inanimate matter) can also be an efficient cause of the substantial form of living beings, whose body it composes.
You and I know the answer to your question. This video is rubbish and Saint Thomas Aquinas would rebuke the philosophical and theological errors in this video.
*The Modern Synthesis proposed that random copying errors combined with natural selection and population genetics would provide a gradual increase in speciation. But there are several problems with this view, five problems of which are highlighted below:* i) _Evolution is not steady and gradual, it instead consists of long periods of stasis followed by rapid stages of punctuated equilibrium, contrary to Darwin's predictions (Gould and Eldredge, 1993)_ ii) _Mechanisms such as horizontal gene transfer, transposition, symbiogenesis, and hybridization are applied in a non-random way by natural genetic engineering systems_ (J.A. Shapiro 1993), which tailor responses to hundreds of sensory inputs in a cognitive manner (Shapiro, 2011). iii) _Random mutations are noise, and noise destroys information_ (Noise can be defined as anything that interferes with accurate transmission of the message, including random genetic mutations. One of Shannon's signature victories was identifying noise as information entropy. Shannon (1948) showed that noise is mathematically identical to Boltzmann's en-tropy in thermodynamics. This implies that information lost from noise is lost forever). iv) _Transposons can jump around the genome, repairing damage in real time (McClintock, 1953). Under the Modern Synthesis framework this should be impossible, and her findings were initially rejected. This is because the MS insisted organisms are passive recipients of accidental mutations which are selected for fitness. However, McClintock's plants engineered novel solutions to unforeseeable problems in real time by activating DNA editing systems and copying coding se-quences from other chromosomes. Cancer cells similarly reprogram their own genomes in real time, especially when subjected to chemotherapy. One species of cancer cell can generate hundreds of species in weeks_ (Heng et al., 2011) v) _Epigenetic inheritance has vindicated Lamarck, who for decades was derided for suggesting that acquired learnings can be passed to progeny_ (Baverstock, 2013; Noble, 2020; Torday and Rehan, 2013).
@Tercio Novohispano Let me make this clear I'm not against evolution. I'm against the idea of Neo darwinist model of evolution which says that Random Mutation + Natural Selection + Time = Evolution. I believe in Adaptive Mutation + Natural Selection + Time = Evolution 2.0 By definition randomness lacks pattern, then how could you say that we can see pattern in that randomness.In the very first paper of Gregory Chaitin, “Randomness and Mathematical Proof,” he says: " Although randomness can be precisely defined and can even be measured, a given number cannot be proved to be random. This enigma establishes a limit to what is possible in mathematics. Almost everyone has an intuitive notion of what a random number is. For example, consider these two series of binary digits: 01010101010101010101 01101100110111100010 The first is obviously constructed according to a simple rule; it consists of the number 01 repeated 10 times … Inspection of the second series of digits yields no such comprehensive patterns. There is no obvious rule governing the formation of the number, and there is no rational way to guess the succeeding digits. The arrangement seems haphazard; in other words, the sequence appears to be a random assortment of 0’s and 1’s. The second series of binary digits was generated by flipping a coin 20 times and writing a 1 if the outcome was heads and a 0 if it was tails " When Darwinism says evolutionary changes are accomplished through random mutations and natural selection, this potentially means the three following things at the very least: 1.Before, during, or after DNA replication, any particular letter (e.g., “GAC”) could be randomly changed to any other letter (“CAG”), and the change might occasionally confer a benefit to the organism. This is the definition of a random mutation. 2.When DNA is copied, portions of the DNA strand might be accidentally folded or reversed, causing entire groups of letters to be miscopied. The change might occasionally confer a benefit to the organism. 3.Traditional Darwinism emphatically denies that evolutionary mutations in DNA are goal seeking, directed, or obey any specific pattern. Neo-Darwinists emphatically assert “the essential Darwinian notion of ‘spontaneous,’ ‘accidental,’ or ‘chance’ variation with respect to adaptation” Randomness is at the heart of the Neo-Darwinian explanation, and as we’ve learned more and more about the genome, Neo-Darwinists have had to morph the definition of randomness to maintain their position. The problem with randomness is that it always has to be defined within a specific frame of reference; otherwise, scientific precision gets lost. Randomness is always with respect to something. When you roll dice (which we all naturally think of as random), you don’t know the outcome because you do not have rigid control of how the dice fall. But in the absolute sense, the number that comes up is not random, because how the dice bounce and land is, after all, precisely determined by the laws of physics.
My understanding of Shannon entropy is that it is positive information, not negative. The signal that looks the most random/noisy is the one that contains the most information per bit/time. Random mutations are adding information to the system. I mean, yes, noise will obscure a signal, but in the case of organisms, the "signal" is that species of organism, reproducing itself exactly. Add some noise and the signal becomes distorted, but that's more complex, not less. After a mutation you have two types of organisms, two overlapping signals, instead of one. The obscurity is (unless the mutation is fatal in an unchanging environment) you don't know which was the original and which is the mutant.
So my hot take on (i), to add to what Tercio said, is that the periods of stasis are not actually static, but rather periods of invisible diversification. Then suddenly a metaphorical tipping point occurs, one organism has a mutation that really makes a difference to the system, and the minor mutations suddenly become important and the whole thing reorganizes.
As for the other three, I would say that they are things that evolved. The fact that they contradict the simpler view of evolution doesn't mean they can't be integrated into it, once the initial resistance is overcome. When J Harlen Bretz hypothesized that the Washington Scablands were caused by a great flood, of course he met with resistance from geologists who had finally overcome the claim that many geological features were explained by Noah's Great Flood. But the fact that he was right in that case no way invalidated the rest of geology.
@Tercio Novohispano No you can't put that die analogy here. Life's adaptive formula is not like throwing a dice and you get an output instantly, it's a hierarchical operation of cellular control regimes. It contains a precise stepwise proces any change will lead to a catastrophic problem. The reason dice are random to you and me is because our hands are too imprecise to control the outcome. The imprecision of our hands when we roll those dice is our frame of reference. A raindrop falling on your windshield is random with respect to the motion of your car. It is not random with respect to the cloud it fell from. When biologists speak of random mutations in DNA, they are espousing a theory that the cell is not in control of the changes, in the exact same way that you are not in control of the dice when you play Monopoly. They are saying that the changes to DNA come from outside the system and the cell’s ability to control what happens. But this is not the case which happened in the origin of life. When bacteria are comfortable, some mutations cannot be found in over ten billion cells. But when they’re starving, the mutation frequency can go by a factor of >100,000-fold and they develop new adaptations so they can survive. This shows that mutation aren't be random but are frequently adapted.Cells are capable of doing their own genetic engineering-a natural version of what scientists do in experiments in labs
Thank you Dr. Oberg for a brief, rationale overview of an obviously complex subject! I grew up as an intentional Evangelical/Protestant, and have never demanded a scientific explanation for the Genesis record. As a relatively new Catholic convert, I’ve been delighted to discover the ‘gap-fillers’ in Philosophy, Science, and Theology! Aquinas 101 was an early discovery, as well as the teaching of EWTN and The Coming Home Network! I’ll be 79yrs old in May and I’m enjoying the expanding of my ‘small universe’! Thanks for your contribution!!
@@mers3481 Indeed. But if the two would only talk to each other, it would be obvious which one of them has never seriously listened to the other's arguments. It seems that this is why this 'Aquinas Institute' will not allow it.
Some friars featured on Aquinas 101: Science and Faith are also on the staff of the Thomistic Evolution website. One of their latest resources includes an online disputatio with Mr. Hugh Owen from the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation. We hope this resource is edifying! www.thomisticevolution.org/disputed-questions-2/
Thank you for this podcast! Generally speaking, evolution posits that higher organisms evolve from lower organisms and I can understand how this concept does no violence to God’s agency. But does Aquinas think that God created humans specifically to be a part of his divine family and subsequently inserted them into creation or did He by fiat choose the product of evolution we call humans to be adopted into His family? In either case, does Aquinas have an opinion (or can one extrapolate an opinion) with respect to the soteriological status of earlier humans like Neanderthals or Denisovans?
Thanks for the comment. It's certainly the case that God's providence extends to human beings, as it does to everything that exists. That is to say that everything in the created order proceeds according to God's plan, and nothing--no matter how miniscule--falls outside of that plan. God never reacts, as it were, to things that happen in the created order. Hopefully this helps resolve your first question. If not, please feel free to clarify. This video might help as well: th-cam.com/video/qLK7YmfbI8A/w-d-xo.html As for the second question, Fr. Simon Gaine, OP, has given a talk on that very question! soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/did-christ-die-for-neanderthals-fr-simon-gaine-op
@DonnyBlips I really don’t know. On the one hand, the Genesis creation story implies that God deliberately created humans. On the other hand, Galatians 4:4 suggests that the progression of time plays a role in the plan of salvation. My gut instinct is that the answer is both/and, not either/or, and my ignorance stems from the human inability to think outside of space/time.
