Dark << Go Ms. Cathy! Blow all those evolutionists away! >>
Sorry Dark, already been done, but it is the other way around.
Index to Creationist Claims
The champions of evolution going back to May 2004 in here, have been Rossum (buddhist), Orogeny (Tim, a Catholic geologist), HECD2 (Alec, atheist physicist), Zian (Catholic), The Barbarian (Catholic), I’ll add myself (PhilVaz, Catholic) and some others I can’t remember. Best of luck when you meet them in these creation-evolution threads. You’ll need it.
Cathy << Fools rush in, and I’m afraid I fall in that category, especially since I’m no expert in evolution or in Church teachings. But I have read that geneticists claim all human beings descended from one couple. If that is true, it conforms to the Church’s teaching. >>
This is not the case, and I have cited the source a number of times in here. We do trace back by
mt-DNA to one woman (“Eve”) who lived about 150,000 years ago, and by
Y-chrom-DNA to one man (“Adam”) who lived about 60,000 years ago. This genetic “Eve” and genetic “Adam” never met (i.e. they are separated by 100,000 years), they were never a “couple”, and there was always a
population of hominids on the earth. There was never just “two people.” Sorry to get your hopes up, but science does not support the Genesis 1-3 account taken literally.
SOURCE: “…the fact that a single ancestor gave rise to all of the diversity present today does not mean that this was the only person alive at the time – only that descendent lineages of the other people alive at the same time died out…we are all the recent descendents of a single woman who lived in Africa less than 150,000 years ago. This result begs the question of where Eve actually lived – where in Africa was the Garden of Eden? In one sense this is a red herring, since we know that there were many women alive all over Africa at this time…the root of the male family tree was placed in Africa – exactly the same answer that mtDNA had given us for women. The shocker came when a date was estimated for the age of the oldest common ancestor. This man, from whom all men alive today ultimately derive their Y-chromosomes, lived 59,000 years ago. More than 80,000 years after that estimated for Eve! Did Adam and Eve never meet? No they didn’t, but the reason is fairly complicated…” (
The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells [Random House Paperback, 2003], pages 32, 40, 54)
RATZINGER/BENEDICT on Genesis 1-3: “All of this is well and good, one might say, but is it not ultimately disproved by our scientific knowledge of how the human being evolved from the animal kingdom? Now, more reflective spirits have long been aware that there is no either-or here. We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities.
The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments.” (
In the Beginning… A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall)
AND
“While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution.” (From the
International Theological Commission, headed by then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger now Pope Benedict XVI, paragraph 63 of statement “Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God,” plenary sessions held in Rome 2000-2002, published July 2004)
See also Cardinal Schonborn’s book
Chance or Purpose where he also concedes human evolution (especially page 113ff, “Man: A Part of Nature”).
I think it is fantastic we all want to reconcile science with Catholic teaching, but we MUST get the science right, and we should also consider what prominent churchmen already concede with regard to evolution. Denying science is a losing proposition in the long run, but it does make for long creation-evolution threads in here.
Phil P
- animals with intelligent souls that make us the only animals with a capacity for communion with Christ 
. I see you conveniantly ignored what was posted at the top the page on pst number #46 with all a bunch of sources confirming evolution.