This site documents the Divine Mind:
the Universe that enables us to create ourselves
page 6: Evolution: genetic memory, variation and selection
In scientific investigations . . . it is permitted to invent any hypothesis, and if it explains various large and independent classes of facts, it rises to the rank of a well grounded theory. Charles Darwin (1875): The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication
Table of contents
6.1: Where did all these species come from?
6.2: From eternity to evolution
6.3: Genes and living memory
6.4: Variation
6.5: Selection
6.6: Evolution prior to life?
6.7: The origin of elementary particles
6.8: The ubiquity of evolution
6.1: Where did all these species come from?
Where did we come from? Our ancestors. And where did they come from? . . . There are just two answers. The ancestors have existed forever, or they came to be sometime in the past. And if they were created, where did the Creator come from? Ultimately, if we stand by the proposition that nothing comes from nothing, we are led to propose that either the world or its creator are eternal.
Traditional creation stories are generally quite simple and straightforward. The Christian story, taken from the Hebrew book Genesis, is repeated twice in a few pages. It could not be much longer because the writers knew almost nothing about how the world came to be. They just knew that a creator (called God in English) had made the things they could see, light, water, land, plants, animals and people. Genesis
In the Roman Catholic interpretation of this story, the omniscient divinity carefully planned the world and used their omnipotent words, let there be (Latin fiat), to bring it into existence. The Catholic Church, through the first Vatican Council, holds that the world was created from nothing:
This one, true God, of his own goodness and "almighty power", not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel "and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . . ." Catholic Catechism III: 293: The world was created for the glory of God
Here I claim that the world itself is divine, created by and within an initial singularity which is formally identical to the God defined by Catholic theology. Aquinas, Summa, I, 2, 3: Does God exist?, Pope Pius X (1914): 24 Thomistic Theses (thesis 24)
Catholic doctrine holds that God is the realization of all possibility. This makes it hard to understand how they could create something other than themself. It seems more reasonable to think that the world is created within God, part of god, not other than God. Then we might think that the world is not made out of nothing but out of God, like the Trinity but not limited dogmatically to three entities, persons or sources but growing instead without limit. (See page 8: The theology of the Trinity).
In the modern picture, the Universe evolves under its own creative power because it is divine. Our vision of evolution was conceived by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. The theory explains how hundreds of millions of species descended over billions of years from some primordial life form. The last universal common ancestor, the biological analogue of the initial singularity. All life on Earth is related through descent from this common source. Evolution - Wikipedia, Alfred Russel Wallace - Wikipedia, Last universal common ancestor - Wikipedia
Darwin called his book On The Origin of Species. He drew on many lines of evidence. His key idea was not just evolution, which had occurred to many people before him, but evolution by variation, selection and reproduction. He began his book with the evidence closest to hand, the work of breeders of domesticated plants and animals. This showed that species are not eternal, like Platonic ideas, but mutable. This was perhaps Darwin's most radical idea. The majority of his learned contemporaries thought species had been fixed at creation. Charles Darwin (1859, 2001): On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Darwin (1875, 1998): The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication.
Many of the historical changes in domesticated plants and animals may have been accidental, but later people realized that they could choose their breeding stock with a particular end in mind: finer wool or sweeter apples. In the second chapter of Origin Darwin introduced the idea of variation in nature. A discussion of the struggle to reproduce follows in Chapter 3, which serves as the background for natural selection described in Chapter 4. In the rest of the book he provides a systematic variety of evidence for his thesis and deals with difficulties and objections. Finally he sums up, noting that As this whole volume is one long argument, it may be convenient to the reader to have the leading facts and inferences briefly recapitulated.
The result was a radical revision of the ancient ideas of creation. God did not create the world and all its forms of life in a few days. It was an immensely slow process, taking places at different places and times around the planet. Perhaps his most radical conclusion, still rejected by many ancient theologies, is that we too are a product of evolution. The wife of the Bishop Worcester is said to have expressed dissenting view that is still widely held: Descended from the apes. My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known. Darwin (1871, 2004): The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Quote Investigator: Let us hope that it is not true
The Roman Catholic Church, like all those who believe that we are endowed a birth with a specially created spiritual soul, rejects the idea that we could have evolved:
I. . . theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person.
By denying that evolution can ground the dignity of the person, John Paul II is also deprecating the dignity of the divine Universe that created us. This is consistent with the Church's view that the Universe itself is damaged by original sin, in need of redemption. Smithsonian Institution: The human family tree, Pope John Paul II (22 October 1996): Address to Plenary Session on ' The Origins and Early Evolution of Life', Catholic Catechism §§408-409: The consequences of Adam's sin for humanity, Infallibility - First Vatican Council
6.2: From eternity to evolution
Charles Darwin made the case for evolution among living creatures. He had access to a certain amount of paleontological information and knew from geological studies that unimaginable periods of time, hundreds of millions of years, had been required to sculpt some of the geological formations in Britain. He saw that this explained both the paucity of the geological record and showed that there was plenty of time available for the gradual evolution of species (Origin chapter 9). We now estimate that life began on Earth some four billion years ago and we have fossil evidence of single celled creatures more that three billion years old. Earliest known life forms - Wikipedia
The Sun was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, and the Earth soon after. The origin of the Universe has been precisely dated at 14.8 billion years ago. Much of the information we have about the early Universe comes from the cosmic microwave background which was emitted about 380 thousand years after the beginning. This information is available to us now 14 billion years after the event because photons travelling at the speed of light follow null geodesics which are effectively outside space and time. (See page 12: The quantum creation of Minkowski space). Sun - Wikipedia, History of the Earth - Wikipedia, Age of the universe - Wikipedia
Plato and Aristotle, the two principal ancestors of this site, felt that reality could have no beginning. The theory of evolution does not really change this, but it does change many details. Darwin explained the mechanism of this change. His work caused the biggest shock in the scientific world since the medieval European recovery of Aristotle. The old story of six days of creation has been replaced with fourteen billion years of evolution in a Universe apparently capable of creating itself. How this might work, beginning from an initial singularity formally identical to the traditional Catholic god, is the subject of this site. Recovery of Aristotle - Wikipedia, Chronology of the universe - Wikipedia, Initial singularity - Wikipedia, Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 7: Is God altogether simple?
