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

[Kelt]

Yeah, too bad we haven’t matured to the point of no longer dismissing the views of others as merely magic when it is nothing of the sort.

It’s only too bad we haven’t matured enough to adapt our beliefs to evidence.

 

[Kelt]

Excuse me. Perhaps there is need to go back to Google for the science info. Black swans did not pop out of nowhere. They had existed in Australia for some time. Species identification also existed for centuries, that is, since the time of Genesis 2: 19-20.

Note that the first principle of the scientific (inductive) method is to observe without prejudice. What can be observed in nature is the standard for scientific research. We should not consider nature’s evidence as part of magic as early peoples did.

Here is a proper basic link. svswans.com/black.html

Please accept my apology.
Now, I am sure that the above Black Swan link was read because of this comment from post 765.
“Instead of continually trying to bend the evidence to fit an ancient, rather comforting, simple story, it’s time to look at it differently.”
Scientific comfort is the key to understanding the first sentence in the link. And some, not all, scientific comfort is present in the current somewhat magical approach to human origin.

Here is the telling first sentence from the Black Swan link above. It was definitely time for scientists to look at nature differently.
“Before European explorers had reached Australia, it was believed that all swans were white.”

Obviously, before the black swans were discovered, scientists were very comfortable with their story, that is, the classification of species. Today, we find similar scientific comfort with the somewhat dogmatic claims that the “evidence” from millions of years going backwards is perfect when it comes to declaring only two individual humans as a magic tale. That is amazing since it is impossible to accurately know what was going on every day in every part of planet earth. Perhaps there is a bit of magic in some of the scientific assumptions. My older than dirt brain does consider the computer as somewhat magical.

Here is an additional bit of scientific comfort found at the end of post 765.
“Look at Galileo…”

I looked. Is Galileo listed among the daring paleoanthropologists. Was he a magician in his time, unlocking the secrets of human fossils. Most likely some, not all, people considered him a magician since he could change earth’s position in the sky.

The challenge of those fascinating Black Swans is that scientists needed to look at their methods and materials differently. Perhaps it is time to look differently at the evidence going backwards millions of years. Is there really absolute evidence that the possibility of an individual event is universally denied? The possibility of two individual humans living somewhere on planet earth is all that is needed.

There is a lot more to the Black Swan story than good wine.
blackswanwine.com/

Were you not then, referring to the black swan ‘theory’?
We know enough about our DNA now, to realise that 2 individuals being the originators of the entire human race is impossible. It shouldn’t be difficult to reconcile this with a different reading of Genesis. The original writings were MEANT to be continually discussed and re-evaluated as times and circumstances changed. How on earth would anyone think they ‘knew’ how the world was created, blow by blow, even down to picking out a rib?? We must give them a bit more credit.
The church originally would not accept Galileo’s evidence of the world not being the centre of the universe. We’ve got over that big shock now though…but at the time it obviously seemed impossible to reconcile that fact with people’s perception of being the centre of God’s creation. They HAD to look at the evidence…and adapt their thinking.
A simple tale is much more comforting than having to really think…and probably never getting a complete and certain answer to the beginnings of all life.

 

[Monkey1976]

The link Monkey posted says Adam wasn’t the only man at that time.

Not the only male H. sapiens, but that’s where theology comes in - as humans, we are a synthesis of body and rational soul. Genesis tells us that there were two major steps in God’s creation of our first father: He created Adam out of the earth, and then breathed a soul into him. All evolutionary biology tells us is how God formed Adam out of the earth.

It also neatly solves the “Cain’s wife” problem - descendants of Adam would still be able to mate and breed with those who had not been granted a rational soul by God, and the children from such couplings would have a soul thanks to their descent from Adam.

 

[RGCheek]

It’s only too bad we haven’t matured enough to adapt our beliefs to evidence.

Notice how you just assume that our beliefs don’t already adapt to available evidence.

Maybe you should read up on how science, mathematics, cosmology and government survived the Dark Ages via the institutions and belief systems you seem to think irrelevant make believe.

 

[RGCheek]

We know enough about our DNA now, to realise that 2 individuals being the originators of the entire human race is impossible.

Not impossible but simply unlikely.

