This thread seemed interesting at the beginning but the conversation becoming a bit silly. I believe the thread began when someone made the assertion that one could not accept the Church’s teaching on the nature of man and evolution. This seems to be rooted in the “mistrust” that comes from those of a politically conservative orientation towards anything that the sciences say (i.e. evolution, global warming, ect.)
On the other hand, there are many who are dogmatic evolutionists. While evolution is an extremely palpable and often observable theory, it has its limitations, especially when explaining human nature. To anyone who is serious about understanding these limits, I would recommend reading, at least the first part of Hilary Putnam’s Renewing Philosophy,. What Putnam is interested in is how human intellegence (language, the ability to make inference, and reference). Is it possible to recreate these abilities by artificial intellegence? Putnam concludes that the answer is no to this question. He also concludes that evolution fails to explain human thinking because it is so distinct from anything else that can be observed in nature.
To tie this in with Genesis, we see that “man is created in the image of God.” Thus, it becomes obvious that there is something about mankind that has been singled out from the rest of the evolutionary-creation process. What is is important is that people move away from the either/or mentality of evolution and creation and adapt the both/and mentality.
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