Darwin's story of evolution is much more complex than traditional stories of origin and has grown even more complex as we have learnt more and more about the enormous repertoire of molecular physiological processes that underpin life. We have learned that evolution has controlled every detail of life down to the design of individual molecules. Biological evolution is just part of the story of creation. Life began in Earth about 4 billion years ago, but the creation of our planet capable of sustaining life took ten billion years before that. This began with the emergence of spacetime and fundamental particles, and the generations of stars and supernovae that created the chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and helium that did not originate near the beginning. Stellar nucleosynthesis - Wikipedia
The theory of evolution has a central role in biology. The question now is: can the evolutionary paradigm be useful prior to the origin of life? Can it account for the differentiation of the initial singularity into the Universe as we know it just as evolution explains the differentiation of life into hundreds of millions of species over billions of years?
this page 6: toc6.3: Genes and living memory
Every living creature carries two copies of itself, one a formal abstract representation encoded in its DNA, the other its full physical reality. Nucleic acid - Wikipedia, Human Genome - Wikipedia
Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection has provided us with a powerful and consistent explanation of the evolution of new species once genetically based life became established. It had been known since long before Darwin that children share many detailed traits with their parents although there is always a certain amount of variety. This fact made it possible for farmers, horticulturalists, graziers and those who fancied particular traits in their plants and animals to consciously or unconsciously control breeding to entrench particular qualities in succeeding generations.
Darwin proposed that nature itself practised selective breeding. In general more children are born than can survive in an environment of limited resources. This creates competition so those better able to reproduce themselves leave more progeny. Evolving species can track changing environments as long as the rate of change is not too great. If species cannot keep up they become extinct. Darwin was able to formulate this hypothesis without any specific knowledge of genetics. Mayr points out that Darwin was a bit hazy on the modern distinction between genotype and phenotype, but he was in no doubt that properties of the parents are reflected in their children and that this is the key to evolution (Origin page xvi). What counts in not survival, but reproduction, passing parental traits on to their offspring. Since these traits enabled the parents to reproduce successfully, they increase the probability that the children will reproduce successfully in their turn.
The science of genetics began with the work of Gregor Mendel (1822-1884). Mendel carefully counted variations in the traits of peas from different matings and correlated these variations across generations. His work revealed that some traits were transmitted from parent to offspring in fixed ratios which pointed to some underlying discrete mechanism governing inheritance. Mendel published his work in 1865, but it was not until the early twentieth century that his discoveries were appreciated by the wider scientific community. Mendel knew and approved of Darwin's work. Darwin knew nothing of Mendel. Gregor Mendel - Wikipedia, Daniel J. Fairbanks (2020): Mendel and Darwin: untangling a persistent enigma
Gradually through the course of the twentieth century the genetic mechanisms of inheritance were elucidated in increasing detail and became the foundation of evolutionary studies. A multinational project to sequence the whole human genome began in 1990 and was partially completed in 2003. Since then gene sequencing has become a common laboratory procedure. It is often used for medical and forensic studies to establish the genetic foundations of disease, to establish human relationships and to identify people who may have been present at crime scenes and those found dead. The processes of transcibing DNA into RNA and the control of protein construction by RNA are now quite well understood and attempts to design genes to produce proteins with particular properties are becoming common. Human Genome Project - Wikipedia, Freda Kreier (2022): Ancient tooth DNA reveals how ‘cold sore’ herpes virus has evolved
While the function of genetics in biology is now well understood, it remains an open question whether analogous processes can be invoked to explain the development of the structure of the Universe from the initial singularity to the origin of life and the evolution of human intelligence. The remainder of this site examines this question in detail.
6.4: Variation
Random variation is the first requirement for evolution. The sources of this variation are to be found deep in the biological mechanisms of reproduction. Over thousands of years of domestication people have deliberately and accidentally developed a very wide variety of flowers, vegetables, dogs, cats, pigeons, sheep and every other species of human value or interest. Ewen Callaway: Big dog, little dog: mutation explains range of canine sizes
The theory of probability was developed to devise winning strategies in games of chance. It was axiomatized by Andey Kolmogorov in 1933. Probability deals with complete systems of events, like the set of sides of a cubic die, 1 . . . 6, one of which is bound to appear at every trial. The probability 1 is assigned to the whole system. The probability of a given event is then its proportional rate of occurrence in the system: the probability of throwing a 3 with a fair die is 1/6. Probability - Wikipedia, Collectively exhaustive events - Wikipedia, Andrey Kolmogorov (1956): Foundations of the Theory of Probability
The simplest systems of events are those in which all outcomes are equally probable. One measure of evolutionary variation in an organism is the probability of a change (a mutation) in the elements of its genetic code. Simple organisms like viruses, which rely on infecting living cells to reproduce themselves, have a high probability of mutation and so they are highly variable and can evolve rapidly. For this reason annual vaccination against evolving influenza viruses is recommended, particularly for older people.