There are some really basic distinctions that need to be made in any sound Thomistic proposal of a "naturalistic" origin-of-life and evolution. It's true that Aquinas thought that living things could arise from non-living matter in a "naturalistic" way, but he meant something very different by that from what modern-day Darwinists and proponents of abiogenesis have in mind. To see what he had in mind, we need to look at the specific examples he gave. In keeping with the best observations of his day, Thomas believed that fly larvae were spontaneously generated by rotting meat. It's important to remember here that in Thomas's view, all living things, including flies, are whole substances with an intrinsic end or telos and hence are not reducible to the sum their parts. He believed that the entire substantial form of a fly, in all its details and interworking parts, was essentially "written in" to the fabric of the universe and existed in rotting meat and fruit a virtual way, and that under the right conditions, that form would become spontaneously become directly instantiated in an actual fly. He also saw the "earth bringing forth" different forms of life as being something similar this. As he saw it, God had prewritten all the substantial forms of living things into the fabric of the material world in a virtual way, and at His command, the material world instantiated what was already there. This kind of of "naturalistic" generation of life is actually a form of intelligent design, in that God actually designed the substantial form of flies (and all other animals), in all their interworking detail, and encoded that specific design into the physical world ahead of time, such that flies (and other living things at creation) could be spontaneously generated. However, this is significantly different from the sort of intelligent design advocated by Paley and most modern "intelligent design" advocates, since Paleyism assumes the mechanistic-reductionist view of the physical world offered by Descartes, which is based in a nominalism that denies that living things are irreducible substances with substantial form and intrinsic telos, and instead reduces them to mere aggregates of of parts cobbled together by a divine artificer, with merely extrinsic or assigned function, like a watch or other artifact of human engineering. And it's downright antithetical to Darwinism, which includes the mechanistic reductionism of Descartes, but goes a big step further by denying even the extrinsic purpose affirmed by Paley, thereby reducing organisms to completely accidental and unintended aggregates of parts, and purporting to explain away the appearance of biological function altogether as an illusion that we project onto the cobbled-together byproducts of a mindless and unguided mechanistic process. Now, the specific example of spontaneous generation of flies that Aquinas believed in turned out to be false, but the underlying idea that living organisms are substances is sound. In fact, it's impossible to coherently account for the existence of rationality in humans and consciousness in many animals without appealing at least implicitly to the concept of substantial form. Furthermore, Darwinian reductionism is self-defeating in that it denies the very biological function that is necessary to intelligibly describe biology at all, and if taken to its logical conclusion, it implies that biology itself is all an illusion or projection of the mind. Atheistic philosophers with no axe to grind like Fodor have shown that natural selection itself is an empty concept, a product of equivocation that cannot in principle account for biological function (It's disappointing, and in my mind indicative of a moral failure, that Thomistic philosophers and scientists haven't been at the forefront of this rather than guys like Fodor). If indeed life DID originate "naturalistically" in the way that Aquinas envisioned, as an irreducible substantial form that exists virtually in matter and becomes instantiated under the right conditions, then this would be a clear and unambiguous example of deliberate, intelligent design. This would *not* match "contemporary scientific accounts of the origins of life," which consist of little more than reductionist axioms and lots of handwaving. In fact, on a fundamental level, it would be antithetical to them. The same goes for evolution. Any account of evolution that takes into account the fact that living things are substances and that biological function is real and intrinsic is going to be *drastically* different from what Darwin and his successors have in mind, in terms of both the explanation for the appearance of purpose we see in living things and in terms of what, historically, actually happened to bring it about. Now, when it comes to Paley and his modern successors in the Intelligent Design movement, I've noticed that Thomists are quick to point these issues out, and to criticize them in clear terms for their adoption of Descartes' mechanistic view and for Paley's extrinsic view of biological function. But when it comes to Darwin and his modern successors, who are even *more* committed to an even more extreme version of the mechanistic view, the tone and approach of most Thomists seem to change to one of accommodation and obscurantism. Major, fundamental differences that make the two views antithetical regarding the existence and nature of teleology and substantial form in biology are papered over, and "Darwinism" is implicitly redefined in a vague way that makes it more benign but also empties it of the explanatory role that it was supposed to have, while Thomism is dumbed down and its full implications for evolution are minimized. All in all, the approach seems designed to avoid a conflict with Darwinists that Thomists aren't afraid to have with Paleyists/IDists. And I can sympathize with the probably underlying motivation here. There hasn't been anything resembling an open, reasonable debate about biological origins going on in the scientific world for many, many decades. What we know today as "cancel culture" has been raging against anybody who challenges the reductionist, mechanistic, Darwinian view of life in any clear, unambiguous way for many, many decades. It's a sure-fire way to make yourself a pariah and wreck your career and reputation among "respectable" academics. But the consequence of all this radical uncontested nominalism and reductionism is that the academy and institutions of science are now themselves imploding under the weight of the post-modernism that follows from it, and the very concepts of objective truth and moral obligation are being lost as once-respectable journals and institutions are dissolved by woke ideology and cancel culture comes for anybody who tries to retain basic sanity. If you're saying anything worthwhile and true in today's environment, you're going to be made a pariah to the establishment, but things will continue to deteriorate until the madness is cut off at the source by enough people willing to bear those slings and arrows. It's a good time for Thomists to get a lot more bold and less circumspect, and to really think about what the truth of Thomism implies about natural history when we look at it with fresh eyes that aren't trying to accommodate a dominant paradigm that is incoherent.
I am a Thomist by training and I know one thing: our Saint did not have a microscope. Therefore, the entire biology of Santo Tomás must be seen today with the reservation of someone who did not have the means to understand, in greater detail, the biological processes that are behind the operation of living beings. If he believed that flies would "naturally" arise from rotting meat, it's because that's mostly because of the fly eggs that it will normally receive. And if he thought that meat contains, in itself, the essential virtue necessary for the generation of a fly (I think not), it is because he was materially unaware, at a microscopic level, of the biological operation that is behind it.
@@leonardovieira4445 Yes, of course St. Thomas' belief that flies are spontaneously generated by rotting meat has turned out to be false, though it wasn't a microscope that disproved it. Francesco Redi disproved it by placing a net over a jar containing meat, so that the meat would rot but flies couldn't get to it to lay their eggs. But that's not my point. I was simply using that to illustrate the TYPE of thing Thomas Aquinas had in mind when he discussed the idea of living things being generated from non-living things. In his view (which is correct on this score, and philosophically demonstrable), living things are substances. They have a substantial form, and thus they are not reducible to the aggregate behavior of their parts. Thus, for Thomas, IF living things could come from non-living things (as he believed to be the case with flies), it was because the substantial form of those living things pre-existed virtually as a potency of the matter from which they came. This is antithetical to the mechanistic, Darwinian view now presented as "scientific," according to which living things are not substances, but mere accidental and unintended aggregates of mechanistic parts, onto which the appearance of substantial form and natural end is merely projected by us. That mechanistic, ateleological view of life is incoherent and self-contradictory, but it is also the axiomatic assumption behind modern ideas of abiogenesis and evolution that are presented as "science." Any possible origin of life from non-life that is compatible with the truths of Thomistic philosophy is going to be drastically different from that (indeed opposite to it) on a fundamental level. I don't think it's right to provide a "Thomistic" overview of these topics that papers over these issues as if they're minor or scientifically irrelevant when they're of fundamental and vital importance, and entail radically incompatible understandings of what life even is.
@@ianb483 We agree. As for the possibility that the substantial form of inferior living beings is "pre-existing" in the inanimate matter, from which their bodies are composed, it is something that I need to understand better in the thought of Saint Thomas. Above all, the mode of this "pre-existence" and what would be the efficient cause for it to move from mere potentiality to act, generating a new being substantially different, although composed of the same original matter. At first, I cannot see how the material cause (inanimate matter) is, at the same time, an efficient cause...
Fully agree with you, I also feel annoyed that too many Catholics jump on the naturalistic bandwagon because it's popular and accepted by most scientists which also happen to be mostly atheists. God created many things in the universe, big and small, and not everything can be reduced to the smallest. Without a substantial form at least guiding evolution life would be impossible. I know how many people talk about the problem of the probability of dna generating by chance is a big problem, but it would be acceptable, the universe is big after all. The problem is with maintaining this positive direction geared towards adaptation and reproduction. You can get lucky and win a lottery once, but if you win consistently, that can no longer be called luck. If the majority of mutations, whether big or small, are negative, how does an accumulation of negative traits not overwhelm the positive traits? There must be a selection mechanism that is biased towards life. In fact I did read of a study which does show that dna mutation is biased and not random. The way I imagine it is like a piece of wood being pulled upstream of a river by a rope. Due to the random currents (the environment) the wood travels left and right unpredictably, following the path of least resistance. That is random. What is not random is that it is always pulled forward (the act of the substantial form) so that no matter what the circumstances are it always follows the rope. Otherwise why would life carry on? Wide is the path to destruction and narrow is the path the leads to the kingdom of Heaven. Life is good because it's the physical manifestation of Love, which must come from a soul. I think it's not stretch to equate this with the sermon on the mount: "Do not worry... But seek first the Kingdom of God." The implication is that if we focus on God, the rest will come naturally. Basically accept the current state of things for what they are, and of all the options present to you, choose the best one, and you will always move forward, just like the log accepting the currents but still being pulled upstream.
The lady completely misrepresents Aquinas' teachings on the origins of the universe, specifically the origin of species. She confuses Aquinas' teaching on Divine providence with his teachings on creation. Just read for yourself the Summa, part 1, questions 65-74, because she hasn't.
Regardless of whether life arose through natural causes (which are all engineered by God of course), or through a special intervention into nature by God, it is clear that God intended that mankind up till now be completely unable to know which is the actual case. Just as God has reserved to Himself the power to originate life, He has also reserved to Himself the knowledge of how He exercised that power.
Did He though ('intend that mankind up till now be completely unable to know which is the actual case')? What do we make of the Genesis account? What is its relevance to the rest of Scripture? Isn't that what through dialoguing and studying Scripture, Tradition, and the natural sciences we are striving to achieve? Namely, to adequate or intellect to the Truth. Yes, there are many mysteries of faith. But even more so lies out there to sift through. Often a very difficult thing to do because of how widespread they are, and how we have thus taken them as presumptions on the basis of scientific authority, with no questioning on our part.
@@NaruIchiLuffy All throughout Western tradition Genesis was understood to be history; mystical interpretations were built upon that. It is an account (evening and morning, one day, evening and morning, second day, etc) unlike some places in the psalms where they say the earth doesn't move (which were seen by Church authorities to be enough to disqualify heliocentrism). Genesis is God telling us what He did. We know that science and reason can never go against faith, and that the natural sciences, even more in their historical extrapolations, are not as certain as it is said. A lot of science is statistics, a lot is interpretation, a lot is assumption. If you study chemistry you'll get the feel for how uncertain science can be. I'm kind of interested in knowing how Geology got the millions of years wrong. I know the dating methods are flawed, but how and how much? These are interesting topics to study but we have to be open to the truth and trust in God. By the way, in regards to heliocentrism, search for the 'axis of evil'. It is known that the earth can very well occupy the centre of the universe, and apparently God is trying to give scientific proof to us doubting Thomases.
@@NaruIchiLuffy Genesis reveals that everything in the universe was made by God. Genesis does not provide the information as to the mechanisms employed by God to do this.
It's strange to think that God "had" to perform supernatural "interventions" in order to create life on Earth or prevent life elsewhere, when He is the one who is in control of everything and who created all the laws of nature and the one who is not bounded by temporary means or causes. One who is above the limits of ordinary actually can use "ordinary" means to achieve the extraordinary, as depicted that God "spoke" to create or achieve something beyond our natural means or understanding. If God is limited to temporariness, then it "makes sense" that He had to intervene every now and then to "adjust" natural causes in history to produce desired effects using "miracles", because in such assumed situations He is not in control of everything. But since everything is under His control in His omniscient and omnipotent powers, it only makes sense that what was naturally, in His desire, to come to existence came about naturally following its designated nature and limits. With regards to God conducting miracles, as in the case of Christ, such as raising people from the dead, curing diseases, calming a storm, etc. is not intervention in a sense that God loses control or was obliged to do them, but glimpses of the coming restoration of what was lost due to sin and corruption, also as restorative signs so that we come to know Him fully again in which "originally" we did, and now we don't due to our lack of faith. In this sense, God's miracles are "natural" responses to lost state of grace which appeared to us as "extraordinary" because of our own state of fallenness, blindness to the actual "natural" reality, the coming together of heaven and earth. We are the ones who have lost the supernatural senses and reality of being in the presence of God, eternal life, because of our unbelief and sins. If we truly believe and have faith in him, as we all should naturally, we don't need miracles or signs but only faith because all will come to be restored "naturally" to God in love and justice at the end. "His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you." (2 Peter 1: 3-11)
If God does intervene beyond sustained contingency it doesn’t necessarily equate to a miracle. Yes, a miracle must go beyond the power of created nature. However, a miracle must also be extraordinary. Meaning, it is contrary to the ordinary natural, and supernatural course of things. The question remains: what is the ordinary natural, and supernatural course of things? Just as the Catholic Church does not rule out evolution, they neither rule out our theistic God’s (or angelic or some other secondary cause’s) intervention in the history of life.
@@ThomisticInstitute He's likely referring to the fact that death is a result of Original Sin. If evolution is true then death is as natural as life and existed even before human beings. If there was always Death then there was no Fall. If there was no Fall then there is no Salvation. This is a major problem.
