two questions about evolution as I consider leaving the church

[1holycatholic]

To say that chance is part of a scientific theory is a mistake? How can a scientists explanation be that something is random? How is saying something is random different from saying “I don’t know”?

Boethius: Consolatio Philosophiae

 

[buffalo]

Really? Tell me what kind of sudden flooding could produce this:
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/docs/rst/Sect6/Goosenecks.JPG

I’ve been there twice since the eruption, and there’s nothing remotely like the Grand Canyon there.

photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=915132&size=lg
(big photo, click to see)

As you can see, the gullies get a few meters high, and then slump as the soft material collapses. Nothing at all like the Grand Canyon. And certainly no entrenched meanders. You’ve never compared the two, um?

.

The Mystery of the Megaflood

There is also an area downriver of the Niagara Falls that was eroded in a day.

 

[buffalo]

And yet they happen. Would you like to learn about them?

Because most of them are harmful recessives, which will persist for a long time at very low levels. Would you like to do a simulation that explains why?

It is a measure of uncertainty in a message. That is, if you can anticipate what is in the message with complete certainty, it has no information. There is a specific way to calculate the genetic information in a population. Would you like to learn about it?

Neither is a thunderstorm, and yet, it serves a purpose. God is a lot more capable and intelligent than ID/creationists are willing to let Him be.

So were you able to make one? Did you beat Dawkins? How many years elapsed?

 

[The_Barbarian]

(Barbarian asks how one can explain a sudden flood producing entrenched meanders)

(Buffalo declines to say)

No one else can, either. It’s impossible. Such structures only form slowly over a very long period of time.

There is also an area downriver of the Niagara Falls that was eroded in a day.

And entrenched meander, or even something close to it? Where can I see this wonder? Last time I was there, there was nothing remotely like the Grand Canyon.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Neither is a thunderstorm, and yet, it serves a purpose. God is a lot more capable and intelligent than ID/creationists are willing to let Him be.

So were you able to make one?

No, but the fact that we can’t make a thunderstorm doesn’t mean they don’t form naturally.

 

[Byron_Bramwell]

Rossum,

First of all, I was not addressing any of those statements to you. 

Secondly, though I am sure you are a decent enough fellow: why are you here? 
Are there just that few atheists to talk to; or are you just that hard to get along with?


       Byron

 

[Byron_Bramwell]

Barbarian,

That has never been the Christian position. St. Augustine, for example, pointed out that one could not find a way to logically show a literal six days.

"And there was evening and there was morning
…the first day
…the second day
…the third day
…the fourth day
…the fifth day
…the six day

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done."

“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
EXODUS 20:11

How can a six day view be incompatible with Scripture? Must you explain everything away that does not appease your diluted perceptions of the natural world? Is God not capable of writing what he meant, or must you interpret it for Him with a sophist’s tongue? One need not bear the burden of proof for what is so plainly attested.

I find it peculiar that, on the one hand, you claim that I limit God’s freedom in creation, and on the other hand, you feel God is utterly incapable of creating a day without the light of the sun. What need of light does the Light of lights possess?

That’s not what it says. The term “eretz” can mean “this place”, a specific nation, “the land hereabouts”, or “all the land we know about.” So no, it doesn’t mean the whole world was flooded, and the Church does not teach that it was.

I will gladly take upon myself any and all proposed contradictions between natural and special revelation if, and only if, I am in every case on the side of the latter.

Are you arguing for a localized flood? Does the Catholic Church teach this? I suppose then the rainbow, instead of reminding us of God’s promise and covenant with Noah, can remind us of the unfaithfulness and deception of God, seeing that localized floods have occurred hundreds upon hundreds of times since.

You will then gladly take upon yourself any and all *proposed *contradictions between natural and special revelation if, and only if, you can be on the side of the former.

Your Biblical hermeneutic is flirting with stupidity at best and, if applied consistently to Scripture, fornicating with heresy at worst.

