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

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buffalo said:
Sure they do. And many are retracted every day.
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Not with known errors. Certainly some with unknown errors are cited, as the Cold Fusion paper was cited for a time until it was withdrawn.

Science is aware that humans make errors, so it has mechanisms in place to correct errors when they are found.

Theology less so. How many different Christian denominations are there now? How do I, as an outsider, tell which denominations are correct? At least in science, papers are actively withdrawn or corrected when errors are found.

rossum
 
edwest said:
Black holes and quantum mechanics are not the issue, the origin and identity of man is.
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You can’t have it both ways. All scientific theories are based upon a methodological naturalism and all Scientific theories essentially point to a naturally developing universe. The church doesn’t have a problem with this, but they do have a problem with those materialistic philosophies that have emerged in response to science.

It will not do to simply pick on Evolution without challenging the very nature of the scientific method itself. The real question for me is not whether we live in a naturally developing world or not, but rather it is a question of whether there is anything more to reality than natural processes, and that is a philosophical question, not a scientific one.

This so called problem you wish to announce is irrelevant to the question of whether natural evolution is true or not, and it is my strong opinion that this nature versus design issue is based upon a error that has nothing to do with divine revelation, but rather peoples personal interpretations…
 
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rossum said:
Science is aware that humans make errors, so it has mechanisms in place to correct errors when they are found.
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Really? You certainly are aware the peer review process is in crisis.

Evolution is certainly self correcting. It can do anything even when evidence to the contrary is shown. The story telling is top notch.
 
The storytelling is very good. It could fool some people into thinking human beings are just another animal.
 
IWantGod said:
By that standard every scientific theory is incomplete.
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Every theory is considered incomplete regardless.

“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” Quantum physicist, John A. Wheeler.

Science provides us with a operational manual for matter, telling us what does and how to manipulate it. It enables us to make fancy gadgets and find treatments for our various physical maladies. It doesn’t tell us what matter is nor can it tell us who we are. When it attempts to excede its boundaries, as it does in the case of evolutionary theories, the outcome is a distortion. We then run the risk of treating one another as if we were things.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
But if one cites a paper to support their point, it is usually founded on the idea that the author is to be trusted (otherwise the author’s support of your point is worthless). But if you say the author is to be trusted, then on what basis do you discount something else the author wrote in the very same paper? Either you are trusting the author of the paper you cite or you are not. You cannot try to do both without sacrificing the support you hoped to get from that author.
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The trust is in the data, that the authors of the paper did what they say they did and did not later fudg the stats. In that rgard there was recently an interesting arcticl published in The Annals of Internal Medicine.:

http://annals.org/aim/article-abstr...orting-u-s-survey-consulting-biostatisticians

What is being contested is the interpretation of the data. You may trust whatever interpretation is presented in those journals you respect. To dispute the interpretation while trusting the data does not represent an inconsistancy. I trust people regardless of their different faith. It’s what people do that earns that respect.
 
Aloysium said:
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LeafByNiggle:
But if one cites a paper to support their point, it is usually founded on the idea that the author is to be trusted (otherwise the author’s support of your point is worthless). But if you say the author is to be trusted, then on what basis do you discount something else the author wrote in the very same paper? Either you are trusting the author of the paper you cite or you are not. You cannot try to do both without sacrificing the support you hoped to get from that author.
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The trust is in the data, that the authors of the paper did what they say they did and did not later fudg the stats.
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In the case at hand the trust is in the author’s interpretation, not the raw data.
 
IWantGod said:
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Aloysium:
as it does in the case of evolutionary theories
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How does the theory of natural evolution exceed it’s boundaries?
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We are talking about the origins of life, and biology today, based on chemistry and physics reduces it to the material, when clearly it is so much more to anyone who loves nature, speaks to people, let alone contemplates their own existence.

It is an assumption that inanimate matter united itself by virtue of its intrinsic properties to form the first life form. Yet another that the individual creature’s existence as such, and especially that of higher forms of life, where the psychological dimension is obvious, are an emergent features of matter. It is an assumption that these higher forms of life, whose being is of a different order of complexity, arose initially from asexual reproduction and subsequently from conception arising from lesser forms. It is an actually wild assumption that utilitarian principles of survival are the ones at play in the creation of the diversity we see in nature.

