Pope Benedict admits evidence for evolution

[PhilVaz]

Mont << That is false. I raised the issue of mutually exclusive theories. You didn’t respond to that >>

I didn’t respond because it was and still is totally incorrect. What they are arguing about is the details of evolution. Every paleoanthropologist alive today believes man evolved from ape-like ancestors because the evidence for that is overwhelming. They are not arguing that man did or did not evolve from ape-like ancestors, but the precise path that evolution may have taken.

For example:

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/humanevolution.jpg

Picture: The hominid family tree (one of several possible interpretations). The right-hand side of the figure shows the documented (solid line) and postulated (broken line) emergence and duration of key hominid characters, as well as the duration of three major cultures as identified by characteristic stone tools. The relationships between the individual species (if this is indeed what they were), as shown by the thin connecting lines, is extremely hypothetical and controversial. The vertical bars indicate the documented (solid) or postulated (broken) life spans of the species, symbolized by depictions of their skulls or skull fragments (from Bones, Stones, and Molecules by Cameron / Groves [Elsevier Academic Press, 2004], page 256).

No one in science today is arguing man did not evolve, what they argue about are the exact details. Get it? Read something non-creationist:

Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells (Random House paperback, 2004)
Bones, Stones, and Molecules: “Out of Africa” and Human Origins by David W. Cameron and Colin P. Groves (Elsevier, 2004)
Where Do We Come From? The Molecular Evidence for Human Descent by Jan Klein and Naoyuki Takahata (Springer, 2002)
The Human Fossil Record (volume 1, forthcoming in 4 volumes) by Schwartz / Tattersall (John Wiley and Sons, 2002)
Extinct Humans by Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey H. Schwartz (Westview Press / Perseus Books, 2000)
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution edited by Steve Jones, Robert Martin, David Pilbeam (Cambridge Univ Press, 1992)
The Search for Eve by Michael H. Brown (Harper and Row, 1990)
Guide to Fossil Man by Michael H. Day (Univ of Chicago Press, 1986, 4th edition)
Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind by Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey (Simon and Schuster, 1981)

Books available from U.S.F. or your local library. Check them out as I have.

Phil P

 

[PhilVaz]

<< PhilVaz’s main point is to bombard with irrelevant information, to distract with volume >>

Thanks, gives me a chance to link to these articles again:

Evidence FOR Macroevolution (summary version)
Evidence FOR Macroevolution (longer version)
Index to Creationist Claims

Do you have ANY positive SCIENTIFIC evidence FOR literal creationism? (Not arguments against evolution, but positive scientific evidence FOR creationism). As I’ve pointed out, I didn’t see any in your many posts in this thread. That is the main point of relevance, besides the occasional theological objection.

Phil P

 

[Montalban]

Mont << That is false. I raised the issue of mutually exclusive theories. You didn’t respond to that >>

I don’t know who Mont is.

I didn’t respond because it was and still is totally incorrect.

You crow about having met my points (even remotely, through an apologetics site), and now say you haven’t, because I’m wrong.

You need to stick to one story. You either have addressed all my points - as you so proudly announced to Reformed Rob, or you haven’t.

And, how is “They have mutually exclusive theories” totally incorrect; refuted by your “Yes we do, we just don’t care”?

What they are arguing about is the details of evolution. Every paleoanthropologist alive today believes man evolved from ape-like ancestors because the evidence for that is overwhelming. They are not arguing that man did or did not evolve from ape-like ancestors, but the precise path that evolution may have taken.

That just means evolutions don’t know how we evolved and are happy putting forward mutually exlcusive theories, hoping that one of them might be right.

It goes direct to the issue of the ‘evidence’ you believe so conclusively proves something. It doesn’t. In ten years time you’ll have another set of theories, throwing out the current, but you’ll be sure you’re right about them over the Bible!

 

[Montalban]

<< PhilVaz’s main point is to bombard with irrelevant information, to distract with volume >>

Do you have ANY positive SCIENTIFIC evidence FOR literal creationism? (Not arguments against evolution, but positive scientific evidence FOR creationism). As I’ve pointed out, I didn’t see any in your many posts in this thread. That is the main point of relevance, besides the occasional theological objection.

