Pope Francis: ‘Evolution … is not inconsistent with the notion of creation’

[RGCheek]

It’s pretty well established that they weren’t human. Recent genetic testing shows they interbred with humans about 50,000 years ago. So we do, or some of us do carry tiny bits of Neanderthal DNA in us, but we and Neanderthals are distinct species

Why separate species if they can reproduce together?

I thought that was a key mark to being the same species?

 

[RGCheek]

The parent is naturally more intelligent than the children. If we, who are made in God’s image and likeness, are smarter than apes, than apes themselves cannot possibly be made in God’s image and likeness, let alone be our parents.

Not sure where you get this idea from. I know plenty of people whose kids or one of their kids anyway is smarter than the parent.

Not sure how one can take such a notion and submit scientific law to it.

 

[RGCheek]

Interesting.
When controversial topics come up that are not mentioned in the bible at all–so many people on this forum say, “well, just because it’s not in the bible or just because jesus didn’t say it, that doesn’t matter…not everything is written down in the bible and he didn’t address everything verbally and specifically…”
(for example; Jesus said nothing about homosexuals)

So then,
If people are going to use that defense in those cases…

We can say the same thing here: Just because the bible doesn’t mention humans evolving from any other creature, doesn’t mean they didn’t and it doesn’t mean God is saying they didn’t.

Because…not everything is written down in the bible.

That is a basic concept of Christian theology, as I understand it. The Bible is not an exhaustive collection of God’s Truth.

But I do find it interesting that you yourself point out that your argument on gay behavior not being addressed is flawed in the same way strict Creationism is.

 

[dixieagle]

Well, that’s members arguing about their personal opinions. Doesn’t mean what the Pope said is controversial, it’s not. At least, not to anyone with the slightest grounding in science.

So true. As a brilliant Catholic scientist related to me says, “Evolution is God’s modus operandi.” It’s nothing we need to get our knickers in a twist over.

It never fails to amaze me how fundamentalist many Catholics are with regard to science.

 

[truetofaith]

Interesting.
When controversial topics come up that are not mentioned in the bible at all–so many people on this forum say, “well, just because it’s not in the bible or just because jesus didn’t say it, that doesn’t matter…not everything is written down in the bible and he didn’t address everything verbally and specifically…”
(for example; Jesus said nothing about homosexuals)

So then,
If people are going to use that defense in those cases…

We can say the same thing here: Just because the bible doesn’t mention humans evolving from any other creature, doesn’t mean they didn’t and it doesn’t mean God is saying they didn’t.

Because…not everything is written down in the bible.

(PS: Plus, we don’t even know who wrote that Genesis chapter…)

.

Jesus didn’t have to say anything about homosexuals…Leviticus, Romans & Corinthians says it all.

 

[buffalo]

So true. As a brilliant Catholic scientist related to me says, “Evolution is God’s modus operandi.” It’s nothing we need to get our knickers in a twist over.

It never fails to amaze me how fundamentalist many Catholics are with regard to science.

It never fails to amaze me how many Catholics have bought into scientism and methodological naturalism.

 

[dixieagle]

Because this:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/img/kragar_proud_to_be_kafir/2014/07/21/aquinas_quote.jpg

 

[Robert_Bay]

MODERATOR REMINDER

Keep the thread charitable

No large images

Charitably discuss the issues, not other members

 

[NeedsMercy]

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=560

This animated gif shows how even if the empirical genetic evidence mandates a chromosomal fusion event, this doesn’t tell you anything about whether or not humans share ancestry with apes. The “Separate Ancestry” slide shows that the chromosomal fusion event may have simply taken place in a separately-designed basic type which, initially, had 48 chromosomes. The “Common Ancestry” slide shows how the chromosomal fusion event may have also taken place in a line which led back to a hypothetical common ancestor of humans and modern apes. The point is that all we have is evidence for a fusion event, but that fusion event is equally compatible with either separate ancestry from apes, or common ancestry with apes. The fusion event itself does not provide any independent evidence for common ancestry with apes. To argue that it is evidence for common ancestry requires special pleading.

I need the link for the article/blog from which you retrieved the “animated gif”. There’s no way of my knowing what the text to the original slide said.

 

[Arlotus]

So true. As a brilliant Catholic scientist related to me says, “Evolution is God’s modus operandi.” It’s nothing we need to get our knickers in a twist over.

It never fails to amaze me how fundamentalist many Catholics are with regard to science.

I definitely agree with that!

 

[franklinstower]

I am in the evolution camp but would just be so absolutely grateful to find out that it was all wrong, that scientific consensus had become bias and that some huge thing in the bible that has been supposedly mistakenly taken as literal turned out to be literally true. I don’t need this to happen, my faith in Christ is perfectly compatible with scientific revelations but it would be nice,

I just listened to a program on NPR and it has been found out that the dietary recommendations given to us by scientific consensus for the last 60 years are very wrong and that low cholesterol high fiber diets have in every way been bad for us.

