Evolution refuting catholicism?

[buffalo]

wanerious:

Ok, here’s your chance. What are these assumptions to which we “evolutionists” must blindly hold?

Again, the fossil record is a miniscule piece of a giant jigsaw puzzle. Much “faith” is put in the idea that we can see the whole picture accurately with so little information.

Many ridicule the idea of spiritual faith, but have their own faith in their ideas and research that is every bit as strong as those who do not believe as they do.

Science is limited to the observable. Faith moves outside those limitations and embraces the supernatural. It is a different domain.

Bottom line - the assumptions you hold to are you own limited observations as being the whole truth.

 

[wanerious]

buffalo:

Again, the fossil record is a miniscule piece of a giant jigsaw puzzle. Much “faith” is put in the idea that we can see the whole picture accurately with so little information.

You seem to be making my point. The fossil record is indeed only a small part of the enormous body of evidence across many disciplines that evolutionary changes amongst organisms over time has, in fact, occurred.

Bottom line - the assumptions you hold to are you own limited observations as being the whole truth.

Then your problem is not really only with evolutionary theory, but with science in general. I don’t believe that science gives us the “whole truth”, but it is the best and most accurate tool we have to investigate the natural world. And where it gives results that obviate the intercession of supernatural powers, those results have a very high degree of likelihood.

Where theology is not threatened, we do this all the time. We have confidence that, in a well-prosecuted murder case, the evidence implicating the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt is likely to really mean that he/she actually comitted the crime. We don’t usually say, “no, we’ve used scientific means and deductive reasoning to convict this person, but because we don’t think science gives us the whole truth, it must be that all evidence is circumstantial and God has directed the entire process.”

 

[clmowry]

wanerious:

Well, a quick scan indicates that the date is 59 thousand years, not million, and they are more interested in the geographic sense of common ancestor than the sense of genetic ancestors to us and modern apes.

Yep. Sorry about that I meant 59,000 and typed 59,000,000 after reading the paper you might understand why numbers became a blur. (I’ve been out of school way too long.)

The key point I was hinting at is that this article shows vastly different time frames for the statistical likely hood of a the occurence of a common ancestor for humans.

It seemed to me on a casual reading it is perhaps less certain that a “Most Recent Comon Ancestor” could not have existed before man was man than some have indicated.

Of particular interst was this paragraph from the article in question.

“By using a worldwide sample of 445 Y chromosomes typed at eight microsatellite loci, Pritchard et al. (15) estimated the expected time to the MRCA, denoted by E**TMRCA], under a set of different mutation models. Their estimates ranged from 46,000 to 91,000 years B.P. under the different models, considerably less than those obtained by previous authors whose estimates were based on very small numbers of segregating sites (5-9, 19), but consistent with the microsatellite-based estimates of Wilson and Balding (14). The estimates of Pritchard et al. (15) of E**TMRCA] are also much younger than those obtained at other loci, which include 143,000 years for mtDNA (20), 535,000 years for a noncoding region at Xq13.3 (21), 800,000 years for http://www.pnas.org/math/12pt/normal/beta.gif-globin (4), and 1,860,000 years for PDHA1 (22).”

Chuck

 

[clmowry]

wanerious:

I don’t believe that science gives us the “whole truth”, but it is the best and most accurate tool we have to investigate the natural world. And where it gives results that obviate the intercession of supernatural powers, those results have a very high degree of likelihood.

Why would results that require the intercession of supernatural powers be less valid, other than the obivous presuposition on the part of the observer that these events cannot occur?

You seem to be saying the if scientific results support the conclusion of supernatural intervention then they must be considered erroneus in some way, but that if they do not then we can consider them valid. True?

Chuck

 

[wanerious]

clmowry:

Why would results that require the intercession of supernatural powers be less valid, other than the obivous presuposition on the part of the observer that these events cannot occur?

Because supernatural powers cannot be experimented upon or deduced from any physical agent. There can be no scientific results that require the intercession of supernatural powers.

You seem to be saying the if scientific results support the conclusion of supernatural intervention then they must be considered erroneus in some way,

Yes — erroneous or merely incomplete.

but that if they do not then we can consider them valid. True?

That is necessary, but not sufficient. They also must be able to explain phenomena better than any competing theory, and not have evidence against them.

