New Find Concerning Evolution

[tcreed123]

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_sc/us_sci_before_lucy

I hope the link above is active if not copy & paste. My personal belief is intelligent design and micro-evolution. This new find has really impacted my personal belief. So can anyone out there shed some of their insight & how this has impacted you as well. This is only a small portion of the article.

WASHINGTON – The story of humankind is reaching back another million years as scientists learn more about “Ardi,” a hominid who lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. The 110-pound, 4-foot female roamed forests a million years before the famous Lucy, long studied as the earliest skeleton of a human ancestor.
This older skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution, said anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University.
Rather than humans evolving from an ancient chimp-like creature, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some long-ago common ancestor — but each evolved and changed separately along the way.
“This is not that common ancestor, but it’s the closest we have ever been able to come,” said Tim White, director of the Human Evolution Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.
The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably shared an ancestor 6 million to 7 million years ago, White said in a telephone interview.

 

[reggieM]

A skull that rewrites the history of man

It has long been agreed that Africa was the sole cradle of human evolution. Then these bones were found in Georgia…
The conventional view of human evolution and how early man colonised the world has been ***thrown into doubt ***by a series of stunning palaeontological discoveries suggesting that Africa was not the sole cradle of humankind.
… The skulls, jawbones and fragments of limb bones suggest that our ancient human ancestors migrated out of Africa far earlier than previously thought and spent a long evolutionary interlude in Eurasia – **before moving back into Africa **to complete the story of man.

Professor Lordkipanidze raised the prospect that Homo erectus may have evolved in Eurasia from the more primitive-looking Dmanisi population and then migrated back to Africa to eventually give rise to our own species, Homo sapiens – modern man.

… “The question is whether Homo erectus originated in Africa or Eurasia, and if in Eurasia, did we have vice-versa migration?"

Monkeys evolved into human beings in Africa because they wanted to get out of the forest and go into the plains and they went to Europe. But then, they got tired of the plains and wanted to go back to the forest, so they went back to Africa.

At that point, they might have turned into monkeys again in order to evolve into humans once again.

Your views have been challenged by a fossil finding. Perhaps you might wonder what the difference between a human and an ape is. According to evolution, it has to do with brain size and posture and some genetics.

Darwin said that the mental difference between apes and humans is a difference of degree, not of kind. You see, apes do build cathedrals, play chess, and compute quadratic residues — it’s just that they do less of it than we do. Merely a difference of degree.

Here is Paul Erhlich on the reasoning power of chimps (Erhlich and Holm, The Process of Evolution)

“There is a considerable body of literature on the reasoning power of chimpanzees. On certain types of tests designed primarily to evaluate human reasoning power, some “chimps” score higher than many human adults. Indeed, as Harlow succinctly puts it, if man is defined as the possessor of mental abilities that occur in other animals only in the most rudimentary forms, if at all, we “must of necessity disenfranchise many millions . . . from the society of Homo sapiens.” Chimpanzees may lack culture not because of any great lack of reasoning power but because of some other factor that inhibited the development of speech or the regular utilization of tools, or the reduction of inter-male aggressiveness.”

I would recommend some discretion before giving evolutionary claims your full embrace.

 

[reggieM]

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_sc/us_sci_before_lucy

I hope the link above is active if not copy & paste. My personal belief is intelligent design and micro-evolution. This new find has really impacted my personal belief. So can anyone out there shed some of their insight & how this has impacted you as well.

Keep in mind that the fossil was discovered 7 years ago and findings were not published until now.

*n 1992, the Middle Awash Research Team, co-led by [Tim] White, made a discovery that ended Lucy’s reign. About 75 kilometers south of Lucy’s resting place, at Aramis in the Afar depression of Ethiopia, the team found fossils of a chimp-sized ape dated to about 4.4 million years ago. … The team named this species Ardipithecus ramidus, drawing on two words from the Afar language suggesting that it was humanity’s root species. But skeptics argue that the published fossils are so chimplike that they may represent the long-lost ancestor of the chimp, not human, lineage.
The next field season, team member Yohannes Haile-Selassie found the first of more than 100 fragments that make up about half of a single skeleton of this species, including a pelvis, leg, ankle and foot bones, wrist and hand bones, a lower jaw with teeth—and a skull. But in the past 8 years no details have been published on this skeleton. Why the delay? In part because the bones are so soft and crushed that preparing them requires a Herculean effort, says White. The skull is “squished,” he says, “and the bone is so chalky that when I clean an edge it erodes, so I have to mold every one of the broken pieces to reconstruct it.” The team hopes to publish in a year or so, and White claims that the skeleton is worth the wait, calling it a “phenomenal individual” that will be the “Rosetta stone for understanding bipedalism.”