Personally I don’t think Adam and Eve were the first homo sapiens on the planet, but I do think that they were the first hominids that had souls and all that entails. I think that their children did not engage in incest but instead mated with other humans who perhaps had not yet been ensouled but became so under unknown circumstances as God and His First Family had need of them.

It shouldn’t be difficult to reconcile this with a different reading of Genesis. The original writings were MEANT to be continually discussed and re-evaluated as times and circumstances changed. How on earth would anyone think they ‘knew’ how the world was created, blow by blow, even down to picking out a rib?? We must give them a bit more credit.

The original stories were allegory of some real, true event that happened a long time ago and was the seed of the Genesis Creation story. I suspect that it was the Toba extinction event and after nearly a decade of perpetual winter all vegetation was destroyed and 99% of animal life as well.

What Genesis describes IMO is the restoration of life on Earth as the dense dust cloud gradually lightened and allowed in light, the regrowth of vegetation and the rebound of animal life and how mankind too was resurgent.

Simply dismissing Genesis out of hand as completely irrelevant is arrogant and stupid.

The church originally would not accept Galileo’s evidence of the world not being the centre of the universe. We’ve got over that big shock now though…but at the time it obviously seemed impossible to reconcile that fact with people’s perception of being the centre of God’s creation. They HAD to look at the evidence…and adapt their thinking.

Actually this storyline is not true. Kepler was a church clergyman and I think his brother a Bishop. So, just like the Big Bang theory, the heliocentric solar system theory was also developed and shared by the same church you think so hostile to its science.

The church gave medieval Europe the science it now boasts of.

A simple tale is much more comforting than having to really think…and probably never getting a complete and certain answer to the beginnings of all life.

Yeah, maybe you should take your own advice, dude.

 

[clem456]

It’s only too bad we haven’t matured enough to adapt our beliefs to evidence.

Christianity makes the proposition that belief is more than evidence. Belief should not contradict evidence, but by faith we accept that the Truth is more than (not devoid of) facts.

We know this to be the case intuitively. Consider a parable, the prodigal son for instance.
The story has nothing to do with actual events or facts. Yet Christ breathes an awesome and life changing power into this story.
Is the story True? Is it real? Does it have a real effect on the world?
Yes it sure does. It’s power is as real as the sun rising in the morning.

The story has nothing to do with whether there was an actual man who had a son named Steve etc…

Christianity proposes that Truth is personified in Christ rather than merely written on the pages of a book (although it includes written word as well).
Interestingly enough, accepting these things by faith opens one’s mind to scientific explanations without feeling threatened in our faith.

 

[RGCheek]

Not the only male H. sapiens, but that’s where theology comes in - as humans, we are a synthesis of body and rational soul. Genesis tells us that there were two major steps in God’s creation of our first father: He created Adam out of the earth, and then breathed a soul into him. All evolutionary biology tells us is how God formed Adam out of the earth.

It also neatly solves the “Cain’s wife” problem - descendants of Adam would still be able to mate and breed with those who had not been granted a rational soul by God, and the children from such couplings would have a soul thanks to their descent from Adam.

 

[RGCheek]

Christianity makes the proposition that belief is more than evidence. Belief should not contradict evidence, but by faith we accept that the Truth is more than (not devoid of) facts.

We know this to be the case intuitively. Consider a parable, the prodigal son for instance.
The story has nothing to do with actual events or facts. Yet Christ breathes an awesome and life changing power into this story.
Is the story True? Is it real? Does it have a real effect on the world?
Yes it sure does. It’s power is as real as the sun rising in the morning.

The story has nothing to do with whether there was an actual man who had a son named Steve etc…

Christianity proposes that Truth is personified in Christ rather than merely written on the pages of a book (although it includes written word as well).
Interestingly enough, accepting these things by faith opens one’s mind to scientific explanations without feeling threatened in our faith.

Personally, I think that Jesus’ parables were based on the lives of real people He had known prior to the start of His ministry.

 

[grannymh]

Not the only male H. sapiens, but that’s where theology comes in - as humans, we are a synthesis of body and rational soul. Genesis tells us that there were two major steps in God’s creation of our first father: He created Adam out of the earth, and then breathed a soul into him. All evolutionary biology tells us is how God formed Adam out of the earth.