For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.
GENESIS 6:17

…and every living thing (Hebrew: all existence) that I made I will blot out from the face of the ground.
GENESIS 7:4

And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.
GENESIS 7:10

The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.
GENESIS 7:20-24

…the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
GENESIS 8:21-22

It is obvious to a child that this speaks of universality. Perhaps you should consider employing your unique brand of interpretive maneuvering to microbiology only and leave Scriptural theology to those who offer serious minded exegesis.
Byron

 

[The_Barbarian]

Natural selection: survival of the fittest. Fittest for what? Survival, of course! That’s circular, and it seems to me it is a way for scientists to dodge the fact that they are dealing with values. Science seeks to be value-free, but what they are really claiming is freedom from social values, while the intellectual values of truth, intellectual honesty, and parsimony are held to be sacred.

Math is also value-free. There is no such thing as an immoral equation or an immoral theory. There are only immoral purposes to which math or science can be applied. For that sort of thing, God has given you other ways of knowing.

(Science is free to study values and needs to study them to discover objective verifiable moral truths about human flourishing.)

Evolutionary theory, for example, shows the survival value of altruism. But that is not the same thing as the wisdom of the Golden Rule.

The creative force of the universe is at work in natural selection rather than chance, but evolution is not explained based on a personal God, just a principle of “betterness.”

Yep. That’s how science works. And nature is a very bad place to look for values.

Values are real, and science needs to acknowledge and study values.

In the sense you seem to be meaning, it can’t. You might as well as plumbing to acknowledge and study values.

 

[buffalo]

(Barbarian asks how one can explain a sudden flood producing entrenched meanders)

(Buffalo declines to say)

No one else can, either. It’s impossible. Such structures only form slowly over a very long period of time.

And entrenched meander, or even something close to it? Where can I see this wonder? Last time I was there, there was nothing remotely like the Grand Canyon.

You have to be at the escarpment.

 

[buffalo]

Barbarian observes:
Neither is a thunderstorm, and yet, it serves a purpose. God is a lot more capable and intelligent than ID/creationists are willing to let Him be.

No, but the fact that we can’t make a thunderstorm doesn’t mean they don’t form naturally.

The question wasn’t about a thunderstorm it was about a positive mutation.

 

[The_Barbarian]

First of all, I’d like to ask how you know that evolution is random?

No one who knows anything about it, thinks that it is.

That’s what scientists assume because they can’t find a scientific, physical argument for order.

They don’t think it’s random. In fact, Darwin’s great discovery was that it wasn’t random. And order surprises no one who has studied nature. What’s surprising is that nature so easily produces order out of chaos.

Since God is Spirit, it is logical that scientists can’t reach him by physical experiments.

Give that man a beer! Precisely right.

Since they can’t prove or disprove him through the scientific method, they won’t assume his interaction, and so they look for alternative explanations. Chance is the only material explanation they’ve got so far.

Was before natural selection. But natural selection is the antithesis of chance.

 

[The_Barbarian]

The question wasn’t about a thunderstorm it was about a positive mutation.

Oh, they happen naturally, too. On a frequent basis. Would you like to learn about some of them?

Even if we can’t do something, that doesn’t mean that it can’t happen naturally.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Originally Posted by The Barbarian View Post
(Barbarian asks how one can explain a sudden flood producing entrenched meanders)

(Buffalo declines to say)

No one else can, either. It’s impossible. Such structures only form slowly over a very long period of time.

An entrenched meander, or even something close to it? Where can I see this wonder? Last time I was there, there was nothing remotely like the Grand Canyon.

You have to be at the escarpment.

I’ve been front side and backside, and along Johnston Ridge, and down as close to the old lake as possible on foot. And no entrenched meanders or other structures remotely like the Grand Canyon. I linked you to some pictures I took of the “canyons” that formed in soft sediment. They look like gullies at a construction site.

Show us some pictures or at least some evidence for these structures that mimic the Grand Canyon.

 

[The_Barbarian]

How can a six day view be incompatible with Scripture?

As St. Augustine observed, it is logically absurd to imagine mornings and evenings with no sun to have them. This is why the Church does not teach that they were literal days.

Must you explain everything away that does not appease your diluted perceptions of the natural world?

Rather, must you bypass all logic and scripture that does not appease your diluted perceptions of creation?

