Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

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The science is silent about the supernatural argument is not true. We see it in Biology textbooks.

“[E]volution works without either plan or purpose — Evolution is random and undirected.”
(Biology, by Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine (1st ed., Prentice Hall, 1991), pg. 658; (3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1995), pg. 658; (4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998), pg. 658; emphasis in original.)

“Humans represent just one tiny, largely fortuitous, and late-arising twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life.”
(Stephen J Gould quoted in Biology, by Peter H Raven & George B Johnson (5th ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pg 15; (6th ed., McGraw Hill, 2000), pg. 16.)

“By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.”
(Evolutionary Biology, by Douglas J. Futuyma (3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc., 1998), p. 5.)

“Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.”
(Biology: Discovering Life by Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller (1st ed., D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152; (2nd ed… D.C. Heath and Co., 1994), p. 161; emphases in original.)

“Adopting this view of the world means accepting not only the processes of evolution, but also the view that the living world is constantly evolving, and that evolutionary change occurs without any goals.’ The idea that evolution is not directed towards a final goal state has been more difficult for many people to accept than the process of evolution itself.”
(Life: The Science of Biology by William K. Purves, David Sadava, Gordon H. Orians, & H. Craig Keller, (6th ed., Sinauer; W.H. Freeman and Co., 2001), pg. 3.)

“The ‘blind’ watchmaker is natural selection. Natural selection is totally blind to the future. “Humans are fundamentally not exceptional because we came from the same evolutionary source as every other species. It is natural selection of selfish genes that has given us our bodies and brains “Natural selection is a bewilderingly simple idea. And yet what it explains is the whole of life, the diversity of life, the apparent design of life.”
(Richard Dawkins quoted in Biology by Neil A. Campbell, Jane B. Reese. & Lawrence G. Mitchell (5th ed., Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), pgs. 412-413.)
 
“Of course, no species has 'chosen’ a strategy. Rather, its ancestors ‘little by little, generation after generation’ merely wandered into a successful way of life through the action of random evolutionary forces. Once pointed in a certain direction, a line of evolution survives only if the cosmic dice continues to roll in its favor. “[J]ust by chance, a wonderful diversity of life has developed during the billions of years in which organisms have been evolving on earth.
(Biology by Burton S. Guttman (1st ed., McGraw Hill, 1999), pgs. 36-37.)

“It is difficult to avoid the speculation that Darwin, as has been the case with others, found the implications of his theory difficult to confront. “The real difficulty in accepting Darwins theory has always been that it seems to diminish our significance. Earlier, astronomy had made it clear that the earth is not the center of the solar universe, or even of our own solar system. Now the new biology asked us to accept the proposition that, like all other organisms, we too are the products of a random process that, as far as science can show, we are not created for any special purpose or as part of any universal design.”
(Invitation to Biology, by Helena Curtis & N. Sue Barnes(3rd ed., Worth, 1981), pgs. 474-475.)
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This, friends, is why you shouldn’t let writers of bio textbooks do philosophy.

I still don’t see the problem with believing that the way God made things – including us – was (in part) through processes described by the theory of evolution. I find it strange that a majority of biologists, who are people who are paid to know such things and figure out what to do with them, have decided that the theory of evolution is correct and have worked from that premise. Even assuming most of them were fooled by a secularist conspiracy of some sort (pass the tinfoil hat), why does the technology and stuff that assumes the theory of evolution actually function exactly as they expect, even including when they become obsolete (as in vaccines losing effectiveness over time as diseases adapt)?
 
Biologists use it to, among other things, predict the time that vaccines will stop being effective, prescribe antibiotic regimens to prevent the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections like MRSA (and predict and explain their existence in the first place), and explain anatomical and physiological quirks that would make no sense otherwise (like allergies, appendicitis, etc).

And again, if it isn’t true, then why do the majority of biologists insist on using it to explain everything? I for one think that the majority of biologists, even evolutionary biologists, aren’t anti-religious; Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne are famous because they’re the exception, not the rule. I also don’t think that they would prop up and use this scientific theory to smash religion especially since there isn’t anything inherent to Darwinian evolution that contradicts anything theologically true.