It also neatly solves the “Cain’s wife” problem - descendants of Adam would still be able to mate and breed with those who had not been granted a rational soul by God, and the children from such couplings would have a soul thanks to their descent from Adam.

And what happens to the family that is designed to perpetuate the species?

Please demonstrate the discussions regarding morality which would take place between a rational mother and an irrational father who was strong enough to rape her.

 

[Kelt]

Not impossible but simply unlikely.

Personally I don’t think Adam and Eve were the first homo sapiens on the planet, but I do think that they were the first hominids that had souls and all that entails. I think that their children did not engage in incest but instead mated with other humans who perhaps had not yet been ensouled but became so under unknown circumstances as God and His First Family had need of them.

The original stories were allegory of some real, true event that happened a long time ago and was the seed of the Genesis Creation story. I suspect that it was the Toba extinction event and after nearly a decade of perpetual winter all vegetation was destroyed and 99% of animal life as well.

What Genesis describes IMO is the restoration of life on Earth as the dense dust cloud gradually lightened and allowed in light, the regrowth of vegetation and the rebound of animal life and how mankind too was resurgent.

Simply dismissing Genesis out of hand as completely irrelevant is arrogant and stupid.

Actually this storyline is not true. Kepler was a church clergyman and I think his brother a Bishop. So, just like the Big Bang theory, the heliocentric solar system theory was also developed and shared by the same church you think so hostile to its science.

The church gave medieval Europe the science it now boasts of.

Yeah, maybe you should take your own advice, dude.

I don’t think anyone has suggested the Toba event killed all vegetation and 99% of animal life. It was only ever suggested that it might have caused a bottleneck in the human population, but evidence of such climate change for so long is not there.
I don’t dismiss the Genesis stories…I have said before that they are a succinct way of summing up the human condition. Not taking them literally doesn’t dismiss them as completely irrelevant.
The church most definitely did reject Galileo’s evidence at first. I believe they had him under house arrest and forced him to deny it for some time. Can’t remember the time scale.
Don’t think Kepler was ever a clergyman…and he came a century or so after the Galileo experience.
‘Kepler also incorporated religious arguments and reasoning into his work, motivated by the religious conviction and belief that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason.’ (Good ol’ Wikipedia)
…and I don’t think the church is always hostile to science either. The Catholic Church has some excellent astronomers for example. Although, it wasn’t just the Christian church that gave medieval Europe its science…much of it came via Muslim Arabs who in turn got it from polytheistic Ancient Greece.
My advice? It’s only ever been to look at the evidence and use your reason, rather than take a story and bend the evidence to it.

 

[RGCheek]

I don’t think anyone has suggested the Toba event killed all vegetation and 99% of animal life. It was only ever suggested that it might have caused a bottleneck in the human population, but evidence of such climate change for so long is not there.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

The Toba supereruption was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred some time between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia). It is one of the Earth’s largest known eruptions. The Toba catastrophe hypothesis holds that this event caused a ***global volcanic winter of 6–10 years ***and possibly a 1,000-year-long cooling episode…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

The causes of the population bottleneck— a sharp decrease in a species’ population, immediately followed by a period of great genetic divergence (differentiation) among survivors—is attributed to volcanic winters by some researchers. According to anthropologist Stanley Ambrose, such events diminish populations to “levels low enough for evolutionary changes, which occur much faster in small populations, to produce rapid population differentiation”. With the Toba bottleneck, many species show massive effects of narrowing of the gene pool, and it is believed Toba nearly exterminated humankind.

While the animals can shift their grazing to new species rather quickly, severe changes in the weather zones would have likely made adapted plants to go dormant or die since they were not so adapted to the new conditions that prevailed for up to a decade. As the old temperatures returned the seeds of the old dominant plants would resprout.

I don’t think much would survive a 10 year winter of any kind.

I don’t dismiss the Genesis stories…I have said before that they are a succinct way of summing up the human condition. Not taking them literally doesn’t dismiss them as completely irrelevant.

The human condition illustrations are the main point, IMO, but there is also some fact usually behind the settings and events of these stories. Another example is Noah, who was likely dealing with glacial flooding at the end of the last Ice Age.