Is God not capable of writing what he meant, or must you interpret it for Him with a sophist’s tongue?

As Augustine pointed out, he did accept what God wrote. His understanding is of the literal meaning in Genesis, not a literalist reworking.

I find it peculiar that, on the one hand, you claim that I limit God’s freedom in creation

Yes. You do that.

and on the other hand, you feel God is utterly incapable of creating a day without the light of the sun.

No. However, God does not do things that are logically absurd. And “morning” has a clear meaning that makes no sense without a sun.

Barbarian observes:
That’s not what it says. The term “eretz” can mean “this place”, a specific nation, “the land hereabouts”, or “all the land we know about.” So no, it doesn’t mean the whole world was flooded, and the Church does not teach that it was.

I will gladly take upon myself any and all proposed contradictions between natural and special revelation if, and only if, I am in every case on the side of the latter.

In this case, you are at odds with both sides.

Are you arguing for a localized flood?

It’s possible. There is evidence for it. But I can’t say if it’s entirely allegorical or not.

Does the Catholic Church teach this?

The Catholic Church does not teach a universal flood.

I suppose then the rainbow, instead of reminding us of God’s promise and covenant with Noah, can remind us of the unfaithfulness and deception of God, seeing that localized floods have occurred hundreds upon hundreds of times since.

Perhaps you’ve simply added something to God’s word again. God merely notes that He will not destroy “eretz” with a flood again:

Genesis 9:11 I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh shall be no more destroyed with the waters of a flood, neither shall there be from henceforth a flood to waste the earth. 12 And God said: This is the sign of the covenant which I give between me and you, and to every living soul that is with you, for perpetual generations. 13 I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant between me, and between the earth.

You will then gladly take upon yourself any and all proposed contradictions between natural and special revelation if, and only if, you can be on the side of the former.

Turns out that reality in nature, and reality in scripture have no inconsistencies. As Pope John Paul II remarked, truth cannot contradict truth.

Your Biblical hermeneutic is flirting with stupidity at best

Getting angry and calling names won’t help you now.

and, if applied consistently to Scripture, fornicating with heresy at worst.

My position is entirely within the teaching of the Church. But yours is not.

For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.
GENESIS 6:17

Again, you simple don’t accept what “eretz” means.

…and every living thing (Hebrew: all existence) that I made I will blot out from the face of the ground.
GENESIS 7:4

And yet, in literal fact, not every living thing not on the Ark died.

And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.
GENESIS 7:10

It is obvious to a child that this speaks of universality.

It is not obvious to the Church, which does not teach that it was a worldwide flood.

Perhaps you should consider employing your unique brand of interpretive maneuvering to microbiology only and leave Scriptural theology to those who offer serious minded exegesis.

Perhaps you should learn more about the teaching of your faith. Assuming you are Catholic, there is much with which you seem to be unfamiliar.

 

[Leela]

Hi Barbarian,

Math is also value-free. There is no such thing as an immoral equation or an immoral theory. There are only immoral purposes to which math or science can be applied. For that sort of thing, God has given you other ways of knowing.

Aren’t some equations better than others? Are not simpler equations that describe the same phenomena or solve the same sorts of problems preferable to ones that are needlessly more complicated? Isn’t truth valued over falsehood in mathematics? Math isn’t value-free any more than science is.

Evolutionary theory, for example, shows the survival value of altruism. But that is not the same thing as the wisdom of the Golden Rule.

The intellectual values that we use to judge such a rational approach to morality are different from the biological value of survival but are still values nonetheless?

Yep. That’s how science works. And nature is a very bad place to look for values.

I don’t think there is anywhere you can go to avoid values.

In the sense you seem to be meaning, it can’t. You might as well as plumbing to acknowledge and study values.

Why not? If morality is concerned with human flourishing then certainly there are things that can be known about what makes humans flourish that are just as verifiably true as any scientific claim.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Hi All,

It seems to me that evolutionary theory is incompatible with religious belief. As I understand it, if you go back in time and rerun the evolutionary program, you get completely different results. How can that be reconciled with a God who has a purpose for human beings (and each individual human at that) created in his own image?