(Ann Gibbons, “In Search of the First Hominids,” Science, 295:1214-1219 (February 15, 2002).)

Additionally …

One problem is that some portions of Ardi’s skeleton were found crushed nearly to smithereens and needed extensive digital reconstruction. “Tim [White] showed me pictures of the pelvis in the ground, and it looked like an Irish stew,” says Walker. Indeed, looking at the evidence, different paleoanthropologists may have different interpretations of how Ardi moved or what she reveals about the last common ancestor of humans and chimps.

(Michael D. Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, “Excavating Ardi: A New Piece for the Puzzle of Human Evolution,” Time Magazine (October 1, 2009).)

There is more skepticism about this finding here from Science:

But the team’s excitement was tempered by the skeleton’s terrible condition. The bones literally crumbled when touched. White called it road kill. And parts of the skeleton had been trampled and scattered into more than 100 fragments; the skull was crushed to 4 centimeters in height. … However, several researchers aren’t so sure about these inferences. Some are skeptical that the crushed pelvis really shows the anatomical details needed to demonstrate bipedality. The pelvis is “suggestive” of bipedality but not conclusive, says paleoanthropologist Carol Ward of the University of Missouri, Columbia. Also, Ar. ramidus “does not appear to have had its knee placed over the ankle, which means that when walking bipedally, it would have had to shift its weight to the side,” she says. Paleoanthropologist William Jungers of Stony Brook University in New York state is also not sure that the skeleton was bipedal. “Believe me, it’s a unique form of bipedalism,” he says. “The postcranium alone would not unequivocally signal hominin status, in my opinion.” Paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., agrees. Looking at the skeleton as a whole, he says, “I think the head is consistent with it being a hominin, … but the rest of the body is much more questionable.”

(Ann Gibbons, “A New Kind of Ancestor: Ardipithecus Unveiled,” Science, Vol. 326:36-40 (Oct. 2, 2009).)*

 

[Cluny]

As I’ve already said, all the skeletons and fossils in the world will never tell us just WHEN the first anthropoid received a living soul, becoming Homo sapiens.

Souls leave no fossil remains.

 

[reggieM]

As I’ve already said, all the skeletons and fossils in the world will never tell us just WHEN the first anthropoid received a living soul, becoming Homo sapiens.

Souls leave no fossil remains.

Then could any or all of the fossils in the world ever tell us IF non-human organisms ever turned into human beings? Knowing when the first human soul first appeared has a major impact on evolutionary claims. An organism lacking a human soul is not a human being.

Once the supernaturally given power of free-will appears (in the human soul), then any claims about how mutations and natural selection alone directed the development of human life are false as well.

 

[edwest2]

As I’ve already said, all the skeletons and fossils in the world will never tell us just WHEN the first anthropoid received a living soul, becoming Homo sapiens.

Souls leave no fossil remains.

There is no evidence in theology or Church teaching that gives any support whatsoever to this purely fictional idea. God did not just pick two hominids and drop souls into them. Where this idea comes from, I do not know but it is beyond speculative.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Claire_from_DE]

If God created the human body through an evolutionary process, then it may well be that He did “just pick two hominids and drop souls into them” as you so elegantly put it. If this took place, perhaps it would have happened at conception. It is church doctrine that all humans are descended from one original couple whose souls were infused into them. Whether He created their bodies directly from mud or if that biblical account is a mythical telling of a longer process is not church doctrine.

There is no evidence in theology or Church teaching that gives any support whatsoever to this purely fictional idea. God did not just pick two hominids and drop souls into them. Where this idea comes from, I do not know but it is beyond speculative.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

Please see parts 36 and 37 of this document:

damienhighschool.org/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html

As Catholics, we need to treat this question with great care. We are not allowed to believe that we had many first parents but only two. Remaining in conformity to this means we acknowledge divine revelation which is just as factual as any scientific fact.

