Is Darwin's Theory Of Evolution True?

[PetraG]

Then everyone should quit quoting Popes because they aren’t scientists.

The Magesterium of the Church most certainly has the authority to say what scientific ideas are or are not in violation of dogmatic Truth. The Popes most certainly do have the authority to say whether or not the theory of evolution could be true without being in violation of revealed Truth. The Popes have said evolution, proven or not, could be true without being evidence against God as the Ultimate Creator of all things, including life itself.

 

[Glark]

A designer could produce a pegasus, a mixture of mammal and bird. Evolution cannot do that; all it can do is to produce new species of mammal or new species of bird.
We have never observed a pegasus or any animal like it with crossover characteristics from different branches of the tree.

There’s that other mythical creature, the platypus - a mammal that lays eggs like a bird. Imagine how weird it would be if there were mammals that flew like birds or lived in the ocean and had fins like fish!

 

[Glark]

Genesis 2:7 - 7 “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

I think it’s pretty clear the dust did not whirl itself into the form of a man, as the collection of dust in itself is not a living being.

The Church has somehow decided that Genesis 2:7 can be interpreted as Adam being formed from a pre-existing creature. I strongly disagree and I think every one of the early Church Father would be aghast at such a teaching.

 

[rossum]

A platypus is a Monotreme. It is an egg-laying mammal. While most mammals do not lay eggs, some do: Platypuses and Echidnas.

You appear to lack the required knowledge of biology to be able to make relevant criticisms.

“An intelligent mind acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” - Proverbs 18:15.

rossum

 

[Glark]

Stein edited the scene tendentiously

How do you know that? Where you there?

 

[Glark]

If science becomes god …

“Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, Who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God” - 2Thess 2:3-4

 

[Glark]

How about a million years of wolf breeding that produces a non-wolf? Wouldn’t that be evolution?

You can call it evolution if you like. But a wolf and a non-wolf can belong to the same species, so in that sense there has been no evolution at all.
It didn’t take man a milllion years to “evolve” a wolf into a non-wolf - artifical selection can achieve that feat relatively quickly. But is this evidence that dogs can be breed to eventually become non-dogs? Of course not.

 

[Glark]

Wow, I didn’t know a battle of “Bible Geeks” vs. “Science Geeks” could be so intense! I haven’t had as much fun since Dungeons and Dragons (which is enjoying a revival on Netflix’s “Stranger Things”).

I’ve seen the movie - The Bible Geeks win in the end.

 

[edwest211]

Humani Generis makes that clear. There was Adam only. He was not part of a group of first men or almost-men. He had immortality, among other gifts, and he had one rule to observe that was given to him by God, but he and Eve chose to disobey.

Romans 5:12

New International Version
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned–

New Living Translation
When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.

English Standard Version
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

 

[Glark]

It is dangerous to assume what God would or would not want to do? For example, who would have thought that God wanted to have his son die upon a cross?

God loves whatever he creates, so a loving God who separates himself from his creation is an absurd idea.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

How about a million years of wolf breeding that produces a non-wolf? Wouldn’t that be evolution?

You can call it evolution if you like. But a wolf and a non-wolf can belong to the same species, so in that sense there has been no evolution at all.
It didn’t take man a milllion years to “evolve” a wolf into a non-wolf - artifical selection can achieve that feat relatively quickly. But is this evidence that dogs can be breed to eventually become non-dogs? Of course not.

Sure it is. You are conveniently defining “species” to be anything that we have observed. So evolution is - by your definition - only those things we have not seen before. If you would just stop moving the goalpost around, we might be able to say what evolution is.

It is true that artificial selection can accomplish evolution faster than natural selection because the selection process can be perfectly targeted. That does not discount evolution produced by natural selection.

Most biologists define “species” to be organisms that cannot interbreed. We have seen that kind of speciation in historical time.

There were the two new species of American goatsbeards (or salsifies, genus Tragopogon) that sprang into existence in the past century. In the early 1900s, three species of these wildflowers - the western salsify (T. dubius), the meadow salsify (T. pratensis), and the oyster plant (T. porrifolius) - were introduced to the United States from Europe. As their populations expanded, the species interacted, often producing sterile hybrids. But by the 1950s, scientists realized that there were two new variations of goatsbeard growing. While they looked like hybrids, they weren’t sterile. They were perfectly capable of reproducing with their own kind but not with any of the original three species - the classic definition of a new species.

So there!

 

[Glark]

If you create a natural world the intent is that you want it to act and develop according to its nature.

… and since God created nature, God also created the laws of nature. Does nature have a mind of its own. Of course not.

 

[Glark]

There are two kinds of evolution - microevolution (which is factual reality) and macroevolution (which is a hypothesis). Which breakthrough in drug therapy depends on the latter - the hypothesis that all life on earth evolved from microbes?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Humani Generis makes that clear. There was Adam only. He was not part of a group of first men or almost-men.

Humani Generis does not say anything about the material God used to make Adam. The Church does not insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis with regard to the “clay” of the earth that God supposedly used. It is symbolic of the image of a potter making pots. The material God used could j just as well have been sand, or mud, or a primate body.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

It is dangerous to assume what God would or would not want to do? For example, who would have thought that God wanted to have his son die upon a cross?

God loves whatever he creates, so a loving God who separates himself from his creation is an absurd idea.

I said nothing about God separating himself from his creation. Don’t put words into my mouth.

 

[Glark]

it makes no sense to complain that God is left out of evolution.

You expect Catholics to leave God out when discussing the origins of life? How very odd.

And yet we still have God parting the Red Sea for Moses as a miracle.

Your aversion to miracles is pretty obvious. Do you believe in any of the miracles described in the Bible, or are they all superstitious myths invented by primitive people? Let me guess … you don’t believe in the Virgin Birth, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist or Christ’s bodily resurrection either.

 

[edwest211]

"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”

Source: Catholic Answers

 

[Glark]

Cosmology doesn’t seem to have the same battle as biological evolution likely because there is no mention of black holes in the Bible.

I haven’t noticed any theists objecting to the theory of black holes. It doesn’t threaten belief in the existence of a Creator.

 

[Glark]

I am confused. Are you saying that a mammal exists that is part-bird, in that it lays eggs? This would represent some kind of “Pegasus”! Next you’ll be telling that there exist other forms of Pegasus, such as the mythical bat (part-mammal, part-bird) and the mythical whales (part-mammal, part-fish)!

 

[Glark]

It the teaching that Adam was formed from a pre-existing creature that bothers me. This seems to me that this teaching cannot be supported by Scripture, which I believe clearly indicates Adam was formed from inanimate matter.