Evolution - and how we know it's right

[Samuel Dravis]

Catholics just don't seem to have the same hang ups about that... or perhaps they've just outgrown it. (I must confess that I don't know enough about Catholicism to know why it's different... )

I found a short writeup on that...

 

As from the first, God speaks to his Church through the Bible and through sacred Tradition. To make sure we understand him, he guides the Church’s teaching authority—the magisterium—so it always interprets the Bible and Tradition accurately. This is the gift of infallibility.

 

Like the three legs on a stool, the Bible, Tradition, and the magisterium are all necessary for the stability of the Church and to guarantee sound doctrine.

 

Sacred Tradition (CCC 75–83)

Sacred Tradition should not be confused with mere traditions of men, which are more commonly called customs or disciplines. Jesus sometimes condemned customs or disciplines, but only if they were contrary to God’s commands (Mark 7:8). He never condemned sacred Tradition, and he didn’t even condemn all human tradition.

 

Sacred Tradition and the Bible are not different or competing revelations. They are two ways that the Church hands on the gospel. Apostolic teachings such as the Trinity, infant baptism, the inerrancy of the Bible, purgatory, and Mary’s perpetual virginity have been most clearly taught through Tradition, although they are also implicitly present in (and not contrary to) the Bible. The Bible itself tells us to hold fast to Tradition, whether it comes to us in written or oral form (2 Thess. 2:15, 1 Cor. 11:2).

 

Sacred Tradition should not be confused with customs and disciplines, such as the rosary, priestly celibacy, and not eating meat on Fridays in Lent. These are good and helpful things, but they are not doctrines. Sacred Tradition preserves doctrines first taught by Jesus to the apostles and later passed down to us through the apostles’ successors, the bishops.

 

Scripture (CCC 101–141)

Scripture, by which we mean the Old and New Testaments, was inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16). The Holy Spirit guided the biblical authors to write what he wanted them to write. Since God is the principal author of the Bible, and since God is truth itself (John 14:6) and cannot teach anything untrue, the Bible is free from all error in everything it asserts to be true.

 

Some Christians claim, "The Bible is all I need," but this notion is not taught in the Bible itself. In fact, the Bible teaches the contrary idea (2 Pet. 1:20–21, 3:15–16). The "Bible alone" theory was not believed by anyone in the early Church.

 

It is new, having arisen only in the 1500s during the Protestant Reformation. The theory is a "tradition of men" that nullifies the Word of God, distorts the true role of the Bible, and undermines the authority of the Church Jesus established (Mark 7:1–8).

 

Although popular with many "Bible Christian" churches, the "Bible alone" theory simply does not work in practice. Historical experience disproves it. Each year we see additional splintering among "Bible-believing" religions.

 

Today there are tens of thousands of competing denominations, each insisting its interpretation of the Bible is the correct one. The resulting divisions have caused untold confusion among millions of sincere but misled Christians.

 

Just open up the Yellow Pages of your telephone book and see how many different denominations are listed, each claiming to go by the "Bible alone," but no two of them agreeing on exactly what the Bible means.

 

We know this for sure: The Holy Spirit cannot be the author of this confusion (1 Cor. 14:33). God cannot lead people to contradictory beliefs because his truth is one. The conclusion? The "Bible alone" theory must be false.

 

The Magisterium (CCC 85–87, 888–892)

Together the pope and the bishops form the teaching authority of the Church, which is called the magisterium (from the Latin for "teacher"). The magisterium, guided and protected from error by the Holy Spirit, gives us certainty in matters of doctrine. The Church is the custodian of the Bible and faithfully and accurately proclaims its message, a task which God has empowered it to do.

 

Keep in mind that the Church came before the New Testament, not the New Testament before the Church. Divinely-inspired members of the Church wrote the books of the New Testament, just as divinely-inspired writers had written the Old Testament, and the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit to guard and interpret the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

 

Such an official interpreter is absolutely necessary if we are to understand the Bible properly. (We all know what the Constitution says, but we still need a Supreme Court to interpret what it means.)

 

The magisterium is infallible when it teaches officially because Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide the apostles and their successors "into all truth" (John 16:12–13).

[ET Warrior]

Nice job ignoring the question. You just cling to that argument if it makes you feel better.

I retract my earlier statement. Religion is flexible like a sheet of rock. Sure, eventually some change happens, but it takes a really long time, lots of pressure, and sometimes extreme heat.

 

I challenge you to show me a religion that is designed to accept, and even PROMOTES constant change.