I would love for something that scientific consensus takes for granted and that many in that community have used to denigrate religion were found out to be patently false. It would humble up the growing numbers of scientifically minded people who use every fact of data in an agenda to discredit God and religion in general.

I don’t think that Buffalo is right but I would deeply love for him to be…

 

[NeedsMercy]

Good. I am glad to discuss the issues no matter the “credentials” etc. I am disappointed everytime ICR or others presents a paper it is trashed because of who it is. In any case, when these papers are presented they should get a proper response from challengers based on the proposition of the paper. What have they to lose?

Your measure of truth is simply peer reviewed? But OK, do you accept the peer reviewed papers on ID?

It is not **my **measure of truth. This has been standard practice for the sciences since…forever. Some peer-reviewed scholarly journals covering the biological sciences would be Cell, The Journal of Molecular Biology, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, etc. etc. etc.

If “ID” stands for “intelligent design”, I’m not discussing this. Let’s not stray from our subject–Tompkins.

Looking at the similarities of chromosomes and other feature I look at it this way: They are like pianos, they are all very similar, but the player can play all sorts of different tunes. I am not surprised the “hardware” is similar at all. It is the "programming: that differentiates.

You’re not discussing the contents of the “paper”. Your opinion about how genetics works is not the issue. You wanted to discuss Tompkins’ work—let’s discuss it.

A deceptive designer? What to make of Richard Dawkins observation “that life looks designed, but it is an illusion” (paraphrasing)

God does not deceive. It is our human reasoning of our limited observations that we can deceive ourselves. Methodological naturalism has an a priori bias. That eliminates a lot of good research possibilities.

Miller got it wrong. This is even before the paper I cited.

No one said that God deceived. Don’t know where you got that from. If you viewed the video that I cited on the links given, you would have understood what Miller’s quote meant.

I am not discussing any Dawkins’ quotes. I am discussing Tompkins and Miller.

Science is “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment”. It is NOT the study of the paranormal or the supernatural. That’s for the ghostbusters. You can come up with all the supernatural hypotheses for evolution that you want. It just wouldn’t be science, which is what the Holy Father is talking about.

 

[Arlotus]

I think one can still hold onto the notion that God created all things, including life, and still accept evolution as the primary method for continuation. It strikes me as fundamentalism when we assert that life as we know it has to cohere with the Book of Genesis in a literal fashion. For many much of Genesis is symbolic at best.

 

[Kephart]

So do you think god knew about humans arising? If he did than you have some new theory of preplanned goal based evolution.

I’m not sure I understand your question? Could you clarify it?

 

[Kephart]

The issue is it doesn’t fit. Catholics understand Eve came from Adam. Evo does not square.

Better: God “breathed” the super language of DNA into the “kinds” in the creative act.

I don’t believe that Catholics have to believe in a literal Adam and Eve.
Do you have an authoritative reference that says otherwise?

 

[NeedsMercy]

Dr. Miller’s enthusiasm about this chromosomal rearrangement may be tied to the older notion that such mutations are the basis for speciation. 8 This belief was shown to be overly simplistic decades ago when papers appeared describing chromosomal variations which were not eliminated by selection. One intriguing example is a single species of rodent (Holochilus brasiliensis) where 26 different karyotypes were identified in the 42 individuals tested.9 Chromosomal rearrangements have been identified within many ruminant species. There are examples in both goats and sheep where individuals with one or more centric fusions are phenotypically indistinguishable from other animals.10 One researcher who studied sheep carrying up to three different centric fusions concluded, “It is now considered that there is little or no evidence to suggest that centric fusions in a variety of combinations affect the total productive fitness of domestic sheep.”11 So, the bottom line is that centric fusions themselves do not inevitably result in a new species.

I’m surprised that Dr. Lightner played so fast and loose with the genetics terminology. She has used “chromosomal rearrangement” and “centric fusions” as if they are indistinguishable. They are not, making this paragraph a little suspect. A centric fusion is just one type of rearrangement. There are also deletions, translocations, etc. I don’t know all the papers about “chromosomal variations which were not eliminated by selection” to which she is referring; therefore, I can neither agree nor disagree with what she is saying about Dr. Miller’s ideas on chromosome 2 fusion. Bottom line: centric fusions may still result in a new species.
pepipop;12451507:

Although Ken Miller’s story does not properly consider current scientific understanding of chromosomal fusions or significant genomic differences between apes and humans, he promotes it enthusiastically to support his belief that humans descended from apes.

15 He appears to be blind to the fact that the belief that humans descended from apes is a religious (atheistic) one; such changes have never been observed.

Where exactly did Miller say that humans “descended from apes”? In what paper or lecture does Dr. Miller not consider the current science? Lightner never mentions which paper or lecture of Dr. Miller’s that she is talking about. The one footnoted video does not contain the first statement and doesn’t support her second. I guess she thinks this tact makes it easier for lazy people to agree with her.

