Is Darwin's Theory Of Evolution True?

[Aloysium]

When one reads articles regarding biological wonders such as the solitaire described above, one will likely be struck by the ever-present reference to evolution. Variations among species that are adaptive and artistically creative, as in the case of the peacock and some wrens, are given to be examples of evolution. Things here become ambiguous. The meaning of evolution as change, is morphed into Neo-Darwinism, which claims that such changes are based solely on the simplest material processes. These examples do not and cannot prove this in any way. It is truly a pity that rather than statements about the glory of God, which most of us feel whether or not we recognize it as such, society feeds itself that sort of nonsense.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[edwest211]

On the contrary, society does not feed itself anything for the most part. Schools and textbooks propagate ideas that many simply trust are factual. Too bad this aspect of science has become an ideology. The so-called popular media echoes the same ideas which are left unexamined by many.

 

[Glark]

Actually, neither side should claim to know what the fossil record says, as the fossils that have been discovered so far could represent only the tiniest fraction of the total number of fossils in existence. So our present fossil collection could be so small as to be “statistically insignificant”. An election result can’t be determined if only 0.01% of the votes have been counted, can it?

Furthermore, since there is no way of knowing of the total number of fossils in existence, there is no way of knowing when a “statistically significant” number of fossils have been collected. In which case, the fossil record can never be safely used as definitive empirical evidence.

 

[Glark]

If billions of years of evolution is the truth, why is the folklore of ancient cultures dominated by stories about creation? Is there any folklore at all that tells a tale of evolution? Are there any so-called Holy Books that present evolution as fact?

 

[ChunkMonk]

That how the hijackers of her work misinterpretted it.

I just wanted to address this. There is no such thing as “hijacking” the published work of a scientist. Thia kind of thinking is very dangerous. That only the approved people with approved ideas should be allowed to see and interpret data.

 

[Glark]

Is this how it went? God created microbes and then He went away for billions of years and came back to see what evolution had produced from them; and lo and behold, along with lots of other creatures, there just happened to human beings roaming about. God then thought, Hey, here’s an idea: I’ll inject a soul into this human creature and deem it “made in my image”. Later on God sent his only begotten Son to earth to be beaten, tortured and die a horrible death on the cross in order that these creatures that evolution accidentally produced might have eternal life.

 

[Glark]

Why not? That’s where we find a rich source of support for the theory. Why shouldn’t we talk about it? It is hard to explain the fossil record without evolution.

The scientific community is dominated by the spirit of atheism. Are we to be so naive as to assume that scientific interpretation of evidence is not influenced by a strongly-held philosophical position?

“Assuming that the Darwinian hypothesis … [paleontologists then] interpret fossil data according to it … The error in their method is obvious” - Pierre-P. Grasse

 

[Glark]

What do y’all think Mount Rushmore will look like in 4 Billion years ?

A gigantic face of Donald Trump.

 

[edwest211]

Yes, this is a common misconception here. God actually did things. He didn’t leave the primordial soup on the stove for billions of years only to learn, much to His surprise, human beings came from it.

 

[Glark]

New mountains could form from the action of tectonic plates colliding into each other.

 

[Glark]

Yes, this is a common misconception here. God actually did things. He didn’t leave the primordial soup on the stove for billions of years only to learn, much to His surprise, human beings came from it.

If it happened like that, God wouldn’t be much of a Creator.

It also means this “unguided” version of theistic evolution is really no different to atheistic evolution.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

That how the hijackers of her work misinterpretted it.

I just wanted to address this. There is no such thing as “hijacking” the published work of a scientist. Thia kind of thinking is very dangerous. That only the approved people with approved ideas should be allowed to see and interpret data.

That is not what hijacking means. (But I think you knew that.)

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Why not? That’s where we find a rich source of support for the theory. Why shouldn’t we talk about it? It is hard to explain the fossil record without evolution.

The scientific community is dominated by the spirit of atheism. Are we to be so naive as to assume that scientific interpretation of evidence is not influenced by a strongly-held philosophical position?

You have described ID proponents to a T.

