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

[Reuben_J]

buffalo:

What evidence would convince you ID was the better explanation?

Like i said in the OP. Show me evidence that all the animals that exist today have existed for as long as animals have existed. If you can do that then Evolution is false.

Show me the evidence of Big Bang?

 

[Bradskii]

there are none my friend; it causes shorter life and hip fractures because the calcium is not absorbed in a net gain. I’ve given you the Japan v USA data, so check it out if you want to but don’t pretend you don’t know

So you believe that having access to an additional form of food is not advantageous in an evolutionary context.

At least we now have an idea of your understanding of the subject…

 

[Uriel1]

Brad, The fool says “there is no God” and some grasp at atheistic explanations to avert God,

Drinking milk would have made those without the enzyme ill so natural selection would favour those with it, but who then died younger and had more osteoporosis

And you call that an advantage

 

[RandomAlias]

@Uriel1, you persist in misunderstanding. If a disadvantage is manifested only in old age, past the reproductive years, it cannot directly affect evolution. If a trait confers an advantage in the reproductive years, it can and will passed on to the next generation.

By your logic, the ability to eat beef and pork would be a disadvantage because it leads to heart disease in old age. Eggs too. Truly, old people would have better heart health if they ate a strict vegan diet. On the other hand, the ability to eat animal food sources like meat, eggs, and milk made it possible for humans to avoid starvation and therefore to survive those times when plant food sources were scarce or out of season.

So which do you think is more significant to survival of a species: healthy young adulthood, or healthy old age?

 

[Uriel1]

Good point; both have pro’s and cons though.

The general point has been lost; this is an adaptive change in a population which decided to milk cows for their human consumption, but which brings early death and increases hip fracture in the adult population

We need to look at mutations from the perspective of making the individual more specialised, viz on a pathway to species change. If this does not happen, indeed if it cannot even be predicted, then evolutionary theory is nonsense. Darwin considered that blacks were less advanced than whites and even had the concept of “favoured races” in the title of his book. God tells us that there is but one race, and that we are all brothers

 

[Aloysium]

@Aloysium, @edwest211, I think you are conflating evolution and materialism. A person could easily believe that evolution works in the material world for the origin of species including man, and at the same time believe that the God has granted man a special relationship with him which transcends the material world.

I would agree that “believe” is the correct term to use. However, although natural selection and random mutations are most definitely seen, I would disagree about their being an essential feature of the material world, which is wondrous, but rather of this fallen world. God most definitely transcends His creation. But, He is also intimately involved with it, to the extent that He became one of us that He may assist us in coming into communion within the Trinity. I won’t comment on what I think you are doing; suffice to say that in general, people are contradictions at some level, trying to reconcile the tensions within them that arise from dualities that can be ultimately healed through God’s grace.

 

[Aloysium]

you persist in misunderstanding. If a disadvantage is manifested only in old age, past the reproductive years, it cannot directly affect evolution.

Consider that people do not live in isolation. Having grandparents that care look after the young is an advantage for the group. People care for each other and in our societies, we rise and fall together. Of course it would affect the capacity of human beings to adapt to a changing environmnet. One of the fears about AIDS when it appearred was that it could wipe out a good part of Africa, which contains the most genetic diversity in the world. Those potentially lost genes might save the human race should global warming render the world unliveable to most of us.

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

It is a challenge to traditional Biblical interpretation. Where it is used to defend atheism, it is clearly inconsistent with the teachings of the church.

A great deal of science challenges the “traditional Biblical interpretation”, starting with Copernicus. Geology and Astronomy challenge the 6,000 year timescale of the traditional interpretation for example.

If an atheist wants to challenge the literal interpretation, then she has a very wide range of science to pick from.

rossum

It actually takes a lot of effort to think the way people used to or will in the future. We interpret traditional interpretations utilizing our current world-view. I am sure evolution will suffer the same fate in the future that past interpretations of the Bible are currently going through. The nonsense will be easier to notice outside the influence of the “indoctination” that everyone is put through in school and the social pressufres that make people want to believe in it. I suppose that traditionally, we see the sun rise in the east and set in the west; none of that has changed although some might believe that science challenges that view.

 

[Aloysium]

whether the existence of that purpose can be discovered scientifically. There is no evidence that it is so.

Most definitely the way it is done today, with among its various purposes that of discovering variables that can be manipulated, it cannot.

I’m sure you’ve seen comments here, for example, in reference to stories of miraculous healings, as if prayer could be used to physically heal any and all people, when it is clearly not his will to leave us in this vale of tears nor to spare us the challenges that bring us closer to Jesus in whom we find peace and transcendence.

An understanding based on the centrality of God rather than matter, to the existence of everything, most definitely will reveal the beauty, glory and truth of His being.

