Does Darwin's theory of evolution contradict Catholicsm?

[rossum]

The fact is that in general mutations are bad.

Not strictly so. The majority of mutations are neutral, having no effect. The majority of the non-neutral mutations are indeed deleterious, which is presumably what you are thinking of.

As a reminder, people here are talking about creation, which the Theoey of Evolution denies.

No it does not. Evolution is religiously neutral. It says nothing about whether or not YHWH, Allah, Durga or Vishnu was involved in the process. It just describes the process based on the evidence we find in the world. Some people, like Richard Dawkins, try to make religious claim based on science. Other people, like Ken Ham, try to make scientific claims based on religion. Both are making a category error.

They are also asserting that there were only two original human parents, which again the Theory denies.

The Pope talks about two “true human” parents. Since biology does not have the ability to distinguish which fossils had a soul and which didn’t, then it cannot determine how many is a given population of Homo sapiens had souls, if any.

Darwin’s theory not only tells us nothing about how life arose

Have you read the title of Darwin’s book? “On the Origin of Species”. It explains how species originate, it does not explain, nor was it intended to explain, the origin of life. That is a different topic, called abiogenesis, which is still being worked on.

As a philosophical point, creation cannot explain the origin of life, since the Creator is Himself alive. A living creator cannot create the first living thing, but can at best create the second living thing.

rossum

 

[Techno2000]

We evolved to be JEALOUS: Scientists p(name removed by moderator)oint envy in the brain of monkeys, and say we inherited the trait to help protect our most valuable resources

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4978552/Scientists-p(name removed by moderator)oint-jealousy-monogamous-mind.html

 

[Aloysium]

Evolution is religiously neutral. It says nothing about whether or not YHWH, Allah, Durga or Vishnu was involved in the process. It just describes the process based on the evidence we find in the world. Some people, like Richard Dawkins, try to make religious claim based on science. Other people, like Ken Ham, try to make scientific claims based on religion. Both are making a category error.

Darwin’s theory not only tells us nothing about how life arose
As a philosophical point, creation cannot explain the origin of life, since the Creator is Himself alive. A living creator cannot create the first living thing, but can at best create the second living thing.

Evolution is a concept by which we try to understand the world around us. The reality to which it speaks includes the complexity of the entire universe. The assertion that it is religiously neutral cannot be made without knowledge of that underlying reality. The fact is that excluding God makes it anything but neutral. To be truly neutral it should acknowledge the Truth that is God, whatever name, as you seem to infer, that we give the Divine Ground or Cause of our being.

I have to say that science itself is most definitely not religiously neutral. It exists as a human enterprise, something we do. Its role as fodder for internet forums is part of what it does to unite and separate groups through shared visions of the world. Beyond that, it is all about politics, economics and fame. People take science courses because they are good at it, because it will lead to a job, heightening the capacity to get a spouse and grow a family, because it will make them famous and grant them more power within the social hierarchy. Doing science involves making moral choices. It’s most important role however, is the revelation of God’s glory. Unfortunately, the field of biology in large part is failing in this duty.

To repeat what has been stated many times before, God is Life itself, Existence. As much as you and I are persons, His reality transcends that - think Supreme Being. We are here finite, separate from everything else, relating to that which is other. We commune with that other when we love. God is Love itself, Self-and-Other, Father and Son, joined in the mutual giving of themselves through the Holy Spirit - one simple, eternal Act of Love, by which and through which we as creatures come into being. We derive our being from our Creator. Everyone can know this through what has been revealed. There are also some the world over, in all societies who through God’s grace have realized this in contemplation of their existence, meditation and prayer. Each would speak from what that knowledge which has been gifted to them, in those terms used within their culture. I’m not sure what you mean by what comes across as a play on words, but yes, we are other to God. However, given a capacity to love, to give ourselves over to Him, through Jesus Christ, in other words, we can be one with Him.

 

[rossum]

The reality to which it speaks includes the complexity of the entire universe.

