Pope Benedict admits evidence for evolution

[Steve40]

do you think centuries of scientific work is based on pictures?

Yes, pictures fraud and a religious agenda. Why do evolutionists think that it is only people who believe in creation who can have a religious agenda? I accept Sacred Scripture at its word over scientific theory, of which evolution is very theoretical. To not hold to the literal and obvious meaning of Sacred Scripture unless by necessity depart from it is the heresy of modernism.

 

[antonyluby]

Can i just confirm Montalban’s reference to creation ministries international which, along with Answers in Genesis, www.answersingenesis.org refutes every evolutionist argument I’ve come across. Moreover, in my opinion, both sites outline plenty of evidence to support ‘creationism’ (aren’t we all creationists though as we believe God to be the Creator?)

If you’ve not looked at thee sites then may I recommend that they are worth a look. As a teacher of religious education, until a few years ago, I was unaware that there was such an abundance of evidence. It was an advocate of ID, a dentist, who pointed me in this direction. www.arn.org

 

[Montalban]

You have misunderstood the science here. Mitochondrial Eve was not the only woman alive at the time. There were other women alive at the same time, but we are descended from their sons, grandsons, great-grandsons etc. Our line back to Mitochondrial Eve is through daughters only. As the Wikipedia article you reference says:The existence of Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam does not imply the existence of population bottlenecks or a first couple. They each co-existed within a large human population. Some of these contemporaries have no living descendants today, and others are ancestors of all people alive today.

The evidence for human population bottlenecks is different, see Late Pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans. This sets the minimum human population at between 1,000 and 10,000 individuals around 70,000 years ago. That is 70,000 years after Mitochondrial Eve, who was 140,000 years ago.

rossum

Sorry you missed that implication, that undermines your objections as you said…

“For me the evidence that there was no genetic bottleneck down to a population of two is compelling.”

That still is a bottle-neck!

Sorry, but you missed the point. I realise it says that there may have been other persons about, but that is totally irrelevant to us by virtue that none of us are descendant from them, therefore all of us are descendant from her, and thus she is exactly as Eve was.

Having other persons about is simply irrelevant
a) as no one on earth is descendant from them
and
b) it shows that all of us, as diverse as we are can come from one woman.

That is the ‘bottle-neck’. It wouldn’t even matter if there were 1,000,000 people at the time, for all of use come from the one person. All the others don’t contribute to us at all!

 

[antonyluby]

Rossum,

My understanding is that we have facts concerning Mitochondrial Eve but only speculation that there were other females around. Is this not the case?

 

[antonyluby]

Richard Dawkins proudly affirms that Darwin made it possible to be an ‘intellectually fulfilled atheist.’ Many schoolchildren today follow his footsteps.

If one concedes that the theory(ies) of evolution is(are) correct but God, at some point, supernaturally implanted a soul, you’re unlikely to win an apologetic debate with today’s youth. They’ll wonder why you’ve bothered and they’ll also seek evidence i.e. prove that God did this?

 

[Montalban]

Can i just confirm Montalban’s reference to creation ministries international which, along with Answers in Genesis, www.answersingenesis.org refutes every evolutionist argument I’ve come across. Moreover, in my opinion, both sites outline plenty of evidence to support ‘creationism’ (aren’t we all creationists though as we believe God to be the Creator?)

Thank you for your efforts to bring some of these arguments to light here, however I’d just like to point out that I’m not endorsing a ‘scientific approach to creation’, but simply wish to highlight the lack of argument PhilVaz offers by directing myself and others to such apologist sites (albeit his are pro-evolution).

I am simply trading site for site, as this seems to be the type of thing he believes constitutes an ‘argument’

If you’ve not looked at thee sites then may I recommend that they are worth a look. As a teacher of religious education, until a few years ago, I was unaware that there was such an abundance of evidence. It was an advocate of ID, a dentist, who pointed me in this direction. www.arn.org

The problem I have with creationist scientists is the same I have evolutionists; science.

Whilst science has its place it is not, for me, the over-arching determiner of what *truth * (or reality) is.

In fact, unconsciously, PhilVaz accepts a form of science governed by a ‘philosophy of science’ called natural materialism.

We Orthodox don’t tie our faith to science, for scientists keep refuting themselves.

Take for instance a few hundred years ago people believe that they had evidence for the earth’s land masses being formed by giant seas (that supposedly covered these land masses). This theory was called “Neptunism” People would then believe that they had science that supports a religious idea - Noah’s flood.

However Neptunism has been thrown out and Vulcanism is now the dominant paradigm in explaining the earths formation. For those who tied science to faith, what happens then? Many lose faith.

Some people push science so far as to promote ‘scientism’.

 

[Montalban]

Richard Dawkins proudly affirms that Darwin made it possible to be an ‘intellectually fulfilled atheist.’ Many schoolchildren today follow his footsteps.

If one concedes that the theory(ies) of evolution is(are) correct but God, at some point, supernaturally implanted a soul, you’re unlikely to win an apologetic debate with today’s youth. They’ll wonder why you’ve bothered and they’ll also seek evidence i.e. prove that God did this?

