Originally Posted by
Farsight001 forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif
No. At best Benedict holds an agnostic position on the subject. He was expressing personal opinion, not binding doctrine. He happens to be incorrect, too. Its quite possible to conduct experiments in a controlled environment to confirm evolution. It happens all the time.
Emphasis mine
When Catholics are faced with flimsy general comments similar to what I put in bold, they can assume that some kind of experiments have taken place. We need to respect the efforts of scientists. The questionable theory works great in many areas of life. I am totally grateful for the medical advances due to molecular biology and related sciences, including computer technology.
Catholics can also assume that anything involving today’s popular biological theory will have been somewhere in some kind of media.
This or that has been confirmed is great for sound bites and bringing in advertising dollars. Science news can often be found on internet news outlets. Catholics should not hesitate to ask for citations, even if the citation turns out to be a creative story in a popular magazine.
There are various types of “breaking news” formats when it comes to science. Most of them in print or on the internet will be a reporter’s story about the research. A science editor usually has a more in-depth approach. One needs to remember, that the writer chooses what to write. The choice can vary from basic info to the writers’ personal wishes.
Some websites will post the “abstract”. The abstract serves as a general summary of the research. Some are more informative than others. Some will give the goals of the researcher. The benefit of the abstracts is that they are written by the researcher and not by an interpreter of the research. One does not need to faint when a website prints the entire research paper with mysterious graphs. We need to keep in mind that the researcher put a lot of effort into her or his project and we should respect that. What follows are some general ideas regarding current research.
It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that current research has gone beyond determining ancient population sizes. Often there is a reference and corresponding footnote referring to earlier published research. Or, the researcher may have redone some genetic-type research and because of 21st century technology the results vary. Regardless of the population estimates going thousands of years backwards, there is someone who will say that the population estimates do not allow for Adam and Eve.
It is not necessary to directly challenge a population estimate or the assumptions used to arrive at that figure. What is helpful is to keep in mind how difficult it must be to get hard data from every place on planet earth, every day of the year. How far did the Toba event reach? Was there a dry season every year. Did plagues occur? How many children did each breeding pair have. What is the length of a generation? What part did genetic drift play in smaller populations?
In regard to the real existence of Adam and Eve, there are only two answers to all the questions. The usual answer is that it is improbable that two first parents existed. The important answer is that while Adam and Eve’s reality may be improbable, the correlative truth is that their reality remains possible.
The possibility of Adam’s existence becomes greater because of his superior intellective abilities due to his spiritual soul. Also, God blessed the fertility of Adam and Eve. Even though the “garden” was closed, there are still many places on earth which could shelter a young family apart from the larger population of subhumans.
Today, there are surveillance cameras everywhere. When one says that a mountain of evidence makes Adam and Eve improbable, we can think about the lack of cameras thousands of years going backwards. We can remember that the nitty-gritty of assumptions and estimates can be valid for a particular area and a particular time on earth but cannot be used to cover every event, everywhere, every day of thousands of years.
Common sense tells us that Adam and Eve are definitely possible.