Darwin's Theory of Evolution is not scientific

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catholic1seeks said:
What is your alternative theory?

@Uriel1, you may have your private opinions, but the Catholic Church has been clear in the last century, including the last 5 or 6 popes, that a Catholic can accept evolution as an explanation for the development of organisms, and even of the human body.

This really shouldn’t be in Apologetics. Someone ought to move it to the water cooler forum (or whatever it’s called).

No Catholic needs to defend his or her beliefs against evolution, for a Catholic can accept evolution.

Don’t waste your time, people. You can be Catholic and accept evolution. There is absolutely NO threat. Aquinas would be turning in his grave.
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The Church is ambivalent on Darwinist Evolution, and teaches that God is His action as the first cause of the universe just spoke Creation into being.

Man is both material and spiritual, “embodied spirits” as Saint Thomas Aquinas said. The body may or may not be a product of God driven evolution, but the soul is created by God alone. Why if God could make the spirit, would He need evolution to make the body?

Faith and reason must always be ordered to truth. This means that scientific findings cannot contradict the tenets of our Catholic Faith. The Church has declared a position on evolution so we should seek out that teaching before talking like fools about it.

God may or may not have used secondary causes to create man, & the fossil record suggests not. That missing link, and that’s plural, remains missing. God gave mankind reason so that we can come to know Him through the wonder of His Creation.

Philosophia naturalis and then the natural sciences have proposed evolution as a hypothesis but evolution doesn’t tell us everything, and cannot make predictions so cannot be tested. Science cannot explain the spiritual realities of man and God so many use that to reject both the spirit, and the Spirit of Truth.

Caritate non ficta
 
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Actually, the fossil record suggests otherwise.

Besides, what’s the point of dinosaurs and the like if they’re all due to special creation? Why would God waste billions of years before creating man?
 
catholic1seeks said:
Actually, the fossil record suggests otherwise.

Besides, what’s the point of dinosaurs and the like if they’re all due to special creation? Why would God waste billions of years before creating man?
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  1. There is no verified evidence of a fossil record of the origin of birds, nor man from some early primate. If you know of any, name it.
  2. No idea, but please don’t question God
    .
    Rom 9:19-21 One of you will say to me, “Then why does God still find fault? For who can resist His will?” 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?…
Caritate non ficta
 
Uriel1 said:
the law of gravity is a physics theory
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As others have pointed out, your understanding of science is faulty here. Newton’s Laws of Gravity were shown to be insufficient by Einstein and were replaced by Einstein’s Theory (note that word) of General Relativity. In its turn, Einstein’s theory of General Relativity will be replaced by a theory (same word again) of Quantum Gravity.
It has been tested and proven which makes it a law.
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Here is where your understanding of science is faulty. No scientific theory (or law) is ever “proven”. Proof is for mathematics, not science. All scientific theories are “the best we have so far”. All scientific theories are open to replacement by a better theory, just as Newton was replaced by Einstein and Einstein will be replaced by whoever comes up with Quantum Gravity.
Evolution is a mere hypothesis all experiments on which have failed to reproduce even simple abiogenesis , ref Miller Urey
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Your sources are misinforming you. Evolution is a theory, not a hypothesis. Abiogenesis is outwith evolution, though connected to it. So far we only have hypotheses for abiogenesis; we have not yet made enough progress yet to eliminate most of the possible abiogenesis hypotheses.

That is how science works; a group of hypotheses are put forward to explain something and other scientists shoot them down. The last hypothesis standing (if such exists) gets promoted to a theory. Any time later, a new hypothesis can be proposed and again other scientists try to shoot it down. If it survives that and it a) explains all that the existing theory explains and b) explains some things that the existing theory cannot explain, then it will replace the existing theory.

For example, Newton’s Theory could not correctly explain the precession of the orbit of Mercury or Eddington’s observations. Einstein’s theory could explain everything that Newton’s theory covered as well as both the precession of the orbit of Mercury and Eddington’s observations. Hence General Relativity replaced Newton’s Gravity.
Evolution is a failed hypothesis
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No. Evolution is a successful scientific theory. Abiogenesis is not yet a theory and is currently working at reducing the number of viable hypotheses.

rossum
 
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Philip Johnson was a lawyer. He was well qualified as a lawyer; he was not well qualified as a scientist.