 

[Apologia100]

Could you please translate this into Mandarin Chinese so we can understand it?

clmowry:

Yep. Sorry about that I meant 59,000 and typed 59,000,000 after reading the paper you might understand why numbers became a blur. (I’ve been out of school way too long.)

The key point I was hinting at is that this article shows vastly different time frames for the statistical likely hood of a the occurence of a common ancestor for humans.

It seemed to me on a casual reading it is perhaps less certain that a “Most Recent Comon Ancestor” could not have existed before man was man than some have indicated.

Of particular interst was this paragraph from the article in question.

“By using a worldwide sample of 445 Y chromosomes typed at eight microsatellite loci, Pritchard et al. (15) estimated the expected time to the MRCA, denoted by E**TMRCA], under a set of different mutation models. Their estimates ranged from 46,000 to 91,000 years B.P. under the different models, considerably less than those obtained by previous authors whose estimates were based on very small numbers of segregating sites (5-9, 19), but consistent with the microsatellite-based estimates of Wilson and Balding (14). The estimates of Pritchard et al. (15) of E**TMRCA] are also much younger than those obtained at other loci, which include 143,000 years for mtDNA (20), 535,000 years for a noncoding region at Xq13.3 (21), 800,000 years for http://www.pnas.org/math/12pt/normal/beta.gif-globin (4), and 1,860,000 years for PDHA1 (22).”

Chuck

 

[clmowry]

I would take precisely the oposite positon. If scientific “facts” prohibit the exisitance of a supernatural power, I would presume they are either “erroneous or merely incomplete.”

However, given that “Because supernatural powers cannot be experimented upon”…“there can be no scientific results that” exclude “the intercession of supernatural powers.” So it’s not of much real concern to me.

Unfortunately, your approach would seem to remove any possiblity of anything convincing you that Devine intervention of any form has taken (or could take) place.

For example, If someone had a tumor the size of a baseball in their brain, verified by many a medical test, they prayed for God’s intercession and the next day the tumor was gone, you would then conclude that the Tumor was either erroneously reported, or we simply do not yet have the scientific explantation for how the body could eliminate such a tumor overnight?

Not exactly on the subject at hand…but it’s where my mind went…

Chuck

 

[clmowry]

Nah it’s in science speak. I’m not fluent in either language (Science or Mandarin).

I think this says that different “scientific proofs” of the age of a common human ancestor vary from ~50,000 to ~1,800,000 years depending on who did the analysis and what data an methods they used. On one end this would preclude there ever having been “an” Eve, if we assume “humans” as I would know them are around 50,000 years old. On the other end this would apear to still be a “scientific possibility”.

Normally I wouldn’t give a whoot but after being refered to as “perverse, dishonest and ignorant” I thought I should delve a little deeper into the scientific proof of my perversion, dishonesty and ignorance.

The first hit on the search seemed to offer so home that I’m not terminally doomed to this state…

I’m sure I’ll be told that I’m just to ignorant to understand the study, but to my simple mind the proof offered seems to be disputed by other scientists as well.

Chuck

Apologia100:

Could you please translate this into Mandarin Chinese so we can understand it?

 

[buffalo]

wanerious:

You seem to be making my point. The fossil record is indeed only a small part of the enormous body of evidence across many disciplines that evolutionary changes amongst organisms over time has, in fact, occurred.

Then your problem is not really only with evolutionary theory, but with science in general. I don’t believe that science gives us the “whole truth”, but it is the best and most accurate tool we have to investigate the natural world. And where it gives results that obviate the intercession of supernatural powers, those results have a very high degree of likelihood.

Where theology is not threatened, we do this all the time. We have confidence that, in a well-prosecuted murder case, the evidence implicating the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt is likely to really mean that he/she actually comitted the crime. We don’t usually say, “no, we’ve used scientific means and deductive reasoning to convict this person, but because we don’t think science gives us the whole truth, it must be that all evidence is circumstantial and God has directed the entire process.”

I don’t have a problem with science at all. I have a problem with applying limited knowledge and creating a theory that is then pushed as the only truth. I am more open minded than to limit myself to what men claim.

 

[wanerious]

clmowry:

Unfortunately, your approach would seem to remove any possiblity of anything convincing you that Devine intervention of any form has taken (or could take) place.