[Joe©]

I would prefer if you answered my "challange" (whatever) first. But since I don't think you are planning on answering it anyway I will move on...

 

I retract my earlier statement. Religion is flexible like a sheet of rock. Sure, eventually some change happens, but it takes a really long time, lots of pressure, and sometimes extreme heat.

 

I challenge you to show me a religion that is designed to accept, and even PROMOTES constant change.

 

Take The Episcopal Church? They have recently changed their stance on (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) people in their clergy. Many Protestant churches have also changed their stance on birth control (not abortion) The catholic church (as stated above) has changed their view to evolution.

 

What kind of change are you looking for? I don't think any church would ever change its view on some issues (murder theft ect.) And BTW, all these the changes are rather recent, within the last 30-40 years.

 

::EDIT:: This topic is fun, it needs its own thread

[toms]

No, in order to date something to that age you simply need to know the rate of decay in certain radioactive elements. Uranium-235, for example, decays into Lead-207. Uranium-235 has a half-life of 704 million years, so any rock that contains an even distribution of those two elements is likely to be approximately 704 million years old.

 

Which is similar to many early methods of telling time: like the water clocks. All you need to know is the rate at which the water flows out of the jar and you can estimate reliably and repeatably how long it will take for a certain amount of water to flow out. Infact its similar to almost every measuring method we have that makes our world possible.

 

-

 

So, the catholic pope doesn't thin evolution is incompatible with god. 9/10 coe/protestant clegry believe in evolution. Is it only the evangelical fringe that is left saying "i just don't believe it - no matter what proof you show me"?

 

-

 

One thing that struck me reading a few recent posts about religion is that Christianity has "evolved" in a almost identical way to life!

 

Originally there was just one christian faith, but over time it has split and split again. At each split the new "species" resembled their ancestor, but modified their beliefs slightly based on their environment and how it affected them. Certain "species" prospered and gained more followers, others became too specialised and became extinct. Some "species" competed with each other over resources (followers) and killed each other off.

 

Now, rather than one simple christian religion we have 100s of different "species" off christianity - many of which have diverged so much that they are totally incompatible with each other's beliefs - and you would hardly imagine that they could have come from the same common ancestor.

[Samuel Dravis]

Which is similar to many early methods of telling time: like the water clocks. All you need to know is the rate at which the water flows out of the jar and you can estimate reliably and repeatably how long it will take for a certain amount of water to flow out. Infact its similar to almost every measuring method we have that makes our world possible.

The only inacurracy that these have, actually, is that it's hard to know for sure if the element was made at the same time the rock formed; you'd have to know how much element was present in the rock at the beginning to really accurately measure the age. Something that is perhaps better for showing that such ages are possible is starlight and background radiation of the universe that the WMAP satellite measures. It's pretty clear that either things actually are that far away (and thus we can figure their minimum age by how far away they are), or someone's playing a rather big joke on us. There's no way we can know 'for sure,' so it's better to assume that it really is the truth - to do otherwise would be to deny science. Yeah, you can do it, but it doesn't get you very far.

[ET Warrior]

If you can find Zircon crystals then it's a very straightforward process of determining their age, because Zircon crystals from with absolutely no lead, only Uranium. There are some matters that can complicate it, but it is known if they happened.

[Samuel Dravis]

If you can find Zircon crystals then it's a very straightforward process of determining their age, because Zircon crystals from with absolutely no lead, only Uranium. There are some matters that can complicate it, but it is known if they happened.

That's cool; does it work by having a melting point lower than the surrounding rock?

[ET Warrior]

So I just finished reading a book called "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth Miller.

 

I strongly recommend this book to anyone, but in particular to those who feel that evolution is incompatible with their religion. The first half of the book is devoted to showing exactly why and how evolution happened, and then debunks the myths of creationism and intelligent design. The second half of the book is devoted to explaining why it is that Western religions should be excited about evolution. (Kenneth Miller is a devout Christian).

 

It is extremely well written, and amazingly informative.

[toms]

I for one have never thought that evolution and christianity (or any religion) are incompatible... and i don't think darwin or the catholic church or the churchof england thinks so either.

 

Its only the fundamentalist branches of various religions that claim they are incompatible.

 

A god who created the wonderous system that is evolution is much more impressive than a childish god who created te world in seven days in his playpen.

[Samuel Dravis]

A god who created the wonderous system that is evolution is much more impressive than a childish god who created te world in seven days in his playpen.

