Teaching evolution at a catholic school

[Rau]

For example, it suggests that human beings are mere accidents, lowering human value.

You could consider that God has no difficulty with evolutionary processes that wind up delivering YOU and which appear indistinguishable from what we observe - mutations filtered by natural sections appropriate to the environment. Is that something God could arrange?

 

[Bill_B_NY]

Science doesn’t consider the soul.

Science claims to give the evolutionary origin of human beings. Human beings possess souls - consciousness, rationality, moral awareness. The soul is the definining, necessary characteristic of human beings. You can’t have a human being without a soul.
So, according to you “science doesn’t consider the soul” - therefore, when evolution claims to explain the origin of human beings, evolution is false - because it does not consider the soul.

Kind of sad. You’re here ridiculing people and you can’t defend your own theory. You just falsified it.

 

[catholicray]

As a confirmed Catholic I would say that I don’t mind which view you teach. This is a subject that has much depth and there is not consensus. The problem with education is when a teacher is not educated to the point that they allow for questions and debate in the classroom when a topic does not have consensus on the answer. That is a way to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s important that Catholics understand that some are completely unaware that they have donned the wolf.

 

[Rau]

Consciousness, self-awareness, power of abstract thought, logical processing by reason, free will, moral awareness in conscience - these are aspects of the soul. It does not emerge from evolution.

I think some animals are capable of some of that too. Animals are said to have a soul too. That evolution leads to spiritual and moral capabilities is not something for which there is scientific evidence. Understandably, science just assumes that because it never includes “God did this bit” in any theory. I wouldn’t get caught up on that nor condemn science excessively as a consequence.

 

[Bill_B_NY]

I think some animals are capable of some of that too. Animals are said to have a soul too.

If so, then evolution is in an impossible situation. Souls are the spiritual form. They cannot evolve from matter. If animals have conscious awareness, that cannot be explained by mutations and natural selection. Evolution fails massively.
Just reminding us - souls are immaterial. They cannot be measured by weight, height, length, dimension, shape. Blind, mindless matter - cannot create immaterial substances.

 

[Rau]

If so, then evolution is in an impossible situation. Souls are the spiritual form. They cannot evolve from matter. If animals have conscious awareness, that cannot be explained by mutations and natural selection. Evolution fails massively

Evolution seems the best theory (judged by evidence) for how the material world has evolved. I appreciate the separate question of animation, rationality etc. (that which is ascribed to the soul) but your inclination seems to be to deny the whole given a declared dispute with a part. This seems overly dramatic and I think diminishes your capacity to draw attention to what’s important.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Since macro-evolution has not been empirically proven and is philosophy it should not be taught in science class but can be taught in philosophy class along with ID

Two quick points:

1. Scientists don’t actually distinguish between micro and macro evolution, the idea is purely invented by intelligent designers.
2. “Macro” evolution (defined by formation of a new species) has been experimentally observed:

E. coli long-term evolution experiment - Wikipedia

There are dozens of observations, from as far back as the 90s:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1558-5646.1992.tb00629.x

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Science doesn’t consider the soul.

Science claims to give the evolutionary origin of human beings. Human beings possess souls - consciousness, rationality, moral awareness. The soul is the definining, necessary characteristic of human beings. You can’t have a human being without a soul.

And God gave a soul to the first two human beings. We know how they came to be. God used the process of evolution. We know the evolutionary origins.

Again, are you saying that God could not arrange it thus? And could not God give a soul to the first true humans? That all that came before were not true human beings but non rational members of Homo sapien without souls?

And how old is the planet?