…

 

[RGCheek]

The church most definitely did reject Galileo’s evidence at first. I believe they had him under house arrest and forced him to deny it for some time. Can’t remember the time scale.

I don’t think it was Gallileo’s scientific arguments that got him into trouble witht he church so much as it was the theology he would delve into.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

Jesuit astronomers, experts both in Church teachings, science, and in natural philosophy, were at first skeptical and hostile to the new ideas; however, within a year or two the availability of good telescopes enabled them to repeat the observations. In 1611, Galileo visited the Collegium Romanum in Rome, where the Jesuit astronomers by that time had repeated his observations. Christoph Grienberger, one of the Jesuit scholars on the faculty, sympathized with Galileo’s theories, but was asked to defend the Aristotelian viewpoint by Claudio Acquaviva, the Father General of the Jesuits. Not all of Galileo’s claims were completely accepted: Christopher Clavius, the most distinguished astronomer of his age, never was reconciled to the idea of mountains on the Moon, and outside the collegium many still disputed the reality of the observations. In a letter to Kepler of August 1610,[5] Galileo complained that some of the philosophers who opposed his discoveries had refused even to look through a telescope:[6]

“My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth.[7]”…
At this time, Galileo also engaged in a dispute over the reasons that objects float or sink in water, siding with Archimedes against Aristotle. The debate was unfriendly, and Galileo’s blunt and sometimes sarcastic style, though not extraordinary in academic debates of the time, made him enemies. During this controversy one of Galileo’s friends, the painter, Lodovico Cardi da Cigoli, informed him that a group of malicious opponents, which Cigoli subsequently referred to derisively as “the Pigeon league,”[9] was plotting to cause him trouble over the motion of the earth, or anything else that would serve the purpose.[10] According to Cigoli, one of the plotters had asked a priest to denounce Galileo’s views from the pulpit, but the latter had refused. Nevertheless, three years later another priest, Tommaso Caccini, did in fact do precisely that, as described below.
In late 1614 or early 1615, one of Caccini’s fellow Dominicans, Niccolò Lorini, acquired a copy of Galileo’s letter to Castelli. Lorini and other Dominicans at the Convent of San Marco considered the letter of doubtful orthodoxy, in part because it may have violated the decrees of the Council of Trent:
…to check unbridled spirits, [the Holy Council] decrees that no one relying on his own judgement shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which the holy mother Church… has held or holds…
—Decree of the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Quoted in Langford, 1992[19]
Lorini and his colleagues decided to bring Galileo’s letter to the attention of the Inquisition. In February 1615 Lorini accordingly sent a copy to the Secretary of the Inquisition, Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati, with a covering letter critical of Galileo’s supporters:[20]
All our Fathers of the devout Convent of St. Mark feel that the letter contains many statements which seem presumptuous or suspect, as when it states that the words of Holy Scripture do not mean what they say; that in discussions about natural phenomena the authority of Scripture should rank last… [the followers of Galileo] were taking it upon themselves to expound the Holy Scripture according to their private lights and in a manner different from the common interpretation of the Fathers of the Church…

So it wasn’t so much Galileos scientific defense of Copernicanism so much as his theological defense that the church viewed as heretical.
…

 

[RGCheek]

Don’t think Kepler was ever a clergyman…and he came a century or so after the Galileo experience.
‘Kepler also incorporated religious arguments and reasoning into his work, motivated by the religious conviction and belief that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason.’ (Good ol’ Wikipedia)

Yeah, sorry I meant to say Copernicaus. For some reason I get those two switched in my head a lot.

…and I don’t think the church is always hostile to science either. The Catholic Church has some excellent astronomers for example. Although, it wasn’t just the Christian church that gave medieval Europe its science…much of it came via Muslim Arabs who in turn got it from polytheistic Ancient Greece.

The church not only saved a great many texts and manuscripts, but the clergy were the largest leisure class of people with the time to think on such issues. The monestaries implemented a huge variety of technological innovations such as crop rotation and the horse collar and improved ways of making charcoal that made the colder northern climes in Europe more tenable and prosperous.

But it was the Christian churches teaching that God was a God of Order that made them think that by exploring the mind of God they could learn more about him, and studied nature in order to familiarize with the mind of God. Also the sectarian difference drove a far larger rate of literacy as people learned to read in order to study the Bible. These two factors greatly enhanced the respect of science and technological innovation.