Phil P

Do you even read my posts? Look a few one’s up where I mention Fr Seraphim Rose!

 

[Montalban]

And you’re sweeping “Every paleonathroplogist alive today…” is simply to reduce my argument to my opinion -v- everyone else

No one in science today is arguing man did not evolve, what they argue about are the exact details.

That is the problem! Imagine if you went to court and the prosecution said we don’t know how he did it, but we know he’s guilty. Would you accept this?

Get it? Read something non-creationist:

The fact I’ve cited Wolpoff (who is a paleoanthropologist) and Porier means you don’t read my posts, or you don’t know who these people are. But in the context of my posts you’d have realised that they are pro-evolutionists. Such is the haste of yours to ‘teach me’ lessons.

 

[Montalban]

I don’t see the evidence and I don’t see a lot of Geology as an empirical science (meaning observable and repeatable). Scientists still can not explain how Granite was formed. It’s all theroy. There is no “scientific” explaination for the polonium radiohalos in the granite. The existance of these halos seems to say that the granite was formed instantaneously, just like the Bible says.

Here’s an interesting way of putting ‘gradual evolution’…
“I imagine this story being told to me by Jorge Luis Borges one evening in a Buenos Aires cafe.
His voice dry and infinitely ironic, the ageing, nearly blind literary master observes that “the Ulysses,” mistakenly attributed to the Irishman James Joyce, is in fact derived from “the Quixote”.

I raise my eyebrows.

Borges pauses to sip discreetly at the bitter coffee our waiter has placed in front of him, guiding his hands to the saucer.

“The details of the remarkable series off events in question may be found at the University of Leiden,” he says. “They were conveyed to me by the Freemason Alejandro Ferri in Montevideo.”
Borges wipes his thin lips with a linen handkerchief that he has withdrawn from his breast pocket.

“As you know”, he continues, “the original handwritten text of the Quixote was given to an order of French Cistercians in the autumn of 1576.”
I hold up my hand to signify to our waiter that no further services is needed.

“Curiously enough, for none of the brothers could read Spanish, the Order was charged by the Papal Nuncio, Hoyo dos Monterrey (a man of great refinement and implacable will), with the responsibility for copying he Quixote, the printing press having then gained no currency in the wilderness of what is now the department of Auvergne. Unable to speak or read Spanish, a language they not unreasonably detested, the brothers copied the Quixote over and over again, re-creating the text but, of course, compromising it as well, and so inadvertently discovering the true nature of authorship. Thus they created Fernando Lor’s Los Hombres d’Estado in 1585 by means of a singular series of copying errors, and then in 1654 Juan Luis Samorza’s remarkable epistolary novel Por Favor by the same means; and then in 1685, the errors having accumulated sufficiently to change Spanish into French, Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme; their copying continuous and indefatigable, the work handed down from generation to generation as a sacred but secret trust, so that in time the brothers of the monastery, known only to members of the Bourbon house, and rumor has it, the Englishman and psychic Conan Doyle, copied into creation Stendhal’s The Red and the Black and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary; and then as a result of a particularly significant series of errors, in which French changed into Russian, Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illych and Anna Karenina. Late in the last decade of the 19th century there suddenly emerged, in English, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and then the brothers, their numbers reduced by an infections disease of mysterious origin, finally copied the Ulysses into creation in 1902, the manuscript lying neglected for almost thirteen years and then mysteriously making its way to Paris in 1915, just months before the British attack on the Somme, a circumstance whose significance remains to be determined.”

I sit there, amazed at what Borges has recounted. “Is it your understanding, then,” I ask, “that every novel in the West was created in this way?”
“Of course,” replies Borges imperturbably. Then he adds: “Although every novel is derived directly from another novel, there is really only one novel, the Quixote.”

David Berlinski; “The Deniable Darwin” in Dembski, W. A. (ed) “Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals who Find Darwinism Unconvincing”, pp281-282

 

[PhilVaz]

Montalban << One thing I stated was that ‘survival of the fittest’ is a tautology >>

And you are wrong:

Survival of the Fittest (short answer)

Survival of the Fittest (long answer)

There is nothing you have brought up that isn’t utterly demolished at TalkOrigins. Now once again, do you have any positive scientific evidence FOR literal creationism or not? Arguments against evolution, even bogus ones like you are giving, is not evidence FOR creationism. Give me some scientific evidence FOR creationism. Maybe start another creation-evolution thread since this one’s too darn long, or by gosh I might.

