Evolution: much ado about nothing

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Jennifer J:
I vowed to myself I would stay out of these treads as I’m not really qualified. I wish I could convince my dh to contribute as he’s the Catholic biologist/researcher in the family. But I think I have something to say.

Some keep saying that death didn’t enter the picture until after the fall, isn’t that death for animals (I mean why would our sin affect the animals)? What if, through evolution, humans branched off (caused by God) from other similar animals? Now I know this can’t be proven, but it seems it’s a valid way to make the leap. God used the “materials” he created (animals) to make Adam and Eve and by giving these creatures a soul he made them human (and granted them immortality until the fall). Does that make sense? It works for me in dealing with this whole evolution thing. Evolution seems to exist, but it doesn’t deny God. Now some scientists deny God, but that’s their problem, not mine. Science should deal with the physical world, religion with God and spiritual matters.

I hope I made some sense. This whole topic can get confusing and overwhelming.
Jennifer
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If this were the case I guess you’re saying, since chimps are the closest species to humans, that one day a chimp gave birth to a male human named Adam and another chimp gave birth to a female human named Eve and they met in the park one day and started the human race.

Actually I am sure the evolutionists will come up with a lengthy scientific explanation about the transitional forms between chimp and human and why they are no longer here but the chimps and humans are.

But Darwin on this point claimed that there are some races amongst us that are closer to the apes than others - not quite as human as some other humans that are higher on the evolutionary scale. He said this in his book Descent of Man. Darwin was quite a racist.
 
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dredgtone:
isn’t every fossil technically a transitional fossil? Is that not the point of evolution? That things evolve? So why would any creationist talk of “no transitional fossils” if the transition takes place over the course of time?
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Even the most respected evolutionists admitted a long time ago that there are no transitional fossils, Stephen Jay Gould for example. It has been a trade secret of Paleontologists for quite some time. That’s why the late Gould came up with his theory of punctuated equiliibrium that states there are no transitional forms because species every once in awhile took giant leaps, not smooth transitions. I know I am greatly simplifying his theory. Gould’s disertations on this can’t quite fit in the 3000 character limit to this message. But that is the gist of it.

The latest “tree of life” has been redrawn by a scientist in China who has the best fossil record available on the planet. He says it is not as Darwin drew it, ie a tree with one trunk coming out of the grownd and branching off into more and more diversity. In fact, the fossil record indicates it to be more of an upside down bush. Life has been getting less diverse. The fossil record shows an explosion of life forms most blasting into existence in a very short time span and then gradually getting less diverse as species go extinct.
 
Edwin Taraba:
Even the most respected evolutionists admitted a long time ago that there are no transitional fossils, Stephen Jay Gould for example. It has been a trade secret of Paleontologists for quite some time. That’s why the late Gould came up with his theory of punctuated equiliibrium that states there are no transitional forms because species every once in awhile took giant leaps, not smooth transitions. I know I am greatly simplifying his theory. Gould’s disertations on this can’t quite fit in the 3000 character limit to this message. But that is the gist of it.
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It is a rare privilege to see such specious rot passing as factuality. Since 1861 evolutionary biologists have maintained that there are transitional fossils in the fossil record, and Gould is no exception. What Gould’s now infamous “trade secret” line in actuality referred to was the structure of the fossil record as regards the rate of evolutionary change. Secondly, Gould et al. did not invent the concept of punctuated equilibrium, which if you had even a modicum of familiarity with the topic matter you would know. It stems from the work of the peerless Ernst Mayr in 1942. Third, since you seem fit to pontificate on punk eek when you clearly do not understand it, perhaps you might explain to us why Gouldian punk eek has failed to withstand serious scrutiny in every examination of the fossil record aimed at verifying or rejecting its conclusions. Where do you want to start? How about Hurzeler (1962) on middle Cenozoic lagomorphs? No? What about Harris & White (1979) on African suids from the Plio-Pleistocene? Or maybe Maglio (1973) on Elephantinae? What about Fahlsbusch (1983) on Miocene rodents? Chaline & Laurin (1986) on Plio-Pleistocene rodents? Gingerich (1980, 1982) on the entire Cenozoic mammalian fauna? Krishtalka & Stucky (1985) on Eocene artiodactyls? Carroll’s brutal critique (1988)? Maybe you want humans? Cronin et al. (1981) on the morphological changes in hominids? Perhaps Wolpoff (1984)? Maybe fish instead. How about, in that case, Bell, Baumgarten & Olson (1985)? Would you care to explain why any of these studies repeatedly show gradual transitions from level of organization to another, contra Gouldian punk eek? Or perhaps you were just parading out creationist sound bytes without any actual research undertaken on your part. Until you can refute the data in the studies cited, I think it difficult to take your assertions about punk eek and the fossil record seriously.