My advice? It’s only ever been to look at the evidence and use your reason, rather than take a story and bend the evidence to it.

That is certainly true.

 

[Faith1960]

Not impossible but simply unlikely.

Personally I don’t think Adam and Eve were the first homo sapiens on the planet, but I do think that they were the first hominids that had souls and all that entails. I think that their children did not engage in incest but instead mated with other humans who perhaps had not yet been ensouled but became so under unknown circumstances as God and His First Family

Thats what I believe happened, too.

 

[grannymh]

Interesting!

So much loud talk on this thread. Yet, a real down to earth scientific discussion is missing in regard to the science issue in post 766. Note: the operative words are “scientific method”, not church method, not church response, not religious issues, not church history in the scientific realm, and especially not fairy tales. A simple comment that the “scientific conclusion has to be warranted by the evidence” would lead to a general analysis of research papers regarding human origin. For example. Describe the scientific significance of the Black Swan evidence. Which form of evolution is not inconsistent with the notion of creation?

 

[Kelt]

Interesting!

So much loud talk on this thread. Yet, a real down to earth scientific discussion is missing in regard to the science issue in post 766. Note: the operative words are “scientific method”, not church method, not church response, not religious issues, not church history in the scientific realm, and especially not fairy tales. A simple comment that the “scientific conclusion has to be warranted by the evidence” would lead to a general analysis of research papers regarding human origin. For example. Describe the scientific significance of the Black Swan evidence. Which form of evolution is not inconsistent with the notion of creation?

…moulding evidence to fit a particular belief? You are starting at the wrong end if you want to be in the least bit scientific about it!!

 

[grannymh]

…moulding evidence to fit a particular belief? You are starting at the wrong end if you want to be in the least bit scientific about it!!

May I gently comment on the idea of “molding evidence to fit a particular belief?”

Post 782 clearly states that the operative words are “scientific method.” The first principle of the scientific method is to observe without prejudice. From the position of Pope Francis addressing the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, his audience would surely be insulted if he described their work as “molding evidence.” One does not need to be a Ph.D. scientist to notice the difference between molding and observing.

Going back to the Black Swan link in post 766.
svswans.com/black.html

What was the evidence that was used in the early 1600’s?
Was this evidence observed without prejudice which is the first principle of the scientific method?
Opposing answers may be used in reply to the two questions.

 

[truetofaith]

784 long - winded posts & nothing is settled!

Just read what is written in Genesis and don’t worry about it. Adam & Eve sinned & Jesus is the new Adam, Who redeemed mankind from eternal damnation!

 

[edwest2]

Not impossible but simply unlikely.

Personally I don’t think Adam and Eve were the first homo sapiens on the planet, but I do think that they were the first hominids that had souls and all that entails. I think that their children did not engage in incest but instead mated with other humans who perhaps had not yet been ensouled but became so under unknown circumstances as God and His First Family had need of them.

The original stories were allegory of some real, true event that happened a long time ago and was the seed of the Genesis Creation story. I suspect that it was the Toba extinction event and after nearly a decade of perpetual winter all vegetation was destroyed and 99% of animal life as well.

What Genesis describes IMO is the restoration of life on Earth as the dense dust cloud gradually lightened and allowed in light, the regrowth of vegetation and the rebound of animal life and how mankind too was resurgent.

Simply dismissing Genesis out of hand as completely irrelevant is arrogant and stupid.

Actually this storyline is not true. Kepler was a church clergyman and I think his brother a Bishop. So, just like the Big Bang theory, the heliocentric solar system theory was also developed and shared by the same church you think so hostile to its science.

The church gave medieval Europe the science it now boasts of.

Yeah, maybe you should take your own advice, dude.

There is no Biblical or scientific support for the idea that God dropped souls into two almost humans.

Peace,
Ed

 

[rossum]

There is no Biblical or scientific support for the idea that God dropped souls into two almost humans.

There is no scientific evidence against such a thing, nor have I seen it definitively ruled out by Catholic scientists, such as Ken Miller.

It would appear that the question as to the exact method God used is open.

rossum