Dawkins is an anti-religious bigot (see one of his rants, here). He’s so irrational in his hatred for religions (all of them) that he often promotes ideas that are detrimental to his own theories, only he doesn’t seem to understand the implications.

For instance he advocates that people who are religious be isolated from their children; equating religion to a disease. In carrying this further he talks of a ‘religious gene’ that might exist in religious people. If there were such a gene, it would mean that his own atheistic beliefs are themselves a product of genetics. He undermines his own ‘rational’ beliefs by making them simply a product of nature.

As British biologist J. B. S. Haldane wrote in 1927, “If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose my beliefs are true . . . and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”
orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/GilderEvolution.php
also at
[Evolution and Me | Discovery Institute(name removed by moderator)age](http://www.discovery.org/scripts/vi...am=DI Main Page - Article&callingPage=discoMa(name removed by moderator)age)

His promotion of ‘bio-morphs’ as a tool to demonstrate evolution are equally damaging.

 

[Montalban]

Yes, pictures fraud and a religious agenda. Why do evolutionists think that it is only people who believe in creation who can have a religious agenda? I accept Sacred Scripture at its word over scientific theory, of which evolution is very theoretical. To not hold to the literal and obvious meaning of Sacred Scripture unless by necessity depart from it is the heresy of modernism.

Most evolutionists aren’t even aware that their beliefs are shaped by a philosophy of science.

 

[antonyluby]

Thank you Montalban. You provide some excellent references. Have you written or thought about writing a book on this topic?
Regards.

 

[Theinvisibleman]

Genesis 3:19-
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

Seeing how fast a typical dead human body “returns to dust” by decomposing, why is it so hard to believe that our creator raised the human body(Adam) up from dust any faster?

Because theres no proof. As well, to many people it just sounds silly and unscientific.

On another note it’s high time the pope made this comment. The proof has been there for 160 years.

 

[clandr56]

Even Darwin towards the end doubted his findings. The underlying agenda of evolutionist is survival of the strongest. It gave us facism, abortion, euthanasia…
I do not agree with the Pope. I doubted evolution when it was taught to me in primary education. This came naturally with no influence from parents or peers.
Why aren’t there any conclusive fossil records of the jump of monkey to man? I do not believe my ancestors were apes or pond scum.
To those who proclaim the high ground on this issue because of a college degree in evolution THEORY, a wise priest once told me, degrees are on thermometers and we know where they put them.

Peace,
Chris

 

[Montalban]

Thank you Montalban. You provide some excellent references. Have you written or thought about writing a book on this topic?
Regards.

Thank you for your comments. You are very kind.

In short, no. I have on issues to do with Papal Supremacy; its relation to the Orthodox idea of Theosis, though.

Problem is I have great difficult in thinking in a linear fashion. In all my uni essays they were very well researched from widely eclectic sources, but they weren’t set out in a fashion of ‘beginning-middle-end’. Most essays, we were expected to provide about 12 sources, and I’d submit one with 64.

 

[clandr56]

The proof has been there for 160 years.

It is all scientific conjecture, theory. Why do so many jump on the band wagon so easily just because a “scientist” says so? Where is the conclusive evidence?

 

[clandr56]

The proof has been there for 160 years.

It is all scientific conjecture, theory. Why do so many jump on the band wagon so easily just because a “scientist” says so? Where is the conclusive evidence?

 

[Montalban]

Even Darwin towards the end doubted his findings. The underlying agenda of evolutionist is survival of the strongest. It gave us facism, abortion, euthanasia…
I do not agree with the Pope. I doubted evolution when it was taught to me in primary education. This came naturally with no influence from parents or peers.
Why aren’t there any conclusive fossil records of the jump of monkey to man? I do not believe my ancestors were apes or pond scum.
To those who proclaim the high ground on this issue because of a college degree in evolution THEORY, a wise priest once told me, degrees are on thermometers and we know where they put them.

Peace,
Chris

Social Darwinism was championed by a cousin of his; Sir Francis Galton. Such ideas; it must have run in the family!

 

[franxor]

If commonsense has any validity these days, I’d say that the Creationists have more of it on their side than the Evolutionists.

Consider just one aspect: how could, say, an animal have developed organically and in a concomitantly functional way to where it is today? As we all know, the body is a complexity of systems all working individually and in unison. Subtract any part of this and the whole becomes inoperative, weaken any function (eg, the sexual instinct and the signals involved) and there would be no continuity of life … the contradictions and impossibilities go on and on with every consideration.

Why is there is no evidence in the fossils for this stream of intervening stages? It seems to me that Evolution is just so much wrong extrapolation from the clear evidence of variety within species – a phenomenon that mankind must always have found quite captivating to observe. What a wonderful world God has made for us!

On a religious level, accepting Evolution causes insurmountable problems with our Catholic beliefs in the Garden of Eden, the creation of Adam and Eve, Original Sin, and our Redemption. We should also remember the horrors of the last century perpetrated by those powerful persons with a foundational belief in Darwinism, though this, granted, is not an argument against the proposition.