The probability that a mutation is deleterious or fatal is generally far greater than the probability that it will provide an advantage, but this disadvantage can be outweighed by producing many offspring. More complex organisms have error correcting mechanisms to reduce the incidence of mutation. Sexual reproduction works both for and against variation. By mingling the genes of two individuals, it provides a path to increased variation. It also increases the possibilities for error correction since the genes of two individuals of the same species are quite similar so one set may be used to correct the other. Evolution of sexual reproduction - Wikipedia
Variation is the source of creativity in evolution. They key to variation and probability is lack of control, discussed on page 5: God's ideas, cybernetics and singularity.
6.5: Selection
Darwin realized that selection could be natural as well as artificial. Some of the children of any parents may have traits which would give them a better chance of surviving and breeding in the environment into which they were born. These characteristics may be passed on to their children. As the environment changes, a sequence of variations might eventually become established as new species.
The key to variation is a random process. Selection, on the other hand, depends on controlled activity. Those creatures that survive depend on both the information embedded in their genes and things they have learnt since birth. This is particularly important in our own survival, which depends not only on our genes and upbringing but also on the collective memory embedded in our cultures. We have an enormous body of permanent information embedded in writing, art, and industrial knowhow. Much of this exists as physical capital, the structure of our cities, factories, machines and consumer goods.
All of this memory governs the interactions between individuals and the environments in which they find themselves. Success in life, which in evolution means successful reproduction, depends heavily on chance, but also on the ability of each organism, whether it be an individual or a nation, to take advantages of the chances as they present themselves.
Selective pressure is primarily a function of environment, and one of the determinants of environment is the behaviour of the elements that form it. This may occur at many scales ranging from geology and climate to other species to politics and culture. Political organizations like the Catholic Church and repressive and authoritarian regimes may direct the course of cultural evolution by restraining or even killing dissidents. Richard McGregor (2010): The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers
6.6: Evolution prior to life?
The big bang hypothesis imagines that the initial singularity is enormously energetic at a very high temperature, although neither energy nor temperature can be given much meaning in the absence of spacetime structure. Our experience with high energy particle accelerators has shown us that we can produce large numbers of well known particles from the collision of massive bubbles of almost pure energy. This suggests that very fast processes can build a spectrum of particles from a structure very close to the initial singularity. Big Bang - Wikipedia, Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia, Martinus Veltman (2003): Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics
Our current understanding of the nature of these particles is the Standard Model, represented by a large body of literature which has grown steadily since Planck's discovery of the quantum of action. Quantum theory has gone through many cycles of development and stasis throughout the twentieth century. Major holdups have arisen from the difficulty of reconciling quantum mechanics with special relativity. The internal structure of hadrons took a long time to resolve. No satisfactory way has yet emerged to connect gravitation and quantum mechanics. The first iteration of the standard model is the quantum field theory of electrodynamics. As accelerator energies increased attention turned to the weak and strong forces that underlie nuclear interactions. Many of the current attempts to include gravitation envisage models constructed in the Planck regime where typical energies are far beyond the range of any conceivable experimental checks. Standard model - Wikipedia, Hadron - Wikipedia, Quantum gravity - Wikipedia, Planck units - Wikipedia
Events in the Universe cover a wide range of time scales. It is about 14 billion years since the big bang, and there is no reason to suggest that the Universe will not last for a long time yet. Some suggest that it may expand and cool to the point where almost nothing happens. The universal attraction of gravitation suggests that it will be a long time before stars and galaxies stop forming. Some particles, like the proton, are believed to have a lifetime many orders of magnitude greater than the life of the Universe. At the other end of the time scale is the Planck time is perhaps the smallest physically relevant period. The quantum relationship between energy and time suggests that the energy needed to resolve a Planck interval is far beyond the capability of any possible accelerator: tp ≈ ℏ / 5.4 × 10-44 = 1011 Joule, approximately 1030 electron Volts. Heat death of the universe - Wikipedia, Proton decay - Wikipedia
All the fundamental particles that we know, regardless of their lifetimes, have very specific properties, not subject to evolution. To the best of our knowledge, even the very ephemeral particles have not changed their properties over the life of the Universe. This seems the rule out particle evolution. There about 60 different fundamental particles, and there are many paths enabling one to change into another. More complex entities like atoms of the elements also have fixed properties and can be interchanged, usually by changing the elementary particles from which they are composed. Each atom also has a large spectrum of electronic and nuclear states. It is only when we come to large molecules that any sort evolution may be envisaged, and this is usually in the context of some form of life. Particle Data Group, LBNL: The Particle Adventure, Periodic table - Wikipedia
6.7: The origin of elementary particles
If we proceed by analogy to evolution, which explains the origin of the modern spectrum of species from some primordial form of life, we might expect spacetime and the elementary particles that make the Universe to be descended in some way from the initial singularity. We will return to this question, beginning at page 9: The active creation of Hilbert space. Our experience with high energy physics indicates that the formation of fundamental particles is spontaneous, the outcome of any event depending on both the energy available and the particles input to the event. There are also various properties associated with the nature of spacetime such as energy, momentum, charge, and angular momentum which are conserved in any event, so constraining the possible outcomes.
