Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution True? Part 4.0

[Aloysium]

grabbing of evolutionist quotations regarding the frontiers of evolutionist research only serves to make ordinary people confused. If you really want to understand the fundamentals of evolution, and the evidence which led to its rapid, and vast, popularity and general acceptance, you really ought to read Darwin’s “Origin of Species”.

It led to a speedy general acceptance, because it strikes a cord in people’s mind. What did that is not cutting edge research but headlines. We are confused for sure to believe it, in spite of what common sense would tell us. But, what it does is blind us to certain realities, especially that of our being creatures, dependent on God’s love, not masters of our destiny outside of whether we treat others with love and try to be children of God, and that we do not make the rules as to who we are and what is good.

 

[Aloysium]

Repeating the same old same old doesn’t negate the fact that the Church does very much allow for the acceptance of the basic ToE as long as it is understood God was behind it all.

The accusation of repeating something over and over not negating a fact is here demonstrated. How many times does your claim need to be refuted before you will hear?

 

[benjamin1973]

I think you are confusing “refuted” with “disagreed with.”

 

[benjamin1973]

Your view isn’t really that different from an atheists. Most atheists see our material commonalities as a kind of brotherhood: we’re all in the same boat together, so we might as well be good to each other.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Thanks. I think you misrepresents the acceptance of evolution as an explanation for observed natural phenomena. The Origin of Species, like Galileo’s Dialogue, although in retrospect ground-breaking, did not, in fact, land on unprepared soil. Good Christian scientists, without a notion of evolution, were becoming increasingly unhappy with Genesis as a satisfactory explanation of their observations for a hundred years. Theologians had largely rejected a literal interpretation of Genesis for much longer, of course, based on ‘common sense’ rather than detailed observation, but the basic idea that God had created all the kinds of living things spontaneously ex nihilo, unchallenged by ‘common sense’, was becoming increasingly unsatisfactory in the light of biological and geological discoveries throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It became increasingly apparent that ‘God didn’t do it like that’ and so attempts to explain ‘how God did do it’ became much more common. Almost none of the ‘natural philosophers’ engaged on the task were atheists. The popularity of atheism did not spring from scientific routes at all.

Although Darwin himself became beset with doubts about the existence of God, most of those who accepted his explanation of observed phenomena with alacrity had no such qualms - if anything, their faith was strengthened by evolution, as it reestablished a coherence to divine creation which had been seriously dissipated by the failure of Genesis to explain it. This was the ‘chord that was struck in people’s minds’.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

The accusation of repeating something over and over not negating a fact is here demonstrated. How many times does your claim need to be refuted before you will hear?

Metis1’s claim only has to be refuted once for the entire edifice of evolution, and indeed science itself, to collapse in a welter of confusion. Come on, all you creationists - have a go!

 

[rossum]

The starting axiom is we need to explain natural events without divine intervention.

This is “Methodological Materialism”, which is basic to all science: you will not find a mention of Vishnu in a chemistry paper.

Suppose we allowed divine intervention in science. We would see papers like:

We tested the effect of gravity on 235 spheres of various sizes and weights with differing compositions. In every case the sphere fell downwards. However, we can draw no valid inferences from these results because divine intervention by Loki/Trickster cannot be ruled out as having skewed the results.

In conclusion we cannot verify the existence of gravity because of the possibility of divine intervention.

Science works on the assumption that no god(s) are miraculously intervening in experiments. Theists will generally agree that miracles are rare, and often undetectable to material methods, like transubstantiation.

The assumption is not that god(s) do not exist; the assumption is that god(s) are not affecting the results of experiments.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

I guess nobody bothers with Ed’s posts as to what the Church demands from any scientific theory.

The fundamental beliefs of Catholicism are not matters of opinion. They include:

• The question of the origin of man’s body from pre-existing and living matter is a legitimate matter of inquiry for natural science. Catholics are free to form their own opinions, but they should do so cautiously; they should not confuse fact with conjecture, and they should respect the Church’s right to define matters touching on Revelation.
• Catholics must believe, however, that humans have souls created immediately by God. Since the soul is a spiritual substance it is not brought into being through transformation of matter, but directly by God, whence the special uniqueness of each person.
• All men have descended from an individual, Adam, who has transmitted original sin to all mankind. Catholics may not, therefore, believe in “polygenism”, the scientific hypothesis that mankind descended from a group of original humans.

What theory of evolution does not include the evolution of a group of hominids?

 

[benjamin1973]

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.

Science has no comment on the soul-- so that is irrelevant. As for descent. . . we may very well be all descended from a single ancestor. So that’s not really that big a controversy, either.

 

[Aloysium]

It is completely different.