It is surprising how, when Evolution is being seriously doubted as the explanation for our world, its furnishings, and our own presence here, it seems to me that it is Catholics who are more and more embracing the proposition. The Pope is, in my opinion, leading badly in this respect. He probably has less time that most of us to consider the matter, and, possibly, too, can’t get Galileo out of his head.

 

[antonyluby]

Montalban,

You should think about it - also useful to defend the faith with young religious sceptics as well as fellow Christians.

I have a unit of work on creation & evolution that I use with my school students. I’d like to reference some of your comments - are you OK with this?

Regards.

Tony

 

[steveandersen]

Social Darwinism was championed by a cousin of his; Sir Francis Galton. Such ideas; it must have run in the family!

a) does it what his cousin said take anything away from the theory?
b) social Darwinism has nothing to do with evolution

 

[Anacharius]

“WE” are made in the image and likeness of God, Himself ( St. Thomas Aquinas is the Angelic Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church ).
1). What would happen “IF” we were born outside of of God’s Beautific Vision??? Necessity of Baptism. Go out and try to Win souls (conversion to the Roman Catholic Faith ) for Christ Jesus. DON’T disappoint the MARTYR’S ( I really think they suffered enough for one generation ).
2). A person leaves the faith and runs out of Graces, what would happen to them??? They would return to the natural state and naturaly mature ( evolve ) Get to confession to get back in the Church ( State of Grace(s) ) and hope NEVER to be separated again, AND ENCOURAGE those who are lapsed Roman Catholic’s to do the same.
3). Darwin NOT being Roman Catholic and Understanding that there is an actually SUPERNATURAL LEVEL, was unable to make the connection due too lacking the supernatural grace(s) to convert to be Roman Catholic.

 

[steveandersen]

If commonsense has any validity these days, I’d say that the Creationists have more of it on their side than the Evolutionists.

Common sense tells us that the earth is flat and standing still
I’m not sure what that has to do with anything

If we could leave everything up to common sense there would be no need for research

Consider just one aspect: how could, say, an animal have developed organically and in a concomitantly functional way to where it is today? As we all know, the body is a complexity of systems all working individually and in unison. Subtract any part of this and the whole becomes inoperative, weaken any function (eg, the sexual instinct and the signals involved) and there would be no continuity of life … the contradictions and impossibilities go on and on with every consideration.

The irreducible complexity argument was given up by anti-evolutionists a while ago.

All evolution says is that if you separate two populations they will diverge genetically and if sufficient divergence takes place speciation will occur.
Since this has been observed both in the lab and in the field I’m not sure what the objection is.

Why is there is no evidence in the fossils for this stream of intervening stages?

There are, as posted numerous times in this thread.

It seems to me that Evolution is just so much wrong extrapolation from the clear evidence of variety within species – a phenomenon that mankind must always have found quite captivating to observe. What a wonderful world God has made for us!

Yes indeed it is! I’m not sure why some anti-evolutionists try to mar that glory by reducing it to a human scale.

Can you imagine the power, vision, and wisdom of a transcendent God that could build a world molecule by molecule over billions of years!

On a religious level, accepting Evolution causes insurmountable problems with our Catholic beliefs in the Garden of Eden, the creation of Adam and Eve, Original Sin, and our Redemption.

Since this thread is about the Pope saying that the arguments for evolution are convincing I’m not sure how that translates into insurmountable problems.

We should also remember the horrors of the last century perpetrated by those powerful persons with a foundational belief in Darwinism, though this, granted, is not an argument against the proposition.

Exactly! What does evolution have to do with the horrors of the last century? No one would say that there wasn’t war or oppression before evolution was theorized.
Chemistry can be used to make fertilizer to feed the multitudes or it can be used to make poison gas… so does that mean that chemistry is bunk and should be rejected?

Some ideas in Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno were used by fascists. Does that mean the Church and Christian social doctrine should be rejected?

Science can tell us what or how things happen. It doesn’t (and can’t) say whether that is good or bad.

We can use evolution to make hazardous waste eating bugs and clean up our world or anti-biotic resistant diseases to wage germ warfare. How humans choose to use it is not the fault of evolution.

It is surprising how, when Evolution is being seriously doubted as the explanation for our world, its furnishings, and our own presence here, it seems to me that it is Catholics who are more and more embracing the proposition. The Pope is, in my opinion, leading badly in this respect. He probably has less time that most of us to consider the matter, and, possibly, too, can’t get Galileo out of his head.

So are you saying that you know better than the Pope? Interesting.

It is not surprising to me that Catholics would lead the way on this. Unlike our fundamentalist brethren we are not confined to literal interpretations of scripture. We do not subscribe to a God of the Gaps theology. We have always taught that faith and reason can’t conflict. It is not surprising that the scientific revolution arose in Christian Europe and not China or India or other centers of civilization that had been rich and advanced beyond Europe.