As for transitional fossils, might you explain to me why, based upon its morphology, BMNH 37001 is not transitional? Or what about HMN 1880? JM 2257? No? Ok, perhaps IVPP 88402? RTMP 86.36.457? GMV 2132? PVSJ 407? Might you be so good as to tell me why any of those are not transitional fossils?

Vindex Urvogel
 
I don’t have a problem with Edwin’s right to believe whatever he wants, but I do have a problem with the unsubstantiated claims that he constantly throws out. This is a typical creationist tactic that is employed in debates by the likes of Gish(sp?) and Hovind with quote mining from Behe. What really bothers me is that some of the others here that are unaware of what scientific evidence exists for evolution and the damning failures of ID and creationism, are going to take Edwin’s word just because he is a fellow Catholic.

I urge anybody and everybody to take nobody’s word for what is presented here without being open minded and reviewing the evidence and arguments for both sides before forming a conclusion.

Do not make the assumption that one of your own is always correct or honest.
 
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georgeaquinas:
An innocent question:

If we are all agreed that evolutionary thoery is compatible with the Cathoic Faith, then why is everyone still arguing about evolution???

To the young-earthers, creationists, et al: What do you find so objectable about evolution (and don’t say it goes against religion, because we have disscussed that ad nauseum)? What makes you react so emotionally? Is it that offensive to say you share some genes with a panda?

In my humble opinion, I think it is because you still are refusing to believe that evolutionary thoery is compatible with the Faith.
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I think the answer is this. There are a number of key presuppositions, bedrock assumptions, if you will involved in the theory of evolution as presented to most of us throughout our educational life. One such, for example, is the principle of random genetic error, which of course produces a functional advantage, and natural selection for that advantage ensures its survival, propogation, and eventual formation of another species.
If that is the presumption, and from that it follows that we as human beings, complete as we are today are in existence randomly, that is to say, there was nothing in our origins that specifically guarantees this result, then you do have a theological problem;
unless you wish to modify the theory of evolution to give God credit for a master information seed, so to speak, thrown into the mix sometime after or during His causation of the Big Bang (as the Prime Mover) from which intelligent life eventually evolved, or you must credit God with active intervention after He had begun the cosmological and then biological process, perhaps infusing the most advanced of the hominoids with a soul and thus creating man.
In any event, strict randomization of mutation and natural selection could not have produced a human being, body and soul, as we know it from the Catholic theology.
Thus you have to be very specific about what you mean by evolution when you say that it is compatible with the Faith.
I would repeat again, and it is what Christians, fundamentalist or otherwise, remember about Evolution as taught to them from public school on. The outright hatred and mockery of anyone who could possibly have faith in a God. You cannot avoid that in most memories, Evolution of the Darwinian kind has been used as a hammer against Christians.
To be a Catholic you must accept God as the Prime Mover at the very least, and I would say much more than that, but that is another complete debate. Also you must accept God as Person, active in human life spiritually, and known in our history through Revelation. These are a couple of basic presuppositions of Catholicism that have not been abrogated in the slightest by the willingness of the Majesterium to entertain evolution as a possiblity in the master plan of God.
 
Further, to be Catholic, you must accept the Incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, as Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection, a preposterous idea from the point of view of science.

So I would say that all of this does not go away with the snap of a finger and papal encyclical.

In fact, “young earthers” would say that if you are willing to accept a God (ala Augustine) who is the eternal, non mutable originator of everything mutable, why is it so difficult to see that kind of power being used to make it all in six days? And create a trail to keep the evolutions busy and out of trouble because they don’t want to believe in Him anyway?
OK, I’m being facetious, but you see the conflict that is quite possible when you don’t specify exactly what you mean by evolution.

And, as always, if your evolutionary speculation, even if directed at a synthesis with your faith (they cannot be isolated), leads you to reject fundamental aspects of the faith as taught by the Catholic Church, sooner or later you are faced with the choice between the two.

So all along the way, you cannot just compartimentalize your faith into a box. You are an integral living being. What you accept as scientific reality has to be continuously assessed as to its implications for your faith.
 