 

[Dan_Defender]

1. “Macro” evolution (defined by formation of a new species) has been experimentally observed:

en.wikipedia.org

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

E. coli long-term evolution experiment | Evolution of aerobic citrate usage in one population​

E. coli is normally unable to grow aerobically on citrate due to the inability to express a citrate transporter when oxygen is present. However, E. coli has a complete citric acid cycle, and therefore metabolizes citrate as an intermediate during aerobic growth on other substances, including glucose. Most E. coli can grow anaerobically on citrate via fermentation, if a co-substrate such as glucose is available to provide reducing power. The anaerobic growth is possible due to t The inability to g…

Disagree. The experiment shows there is genetic adaptability, and that changes are possible within an upper and lower limit, but the colony of bacteria remained E. coli. No new species resulted.

 

[Rau]

Why do you say that evolution cannot deliver what we call a “new species”?

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Disagree. The experiment shows there is genetic adaptability, and that changes are possible within an upper and lower limit, but the colony of bacteria remained E. coli. No new species resulted.

Not even the only example.
Goatsbeard was observed to evolve into a new species in the wild after being imported to America:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2438023?seq=1

Fruit flies were observed to speciate:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24987133?seq=1
More than once:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/177/4050/664

Ferns were observed evolving from 2 sets of chromosomes (diploid) to 4 (tetraploid).
https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1537-2197.1992.tb14611.x

 

[buffalo]

Could you tell everyone how old you think the planet is, Buff? It comes in handy to know who the fundamentalists are when discussing evolution.

This is a discussion on biology, Debate the issue on its merits.

 

[buffalo]

Why does it need to be direct creation? Are you saying that God couldn’t have done it by guiding the evolutionary process? Are you restricting God’s abilities?

God guiding would be intelligent design.

 

[buffalo]

This does not fit well in a science class because it infers a designer to “fill the gaps” & who is not subject to any further scientific investigation.

There will always be a gap.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Could you tell everyone how old you think the planet is, Buff? It comes in handy to know who the fundamentalists are when discussing evolution.

This is a discussion on biology, Debate the issue on its merits.

The biology regarding evolution is often talked about in time frames of millions of years. If you think that the planet’s age can be counted in the thousands then people should know that so they don’t waste time proffering evidence for their arguments which you think in principle is impossible.

So do you accept time frames of millions of years or do you think the whole planet is barely a few thousand years old?

 

[buffalo]

The biology regarding evolution is often talked about in time frames of millions of years. If you think that the planet’s age can be counted in the thousands then people should know that so they don’t waste time proffering evidence for their arguments which you think in principle is impossible.

So do you accept time frames of millions of years or do you think the whole planet is barely a few thousand years old?

Age does not matter to design. It is either deigned or not. Your mo is to try to damage the argument for design by a strawman so the poster interested will disregard the mounting evidence. Not gonna work.

 

[buffalo]

Two quick points:

1. Scientists don’t actually distinguish between micro and macro evolution, the idea is purely invented by intelligent designers.
2. “Macro” evolution (defined by formation of a new species) has been experimentally observed:

As I pointed out in an earlier post the distinction between macro and micro was by an evolutionist.

Your ecoli reference is not correct. In actuality the bacteria have gained a temporary benefit by breaking genes which confers a long term survival disadvantage. I refer to this as devolution.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

The biology regarding evolution is often talked about in time frames of millions of years. If you think that the planet’s age can be counted in the thousands then people should know that so they don’t waste time proffering evidence for their arguments which you think in principle is impossible.

So do you accept time frames of millions of years or do you think the whole planet is barely a few thousand years old?

Age does not matter to design.

But it does to evolution. So I think you should come clean. I know that you consider the planet to be thousands of years old so you should let everyone else know so they don’t waste their time offering evidence for evolution that takes millions of years.

 

[buffalo]

I know that you consider the planet to be thousands of years old so you should let everyone else know so they don’t waste their time offering evidence for evolution that takes millions of years.

I am on record for my thoughts on age.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I know that you consider the planet to be thousands of years old so you should let everyone else know so they don’t waste their time offering evidence for evolution that takes millions of years.

I am on record for my thoughts on age.

Yes. It was in the tens of thousands. Could you confirm that so people don’t waste their time?