I don't think doing it either way makes God 'more impressive' as both ways are equally easy to infinite power. I think the question that should be asked the proponents of ID is this: do you trust God to tell you the truth? Faking the evidence is exactly what God is accused of by those who hold to ID/Young Earth creationism/etc, and I don't understand how they can truly have faith without the absolute trust that comes from knowing that he will not lie to you. My opinion is that God does not lie. If he did, what reason would you have to believe him on anything else? You'd be stuck with Pascal's Wager, and that has severe problems with an omniscient god.

 

@ET: I'll have to see about that book.

[SkinWalker]

ET, I thought at first the book title you were recommending was one that I also had read, but then I looked closer and realized it was Miller's book. The one I read moved me to write a review and post it on my blog: Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life.

 

Its only the fundamentalist branches of various religions that claim they are incompatible.

Actually, there are a number of prominent atheists that say the same thing. I happen to agree with them for the moment. Dawkins is quoted by McGrath (in the book review I linked to above) as holding the contention that the universe is either Darwinian, Lamarckian, or the result of God. Since the last two fail as explanations, the answer must be Darwinian or something we haven't thought of yet. Dawkins asserts on more than one occasion (The Blind Watchmaker, The Root of All Evil?, etc) that religion and science are not compatible. The main reason is, much in science directly discredits much in religion (Noachian flood myth, doctrine of miracles, etc.)

 

As a Catholic, Kenneth Miller, is a dissenting voice in science on this subject, so it will be interesting to read his book and see if it can change my mind from the arguments of Dawkins, Gould, Sagan, Daniel Dennet, and Sam Harris.

[ShadowTemplar]

Just because it isn't testable, doesn't mean it isn't there.

 

Straw man. Nobody said that. What we did say is that if it's not testable, it's not science - and never will be. Your private metaphysical speculations are your own to have - they are none of my business, and frankly I don't really give a damn about them.

 

That's not to say that we could not have a theological debate in some other thread, but I would think that Kurgan would be a better bet for a debate partner.

 

Also, you are leaving out of this "debate" a very large majority of the world's population with that statement.

 

You have misunderstood the purpose of this thread. None of the participants from the reality-based community are interested in a 'debate,' since there are no real points to debate (that's not to say that there aren't interesting debates over the details and mechanisms of evolution. Such debates - controversies even - certainly exist, but they are rather beyond the scope of a forum thread).

 

That's because in the creation theory,

 

There is no 'creation theory'. Not a single one. Nada. Zip. In point of fact, there's not even a hypotesis.

 

Of course, if you do know a 'creation hypothesis,' I'd be happy to hear it. I hereby submit a concise explaination of the scientific method written by Lenny Flank.

 

If you (or anyone else for that matter) can come up with a model or description that could pass muster in all the five steps Flank outlines, I'll buy you a bottle of whiskey. It'd be a first.

 

To me, this thread doesn't seem like a debate.

 

That's because it's not.

 

It seems more like an excuse to tell each other how great the evolution theory is.

 

Not quite true. It was intended as a place where people of intellectual integrity and with a genuine curiosity could ask questions and recieve answers or pointers vis-a-vis the ToE without having to wear an asbestos suit.

 

 

Originally Posted by TK-8252

Alright, but, it must be fair to say then that even though you can't test that the sun is made of cheese, doesn't mean it's not made of cheese.

That's different. Because that's disprovable. There just... aren't enough cows.

 

One could imagine the sun having always been, and hence needing no cows - after all, there is very little decomposition in an anoxic environment. And we will likely never know 'for sure' in the creationist sense of the term, since it is massively unlikely that any probe will ever survive to within touching distance of the surface of the sun.

 

Besides, since the sun doesn't really have a rigid surface, one could always imagine that the probe just didn't go deep enough, and if one were to use standard creationist 'reasoning', one could speculate that if it had just gone a mite deeper into the very dense 'atmosphere', it would have hit a solid surface of cheese.

 

And this is what's fundamentally wrong with the kind of 'reasoning' that creationists routinely employ: There is - in principle - no way to prove a negative. I cannot prove that I didn't kill somebody. That's why it's up to the prosecution to prove that I did, if they want to put me behind bars (at least in civilised countries).

 

Point is, creation isn't really disprovable.

 

And that is the fundamental weakness. The lack of possible falsification renders creation utterly useless as a model of anything.

 

Many people have a hard time of seeing how that's the case, but it's really astonishingly simple:

 

Take two statments (A and B)

 

A IMPLIES B

IF AND ONLY IF

~B IMPLIES ~A

 

Thus, if there is not even in principle any observation B that is required for A to be true, then A implies absolutely nothing. No inferences can then be drawn from A, and A is a superflous statement, to be cut out in keeping with the principle of parsimony.

