Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

[HarryStotle]

A fertilized human zygote is a single cell. It is alive, but it does not have consciousness and it does not have personal identity. Both of those emerge during later development. They are emergent properties, dependant on the growth of the brain.

rossum

Consciousness and personal identity arise with development. That indicates a correlation, but not necessarily causation. The “hard problem” of consciousness is yet to be resolved despite your roosting on “emergent properties” as the solution, when it is more an assertion than a solution. There has been no functional basis for consciousness found by neuroscientists. Until that slight shortcoming has been rectified, “emergent property” is a very low-resolution attempt to explain a very complex and vexing problem. Very low-resolution, as in a scribble sketch of the “solution” on the back of a placemat done by a two year old in wax crayon.

 

[frobert]

I see where your going with this, I just wanted to know if there was any scientific reason why a new species emerges from a different species. I’d like to think it has to do with adapting to an environment but that’s unlikely

It is likely a combination of adapting to an environment and hybridization.

Explosion in species diversity due to hybridization

No less than 500 new species of cichlids, brightly coloured perch-like fish, evolved in Lake Victoria (East Africa) over the past 15,000 years – a record in the animal and plant world. This evolutionary puzzle has now been solved by scientists. They demonstrate for the first time that this rapid evolution was facilitated by earlier hybridization between two distantly related cichlid species from the Upper Nile and Congo drainage systems.

Coywolf Publications

This page succinctly summarizes and provides PDFs of the recent papers that describe the coywolf and how it formed thru hybridization between western coyotes and eastern wolves, as well as with gray wolves and domestic dogs. It is most likely that human induced habitat changes (i.e., clearing the forest) and persecution of wolves allowed western coyotes to colonize the east starting in the 1800s. On their collective way past the Great Lakes states, western coyotes met eastern wolves in southeastern Ontario and the two species hybridized in the early 1900s to form this hybrid “coywolf”. Recent data shows that this animal also has gray wolf and domestic dog genetic introgression as well. The animal subsequently colonized and saturated just about all available habitats in the Northeast US and Southeastern Canada since those early colonization events.

See also:

Humans are driving the evolution of new species — and that could be just as bad as causing extinctions

 

[Aloysium]

I always say strange things; that’s my forte. To be effective in the real world, one does need a strong commitment to the truth, which is centred on the Living Truth and revealed in Jesus Christ. It is perhaps not so much strange as it is surprisingly simple, joyous, obvious but surprising.

I’m really not interested in arguing, but if you want to understand what I’m saying, I would suggest that you go back and read Ed’s quotes posted above. I don’t think you and others who are pushing for evolution understand what it means as it is understood scientifically, taught in our schools and poorly portray in the various media. Its implications are not lost to people like Dr. R. Dawkins, but evidently to various Catholic posters on this forum.

In the end, what is important is one’s relationship with God. It is a personal matter and if somehow, believing that we are a species of animal helps by fostering humility or enabling one to connect better with nature, and thereby enhance one’s connection with the Divine, that’s great. It should be noted that societies that are Shamanistic and closer to nature, tend to elevate animal souls rather than to debase the human spirit, which materialism, in its different forms, actually denies.

The bottom line is that Theory of Evolution is the modern equivalent of the Ptolemaic model of the universe. It places matter at the centre of all that is, rather than God, the Light, the life-giving sun around which all creation revolves.

 

[Aloysium]

We define what is a species.
Our criteria for categorization is not necessarily consistent with reality.
That is what your example above tells us.
A similar case is that of Neanderthals who are understood as being a different species from Homo Sapiens, but are now being increasingly seen as having been human.

 

[rossum]

There has been no functional basis for consciousness found by neuroscientists.

I think that you will find that the brain constitutes a “functional basis” for consciousness. If we remove someone’s brain do you think that they will still be conscious? You are obviously talking to the wrong neuroscientists.

rossum

 

[rossum]

To be effective in the real world, one does need a strong commitment to the truth, which is centred on the Living Truth and revealed in Jesus Christ.

Off topic, but why? I agree with the strong commitment to truth, but is a Jew’s commitment to truth somehow less? A Sikh’s? A Buddhist’s?

$0.02

rossum

 

[HarryStotle]

I think that you will find that the brain constitutes a “functional basis” for consciousness. If we remove someone’s brain do you think that they will still be conscious? You are obviously talking to the wrong neuroscientists.

rossum

Well, since we have no privileged access into anyone’s state of consciousness other than our own, we have no idea what happens to someone’s consciousness when we remove their brain. What we have taken away is the pathway that consciousness uses to indicate itself to the physical observing world. That hardly rules out the endurance of consciousness, which isn’t exactly accessible to scientific observation. The functional basis of consciousness being generally attributed to the brain is hardly demonstrative of your claim. We all know the sky is blue, except that it isn’t.

 

[frobert]

We define what is a species.
Our criteria for categorization is not necessarily consistent with reality.
That is what your example above tells us.
A similar case is that of Neanderthals who are understood as being a different species from Homo Sapiens, but are now being increasingly seen as having been human.

I’d like to keep an open so would you provide some scientific links to the above?

 

[rossum]

Well, since we have no privileged access into anyone’s state of consciousness other than our own, we have no idea what happens to someone’s consciousness when we remove their brain.

Jellyfish do not have a brain. How do you know whether or not a jellyfish has consciousness. Whatever method you use could presumably also be applied to a human with their brain removed.

If you require 100% knowledge and ‘proof’ from science, then it is only fair to expect the same from you.