Phil P

 

[Montalban]

Montalban << One thing I stated was that ‘survival of the fittest’ is a tautology >>

And you are wrong:

No. You are. I cited Darwin himself. But I don’t really think you’re here to ‘debate’, but to simply spam. If you were you’d have read my post and noted where Darwin himself said he preferred the term, and I quoted the talkorigins and detailed where they are wrong.

Your response is simply to give me a just-so, claim victory and to re-post someone else’s site. That’s not discussion. Go read my post and find something particular you want to discuss and where you think I’m wrong.

Now once again, do you have any positive scientific evidence FOR literal creationism or not? Arguments against evolution, even bogus ones like you are giving, is not evidence FOR creationism. Give me some scientific evidence FOR creationism. Maybe start another creation-evolution thread since this one’s too darn long, or by gosh I might.

Phil P

I’ve already addressed this and directed you where to start. But then you didn’t read that one either

 

[PhilVaz]

OK I’ll keep this going a little longer…

Mont << Do you even read my posts? Look a few one’s up where I mention Fr Seraphim Rose! >>

Mont, that’s you.

Fr. Rose presents no positive scientific evidence FOR literal creationism. From what I understand of him and his books, they are a study of the Church Fathers on creation. These are not scientific textbooks presenting positive scientific evidence FOR creationism, but a study of Church history. Fr. Rose was a priest, theologian and historian, not a biologist or astronomer.

Phil P

 

[Montalban]

OK I’ll keep this going a little longer…

Mont << Do you even read my posts? Look a few one’s up where I mention Fr Seraphim Rose! >>

Mont, that’s you.

Fr. Rose presents no positive scientific evidence FOR literal creationism. From what I understand of him and his books, they are a study of the Church Fathers on creation. These are not scientific textbooks presenting positive scientific evidence FOR creationism, but a study of Church history. Fr. Rose was a priest, theologian and historian, not a biologist or astronomer.

Phil P

He’s not a creationist. You just don’t get it. You’re demanding that I adhere to your views by you pegging me as something and demanding I defend a position that I do not hold.

You can indeed go on with this as long as you want. You didn’t even need to post other evidence on Fr. Seraphim, just read what he said, where I quoted it.

This is the truly odd nature of your discussions here.

 

[PhilVaz]

<< I cited Darwin himself. But I don’t really think you’re here to ‘debate’, but to simply spam. >>

The point isn’t whether Darwin used the term, the argument you and creationists in the past have made about “survival of the fittest” was that it is a “tautology.” Those TalkOrigins articles prove it is not. NEXT.

Both you and I are here to debate, not to spam. But as we see only one side is presenting positive scientific evidence for their respective position. And that is the evolution side, not the creationist side.

Phil P

 

[Montalban]

For those of you actually interested in my position, the Bible, and the history of the opinion of the church is that we were created.

I don’t believe in it 'liberally in one sense, because as Fr. Seraphim Rose points out, "How does God “speak”? - does He make a noise which resounds in an atmosphere that doesn’t yet exist?”
Fr Seraphim Rose, (2000) “Genesis Creation and Early Man: The Orthodox Christian Vision”, (Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood; Platina, CA), p69

St. Basil the Great in his Hexatemeron says “Therefore, let it be understood as it has been written.” And thus I believe we were created.

I offer NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE for this whatsoever because it is not the Orthodox way to tie our faith to science, for

“Long ago (in the 4th century!) one of the Church’s teachers Vasilius the Great (Basil the Great) wrote about this. He advised the Orthodox Christians neither to rely upon the scientific data in order to provide foundation for their faith in Christ, nor to try to disprove them, because “the scientists permanently disprove themselves.”

pravoslavie.ru/english/age-of-earth.htm

I thus do not support ‘creationism’ per se, which is an attempt to describe creation in scientific terms. I thus also don’t support evolution which equally is an attempt to describe man’s path in scientific terms.

I am happy to defend my position on faith, by issues of faith, quoting from the Holy Fathers, etc.