 

And you must remember that there is some basis for creation. It's not just something people believe out of spite.

 

But as you have kindly just pointed out yourself, there can be no possible evidence for creation, since - by your own words - creation implies nothing.

 

If there's anything we've learned throughout history, it's that being in the majority doesn't make you right.

That might be true in some cases, but not always. Besides, that wasn't really my point. I wasn't saying being in the majority makes me right, I was saying that if you're looking for debating opponets who don't believe in creation or evolution. Well... that's a rather small opposition.

 

We're not looking for 'debate opponents'. We're looking for people with genuine intellectual integrity and curiosity, that we may answer their questions about the ToE or tell them where to find people who can answer their questions.

[Mike Windu]

Holy Jesus. Shadow for diety. That was an amusing post.

 

On a more related topic... doesn't cheese melt...? Or is this a new form of cheese that has heat resistant properties? In the former case, would the sun's rays be melted cheese flying at us?

[TK-8252]

On a more related topic... doesn't cheese melt...? Or is this a new form of cheese that has heat resistant properties? In the former case, would the sun's rays be melted cheese flying at us?

 

Don't question God's cheese-creating abilities. If God wants to create non-melting cheese, He can.

 

JUST DON'T QUESTION!

 

 

see, it works

[Samuel Dravis]

Don't question God's cheese-creating abilities. If God wants to create non-melting cheese, He can.

 

JUST DON'T QUESTION!

 

 

see, it works

MY GOD (pun unintentional) IT DOES!

 

 

[ShadowTemplar]

Holy Jesus. Shadow for diety. That was an amusing post.

 

You mean like I actually made sense? Man, I need to cut back on the creationist-bashing when I can make sensible posts on the subject at 3 in the morning...

 

Originally Posted by TK-8252

Hey, who is this so-called "intelligent designer" anyway?

 

I've seen supporters of the "theory" asked that many times, and yet they can't exactly answer that question...

Depends on what religion. If it's Chritianity it's simply the God of the bible. What more do you need? Or are you really just asking where he came from? Becuase he's always been. I think in any theory of existance you have to have something that's always been there.

 

As Lenny so often says: Give a fundie enough rope, and he'll inevitably hang himself on the First Amendment.

 

In order to be considered, "ID" needs to be able to come up with some evidence that there is an intelligent designer.

Ususally, it's paired up with the idea of Irreducible Complexity, which makes it harder to dismiss. Even then, many of the supposedly irreducibly complex organisms that the ID/IC supporters have chosen turn out not really to be IC. Then they move to the next 'IC' bit of life. It's clearly not going to stop them to show that they are wrong in any given situation, and it's impossible to show that they are wrong in all situations.

 

Woah, woah, woah, wait a sec. The reality-based people here don't need to prove the non-existence of IC. It's the fundies who need to prove the existence of IC.

[Samuel Dravis]

Woah, woah, woah, wait a sec. The reality-based people here don't need to prove the non-existence of IC. It's the fundies who need to prove the existence of IC.

Oh, I agree with you about that. I was just pointing out that nothing we can do can convince someone who really believes IC/ID, because they can literally take anything and say it was created, regardless of whether that worldview makes any scientific sense. It may make religious sense, but that doesn't mean it should be taken as a model for a science class to use when one with more predictive power (and one that happens to be falsifiable) is available.

[Sigundr]

i haven't read all the thread, it will take to long, but please, tell me why you think that evolution is the right thought action. i would like to know.

[TK-8252]

i haven't read all the thread, it will take to long, but please, tell me why you think that evolution is the right thought action. i would like to know.

 

Sorry, but you're gonna have to read the thread. That's like, rule number one with good debating...

[Samuel Dravis]

Sorry, but you're gonna have to read the thread. That's like, rule number one with good debating...

You can cut a newbie some slack once in a while.

 

i haven't read all the thread, it will take to long, but please, tell me why you think that evolution is the right thought action. i would like to know.

Basically we came up with these (I'm assuming you are some type of Christian; most of the people that have issues with or question evolution are):

 

* It doesn't conflict with religion in the sense that it denies it; some of the things it has shown true have forced the reevaluation of doctrine or scripture, but it has never been used as a proof for the nonexistence of God by a rational scientist (that proof cannot exist). It simply ignores god, whether he's there or not. It doesn't matter to evolutionary theory because god is a random being - there is no ability to predict his actions and thus he cannot be taken into account. There is no reason for religion and evolution to be exclusive. This has been shown by several major religions (CoE, Catholicism) accepting that evolution can be true. Christianity's god did not give people rational minds for no reason, nor did he restrict their use in the intellectual persuits. It stands to reason (heh) that he meant for people to use that which he had given them. Aquinas argued that you could see god in all things, and indeed you can - the more you know, the greater the impressiveness, you might say. Good stewardship of the cognitive prowess and all that.

