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Techno2000
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Seattle, Washington
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Roseeurekacross
Guest
That tells me nothing, I am in Australia
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StephieNorthCo
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Seattle Wa. averages 38 inches of rain per year. Little snow, mostly cold ish rain.
Comic writer Dave Barry describes Washington as “the constant nagging drizzle state”.
Comic writer Dave Barry describes Washington as “the constant nagging drizzle state”.
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Roseeurekacross
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Thanks stephie,
Cactus grows here in the cold winter. Survives frost. Cactus is very predator unfriendly. It has means of protecting itself.
Its becoming a huge issue in feral populations in parts of Aus.
Cactus grows here in the cold winter. Survives frost. Cactus is very predator unfriendly. It has means of protecting itself.
Its becoming a huge issue in feral populations in parts of Aus.
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Techno2000
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If a desert ecosystem could flourish Seattle,Washington it would,but it can’t.
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FredBloggs
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buffalo
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Evolutionism has been asserting their claims without empirical proof for a century. The continuous blasts have made it “true”. So many have swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Dare challenge it and you will find yourself unemployed.
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FredBloggs
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This simply isn’t true. The truth of evolution is confirmed by evidence from many disparate branches of science. The notion that if you dare to disagree you lose your job is ridiculous and shows a complete misunderstanding of how science has successfully worked for hundreds of year. Yours is a laughable conspiracy theory that a child of three could see through.
But I’m not trying to convince you to change your mind - that would be an impossible task as your religion prevents you from thinking objectively. The point of my post was merely to highlight to everybody your tactics, and those of your ilk - to cherry-pick out-of-context quotes from real scientists in an attempt to give your own position credibility; and to simply assert something as true just because you wish it were.
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Elf01
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Actually @buffalo is Catholic and Catholics are permitted to accept (at least in part) evolution. You have to see it as caused by God, the soul could not evolve and all humans are descended from an original pair (since humans have bodies and souls cross breeding with non ensouled hominins may have occurred). It’s not his religion that prevents him from accepting evolution. It’s his interpretation of Genesis.
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FredBloggs
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That’s a distinction without a difference; the point is that when science conflicts with religious belief (or other deeply held convictions such as homeopathy), the science tends to be summarily rejected.
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Elf01
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I think it’s important to explain that the beliefs preventing buffalo from believing in evolution are personal and not required by the Catholic Church.
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buffalo
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No. It is the science itself that prevents me from accepting macro-evolution. It is not empirical.
and
Now we know so much more about the factory in the cell with codes, languages, encryption, error correcting, etc. Intelligently designed for sure.
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Erikaspirit16
Guest
I skimmed the previous posts, although I confess I haven’t read them thoroughly. There seem to be a number of well-informed posters, and, of course, some not so well informed. The original question is a good one, but a lot of people have hijacked the discussion into a discussion of evolution in general.
I am not an expert, but the subject has been of great interest lately–I just counted, and I’ve read 22 books on pre-historic man in the last three years. So I’ll chip in. I did not take notes, and I’m doing this from memory, so I may be off a little here and there, but I know no one will take me to task!
First, someone above quoted the catechism: As Catholics, it is forbidden to believe in polymorphism, or the descent from more than 1 person, Adam. So the question is, can science support such a position?
And the answer is yes. For example, Stephen Jay Gould in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes (1983) on pages 336-7: “The major change arises in a single individual…” For reasons of space I won’t quote his much longer explanation. There is also a book, which I cannot put my hands on at this time, whose subject is the same thing–the idea of a species arising from a single mutation.
I believe most anthropologists believe that there was a bottleneck in human population just before Homo Sapiens left Africa–50-60,000 yrs. before present. Their estimate is perhaps 10,000 people.
The interesting things is that for approx. 3 million years, humans and their ancestors made very little progress. The same stone handaxe was made for millions of years, for example.
Then, all of a sudden (in relative time) between 60-40,000 years ago, just at the time our ancestors were leaving Africa and after, there was a spurt of inventiveness. This is cataloged in the book Timewalkers, by Clive Gamble. Art. Symbolic thinking. Completely new types of flake tools. Gamble gives a list.
Physically, humans have been much the same for at least 300,000 years. But clearly there was a major change that was unprecedented c. 60-40,000 years ago. It’s not unreasonable to consider a mutation, which could have begun in one man and spread rapidly. We are used to thinking in terms of billions of people. But in the prehistoric period you have to think in terms of thousands. At the end of the last Ice Age, c. 12,000 years ago, there were perhaps 6-10,000 people in Europe. And if you do some simple math using 25 years as a generation, you can see how many descendants you could have in a relatively short time. Not all the descendants would carry a mutation, but in the course of time, it would spread to the entire population.
There is no reason to bring religion into this. However, it does not contradict religion or Catholic insistence on a single ancestor. “Adam” in Hebrew simply means “Man.” If you want to believe that at a particular moment God gave a soul to “Man,” there is no conflict with science.
Finally a personal note. I’ve been lucky enough to see 4-5 caves in France with prehistoric art, some of which dates back to about 35,000 years ago. It is absolutely awe-inspiring: the beauty, the complexity, the planning boggles the mind. Photos in a book don’t come close.
I am not an expert, but the subject has been of great interest lately–I just counted, and I’ve read 22 books on pre-historic man in the last three years. So I’ll chip in. I did not take notes, and I’m doing this from memory, so I may be off a little here and there, but I know no one will take me to task!
First, someone above quoted the catechism: As Catholics, it is forbidden to believe in polymorphism, or the descent from more than 1 person, Adam. So the question is, can science support such a position?