6.8: The ubiquity of evolution
Biological evolution creates creatures which produce offspring which reproduce successfully in their turn. In the realms of science and technology evolution identifies theories and technologies that propagate themselves because they provide accurate models of reality, and technical devices that appeal to the community. Mobile phones are selected as they propagate themselves and the science and technology that supports them around the world though the activities of scientists, engineers entrepreneurs and manufacturers. We see a very rapid form of social evolution in the origin, reproduction and extinction of fashions and memes. Meme - Wikipedia
Darwin noticed that many traits, like the plumage and musicality of birds and the enormous variety of colours, scents, sizes and shapes of flowers appear to be favoured in selection even though their immediate advantage in terms of obtaining the resources for survival does not seem to be obvious. Darwin (1871, 2004): The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
The female role in sexual reproduction limits their choice of mates, since they can only mate once or a few times per reproductive cycle. They therefore require criteria to distinguish those males more likely to produce healthy offspring from the rest. Female choice may therefore induce males to develop certain specific characteristics which are attractive to females. If these characteristics actually work by getting more females to choose particular males and the choice leads to an increase in fitness of the resulting offspring, this characteristic, whatever it may be, will be propagated by reproductive success. Sexual selection - Wikipedia
Flowers and peacocks’ tails exist because they work. They contribute to the central issue of evolution, successful reproduction. A peacock’s tail is a signal helping a peahen to choose a mate who will give her children the best chance of having children of their own. The flower attracts the pollinators that will improve the plant’s chances of creating more plants like itself.
This may lead to a positive feedback loop, since both the male and female offspring of the females that choose a particular class of male will inherit genes associated with that class. These genes will enhance the probability that the males will carry the trait, and may also have a psychological effect of encouraging the female to choose this class of male. Ronald Fisher studied this feedback and gave it a statistical basis which is called the Fisherian runaway. Although we may consciously use particular criteria to choose our mates, consciousness is not required. All that really matters is the selective advantage built into genes that leads to reproductive advantage. Fisherian runaway - WikipediaSexual selection may have broad influence. Geoffrey Miller feels that it may explain why our ancestors became attracted not only to pretty faces and healthy bodies, but to minds that were witty, articulate, generous and conscious. The theory of evolution, built on the notions of variation and selection, provides us with an overall framework to explain all processes of development ranging from the creation of the universe through the growth of the tree of life to communal art, science, culture, humour and in fact all the biological and psychological features (ie fixed points) of our humanity which continue to evolve at a rapid rate. Geoffrey F Miller (2000): The mating mind : how sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature
The enormous creativity of evolution arises from its random input. Bush flies are an irritating nuisance in Australia, almost impossible to hit. They owe their agility to their amazing eyes and to their halteres. For these organs they sacrificed (in effect) a pair of wings and so gained the selective advantage of a local quasi gyroscopic reference for their orientation and manoeuvring in space. Halteres - Wikipedia
(revised Sunday 4 August 2024)
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Notes and references
Further reading
Books
Darwin (1859, 2001), Charles, and Ernst Mayr, On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press 2001 Amazon review: 'It was a very happy idea to publish a facsimile of the first edition of On the Origin of Species; the price of copies of the original edition has reached the thousand dollar bracket, and in contemporary literature all page-references are to the original pagination, which was not followed in previous reprints of the first edition. Now, with this very reasonably priced and beautifully produced book, not only historians of science but also biologists will have the opportunity of following the fascinating thought-trails, still far from fully explored, of that remarkable man Darwin. Few if any persons are so well qualified as Harvard's Ernst Mayr to execute so helpfully and gracefully the delicate task of writing a worthy foreword to such a classic.'
--Sir Gavin de Beer (Science )
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Darwin (1871, 2004), Charles, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Penguin Classics 1871, 2004 'No book made a greater impact on the intellectual world of its first Victorian readers nor has had such an enduring influence on our thinking on science, literature, theology and philosophy. In The Descent of Man, Darwin addresses the crucial question of the origins, evolution and racial divergence of mankind, that he had deliberately left out of On the Origin of Species. And the evidence he presents forces us to question what it is that makes us uniquely human.'
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Darwin (1875, 1998), Charles, and Harriet Ritvo (Introduction), The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (Foundations of Natural History), Johns Hopkins University Press 1875, 1998 ' "The Variation, with its thousands of hard-won observations of the facts of variation in domesticated species, is a frustrating, but worthwhile read, for it reveals the Darwin we rarely see -- the embattled Darwin, struggling to keep his project on the road. Sometimes he seems on the verge of being overwhelmed by the problems he is dealing with, but then a curious fact of natural history will engage him (the webbing between water gun-dogs' toes, the absurdly short beak of the pouter pigeon) and his determination to make sense of it rekindles. As he disarmingly declares, 'the whole subject of inheritance is wonderful.'.
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Kolmogorov (1956), Andrey Nikolaevich, and Nathan Morrison (Translator) (With an added bibliography by A T Bharucha-Reid), Foundations of the Theory of Probability, Chelsea 1956 Preface: 'The purpose of this monograph is to give an axiomatic foundation for the theory of probability. . . . This task would have been a rather hopeless one before the introduction of Lebesgue's theories of measure and integration. However, after Lebesgue's publication of his investigations, the analogies between measure of a set and mathematical expectation of a random variable became apparent. These analogies allowed of further extensions; thus, for example, various properties of independent random variables were seen to be in complete analogy with the corresponding properties of orthogonal functions . . .'