Best,
Leela

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Math is also value-free. There is no such thing as an immoral equation or an immoral theory. There are only immoral purposes to which math or science can be applied. For that sort of thing, God has given you other ways of knowing.

Aren’t some equations better than others?

They are neither moral nor immoral. Math isn’t like values.

Are not simpler equations that describe the same phenomena or solve the same sorts of problems preferable to ones that are needlessly more complicated?

Not intrinsically so. And it has nothing to do with values and morals. Merely convenience of calculation.

Isn’t truth valued over falsehood in mathematics? Math isn’t value-free any more than science is.

You might as well expect plumbing to be about values. Scientists have values. Science does not. As you suggest, if it works, it’s good. That is neither a moral nor an ethical value.

Barbarian observes:
Evolutionary theory, for example, shows the survival value of altruism. But that is not the same thing as the wisdom of the Golden Rule.

The intellectual values that we use to judge such a rational approach to morality are different from the biological value of survival but are still values nonetheless?

No.

Barbarian observes:
Yep. That’s how science works. And nature is a very bad place to look for values.

I don’t think there is anywhere you can go to avoid values.

The physical universe is a blind, uncaring thing. You might as well expect a hammer to love you. But the Carpenter does, even if His hammer does not.

Barbarian observes:
In the sense you seem to be meaning, it can’t. You might as well as plumbing to acknowledge and study values.

Why not?

No moral content to plumbing. Some fine plumbing was done at Auschwitz, to put together the piping that vented carbon monoxide into truck compartments where people were placed to kill them.

It was good plumbing, but the use to which it was put was as immoral as anything humans can do.

 

[The_Barbarian]

It seems to me that evolutionary theory is incompatible with religious belief.

Pope John Paul II showed that to be wrong. As he said, “truth cannot contradict truth.”

As I understand it, if you go back in time and rerun the evolutionary program, you get completely different results.

Some think so.

How can that be reconciled with a God who has a purpose for human beings (and each individual human at that) created in his own image?

As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, divine providence can be produced by either necessity or contingency. It is only required that it be done according to His will; it is not important how it was done.

 

[buffalo]

Originally Posted by The Barbarian View Post
(Barbarian asks how one can explain a sudden flood producing entrenched meanders)

(Buffalo declines to say)

No one else can, either. It’s impossible. Such structures only form slowly over a very long period of time.

An entrenched meander, or even something close to it? Where can I see this wonder? Last time I was there, there was nothing remotely like the Grand Canyon.

I’ve been front side and backside, and along Johnston Ridge, and down as close to the old lake as possible on foot. And no entrenched meanders or other structures remotely like the Grand Canyon. I linked you to some pictures I took of the “canyons” that formed in soft sediment. They look like gullies at a construction site.

Show us some pictures or at least some evidence for these structures that mimic the Grand Canyon.

The whirlpool is 90 degrees not quite what is shown in the Grand Canyon Picture.

A recent documentary (perhaps PBS) showed more. In fact, I thought another was further downstream. I will see if I can find more.
Facts & Figures

…
It was a brief and violent encounter, a geological moment lasting only weeks, maybe even only days. In this moment the Falls of the youthful Niagara River intersected an old riverbed, one that had been buried and sealed during the last Ice Age. The Falls turned into this buried gorge, tore out the glacial debris that filled it, and scoured the old river bottom clean. It was probably not a falls at all now but a huge, churning rapids. When it was all over it left behind a 90-degree turn in the river we know today as the Whirlpool, and North America’s largest series of standing waves we know today as the Whirlpool Rapids.
The Falls then re-established at about the area of the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge and resumed carving its way through solid rock to its present location.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...?q=niagara+river+ny+whirlpool&um=1&hl=en&sa=G

 

[buffalo]

Hi All,

It seems to me that evolutionary theory is incompatible with religious belief. As I understand it, if you go back in time and rerun the evolutionary program, you get completely different results. How can that be reconciled with a God who has a purpose for human beings (and each individual human at that) created in his own image?

Best,
Leela

Yes, did God know what Adam and Eve would look like?

There is purpose in creation.