Edwin << Even the most respected evolutionists admitted a long time ago that there are no transitional fossils, Stephen Jay Gould for example. >>

“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology (study of fossils) – In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors, it appears all at once and fully formed.” – Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History (May 1977)

Rare does not mean “non-existent” – to wit more Gould:

“But paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair-minded skeptic about the reality of life’s physical genealogy.” – Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History (May 1994)

“Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.” – Stephen Jay Gould, from his book Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes, page 261

Fuller quote here:

“Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists – whether through design or stupidity, I do not know – as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. Yet a pamphlet entitled ‘Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution Is a Hoax’ states: ‘The facts of punctuated equilibrium which Gould and Eldredge…are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that Bryan insisted on, and which God has revealed to us in the Bible.’” – Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution as Fact and Theory” (May 1981 reprinted in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes)

Evolution as Fact and Theory full article

“It does not surprise me that I am being misquoted because, after all, this is practically the only defense creationists have.” – paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, Letter to Jim Lippard

Does that help any? 😃

See also my summary of paleontologist Carroll’s work (1988) here

Phil P
 
This will be my last reply, as the thread is becoming redundant. My replies to Les are in bold. There will be a follow up post with some CCC quotes.
*Les Richardson:
Further, to be Catholic, you must accept the Incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, as Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection, a preposterous idea from the point of view of science.
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Which is the reason Catholicism is called a religion and is based on faith.

So I would say that all of this does not go away with the snap of a finger and papal encyclical.

It depends on what you are snapping a finger at. Speaking for myself, I don’t feel I have the faith, knowledge or close enough relationship with God to ignore a papal encylical.

In fact, “young earthers” would say that if you are willing to accept a God (ala Augustine) who is the eternal, non mutable originator of everything mutable, why is it so difficult to see that kind of power being used to make it all in six days?

Because the young earth theory is patently ridiculous and goes against observable facts. Our God is not a deciever.

*And create a trail to keep the evolutions busy and out of trouble because they don’t want to believe in Him anyway? *

As I have said numerous times in this thread (did you read my first post?), this is an invalid inference from science. You dont’ blame a theory for its misuse.

OK, I’m being facetious, but you see the conflict that is quite possible when you don’t specify exactly what you mean by evolution.

The whole point of the orignal post was to show that evolutionary theory as evolutionary theory was compatible with the Faith.

And, as always, if your evolutionary speculation, even if directed at a synthesis with your faith (they cannot be isolated), leads you to reject fundamental aspects of the faith as taught by the Catholic Church, sooner or later you are faced with the choice between the two.

No where have I indicated, nor has anyone shown, that this position rejects any fundamental aspects of the faith (as outlined in the CCC).

So all along the way, you cannot just compartimentalize your faith into a box. You are an integral living being. What you accept as scientific reality has to be continuously assessed as to its implications for your faith.

I would agree with you there, but warn you that it is a double-edged sword.
 
The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life forms, and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers. With Solomon they can say: “It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world, and the activity of the elements…for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.” CCC 283

So, it appears that the CCC does not see evolutionary theory (“development of life forms and the appearance of man”) to be incompatible with the Faith. Indeed, it should lead us to further realization of the glory of God. In fact, the wisdom and understanding that these theories bring us comes from God.

We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God’s free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom and goodness. CCC 295

This is what Cardinal Ratzinger is talking about when he says:

evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the “project” of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary—rather than mutually exclusive—realities.
 
georgeaquinas, I think you are trying to say (in a few words) that there is no problem between evolution and God. More can be learned from God by studying and observing biological evolution and by studying evolution, you are coming closer to understanding the great mystery.
 
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georgeaquinas:
I would agree with you there, but warn you that it is a double-edged sword.
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Yes! Absolutely. My point exactly.:yup:
 
My statement was:

*Lateran IV excludes any possible form of evolution

“All things created at the same time from nothing in the beginning by God…”*

Georgeaquinas’s response was

Please amplify this remark. How do you reconcile this remark with the clear teachings of the CCC:

The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies…
I reply, an infallible magisterial statement (de fide catholica) stands on it own feet. It doesn’t have to be reconciled with science. As it happens it can be shown to be in perfect harmony with science.