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McGregor (2010), Richard, The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, Harper 2010 Amazon editorial review: From Publishers Weekly
'McGregor, a journalist at the Financial Times, begins his revelatory and scrupulously reported book with a provocative comparison between China's Communist Party and the Vatican for their shared cultures of secrecy, pervasive influence, and impenetrability. The author pulls back the curtain on the Party to consider its influence over the industrial economy, military, and local governments. McGregor describes a system operating on a Leninist blueprint and deeply at odds with Western standards of management and transparency. Corruption and the tension between decentralization and national control are recurring themes--and are highlighted in the Party™s handling of the disturbing Sanlu case, in which thousands of babies were poisoned by contaminated milk powder. McGregor makes a clear and convincing case that the 1989 backlash against the Party, inexorable globalization, and technological innovations in communication have made it incumbent on the Party to evolve, and this smart, authoritative book provides valuable insight into how it has--and has not--met the challenge. '
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Veltman (2003), Martinus, Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics, World Scientific 2003 'Introduction: The twentieth century has seen an enormous progress in physics. The fundamental physics of the first half of the century was dominated by the theory of relativity, Einstein's theory of gravitation and the theory of quantum mechanics. The second half of the century saw the rise of elementary particle physics. . . . Through this development there has been a subtle change in point of view. In Einstein's theory space and time play an overwhelming dominant role. . . . The view that we would like to defend can perhaps best be explaned by an analogy. To us, space-time and the laws of quantum mechanics are like the decor, the setting of a play. The elementary articles are the actors, and physics is what they do. . . . Thus in this book the elementary particles are the central objects.'
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Links
Age of the universe - Wikipedia, Age of the universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physical cosmology, the age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang. The current measurement of the age of the universe is 13.799±0.021 billion years . . . The uncertainty of 21 million years has been obtained by the agreement of a number of scientific research projects, such as microwave background radiation measurements by the Planck satellite, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and other probes.' back |
Alfred Russel Wallace - Wikipedia, Alfred Russel Wallace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 paper on the subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin's earlier writings on the topic. It spurred Darwin to set aside the "big species book" he was drafting and quickly write an abstract of it, which was published in 1859 as On the Origin of Species.' back |
Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 7, Is God altogether simple?, 'I answer that, The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways. First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His "suppositum"; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple. . . . ' back |
Aquinas, Summa: I, 2, 3, Does God exist?, 'I answer that, The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. . . . ' back |
Big Bang - Wikipedia, Big Bang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model explaining the existence of the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution. The model describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature, and offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of observed phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, and large-scale structure. ' back |
Catholic Catechism §§408-409, The consequences of Adam's sin for humanity, ' 408 The consequences of original sin and of all men's personal sins put the world as a whole in the sinful condition aptly described in St. John's expression, "the sin of the world". [Jn 1:29] This expression can also refer to the negative influence exerted on people by communal situations and social structures that are the fruit of men's sins.' 409 This dramatic situation of "the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one" [1 Jn 5:19; cf. 1 Pt 5:8] makes man's life a battle: [2516] The whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with he powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God's grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity. [GS 37 § 2] ' back |
Catholic Catechism III: 293, The world was created for the glory of God, ' 293 Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: "The world was made for the glory of God."St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things "not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it", for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: "Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand".' back |
Chronology of the universe - Wikipedia, Chronology of the universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The chronology of the universe describes the history and future of the universe according to Big Bang cosmology, the prevailing scientific model of how the universe developed over time from the Planck epoch, using the cosmological time parameter of comoving coordinates. The metric expansion of space is estimated to have begun 13.8 billion years ago.' back |
Collectively exhaustive events - Wikipedia, Collectively exhaustive events - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In probability theory and logic, a set of events is jointly or collectively exhaustive if at least one of the events must occur. For example, when rolling a six-sided die, the events 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 balls of a single outcome are collectively exhaustive, because they encompass the entire range of possible outcomes.' back |
Daniel J. Fairbanks (2020), Mendel and Darwin: untangling a persistent enigma, Abstract: ' Mendel and Darwin were contemporaries, with much overlap in their scientifically productive years. Available evidence shows that Mendel knew much about Darwin, whereas Darwin knew nothing of Mendel. . . . The objective of this review is to examine evidence from Mendel’s published and private writings on evolution and Darwin, and the influence of the scientific environment in which he was immersed. Much of this evidence lies in Mendel’s handwritten annotations in his copies of Darwin’s books, which this review scrutinises in detail. Darwin’s writings directly influenced Mendel’s classic 1866 paper, and his letters to Nägeli. . . . The image that emerges of Mendel is of a meticulous scientist who accepted the tenets of Darwinian evolution, while privately pinpointing aspects of Darwin’s views of inheritance that were not supported by Mendel’s own experiments.' back |