The universe of science is the material universe. It does not speak to the immaterial universe. For example, you will not find any scientific studies of the soul.

The fact is that excluding God makes it anything but neutral.

So mathematics and chemistry are also not neutral? You will not find a mention of God in a chemistry or a maths textbook. Part of the success of science is that it limits itself to specific areas of study and does not try to stray outside those boundaries. Yes, much truth lies outside those boundaries: you will not find the correct declensions of French irregular verbs in a biology textbook. Similarly you will not find a discussion of hydrogen fusion in a theology textbook. All subject areas inevitably leave out parts of human knowledge.

To repeat what has been stated many times before, God is Life itself, Existence. As much as you and I are persons, His reality transcends that - think Supreme Being.

And you will find none of that in a history book about the development of the Chinese Empire under the Ming Dynasty. You are rejecting huge swathes of human knowledge because it does not read like a theology textbook. Should a Hindu reject all American History books because they do not give a central role to Vishnu?

The basic problem science has with God is neatly encapsulated in a classic cartoon:
rossum

 

[Aloysium]

The universe of science is the material universe. It does not speak to the immaterial universe. For example, you will not find any scientific studies of the soul.

So mathematics and chemistry are also not neutral? You will not find a mention of God in a chemistry or a maths textbook. Part of the success of science is that it limits itself to specific areas of study and does not try to stray outside those boundaries. Yes, much truth lies outside those boundaries: you will not find the correct declensions of French irregular verbs in a biology textbook. Similarly you will not find a discussion of hydrogen fusion in a theology textbook. All subject areas inevitably leave out parts of human knowledge.

And you will find none of that in a history book about the development of the Chinese Empire under the Ming Dynasty. You are rejecting huge swathes of human knowledge because it does not read like a theology textbook. Should a Hindu reject all American History books because they do not give a central role to Vishnu?

The basic problem science has with God is neatly encapsulated in a classic cartoon:

The universe is what it is. Science is a cognitive lens that sees what is quantifiable.

What is material is what we see, hear, and feel, be it pleasure or pain, the words we use, the images, symbols and diagrams we use to communicate to ourselves and others the contents of our experience; everything that is happening here and now is a material event organized by a spirit, relational in nature, who ultimately makes it one. That is the material in itself, and not as shadows in our minds. Atoms may be said to have inanimate “souls”, making them what they are as they relate with other atoms, built as one whole from lesser subatomic forms of being. They in turn become part of a greater whole and we ultimately have this unity that is the person within creation and grounded in God, Existence itself. That’s the material in and of itself, and all science studies its various forms of being, their “soul”.

Mathematics and Chemistry are of a different order than evolution, and also between them. Mathematics rests on quantification and can be applied to anything as long as we are able to translate it into some numerical or geometric form. Chemistry utilizes mathematics to understand specific levels of structure within that dimension that we call material. Evolution is a theory which utilizes both of these disciplines and thereby quite inadequately descibes how mankind was formed from the earth in time.

Best history I ever read was Lewis Mumford’s Technics and Civilization about half a century ago. It speaks about people’s lives and how they envisioned their world in keeping with the tools they employed. Religion has to do with our relationship with one another, with the rest of the world and with our Creator. It matters little to me who were the kings, presidents and generals. Perhaps we should reject all history books that don’t revolve around mankind’s search for meaning, goodness and truth, in contrast to the litany of sins that fills them today. Wishful thinking to be sure.

 

[rossum]

The basic problem science has with God is neatly encapsulated in a classic cartoon:

Whoops! The cartoon seemed to upload correctly, but it has disappeared.

You can see it here, and the caption is: “I think you should be more explicit here in step two.”

rossum

 

[niceatheist]

“move the goal posts” Almost funny. I wonder who first decided to eat cheese with mold on it? No, nylon has a chemical structure that bacteria, through their built-in mechanism of horizontal gene transfer, made it digestible. But the point is, they remained bacteria.