2:41 - "So, while there are several hypotheses, the origin of life is not at present scientifically explained. This has led some to suppose that the origin of life must have been miraculous, the direct creation of God." - Yes, it is correct that the origin of life (Abiogenesis) is currently mostly a mystery. The thing is though, science has NO PROBLEM with gaps in knowledge. It is what we DO with gaps that defines our approach to knowledge. - Should we assume that a gap in knowledge entails a Catholic religious explanation? Why? Why not an explanation rooted in Islamic teachings, or indeed in the teachings of an entirely non-Abrahamic faith? As a teacher might say, please show your workings. 2:55 - "This would also seem to have been supported by the Biblical creation account of the first life on Earth." - How? In what ways does the Biblical account 'support' the idea that life originated 'miraculously'? Can you apply the same standard of rigour to that assessment as you would a student's paper? Is the language and description employed in the creation story sufficiently clear as to enlighten the reader on the processes involved? 3:01 - "Now, it is true that only God can create in the precise sense of the term. What I mean is that only God can call beings into existence out of nothing" - What? How is that 'true'? According to whom? How did you arrive at this assertion, this viewpoint? I don't want to hear about holy books, I want to know HOW that information was arrived at. - Regarding cosmology and the current understanding of the Big Bang - modern scientific understanding is that we live in a Universe that is expanding and indeed accelerating in the rate of that expansion over time. Rewinding that picture sufficiently brings us to a point where all that we currently know - space, time, matter, would have converged into a single infinitesimally-small point, called the singularity. It is from this point that the Universe is currently believed to have emerged from a titanic event currently dated around 14 billion years ago. That's the fairly well-established cosmology and it has numerous lines of evidence supporting it, as all solid scientific theories do have. Is the Big Bang the ultimate progenitor of the Universe? That's probably impossible to say and probably not the most critical thing to say. The most critical thing to say, in my opinion, is the science and the scientists who care about this stuff haven't stopped in the process of inquiry, of questioning current explanations and comparing them to what we learn each day with new tools and new ideas. We continue and discard ideas (after all manner of scientific skirmishes) in the fullness of time as those ideas become replaced with explanations that better fit the evidence or have greater explanatory power. None of this - NONE of it, would be possible if scientists held preconceptions around the natural world that convinced them that an entity was always waiting in the theological wings, just waiting for their curtain call to be called in as a god of the gaps.
I know how life came about on Earth. Read Gen 1-2. Or read St. Thomas himself. Or read any of the Church Fathers. It’s that simple. All of these videos only deal with the philosophy and dodge the hard questions of biblical exegesis (St. Thomas always prioritized the literal sense in his own commentaries) and the unanimous consent of the Fathers (who are also clear that this is indeed a matter of faith). Plus there is plenty of scientific evidence for the biblical account, so even if there is scientific doubt as to which way to go, ought not priority go to the traditional belief of all the Fathers and Doctors and which is plain in the meaning of Holy Scripture?
Thanks for the comment. Coming up soon in this series, we'll be covering questions of biblical exegesis, especially regarding creation narratives in Scripture. We'll be interested to hear your thoughts on those videos. As for the point about Genesis 1-2, the opinions of the Church Fathers, and the thought of Aquinas, these are, without a doubt, indispensable for understanding how to understand passages of Scripture and how to engage with non-believers concerning the meaning of Scripture. An excellent example is St. Augustine's The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book 1, Chapter 19. For an interesting passage from St. Thomas that helps show something of his approach to texts like Gen. 1-2, see Summa Theologiae I, q. 74, a. 2 aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-ia-q-74#FPQ74A2THEP1
The Mystery 1:] Every cell reproduces itself from digital instructions, stored in DNA. DNA has the same features as modern digital devices: Layers of digital encoding, decoding and data storage; error detection, error correction and repair. Plus an ability to adapt that beggars the imagination. How do living things repair and heal themselves, adapt to any situation you can imagine, and make choices? The genetic engineering capabilities of cells, which are discussed in the book Evolution 2.0, are not known to most people. But an answer suggests staggering implications for medicine, technology and the environment. Cells re-engineer themselves, in real time, in hours... even minutes. The reason you have to finish your antibiotics is, germs can hyper-mutate at terrifying speed - then kill you with a vengeance. How do cells “know” how to evolve? No human software does that. Give software millions of chances and billions of years and all it will do is crash. But life adapts relentlessly. How does it do this? What do cells know that we don’t? And what about consciousness? In the human realm, only conscious beings create and modify code. Where does consciousness come from? Are cells self aware? www.herox.com/evolution2.0 2:] Szostak’s lab at Harvard University has been working on origin-of-life questions for years, particularly how RNAs might self-replicate without enzymes. This is an important question: some scientists think RNA was the first kind of molecule, because it shows primitive enzymatic abilities and can store information, two things necessary for basic life. But in order for this scheme to work, RNA would also have to be able to copy itself without protein enzymes, which would not yet exist. 3:] Does anyone know how hard it is to synthesise DNA in the lab? We have to block side reactions and supply the proper molecules in it's activated form to the growing chain. But the DNA has to have the code for proteins and enzymes that a cell will need. This has to happen by chance. Moderate enzymes are 300 amino acids long. And there are lots of enzymes needed. This will not happen by random chance 4:] Memory is another issue that rendors the whole spontaneous process of life impossible, DNA or not. A successful arrangement of atom, even if it took place accidentally, needs to be recorded and reproduced and for that there should have been a system already in the place to do that. 5:] Cognition-sensing and responding to the environment-is the unifying principle behind the genetic code, origin of life, evolution, consciousness, artificial intelligence, and cancer. However, the conventional model of biology seems to mistake cause and effect. According to the reductionist view, the causal chain in biology is chemicals → code → cognition. Despite this prevailing view, there are no examples in the literature to show that the laws of physics and chemistry can produce codes, or that codes produce cognition. Chemicals are just the physical layer of any information system. In contrast, although examples of cognition generating codes and codes controlling chemicals are ubiquitous in biology and technology, cognition remains a mystery. Thus, the central question in biology is: What is the nature and origin of cognition? In order to elucidate this pivotal question, we must cultivate a deeper understanding of information flows. Through this lens, we see that biological cognition is volitional (i.e., deliberate, intentional, or knowing), and while technology is constrained by deductive logic, living things make choices and generate novel information using inductive logic. Information has been called “the hard problem of life’ and cannot be fully explained by known physical principles (Walker et al., 2017).
To answer some of your questions, I believe life started as self replicating chemicals and through self adaptive mutations to their changing environments evolved to be us. Bacteria self evolve to becoming antibiotic resistant. The nonresistant bacteria dies off. People in hot climates develop darker skin and people in cold climates get lighter skin to survive better...adaptive mutations. The people in hot climates with light skin died faster and didn't reproduce. Theist think how could billions of monkeys with typewriters have come up with the works of Shakespeare (DNA)? It is more like billions of monkeys with typewriters typing and one got the first word right, then billions of monkeys all start with the first word and type and one monkey comes up with the second word. Then the billions of monkeys all start with the first 2 words....and so on. In terms of consciousness, I believe the brain evolved to hide the mechanistic workings of the subconscious from the conscious brain to better be able to focus at tasks at hand and to react faster in times of danger without being overloaded or distracted by all the mechanistic processes of the subconscious brain. The conscious brain is still controlled by the subconscious, but as I said, it is unaware of the subconscious. Our brains evolved to be able to model reality so we can run simulations of reality to survive better because we can better predict reality. We can manipulate these models in our imaginations. One of these models is the "self". Another is "God". All of these models are simplified versions of reality, because our brains cannot handle the complexity of even a leaf. Some of these models don't correspond to reality... magical unicorns, a square circle, etc. As I'm writing this, the words just appear. Even if I deliberate over a word, the deliberation words and justifications just appear. I didn't deliberate over my deliberations. I didn't retrieve the long list of possible next words from a long list in my memory, weigh the pros and cons of each word. The subconscious just gave it to me. Because we are unaware of the mechanistic processes of the subconscious we feel like we have free will. We don't sense anything forcing us to make a choice, but it is the subconscious that forces us. I think this model "God" is an anthropomorphicization of the foundation of reality. Humans tend to give agency to things we don't understand and even to things we do understand...pets, vehicles, imaginary friends, ghost haunting, UFOs, thousands of different Gods, etc. This is probably an evolutionary trait in humans to avoid predators.
Cite the experiment where an RNA naturally self organized from nucleotides - without human intervention - without using pre existing RNA templates. Cite the study where amino acids self assemble into polypetides in realistic prebiotic conditions.
@@bolapromatoqueejogodecampe8718 Idk if there is (I'm not a student or professor), I was just curious what you meant by _"without human intervention"_ as I've seen some videos in the past where they dismissed studies where humans used a lab, or observed something in nature but blocked off non-human observers from interfering, and it felt like an unrealistic standard. And please, I ask that you don't say or assume I'm running away from answering the question, I just don't have an answer for you.
@@bolapromatoqueejogodecampe8718 Whoops, I don't know why I said non-human there, I meant that they'd block out _other_ humans not running the test, experiment, study, etc.
1:35 "under the right conditions" ~~ which are actually impossible to find without external constraints. Also, No: it has not been experimentally shown that something more complex than ARN precursors can "self" organize. Just aminoacids. And this in the context of highly constraint scenarios, that is, in a directed, though indirectly, manner. So, this video is really misleading.
Secondary causes are evident, however the first cause seems... interlinked but skeptical would say: we don't know we cannot say God do it since secondary causes don't require faith and the primary cause needs faith nevertheless I understand that the natural laws and God are quite compatible
Interesting. Not as compelling as Stephen Myers work. This video doesn’t mention the sudden appearance of complex body plans which are inexplicable by scientific inquiry. There’s simply not enough time for natural selection by random mutation to create just about anything
Evolution doesn't seem to be incompatible with the notion of the eternity of species, since, for instance, a dog has a correct definition regardless of whether there is an animal that actually fits that definition. This will be true if dogs go extinct, and was true before there were any actual dogs in existence. It is the species that is eternal, not any or even all of the individuals that belong to that species.
@@delsydebothom3544 No, not the eternity of the species as a definition, but the eternity of concrete beings of the species. And you don't even need to believe in evolution to have a problem here, just the extinction of species.
@@johnkeck Ah. Well if Aristotle, Aquinas, or both thought that actual instances of each species exist at ever point in time, that would certainly be incorrect. I doubt Aquinas would hold that view, though, as he seems to believe living things to have been created in time.
Aristotle was the greatest or at least now most underrated scientist of all time. But he was still wrong about nearly everything (octopus reproduction notwithstanding), because science is provisional. (If only those who came immediately after had done what he did instead if taking his word for everything....)
At 5:13, you state "scientifically we know that God formed the earth..." That statement cannot be correct. For science to work properly it can never posit a supernatural cause for anything. Science only operates on the presumption that we can discover and elucidate natural causes. As soon as the supernatural is invoked, we've moved out of the realm of science and into religion. It is critical for evangelization efforts that this distinction is carefully preserved. That is what TI does usually so well.