Peace,
Ed

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Then could any or all of the fossils in the world ever tell us IF non-human organisms ever turned into human beings? Knowing when the first human soul first appeared has a major impact on evolutionary claims. An organism lacking a human soul is not a human being.

Once the supernaturally given power of free-will appears (in the human soul), then any claims about how mutations and natural selection alone directed the development of human life are false as well.

I agree. There is no evidence that this is a missing link between man and ape. It might just be a species that lived for a while and then died out.

 

[Cluny]

There is no evidence in theology or Church teaching that gives any support whatsoever to this purely fictional idea. God did not just pick two hominids and drop souls into them. Where this idea comes from, I do not know but it is beyond speculative.

Peace,
Ed

If you want to believe you are descended from a lump of dirt, be my guest.

But Genesis 1 certainly refutes the idea that life, and human life in particular, didn’t come from another planet to earth, as some specualte.

Or are you saying that souls DO leave fossil remains.

 

[wraithx]

Here is Paul Erhlich on the reasoning power of chimps (Erhlich and Holm, The Process of Evolution)

“There is a considerable body of literature on the reasoning power of chimpanzees. On certain types of tests designed primarily to evaluate human reasoning power, some “chimps” score higher than many human adults. Indeed, as Harlow succinctly puts it, if man is defined as the possessor of mental abilities that occur in other animals only in the most rudimentary forms, if at all, we “must of necessity disenfranchise many millions . . . from the society of Homo sapiens.” Chimpanzees may lack culture not because of any great lack of reasoning power but because of some other factor that inhibited the development of speech or the regular utilization of tools, or the reduction of inter-male aggressiveness.”

I would recommend some discretion before giving evolutionary claims your full embrace.
​

You should be very cautious of Paul Ehrlich - he is the guy that proposed the (false) theory that man would not be able to sustain itself on earth due to lack of food and proposed that we needed to being mass contraception and other methods of eugenics to control the “exploding population”. You can read about this rather dangerous man on wikipedia here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich

He is also wrong in the quote above in that brutes can not reason. Reason is the thing that separates man from brutes. An animal cannot abstract a thing into a concept - only humans can do that. Some brutes may be highly intelligent, but they can not reason.

I would recommend discretion before giving any airtime to the wacky ideas of Paul R Ehrlich.​

 

[wraithx]

Please see parts 36 and 37 of this document:

damienhighschool.org/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html

As Catholics, we need to treat this question with great care. We are not allowed to believe that we had many first parents but only two. Remaining in conformity to this means we acknowledge divine revelation which is just as factual as any scientific fact.

Ed, a belief in evolution does not contradict the teachings of the Church. First of all, from the perspective of St Thomas, a human only exists when it has an infinite soul. Animals don’t have infinite souls - only man does. If evolution is true, then we must believe that God chose two of the “evolved” animals infinite souls and those two chosen are Adam and Eve - they are the parents of ALL mankind.

This is not a contradiction of any revealed truths - it is a greater understanding of the method used by God.

Having said that, the Church does not require us to believe in either a literal Biblical account of the creation nor a scientific one. We are free to believe either as long as we believe that God did create (in some manner) the two humans from which all humanity comes.

 

[reggieM]

You should be very cautious of Paul Ehrlich - he is the guy that proposed the (false) theory that man would not be able to sustain itself on earth due to lack of food and proposed that we needed to being mass contraception and other methods of eugenics to control the “exploding population”. You can read about this rather dangerous man on wikipedia here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich

I see him as merely another Darwinian evolutionist, offering thoughts quite consistent with the theory itself. (I quoted him to show how evolutionists draw conclusions).

He is also wrong in the quote above in that brutes can not reason. Reason is the thing that separates man from brutes. An animal cannot abstract a thing into a concept - only humans can do that. Some brutes may be highly intelligent, but they can not reason.

True, but it’s not reason alone that separates man from brutes. The faculties of the soul (which may be considered aspects of rationality) would include free-will, imagination and a spiritual component (the ability to mentally capture the concepts of the universe and even glimpses of infinity).

I would recommend discretion before giving any airtime to the wacky ideas of Paul R Ehrlich.

I think it’s important to show what evolutionists actually think, in their own words. As you described it, this evolutionist is “dangerous”. I think that’s very good for people to know.

 

[reggieM]

Ed, a belief in evolution does not contradict the teachings of the Church.