Earliest known life forms - Wikipedia, Earliest known life forms - Wikipedia, the free encylopedia, ' The earliest known life forms on Earth are putative fossilized microorganisms found in hydrothermal vent precipitates. The earliest time that life forms first appeared on Earth is at least 3.77 billion years ago, possibly as early as 4.28 billion years, or even 4.5 billion years; not long after the oceans formed 4.41 billion years ago, and after the formation of the Earth 4.54 billion years ago. The earliest direct evidence of life on Earth are microfossils of microorganisms permineralized in 3.465-billion-year-old Australian Apex chert rocks. ' back |
Evolution - Wikipedia, Evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, '. . . Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace were the first to formulate a scientific argument for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Evolution by natural selection is a process that is inferred from three facts about populations: 1) more offspring are produced than can possibly survive, 2) traits vary among individuals, leading to different rates of survival and reproduction, and 3) trait differences are heritable. . . . ' back |
Evolution of sexual reproduction - Wikipedia, Evolution of sexual reproduction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Sexual reproduction is an adaptive feature which is common to almost all multicellular organisms and various unicellular organisms. Currently, the adaptive advantage of sexual reproduction is widely regarded as a major unsolved problem in biology. As discussed below, one prominent theory is that sex evolved as an efficient mechanism for producing variation, and this had the advantage of enabling organisms to adapt to changing environments. Another prominent theory, also discussed below, is that a primary advantage of outcrossing sex is the masking of the expression of deleterious mutations.' back |
Ewen Callaway, Big dog, little dog: mutation explains range of canine sizes, ' From chihuahuas to great Danes, dogs differ more in size than any other mammal species on the planet. A mutation behind such variation has been traced to an unexpected source: ancient wolves. . . . Ancient dogs, domesticated from wolves in the past 30,000 years, differed in size to some extent. But the current extreme size differences — the largest breeds are up to 40 times bigger than the smallest — emerged in the past 200 years, as humans established modern breeds. . . . When they compared variation in the region around the IGF1 gene with body size in dogs and wild canids, one variant stood out. . . . The researchers identified two versions, or alleles, of the variant. Across all breeds, dogs with two copies of one allele tended to weigh less than 15 kilograms, whereas two copies of the other version were more common in dogs weighing more than 25 kilograms.' back |
Fisherian runaway - Wikipedia, Fisherian runaway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Fisherian runaway or runaway selection is a sexual selection mechanism proposed by the mathematical biologist Ronald Fisher in the early 20th century, to account for the evolution of ostentatious male ornamentation by persistent, directional female choice. An example is the colourful and elaborate peacock plumage compared to the relatively subdued peahen plumage; the costly ornaments, notably the bird's extremely long tail, appear to be incompatible with natural selection. Fisherian runaway can be postulated to include sexually dimorphic phenotypic traits such as behavior expressed by a particular sex.' back |
Freda Kreier (2022), Ancient tooth DNA reveals how ‘cold sore’ herpes virus has evolved, 'Ancient DNA extracted from the teeth of humans who lived long ago is yielding new information about pathogens past and present. In one of the latest studies, researchers uncovered and sequenced ancient herpes genomes for the first time, from the teeth of long-dead Europeans. The strain of herpes virus that causes lip sores in people today — called HSV-1 — was once thought to have emerged in Africa more than 50,000 years ago. But the new data, published in Science Advances on 27 July1, indicate that its origin was much more recent: around 5,000 years ago during the Bronze Age.' back |
Genesis, The Book of Genesis, 'Genesis is the first book of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), the first section of the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures. Its title in English, “Genesis,” comes from the Greek of Gn 2:4, literally, “the book of the generation (genesis) of the heavens and earth.” Its title in the Jewish Scriptures is the opening Hebrew word, Bereshit, “in the beginning.” ' back |
Geoffrey F Miller (2000), The mating mind : how sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature, Jacket: 'Many aspects of how and why the human mind evolved remain mysterious. While Darwinian natural selection has successfully explained the evolution of much life on earth, it has never seemed fully adequate to explain the aspects of our minds which seem most uniquely and profoundly human—art, morality, consciousness, creativity and language. . . . .. Now, in The Mating Mind a pioneering work of evolutionary science, these aspects of human nature are at last explored and explained. . . . .. In this brilliantly ambitious and provocative book, evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller shows the evolutionary power of sexual choice and the reasons why our ancestors became attracted not only to pretty faces and healthy bodies, but to minds that were witty, articulate, generous and conscious.' back |
Gregor Mendel - Wikipedia, Gregor Mendel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Gregor Johann Mendel, OSA was a biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brünn (Brno), Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel was born in a German-speaking family in the Silesian part of the Austrian Empire (today's Czech Republic) and gained posthumous recognition as the founder of the modern science of genetics. Though farmers had known for millennia that crossbreeding of animals and plants could favour certain desirable traits, Mendel's pea plant experiments conducted between 1856 and 1863 established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance.' back |
Hadron - Wikipedia, Hadron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, In particle physics, a hadron is a composite subatomic particle made of two or more quarks held together by the strong interaction. They are analogous to molecules that are held together by the electric force. Most of the mass of ordinary matter comes from two hadrons: the proton and the neutron, while most of the mass of the protons and neutrons is in turn due to the binding energy of their constituent quarks, due to the strong force.' back |
Halteres - Wikipedia, Halteres - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Halteres (from Ancient Greek: ἁλτῆρες, hand-held weights to give an impetus in leaping) are a pair of small club-shaped organs on the body of two orders of flying insects that provide information about body rotations during flight. Insects of the large order Diptera (flies) have halteres which evolved from a pair of ancestral hindwings, while males of the much smaller order Strepsiptera (stylops) have halteres which evolved from a pair of ancestral forewings.' back |