Truly, I don't understand how they can have their impossibly high standards aimed towards science, but not at their own beliefs. If you take nothing for granted, then take _nothing_ for granted. I'm willing to be pedantic, but then nothing gets special privileges.
@@BornOnThursday I think TI normally does maintain quite high standards but slipped here. Both philosophy and science should be carried out using the proper frameworks of the discipline.
@@es8059 Yeah, and I admit, I just want to see the actual outcomes of good and consistent work, and for people to be honest about those outcomes as well as be fair and constructive when expressing their confusion or critiques.
Faith is believing that something existed and its true even without us seeing it! Just like the spirit the lifeforce inside of us like the air that we breathe in and out and believing that God our Creator our Good Father who always loves us guide us sees us and always hoping the Goodness upon us if we want it so if we strive it so! Of course in our own free will and our own intelligence endowned to us His children! K
Please watch Foundations Restored its a Catholic series debunking Evolution from a Scientifc, Philosophical, and Theological point of view. What this video teaches is a lot of erroneous presupposition.
'Do we really have to choose?' - Really?! I'd have thought that if ANY attempt to explain something has a natural terminator of 'God did it', then that would seem to me to put a full-stop on that line of inquiry. Of course, that COULD be an 'ultimate cause', but science doesn't do ultimate causes in the same way science never considers any field of inquiry as 'finished', 'case closed' or treat a current best theory supported by evidence as being set in stone. I'm surprised by individuals wanting to 'have it both ways' in because it seems to be a sort of short-circuiting of the scientific mindset. I have significant sympathy for those who see a possible role and place for some sort of 'entity' or entities that somehow uphold, hold causative or sustaining roles at some vast scale of reality, but I would no reason at all to in ANY way ascribe (after all, how would anyone know?!) anything ABOUT such an entity. I certainly wouldn't be able to make assertions suggesting this being has some sort of awareness of our specific species, has a 'plan' or 'role' for us or cares one iota about what a particular species of mammalian primate on a particular terrestrial planet in a particular star system around a particular region of a particular arm of a particular Galaxy cares about what we do in bed.
Why is an Astronomer talking about the origin of life? I get that she's an expert in her field, but physical biochemistry? I think not. I agree with God bringing about the creation and not a random chemical process.
Thanks for taking the time to ask. Dr. Öberg's specific research area is astrochemistry -- namely, the impact of astrochemistry on planet formation and how astrochemically important molecules may evolve into larger molecules associated with the origins of life (as secondary causes, of course).
God saw all He made was good and yet the fossil record shows violence and death before Adam and Eve were made. This might be the last sticking point. Was this violence and death `good' because natural and we just don't see it that way because we feel sorry for the animals that got eaten and we feel sorry that all things died. Or is it somehow all connected with original sin even though the timeline doesn't match up from our perspective.
Looking at the comments, I’m curious to know how many of the audience are actually Catholic and Protestant/evangelical. Something tells me that most of the critics are from evangelical fundamentalists. Can you guys do like a TH-cam survey?
@@verum-in-omnibus1035 i see u are a Hugh Owen fan. I disagree with his worldview. I’m on the side of Jean Lematre, the phd priest who proposed the Big Bang theory which btw hasn’t been considered heresy by the Church.
animals in Gaia they start dreaming of god's ... and transfer through generations via Dna ancestry .. how accurate can a human can be these days ... or were the first ones .. in the universe to start exploring ...
Biblical cosmology has the philosophy of science for the origin and the intelligent design of the universe and reality of God in the complex system of the metaphysics axiology and ontology and the cosmogony and the secrets of the myriads while the physical cosmology has the philosophy of science and the astronomy and astrophysics and the astrochemistry and the quantum biology hypothesis on the basis of numerical methods still yet along with molecular biology
God alone is the Giver of Life the Giver of Light! The lifeforce in us humans which we call our soul spirit intellect and will is the Breath that God breath in us when He forms us from the dust heaps of the Earth formed us in His image and likeness! Written in the Book of Genesis 5000BC
@@gabrielteo3636 if you think the 5 ways are sound, then the conclusion is necessary and thus infinite, transcending the spatial and temporal. This would force you either to change your definition of "natural", or concede that naturalism is false.
@@weezy894 No, the 5 ways can apply to something not conscious...quantum fields for instance. Quantum fields satisfy the 5 ways and don't seem to be conscious. Where did the QF come from? Same as God, they are necessary.
@@gabrielteo3636 look, i don't wish to debate with you. The quantum field is not metaphysically necessary. There is nothing intrinsic to it that makes it impossible to not exist. In principle, nothing natural can actually have existence in its essence.
What about the souls of non human beings down to plants, which are mortal but nevertheless spiritual? Did that come about through natural causes as well? I doubt that and yet there's no mention of the soul on this video, a big disappointment
@Richard Fox catholic belief states that all living things are imbued with a soul, an "anima" that animates the body, and since this is a catholic video that is why I'm wondering why this was omitted.
@@ThomisticInstitute I mean animal and vegetative souls are the form of those beings in the traditional philosophical sense. Those souls are too the principal of life on those beings. Those souls are not rational like ours nor immortal but are spiritual. Otherwise if I could control matter like laplace's demon I could make any type of plant or animal with the exception of rational animals, that is humans. That's always been my understanding anyways in regards to souls in general but correct me if I'm wrong thank you 🙏
@German Rodgriguez Thanks for following up. Much of our conversation hinges on your use of the term "spiritual," which is still ambiguous at this point. By "spiritual" do you mean "Can exist apart from the body?" We're guessing not, but figured we should at least present the possibility. Or do you mean "breath" like in the Greek sense of "pneuma"? Again, that doesn't seem likely, given the rest of your comment. Do you mean "non-physical part of the substance"? If that's the case, do you mean to indicate that the soul of plants and animals exists, as a part, separate from the body but dependent upon it? Do you mean something different? Essentially, all of this is to say that we can't really engage the question until we get a better sense of what you mean by the term "spiritual." In addition to clarifying that, it would be helpful if you could give us a definition or if you would point to a place in St. Thomas's writings where it is used in the sense that you're using it. Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
🤔🤔🤔 Sounds very "secular" to me. I sadly take this videos content as a way to persuade people towards catholicism using mainstream talking points... Disappointing at best.
The Earth and all the Stars Galaxies and Planets and Asteriod and subsequently all the lifeforms here on Earth and beyond all started with the Big Bang Theory of Science in the Catholic Christian Faith we call it the first Word of God in the Book of Genesis written 5000 BC His Word Let there be Light! Boom! K
Fairly interesting until Ms Oberg made several unsubstantiated religious claims. It made a mockery of any scientific credibility. There is only data for natural phenomena and none for the supernatural so to even bring it up as a cause of anything is unscientific. Anyone can believe whatever suits them but facts require data and quantifiable evidence. Even philosophical cosmology is only as good as the factual premises on which it's based. Base you conclusions on false assumptions and they will be invalid.
Some people ask why God would choose to create through evolution and development when He could just snap his fingers and bring everything into existence. It seems to me that at least part of the answer to that objection is that God wanted man to feel our oneness with the created order and with humility to consider our smallness in a cosmos full of history and geographical and ecological richness and depth.
Evolutionism is a lie. Read 2 Peter 3. You were warned thousands of years ago in the bible that scoffers would come after their lusts and deny the worldwide flood. You have seen it come to pass. Read Romans 1. Read 1 Timothy 6. Call upon the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be SAVED! Jesus loves you! Read Genesis. You live in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2022 by a 7 day week as foretold! It is OBJECTIVELY TRUE as we speak.
@@MichaelAChristian1 Creation through evolutionary process does not contradict 2 Peter 3. As the Word states, "8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." God transcends time. In His uncomprehensible greatness there is no delay caused through an old earth with unwinding geological and biological processes, built into creation and sustained in existence by His guiding hand. Indeed He may have reasons to want to bring human beings into existence in an anchient pre-existing natural order.
The topic of evolution, especially as it relates to the human person, is complex and can be difficult to navigate. To better understand a sound Thomistic approach to the question, please visit this page: aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/theory-of-evolution
It would be beneficial to those interested in this topic to compare what is being presented here with what is being presented at the Kolbe Center for Creation.
@@reginald4776 Some friars featured on Aquinas 101: Science and Faith are also on the staff of the Thomistic Evolution website, which is included in the link above. One of the TE's latest resources includes an online disputatio with Mr. Hugh Owen from the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation. We hope this resource is edifying! www.thomisticevolution.org/disputed-questions-2/
@@ThomisticInstitute
Thank you. I was aware of the exchange that Mr. Owen participated in on that site. I just wanted to inform individuals that there certainly are other sound Thomistic , and cogent, views that attempt to resolve this question besides those which are presented here and at Thomistic Evolution.
I watching prof karin oberg in this channel
Her video the topic similar to things i wrote 5 years ago. I want to send it to her how can i?
Thank you Prof. Öberg! As a Catholic undergrad studying neuroscience, it is inspiring and encouraging to see those of the faith in mainstream academia.
Great video, we need more Catholic scientists present in the public eye. This is a form of evangelization! God has blessed her with a deep understanding of His love and creation. I pray that He continues to do so. Praise Jesus!
Thanks so much for watching and for your kind words! May the Lord bless you!
St. Thomas said if you get a concept wrong in the beginning and use perfect logic thereafter you will never come to truth. We should be open to revisiting our original concepts. It never hurts if we are seeking truth.
I would like to hear a little more from the Thomistic Institute how non-living material elements can give rise to life, without violating the axiom that it is impossible to communicate to another what one does not have...
I would also like to receive the reference in the work of St. Thomas, where he prescribes the possibility that lower beings arise "spontaneously" from inanimate matter, as a result of natural processes, without direct and extraordinary divine intervention.
We have a video scheduled for future release on precisely this question! Stay tuned!
@@ThomisticInstitute I look forward to the video! I am very curious to know how the material cause (inanimate matter) can also be an efficient cause of the substantial form of living beings, whose body it composes.
You and I know the answer to your question. This video is rubbish and Saint Thomas Aquinas would rebuke the philosophical and theological errors in this video.
*The Modern Synthesis proposed that random copying errors combined with natural selection and population genetics would provide a gradual increase in speciation. But there are several problems with this view, five problems of which are highlighted below:*
i) _Evolution is not steady and gradual, it instead consists of long periods of stasis followed by rapid stages of punctuated equilibrium, contrary to Darwin's predictions (Gould and Eldredge, 1993)_
ii) _Mechanisms such as horizontal gene transfer, transposition, symbiogenesis, and hybridization are applied in a non-random way by natural genetic engineering systems_ (J.A. Shapiro 1993), which tailor responses to hundreds of sensory inputs in a cognitive manner (Shapiro, 2011).
iii) _Random mutations are noise, and noise destroys information_
(Noise can be defined as anything that interferes with accurate transmission of the message, including random genetic mutations. One of Shannon's signature victories was identifying noise as information entropy. Shannon (1948) showed that noise is mathematically identical to Boltzmann's en-tropy in thermodynamics. This implies that information lost from noise is lost forever).
iv) _Transposons can jump around the genome, repairing damage in real time (McClintock, 1953). Under the Modern Synthesis framework this should be impossible, and her findings were initially rejected. This is because the MS insisted organisms are passive recipients of accidental mutations which are selected for fitness. However, McClintock's plants engineered novel solutions to unforeseeable problems in real time by activating DNA editing systems and copying coding se-quences from other chromosomes. Cancer cells similarly reprogram their own genomes in real time, especially when subjected to chemotherapy. One species of cancer cell can generate hundreds of species in weeks_ (Heng et al., 2011)
v) _Epigenetic inheritance has vindicated Lamarck, who for decades was derided for suggesting that acquired learnings can be passed to progeny_ (Baverstock, 2013; Noble, 2020; Torday and Rehan, 2013).
