Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true

[PickyPicky]

Is this not a translation from Latin? Race could very well have been selected as a word at the translators discretion instead of nation, people, tribe, etc .

Indeed Gildas didn’t use the word “race”. But then he didn’t use the words “nation, people, tribe, etc”. (A) because, as you say, he wrote in Latin, (B) because Modern English, and therefore those words, didn’t exist. From the words he did use, however, it’s pretty clear that racism has existed for at least 1500 years.

 

[Metis1]

No, it is not fact. That’s why it is called the theories of evolution.

Again, as previously mentioned with a definition I linked people here to, a scientific “theory” is not the same as what’s commonly used in the vernacular. An example is “gravitational theory”, and I would suggest that we all should know that gravity exists-- again, it’s just the details that are debatable.

 

[Metis1]

From the words he did use, however, it’s pretty clear that racism has existed for at least 1500 years.

Actually a lot longer than that as we see evidence of conflict between Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neaderthalensis going back tens of thousands of years.

 

[o_mlly]

I’m sorry, but you are simply slam-dunk wrong on this. Evolution is well defined and well accepted scientific fact. The only part of this you are right about is that various scientific propositions and theories work with the well accepted science. And then when you veer off into theological propositions with it, there are many theories and tangents. But that doesn’t invalidate the scientific core of it.
If it did, then we should cast ourselves with Charles Duell, who foolishly proclaimed that "everything that has been invented (or discovered) had been invented). " Science is always broadening the inquiry. That inquiry is part of being a healthy human being.

This post rambles on which usually indicates it’s author does not understand that about which he tries to write. And as usual, lot’s of claims, no evidence and logically bankrupt.

If “species” is a construct of the human mind , then in like manner so is “man” and “woman”. And here you illustrate well the scandal that ignorance causes, because you cannot expect to make the case for common sense realities like the differentiation of sex if you refuse to accept the world around you as it should be perceived by thinking human beings. You simply veer off into superstition and fideism, and the Church condemns both.

And the above serves to just reinforce my point.

 

[Bradskii]

rossum:

Racism has been around from a lot earlier than 1859. Didn’t the American Constitution count negro slaves as 3/5 of a person and not count Native Americans at all? That was subdividing into three races right there.

Whatever racism that existed before Darwin did not have the facade of an erroneous scientific basis as the complete title of Darwin’s book clearly indicates: On the of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

I guess if someone didn’t understand that Darwin’s teminology of the time referred to ‘variety’ and they hadn’t read the book to realise that humans are hardly mentioned, let alone in a racial context, then yes, it might appear to them as being concerned with racism. And you didn’t and you haven’t and so it does.

But if you want to push the idea that Darwin (as opposed to his theory) was a racist then I suggest reading his other book ‘The descent of Man’. Lots of great material in there. Nothing you could use against a scientific theory but feel free to quote a few of his statements anyway. You’re on a roll. Downhill, I’m afraid. But that’s the direction most things roll.

 

[edwest211]

Pope John Paul II as quoted in Finding Design in Nature by Christoph Schönborn, the Roman Catholic cardinal archbishop of Vienna.

"Consider the real teaching of our beloved John Paul. While his rather vague and unimportant 1996 letter about evolution is always and everywhere cited, we see no one discussing these comments from a 1985 general audience that represents his robust teaching on nature:

“All the observations concerning the development of life lead to a similar conclusion. The evolution of living beings, of which science seeks to determine the stages and to discern the mechanism, presents an internal finality which arouses admiration. This finality which directs beings in a direction for which they are not responsible or in charge, obliges one to suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator.”

He went on: “To all these indications of the existence of God the Creator, some oppose the power of chance or of the proper mechanisms of matter. To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements and such marvelous finality in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact, this would be equivalent to admitting effects without a cause. It would be to abdicate human intelligence, which would thus refuse to think and to seek a solution for its problems.”

 

[Bradskii]

What we call chance is just God making sure things turn out as He wishes. Wouldn’t you agree?

 

[edwest211]

The “illusion of design” in nature is false. Actual design occurred.

 

[rossum]

The “illusion of design” in nature is false. Actual design occurred.

What evidence do you have for this claim?