A belief in Darwinian theory does seem to contradict the sacred doctrine of the Church though, as I see it.

First of all, from the perspective of St Thomas, a human only exists when it has an infinite soul. Animals don’t have infinite souls - only man does.

True. The soul is the form of the body – it’s united with the body itself.

If evolution is true, then we must believe that God chose two of the “evolved” animals infinite souls and those two chosen are Adam and Eve - they are the parents of ALL mankind.

“If evolutionary theory is true, then we must believe God chose two animals infinite souls”.

Ok, that seems very confusing. First, I cannot see any support in evolutionary theory for the idea that God intervened to choose animals. This is where I see a conflict with Catholic teaching. But in your view given here, God chose the “infinite souls” of animals. But as St. Thomas taught truthfully – animals do not have infinite souls.

Perhaps you could say that God infused human souls into animals. But this would refute Darwinian theory (which claims that humans evolved naturally from animals due to mutations and natural selection). Therefore, why not merely state that God created human beings ex nihilo? In other words, if we’re going to conflict with evolutionary theory anyway, why come up with a scenario where God chose two apes and made them human?

Adam and Eve possessed a high degree of intelligence and perfection. There doesn’t seem to be a good reason to propose that they were born as animals and were miraculously recreated as humans.

But the key point, as I see it, remains true – the difference between human and brute is found in the rational powers of man. These are infinite powers that cannot be the result of physical laws acting on matter alone. The spiritual, designing, creative power of mankind has its origin in the powers of his supernatural creator.

 

[wraithx]

ReggieM: I made an error in my previous post - what I meant was:

God GAVE two brutes infinite souls - those two were Adam and Eve and from them all man comes. As to what they looked like or when it happened - I know not. This does not refute Darwinian theory as it is a theological matter. Furthermore, you said you see no support in evolutionary theory for this - why is that relevant? Since when did evolutionary theory make any reference to God?

God giving the infinite soul to the first humans is a fact - we know he did it through revelation. The method is not known as a matter of fact and the scenario I proposed above does not contradict either the science or the Church.

I am not suggesting that this is what happened - it is possible that there was a literal genesis - there are many possibilities in fact. Speculation is allowed and the above is my bit of speculation.

As for the original post about the fossil - I fail to see why it might not just be another brute that has long since died out - with a relation to man no more significant than that between man and dog or any other brute that shares many of the same notes as man whilst being otherwise unrelated.

 

[reggieM]

ReggieM: I made an error in my previous post - what I meant was:

God GAVE two brutes infinite souls - those two were Adam and Eve and from them all man comes.

Ok, thanks. It was a bit confusing before.

As to what they looked like or when it happened - I know not. This does not refute Darwinian theory as it is a theological matter. Furthermore, you said you see no support in evolutionary theory for this - why is that relevant? Since when did evolutionary theory make any reference to God?

I think it’s a conflict because evolutionary theory claims that man evolved from animals through purely natural methods. But if God created man, either directly changing an animal into a human, or perhaps creating humans from organic material of some kind (from the dust), then Darwinian theory would not be correct to claim that man emerged due to natural selection, etc.

But that’s also why evolutionary theory actually should make a reference to God. Certainly, any evolutionary theory taught in Catholic schools, for example, should make it clear that the human soul (which affects every part of the body) cannot be the product of matter and physical laws. It has to have God’s power at work (de fide doctrine – God directly creates the human soul).

Plus, once the human soul is created and is present on earth – the spiritual powers of rationality and free-will are at work, and not just natural laws. This radically changes evolution because mankind can choose things not just for survival advantages or due to compulsions of nature alone.

I wouldn’t say that you’d have to reject every aspect of evolutionary theory because there is this conflict – but at least we’d say that there is a problem with the way evolutionary theory is presented in its most common form.

I am not suggesting that this is what happened - it is possible that there was a literal genesis - there are many possibilities in fact. Speculation is allowed and the above is my bit of speculation.

I fully agree that there are many possibilities which would not contradict the teaching of the Church – yours could be also, but I think it would need more theological support.

As for the original post about the fossil - I fail to see why it might not just be another brute that has long since died out - with a relation to man no more significant than that between man and dog or any other brute that shares many of the same notes as man whilst being otherwise unrelated.

That’s the way I see it also.