 

* It's a good model. It is scientifically valid and it has predictive powers that have been shown to be correct in all cases in which it can be applied meaningfully. It's been used in evolutionary programs to create better bot AI for players to fight in games (I think that Quake III did this, not sure though) and it worked. It's as valid as any other science, and you don't go about picking and choosing what sections of biology, physics, chemistry etc you want to believe - it doesn't matter whether you think it's true or not. It's there, and it has a lot of evidence to support it.

 

* And the last thing I already posted here about why ID fails religiously (it denies that god is completely good in defining him as a being capable of lying - an act fundamentally against his nature. This is also taken care of by Aquinas, if you're interested in that type of thing):

 

I think the question that should be asked the proponents of ID is this: do you trust God to tell you the truth? Faking the evidence is exactly what God is accused of by those who hold to ID/Young Earth creationism/etc, and I don't understand how they can truly have faith without the absolute trust that comes from knowing that he will not lie to you. My opinion is that God does not lie. If he did, what reason would you have to believe him on anything else? You'd be stuck with Pascal's Wager, and that has severe problems with an omniscient god.

[ET Warrior]

i haven't read all the thread, it will take to long, but please, tell me why you think that evolution is the right thought action. i would like to know.

Well, like TK said, if you really wanted the answer to that you should've just read the thread...it's been answered...

 

But if you want to even quicker version than Samuel Dravis proposed, we believe in evolution because evolution is right. As near as we can tell, from all the tests, and all the observations, and all the evidence: evolution happened, is happening, and will continue to happen. There is no argument against it that holds up to scrutiny and testing. It's what makes sense, and it's what we can see.

[toms]

And every new scientific discovery, genetic discovery, archeological discovery, geographic discovery etc.. re-enforces the theory of evolution.

 

If anything was likely to disprove evolution it was the recent opening up of genetics and our ability to understand them - but instead it confirmed everything we had previously thought.

[Ray Jones]

...

One of them recently remarked to me that it is blasphemous, in his opinion, for creationists to continually assert that the Earth cannot be as old as science has discovered or that God cannot set into motion, over 13 billion years ago, the process that produced the evolutionary mechanism that science has discovered. "How dare they," my friend exclaims quite loudly, "pretend to know what God's limitations are and attempt to limit His ability to create!"

...

How very well said. I am wondering about this since I know there is something like religion. ;

[toms]

Another discovery showing the way eveolution works in greater detail. These seem to be coming pretty fast right now, with lots of major breakthroughs in filling in the blanks about how evolution works.

 

Butterfly effect: New species hatches in lab

 

The creation of a new species, something that scientific orthodoxy says should take thousands of years of genetic isolation has been achieved in the lab in just three months.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1797814,00.html

 

When was the last major breakthrough that challenged evolution, or supported ID?

[SkinWalker]

For those interested, here's a link to one of the tables from the Nature article: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7095/fig_tab/nature04738_F2.html

 

Here's the Editor's Summary in Nature, but the article itself requires subscription, so I'll offer a couple of quotes from Mavarez et al (2006):

 

The butterfly species Heliconius heurippa is known to have an intermediate morphology and a hybrid genome (Salazar et al 2005), and we have recreated its intermediate wing colour and pattern through laboratory crosses between H. melpomene, H. cydno and their F1 hybrids. We then used mate preference experiments to show that the phenotype of H. heurippa reproductively isolates it from both parental species. There is strong assortative mating between all three species, and in H. heurippa the wing pattern and colour elements derived from H. melpomene and H. cydno are both critical for mate recognition by males.

 

Our study provides the first experimental demonstration of a hybrid trait generating reproductive isolation between animal species, and the first example of a hybrid trait causing pre-mating isolation through assortative mating.

 

References

 

Mavarez, J. et al (2006). Speciation by hybridization in Heliconius butterflies. Nature, 441, 868-871.

 

Salazar, C. A. et al. (2005). Hybrid incompatibility is consistent with a hybrid origin of Heliconius heurippa Hewitson from its close relatives, Heliconius cydno Doubleday and Heliconius melpomene Linnaeus. J. Evol. Biol. 18, 247–256