I find it hilarious that Lightner says here that “[Miller] makes the ludicrous claim that the only way creationists can respond to this evidence is: ‘That’s the way the designer made it’” when the fact of the matter is that she does exactly that!

According to the evolutionary scenario, our apelike ancestors underwent major anatomical restructuring to develop upright posture, speech ability, and an astounding increase in cognitive function all by random, chance processes. Such profound changes were never observed;** they are inferred because evolution has an atheistic basis and assumes there is no creator**

.

The idea that so many genes were altered so that they are expressed in the proper concentration according to cell type and can effectively control the many different genes they regulate is not what we would expect of chance processes. It is more rational to believe that God created humans distinct from chimps, just as He tells us in the Bible.

answersingenesis.org/genetics/dna-similarities/a-tale-of-two-chromosomes/

Also, an excerpt from evolution lectures taught at Berkeley University.

**To begin with, let’s take a step back. Although the evolution of hominid features is sometimes put in the framework of “apes vs. humans,” the fact is that humans are apes, ** just as they are primates and mammals. A glance at the evogram shows why. The other apes — chimp, bonobo, gorilla, orangutan, gibbon — would not form a natural, monophyletic group (i.e., a group that includes all the descendants of a common ancestor) — if humans were excluded. Hominid evolution should not be read as a march to human-ness (even if it often appears that way from narratives of human evolution). Students should be aware that there is not a dichotomy between humans and apes. Humans are a kind of ape.

evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_07

Ummm, humans **are **considered to be apes.

Apes (Hominoidea) are a branch of Old World tailless anthropoid catarrhine primates native to Africa and Southeast Asia and distinguished by a wide degree of freedom at the shoulder joint indicating the influence of brachiation. There are two main branches: the gibbons, or lesser apes; and the hominids or great apes.

Lesser apes (Hylobatidae) include four genera and sixteen species of gibbon, including the lar gibbon, and the siamang, all native to Asia. They are highly arboreal and bipedal on the ground. They have lighter bodies and smaller social groups than great apes.

The Hominidae include orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and humans.[1][2] Alternatively, the family are collectively described as the great apes.[3][4][5][6] There are two extant species in the orangutan genus (Pongo), two species in the gorilla genus, and a single extant species Homo sapiens in the human genus (Homo). Chimpanzees and bonobos are closely related to each other and they represent the two species in the genus Pan.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape

 

[NeedsMercy]

So true. As a brilliant Catholic scientist related to me says, “Evolution is God’s modus operandi.” It’s nothing we need to get our knickers in a twist over.

It never fails to amaze me how fundamentalist many Catholics are with regard to science.

Agree. It is also scary to see the growing numbers of people, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, who are buying-in to a “let’s mock science” mentality.

 

[Al_Moritz]

According to the evolutionary scenario, our apelike ancestors underwent major anatomical restructuring to develop upright posture, speech ability, and an astounding increase in cognitive function all by random, chance processes. Such profound changes were never observed; they are inferred because evolution has an atheistic basis and assumes there is no creator.

Cardinal John Henry Newman (recently beatified by the Church), said in 1868 (3 years after Darwin’s publication):

As to the Divine Design, is it not an instance of incomprehensibly and infinitely marvellous Wisdom and Design to have given certain laws to matter millions of ages ago, which have surely and precisely worked out, in the long course of those ages, those effects which He from the first proposed. **Mr. Darwin’s theory need not then to be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill. **Perhaps your friend has got a surer clue to guide him than I have, who have never studied the question, and I do not [see] that ‘the accidental evolution of organic beings’ is inconsistent with divine design—It is accidental to us, not to God.

 

[Al_Moritz]

I don’t believe that Catholics have to believe in a literal Adam and Eve.
Do you have an authoritative reference that says otherwise?

We have to believe in an original parental pair because of the doctrine of original sin.

But Feser describes an elegant solution to this:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8931157&postcount=1327

 

[Al_Moritz]

I am in the evolution camp but would just be so absolutely grateful to find out that it was all wrong, that scientific consensus had become bias and that some huge thing in the bible that has been supposedly mistakenly taken as literal turned out to be literally true. I don’t need this to happen, my faith in Christ is perfectly compatible with scientific revelations but it would be nice,

I just listened to a program on NPR and it has been found out that the dietary recommendations given to us by scientific consensus for the last 60 years are very wrong and that low cholesterol high fiber diets have in every way been bad for us.

I would love for something that scientific consensus takes for granted and that many in that community have used to denigrate religion were found out to be patently false. It would humble up the growing numbers of scientifically minded people who use every fact of data in an agenda to discredit God and religion in general.

I don’t think that Buffalo is right but I would deeply love for him to be…

I would not (and it won’t happen anyway, thank God). See a previous post of mine in this thread:

Evolution, the physcial evolution of the universe, as well as chemical (origin of life) and biological evolution, very much contributes to my faith because it increases the awe and wonder of God’s universe for me (see also my post above).

This awe and wonder has also prompted me to write an overview article on the origin of life by natural causes for the evolution website Talkorigins.org.