Niels Stensen - Danish Protestant, Polymath and finally German Catholic Bishop
Can you imagine a Danish Protestant (1638-1686) and natural scientist becoming a German catholic bishop? It happened! Niels Stensen, in the then usual latinized form Nicolaus Steno was at his time a leading natural scientist, famous as physician, anatomist, crystallograph, mineralogist and geologist. He was the son of a goldsmith. His mother was the daughter of a famous family of protestant pastors. He started his studies in Copenhagen in medicine, mathematics and philosophy and became a polymath well known across Europe.
As anatomist he became well known across Europe by his public demonstrations of anatomical dissections in the so called Theatrum Anatomicum, a kind of public science in these days. You had to pay - like in a modern cinema - a fee to get access to these anatomical lectures in which you were entertained by a medical doctor about the wonders of the human body. Stensen was a great scientific entertainer. As anatomist he discovered the glands for tears and saliva, as mineralogist he discovered the constancy of the angle of crystals irrespective of form and size, as geologist he was the first to find out in his dissertation De solido that the various layers of geological sediments correspond with their age. He thus became the founding father of modern geology and crystallography.
What makes him interesting however as predecessor of modern evolutionary theory is not only the fact that he introduced in geology the above mentioned historical perspective but also his interpretation of fossils. In his time fossils were seen as natural forms of stones. He in contrast to this view interpreted rightly fossils as petrifactions of former organisms or parts of organisms. For example so called tongue stones (Stenoshark) he interpreted as petrifactions of shark teeth.
His scientific endeavors however were part of his religious belief. In the theological tradition of seeing in nature the traces of God he for instance saw in anatomy - like his later colleague Lorenz Heister - a means of recognizing and praising God. Thus he wrote: "This is the true purpose of anatomy: To lead the audience by the wonderful artwork of the human body to the dignity of the soul and by the admirable structure of both to the knowledge and love of God." (Opus philosophicum II, 254).
Stensen lead a very adventurous life, travelling across Europe. He stayed in Germany, The Netherlands, France, Italy and Eastern Europe. Wherever he was he had contact with the contemporary leading scientists and learned societies, then often informal conventions. He was acquainted with Spinoza, Leibniz and many other luminaries of his time. When he was in The Netherlands and in Italy he became more and more interested into religion, in The Netherlands because of the many Calvinist sects in Italy because of the impressing conformity of Catholicism and the personal convincing life the outstanding catholic personalities, like the reform bishop Borromaeus. Due to this kind of impressing personal holiness he eventually converted to Catholicism and became an ordained priest. After serving as a lecturer in anatomy at his own university in Copenhagen, already catholic, he went back to Italy and became after a couple of other locations where he served the Church, like Munster and Hamburg, the bishop of the little catholic congregation in Schwerin. He died in the age of 48 and became beatified in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.
The next person introduced as forerunner of Charles Darwin will be William Paley.
Wolfgang Achtner
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Biologists have used atavisms and ERVs to support evolution theory.
Refer to the website addresses, http://www.nature.com/...opment-and-evolution-843, pertaining to the explanation of atavisms. The following are the extracts:
Humans do not have tails, but do we have “what it takes” for a tail? Hens don’t have teeth, but they have the genes for it. With atavism, it is as if our genomes serve as archives of our evolutionary past.
The following are the possibilities that atavisms might not be the good source to support evolution:
1)The appearance of atavisms among living things in the past might not give the implication that certain animals could be evolved from another due to it might be the result of the poor condition of the genes or DNA or sperms or menses or etc., itself that would have led to the exceptional physical shortfalls or the excessive and extraordinary growth in the physical bodies by accident that have nothing to do with evolution.
Refer to the websites addresses below for abnormal growth of certain parts of their bodies among animals in the past: http://forum.globaltimes.cn/...wthread.php?t=6176, http://www.google.com.sg/imgres?imgurl=http://www.kashvet.org/oasis/wp- http://parkviewgallery.com/abnormal-animal-, picturescontent/uploads/2008/11/image099.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.kashvet.org/oasis/pathological/bovine-fetal-mummification/&h=398&w=554&sz=65&tbnid=EDw-IFHW0vusMM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=126&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dabnormal%2Banimals%2Bpictures%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=abnormal+animals+pictures&docid=Dm0Lz2oFMRhfvM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=AmN6TpyoH8jjrAePp8CsDw&ved=0CC0Q9QEwAw&dur=703.
From the above pictures of the websites address, could a person come to the conclusion that living things could have their ancestors with more than one head due to pigs and human beings, turtles and etc., could give birth to their offspring with more than a head? Could a person comment that his ancestor could be born with three legs by seeing the horse that has been born with three legs? Could a person mention that his ancestor could be born with eyes balls without eyes pupils just judging that there have been blind men or women that have been born without eyes pupils? Could a person comment that his ancestor could be born with six fingers per hand simply by judging that there are human beings that have been born with six fingers from time to time? Could a person comment that his ancestor, i.e. the animal, could be mentally retarded, by judging that some human beings are born to be so even though their parents are physically healthy? Thus, it is irrational to use the abnormal growth of living thing, such as, fingers, tail, extra bones, and etc., to arrive at a conclusion that this animal should be the ancestor of this or that for the support of evolution. This is due to atavisms might be occurred in accident or as a result of the poor condition as well as malfunction of gene or DNA or sperms or menses that might have led to abnormal growth or the weakness in genes that ultimately might have led to physical shortfalls or the excessive growth of flesh, bones and etc., that would seem to look alike as certain features of other ancestors.