@Tercio Novohispano Let me make this clear I'm not against evolution. I'm against the idea of Neo darwinist model of evolution which says that Random Mutation + Natural Selection + Time = Evolution. I believe in Adaptive Mutation + Natural Selection + Time = Evolution 2.0
By definition randomness lacks pattern, then how could you say that we can see pattern in that randomness.In the very first paper of Gregory Chaitin, “Randomness and Mathematical Proof,” he says:
" Although randomness can be precisely defined and can even be measured, a given number cannot be proved to be random. This enigma establishes a limit to what is possible in mathematics.
Almost everyone has an intuitive notion of what a random number is. For example, consider these two series of binary digits:
01010101010101010101
01101100110111100010
The first is obviously constructed according to a simple rule; it consists of the number 01 repeated 10 times … Inspection of the second series of digits yields no such comprehensive patterns. There is no obvious rule governing the formation of the number, and there is no rational way to guess the succeeding digits. The arrangement seems haphazard; in other words, the sequence appears to be a random assortment of 0’s and 1’s.
The second series of binary digits was generated by flipping a coin 20 times and writing a 1 if the outcome was heads and a 0 if it was tails "
When Darwinism says evolutionary changes are accomplished through random mutations and natural selection, this potentially means the three following things at the very least:
1.Before, during, or after DNA replication, any particular letter (e.g., “GAC”) could be randomly changed to any other letter (“CAG”), and the change might occasionally confer a benefit to the organism. This is the definition of a random mutation.
2.When DNA is copied, portions of the DNA strand might be accidentally folded or reversed, causing entire groups of letters to be miscopied. The change might occasionally confer a benefit to the organism.
3.Traditional Darwinism emphatically denies that evolutionary mutations in DNA are goal seeking, directed, or obey any specific pattern. Neo-Darwinists emphatically assert “the essential Darwinian notion of ‘spontaneous,’ ‘accidental,’ or ‘chance’ variation with respect to adaptation”
Randomness is at the heart of the Neo-Darwinian explanation, and as we’ve learned more and more about the genome, Neo-Darwinists have had to morph the definition of randomness to maintain their position.
The problem with randomness is that it always has to be defined within a specific frame of reference; otherwise, scientific precision gets lost. Randomness is always with respect to something. When you roll dice (which we all naturally think of as random), you don’t know the outcome because you do not have rigid control of how the dice fall. But in the absolute sense, the number that comes up is not random, because how the dice bounce and land is, after all, precisely determined by the laws of physics.
My understanding of Shannon entropy is that it is positive information, not negative.
The signal that looks the most random/noisy is the one that contains the most information per bit/time.
Random mutations are adding information to the system.
I mean, yes, noise will obscure a signal, but in the case of organisms, the "signal" is that species of organism, reproducing itself exactly.
Add some noise and the signal becomes distorted, but that's more complex, not less.
After a mutation you have two types of organisms, two overlapping signals, instead of one.
The obscurity is (unless the mutation is fatal in an unchanging environment) you don't know which was the original and which is the mutant.
So my hot take on (i), to add to what Tercio said, is that the periods of stasis are not actually static, but rather periods of invisible diversification.
Then suddenly a metaphorical tipping point occurs, one organism has a mutation that really makes a difference to the system, and the minor mutations suddenly become important and the whole thing reorganizes.
As for the other three, I would say that they are things that evolved.
The fact that they contradict the simpler view of evolution doesn't mean they can't be integrated into it, once the initial resistance is overcome.
When J Harlen Bretz hypothesized that the Washington Scablands were caused by a great flood, of course he met with resistance from geologists who had finally overcome the claim that many geological features were explained by Noah's Great Flood.
But the fact that he was right in that case no way invalidated the rest of geology.
@Tercio Novohispano No you can't put that die analogy here. Life's adaptive formula is not like throwing a dice and you get an output instantly, it's a hierarchical operation of cellular control regimes. It contains a precise stepwise proces any change will lead to a catastrophic problem.
The reason dice are random to you and me is because our hands are too imprecise to control the outcome. The imprecision of our hands when we roll those dice is our frame of reference. A raindrop falling on your windshield is random with respect to the motion of your car. It is not random with respect to the cloud it fell from.
When biologists speak of random mutations in DNA, they are espousing a theory that the cell is not in control of the changes, in the exact same way that you are not in control of the dice when you play Monopoly. They are saying that the changes to DNA come from outside the system and the cell’s ability to control what happens. But this is not the case which happened in the origin of life.
When bacteria are comfortable, some mutations cannot be found in over ten billion cells. But when they’re starving, the mutation frequency can go by a factor of >100,000-fold and they develop new adaptations so they can survive. This shows that mutation aren't be random but are frequently adapted.Cells are capable of doing their own genetic engineering-a natural version of what scientists do in experiments in labs
Thank you Dr. Oberg for a brief, rationale overview of an obviously complex subject! I grew up as an intentional Evangelical/Protestant, and have never demanded a scientific explanation for the Genesis record. As a relatively new Catholic convert, I’ve been delighted to discover the ‘gap-fillers’ in Philosophy, Science, and Theology! Aquinas 101 was an early discovery, as well as the teaching of EWTN and The Coming Home Network! I’ll be 79yrs old in May and I’m enjoying the expanding of my ‘small universe’! Thanks for your contribution!!
Thanks so much for this wonderful comment! God bless you.
Good video, Dr. Karin Öberg. God bless you.
Thanks for watching! May the Lord bless you!
The level of nuance here is top tier.
I Love listening to Dr Öberg! Always fascinating!
She needs to talk with Hugh Owen.
Rather, she needs to listen to Hugh Owen.
@@mers3481 Indeed. But if the two would only talk to each other, it would be obvious which one of them has never seriously listened to the other's arguments. It seems that this is why this 'Aquinas Institute' will not allow it.
@@jaspermay5813 It's just nice to be part of society, I get it. But it's not necessarily pleasing to God.
Some friars featured on Aquinas 101: Science and Faith are also on the staff of the Thomistic Evolution website. One of their latest resources includes an online disputatio with Mr. Hugh Owen from the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation. We hope this resource is edifying! www.thomisticevolution.org/disputed-questions-2/
@@ThomisticInstitute I will relent when Hugh Owen is featured on this channel.
I have a conjecture that "Gods Mercy is the cause of all existence", having these thoughts therefore I say Praise the Lord, Thanks be to God. 🤍🕊
Thank you Saint Thomas Aquinas. Pray for us.
Thanks for watching and commenting. May the Lord bless you!
Thank you for this podcast! Generally speaking, evolution posits that higher organisms evolve from lower organisms and I can understand how this concept does no violence to God’s agency. But does Aquinas think that God created humans specifically to be a part of his divine family and subsequently inserted them into creation or did He by fiat choose the product of evolution we call humans to be adopted into His family? In either case, does Aquinas have an opinion (or can one extrapolate an opinion) with respect to the soteriological status of earlier humans like Neanderthals or Denisovans?
Thanks for the comment. It's certainly the case that God's providence extends to human beings, as it does to everything that exists. That is to say that everything in the created order proceeds according to God's plan, and nothing--no matter how miniscule--falls outside of that plan. God never reacts, as it were, to things that happen in the created order. Hopefully this helps resolve your first question. If not, please feel free to clarify. This video might help as well: th-cam.com/video/qLK7YmfbI8A/w-d-xo.html
As for the second question, Fr. Simon Gaine, OP, has given a talk on that very question! soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/did-christ-die-for-neanderthals-fr-simon-gaine-op
@DonnyBlips I really don’t know. On the one hand, the Genesis creation story implies that God deliberately created humans. On the other hand, Galatians 4:4 suggests that the progression of time plays a role in the plan of salvation. My gut instinct is that the answer is both/and, not either/or, and my ignorance stems from the human inability to think outside of space/time.
There are some really basic distinctions that need to be made in any sound Thomistic proposal of a "naturalistic" origin-of-life and evolution.
It's true that Aquinas thought that living things could arise from non-living matter in a "naturalistic" way, but he meant something very different by that from what modern-day Darwinists and proponents of abiogenesis have in mind.
To see what he had in mind, we need to look at the specific examples he gave. In keeping with the best observations of his day, Thomas believed that fly larvae were spontaneously generated by rotting meat. It's important to remember here that in Thomas's view, all living things, including flies, are whole substances with an intrinsic end or telos and hence are not reducible to the sum their parts.
He believed that the entire substantial form of a fly, in all its details and interworking parts, was essentially "written in" to the fabric of the universe and existed in rotting meat and fruit a virtual way, and that under the right conditions, that form would become spontaneously become directly instantiated in an actual fly. He also saw the "earth bringing forth" different forms of life as being something similar this. As he saw it, God had prewritten all the substantial forms of living things into the fabric of the material world in a virtual way, and at His command, the material world instantiated what was already there.
This kind of of "naturalistic" generation of life is actually a form of intelligent design, in that God actually designed the substantial form of flies (and all other animals), in all their interworking detail, and encoded that specific design into the physical world ahead of time, such that flies (and other living things at creation) could be spontaneously generated.
However, this is significantly different from the sort of intelligent design advocated by Paley and most modern "intelligent design" advocates, since Paleyism assumes the mechanistic-reductionist view of the physical world offered by Descartes, which is based in a nominalism that denies that living things are irreducible substances with substantial form and intrinsic telos, and instead reduces them to mere aggregates of of parts cobbled together by a divine artificer, with merely extrinsic or assigned function, like a watch or other artifact of human engineering.
And it's downright antithetical to Darwinism, which includes the mechanistic reductionism of Descartes, but goes a big step further by denying even the extrinsic purpose affirmed by Paley, thereby reducing organisms to completely accidental and unintended aggregates of parts, and purporting to explain away the appearance of biological function altogether as an illusion that we project onto the cobbled-together byproducts of a mindless and unguided mechanistic process.
Now, the specific example of spontaneous generation of flies that Aquinas believed in turned out to be false, but the underlying idea that living organisms are substances is sound. In fact, it's impossible to coherently account for the existence of rationality in humans and consciousness in many animals without appealing at least implicitly to the concept of substantial form. Furthermore, Darwinian reductionism is self-defeating in that it denies the very biological function that is necessary to intelligibly describe biology at all, and if taken to its logical conclusion, it implies that biology itself is all an illusion or projection of the mind. Atheistic philosophers with no axe to grind like Fodor have shown that natural selection itself is an empty concept, a product of equivocation that cannot in principle account for biological function (It's disappointing, and in my mind indicative of a moral failure, that Thomistic philosophers and scientists haven't been at the forefront of this rather than guys like Fodor).