Heat death of the universe - Wikipedia, Heat death of the universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The heat death is a possible final state of the universe, in which it has "run down" to a state of no thermodynamic free energy to sustain motion or life. In physical terms, it has reached maximum entropy. The hypothesis of a universal heat death stems from the 1850s ideas of William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) who extrapolated the theory of heat views of mechanical energy loss in nature, as embodied in the first two laws of thermodynamics, to universal operation' back |
History of the Earth - Wikipedia, History of the Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The history of Earth concerns the development of planet Earth from its formation to the present day. Nearly all branches of natural science have contributed to understanding of the main events of Earth's past, characterized by constant geological change and biological evolution. The geological time scale (GTS), as defined by international convention,[3] depicts the large spans of time from the beginning of the Earth to the present, and its divisions chronicle some definitive events of Earth history. (In the graphic, Ma means "million years ago".) Earth formed around 4.54 billion years ago, approximately one-third the age of the universe, by accretion from the solar nebula.' back |
Human Genome - Wikipedia, Human Genome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The human genome is the complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. Human genomes include both protein-coding DNA genes and noncoding DNA. Haploid human genomes, which are contained in germ cells (the egg and sperm gamete cells created in the meiosis phase of sexual reproduction before fertilization creates a zygote) consist of three billion DNA base pairs, while diploid genomes (found in somatic cells) have twice the DNA content.' back |
Human Genome Project - Wikipedia, Human Genome Project - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying and mapping all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and a functional standpoint. . . . The Human Genome Project originally aimed to map the nucleotides contained in a human haploid reference genome (more than three billion). The "genome" of any given individual is unique; mapping the "human genome" involved sequencing a small number of individuals and then assembling these together to get a complete sequence for each chromosome. Therefore, the finished human genome is a mosaic, not representing any one individual.' back |
Infallibility - First Vatican Council, English Text of Definition of Infallibility, 'We teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable. So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema.' back |
Initial singularity - Wikipedia, Initial singularity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The initial singularity is a singularity predicted by some models of the Big Bang theory to have existed before the Big Bang. The instant immediately following the initial singularity is part of the Planck epoch, the earliest period of time in the history of our universe. The use of only general relativity to predict what happened in the beginnings of the Universe has been heavily criticized, as quantum mechanics becomes a significant factor in the high-energy environment of the earliest Universe, and general relativity on its own fails to make accurate predictions. Although there is no direct evidence for a singularity of infinite density, the cosmic microwave background is evidence that the universe expanded from a very hot, dense state. ' back |
Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia, Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundreds of universities and laboratories, as well as more than 100 countries. It lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres (17 mi) in circumference and as deep as 175 metres (574 ft) beneath the France–Switzerland border near Geneva. The first collisions were achieved in 2010 at an energy of 3.5 teraelectronvolts (TeV) per beam, about four times the previous world record. After upgrades it reached 6.5 TeV per beam (13 TeV total collision energy, the present world record). At the end of 2018, it was shut down for three years for further upgrades.' back |
Last universal common ancestor - Wikipedia, Last universal common ancestor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the most recent population from which all organisms now living on Earth share common descent—the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. . . . .. While no specific fossil evidence of the LUCA exists, the detailed biochemical similarity of all current life makes it plausible. Its characteristics can be inferred from shared features of modern genomes. These genes describe a complex life form with many co-adapted features, including transcription and translation mechanisms to convert information from DNA to mRNA to proteins. The LUCA probably lived in the high-temperature water of deep sea vents near ocean-floor magma flows around 4 billion years ago.' back |
Meme - Wikipedia, Meme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A meme an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.' back |
Nucleic acid - Wikipedia, Nucleic acid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Nucleic acids are the biopolymers, or small biomolecules, essential to all known forms of life. The term nucleic acid is the overall name for DNA and RNA. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomers made of three components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. If the sugar is a compound ribose, the polymer is RNA (ribonucleic acid); if the sugar is derived from ribose as deoxyribose, the polymer is DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).' back |
Particle Data Group, LBNL, The Particle Adventure, The Particle Data Group of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory presents an award winning interactive tour of quarks, neutrinos, antimatter, extra dimensions, dark matter, accelerators and particle detectors. back |
Periodic table - Wikipedia, Periodic table - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the elements, arranges the chemical elements into rows ("periods") and columns ("groups"). It is an organizing icon of chemistry and is widely used in physics and other sciences. It is a depiction of the periodic law, which says that when the elements are arranged in order of their atomic numbers an approximate recurrence of their properties is evident. The table is divided into four roughly rectangular areas called blocks. Elements in the same group tend to show similar chemical characteristics.' back |
Planck units - Wikipedia, Planck units - Wikipedia, the free encycloedia, ' In particle physics and physical cosmology, Planck units are a set of units of measurement defined exclusively in terms of four universal physical constants, in such a manner that these physical constants take on the numerical value of 1 when expressed in terms of these units. . Originally proposed in 1899 by German physicist Max Planck, these units are also known as natural units because the origin of their definition comes only from properties of nature and not from any human construct. Planck units are only one system of several systems of natural units, but Planck units are not based on properties of any prototype object or particle (that would be arbitrarily chosen), but rather on only the properties of free space.' back |