The spirit is the defining principle of humanity. It is what organizes our psychophysical structure to create a person transcending the instincts that characterize animals and the relationships which govern basic material being. The human soul is eternal, outside of time, changing only in regards to its relationship with God, as we freely decide who we are through our actions. That free will which carries with it the capacity for knowledge is what allows us to love, and consequently grow in the Way that is Jesus Christ. Atoms and molecules are the building blocks, which left to their own properties result in the decomposition we see with death.

Love, Divine and Triune in nature is at the Centre of all creation, bringing it, all time and space with everything in it, into existence, as a cosmic symphony of events and lives lived, interacting, all rising to a crescendo at the end of time, where it is One in God.

It’s not a matter of our might as well be good to each other, but having to be loving to truly be ourselves, Christ-like and not lost in illusion, victims, no matter how powerful, rich, famous the world may say we are, of passions which lead us away from eternal joy.

 

[Aloysium]

Science has no comment on the soul-- so that is irrelevant.

It’s not irrelevant, since its omission reduces the process to nonsense. It is the reality of a living being, the material merely the building blocks which locate it and allow for its functioning in time and space. Evolutionary theories are a mythos, a way to organize the scientific data which can be arranged in any number of ways, limited only by our capacity to imagine. Materialistic utilitarianism is what it is basically.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

We should still seriously address legitimate challenges to the theory of evolution.

Of course we should, and we would if there were any. At the moment there are no challenges at all, legitimate or otherwise. There are significant disagreements, even among scientists, about the details of evolutionary processes, and continuous challenges to the validity of experiments. However, these should lead to the possibility of further exploration. Creationist challenges are almost invariably along the lines of: “It hasn’t been done, therefore it cannot be done” or “I haven’t seen it happen, therefore it couldn’t have happened”, which are logically unsound and scientifically unhelpful with regard to further research. I’m afraid that to me there is an implied subtext which goes: “You haven’t done it yet, so you haven’t disproved creationism. Please don’t do any more research as I’m afraid of what you might discover in the future.” But perhaps I’m just a little cynical.

We should make it easier for lay people to see the evidences of evolution and this should be continuously updated and revised as new evidence comes rather than put it in the “done and dusted” category. My suggestion would be to have a website where each step is outlined with info on 1. What we think happened. 2. Why do we think it happened that way and the evidence for it 3. estimation of time it took to happen. 4. Evidence for this time estimate.

That’s quite a good idea, and quite possibly someone is doing it somewhere. But as I say, scientists generally have much better things to do than spend time and money on reconfirming something that most ‘lay people’ recognise as satisfactory anyway, and which is only denied by people who squabble amongst themselves over he most basic details of their own beliefs, and who have no scientific competence to understand it with anyway.

For example can you tell me for each of the 4 points above…

I am forever being told by the CAF software that my posts are too long, so no, I can’t. I can refer you to any number of scientific papers which exactly address all these points, mostly separately, but you could probably find them yourself with a few minutes on Google Scholar. Papers such as “Mechanism of Synthesis of Adenine from Hydrogen Cyanide under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions” by Joan Oró, or “Phosphorylation, oligomerization and self-assembly in water under potential prebiotic conditions” by Clémentine Gibar et al. describe plausible self-assembly pathways for biological molecules from plausible prebiotic ‘soups’.

Not one of the hundreds of such papers published every year selects your six chosen interests and analyses each one according to your four criteria, but together you will find they put together a very detailed, coherent explanation for the observed phenomena of the world.

[continued]

 

[Hugh_Farey]

If evolution is true then one day we will evolve into another species, right? Will that species be under still the Catholic theological framework? Or do you believe the Second Coming must be before that?

If humans follow the trend then it seems quite likely that we will eventually become a different species. Experimental tests for that would be intriguing. If a viable sperm from ten thousand years ago were mated with a modern egg, it seems quite likely that a happy, healthy, ‘normal’ baby would result. However, if a sperm from today was still viable a hundred thousand years from now (which is more likely) then whether it could produce a baby at all is a matter of speculation. A lot depends on the speed with which the environment changes. It seems likely that the human genome will change quite a lot, probably with the elimination of genetic disease and the universal adoption of lactose tolerance for example, but how soon reproductive isolation (still a useful rule-of-thumb definition of a species) will occur is anyone’s guess.

Another more likely, and probably more rapid possibility is that a colony of humans living on a different planet, enjoying (or suffering) reproductive isolation, will become reproductively incompatible, so that there will be two extant species of human, just as there were in the past.

All sentient beings with a conscience will continue to thrive under a Catholic theological framework, and I do not expect the Second Coming within the next million years.

 

[Scott2]

Haven’t been to CA in a long time. But this is embracing that Catholics are still debating and arguing against evolution as if they were fundamentalists, or quasi fundamentalists. I see it this way: Those who argue against evolution science become the evangelical atheists (such as Dawkins) best allies. I mean how many kids grow up in fundamentalist-type families having been told not to believe evolution who then go on to drop their faith because they’ve accepted the science-based evidence? They drop it because they mistakenly believe one must reject the science to be a faithful Christian.