If indeed life DID originate "naturalistically" in the way that Aquinas envisioned, as an irreducible substantial form that exists virtually in matter and becomes instantiated under the right conditions, then this would be a clear and unambiguous example of deliberate, intelligent design. This would *not* match "contemporary scientific accounts of the origins of life," which consist of little more than reductionist axioms and lots of handwaving. In fact, on a fundamental level, it would be antithetical to them.
The same goes for evolution. Any account of evolution that takes into account the fact that living things are substances and that biological function is real and intrinsic is going to be *drastically* different from what Darwin and his successors have in mind, in terms of both the explanation for the appearance of purpose we see in living things and in terms of what, historically, actually happened to bring it about.
Now, when it comes to Paley and his modern successors in the Intelligent Design movement, I've noticed that Thomists are quick to point these issues out, and to criticize them in clear terms for their adoption of Descartes' mechanistic view and for Paley's extrinsic view of biological function.
But when it comes to Darwin and his modern successors, who are even *more* committed to an even more extreme version of the mechanistic view, the tone and approach of most Thomists seem to change to one of accommodation and obscurantism. Major, fundamental differences that make the two views antithetical regarding the existence and nature of teleology and substantial form in biology are papered over, and "Darwinism" is implicitly redefined in a vague way that makes it more benign but also empties it of the explanatory role that it was supposed to have, while Thomism is dumbed down and its full implications for evolution are minimized.
All in all, the approach seems designed to avoid a conflict with Darwinists that Thomists aren't afraid to have with Paleyists/IDists. And I can sympathize with the probably underlying motivation here. There hasn't been anything resembling an open, reasonable debate about biological origins going on in the scientific world for many, many decades. What we know today as "cancel culture" has been raging against anybody who challenges the reductionist, mechanistic, Darwinian view of life in any clear, unambiguous way for many, many decades. It's a sure-fire way to make yourself a pariah and wreck your career and reputation among "respectable" academics.
But the consequence of all this radical uncontested nominalism and reductionism is that the academy and institutions of science are now themselves imploding under the weight of the post-modernism that follows from it, and the very concepts of objective truth and moral obligation are being lost as once-respectable journals and institutions are dissolved by woke ideology and cancel culture comes for anybody who tries to retain basic sanity.
If you're saying anything worthwhile and true in today's environment, you're going to be made a pariah to the establishment, but things will continue to deteriorate until the madness is cut off at the source by enough people willing to bear those slings and arrows. It's a good time for Thomists to get a lot more bold and less circumspect, and to really think about what the truth of Thomism implies about natural history when we look at it with fresh eyes that aren't trying to accommodate a dominant paradigm that is incoherent.
Hear hear!
I am a Thomist by training and I know one thing: our Saint did not have a microscope. Therefore, the entire biology of Santo Tomás must be seen today with the reservation of someone who did not have the means to understand, in greater detail, the biological processes that are behind the operation of living beings.
If he believed that flies would "naturally" arise from rotting meat, it's because that's mostly because of the fly eggs that it will normally receive. And if he thought that meat contains, in itself, the essential virtue necessary for the generation of a fly (I think not), it is because he was materially unaware, at a microscopic level, of the biological operation that is behind it.
@@leonardovieira4445 Yes, of course St. Thomas' belief that flies are spontaneously generated by rotting meat has turned out to be false, though it wasn't a microscope that disproved it. Francesco Redi disproved it by placing a net over a jar containing meat, so that the meat would rot but flies couldn't get to it to lay their eggs.
But that's not my point. I was simply using that to illustrate the TYPE of thing Thomas Aquinas had in mind when he discussed the idea of living things being generated from non-living things.
In his view (which is correct on this score, and philosophically demonstrable), living things are substances. They have a substantial form, and thus they are not reducible to the aggregate behavior of their parts.
Thus, for Thomas, IF living things could come from non-living things (as he believed to be the case with flies), it was because the substantial form of those living things pre-existed virtually as a potency of the matter from which they came.
This is antithetical to the mechanistic, Darwinian view now presented as "scientific," according to which living things are not substances, but mere accidental and unintended aggregates of mechanistic parts, onto which the appearance of substantial form and natural end is merely projected by us.
That mechanistic, ateleological view of life is incoherent and self-contradictory, but it is also the axiomatic assumption behind modern ideas of abiogenesis and evolution that are presented as "science." Any possible origin of life from non-life that is compatible with the truths of Thomistic philosophy is going to be drastically different from that (indeed opposite to it) on a fundamental level.
I don't think it's right to provide a "Thomistic" overview of these topics that papers over these issues as if they're minor or scientifically irrelevant when they're of fundamental and vital importance, and entail radically incompatible understandings of what life even is.
@@ianb483 We agree. As for the possibility that the substantial form of inferior living beings is "pre-existing" in the inanimate matter, from which their bodies are composed, it is something that I need to understand better in the thought of Saint Thomas. Above all, the mode of this "pre-existence" and what would be the efficient cause for it to move from mere potentiality to act, generating a new being substantially different, although composed of the same original matter. At first, I cannot see how the material cause (inanimate matter) is, at the same time, an efficient cause...
Fully agree with you, I also feel annoyed that too many Catholics jump on the naturalistic bandwagon because it's popular and accepted by most scientists which also happen to be mostly atheists. God created many things in the universe, big and small, and not everything can be reduced to the smallest. Without a substantial form at least guiding evolution life would be impossible. I know how many people talk about the problem of the probability of dna generating by chance is a big problem, but it would be acceptable, the universe is big after all. The problem is with maintaining this positive direction geared towards adaptation and reproduction. You can get lucky and win a lottery once, but if you win consistently, that can no longer be called luck. If the majority of mutations, whether big or small, are negative, how does an accumulation of negative traits not overwhelm the positive traits? There must be a selection mechanism that is biased towards life. In fact I did read of a study which does show that dna mutation is biased and not random.
The way I imagine it is like a piece of wood being pulled upstream of a river by a rope. Due to the random currents (the environment) the wood travels left and right unpredictably, following the path of least resistance. That is random. What is not random is that it is always pulled forward (the act of the substantial form) so that no matter what the circumstances are it always follows the rope. Otherwise why would life carry on? Wide is the path to destruction and narrow is the path the leads to the kingdom of Heaven. Life is good because it's the physical manifestation of Love, which must come from a soul. I think it's not stretch to equate this with the sermon on the mount: "Do not worry... But seek first the Kingdom of God." The implication is that if we focus on God, the rest will come naturally. Basically accept the current state of things for what they are, and of all the options present to you, choose the best one, and you will always move forward, just like the log accepting the currents but still being pulled upstream.
The lady completely misrepresents Aquinas' teachings on the origins of the universe, specifically the origin of species. She confuses Aquinas' teaching on Divine providence with his teachings on creation. Just read for yourself the Summa, part 1, questions 65-74, because she hasn't.
Regardless of whether life arose through natural causes (which are all engineered by God of course), or through a special intervention into nature by God, it is clear that God intended that mankind up till now be completely unable to know which is the actual case. Just as God has reserved to Himself the power to originate life, He has also reserved to Himself the knowledge of how He exercised that power.
Yes, and He already told us how He did it, no need to reinvent the wheel.
Did He though ('intend that mankind up till now be completely unable to know which is the actual case')? What do we make of the Genesis account? What is its relevance to the rest of Scripture? Isn't that what through dialoguing and studying Scripture, Tradition, and the natural sciences we are striving to achieve? Namely, to adequate or intellect to the Truth.
Yes, there are many mysteries of faith. But even more so lies out there to sift through. Often a very difficult thing to do because of how widespread they are, and how we have thus taken them as presumptions on the basis of scientific authority, with no questioning on our part.
@@NaruIchiLuffy All throughout Western tradition Genesis was understood to be history; mystical interpretations were built upon that. It is an account (evening and morning, one day, evening and morning, second day, etc) unlike some places in the psalms where they say the earth doesn't move (which were seen by Church authorities to be enough to disqualify heliocentrism). Genesis is God telling us what He did. We know that science and reason can never go against faith, and that the natural sciences, even more in their historical extrapolations, are not as certain as it is said. A lot of science is statistics, a lot is interpretation, a lot is assumption. If you study chemistry you'll get the feel for how uncertain science can be. I'm kind of interested in knowing how Geology got the millions of years wrong. I know the dating methods are flawed, but how and how much? These are interesting topics to study but we have to be open to the truth and trust in God. By the way, in regards to heliocentrism, search for the 'axis of evil'. It is known that the earth can very well occupy the centre of the universe, and apparently God is trying to give scientific proof to us doubting Thomases.
@@NaruIchiLuffy
Genesis reveals that everything in the universe was made by God. Genesis does not provide the information as to the mechanisms employed by God to do this.
@@mers3481 not true... many including Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, etc. Did not take Genesis as a perfect account of what happened.
It's strange to think that God "had" to perform supernatural "interventions" in order to create life on Earth or prevent life elsewhere, when He is the one who is in control of everything and who created all the laws of nature and the one who is not bounded by temporary means or causes. One who is above the limits of ordinary actually can use "ordinary" means to achieve the extraordinary, as depicted that God "spoke" to create or achieve something beyond our natural means or understanding. If God is limited to temporariness, then it "makes sense" that He had to intervene every now and then to "adjust" natural causes in history to produce desired effects using "miracles", because in such assumed situations He is not in control of everything. But since everything is under His control in His omniscient and omnipotent powers, it only makes sense that what was naturally, in His desire, to come to existence came about naturally following its designated nature and limits.
With regards to God conducting miracles, as in the case of Christ, such as raising people from the dead, curing diseases, calming a storm, etc. is not intervention in a sense that God loses control or was obliged to do them, but glimpses of the coming restoration of what was lost due to sin and corruption, also as restorative signs so that we come to know Him fully again in which "originally" we did, and now we don't due to our lack of faith. In this sense, God's miracles are "natural" responses to lost state of grace which appeared to us as "extraordinary" because of our own state of fallenness, blindness to the actual "natural" reality, the coming together of heaven and earth. We are the ones who have lost the supernatural senses and reality of being in the presence of God, eternal life, because of our unbelief and sins. If we truly believe and have faith in him, as we all should naturally, we don't need miracles or signs but only faith because all will come to be restored "naturally" to God in love and justice at the end.
"His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you."
(2 Peter 1: 3-11)
If God does intervene beyond sustained contingency it doesn’t necessarily equate to a miracle. Yes, a miracle must go beyond the power of created nature. However, a miracle must also be extraordinary. Meaning, it is contrary to the ordinary natural, and supernatural course of things. The question remains: what is the ordinary natural, and supernatural course of things?
Just as the Catholic Church does not rule out evolution, they neither rule out our theistic God’s (or angelic or some other secondary cause’s) intervention in the history of life.
The wheels start coming off an evolution thesis in the vicinity of Original Sin.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Would you elaborate your point, please?
@@ThomisticInstitute He's likely referring to the fact that death is a result of Original Sin. If evolution is true then death is as natural as life and existed even before human beings. If there was always Death then there was no Fall. If there was no Fall then there is no Salvation.
This is a major problem.
This is great. It is bashing the contradicting extremes of Intelligent Design and Evolution.
evolution is no "extreme".