Except that they didn’t just suddenly starting eating nylon. They evolved that ability. Obviously that was based on their ability to metabolize other organic compounds, but then again, that’s how evolution works. You and Glark really have no idea what the theory says. You keep even invoking its concepts, as if somehow they disprove the theory itself.

 

[niceatheist]

niceatheist:

Techno2000:

niceatheist:

The bill of a platypus is not a beak structure. It may look a bit like one, but that’s like saying the fins of a whale look like wings.

So what is the structure of the Roseate Spoonbill ?

You could start with the fact that bird’s beaks are keratinized layer of epidermis (skin), whereas the platypus’s bill is essentially a rubbery snout. They are two different structures that just happen to look alike. The resemblance isn’t even really skin deep.

What about Pelicans ?

Are you just going to keep going down the list of birds trying to find one that you imagine has a similar structure to a platypus’s snout. You lost the argument, the platypus has a snout that looks a little like a duck’s bill. It isn’t a bill, it isn’t a beak, it’s a snout. Whether it’s a duck, a pelican, an African swallow, a dodo, a crow, a goose, a turkey, a chicken, an albatross, an ostrich, or any other species of bird you care to mention, they possess a beak, which is only distantly related to the snout of a mammal (including the snout of a platypus).

Seriously, taxonomists have known a platypus is a mammal since the first specimens were analyzed. They’ve known the “bill” is just a specialized mammalian snout. No one has ever seriously thought that God took a duck’s bill and plopped on the head of a mammal. Good grief, you reached infantile levels here.

 

[Aloysium]

I thought I was very explicit. The miracle, as the pinnacle of this grandest of miracles which is creation, manifesting God’s infinite glory and love, is the creation of the human soul. You are clearly aware of the vacuum that exists in the modern scientific understanding of what it is to be human and how we came to be here. You filled it by claiming it was inconsequential, beyond the pay scale of scientists, or perhaps that there was no gap between nothingness and mathematics, chemistry and theories, right or wrong.

Again, everything is a form of being arranged in a hierarchy that can be understood as ranging from the simplest, “light”, to the most complex, mankind. Each being alternates from existing in itself (particle) and being part of (entangled with others of a like nature) a greater whole (as a “wave”). God took the slime, organic matter He had previously created and gave it a new type of soul, His own spirit, thereby bringing into existence mankind, you and I. Individually and together we have the capacity to become one within the Triune Godhead.

Just a short comment on the use of cartoons in replies: If one doesn’t know that the recipient will find it funny, one runs the risk of not being taken seriously. Hardly an issue for internet denizens who are posting to get reactions when they are not just only speaking to themselves. I am trying to engage in a serious meaningful discussion.

In spite of its not being funny, the cartoon does have value as a point of discussion. The interesting thing is that the space where it writes “miracle” into the equations, as you would fill it with knowledge, it would become ever greater - the infinite mystery and wonder of Existence.

 

[Glark]

DAWKINS: I think that’s a tremendous cop-out. If God wanted to create life and create humans, it would be slightly odd that he should choose the extraordinarily roundabout way of waiting for 10 billion years before life got started and then waiting for another 4 billion years until you got human beings capable of worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in.

Good point, Richard. And get this: After waiting at least 14 billion years for Adam to appear, God created Eve instantaneously! Don’t laugh - this is what millions of Catholics actually believe!

 

[Glark]

You keep saying this, and it simply isn’t true.

Sorry, but it is true. The theory that all life on earth evolved from unicellular life forms cannot be tested and has no use in applie science. You seem to have trouble accepting these facts.

