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

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It’s been solved but science can only see part of the picture, never the whole picture. The Catholic Church has the whole picture.
 
Yeah, I know. I cited that study much, much earlier in this discussion. That doesn’t actually address the question at hand.

The species have hard delineations, but he was asking about transitions along the evolutionary line. What you quoted deals specifically with the concept of divergent evolution, which, if the study is accurate (which I believe it is), does not appear to be a thing. The question I was answering dealt with transitional evolution along a single species line.
 
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Even if one doesn’t have a ph.d. in biology, and even if one never even considered the ToE, common sense should convince them that it’s likely real. All material items appear to change over time, and genes are material items. And if genes change, the phenotype changes with them.

Any religion or denomination that doesn’t recognize these common sense and scientific axioms are pretty much bogus, imo, as they’re ignoring what even the most basic observations are telling us, and the Truth cannot be relative. And in no way does the ToE go against the Bible because it’s a matter of the interpretation of the Creation accounts.

Even before we knew anything about the To’E, some biblical scholars recognized that some of what’s found in the early chapters of Genesis are probably allegorical. Thus, instead asking “Did this really happen?”, a far better and more useful approach is “What is the author(s) telling us?”. IOW, what are the lessons that can possibly be applied to our lives today and tomorrow,

Fortunately, the Church recognizes this reality and gives parishioners the option. Like undoubtedly some here, I went through a transition myself as I grew up in a fundamentalist Protestant church and had plans to go into the ministry. However, I also had a science orientation, and when it became clear that there was a problem with the church I was in in this and one other area, I left it in my early 20’s and eventually converted to Catholicism besides getting a graduate degree in anthropology.

To sum this up, the evidence is so overwhelming for the evolution of life forms that goes well beyond “micro-evolution” that anyone who really seriously studies this will have to conclude that the basic ToE must be true. So, I guess for some it’s a matter of whether they will choose to use their Christian faith as enlightenment or as a set of blinders to objective reality?
 
Literally every living thing is in transition. This is evidenced by the near total absence of current species in the fossil record.

Want to see a living thing in transition? Pick any living thing, including yourself.
 
Evolution is not important except to spread an anti-God ideology. We, meaning Catholics, do not consider science to be the only source of knowledge. If I rejected evolution tomorrow, nothing in my life would change, Nothing. So – honest question: Why is this theory so important?
 
There’s no evidence of that from the study. You’re drawing a conclusion not inherent in the study.
 
Yet again I point you to the video I posted that listed a bunch of ways evolution is used in science that you seem to be purposefully ignoring. And for the fifth time I will tell you that I use evolutionary algorithms in my own work.
 
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edwest said:
Evolution is not important except to spread an anti-God ideology. We, meaning Catholics, do not consider science to be the only source of knowledge. If I rejected evolution tomorrow, nothing in my life would change, Nothing. So – honest question: Why is this theory so important?
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When you start out with a complete falsehood, because the ToE is totally noncommittal one way or the other when it comes to Divine creation, there’s no where to go from here with you. As the saying goes, “You can have your own opinion but not your own facts’”.

As to your question, Truth is important to me, and Truth can be found in many areas, not just within our Catholic faith. As a retired scientist committed to our Catholic faith, the Truth is that one can accept the basic ToE and be an observant Catholic. If you can’t accept that, then there’s no way we can seriously discuss this or much of anything else.
 
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edwest said:
Evolution is not important except to spread an anti-God ideology.
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The theory is no more anti-God than my Ford repair manual, my old math textbooks or any other non-religious source of information.

You’ve just convinced yourself that evolution is anti-God. Nothing more.
We, meaning Catholics, do not consider science to be the only source of knowledge.
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Virtually no one does. The sciences are stuck dealing with the quantitative. There are a whole host of disciplines taught at your closest university that do not fall under the umbrella of science.
If I rejected evolution tomorrow, nothing in my life would change, Nothing. So – honest question: Why is this theory so important?
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If you rejected the idea that the world is spherical, I doubt your life would change much there, either.

The theory is important because answers to big questions are important. Knowledge is important.

Evolution is the best explanation to the question of “How did I get here?” so far running. If a better alternative comes up, intellectual honesty would compel me to abandon it.

But until then…
 
If the question was “Why is evolution important?”, I answered it directly. You just don’t like the answer.
 
I’ve seen this before. ‘Evolution is the best explanation to the question of “How did I get here?” so far running.’

From reading posts here and from other sources, reasonable doubt has developed. In other words, Intelligent Design is the better answer but that is rejected out of hand by most here.
 
Reasonable doubt didn’t develop, it’s always been there. Note that it’s referred to as the Theory of Evolution rather than the Law of Evolution.

The reason the TOE is rationally superior to ID is because it doesn’t require supernatural “poof”-ing as a fundamental component.

Take the eye. Lots of folks in the ID camp insist that something like an eye is too complex to progressively evolve.

However, the folks that adhere to the TOE not only think it can evolve, they’re also capable of identifying currently extant species that demonstrate different evolutionary spots in the development of sight.
 
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ProdglArchitect said:
There’s no evidence of that from the study. You’re drawing a conclusion not inherent in the study.
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“If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies,” said Thaler. “They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.”
 
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