Removing any possibility that one could scientifically show that “Divine intervention” has taken place, yes. This is the domain of faith and spiritual power.

For example, If someone had a tumor the size of a baseball in their brain, verified by many a medical test, they prayed for God’s intercession and the next day the tumor was gone, you would then conclude that the Tumor was either erroneously reported, or we simply do not yet have the scientific explantation for how the body could eliminate such a tumor overnight?

A reasonable course of action, if you want it to be scientifically investigated, is to double-check the accuracy of the reported size, note the time between the last detection and the first non-detection, take blood samples and brain scans to see any traces of odd phenomena compared with blood and scans taken when the tumor was present, and so on. What you’ve described would remain a scientific mystery unless other corroborating stories could be examined for commonality. This is not a “real” example, though, in that it’s pretty easy to come up with something physically preposterous.

A good question is: is there any modern example of a well-studied phenomenon that has not been reasonably explained scientifically? By well-studied I suppose we have to have something detected by some measuring devices at different points in time — those things that are reported by anecdote can’t be studied too well. It also has to have been subjected to some level of scientific investigation, something that has completely flummoxed scientists so far.

 

[wanerious]

clmowry:

I think this says that different “scientific proofs” of the age of a common human ancestor vary from ~50,000 to ~1,800,000 years depending on who did the analysis and what data an methods they used.

Yes, this is a good example of how science works. There is a considerable spread in possible dates, so now researchers must work to find out why the methods vary, and under what conditions they ought to use one method or another.

but to my simple mind the proof offered seems to be disputed by other scientists as well.

Well, the article is not really a “proof”, but a report on the dates deduced from their method. These methods are all relatively new, so many independent groups will necessarily dispute the work of others. In time, we arrive at a method and date held as reasonable by all parties involved. That’s science.

 

[buffalo]

wanerious:

A reasonable course of action, if you want it to be scientifically investigated, is to double-check the accuracy of the reported size, note the time between the last detection and the first non-detection, take blood samples and brain scans to see any traces of odd phenomena compared with blood and scans taken when the tumor was present, and so on. What you’ve described would remain a scientific mystery unless other corroborating stories could be examined for commonality. This is not a “real” example, though, in that it’s pretty easy to come up with something physically preposterous.

.

This is how the church investigates miracles attributed to Saints.

 

[wanerious]

buffalo:

…I have a problem with applying limited knowledge and creating a theory that is then pushed as the only truth. I am more open minded than to limit myself to what men claim.

This might as well be a statement against a particular religious tradition.

While I believe science can never uncover the entire truth of the workings of the Universe, it is already greatly successful at describing the workings of the physical world to within the accuracy of modern engineering. The use of the word “claim” above belies the fact that the “claims” of men must be tightly constrained within the predictions of scientific theories, or they be rightly ruled out, just as religious “claims” within the Catholic tradition are subject to the Church’s constraints for proper interpretation.

 

[buffalo]

wanerious:

This might as well be a statement against a particular religious tradition.

While I believe science can never uncover the entire truth of the workings of the Universe, it is already greatly successful at describing the workings of the physical world to within the accuracy of modern engineering. The use of the word “claim” above belies the fact that the “claims” of men must be tightly constrained within the predictions of scientific theories, or they be rightly ruled out, just as religious “claims” within the Catholic tradition are subject to the Church’s constraints for proper interpretation.

One (Catholicism) has “Divine Revelation” and the Holy Spirit, the other (science) does not. Now Faith and Reason cannot contradict and they have the guarantee of truth, something that science alone does not possess.

When you say it is greatly successful, I would argue it has just scratched the surface. “within the limits of modern engineeering” is a concession. That has been my whole point all along. Much “faith” has been put into science as the total explanation. These are the same people who will put down those that have supernatural faith as being simple minded. I argue that they are as simple minded for their extreme ‘faith’ in their own observations, predictions and theories. In other words they are not humble.

 

[clmowry]

wanerious:

A reasonable course of action, if you want it to be scientifically investigated, is to double-check the accuracy of the reported size, note the time between the last detection and the first non-detection, take blood samples and brain scans to see any traces of odd phenomena compared with blood and scans taken when the tumor was present, and so on. What you’ve described would remain a scientific mystery unless other corroborating stories could be examined for commonality. This is not a “real” example, though, in that it’s pretty easy to come up with something physically preposterous.