The full text of Lateran IV states that God is:

creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body.
*It should be remembered that Council definitions are based upon Tradition as expressed by the Church Fathers. This tradition was that the world was created within a maximum period of six 24 hour days. The large majority consensus amongst the Fathers was for six days, the tiny minority was based on St Augustine’s belief in instant creation. Not surprisingly Lateran IV’s teaching is rarely discussed presumably because it is impossible to reconcile with the multi-million years of geological time. It nevertheless is inerrant and invalidates any form of evolution. *
 
Why no reaction to my message of July re. Lateran IV pre-emptive ruling on any form of evolution theory?
 
pwilders << Why no reaction to my message of July re. Lateran IV pre-emptive ruling on any form of evolution theory? >>

I don’t see the big deal, as the Church does not make infallible statements regarding science. Infallibility is limited to faith and morals, not scientific statements on the age of the earth nor biology, astronomy, nor physics.

Did the Catholic Church of the 13th century (e.g. Lateran Council IV you mentioned) believe the world to be young? Yes. Did they take the Genesis 1-3 account strictly literally? Yes. And did all believe the earth to be the center and fixed, that the sun went around the earth (geocentrism) ? Yes. Why? That was the prevailing science of the day. And that has all turned out to be wrong. See Dalrymple’s book The Age of the Earth for the massive evidence against the young-earth teaching.

You are the Peter Wilder of the Kolbe Center for Creation, right? I have checked out your site’s scientific writings, and sorry they are no match for TalkOrigins :rolleyes:

Phil P
 
**PhilVaz says: “**I don’t see the big deal, as the Church does not make infallible statements regarding science. Infallibility is limited to faith and morals, not scientific statements on the age of the earth nor biology, astronomy, nor physics”

Agreed Lateran IV was not referring to science when it said that all things were created out of nothing. Yet the Council did say so, and its ex nihilo statement on creation of **all things at the beginning of time **is held by the Church as *de fide Catholica *teaching. Nothing could be more infallible.

Using science to refute Magisterial teaching is just as bad as accusing the Church of making infallible statements about science. The Church does not do the latter, and Catholics should refrain from doing the former. The Church speaks authoritatively when proclaiming a dogma and if the substance of the dogma is contrary to the science of the day (particularly that of today) this is no reason to reject it. Lateran IV was not addressing scientific matters but teaching what must be believed to be a Catholic.

Obviously if a conciliar teaching clashes with the scientific wisdom of the day there is a problem. Appealing to St Augustine’s rule, the solution is that if science has proposed something that has been proved to be true, the Church must look again at its teaching to ensure it is not opposed to such truth. However if the scientific proposition is hypothetical the rule says the Church must resist the attack on its doctrine.

As the multi-million age of the earth has not been proved and, on the contrary the principles upon which the geological time-scale is based have been invalidated empirically by peer reviewed experiment (Berthault et al Geological Society of France 1993, Russian Academy of Sciences Journal “Lithological and Mineral Resources” 2002), the objection to Lat. IV under this heading falls.

Incidentally, I am not writing in the name of the Kolbe Center for the study of Creation however contrary to the implication behind your assertion the scientific, theological and philosophical credentials of its advisory committee are impeccable.

Peter.
 
my difficulty w/ evolution has always been the significant racial implications. i’m a white guy. i’ve seen black folk and i’ve seen apes. if white man came from apes, then we must be superior to blacks since they seem much more similar to apes, indicating that they have not moved as far away from our monkey parents.
as i understnd it, (i never found an edition old enough to have retained the section) darwin even said that blacks were so inferior that they would eventually wipe themselves out.

when fossil history comes up i think, ok, say billy shoemaker [a jockey under 5 feet tall] and patrick ewing [a basketball player over 7 feet tall] are buried near each other and they are found by an evolutonist. does he think, oh these are of the same species, look at how similar they are? or does he note pat’s features are more ‘ape-like’ than billy’s and determine that billy had evoloved to a higher position on the scale? no doubt he’d conclude the second. but he’d be wrong.