ID has claimed to have evidence for many years now, but none has stood up to scientific scrutiny. Do you have something to show us that various ID proponents have not already proposed?

rossum

 

[rossum]

Whatever racism that existed before Darwin did not have the facade of an erroneous scientific basis as the complete title of Darwin’s book clearly indicates: On the of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Darwin was writing Victorian English, not modern English. His “races” refers to what we call species today: races of sheep, races of fish and so on. Here is an example of the term being used of cabbages:

Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil (in which case, however, some effect would have to be attributed to the definite action of the poor soil), that they would, to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock.

– Origin, Chapter 1

His book was not about humans; humans hardly get mentioned at all in “Origin”.

rossum

 

[Vonsalza]

At the root of the utter nonsense that human beings can be subdivided into races is Darwinism.

Race isn’t nonsense. It’s the result of homosapiens coming out of Africa and evolving in response to their environments.

Aliens doing a taxonomy of life on earth would identify it as homosapiens undergoing the process of speciation where incremental differences accumulate until the populations can no longer viably interbreed.

It’s just that before that happened our technological know-how exploded our mobility, eliminating the relative genetic isolation required for speciation to progress.

This old idea was never debunked so much as cast aside as it didn’t suit modern sensitivities concerning race.

It might surprise you, but wooly mammoths and African elephants share a common ancestor. Both their great (to the power of ) grand-dads was the very same proto-elephant.
Humans were simply undergoing the same progression as every other species.

 

[Aloysium]

Race isn’t nonsense.

It’s an outdated term of no practical value. We speak today more about populations with common traits, peoples or ethnic groups that share the same heritage, communities of individuals and families. Terms like that address the specific attributes among the members of a specified group. Race, like evolution is illusory, when we look beyond it’s social meaning and significance. It is recognized that there is one human race.

 

[o_mlly]

I guess if someone didn’t understand that Darwin’s teminology …

I guess if someone doesn’t have a coherent world view then others may dismiss that person’s ramblings as more than likely equally incoherent.

 

[Vonsalza]

Hey, whatever label you want to use to satisfy your cultural views in fine with me.

It’s less fine to the sciences. Now race may very well be subject to replacement by ethnicity. And to that, I think of Shakespeare’s “A rose by any other name smells as sweet”.

People were simply doing the same thing every other organism on the planet has been doing for billions of years. Adapting to local environments and undergoing evolution and eventual speciation because of it.

Biology simply doesn’t care about any sentiments of human exceptionalism anymore than it cares about insectoid exceptionalism. It’s a different subject.

 

[o_mlly]

His book was not about humans; humans hardly get mentioned at all in “Origin”.

Oh, please.

Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.

 

[o_mlly]

Race isn’t nonsense. It’s the result of homosapiens coming out of Africa and evolving …

Please look up “evolving.” No categorization of human beings is more complex than any another imagined category.

Aliens doing a taxonomy of life on earth would identify …

Why am I not surprised. Aliens would …?

 

[Vonsalza]

o_mlly:

Please look up “evolving.” No categorization of human beings is more complex than any another imagined category.

I wouldn’t expect it to be. Biologically, we’re animals like any other.

Is a mammoth more complex than an Asian elephant?

Why am I not surprised. Aliens would …?

The reason I referenced aliens was to illustrate something performing the taxonomy that wasn’t as attached to- and thus biased in favor of- human exceptionalism.

Sorry you missed that.

 

[rossum]

Oh, please.

Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.

Show me the word “humans” in that quote. Darwin deliberately avoided almost all mention of the evolution of Homo sapiens in ‘Origin’ because he knew that it would cause even more of a furore than it did. About the only mention is in the last chapter:

Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.

– Origin, Chapter 15

He covered humanity in his Descent of Man, not in Origin.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

I do understand your belief system; I just don’t buy it. There’s no point pretending to yourself that I don’t, outside your personal self justification and that of others who share your belief system.

 

[Aloysium]

It is by no means better to side with what is not true because it keeps the club of Catholism going. Evolution doesn’t cut it. I find most young people with whom I’ve discussed my views extremely interested. It is easier face to face actually because the questions are more readily addressed. With crotchety old guys set in their ways, closed to new ideas, it’s not so smooth. They like to argue rather than listen and strive for understanding.