Evolution according to the Catholic Church

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Thank you so much! I like that explanation. I was wondering if it was possible to merge the two in a manner that doesn’t take away from God’s words and message to us in the bible. Thank you so much for this! It helped a lot.
 
Noose001 said:
One can easily tell that evolution doesn’t happen.
  1. If all organisms are of the same species with their parent(s), then there can only be one species in the entire world.
  2. If not, then at some point in time, some organisms did not share the same species with their parent(s) which means that it is possible for parents to bring forth organisms of a different species.
Choose one
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I choose number three.

Almost all organisms are the same species as their parents. However, all organisms also have small genetic differences from their parents – mutations. The accumulation of those mutations over generations mean that you are not the same species as your great^n-grandparents, for some value of n.

The separation between species is nearly always gradual, over many generations, rarely sudden over one generation.

Lions and tigers are in the process of separating. They can still interbreed, producing ligers and tigons, but the male crossbreeds are infertile.

Horses and donkeys are further along the process of separation. They can produce crossbreeds, mules, but the crossbreeds are all sterile, females included.

With further separation even the production of sterile crossbreeds will no longer be possible, as with armadillos and sunflowers for example.
 
rossum said:
Almost all organisms are the same species as their parents. However, all organisms also have small genetic differences from their parents – mutations. The accumulation of those mutations over generations mean that you are not the same species as your great^n-grandparents, for some value of n
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No evidence. We don’t even know that there’s an accumulation, what we know is that the genetic differences are as a result of genetic mixture from both parents for sexual organisms, not through mutation but heredity.

We are also sure that the so called genetic variations can not improve functionality of the organism or part of the organism. Example; a fin that swims can not be improved to get a limb that walks, you have to lose the functionality (a fin that swims) first before you can get a limb.
rossum said:
The separation between species is nearly always gradual, over many generations, rarely sudden over one generation.
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Not demonstrable
Cambrian explosion shows sudden appearance of many species.
rossum said:
Lions and tigers are in the process of separating. They can still interbreed, producing ligers and tigons, but the male crossbreeds are infertile.

Horses and donkeys are further along the process of separation. They can produce crossbreeds, mules, but the crossbreeds are all sterile, females included.

With further separation even the production of sterile crossbreeds will no longer be possible, as with armadillos and sunflowers for example.
Click to expand...
No evidence that these are two species separating what if they are two species converging? Does evolution have a direction?
 
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Noose001 said:
No evidence.
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Your sources are lying to you again. Are you an identical twin to both your parents? Your sources really are stupid if they are pushing such rubbish.
Noose001 said:
Cambrian explosion shows sudden appearance of many species.
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The Cambrian explosion took millions of years. I do not call that “sudden”. Again, your sources are lying to you.
Noose001 said:
No evidence that these are two species separating what if they are two species converging?
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Yes evidence. Genetics and the fossil record shows that modern Felids diverged from a single ancestral species in the Miocene.
 
Can someone please tell me what a “species” is? I’d looooooove a sensible answer.

I now know why this used to be a banned topic on CAF… There are trenches, and in between there’s a no-man’s-land full of barbed wire. Dangerous! And unproductive.
 
rossum said:
The Cambrian explosion took millions of years. I do not call that “sudden”. Again, your sources are lying to you.
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Maybe yours are lying to you. They make a claim it took millions of years. We all know they have to make this claim or the foundation collapses. There is no empirical evidence for it.
 
Noose001 said:
One can easily tell that evolution doesn’t happen.
  1. If all organisms are of the same species with their parent(s), then there can only be one species in the entire world.
  2. If not, then at some point in time, some organisms did not share the same species with their parent(s) which means that it is possible for parents to bring forth organisms of a different species.
Choose one
Click to expand...
You need to Google ‘ring species’ and have a good think.
 
rossum said:
False. Your sources are lying to you. We have the evidence from the radiometric dating of the rocks.
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The empirical evidence that relies in basic assumptions of rates, starting point and inheritance? Hardly empirical.

Check out some of the dates returned from these methods of Mt St Helens.
 
buffalo said:
The empirical evidence that relies in basic assumptions of rates…
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No assumptions. We can measure past decay rates from astronomical observations.
… starting point
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That is why we use isochron dating, so we can measure the initial starting point.
… and inheritance
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Erm… rocks do not breed and do not inherit from each other.
Check out some of the dates returned from these methods of Mt St Helens.
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The ICR Mount St. Helens dating project carefully selected their samples for dating. See here for why they deliberately selected samples to give misleading results. As I have told you so often, your sources lie to you. Deliberately. There is zero scientific evidence for a young earth, so all they have are lies. Why do you believe their lies? They are relying on your lack of knowledge of geology to fool you.
 
One must also consider C14 dating on bones that show thousands of years in rocks that are assumed to be many millions of years old. Which is the correct age?
 
anendlesswaltz said:
I think its important to consider more than just that conundrum, though. Forgive me if this is out of bounds, but if you propose that we evolved instead of were created…what does that mean for the account of the Fall of Man? You can say that everything up through Genesis 11 was allegorical and symbolic, if you want, and that’s all well and fine save for that little big detail. Its been a huge stumbling block for me. And i think all the ‘fantastical’ creation and world beginning chapters in Genesis probably stop people from being willing to be open to believe and be saved. I wonder at least
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First the good news: I too, am a non-Catholic. Now the bad news: I’m an atheist. So you may want to stop reading now. I don’t want to interfere with anyone’s deep religious beliefs or their processes of formation. I’m here because I am interested in how and why people believe. I also find it hard to restrain my tendency to defend science as a means to get the best possible knowledge about the physical world (the only one I think there is).

Having talked to many people who accept both science and religious beliefs of different sorts the main techniques seem to be either denial of science (creationists for example) or a choice to see science and religion as dealing with different areas of human experience. One noted atheist and leading scientist (Steven Jay Gould - read him!) described these as overlapping magisteria, or areas of knowledge. Most people like you that I have come across do this. They decide that Genesis is true, but in a sense different from the truth of science. By studying Genesis ‘as if it were true’ they can find the truth that ‘God intended’. They can at the same time full accept science.

Although the Catholic Church does not describe the process this way I think the Church follows this approach other than in some very small areas likely to be explained away in the future.
 
Freddy said:
So one has the galactic amount of evidence for evolution versus the first chapter of the bible. Your call.
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But I think the issue is it isn’t my call. Or really anyone’s “call.” It’s that we are slowly reverse engineering how God did it. It doesn’t matter how He decided to do it. The Bible isn’t a science book, it’s a spiritual one. That means some things may or may not be literal. I’m not understanding the conflict between evolution and the Bible?
 
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