What we have in evolutionary ideas are interpretations of the raw data that are metaphysical, and that is where the science strays beyond its boundaries and into the absurd. Were it to remain at the level of observed creatures forming a hierarchy and appearing on earth in a sequential temporal order of growing complexity to where we, unique among them, the crown of creation, come into being, then it would remain science. Biology cannot be a physical science. Contemplating life, a transcendent cause necessarily must be brought into the equation. And once we get to the existence of mankind, God is that necessary Divine entity.
 
From Communion and Stewardship -

“According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” ( Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles…It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” ( Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).”
 
o_mlly said:
The key point is that either assumption (each as reasonable as the other) precludes any spontaneous mutation. No mutations means no evolution, just limited or bounded variation within species. And Darwin goes to he dustbins of history.
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Yes, but so what? Who needs Darwin and his “tree of life”? Atheists might, but science doesn’t … and neither do Catholics.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
if one wants to know the details of the history of life beyond what is in Church teaching, one needs science.
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It appears that the history of life on earth stretches over millions of years, and the fossil record is our only clue as what happened in that time. The theory of evolution doesn’t contribute anything at all to that history; rather, is seeks to explain the mechanism that allowed it to proceed from Organism A to Organism B. This evolutionary mechanism cannot be verified as factual, so the whole exercise is theoretical, and therefore rather pointless, not to mention being scientifically useless (although I understand why atheist scientists would become obsessed with such a theory).
You can give them the same name of “dog”, but an English Bulldog looks very different from a Great Dane or a Chihuahua. I would say the history of dogs is one of the best examples of evolution within human history and knowledge.
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What I see from thousands of years of intensive dog breeding is that no matter how hard we humans try to change them - even after resorting to inbreeding to generate unnatural mutations - dogs produce nothing but more dogs. The claim that mutations in dogs can lead to the evolution of non-dogs is simply not supported by the facts.
Even assuming that God does cause each and every event that we call scientific, there is still the observation that these choices by God seem to follow certain patterns we call the laws of nature. It seems reasonable to assume God wanted us to recognize and codify those “laws” and depend on them working repeatedly. So the study of science is still justified, even if it turn out to be only a study of the regular patterns by which God acts in our world. We don’t assume a break in those rules unless we absolutely have to (such as in a true miracle).
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None of which seems to apply to the theory that all life on earth evolved from microbes.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
That’s S. J. Gould’s personal opinion. It is illogical to seek out dissenting voices to prove a preconception of yours that is denied by the majority of experts, and giving those dissenting voices weight beyond their representation in the totality of such experts.
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Gould (one of the most distinguished paleontologists of the twentieth century) was not alone in his views. And if you look around, you can find evo-scientists who support Gould’s opinion today.

If it weren’t for scientists like Gould, Eldredge and Stanley in the 1970’s, evolution science would probably still be peddling the same mendacious myth that it had been peddling for 120 years - that the fossil record supports Darwin’s theory of gradualism. But Gould (et al) let the cat out of the bag, revealing the “trade secret of paleontology”. After that there was no going back to this “embarrassment”, so evolutionists had to try a different tact - they now try and ‘hide’ the fossil gaps with the smoke’n’mirrors of untestable theory. However, no amount of theoretical wand-waving can make the gaps disappear. As Phillip Johnson pointed out in his book, Darwin On Trial, the fossil record today looks pretty much the same as it did in 1859.

Btw, in the middle of the nineteenth century the scientific consensus was that the fossil record revealed a pattern of progressive creation. It’s fascinating to note that 150 years ago, a theistic interpretation of scientific data was considered perfectly normal and acceptable. This demonstrates just how godless the scientific community (and by extension, modern civilization) has become since then. Darwin seemed hell-bent on destroying that theistic interpretation of the fossil record:
“Hence if I have erred in … having exaggerating its (natural selection’s) power … I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations” - Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
 
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rossum said:
J K Rowling gives some very detailed descriptions of Hogwarts? Does that make those descriptions true? Sometimes storytellers add detail to their stories.
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No one is claiming Harry Potter is factual, so there must be a fundamental difference between the Bible and fiction.
 
Cruciferi said:
I can see several generations of first humans living longer. After awhile I imagine that our genetics has been corrupted and will need tweaking to unlock its full potential.
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Their genetic health would have also allowed Adam and Eve’s children to marry their siblings and produce healthy offspring.
 
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