 

[Gorgias]

Yet it is quite clear Eve came from Adam.

So, Eve came from pre-existing material. Good start.

Read Genesis again. See if you can spot the reason.

Adam came from pre-existing material, too, though. We just differ in whether we think it was literal “dirt”.

 

[Gorgias]

There are no hominids.

“We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep.”

Arcanum, Pope Leo XIII

So… what’s the “doctrine” that Leo recounts? From the document you’ve quoted:

Still, the purpose We have set before Us is not to recount, in detail, benefits of this kind; Our wish is rather to speak about that family union of which marriage is the beginning and the foundation. The true origin of marriage, venerable brothers, is well known to all.
…
From the Gospel we see clearly that this doctrine was declared and openly confirmed by the divine authority of Jesus Christ. He bore witness to the Jews and to His Apostles that marriage, from its institution, should exist between two only.

So, what Leo XIII is talking about is marriage, not evolution/creationism.

Boy, I wish I had a snappy mic-drop graphic.

 

[Aloysium]

Science already provided all the evidence.

Science provides the threads of evidence that our society has woven into the tapestry of a modern mythos. The truth is very different and brings the strands together into a very different glorious fabric, one that has creation rather than death at the centre of the scene that represents eternal order.

 

[bobperk]

Many on here seem to support this image as the Holy Father’s teaching.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Aloysium]

a creation day could have taken no time at all or a long time.

While scripture is literally true, the meaning of the words is not necessarily that which we derive. Clocks and bell towers before them have given us a different sense of time than that held by shepherds, farmers and hunter-gatherers. As our understandings change with the technology we use in our relationship with the world, it can be difficult to translate a concept from one era to another. It is definitely more difficult when the subject matter has to do with creation from eternity.

 

[Aloysium]

So, Eve came from pre-existing material.

Every time we eat we bring pre-existing material into our own being. Everything that constitutes our bodies is from matter that was other to ourselves. I am not descended from a Big Mac.

Eve did not come from an ensouled creature, but a “rib” that was taken from Adam’s “side”, probably a better translation of the original Hebrew. She was made to be beside him, as a person, the same kind of being, but not the same. She was not fashioned from what was inside Adam, but what was externalized as one man became male and female, self-other in the image of the Triune Godhead, to be united in love, in the institution of marriage, a union of spirits from which offspring would be brought into existence.

 

[rossum]

Adam came from pre-existing material, too, though. We just differ in whether we think it was literal “dirt”.

“Let the earth bring forth…” A great many things came from “dirt”, primates included.

rossum

 

[Gorgias]

Eve did not come from an ensouled creature

That’s the claim of theistic evolutionists, too. They just point out that neither did Adam.

 

[Aloysium]

I should clarify what you probably did understand, that I was referring to an ensouled hominid. I am going to assume that you believe that both she and Adam did not actually exist, seeing mankind as originating from a group, polygenism. What has never happened on any of these threads is an explanation by those who believe in evolution, as to the process whereby “Adam” was created. Whatever you have, I’m pretty sure, working together, we can expand on that understanding.

 

[Aloysium]

“Let the earth bring forth…” A great many things came from “dirt”, primates included.

I think you neglected the main point that it was commanded to do so. The organization of matter into the living forms of different kinds of being was fashioned by the transcendent Source of all being, from the earth brought into existence before the organisms that followed.

 

[Gorgias]

I should clarify what you probably did understand, that I was referring to an ensouled hominid.

Yup!

I am going to assume that you believe…

Nope. Bad assumptions.

you believe that both she and Adam did not actually exist

Interestingly enough, when folks say ‘no’ to creationism, creationists presume that they’re saying ‘no’ to Church teaching. Au contraire…

Yes, as the Church teaches, we did have exactly two first true human parents. .

, seeing mankind as originating from a group, polygenism.

Nope. Polygenism – that is, the theory that there were more than two first human parents – is contrary to the Catholic faith.

So, no – there were only two first truly human parents.

What has never happened on any of these threads is an explanation by those who believe in evolution, as to the process whereby “Adam” was created.

Hardly. It just tends to get lost in all the noise – you know, photos of apes in wedding dresses and all that.

Whatever you have, I’m pretty sure, working together, we can expand on that understanding.

Here’s the nuance to the argument:

Would you call a human body without a soul “a human”?

I’d hope not. What makes us human is that we’re a body/soul composite. And, in terms of Catholic teaching, only God creates souls – and, He does so “immediately”. One way of understanding that word is “without mediation”.

So, as the theory goes, there was a population of unensouled hominids. They weren’t human since they did not possess souls. Therefore, this is not a theory about “polygenism”, since it does not posit a group of humans.

The theory would suggest that God directly – immediately – ensouled two and only two, and thus, He created the first two true humans. From them, all humans have their heritage.