Thank you, dixieagle! Does your X-in-law encounter anti-evolutionist creationism in teaching? I began my university teaching career a quarter century ago, and it was virtually unknown then. But there has been a creeping Protestant anti-science movement infiltrating the Catholic Church in the last decade or so.
They are based on the exact same scientific principals and methods as any other scientific endeavor. There are not two scientific methods. So, once again, as soon as you stop enjoying the comfortable benefits of science, THEN and ONLY THEN can you begin to discuss how science is a giant deception.
That’s my exact point, some Catholics want to believe that scientific principals and methods can produce “some” insights (as much insight to create computers and launch communicate satellites, you know, the things that comfortable Catholics enjoy using) but the EXACT same science is then attacked when it begins to step on beliefs.
All science is not the same. It is not the EXACT same science.
I’ve never met one of these. Nor have I met a gravity acceptor who “puts her or his trust” in Newton.
I think I’m going to bow out of this thread soon and start a one or two new threads because what’s largely being addressed here is evolution in general, and all I’m really interested in is common descent. Likewise, I think we’ve got evolution in general confused with the monogenism/polygenism(?) argument (i.e., whether all humans can be traced back to a single pair of truly human ancestors or can only be traced back to an original breeding pool of 30,000 or more). We need to split these topics out or else we’ll be talking past each other forever. So, be on the lookout for “Evolution: Common Descent” and “Evolution: Monogenism vs Polygenism”.
You act like scientists who work in evolutionary studies are totally abandoning the scientific principals and methods that produced the truths that allowed all your cool electronic gadgets. That is incorrect. They employ the same principals and methods. That’s all I’m saying.
The article also says:
Clearly, Pope Benedict XVI accepts the fact of evolution itself even though he may have differences with scientists regarding the process of evolution.
Well, Mike, although the Pope uses words not commonly strung together the way he did, all he’s saying is that God cannot be left out of the equation. If you want to leave God out, that’s up to you, but all Catholics believe that God was directly involved. To paraphrase Pope Benedict – God’s involvement is not to be regarded as illogical or unscientific or mythic.
Chance unfairly gets a bad rap: why is it so frequently paired negatively with “error”? Chance has a role to play in a lot of things we value: who wins a poker game, which team gets the better draw in a basketball tournament, which sperm reaches the egg first, which airplane makes it to its destination without mishap, whose house is spared by a tornado.
Go to an atheist web forum. I just read on one how we should be gateful that the sun is exactly the right distance from the earth. Why? It was just chance that the sun is the right distance from the earth. If it wasn’t, nobody would be around to worry about it anyway.
Well Ed, let’s just kick back and see what happens. Since “they” are made of Teflon it won’t stick but it’ll be fun to watch.
Yes – the fine tuning argument can be used in both ways. But for a Catholic God is the purpose behind the chance!
And the verbal gymnastics begins. I told you that it would be fun. “purpose behind the chance” you have GOT to be kidding.
Nothing about the theistic evolutionist’s position contradicts any of this. God cannot be “left out” even from wholly “natural” processes because even “natural” processes work only because God has willed them to do so in that fashion. For example, every time an electron seeks to pass from one atom to another, God is involved – He can say, “Okay,” and let it happen, or He can say, “No,” and prevent it. Likewise, any time the copying process in a single gene seeks to go awry, God is there to say “yea” or “nay” to the occurrence.
Here’s where I think you’re getting hung up. You’re basically saying, “I should be able to see God working in this.” But instead of looking at the natural world and seeing God at work in all of it, you’re waiting for the unexplainable to occur, and only then will you say, “Look! There is God!” It is as if your primary rule for detecting God at work is, “If there’s a natural explanation for it, then God wasn’t involved in it.”
Not at all. Have you ever played a children’s game involving chance? Candyland, perhaps? Or an adult game like poker? What is the purpose of your playing the game? Is the purpose contradicted by chance being involved? Why or why not?
That is the mass market concept of reality. Something came from nothing. RNA, then DNA invented itself and programmed itself.