[btw, has anyone seen the opening of monty pyton’s flying circus where the foot comes down, but then stays there, is covered by layers of sediment and eventually completely covered? some time later it is excavated and the big toe is found and the creature re-assembled, except the toe has become the trunk of a mamoth-like animal. always liked that.]

anywho, i often wonder if teaching that we came from apes, and are thus superior to ape-like creatures, hasn’t engendered an crippling unconcious racial understanding in both whites and blacks. that while we conciously work to acheive equality between the races, we both know in the back of our minds that the ape people are less human than the white people.
trying to think like that makes me sick. the black folks i see, while they look different than i do, still are made in the image and likeness of God. cause while i expect the evolutionist to look at patick and see an ape, i look at him and see the face of God.

plus, and im sure Vindex Urvogel will enjoy this, everytime ‘the experts’ have figured something out i’m reminded of when barbers bled folks to heal them. see, the experts at that time had figured out that many illlnesses were caused by bad blood and folks could be cured if the bad blood were let out.
the arrogance of man (‘now we’ve figured it out’) will always be spectacular.

as far as the bible stories being made up for bronze age goat-herders to understand…how can you be so certain that they wouldn’t have understood what you can? and is Daddy really too stupid to have figured out a way to explain things clearly without having to make up a creation story which would fly in the face of the ‘actual facts’ when man finally found those facts?

thanks for listening, love and peace, terry
 
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Charles:
… As long as it is not being used to deny the Creator, or to mitigate original sin, the theory itself does not seem, to me at least, to be at all unacceptable.
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Since Jesus said that we are not responsible for the sins of our fathers, what does original sin have to do with anything regarding creation/evolution?

It is pretty clear that while there may have been a specific point at which God changed the nature of life into human life, that point was not, as the Jews thought ,about 6,000+/- years ago.

Peace
 
pwilder << Yet the Council did say so, and its ex nihilo statement on creation of all things at the beginning of time is held by the Church as de fide Catholica teaching. Nothing could be more infallible. >>

Okay, then how do you explain this?

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/eleph5.jpg

Source: Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth Miller, page 96, the elephant (proboscidean) evolutionary lineage which fossil record goes back 50 million years.

I explain it this way: “looks like evolution to me.” Were all these elephant species (especially the extinct ones) created ex nihilo (from nothing) at the beginning of time, at the same time, or is this indeed evidence for the evolution of the elephant over millions of years?

Hundreds of other examples could be given of course, and have been given in other creation-evolution threads here. There is no need to interpret Church documents the way you do which vehemently contradicts known science and the fossil record.

Phil P
 
You write**: **Were all these elephant species (especially the extinct ones) created ex nihilo (from nothing) at the beginning of time, at the same time, or is this indeed evidence for the evolution of the elephant over millions of years?

I reply: Assuming the fossils of the elephants illustrated in Kenneth Miller’s chart have been correctly identified as probocideans, it is his presupposition of evolutionary development that has enabled him to link them phylogeneticly. If this were not the case, there is no reason to doubt that the original elephant kind gave rise to the various varieties he illustrates. Replacing natural genetic diversification by a process of evolution results from an interpretation of the apparent successive arrangement of fossils in the fossil record.

The fossil record, however, is no longer a guide to the development of species because the principles of stratification upon which the record was constructed have been invalidated by empirical experiment (references given in my previous response). The rocks in which the fossils are found have been shown to form rapidly and not over millions of years, and the position of the fossil in the rock not to have arisen from superposition. Miller’s fossil construction of the probocidean tree has been overtaken by a significant advance in sedimentology.

Although it shouldn’t be necessary, this scientific development comforts Catholics who have hitherto felt unable to reconcile Catholic infallible teaching on creation with the fossil record and geological time-scale.

Peter
 
When are Catholics going to realise that a lifeline has been thrown them by the invalidation of the stratigraphic principles underpinning the geological time-scale? They go on as if they just have to believe that the fossils in rocks prove evolution has taken place. Recent laboratory experiments provide empirical proof that this is false. Publications by the French Geological Society in 1993 and the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2002 geology.ref.ac/berthault

show that the principle of superposition of strata is incorrect. Strata are shown not to form one on top of the other in succession over millions of years. They form (in days) laterally and vertically at the same time. The fossils buried in the rocks give no indication of age or evolution. The experimental research shows that fossils in lower strata could be younger than those in higher strata. No longer can evolutionists appeal to the fossil record and rocks to support multi-million year ages.

Catholics liberated from the constraints of geology can and must believe the Church’s infallible teaching (Lateran IV) that the prototype of every kind of living thing was created out of nothing by a direct act of God alone at the beginning of time (i.e. during a period of creation of not more than six days) without productive secondary causes.

This new knowledge of geology makes all the evolution including the cosmological theories fall into desuetude. Lateran IV reaches out through the entire cosmos. God created all visible and invisible things without limit in time or space. St. Thomas comments that after creation was done nothing new was created (ST.1. Q. 74 A. 1 r. 5).

Peter
 
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