However I am happy to challenge people’s notions that their ideas of science are superior to my ideas of faith, by examining what it is that evolution stands for (I don’t see creationists offering such challenges to me here, so I don’t address them).

I am not a ‘creationist’ nor an ‘evolutionist’, but an Orthodox Christian.

 

[Montalban]

<< I cited Darwin himself. But I don’t really think you’re here to ‘debate’, but to simply spam. >>

The point isn’t whether Darwin used the term, the argument you and creationists in the past have made about “survival of the fittest” was that it is a “tautology.” Those TalkOrigins articles prove it is not. NEXT.

It is a tautology. I cited one biology text that shows this. I even cited your site that *****-foots around this.

You still refuse to discuss this. I don’t know why you have such a problem - is it forming the arguments yourself?

Both you and I are here to debate, not to spam. But as we see only one side is presenting positive scientific evidence for their respective position. And that is the evolution side, not the creationist side.
Phil P

There’s no creationists here, as far as I know. I don’t know why you keep insisting that I do this for you. I find it quite funny that you do so - showing how little you read my posts and how willing you are to attempt to point score, where there is no point.

 

[Montalban]

PhilVaz wants to support a theory of naturalism/materialism over the Bible.

“Carl Sagan described the theory of evolution in his final book as the doctrine that “human beings (and all the other species) have slowly evolved by natural processes from a succession of more ancient beings with no divine intervention needed along the way.” It is the alleged absence of divine intervention throughout the history of life—the strict materialism of the orthodox theory—that explains why a great many people, only some of whom are biblical fundamentalists, think that Darwinian evolution (beyond the micro level) is basically materialistic philosophy disguised as scientific fact”
firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9711/johnson.html

The naturalism that science adopts is methodological naturalism. It does not assume that nature is all there is; it merely notes that nature is the only objective standard we have. Supernaturalism (whatever that is) is not ruled out a priori; it is left out because it has never been reliably observed. There are many scientists who use naturalism but who believe in more than nature.
talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA601.html

Dembski claimed that evolution’s materialism denied God.
“Evolution’s materialism or methodological naturalism denies a role for God. “Methodological naturalism asks us for the sake of science to pretend that the material world is all there is.” [Dembski, 1996]
talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA601_1.html

This is but a philosophy of science, and not science itself, but it dominates the realm of modern-western-male orientated science.

 

[PhilVaz]

<< He’s not a creationist. You just don’t get it. You’re demanding that I adhere to your views by you pegging me as something and demanding I defend a position that I do not hold. >>

That’s why I started over and asked what it is you do accept. I still am not sure, other than you have problems with evolution since you think it is “atheistic”, leaves no place for God, and because the Church Fathers and Jesus taught we were created, not evolved.

I’ve skimmed the Fr. Rose material. If his point as an evolutionist is that the Fathers unanimously held to a young-earth view, then I agree with him. However, that view has no scientific evidence in its favor. There is no scientific evidence for a young earth, none. Fr. Rose will tell you that if he’s studied the science. I don’t have his book but it appears to be a historical study on creation and the Fathers. What’s not to get?

This thread has long been over, around page 3.

Phil P

 

[Montalban]

The mechanistic process in Darwin’s idea is disputed by other theories of evolution. Lawrence Henderson wrote “Fitness of the Environment”
You can see a very large tract on it at members.iinet.net/~sejones/pe06envr.html . The earth seems so suited for life, it can’t have been by chance that life came about by chance. The inference is that there’s an intelligence/blueprint behind it. This does not mean that the Christian God is proved by it, or God in any definition. BUT it is a form of evolutionary theory that tackles the problems of the holes in Darwin’s mechanistic models.
Michael Denton agrees with when he states that the gene-centric theory of neo-Darwinism - is insufficient to explain all aspects of biology. He states “Yet by the late 1980s it was becoming obvious to most genetic researchers, including myself, since my own main research interest in the '80s and '90s was human genetics, that the heroic effort to find the information specifying life’s order in the genes had failed. There was no longer the slightest justification for believing that there exists anything in the genome remotely resembling a program capable of specifying in detail all the complex order of the phenotype… From being ‘isolated directors’ of a one-way game of life, genes are now considered to be interactive players in a dynamic two-way dance of almost unfathomable complexity, as described by Keller in “The Century of the Gene”
Michael John Denton ”An Anti-Darwin Intellectual Journey”, in Dembski, W. A. (ed) “Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals who Find Darwinism Unconvincing”, p172.