 

[wraithx]

I think it’s a conflict because evolutionary theory claims that man evolved from animals through purely natural methods. But if God created man, either directly changing an animal into a human, or perhaps creating humans from organic material of some kind (from the dust), then Darwinian theory would not be correct to claim that man emerged due to natural selection, etc.

Ah - I think the issue here. I think that evolutionary theory relates to the matter and form of a human insofar as the “senses” know it. The addition of a soul is outside of evolutionary theory and is where theology steps in. From this perspective there is nothing at all wrong with saying that man (as known by the senses without paying attention to the soul) evolved in his physical form through natural methods, but God supernaturally implanted the soul. From that time on, our ability to reason became a PART of the natural selection.

The addition of the soul doesn’t negate natural selection - it just influences it. After all, the soul is part of our nature, therefore decisions made by man that influence selection are as natural as those made by intelligent but unreasoning brutes.

Thus the understanding of evolution which is not to the exclusion of God might go something like this:

Brutes evolved through natural selection. At point X in time, God infused the infinite soul into two of those naturally evolved brutes. They are Adam and Eve. From there, with the use of reason and free will, man partly controlled his continuing natural selection (not necessarily to the exclusion of other movements in nature which influence us).

I think we obviously agree fundamentally here - it is perhaps just semantics that we seem at odds.

 

[buffalo]

Ah - I think the issue here. I think that evolutionary theory relates to the matter and form of a human insofar as the “senses” know it. The addition of a soul is outside of evolutionary theory and is where theology steps in. From this perspective there is nothing at all wrong with saying that man (as known by the senses without paying attention to the soul) evolved in his physical form through natural methods, but God supernaturally implanted the soul. From that time on, our ability to reason became a PART of the natural selection.

The addition of the soul doesn’t negate natural selection - it just influences it. After all, the soul is part of our nature, therefore decisions made by man that influence selection are as natural as those made by intelligent but unreasoning brutes.

Thus the understanding of evolution which is not to the exclusion of God might go something like this:

Brutes evolved through natural selection. At point X in time, God infused the infinite soul into two of those naturally evolved brutes. They are Adam and Eve. From there, with the use of reason and free will, man partly controlled his continuing natural selection (not necessarily to the exclusion of other movements in nature which influence us).

I think we obviously agree fundamentally here - it is perhaps just semantics that we seem at odds.

Eve was formed from Adam.

 

[wraithx]

Eve was formed from Adam.

I think the Church requires us to believe that all men descended from one parent couple (Adam and Eve) - I don’t think it requires us to believe that Eve was formed physically from Adam. Furthermore, how could Eve have a soul if not infused by God - certainly her soul didn’t exist inside Adam before she existed.

I would posit that the meaning of the verses which tell us about Eve being made from Adam are symbolic of the natural order of the man over the woman - equal in dignity but different in nature.

This is speculation however, and if the Church has deemed it otherwise I will submit absolutely to its authority.

 

[edwest2]

Thank you buffalo. It seems the only difference between natural textbook evolution and what could be called theistic evolution is a word: God.

The Library of this web site repeats Church teaching: Adan and Eve were two individuals. Science, as it is practiced today, is strictly off limits to the supernatural. However, Christianity, it would appear, is not off limits to those who would reinterpret Church teaching to shoehorn evolution into Genesis. Why might that be a priority here? To get to the truth? I don’t think so. Reinterpreting Genesis to fit some theory of ‘natural’ events will not improve the economy or lead to new aircraft designs. It appears to have only one purpose: to turn the work of God into something that needs to be explained away. However, after looking over some responses to positive reviews for a creationist book, I ran across ideas that I’m seeing repeated over and over again. Any Christian who accepted the idea of creation was an extremist, a terrorist and working to subvert the economic success of America in the global economy.

And even after posters like reggieM and buffalo post credible information that highlights problems with the theory, the responses brush such information aside and return to repeating the same old thing.

The key thing to remember is that, to the outside world, evolution remains a purely natural event where the work of divine providence cannot be detected. Pope John Paul II wrote that the answer cannot be found using science. He’s right. In the meantime, it’s becoming quite clear that whatever evolution is, it’s not as currently advertised. And an atheistic interpretation of human origins remains an atheistic interpretation of human origins regardless of what some might post in Christian forums.

Peace,
Ed