 

[edwest211]

You’re right. But somehow, the all-powerful God is excluded. He cannot be part of science by definition so He can’t be a part of an unguided process. I hope people understand that. The argument goes that what looks unguided to us was actually guided by God is not a scientific idea. God sustains creation. But, in the end, the textbook version is all people need to accept.

 

[Glark]

It seems to me that, in order to remain “scientifically correct”, many evo-Catholics cut God out of the evolution process. God-guided evolution isn’t scientifically acceptable.

 

[Glark]

Here is a very interesting extract from the article you linked earlier (post 558):

DID WOMAN EVOLVE FROM THE BEASTS?
A DEFENCE OF TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE - PART II

"ENDNOTES …

1. Although the Catechism refrains here and in #345 from placing the words “six days” in quotation marks, it does so in #339 and #342. This apparent ambivalence suggests the intention to leave open to scholarly discussion, as did the 1909 PBC decision, the precise interpretation of the word yom (day) in Genesis 1. This is of particular relevance now that science, after a 150-year consensus to the effect that the earth took billions of years to reach its present state, has recently found evidence which radically undermines the accepted geological time-scale, and is compatible with the hypothesis that the earth’s age is to be measured in only thousands — not millions, and much less billions — of years. I refer to (for instance) the demonstrated incoherence of many radiometric dating results, and the studies of the American Dr. Robert Gentry on the common presence of polonium ‘haloes’ in granite rocks — a phenomenon which, given the known half-life of polonium, can only be explained by postulating that these primordial ‘building blocks’ of the earth were formed, not over millions of years, but in less than three minutes. Gentry’s studies on this phenomenon have been published since the 1970s in respected scientific journals, where they have been generally ignored, but never rebutted, by his peers. Of particular importance are recent studies in sedimentology carried out and published by Dr. Guy Berthault, a highly qualified French geologist who has demonstrated experimentally that, in moving currents of water, strata consisting of different sediments are laid down not very slowly, one after the other in vertical succession (as geologists have assumed for centuries), but rather, simultaneously. Again, these empirically observable results — which effectively demolish the long-accepted geological time-scale — have been published during the last decade in respected French scientific journals without any serious attempt at rebuttal. They are now appearing also in highly respected and specialized geological journals published in Russia and China. See the following articles by Berthault: “Analysis of Main Principles of Stratigraphy on the Basis of Experimental Data”, Lithology and Mineral Resources (Litologiya i Poleznye Iskopaemye), vol. 37, no. 5, September-October 2002, pp. 442-446; “Geological Dating Principles Questioned: Paleohydraulics: a new approach”, Journal of Geodesy and Geodynamics [English version of a journal originally published in Chinese], vol. 22, no. 3, August 2002, pp. 19-26.”

by Brian W. Harrison, O.S., M.A., S.T.D.
Associate Professor of Theology,
Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico

 

[Techno2000]

Where’s rossum ?

 

[edwest211]

Theistic Evolution sounds OK but my question is: Where does the theistic part fit in? Or is it just a play on words?

 

[Glark]

What qualifies you to assess all the advancements in science? Are you some super microbiologist or something? I would not pretend to claim my knowledge of a field gleaned from reading “Popular Science” was sufficient to make this assessment.

I am not a super microbiologist or something (although once upon a time I thought I was superman - but I was wrong).

The theory that all life on earth evolved from microbes is touted as the greatest “discovery” in the history of science. That being so, one would expect a myriad of practical uses to flow from it. Alas, it seems there are none. The reason for this could be that it is a theory that has no basis in fact.

“That, by this, evolutionism would appear as a theory without value, is confirmed also pragmatically. A theory must not be required to be true, said Mr. H. Poincare, more or less, it must be required to be useable. Indeed, none of the progress made in biology depends even slightly on a theory, the principles of which [i.e., of how evolution occurs – ED.] are nevertheless filling every year volumes of books, periodicals, and congresses with their discussions and their disagreements.”
Professor Louis Bounoure ( Professor of Biology, University of Strasbourg and Director of the Strasbourg Zoological Museum), Determinism and Finality, edited by Flammarion, 1957, p. 79

 

[Techno2000]

Theistic Evolution sounds OK but my question is: Where does the theistic part fit in? Or is it just a play on words?

I guess the theistic part makes it more plausible for it to work, as opposed to just blind luck