 

[PhilVaz]

Thanks for the clarification! Now we’re getting somewhere!

“I offer NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE for this whatsoever because it is not the Orthodox way to tie our faith to science…I thus do not support ‘creationism’ per se, which is an attempt to describe creation in scientific terms. I thus also don’t support evolution which equally is an attempt to describe man’s path in scientific terms. I am happy to defend my position on faith, by issues of faith, quoting from the Holy Fathers, etc.” (Montalban)

OK, good way to end the thread. Time for me to quit. Until this point I didn’t see you clarifying your position. I may have missed it, but I tried to go back over all your posts. Plus I only read the Apologetics threads, if you participate in the Orthodox threads I probably missed those.

Phil P

 

[Montalban]

<< He’s not a creationist. You just don’t get it. You’re demanding that I adhere to your views by you pegging me as something and demanding I defend a position that I do not hold. >>

That’s why I started over and asked what it is you do accept. I still am not sure, other than you have problems with evolution since you think it is “atheistic”, leaves no place for God, and because the Church Fathers and Jesus taught we were created, not evolved.

No. You didn’t respond to my posts but demanded I meet your criteria of questions. You’ve offered little evidence that you’ve read much of my posts and you are rather aggressive in claiming hollow victories. If you read what Darwin said about that tautology, and evidence I cited from your ‘camp’ you’d not have, for instance beeen so dismissive.

Darwin used it. It is a tautology. Saying “No it isn’t” is not discussion, either.

As far back as Post #25 I cited both Basil and Ephrahim - and there you are claiming you’ve read all my posts!

It’s like your demand that I read pro-evolutionist books, when in I say I have, and in fact already have quoted from them. Such is your haste to point score. I note you’ve not even acknowledge this - such as when I cited Wolpoff!

I’ve skimmed the Fr. Rose material. If his point as an evolutionist is that the Fathers unanimously held to a young-earth view, then I agree with him. However, that view has no scientific evidence in its favor. There is no scientific evidence for a young earth, none. Fr. Rose will tell you that if he’s studied the science. I don’t have his book but it appears to be a historical study on creation and the Fathers. What’s not to get?

This thread has long been over, around page

Phil P

That’s simply because you won’t debate what I’ve written. This is one of the few times you’ve demonstrated you’ve read what I wrote

I cited the same quote from Fr Seraphim Rose in post 233 as well.

 

[Montalban]

“The real problem with the evolution debate is not empirical Darwinism. Rather, it is a sort of theory creep in which a bold but circumscribed scientific claim becomes conflated with a much more sweeping philosophical claim. The philosophical claim is then presented as though it were a confirmed scientific fact. Metaphysical Darwinism maintains that the theory of natural selection has successfully reduced all teleological and normative phenomena to the interplay of chance and necessity, thus eliminating purpose and value from our picture of the world. Metaphysical Darwinists regard belief in objective values as primitive superstition, on a par with a belief in witches and ghosts. What is worse, they perpetrate a fraud on the public by draping their profoundly speculative philosophy with the mantle of scientific authority.
James Barham “Why I am Not a Darwinist”, in Dembski, W. A. (ed) “Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals who Find Darwinism Unconvincing”, p178.

 

[Montalban]

“However, biologists readily admit that they are less certain of the exact mechanism of evolution; there are several theories of the mechanism of evolution.”
talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html

When it comes to the ‘how’ of evolution, there doesn’t seem to be an answer.

And there’s not even one theory to be taught…
“We actually wish more evolutionary theory was being taught, not less. Strengths and weaknesses. At the end of this historic day, I urge you to take the bold step of simply recognizing the most enduring controversy of mankind, that of origins. And that profound and seemingly intractable scientific difficulties with the various theories of evolution, in some cases mutually exclusive theories of evolution, do indeed exist and should not be covered up or otherwise censored. As a fifth generation Texan, I say we should lead in teaching both sides of the controversy and let the fittest survive. Please stop scientific censorship.”
ntskeptics.org/2003/2003december/december2003.htm