Pope John Paul II (22 October 1996), Address to Plenary Session on 'The Origins and Early Evolution of Life', ' John Paul II refers to Pius XI’s hope that the Academy would become a Senatus scientificus. In relation to the origins of life and the universe the Pope asks: ‘How do the conclusions reached by the various scientific disciplines coincide with those contained in the message of Revelation? And if, at first sight, there are apparent contradictions, in what direction do we look for their solution?’ John Paul II surveys the Magisterium’s comments on the theory of evolution and adds that ‘to tell the truth, rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution’. Those theories of evolution which ‘consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter’ are ‘incompatible with the truth about man’. The human being, indeed, is ‘called to enter into eternal life’.' back |
Pope Pius X (1914), 24 Thomistic Theses, 'The Twenty-Four Fundamental Theses Of Official Catholic Philosophy Decree of Approval of some theses contained in the Doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas and proposed to the Teachers of Philosophy: Datum Romae, die 27 iulii 1914. B. Card Lorenzelli, Praefectus Ascensus Dandini, a Secretis' back |
Probability - Wikipedia, Probability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Probability is the likelihood or chance that something is the case or will happen. Theoretical Probability is used extensively in areas such as finance, statistics, gambling, mathematics, science and philosophy to draw conclusions about the likelihood of potential events and the underlying mechanics of complex systems.' back |
Proton decay - Wikipedia, Proton decay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In particle physics, proton decay is a hypothetical form of particle decay in which the proton decays into lighter subatomic particles, such as a neutral pion and a positron. The proton decay hypothesis was first formulated by Andrei Sakharov in 1967. Despite significant experimental effort, proton decay has never been observed. If it does decay via a positron, the proton's half-life is constrained to be at least 1.67×1034 years.' back |
Quantum gravity - Wikipedia, Quantum gravity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics, and where quantum effects cannot be ignored, such as in the vicinity of black holes or similar compact astrophysical objects where the effects of gravity are strong, such as neutron stars.' back |
Quote Investigator, Darwinism: Let Us Hope It is Not True, But If It is, Let Us Pray It Does Not Become Widely Known, ' Dear Quote Investigator: There is a remarkable quotation that dramatically highlights the controversial intersection between science and religion in the nineteenth century. The words were attributed to a Bishop’s wife in an anecdote in the book “Origins” by the paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey and the science writer Roger Lewin.' back |
Recovery of Aristotle - Wikipedia, Recovery of Aristotle - Wikipedia, the free encclopedia , ' The "Recovery of Aristotle" (or Rediscovery) refers to the copying or re-translating of most of Aristotle's books (of ancient Greece), from Greek or Arabic text into Latin, during the Middle Ages, of the Latin West. The Recovery of Aristotle spanned about 100 years, from the middle 12th century into the 13th century, and copied or translated over 42 books (see: Corpus Aristotelicum), including Arabic texts from Arabic authors, where the previous Latin versions had only two books in general circulation: Categories and On Interpretation (De Interpretatione).' back |
Sexual selection - Wikipedia, Sexual selection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The concept was first articulated by Charles Darwin who wrote of a "second agency" other than natural selection, in which competition between mate candidates could lead to speciation. The theory was given a mathematical basis by Ronald Fisher in the early 20th century. Sexual selection can lead males to extreme efforts to demonstrate their fitness to be chosen by females, producing sexual dimorphism in secondary sexual characteristics, such as the ornate plumage of birds-of-paradise and peafowl, or the antlers of deer. Depending on the species, these rules can be reversed. This is caused by a positive feedback mechanism known as a Fisherian runaway, where the passing-on of the desire for a trait in one sex is as important as having the trait in the other sex in producing the runaway effect.' back |
Smithsonian Institution, Human Family Tree, 'Anatomically, modern humans can generally be characterized by the lighter build of their skeletons compared to earlier humans. Modern humans have very large brains, which vary in size from population to population and between males and females, but the average size is approximately 1300 cubic centimeters. Housing this big brain involved the reorganization of the skull into what is thought of as "modern" -- a thin-walled, high vaulted skull with a flat and near vertical forehead. Modern human faces also show much less (if any) of the heavy brow ridges and prognathism of other early humans. Our jaws are also less heavily developed, with smaller teeth.' back |
Standard model - Wikipedia, Standard model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory that describes three of the four known fundamental interactions between the elementary particles that make up all matter. It is a quantum field theory developed between 1970 and 1973 which is consistent with both quantum mechanics and special relativity. To date, almost all experimental tests of the three forces described by the Standard Model have agreed with its predictions. However, the Standard Model falls short of being a complete theory of fundamental interactions, primarily because of its lack of inclusion of gravity, the fourth known fundamental interaction, but also because of the large number of numerical parameters (such as masses and coupling constants) that must be put "by hand" into the theory (rather than being derived from first principles) . . . ' back |
Stellar nucleosynthesis - Wikipedia, Stellar nucleosynthesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Stellar nucleosynthesis is the creation (nucleosynthesis) of chemical elements by nuclear fusion reactions within stars. Stellar nucleosynthesis has occurred since the original creation of hydrogen, helium and lithium during the Big Bang. As a predictive theory, it yields accurate estimates of the observed abundances of the elements. It explains why the observed abundances of elements change over time and why some elements and their isotopes are much more abundant than others. The theory was initially proposed by Fred Hoyle in 1946, who later refined it in 1954. back |
Sun - Wikipedia, Sun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Every second, the Sun's core fuses about 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium, and in the process converts 4 million tons of matter into energy. . . . When hydrogen fusion in its core has diminished to the point at which the Sun is no longer in hydrostatic equilibrium, its core will undergo a marked increase in density and temperature while its outer layers expand, eventually transforming the Sun into a red giant. It is calculated that the Sun will become sufficiently large to engulf the current orbits of Mercury and Venus, and render Earth uninhabitable – but not for about five billion years.' back |