2)Atavisms might also occur as a result of external factors that would influence the genes or DNAs or etc. to cause abnormal growth that would have led to animals with extraordinary feature that could not be found commonly among them, such as, tail from human beings in the past or skeleton that seems to be leg from whale or etc. This might not be able to serve as an evidence if this were merely the cause of flesh and bone that have grown abnormally due to certain bad physical condition of genes and DNA as a result of the influence of external factors, such as, the poor physical bodies of their parents that give rise to poor genes; or the illnesses of their parents that could cause the defect of genes or DNA to the ultimate formation of abnormal living things; or the direct attack and influence of bacteria that could ultimately cause the genes or DNA to be in defect; or etc. This ultimately would lead to animals to have given birth to offspring to have the co-incidence that have the feature that could not be found commonly among their kind of animals instead, from others.
Refer to the website address, http://www.askabiologist.org.uk/...ic.php?id=3914, pertaining to the evidence that ERVs could be used as an evidence to support evolution theory. The following are the reasons that ERVs might not be suitable to be used as an evidence to support evolution theory:
1)There could be a possibility that a living thing would have been created initially to have the identical feature or ERVs or genes or DNA or pattern or anatomy or genomes or etc., as others co-incidentally instead of by means of evolution. If that could be so during the creation, it is irrational to arrive at the conclusion that this animal could be the ancestor of the others by means of comparing the similarities of genes or DNA; or the similarities of loci in the genomes; or etc.
2)As there are only a few animals in the fossils, such as, dinosaurs fossils, could be dug out by archeologists and yet the population of the animals that are in the fossils in the past should be more than hundred or million especially at the place where the fossils have been dug out, there places a possibility about the missing fossils in which many animals, such as, dinosaurs, would have their bones and skulls to turn into dust and vanished in the ground. If that could be so, the arrangement of animals in the timeline of homo sapiens would be in question. For instance, how could we know that human beings were once alive prior to 15 Ma? Biologists have placed human beings after the apes’ period was due to they could not locate any human skulls prior to 15 Ma. What if human beings did exist prior to 15 Ma and yet their bones and skulls would have been vanished under the ground and this would have resulted that no evidence could prove the existence of human beings prior to 15 Ma. This certainly would turn the timeline upside down that biologists might suggest that human beings would evolve to apes. Thus, the possibility of missing fossils has placed the reliability of timeline of homo sapiens into question.
3)Biologists did not perform experiment to ensure that human beings could be evolved from animals. Besides, nobody in this world did have eye-witness that animals could evolve from one to another. Thus, their theory simply is not tested. This places the reliability of evolution theory to be in question.
4)The irregularity of probabilities of genes as well as DNA in the website address, http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/korthof83.htm, pertaining to DNA sequence in the genome of other organisms has placed the reliability of evolution theory into question.
The probabilities of human gene sequence that codes for protein are extracted from the website address above as follows: Chimpanzee (100%); Dog (99%); Mouse (99%); Chicken (75%); Fruitfly (60%); and Roundworm (35%). From the list of the probabilities of the human gene sequence that codes for protein, it is obvious that there is an irregularity of human gene among these animals. The probability for roundworm (35%) is lesser than fruitfly (60%) despite the size of the roundworm might be comparatively bigger than the fruitfly. Not only that, mouse should be smaller in size than chicken and yet its probability could be far as high as 99%. In comparison of the capability to adapt the environment or in terms of size, dog could be no much better than chimpanzee and yet the probability of the dog could be as high as 99%. As there is an irregularity of probability of human gene sequence that codes for protein among the animals above, it places the query about the reliability of evolution theory into question. This is due to it is rational to think that the smallest animals could have the lowest probability of human genes than the biggest as a result of evolution. The initial common ancestor might well be small in size. As and when the animals keep on evolving, the creatures would turn up to be bigger in size in each evolution with the improvement in the development of gene. As the probabilities of human gene sequence that codes for protein show irregular genes among animals, it does not seem to provide a clue that existing animals would have been formed from evolution. Why should there be an irregularity of human gene that codes for protein among animals?
The probabilities of human random DNA segment between genes could not code for proteins among different animals are listed below: Chimpanzee (98%); Dog (52%); Mouse (40%); Chicken (4%); Fruitfly (-0%); and Roundworm (-0%). Again, despite the mouse is smaller in size as compared to chicken, yet the probability of human DNA that could be located in mouse is much higher than it. The dog is slightly bigger in size as compared to chicken and yet the probability of human DNA could be as high as 52%. Thus, the probabilities of human random DNA segment between genes among animals are irregular. As there are irregularities of probability of DNA among the animals, it is hard to use these variations to conclude animals would have been evolved from time to time.
Some biologists might comment that the adverse evolution from complexity of animals to simplicity was merely the result of genetic deletion. The following are the website addresses for the proof that biologists did perform successfully in causing the change of feature of animals through genetic deletion or insertion or duplication or even amplification:
http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_65878.asp, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/269/5221/230.short,
http://physiolgenomics.physiology.org/...249.full, http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/abs/10.2217/17460913.2.3.309?journalCode=fmb, http://sommeil.univ-lyon1.fr/...x/jsr_99/print.php
Despite genetic deletion or insertion or amplification or etc. has been performed successfully upon mice or even bacteria, they could only alter the feature of the living thing, such as, changing its characteristics or behaviour or etc. However, they could not transform that living thing, such as, bacteria, into another type, such as, bee or etc. Or in other words, when a genetic deletion or insertion or etc. would be performed on a specific animal, such as, mice, the end result still remains as that animal, i.e. mice, instead of creating a new creature. As they could not transform the more complexity of animals into simplicity through genetic deletion or vice versa, it is irrational to use genetic deletion or insertion or amplification or etc. to support that animals could be evolved from one to another through one of these methods since biologists could only change the feature of animals instead of creating new creatures through these experiments.
Thank you very much for this detailed contribution! I am looking forward to read the material you mentioned.