2:41 - "So, while there are several hypotheses, the origin of life is not at present scientifically explained. This has led some to suppose that the origin of life must have been miraculous, the direct creation of God."
- Yes, it is correct that the origin of life (Abiogenesis) is currently mostly a mystery. The thing is though, science has NO PROBLEM with gaps in knowledge. It is what we DO with gaps that defines our approach to knowledge.
- Should we assume that a gap in knowledge entails a Catholic religious explanation? Why? Why not an explanation rooted in Islamic teachings, or indeed in the teachings of an entirely non-Abrahamic faith? As a teacher might say, please show your workings.
2:55 - "This would also seem to have been supported by the Biblical creation account of the first life on Earth."
- How? In what ways does the Biblical account 'support' the idea that life originated 'miraculously'? Can you apply the same standard of rigour to that assessment as you would a student's paper? Is the language and description employed in the creation story sufficiently clear as to enlighten the reader on the processes involved?
3:01 - "Now, it is true that only God can create in the precise sense of the term. What I mean is that only God can call beings into existence out of nothing"
- What? How is that 'true'? According to whom? How did you arrive at this assertion, this viewpoint? I don't want to hear about holy books, I want to know HOW that information was arrived at.
- Regarding cosmology and the current understanding of the Big Bang - modern scientific understanding is that we live in a Universe that is expanding and indeed accelerating in the rate of that expansion over time. Rewinding that picture sufficiently brings us to a point where all that we currently know - space, time, matter, would have converged into a single infinitesimally-small point, called the singularity. It is from this point that the Universe is currently believed to have emerged from a titanic event currently dated around 14 billion years ago. That's the fairly well-established cosmology and it has numerous lines of evidence supporting it, as all solid scientific theories do have. Is the Big Bang the ultimate progenitor of the Universe? That's probably impossible to say and probably not the most critical thing to say. The most critical thing to say, in my opinion, is the science and the scientists who care about this stuff haven't stopped in the process of inquiry, of questioning current explanations and comparing them to what we learn each day with new tools and new ideas. We continue and discard ideas (after all manner of scientific skirmishes) in the fullness of time as those ideas become replaced with explanations that better fit the evidence or have greater explanatory power. None of this - NONE of it, would be possible if scientists held preconceptions around the natural world that convinced them that an entity was always waiting in the theological wings, just waiting for their curtain call to be called in as a god of the gaps.
Thank you, very clear and well-articulated
She IS wonderful! LORD thank you for this professor
We're so glad to have Dr. Oberg on Aquinas 101! Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment. May the Lord bless you!
The Materialist: Give me one or maybe a few miracles and I will explain the rest.
We have an unfortunate tendency to limit God to our understanding. Great presentation.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the video.
Will Thomistic Institute ever recover?
«For we must believe
that God rules and
arranges the kosmos
by judgment at all
times.» -Origen, On First
Principles
I know how life came about on Earth. Read Gen 1-2. Or read St. Thomas himself. Or read any of the Church Fathers. It’s that simple.
All of these videos only deal with the philosophy and dodge the hard questions of biblical exegesis (St. Thomas always prioritized the literal sense in his own commentaries) and the unanimous consent of the Fathers (who are also clear that this is indeed a matter of faith).
Plus there is plenty of scientific evidence for the biblical account, so even if there is scientific doubt as to which way to go, ought not priority go to the traditional belief of all the Fathers and Doctors and which is plain in the meaning of Holy Scripture?
Based
based
Thanks for the comment. Coming up soon in this series, we'll be covering questions of biblical exegesis, especially regarding creation narratives in Scripture. We'll be interested to hear your thoughts on those videos.
As for the point about Genesis 1-2, the opinions of the Church Fathers, and the thought of Aquinas, these are, without a doubt, indispensable for understanding how to understand passages of Scripture and how to engage with non-believers concerning the meaning of Scripture. An excellent example is St. Augustine's The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book 1, Chapter 19. For an interesting passage from St. Thomas that helps show something of his approach to texts like Gen. 1-2, see Summa Theologiae I, q. 74, a. 2 aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-ia-q-74#FPQ74A2THEP1
Based
Univocally based
I hope there is somewhat physics explanation relating to the topic.
The professor is giving Karin’s a second chance in society haha
Very deep !!!!
Glad to hear it! Thanks for watching, and may the Lord bless you!
The Mystery
1:] Every cell reproduces itself from digital instructions, stored in DNA. DNA has the same features as modern digital devices: Layers of digital encoding, decoding and data storage; error detection, error correction and repair. Plus an ability to adapt that beggars the imagination.
How do living things repair and heal themselves, adapt to any situation you can imagine, and make choices? The genetic engineering capabilities of cells, which are discussed in the book Evolution 2.0, are not known to most people. But an answer suggests staggering implications for medicine, technology and the environment.
Cells re-engineer themselves, in real time, in hours... even minutes. The reason you have to finish your antibiotics is, germs can hyper-mutate at terrifying speed - then kill you with a vengeance.
How do cells “know” how to evolve? No human software does that. Give software millions of chances and billions of years and all it will do is crash. But life adapts relentlessly. How does it do this? What do cells know that we don’t?
And what about consciousness? In the human realm, only conscious beings create and modify code. Where does consciousness come from? Are cells self aware?
www.herox.com/evolution2.0
2:] Szostak’s lab at Harvard University has been working on origin-of-life questions for years, particularly how RNAs might self-replicate without enzymes. This is an important question: some scientists think RNA was the first kind of molecule, because it shows primitive enzymatic abilities and can store information, two things necessary for basic life. But in order for this scheme to work, RNA would also have to be able to copy itself without protein enzymes, which would not yet exist.
3:] Does anyone know how hard it is to synthesise DNA in the lab?
We have to block side reactions and supply the proper molecules in it's activated form to the growing chain. But the DNA has to have the code for proteins and enzymes that a cell will need. This has to happen by chance. Moderate enzymes are 300 amino acids long. And there are lots of enzymes needed. This will not happen by random chance
4:] Memory is another issue that rendors the whole spontaneous process of life impossible, DNA or not. A successful arrangement of atom, even if it took place accidentally, needs to be recorded and reproduced and for that there should have been a system already in the place to do that.
5:] Cognition-sensing and responding to the environment-is the unifying principle behind the genetic code, origin of life, evolution, consciousness, artificial intelligence, and cancer. However, the conventional model of biology seems to mistake cause and effect. According to the reductionist view, the causal chain in biology is chemicals → code → cognition. Despite this prevailing view, there are no examples in the literature to show that the laws of physics and chemistry can produce codes, or that codes produce cognition. Chemicals are just the physical layer of any information system. In contrast, although examples of cognition generating codes and codes controlling chemicals are ubiquitous in biology and technology, cognition remains a mystery. Thus, the central question in biology is: What is the nature and origin of cognition? In order to elucidate this pivotal question, we must cultivate a deeper understanding of information flows. Through this lens, we see that biological cognition is volitional (i.e., deliberate, intentional, or knowing), and while technology is constrained by deductive logic, living things make choices and generate novel information using inductive logic. Information has been called “the hard problem of life’ and cannot be fully explained by known physical principles (Walker et al., 2017).
@Richard Fox No all I have said is supported by evidences
To answer some of your questions, I believe life started as self replicating chemicals and through self adaptive mutations to their changing environments evolved to be us. Bacteria self evolve to becoming antibiotic resistant. The nonresistant bacteria dies off. People in hot climates develop darker skin and people in cold climates get lighter skin to survive better...adaptive mutations. The people in hot climates with light skin died faster and didn't reproduce.
Theist think how could billions of monkeys with typewriters have come up with the works of Shakespeare (DNA)? It is more like billions of monkeys with typewriters typing and one got the first word right, then billions of monkeys all start with the first word and type and one monkey comes up with the second word. Then the billions of monkeys all start with the first 2 words....and so on.
In terms of consciousness, I believe the brain evolved to hide the mechanistic workings of the subconscious from the conscious brain to better be able to focus at tasks at hand and to react faster in times of danger without being overloaded or distracted by all the mechanistic processes of the subconscious brain. The conscious brain is still controlled by the subconscious, but as I said, it is unaware of the subconscious. Our brains evolved to be able to model reality so we can run simulations of reality to survive better because we can better predict reality. We can manipulate these models in our imaginations. One of these models is the "self". Another is "God". All of these models are simplified versions of reality, because our brains cannot handle the complexity of even a leaf. Some of these models don't correspond to reality... magical unicorns, a square circle, etc.
As I'm writing this, the words just appear. Even if I deliberate over a word, the deliberation words and justifications just appear. I didn't deliberate over my deliberations. I didn't retrieve the long list of possible next words from a long list in my memory, weigh the pros and cons of each word. The subconscious just gave it to me. Because we are unaware of the mechanistic processes of the subconscious we feel like we have free will. We don't sense anything forcing us to make a choice, but it is the subconscious that forces us.
I think this model "God" is an anthropomorphicization of the foundation of reality. Humans tend to give agency to things we don't understand and even to things we do understand...pets, vehicles, imaginary friends, ghost haunting, UFOs, thousands of different Gods, etc. This is probably an evolutionary trait in humans to avoid predators.
Thomistic Institute 🤝 Richard Dawkins
No
Leaving aside the pointlessness of creation anyway, I hear nothing about the creation of the first "soul". When? What creatures? Did the soul evolve?
Stay tuned! Future videos will treat precisely these questions.
@@ThomisticInstitute Ha Ha Ha ... God will be back in a minute.
Sorry no, gonna go with authentic Church teaching on how and when life began. Think the Kolbe Institute is front and centre on this issue.
Heck yes! Pamela Acker's lectures on evolution are awesome
Cite the experiment where an RNA naturally self organized from nucleotides - without human intervention - without using pre existing RNA templates. Cite the study where amino acids self assemble into polypetides in realistic prebiotic conditions.
When you say, “Without human intervention,” are you allowing for the recreation of certain conditions that do/have existed on earth, or no?
@@BornOnThursday Sure. Cite the study. Let's take a look at it.
@@bolapromatoqueejogodecampe8718
Idk if there is (I'm not a student or professor), I was just curious what you meant by _"without human intervention"_ as I've seen some videos in the past where they dismissed studies where humans used a lab, or observed something in nature but blocked off non-human observers from interfering, and it felt like an unrealistic standard.
And please, I ask that you don't say or assume I'm running away from answering the question, I just don't have an answer for you.
@@BornOnThursday Non-human observers?
@@bolapromatoqueejogodecampe8718
Whoops, I don't know why I said non-human there, I meant that they'd block out _other_ humans not running the test, experiment, study, etc.
1:35 "under the right conditions" ~~ which are actually impossible to find without external constraints. Also, No: it has not been experimentally shown that something more complex than ARN precursors can "self" organize. Just aminoacids. And this in the context of highly constraint scenarios, that is, in a directed, though indirectly, manner. So, this video is really misleading.
I'm a bit disappointed to hear evolution being promoted from here, since it usually ends with humanism.
