Happy Birthday, Mr. Darwin: Growing Majority of Americans Support Teaching Both Sides of Evolution Debate

[redneck22]

My cat dies and I bury it deep in my backyard, then I die and I’m buried above my cat. Years later evolutionary paleontologists come along, excavate the area and say “this is excellent evidence for cats evolving into humans”.

The only “evidence” the fossil record can demonstrate is Stasis and Extinction. Its a record of death not life.

 

[wasmit]

redneck, are you deviously trying to trick the readers of this thread, or are you genuinely mistaken?

 

[reggieM]

First, I am not a Darwinist, having exceptions with some of what he said. I am speaking here only of your own interpretation of that paragraph which you posted, and am only requesting some degree of critical thought on all our parts.

I thought you made some sweeping judgements that were not justified, but I’m glad that you don’t have an uncritical embrace of Darwinism.

I also thought that you might have had some Fundamentalist background but I was obviously mistaken on that point. I didn’t really understand what you were driving at so I appreciate your explanation.

 

[Detales]

Thanks, reggieM, I appreciate that. I don’t have uncritical acceptance of anything, including Catholicism, due to my own experiences with alleged practitioners of it. I do try to distinguish, however, between people who call themselves Catholics, and what is “on the books” as the codification of the faith. Even then, I remember that Paul said “The letter kills, the Spirit enlivens.” I also realize that we don’t know everything, as is illustrated by Mark 4:33,34 and other such ideas.

I know also that there are valid critiques about too much intellect. that doesn’t mean we are not to think, or make mistakes. That is what teleology is for. And I yet maintain that God doesn’t demerit for sincere use of a gift, even if it is one’s brain. It is why I do what I can to promote broader, more unified ways of thinking. As David Bohm has pointed out, we have a distinct use for fragmenting our thought field in certain instances. In others, that fragmentation actually obscures what is already one. I feel that this is so in many instances of illusory disunity in any field, one of those being religion. Science is another.

I would also remind everyone of the last sentence in the Origin of Species (not the origin of Life!), as demonstarion that he was not postulating a materialistic begining of life, but simply a way in which species might be changing. I have my own theory as to why this happens, but that is another story, though I think I hinted at it on here in a previous post.:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”

 

[Rolltide]

My cat dies and I bury it deep in my backyard, then I die and I’m buried above my cat. Years later evolutionary paleontologists come along, excavate the area and say “this is excellent evidence for cats evolving into humans”.

The only “evidence” the fossil record can demonstrate is Stasis and Extinction. Its a record of death not life.

Wow… even creationists should be able to find and walk through the hole in that argument…

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

Could you enumerate and concisely describe the theories proposed by Darwin that are discredited and used to denigrate faith and the faithful, please?

No, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion would be a good place to start your search for info.

From my previous link:Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

For if any view is central to Darwinism, it is that the evolutionary process is predominantly guided by the fitness-biasing force of natural selection, acting on randomly generated variation.

Hitler, Social Darwinism, and Eugenics are topics, IMO, that result from Darwin’s theory’s that stem from his work on evolution.

 

[Namesake]

No, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion would be a good place to start your search for info.

That’s nonsense. I have read and reread that book and I don’t understand what you think I could find there to answer my question.

From my previous link:Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Hitler, Social Darwinism, and Eugenics are topics, IMO, that result from Darwin’s theory’s that stem from his work on evolution.

Those topics don’t result from Darwin’s work at all. Those are no where supported by anything Darwin theorized. Those are the result of people misusing Darwin’s theory. People misuse all sorts of science, or religion, to cause all sorts of evil in the world. That doesn’t make the original science, or religion evil.

The September 11th, 2001 attacks on the USA happened because of people misusing religion. That doesn’t in any way make religion evil.

 

[Baloo]

Wasn’t darwinism as a whole disproved by the found information on DNA? And that we couldn’t have possibly evolved from Monkeys, or even those Neanderthal guys?

 

[Rolltide]

Wasn’t darwinism as a whole disproved by the found information on DNA? And that we couldn’t have possibly evolved from Monkeys, or even those Neanderthal guys?

What it found was that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals are cousins (rather than humans descending from Neanderthals), and both evolved from the earlier Homo erectus. The line of animals that evolved into mankind did not evolve from apes, but the two do share a common ancestor from which they both diverged about 7.5 million years ago.

Interestingly, last month an archeological expedition in Africa found some 200,000 year old Hyena corpolites (fossilized poop) that contain what appear to be perfectly preserved human hair meaning at some point in the distant past, a hyena (which is a scavenger) likely wandered across a deceased human and partially ate him. What is interesting is that this is among the oldest testable DNA material ever found. At that age, it is possible that the hair could be from a human ancestor like Homo erectus, and might provide a DNA map to show how closely the species were truly related. At the least, it can be used to show somewhat more conclusively that mankind dates to at least 200,000 years ago (since the dating of organic material is generally much better and more precise than non-organic material).

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

That’s nonsense. I have read and reread that book and I don’t understand what you think I could find there to answer my question.

Sorry, that depends on your world view. In “Answering The New Atheism” Hahn and Wiker write:

“For Darwin (as for Hobbes, Nietzsche, and Dawkins as well), morality is not itself natural; there is no natural good and evil. Rather, what we call morality is one of the effects of the natural selection of traits that, for some reason or other, contributed directly or indirectly to survival in the struggle of life. This is such an important point to dwell upon because it so severely damages Dawkins’ moral case against Christianity and his own attempt to transcend the morality of Darwinism.” page 104

And again:

“The core of the difficulty for Darwinism…is again that human beings are classed as just one among a large number of species of animals. As a consequence, Darwinism must treat human beings and animals on the same plane, which means that evolved moral traits can only be explained, not condoned or condemned.” page 109

In addition:

“It is not difficult to see that hard reason could lead all too easily to the kind of eugenic conclusions espoused by the Nazis, something that both Darwin in prospect and Dawkins in retrospect would count as abominable.” page 113

To quote Darwin:

“At some future period, not very distant as measured be centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes * will no doubt be exterminated. The break * will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state…than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” The Descent of Man pt I, chap. VI, page 235.**

Not exactly the Love that Christ wants us to have.