Well actually it’s not so preposterous. The reason it came to mind, was that the son of one of my church brothers in Texas strugled with a very large brain tumor for several months. We were all pretty sure that he was going to die given the size and location of the tumor.

He underwent many different treatments to no avail.

He was scheduled to go into surgery as a last resot. He received the anointing of the sick. When he checked into the hospital the pre-surgery scans showed that the tumor had shrunk to such a size that they could no longer find it.

(In subsequent test they found a very small area that they belive to be the remains of the tumor.)

The Doctor’s couldn’t decide what happened. i.e. The other treatments had an unprcedented rapid effect?

I’m sure nothing could be proven from the data, beyond the fact that Ron was extrodinarily “lucky”. (Something for which many people were quite greatful.)

My hypothetical was based on but different from this particular incidence, in that it was not litteraly overnight, it was something like a week or two between scans, and there is nothing “scientificly” known about event beyond the fact that the tumor was shown to be there for a long period of time in several test and then disappeared quite rapidly.

In anycase you answered by question. In the hypothetical it would simply remain a mystery, and not possible evidence of anything else.

Chuck

 

[vern_humphrey]

Let’s try to get back on track.

First of all, there is no conflict between Catholicism and Evolution. The Catholic Church’s sole position is that the soul did not evolve. And souls are not addressed by science.

Second, evolution is a fact – like photo-synthesis. Here in Stone County, Arkansas, I can stop on any hillside, any creek bank, any road cut and find fossils – the remains of plants and animals that once lived in this county. But when I try to find the living counterparts of those fossils, by and large, they are not here.

Similarly, the living plants and animals are absent from the fossil record. This tells me plainly that virtually the total living population of this county “turned over” – the creatures that once lived here disappeared and were replaced by others.

I can go into the fossil record at different points and find many examples of this “turr over” of life forms – animals and plants present in one layer are missing just a few layers up or down.

I can also find similarities in the record – animals and plants now extinct have a resemblance to animals and plants now living.

Third, the THEORY of Evolution is Man’s explanation of how evolution (the scientific fact) took place. Like all scientific theories, it is subject to revision or refinement as new data is discovered.

But back to the original point – there is no conflict between the Theory of Evolution and Catholic Doctrine.

 

[Brown10985]

Hi,
This is the guy who started this thread.
I’ll repost what was stated in the encyclical.

Pope Pius XII states: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

Focusing on what I highlighted in bold, I don’t understand how I can hold to any other evolution theory other than that Adam evolved from pre-existing matter and that he was the only one of all of these creatures to evolve to the point of the ability to reason. Since the evidence for evolution doesn’t support this it confuses me why evolution is an open issue for Catholics.

Could someone please point out to the parts of Humani Generis that are giving me problems and give me an explaination how I can still hold to evolution given all of the evidence that seemingly contradicts that we all descended from Adam and Eve?

 

[buffalo]

Brown10985:

Hi,
This is the guy who started this thread.
I’ll repost what was stated in the encyclical.

Pope Pius XII states: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

Focusing on what I highlighted in bold, I don’t understand how I can hold to any other evolution theory other than that Adam evolved from pre-existing matter and that he was the only one of all of these creatures to evolve to the point of the ability to reason. Since the evidence for evolution doesn’t support this it confuses me why evolution is an open issue for Catholics.

Could someone please point out to the parts of Humani Generis that are giving me problems and give me an explaination how I can still hold to evolution given all of the evidence that seemingly contradicts that we all descended from Adam and Eve?

Vern is quite wrong.

You might read this and then comment.

DID WOMAN EVOLVE FROM THE BEASTS?
A DEFENSE OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

 

[vern_humphrey]

buffalo:

Vern is quite wrong.

So where in this am I wrong?

"Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that “the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but]
the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are. "

Where did my positions conflict with basic Catholic doctrine?

buffalo:

You might read this and then comment.

DID WOMAN EVOLVE FROM THE BEASTS?
A DEFENSE OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

Hmmmm – how about I let John Paul II comment for me?

“In his Encyclical Humani generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points (cf. AAS 42 [1950], pp. 575-576).” (Emphasis mine.)

You can read more at cin.org/jp2evolu.html

 

[buffalo]

Vern - did you read the article?