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

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There’s a big difference between science and religion, and evolution is not a religion in any way but it is a well-established scientific axiom, and no amount of song & dance by some will change that. Some of us have provided the evidence of such, and yet some choose to just ignore that evidence to put forth their “agenda”.

The only “agenda” in science is to deal with objectively-derived evidence, which is totally the opposite of what is done in a religious context, as pretty much any theologian will attest to. Religion is based on faith with no objectively-derived evidence needed.

Also, science does not push secular values any more than it pushes religious values. Science, including the ToE, deals with the formation of axioms, theorems, and hypotheses, whereas [the Abrahamic] religion deals with beliefs and morality. The Bible is not a science book, and my copies of “Scientific American” are not guides to beliefs and morality. When I go to mass, I am not praying to secularism, and when I read my copies of SA I am not praying to God or learning about morality.

If we confuse the two together, then we’re simply barking up the wrong trees.
 
Aloysium said:
Does a Buddha then not exist after death?
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What part of “No” do you have a problem with? You said above it was a yes-no question. Why are you repeating the question?

Would you like a longer answer? A Buddha does not exist after death.

rossum
 
Four of the fourteen unanswerable questions relate to the status of the Buddha after his last death:
Does the Buddha exist after death?
Does the Buddha not exist after death?
Does the Buddha both exist and not exist after death?
Does the Buddha neither exist nor not exist after death?
The answer is to be found in Nirvana; we wake up to it.
Similarly your question about God is to be found within our relationship with Him; He reveals Himself to us.
 
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o_mlly said:
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Metis1:
The basic is that life forms evolve over time-- it’s really that simple. The rest is tied up in axioms, theorems, and hypotheses.
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Not much in your definition to chew on. By your definition, Genesis is (the first) Theory of Evolution.
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The unavoidable point is the evolution of species is demonstrable by simple observation. It doesn’t require any mental gymnastics. The only thing required is to look at the evidence and be open to what is seen.
From there, various theories and lines of study flesh out the processes at work.

I just want to point out again that the Catholic Church is attacked very effectively by secular sources for being a superstitious intellectual backwater. These attacks are unfounded if we are looking at the body of Catholic teaching and thought.

However, the anti-ecclesial views of science we see here contribute to secular caricatures of our faith and contribute to the erosion of faith, especially among young people who are looking for solid answers to these attacks.
I am sorry to be so blunt, but that is scandal, and those who are not thinking with the mind of the Church need to take a long look in the mirror, or better yet, take some basic science courses.
 
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Bradskii said:
And now we are left with so many people thinking it was an explosion of some sort.
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Except me. I just think “I hope someone’s going to explain this to me one day in terms I can understand.”

As to Lemaitre and Hubble, I do think there is a tendency in education at the lower levels to overplay the achievements of our compatriots and thereby underplay the achievements of them foreigners. I think that’s natural, and to some extent even sensible because it helps pupils feel interested and connected. It goes on to such an extent that I’ve even heard Americans claim Edison invented the fluorescent light bulb, which I hope any Briton will know is nonsense.
 
goout said:
The only thing required is to look at the evidence and be open to what is seen.
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We cannot but see what we expect to see. It seems almost impossible to alert people that the knowledge (the facts/evidence) that they do have is different from the intellectual framework that organizes it into a coherent picture, such as evolution in this case. Be it findings having to do with genetics, chemistry, archeology, or anthropology, modern thinking weaves them into the tapestry of evolution. Uncomfortable truths that don’t fit with that vison are discarded. We can see what the electronic device in front of us does. We can mentally break down its structures and processes to an atomic level. The same is not true of evolution. It’s not something observable, but rather an idea that connects together what we do observe in the world. I’m saying that the theory diverts from the truth, presenting a distortion of what is.
goout said:
that is scandal, and those who are not thinking with the mind of the Church need to take a long look in the mirror, or better yet, take some basic science courses.
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It is hard to get the message of creation through such strong beliefs, because they distort how it is understood. To be honest, those posters here who promote creationism/design seem to have a greater knowldge of the basic science. You have to in order to address the ever-present myth of evolution.
 