I would have no problem taking his advice on (American) law.

rossum
 
Why on earth has this got to 70 posts?

If someone comes up to you in a bar and starts spouting nonsense, do you think: ‘hey this is a good time for me to show how dumb he is’?

Or do you do your best to avoid him?

Just asking is all…
 
Uriel1 said:
…and my specific gripe is that the Evolutionists will say “Gravity is only a theory too,” ; the difference is that Gravitational Theory makes testable predictions whereas Evolution cannot do that as it is a mere hypothesis
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Evolution can make testable predictions. Some of those predictions take millions of years to verify, so if you are in a hurry, that is your problem, not a problem with the theory. Let me give you an example of another testable prediction in radioactive theory that would take a long time to verify:

“The half-life of radium is 1600 years”. That is, half of the radium will be changed into something else after 1600 years. That prediction is testable. But you would have to wait 1600 years to perform the test. “Wait!” you say. “We can measure the decay of radium over just one or two years and then extrapolate to 1600 years.” But how do you know that extrapolation is valid? It has been less than 1600 years since radium was discovered. We only assume that the pattern set by short-term observations will continue forever into the future.
 
Similarly, for evolution, we have very small scale examples of what some call “micro-evolution” where we can change some aspect of the environment and watch a life form evolve to match that environment. It has been done for centuries in dog breeding and corn breeding, etc. We select for certain characteristics, and lo and behold, those characteristics being to emerge in the population and are inherited. Where did the information come from on how to make organisms that match the characteristics we select for? Darwinism says they come from random mutations. Some forms if Intelligent Design say that they were already present in the genome, and are just now being expressed. But is that an adequate explanation for what happens during artificial selection (as opposed to natural selection)? One may be able to argue that an intelligent designer pre-programmed the genome so that characteristics desirable for environments that might arise in the natural world might then arise when needed. But surely that does not explain changes that occur in artificial selection. In breeding dogs, for example, it is hard to believe that the potential for a wolf turning into an modern English Bulldog. The characteristics of this breed are really bad for the dog. Over 80% of English Bulldogs are delivered Caesarean section because their heads are too big to fit through the birth canal. They require daily bathing because of the excess folds of skin. They die after about 6 years and have cardiac problems. They have a high incidence of birth defects. They have a severe underbite that results in dental problems. They gag when they eat. They are not healthy. The modern breed is about as far from nature as you can get. These deficiencies were not present in the original bulldog. The characteristics came from deliberate selection by humans for our own perverted sense of what some want to see in a dog. Does anyone really think an intelligent designer pre-programmed the genome of the wolf in anticipation of this abomination of a canine? No. The only reasonable explanation is that these are the result of random mutations that would have died out in nature, but because we are interfering in the selection process, these random mutations do not die out but actually dominate.

So we have Darwinism confirmed by experiment at the micro-evolution level. Then we project micro-evolution to macro evolution and we have full-blown Darwinism, scientifically tested. At least it is tested to the same extent that we have tested that radium will decay by half after 1600 years.
 
I know an otherwise very intelligent person who is a “flat-earther.” No amount of reasoning will convince him that the earth is not flat. I can make a scientific prediction based on prior observation that this thread will not be ended by either logic or reason.
 
Well that’s the way it is on forums like this, just endless futile argumentation to pass the time.
 
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What is the sound of one poster arguing? (or something like that) 🙂

rossum
 
you havent answered my specific questions or provided peer reviewed analytical chemistry for your claims on GI of wheat varietals.
 
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Think about it? Is this not what we would expect if the theory was not valid? Some coincidence, huh?
 
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You misunderstand. We did not come from monkeys. Both monkeys and humans cam from earlier creatures that may no longer exist. Creatures that may be common ancestors.
 
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