And the answer is yes. For example, Stephen Jay Gould in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes (1983) on pages 336-7: “The major change arises in a single individual…” For reasons of space I won’t quote his much longer explanation. There is also a book, which I cannot put my hands on at this time, whose subject is the same thing–the idea of a species arising from a single mutation.
I believe most anthropologists believe that there was a bottleneck in human population just before Homo Sapiens left Africa–50-60,000 yrs. before present. Their estimate is perhaps 10,000 people.
The interesting things is that for approx. 3 million years, humans and their ancestors made very little progress. The same stone handaxe was made for millions of years, for example.
Then, all of a sudden (in relative time) between 60-40,000 years ago, just at the time our ancestors were leaving Africa and after, there was a spurt of inventiveness. This is cataloged in the book Timewalkers, by Clive Gamble. Art. Symbolic thinking. Completely new types of flake tools. Gamble gives a list.
Physically, humans have been much the same for at least 300,000 years. But clearly there was a major change that was unprecedented c. 60-40,000 years ago. It’s not unreasonable to consider a mutation, which could have begun in one man and spread rapidly. We are used to thinking in terms of billions of people. But in the prehistoric period you have to think in terms of thousands. At the end of the last Ice Age, c. 12,000 years ago, there were perhaps 6-10,000 people in Europe. And if you do some simple math using 25 years as a generation, you can see how many descendants you could have in a relatively short time. Not all the descendants would carry a mutation, but in the course of time, it would spread to the entire population.
There is no reason to bring religion into this. However, it does not contradict religion or Catholic insistence on a single ancestor. “Adam” in Hebrew simply means “Man.” If you want to believe that at a particular moment God gave a soul to “Man,” there is no conflict with science.
Finally a personal note. I’ve been lucky enough to see 4-5 caves in France with prehistoric art, some of which dates back to about 35,000 years ago. It is absolutely awe-inspiring: the beauty, the complexity, the planning boggles the mind. Photos in a book don’t come close.
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1Lord1Faith
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These dates seem to be regularly pushed further back.
Humans First Arrived in Australia 65,000 Years Ago, Study Suggests (Published 2017)
Ancestors of Aboriginal Australians arrived thousands of years earlier than previously believed, according to newly uncovered archaeological evidence.
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FredBloggs
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My understanding is that the Catholic Church requires that (a) only micro-evolution is acceptable (as an analog: I can walk across the room, but I can’t walk across the town), and (b) that it’s directed by God.
The underlying problem, of course, is the notion that any organisation should be able to tell you what you are and aren’t allowed to believe… but that’s another thread.
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Erikaspirit16
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We’re talking about two different things: Your article (I read it) talks about dating the settlement of Australia. I’m talking about inventions and discoveries.
Carbon dating is only good for about 50,000 years back, and the further back you go, the sketchier it gets. As your article points out, there are other methods of dating.
However, from my own reading I am not convinced by these isolated finds here and there (including in the Americas). Ancient man wandered around a lot. There’s no reason an isolated band could not have left Africa earlier, or even much earlier. We know for a fact that the Neanderthals and Denisovians did, for example. But an isolated band is one thing. Perhaps they died out. Maybe not. But that’s a different scale than a major migration of thousands, leaving not just one, but hundreds of sites.
So I’m not arguing with your article. I’m simply pointing out that it is not proof–or even evidence–of the general settlement of Australia at that period. If they find multiple settlements throughout Australia of the same age, then I’m convinced. We’ll see!
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Erikaspirit16
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Your point a) is mistaken. There is no “acceptable” form of evolution. I don’t want to sidetrack the thread by getting into evolution, which is a fruitless debate on both sides. A good historical summary of the Catholic position is on Wikipedia: The Catholic Church and Evolution: Evolution and the Catholic Church - Wikipedia
Humani Generis (1950) and a speech of John Paul II in 1996 make it clear that there is no conflict between the theory of evolution and religion. (However, you have to be careful when you use terms like “theory of evolution” since there are different groups who mean slightly different things by it. And although all agree on the general principle, the debate nowadays is about exactly how it took place, not whether it took place.)
The church does believe that evolution is part of a plan that God has for the universe, and that it is not random. However, as I recently posted elsewhere, things that we previously considered “random” have been found to be mathematically explainable (fractals, etc.). So although I personally believe that evolution works through seemingly random mutations, the key word is “seemingly.” It may well turn out that what we now consider “random” is, in fact, part of a larger organized structure–although we don’t know what that is right now.
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edwest
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Adam in Hebrew means man?
“Adamah (Biblical Hebrew : אדמה) is a word , translatable as ground or earth, which occurs in the Biblical account of Creation of the Book of Genesis.”
“Adamah (Biblical Hebrew : אדמה) is a word , translatable as ground or earth, which occurs in the Biblical account of Creation of the Book of Genesis.”
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buffalo
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Right. Evolution cannot walk across the town. One cannot extrapolate adaptation into macro-evolution. It does not happen. It is not empirical.
The “organization” as you call it protects the transmission of faith from corruption. If one wants to investigate it is all there as to why the Church teaches as she does. If one does not agree they can leave.
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WingsOfEagles
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The Church does not teach that one must believe in a literal intrepretation of Adam and Eve or of the flood. Personally, I believe Adam and Eve were not the only humans on the planet, but rather were the ones responsible for original sin and therefore Genesis focuses on them. I believe there was a massive flood, but that it probably was more localized than literally the entire planet and probably others besides Noah’s family found a way to survive.
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