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Aloysium said:
Evolution is not science at all, but rather a story, a mythos that reflects and justifies modern secular values.
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You say this without any reference to the scientific method. So either you think evolution fails to conform to the scientific method, or you think that the scientific method itself is an incorrect description of “real” science. Which is it?
 
stoplooklisten said:
Single-cell amoeba have a larger genome than humans. It seems like the genome of the single-cell amoeba must contain code for more than one lifetime. Could it be that an organism evolves in the next generation because it was programmed in the code of the genome of one or more earlier generations?

Human beings have around 3 billion base pairs in their genome. Amoeboid have 670 billion base pairs. See Genome - Wikipedia

Even uncompressed, the human genome is less than 1 gigabyte of data. Software doesn’t code itself. Who was the software developer who coded the genome of amoeboid and humans?

Could it be that evolution happens because it was coded in the genome to happen?

Could it be that evolution appears to happen because it was coded that way?
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These are interesting speculations. But until they are supported by scientific evidence, they will remain just that.
 
Aloysium said:
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LeafByNiggle:
You say this without any reference to the scientific method.
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No one is arguing about the scientific method.
I don’t get what you are saying and asking here.
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OK, if you do accept the “scientific method” as the correct definition of science, then present evidence of why the theory evolution does not follow the scientific method. And please refer to the scientific method in your explanation.
 
Before I do that, I’d like to hear from you how it does, so I can address your specific concerns.
 
Aloysium said:
Before I do that, I’d like to hear from you how it does, so I can address your specific concerns.
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I don’t have any concerns. To me the theory of evolution is a perfectly fine scientific theory. If you claim it is not science, it is your turn to say why you don’t think so.
 
edwest211 said:
Not true. Science does push secular values or rejects religion. Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris come to mind.

Leading scientists still reject God | Nature
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You crack me up, Ed. You really do. You link to an article that says that some scientists are atheists and then say that science itself rejects religion. That’s as dumb as saying some writers are atheists therefore writing rejects religion.

Really, you can’t make this stuff up.
 
I don’t think so. Research involving trial and error occurs but that’s it. The same with new drug discovery.
 
"goout said:
The unavoidable point is the evolution of species is demonstrable by simple observation. It doesn’t require any mental gymnastics.
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Not so, the "mental gymnastics" involved in all evolution theories are substantial.

All theories of evolution require much more than "simple observation." The absence of a stable definition for the word "specie" immediately exposes the discretion of the observer to connect his dots (observations) with some imagined coherent meaning. Paradoxically, it is the uniquely human ability to imagine the un-experienced ( the unreal ized) that makes such theories possible.

Going back to the original post:
If God created species, then apart from animals that have gone extinct, all the animals that exist today should be no different from when they were first created; there should be no new species.
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To write that “God created” makes creation an event in time. I believe that writing “God creating” more accurately reflects the movement of a being that exists in eternity. Therefore, novelties (new species – whatever that means) in creation are the norm.

In eternity, God creates and in each moment of time creates 1/2 of His remaining creation. How long does God create? Eternally.
 
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Take some basic science courses.
You owe it to yourself and others if this issue is that important to you. You spend a lot of time publicly denying science that is generally accepted by the mainstream scientific community, including many faithful Catholics, and also including clergy that are way above our pay grades.

If you are not going to listen to knowledgeable people here, you owe it to yourself and others to see what common sense mainstream people are saying about this.
 
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The exceptions are not the majority.

In biology, for example, a PEW survey has it that about half are theists with most of the rest being agnostics, not atheists. Dawkins and Harris are closer to being atheists than agnostics, but even they leave room for the possibility of theistic causation

On top of that, I read a survey of Christian theologians several decades ago that had roughly 70% accepting the basic ToE as long as it’s understood that God was behind it all, and I believe that it was in America magazine that had it that a significant majority of Catholics accept the ToE, including most priests.

It is complete nonsense that the ToE pushes in any way something that threatens anyone’s belief in God and Jesus or religion as a whole.
 
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