I don’t think it makes that much of a difference if an eternal God used a long time (which He is outside of, so it doesn’t make that much of a difference to Him at least) to create something logically consistent and jumping in every once in a while to change the state of the universe so humans, animals, plants, etc would come out of it. It explains so much – everything from why we get appendicitis and lower back pain even though both of those are caused by apparent design flaws (we evolved from quadrupedal herbivores, so our very distant ancestors didn’t need a straight back and did need a large appendix) to why Australia’s flora and fauna have a tendency to kill you (Australia is resource-poor and relatively isolated, so living things that killed off their competition got to survive better because they had fewer things to compete with).
 
Let me be clear. They can’t predict anything. Viruses can change their outer coat using a built-in mechanism. That’s why there are different strains. Obviously, this presents problems for drug companies regarding drug discovery. It’s all trial and error. Evolution provides zero guidance. It cannot help them since the change is caused by a built-in mechanism in the virus. In the case of bacteria, it has a built-in ability called Horizontal Gene Transfer where, upon exposure to a harmful substance, bacteria can exchange bits of genetic material until a combination is achieved that allows them to survive exposure to harmful substances, like drugs. Some human beings obviously have a genetic combination that makes them immune to certain viruses. That’s documented. Otherwise, we’d all be dead.

Biologists can only analyze things after the fact and prescribe “stronger” medications. This still doesn’t help in drug discovery. Evolution theory is silent about God. That alone contradicts Divine Revelation. It leaves out critical information about who human beings are. Using only the biology textbook, we are nothing more than biological machines. That’s it. Nothing else. Attaching God or theology to that is meaningless. And design flaws? Tell that to Olympic athletes.
 
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Appendicitis has zero to do with evolution. Some people get it, some don’t.
 
You beat me to it.

There’s nothing to do with evolution in drug resistance. It’s all about what is already built-in to them, as in the case you describe above, carrying and transfering plasmids. They may for example, code for an enzyme that denatures penecillin, which interferes with the maintenance of their structure. If MRSA boiled down to the bacterium’s developing a differently structured enzyme that would bind to and connect the precursors forming the cell wall, but not do so with penecillin, drug resistance would never have developed.

The way it works is this. The Theory of Evolution, for all its uselessness and incapacity to explain much of anything, has become such a hard line fact in the world of Biology, that any new finding or attempt at an explanation has to demonstrate that it conforms to it. That’s probably why some people may actually not hear much mention of it, they don’t read biology.

Agreed; there are no design flaws. This is the way it is meant to be given all the factors involved in creating life - this isn’t a dream.
 
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edwest211 said:
we too are the products of a random process that, as far as science can show, we are not created for any special purpose
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Right - as far as science can show…

To the best of our scientific capacity to determine;
  • evolutionarionary processes appear undirected (though results are not random in light of natural selection);
  • we have no apparent purpose
This is science - what is it expected to show? There is no conflict with the religious belief set down by the faith, though some believe there is, and thus are fearful.
 
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I think it’s the other way around. Secularists are fearful. Afraid that we’ll accept God as our Creator and as God. That as opposed to: “You’re all just biological robots, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die.” And have lots of sex and use lots of drugs because pleasure is all that matters. You can’t have that after you die.

For secularists, why should they care if we add God to the theory? All they’ll have to say is, It doesn’t matter.

 
There is a Culture War going on fueled by mistaken ideas and outright hatred for others. Tolerance is only meant for the few, and for some, that excludes the religious.
 
edwest211 said:
In the case of bacteria, it has a built-in ability called Horizontal Gene Transfer where, upon exposure to a harmful substance, bacteria can exchange bits of genetic material until a combination is achieved that allows them to survive exposure to harmful substances, like drugs.
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That’s evolution.
 
There is truth and there is baloney. Listening to the media and some media outlets means some people are overdosing on propaganda and don’t realize it. Not all ideas are good ones. And the propagandists know this. Get a good book on psychological warfare. I’ve seen it practiced here in some cases. Truth is truth, not lies or half truth and half what someone wants you to believe.

Ideas can be rejected after careful study, but I refuse to be spoon-fed. Recently, after reading a few things, I realized one description was totally false and another was only partly true, with speculation mixed in.
 
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