 

[niceatheist]

Sure it can. The prediction would be that all extant species would fall into a tree of life, whose roots are the LUCA. Sure enough the molecular data confirms that. We’ve been over this several times now

 

[Glark]

The writings of the Fathers, who were much closer than we are in time and culture to the original audience of Genesis, show that this was not the case. There was wide variation of opinion on how long creation took. Some said only a few days; others argued for a much longer, indefinite period. Those who took the latter view appealed to the fact “that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8; cf. Ps. 90:4), that light was created on the first day, but the sun was not created till the fourth day (Gen. 1:3, 16), and that Adam was told he would die the same “day” as he ate of the tree, yet he lived to be 930 years old (Gen. 2:17, 5:5)." (Catholic Answers)

First,of all, this evo-propaganda is simply not true. The vast majority of the early Chirch Fathers believed in a literal six days of creation. The ones who didn’t formed a very small minority.

Secondly, be aware that Catholics Answers is definitely on the side of evolution. As an example of it’s bias, take Jimmy Akins’ article, “Evolution and the Magisterium”: In it there is not one mention of Humani Generis, in which Pius XII states the obligation of Catholics to believe that Adam and Eve were not only real, historical people, but that no other humans existed when they were created. This obligation is not what an Evo-Catholic like Jimmy wants to hear, hence its conspicuous absence from his article. (In an earllier post I discussed Jimmy back-to-front, unbiblical reading of Exodus 20:11 re the six days of creation.)

Glark, are you a Fundamentalist?

I don’t know. What is a “Fundamentalist”?

if the facts about evolution are real

Which “facts”? The theory that all life on earth evolved from unicellular forms is untestable … therefore it can never, ever be established as a fact.

Also are you trying to debunk evolution?

Depends what you mean by “evolution”. Antibiotiic resistance is “evolution”. So is breeding a sheep dog from a wolf. So is a whale descending from a rodent.

 

[Glark]

It looks like it was hand painted.

Don’t let that fool you. Dumb, stupid, mindless Nature can produce things that look designed - science says so. For example, consider the four faces on Mt. Rushmore and the Sphinx in Egypt, which are the results of wind and water erosion. The action of wind and tides can also write people’s name in the sand on a beach.

 

[Glark]

Plus, what did the Oyster do before it’s shell evolved ?

That’s a good question.

 

[Glark]

Sure it can. The prediction would be that all extant species would fall into a tree of life, whose roots are the LUCA. Sure enough the molecular data confirms that. We’ve been over this several times now

Firstly, you seem to be confusing empirical evidence with evidence.

Secondly, not all life falls into the mythical “tree of life” (a concept which requires a very vivid imagination to even get off the ground). For example, what is the nearest “ancestor” of the playpus? A dinosaur?

Secondly, Darwinism predicts an infinite number of small transitional graduations, but the fossil record fails miserably in this respect - it’s not even close. Moreover, as Gould pointed out, the fossil record is characterised by two things antithetical to Darwinian gradualism - sudden appearance and statis.

(Note: Sudden appearance and statis are exactly what one would expect to find in the fossil record if Creation is true.)

Sure enough the molecular data confirms that.

You forgot to mention that Creation can explain the moleclular data.

 

[edwest211]

So evolution took us to a point where totally “natural” processes gave us minds that, as we are told, totally deny God exists, much less was involved in the creation of life, and us, so that some can continue to deny the Creator.

 

[Glark]

Unfortunately, as someone who has worked in the media for years, that is generally true. Heard of Coke and Pepsi? So, why do they still market the brands? Why not put that ad money into profits? They need to have it on your mind. That way, when it comes time to pick up a soft drink, you’ll pick up the “right” one, as opposed to something different. Repetition is a form of programming the masses.

David Attenborough’s nature documentaris are a fine example of evo-propaganda. A great deal of time in each doco is devoted to telling the viewer all about how such-and- such evolved - as if it matters.

 

[Techno2000]

So evolution took us to a point where totally “natural” processes gave us minds that, as we are told, totally deny God exists, much less was involved in the creation of life, and us, so that some can continue to deny the Creator.

Evolution is a jealous Evolution.

 

[edwest211]

Those selfish genes. Just can’t stop 'em.

…even if they don’t where they’re goin’.