Age of the Earth and Evolution

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That wasn’t my point, you said
steve-b said:
And science is about things they can prove, and therefore, opposed to faith
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If something can be proved, it cannot be against the faith. That is Catholic doctrine.
 
One thing that most ‘expert’ scientists claim is that humanity is at least 2 million years old. The problem is that, even with conservative estimates, the world population should be hundreds or thousands of times greater than it is now if humanity were that old. If it is not, then it throws the whole science of fossil dating into question.
 
tafan2 said:
That wasn’t my point, you said
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steve-b:
And science is about things they can prove, and therefore, opposed to faith
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If something can be proved, it cannot be against the faith. That is Catholic doctrine.
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True.

Has science proven the age of the universe as they say, +/- 1% of the number they claim?
 
I’m Catholic and believe in evolution. I think it’s settled science.

I think the Genesis story is myth, but obviously not in any pejorative sense. I believe - and I think this is 100% consistent with Church doctrine - that Adam & Eve were the first humans with souls. They both sinned through temptation by the devil, and here we are.
 
Measures can be erroneous. I am open to the age of the universe being incorrect based on our current knowledge and methods of dating.

Say some hypothetical alien captured a man who was 50 years old and weighed 175 pounds. After a year, he weighed 176 pounds, and the year after that, 177. If they deduced that the man was 177 years old because he gained a pound per year, obviously they would be incorrect since human beings gain weight at a much faster rate when very young.

Likewise, forces currently unknown to us may have exponentially aged the material universe very quickly at the dawn of creation. In the meantime, the generally accepted age of the natural universe should not be outright rejected by any means, but must be seen within a bigger picture of theological time juxtaposed with natural time.
 
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Not really the type of thing science proves. But it is certainly demonstrated to my satisfaction. Based on what evidence we have, to say the young earth theory is correct is not reasonable at all.
 
I’ve seen people run those numbers. They usually take the modern growth factor and then try to apply it to the entirety of human history. That’s hugely problematic when you consider how recently things like modern medicine, vaccines, and such all came about. It was pretty recent that we began to understand bacteria and viruses as living things and learn how to combat them, and heck it wasn’t that long ago that people realized it would be smart to wash their hands before performing surgery, or delivering a baby. All in all it means for most of human history we had a much much higher mortality rate.

Populations are also elastic not exponential. Even today if a family can’t financially support additional children most at least attempt to limit the children they have through whatever means they consider acceptable. Nomadic tribes without agriculture just don’t support ever increasing populations.

All that said I would love to see the conservative estimates and what assumptions they’re making.
 
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Evan said:
He did not assume the account had any scientific value, only that God is responsible for all creation and when something was created a place was prepared for it beforehand.
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I suggest you look into St Augustine much deeper.
 
Dan_Defender said:
One thing that most ‘expert’ scientists claim is that humanity is at least 2 million years old. The problem is that, even with conservative estimates, the world population should be hundreds or thousands of times greater than it is now if humanity were that old. If it is not, then it throws the whole science of fossil dating into question.
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We should find billions of human bones. Where are they all? In addition, population genetics shows the population suddenly fell to almost extinction.
 
One can always say something is “far from settled.” The internet alone is proof of that: any idea, no matter how preposterous, will have some who back it wholeheartedly. The issue is where is the vast bulk of evidence lies.
 
Dan_Defender said:
One thing that most ‘expert’ scientists claim is that humanity is at least 2 million years old. The problem is that, even with conservative estimates, the world population should be hundreds or thousands of times greater than it is now if humanity were that old.
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That’s unachievable on this planet in 2020 - wars over resources would have seen to that. So in all likelihood, those estimates scaled back in time would face the same / similar problems.
 
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sealabeag said:
I did specifically state that I didn’t desire (name removed by moderator)ut from atheists or non-Catholics in this particular thread.
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Good luck with that. There are many threads where somebody is specifically seeking Catholic (name removed by moderator)ut and Joe Atheist or Sally Protestant just has to chime in. I don’t think it’s very helpful either, and it’s often a bit disrespectful.
 
This is a very complex subject for me because I don’t think that evolution is settled science, but I do think it is the most compelling theory we have so far. I can see cracks and flaws that will eventually lead to a paradigm shift, but we aren’t at that point yet (that I know of).

But also a lot of the arguments over whether evolution is settled or not have no bearing on this topic. Even if the entirety of the subject was overturned tomorrow, it wouldn’t change much about the apparent age of the human species or its place in the fossil record. A lot more would have to be overturned (geology, carbon and uranium dating, red shift) before had something that matched the literal Genesis.

Which would bother me if I were concerned with a literal Genesis. I’m not.
 
Inquiry said:
But also a lot of the arguments over whether evolution is settled or not have no bearing on this topic. Even if the entirety of the subject was overturned tomorrow, it wouldn’t change much about the apparent age of the human species or its place in the fossil record. A lot more would have to be overturned (geology, carbon and uranium dating, red shift) before had something that matched the literal Genesis.
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Just wanted to say I appreciate this response. There’s a tendency to throw not just evolution but a dozen other scientific fields into a pot, and if you can find a single unexplained phenomenon in the whole pot, throw the whole pot away. Likewise even for something like evolution, there’s the fundamental principles which would be very difficult to overturn given how much evidence there is, and then there’s the ‘cutting edge’ research trying to use those principles to understand more complex systems; the idea being if cutting edge research is still asking questions you can dismiss the whole theory I guess.
 
There is a plenitude of information from solid Catholic sources on the proper relationship between science and faith.
Bp Barron
Fr Spitzer
Theology of the Body shows you how a saint and world class philosopher/theologian reads Genesis
Documents from the vatican

Take the time to google your questions and get a full Catholic perspective of the issue.
The Church has a long tradition of initiating and appreciating scientific research. Don’t let modernist fundamentalists mislead you.
 
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