Saint Augustine argued against a literal interpretation of Genesis. He actually chastised those that did.
https://www.pibburns.com/augustin.htm

The modern Church has this to say with regards to a literalist’s meaning:
http://catholic-resources.org/ChurchDocs/PBC_Interp-FullText.htm

F. Fundamentalist Interpretation
… As the 20th century comes to an end, this kind of interpretation is winning more and more adherents, in religious groups and sects, as also among Catholics.
… But its way of presenting these truths is rooted in an ideology which is not biblical, whatever the proponents of this approach might say. For it demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.

The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that… It refuses to admit that the inspired word of God has been expressed in human language and that this word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources. For this reason, it tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit…

Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth. It often historicizes material which from the start never claimed to be historical…, failing to take the necessary account of the possibility of symbolic or figurative meaning.

… It accepts the literal reality of an ancient, out-of-date cosmology simply because it is found expressed in the Bible; this blocks any dialogue with a broader way of seeing the relationship between culture and faith.

The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem. Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations.

 

[benjamin1973]

Right.

So the body is of the world, and can be achieved by whatever means. The soul, if there is one, is of, by and for God.

No conflict, because non-religious scientists are studying only the body. Not sure what you think the problem is.

 

[rossum]

As for descent. . . we may very well be all descended from a single ancestor. So that’s not really that big a controversy, either.

Not “may very well be” but “are”. Science has identified common ancestors, see Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA). The MRCA of all humans probably lived about 3,000 years to 5,000 years ago. Hence there are very many common ancestors, though not “most recent”. The MRCA’s parents, grandparents, great-grandparents etc. are all common ancestors as well.

Both Mitochondrial-Eve and Y-Chromosome Adam are common ancestors, though not the most recent.

Common descent from a single pair is not a scientific issue, indeed the science confirms it. The problem is in identifying which of the many possible pairs the Genesis story refers to.

What is a problem is thinking that there was a population of only two genetic humans, that is ruled out by science. Two of the many common ancestors with souls, and the rest without souls is compatible with science, since science cannot detect souls.

rossum

 

[Hugh_Farey]

The fundamental beliefs of Catholicism are not matters of opinion. They include: […]
Catholics must believe, however, that humans have souls created immediately by God. Since the soul is a spiritual substance it is not brought into being through transformation of matter, but directly by God, whence the special uniqueness of each person.

This is not necessarily a problem. It depends on the definition of a soul. Unsatisfactorily, the definition of a souls usually boils down to ‘what differentiates a human from a non-human’. Thus insofar as the word human can distinguish one animal from another, the soul is inseparable from it.

All men have descended from an individual, Adam, who has transmitted original sin to all mankind. Catholics may not, therefore, believe in “polygenism”, the scientific hypothesis that mankind descended from a group of original humans.

The Catechism skirts around Adam being a specific individual, but it is true that Human generis is much more dogmatic. It is, of course, “only” an encyclical, and not infallible, and over fifty years old, but unquestionably it remains part of the teaching of the Catholic Church. Sadly, I disagree with it, but I take comfort that I am far from alone among 21st century Catholics, including eminent doctors of the Church, and have no doubt at all that the teaching will be corrected before I have to meet my maker face to face!

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Those who argue against evolution science become the evangelical atheists (such as Dawkins) best allies.

Absolutely true. I have even wondered if Glark or edwest211 might actually be evangelical atheists in disguise, so contrarily persuasive are their arguments!

 

[Aloysium]

descended

Let’s clarify what this means.

We are descended from Adam in the sense that we are all expressions of one humanity, which began with one person, becoming two - male and female.

Hominids were animals. We have livers, hearts, bones, skin and brains as they would have. We have similar emotional reactions - fear, anger, sexual desire.

Similarities do not imply descent. Your great grandfather and I might bear many similarities but I am not descended from him.

While I am “descended” from my parents, no part of them is in myself other than that which I have taken up, such as morals, personality characteristic and attitudes. As to what I got physically, any atoms and molecules that once belonged to their bodies are very much gone replaced by the the myriad of those that were the physical bodies of numerous living organisms I have ingested during my life, with some salt and oxygen added.

So we are created as individual and unique expressions of humanity, first brought into existence in Adam. Adam could have been created in any number of ways, which we cannot know through science.

Hominid organisms can be understood to have been a primates, with their particular physical characteristics and instinctive behaviour diverging from that of others. Each as an expression of that particular soul would have been created in a similar manner as we were, and as all life.

It is all about creation, here and now and in every other moment, from One eternal Source.

There are breaks between the different kinds of living forms. The continuity exists within each true “species”. That the information contained in simpler forms is used to create those more complex is not a true continuity. It is an illusion that appears when one sees only the material neglecting what things are like in themselves.

 

[benjamin1973]

Does it even specify that Adam and Eve were human?