We can access a part of the consciousness of animals with the Mirror Test. We know that jellyfish fail the test, though chimps, some cetaceans and a few birds can pass it.

rossum

 

[Gorgias]

Adam instead of humankind. That works real well. Thanks

An imprecise translation doesn’t prove your invalid point.

There will be two parents.

Sure. The question, though, is whether you’re saying that these two parents are representative of an aggregate population. That’s where your construction gets into trouble…

 

[Gorgias]

Indeed. ToE is a direct product of atheism; it’s their bedtime “creation story”.

Here’s the thing: evolution, as a scientific theory, isn’t a problem. After all, it fits within the structures and framework of scientific thought; it will be proven or disproven, just like all scientific theories.

Heck, I’m not even bummed that scientists don’t admit to the actions of God in their narratives of the origins of the universe – after all, they don’t deal in supernatural, only in empirical.

Where folks get into trouble, though, is when they blend science and theology, and turn the ToE into a philosophical worldview. It’s one thing to say “I cannot comment about the ‘hand of God’ in this scientific theory, since that’s not a matter on which science speaks”, but something totally different to assert “there is no God, since all of creation is undirected.”

It’s this latter assertion that we, as Christians, should address, since it encroaches on our territory of the theological sphere. Is it OK for scientists to suggest the appearance of undirectedness? Sure – since they have no empirical evidence to suggest a natural ‘first cause.’ But, when they use that observation to assert that God does not exist… well, at that point, they’ve “crossed the streams”, to use a ‘Ghostbusters’ reference…

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

We define what is a species.
Our criteria for categorization is not necessarily consistent with reality.
That is what your example above tells us.
A similar case is that of Neanderthals who are understood as being a different species from Homo Sapiens, but are now being increasingly seen as having been human.

I’d like to keep an open so would you provide some scientific links to the above?

I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m assuming you are saying that you are trying to have an open mind:

In that regard, you might find this of interest:

Neanderthal brains 'grew more slowly'

A new study shows that Neanderthal brains developed more slowly than ours.

www.bbc.com

The time that a brain takes to develop reflects its complexity and the social structure that is necessary to look after and educate the young.

Here’s a wikepedia link regarding taxonomy, if that was what you were referring to:

Taxonomy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

To be effective in the real world, one does need a strong commitment to the truth, which is centred on the Living Truth and revealed in Jesus Christ.

Off topic, but why? I agree with the strong commitment to truth, but is a Jew’s commitment to truth somehow less? A Sikh’s? A Buddhist’s?

$0.02

rossum

We each and all of us have a relationship with the Truth. In and through Christ is the way I can best describe how we get ever closer to it, Him actually. The holiest person, and therefore closest to the Truth, I have met in person, and recognized as such, was a Hindu.

 

[frobert]

The links I provided were examples of specialization in progress.

There is disagreement among biologist if the Coywolf is a separate species or not. Here is one enlargement for:

Science, at its best, is self-correcting, and new science often leads one in new directions. As biologists, we are charged with accurately describing natural systems, and for this reason alone it is important that we accurately characterize (and even debate about) the systems that we are studying. The more I investigate the coywolf, the more I realize it is different than other canids, including western coyotes.

Perhaps the most important finding from our recent paper is that new species status, Canis oriens, is warranted for this cool creature. While there may be continued controversy over the simple naming scheme of this canid, the premises in this paper better explain why coywolf is an appropriate term to use moving forward.

Source…

The Neanderthal link you provided attests to how science self corrects and increases our knowledge.

The finding raises the intriguing possibility that the Neanderthals’ slightly slower brain development meant that their brains might have been more advanced than ours. But Prof Rosas prefers a more prosaic interpretation.

“Neanderthals have a larger brain and larger body and so it is logical to think that the brain of the Neanderthal continues to grow for a little longer to allow their brains and bodies to get to their adult size,” he explained.

Before this finding, scientists believed that modern humans were the slowest growing species. Now we know that Neanderthals took slightly longer, suggesting that both species inherited this growth pattern from a now extinct common ancestor.

 

[edwest21]

That is actually a good answer. One does not need to understand evolution. As long as you accept it without thinking about its obvious faults and obvious misuse - you’re checked off as OK. You’re no longer on the target list. Some con-men will lead you further along - speaking generally.

 

[edwest21]

That’s pure speculation. Nothing more. Some human kids today learn at a highly accelerated level, others don’t.

 

[setarcos]

Has anyone seen the documentary on Netflix called “Is Genesis History?”? I watched about 3/4 of it last night and while I don’t agree with some points presented overall the documentary was presented in an engaging manner including several PhD’s explaining why our current scientific paradigm of a billions of years old earth may have to be revised to a much, much, earlier creation paradigm. Some of their evidence was compelling hard science. Yet admittedly the documentary was conspicuously one sided so far only allowing for one viewpoint with no complimentary counter arguments presented by other scientists of an old earth view point. Still it was interesting and presented good ideas to do more research on.

 

[setarcos]

This perplexes me. The closest person you’ve met in person to the truth was a Hindu? If you hold yourself to be Catholic that cant possibly be accurate. What in Hinduisms foundational thinking is compatible to Catholic truth?

 

[setarcos]

Just curious, what made you choose Buddhism as your truth system?

 

[niceatheist]

Does Darwin’s theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

According to most of the recent Popes, no. I imagine they are always mindful of St. Augustine’s warning not to interpret scripture in a way that even nonbelievers know to be false.