Back to Hahn and Wiker"

"…at least two of the most infamous crimes of Nazism, eugenics and racial extermination, appear to follow directly from the principles of natural selection." page 120

From Catholic Encyclopedia:

Darwinism and the theory of evolution are by no means equivalent conceptions. The theory of evolution was propounded before Charles Darwin’s time, by Lamarck (1809) and Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. Darwin, in 1859, gave it a new form by endeavouring to explain the origin of species by means of natural selection. According to this theory the breeding of new species depends on the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. The Darwinian theory of selection is Darwinism—adhering to the narrower, and accurate, sense of the word. As a theory, it is scientifically inadequate, since it does not account for the origin of attributes fitted to the purpose, which must be referred back to the interior, original causes of evolution. Haeckel, with other materialists, has enlarged this selection theory of Darwin’s into a philosophical world-idea, by attempting to account for the whole evolution of the cosmos by means of the chance survival of the fittest. This theory is Darwinism in the secondary, and wider, sense of the word. It is that atheistical form of the theory of evolution which was shown above—under (2)—to be untenable. The third signification of the term Darwinism arose from the application of the theory of selection to man, which is likewise impossible of acceptance. In the fourth place, Darwinism frequently stands, in popular usage, for the theory of evolution in general. This use of the word rests on an evident confusion of ideas, and must therefore be set aside.

newadvent.org/cathen/05654a.htm

 

[Orogeny]

My cat dies and I bury it deep in my backyard, then I die and I’m buried above my cat. Years later evolutionary paleontologists come along, excavate the area and say “this is excellent evidence for cats evolving into humans”.

The only “evidence” the fossil record can demonstrate is Stasis and Extinction. Its a record of death not life.

Keep telling yourself that. Maybe one day even you will really believe it.

Peace

Tim

 

[Dameedna]

If your faith in a “God” is based on evolution not “occuring” through natural selection, then your faith is based on nothing but a lie.

God, if God exists is what he is.

And yes, we evolved through natural selection.

Perhaps it’s your understanding of God that is wrong?

 

[Orogeny]

Wasn’t darwinism as a whole disproved by the found information on DNA?

Not at all. In fact, genetics and genomics are some of the best evidence supporting evolution.

And that we couldn’t have possibly evolved from Monkeys, or even those Neanderthal guys?

You are right. Of course, that means that you agree with evolution.

Peace

Tim

 

[cpayne]

I think what CAF needs are a few more threads on evolution.

 

[walsh]

personally since we don’t know exactly how it all started, and most likely never will i see both strict creationists and evolutionists as being a bit arrogant.

to me it seems like the hard core creationists don’t except that God could have just set the conditions perfectly so that ‘somehow’(maybe He did just make it) one single cell formed and evolved exactly how He wanted so that we got all these things around today.
-“but the Bible doesnt say that”
–it was written thousands of years ago do you think the ancient people could have grasped that concept without it completely altering their society?

and the harcore evolutionists who see no God in it…fine if you think cells randomly formed and evolved fine, but where did what they evolve come from, andf where did the componets of that stuff come from and so on and so on to the big bang
-“the big bang made all the matter in the universe”
–so you accept everything springing out of nothing once, just once and never again with no proof or explanation, but reject the idea that opposed to everything else in the world this onetime nothing made it?

i know there are a lot of people in the middle on this, but those on the edges really need to take a step back and go hmm…

 

[buffalo]

Darwinians need to see this video on the Extended Synthesis and how Darwinians are undermining science.

 

[Orogeny]

Darwinians need to see this video on the Extended Synthesis and how Darwinians are undermining science.

Does the extended synthesis include God as a cause? If not, how is that any better than “Darwinism”?

Peace

Tim

 

[buffalo]

Does the extended synthesis include God as a cause? If not, how is that any better than “Darwinism”?

Peace

Tim

See the whole thing, digest it and then let’s discuss.

 

[Leela]

BUT, the “end in mind” is always there. Even if you and I can’t see it instantaneously. Name a thing that has no final cause.

If you are talk about Aristotelian final causes, like saying it rains to make the flowers grow, this sounds like putting the cart before the horse (or saying that horses exist to pull carts).

“Theory” = might, not necessarily would. Perhaps we might get different results. Say we did, then the question is, how different? Still, we have not refuted God.

We aren’t talking about refuting God. At issue is man’s place in creation, not God’s. I am accepting for the sake of argument that God started it all, and I’m trying to see if evolution is really a problem for religion as so many find it to be.

As I see it, evolution is another Copernican revolution in regard to trying to view humanity as the whole point of the universe instead of as a byproduct of evolution.

In essence, outcomes were determined. You can’t, on the one hand, deny “free-will” due to absolute determinism, then, on the other hand, deny “design” due to absolute non-determinism. This is logical absurdity.

I’m not sure where you are coming from here with free will/determinism. I have never taken a side in that debate because I think it is a meaningles question.

Well, you have failed to provide a proof for “the lack of a priveledged place for mankind in the creation process”.

If you say so. Maybe you can help me find a priveledged place for any particular organism under evolution, which views organisms themselves as survival machines for genes.

Best,
Leela

 

[reggieM]

Does the extended synthesis include God as a cause? If not, how is that any better than “Darwinism”?

Peace

Tim

There are no flaws in evolutionary theory, supposedly.