Secondary causes are evident, however the first cause seems... interlinked but skeptical would say: we don't know we cannot say God do it since secondary causes don't require faith and the primary cause needs faith nevertheless I understand that the natural laws and God are quite compatible
Interesting. Not as compelling as Stephen Myers work. This video doesn’t mention the sudden appearance of complex body plans which are inexplicable by scientific inquiry. There’s simply not enough time for natural selection by random mutation to create just about anything
Good video! But what's happened with the lighting here?
Aristotle believed in the eternity of species. What does Aquinas say about the subject?
Evolution doesn't seem to be incompatible with the notion of the eternity of species, since, for instance, a dog has a correct definition regardless of whether there is an animal that actually fits that definition. This will be true if dogs go extinct, and was true before there were any actual dogs in existence. It is the species that is eternal, not any or even all of the individuals that belong to that species.
@@delsydebothom3544 No, not the eternity of the species as a definition, but the eternity of concrete beings of the species. And you don't even need to believe in evolution to have a problem here, just the extinction of species.
@@johnkeck Ah. Well if Aristotle, Aquinas, or both thought that actual instances of each species exist at ever point in time, that would certainly be incorrect. I doubt Aquinas would hold that view, though, as he seems to believe living things to have been created in time.
@@delsydebothom3544 Well ... thanks. Is there any way to hear from someone who has some information on this question?
Aristotle was the greatest or at least now most underrated scientist of all time.
But he was still wrong about nearly everything (octopus reproduction notwithstanding), because science is provisional.
(If only those who came immediately after had done what he did instead if taking his word for everything....)
At 5:13, you state "scientifically we know that God formed the earth..." That statement cannot be correct. For science to work properly it can never posit a supernatural cause for anything. Science only operates on the presumption that we can discover and elucidate natural causes. As soon as the supernatural is invoked, we've moved out of the realm of science and into religion. It is critical for evangelization efforts that this distinction is carefully preserved. That is what TI does usually so well.
Truly, I don't understand how they can have their impossibly high standards aimed towards science, but not at their own beliefs.
If you take nothing for granted, then take _nothing_ for granted.
I'm willing to be pedantic, but then nothing gets special privileges.
@@BornOnThursday I think TI normally does maintain quite high standards but slipped here.
Both philosophy and science should be carried out using the proper frameworks of the discipline.
@@es8059
Yeah, and I admit, I just want to see the actual outcomes of good and consistent work, and for people to be honest about those outcomes as well as be fair and constructive when expressing their confusion or critiques.
@@BornOnThursday Agreed. Egos can be pains in the rear tho sometimes (mine especially...;))
Look up Metaphysical Errors of Evolution by Fr. Ripperger on youtube.
Faith is believing that something existed and its true even without us seeing it! Just like the spirit the lifeforce inside of us like the air that we breathe in and out and believing that God our Creator our Good Father who always loves us guide us sees us and always hoping the Goodness upon us if we want it so if we strive it so! Of course in our own free will and our own intelligence endowned to us His children! K
Please watch Foundations Restored its a Catholic series debunking Evolution from a Scientifc, Philosophical, and Theological point of view. What this video teaches is a lot of erroneous presupposition.
'Do we really have to choose?' - Really?! I'd have thought that if ANY attempt to explain something has a natural terminator of 'God did it', then that would seem to me to put a full-stop on that line of inquiry. Of course, that COULD be an 'ultimate cause', but science doesn't do ultimate causes in the same way science never considers any field of inquiry as 'finished', 'case closed' or treat a current best theory supported by evidence as being set in stone.
I'm surprised by individuals wanting to 'have it both ways' in because it seems to be a sort of short-circuiting of the scientific mindset. I have significant sympathy for those who see a possible role and place for some sort of 'entity' or entities that somehow uphold, hold causative or sustaining roles at some vast scale of reality, but I would no reason at all to in ANY way ascribe (after all, how would anyone know?!) anything ABOUT such an entity. I certainly wouldn't be able to make assertions suggesting this being has some sort of awareness of our specific species, has a 'plan' or 'role' for us or cares one iota about what a particular species of mammalian primate on a particular terrestrial planet in a particular star system around a particular region of a particular arm of a particular Galaxy cares about what we do in bed.
Why is an Astronomer talking about the origin of life? I get that she's an expert in her field, but physical biochemistry? I think not. I agree with God bringing about the creation and not a random chemical process.
Well, you don't need a degree in biochemistry to explain it at this level.
Thanks for taking the time to ask. Dr. Öberg's specific research area is astrochemistry -- namely, the impact of astrochemistry on planet formation and how astrochemically important molecules may evolve into larger molecules associated with the origins of life (as secondary causes, of course).
Wow. A lot of angry people in the comments.
God saw all He made was good and yet the fossil record shows violence and death before Adam and Eve were made.
This might be the last sticking point.
Was this violence and death `good' because natural and we just don't see it that way because we feel sorry for the animals that got eaten and we feel sorry that all things died. Or is it somehow all connected with original sin even though the timeline doesn't match up from our perspective.
Looking at the comments, I’m curious to know how many of the audience are actually Catholic and Protestant/evangelical. Something tells me that most of the critics are from evangelical fundamentalists. Can you guys do like a TH-cam survey?
@@verum-in-omnibus1035 i see u are a Hugh Owen fan. I disagree with his worldview. I’m on the side of Jean Lematre, the phd priest who proposed the Big Bang theory which btw hasn’t been considered heresy by the Church.
@@verum-in-omnibus1035 interesting that we have inner debates as Catholics not gonna lie.
animals in Gaia they start dreaming of god's ... and transfer through generations via Dna ancestry .. how accurate can a human can be these days ... or were the first ones .. in the universe to start exploring ...
Biblical cosmology has the philosophy of science for the origin and the intelligent design of the universe and reality of God in the complex system of the metaphysics axiology and ontology and the cosmogony and the secrets of the myriads while the physical cosmology has the philosophy of science and the astronomy and astrophysics and the astrochemistry and the quantum biology hypothesis on the basis of numerical methods still yet along with molecular biology
God alone is the Giver of Life the Giver of Light! The lifeforce in us humans which we call our soul spirit intellect and will is the Breath that God breath in us when He forms us from the dust heaps of the Earth formed us in His image and likeness! Written in the Book of Genesis 5000BC
She said God is the primary cause and nature is the second. Why do we need God as the primary cause if nature is sufficient?
primary cause refers to a metaphysical cause. Secondary cause refers to a natural one.
@@weezy894 Why not set nature as the primary metaphysical cause?
@@gabrielteo3636 if you think the 5 ways are sound, then the conclusion is necessary and thus infinite, transcending the spatial and temporal. This would force you either to change your definition of "natural", or concede that naturalism is false.
@@weezy894 No, the 5 ways can apply to something not conscious...quantum fields for instance. Quantum fields satisfy the 5 ways and don't seem to be conscious. Where did the QF come from? Same as God, they are necessary.
@@gabrielteo3636 look, i don't wish to debate with you. The quantum field is not metaphysically necessary. There is nothing intrinsic to it that makes it impossible to not exist. In principle, nothing natural can actually have existence in its essence.
Aquinas and friends and evolution, doh'🤐
What about the souls of non human beings down to plants, which are mortal but nevertheless spiritual? Did that come about through natural causes as well? I doubt that and yet there's no mention of the soul on this video, a big disappointment
Thanks for the comment. Would you clarify, please, what you mean by your reference to souls "which are mortal but nevertheless spiritual"?
@Richard Fox catholic belief states that all living things are imbued with a soul, an "anima" that animates the body, and since this is a catholic video that is why I'm wondering why this was omitted.
@@ThomisticInstitute I mean animal and vegetative souls are the form of those beings in the traditional philosophical sense. Those souls are too the principal of life on those beings. Those souls are not rational like ours nor immortal but are spiritual. Otherwise if I could control matter like laplace's demon I could make any type of plant or animal with the exception of rational animals, that is humans. That's always been my understanding anyways in regards to souls in general but correct me if I'm wrong thank you 🙏
@Richard Fox see question 75 of first part of the Summa where St. Thomas distinguishes between human and animal souls for example.
@German Rodgriguez Thanks for following up. Much of our conversation hinges on your use of the term "spiritual," which is still ambiguous at this point. By "spiritual" do you mean "Can exist apart from the body?" We're guessing not, but figured we should at least present the possibility. Or do you mean "breath" like in the Greek sense of "pneuma"? Again, that doesn't seem likely, given the rest of your comment. Do you mean "non-physical part of the substance"? If that's the case, do you mean to indicate that the soul of plants and animals exists, as a part, separate from the body but dependent upon it? Do you mean something different?
Essentially, all of this is to say that we can't really engage the question until we get a better sense of what you mean by the term "spiritual." In addition to clarifying that, it would be helpful if you could give us a definition or if you would point to a place in St. Thomas's writings where it is used in the sense that you're using it.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
Here, I disagree with Aquinas. Matter cannot naturally evolve into life on its own, without the direct intervention of God.
🤔🤔🤔 Sounds very "secular" to me. I sadly take this videos content as a way to persuade people towards catholicism using mainstream talking points...
Disappointing at best.
its realky weird how such a rational scientist can give up on all rationality just for their desire to believe in a god...
The Earth and all the Stars Galaxies and Planets and Asteriod and subsequently all the lifeforms here on Earth and beyond all started with the Big Bang Theory of Science in the Catholic Christian Faith we call it the first Word of God in the Book of Genesis written 5000 BC His Word Let there be Light! Boom! K
I believe in the Bible more than one single persons rationality.
Read Genesis. Jesus loves you! Call upon the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be SAVED! Read John.
En svensk 😀
Fairly interesting until Ms Oberg made several unsubstantiated religious claims. It made a mockery of any scientific credibility. There is only data for natural phenomena and none for the supernatural so to even bring it up as a cause of anything is unscientific.
Anyone can believe whatever suits them but facts require data and quantifiable evidence.
Even philosophical cosmology is only as good as the factual premises on which it's based. Base you conclusions on false assumptions and they will be invalid.
is this the "science" of a new life extending drug...or, the science of new advanced weapon system for war?
evolution theory is cringe and earth is young
in conclusion, we don't know where life came from therefore the fairy king did it.
Modernist rubbish!
Good reader. But just baseless panlum
Some people ask why God would choose to create through evolution and development when He could just snap his fingers and bring everything into existence. It seems to me that at least part of the answer to that objection is that God wanted man to feel our oneness with the created order and with humility to consider our smallness in a cosmos full of history and geographical and ecological richness and depth.
Evolutionism is a lie. Read 2 Peter 3. You were warned thousands of years ago in the bible that scoffers would come after their lusts and deny the worldwide flood. You have seen it come to pass. Read Romans 1. Read 1 Timothy 6. Call upon the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be SAVED! Jesus loves you! Read Genesis. You live in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2022 by a 7 day week as foretold! It is OBJECTIVELY TRUE as we speak.
@@MichaelAChristian1 Creation through evolutionary process does not contradict 2 Peter 3. As the Word states, "8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." God transcends time. In His uncomprehensible greatness there is no delay caused through an old earth with unwinding geological and biological processes, built into creation and sustained in existence by His guiding hand. Indeed He may have reasons to want to bring human beings into existence in an anchient pre-existing natural order.
Presuppositionalism pretending to be science. Okay.
When did it ever pretend to be science? This is a philosophy channel.