As an explanation of the existence of man, creation is superior to evolution

[pitabread]

I am not sure I agree with you here (although I definitely believe evolution is a fact). While you might find the creation account simplistic, it seems to me that it is an explanation. Are you suggesting that it is not an explanation because there are no mechanism details? Well, I suspect you will agree that the Biblical is conceivable - it could be the case that God simply spoke mankind and all the animals into existence.

Anyhoo, I am interested in why you would say creation is not an explanation.

It basically comes down to lack of an explanation for how anything was created. While the Bible does contain poetic language insofar as the creation account, we know that we can't take the explanation of such at face value.

For example, the notion of breathing life into a statue formed from dust or speaking things into existence is clearly insufficient. If I try to breath on a statue or ask a cat to appear, that just doesn't work. So clearly there is something else going on.

The obvious answer is that said being that did the creating is using some sort of supernatural power to do so. But what is that power? How does it work? How does it interact with physical matter / energy of the universe?

Without an explanation thereof, we don't really have any sort of explanation for the creation account described in Genesis. Just a bunch of poetic language that makes up a creation story.

 

[expos4ever]

Their conclusions are less derived and more contrived (at times, from outright falsified evidence) to support the evolution hypothesis that the grant money which underwrote their endeavor expects. This methodology undeniably introduces systemic bias into the findings and conclusions. The pressure to publish or perish cannot be dismissed as a motivating force to find exactly what they were looking to find. It is reasonable to claim that they shaped the evidence to support the desired end rather than being led by the evidence.

Not really plausible. Yes, this idea that profit motive can introduce distortions is correct. But you ignore at least two factors that, I think, may your position untenable. First, there is the self-correcting nature of science - it is in the very nature of the scientific system of thinking to correct for such biases.

Second, and even more importantly, if what you were saying is true, it is very difficult, if not almost impossible, to explain why science "works" - why medicines make people better, why airplanes stay in the air, why we can predict exactly when hurricanes make landfall, and why we can deliver missiles right down the shorts of the bad guy from hundreds of kilometers away.

If science were really so fundamentally flawed as you imply, it would indeed be a miracle that all our technology still works.

 

[expos4ever]

For example, the notion of breathing life into a statue formed from dust or speaking things into existence is clearly insufficient. If I try to breath on a statue or ask a cat to appear, that just doesn't work. So clearly there is something else going on.

I don't agree. I see no reason why a universe could not exist where such "magic" happens. I don't think we live in such a universe, but that is not my point.

 

[Ponderous Curmudgeon]

That is incorrect. While Catholics are free to accept or reject bugs to primates, in the creation of man we believe the spiritual soul is immediately created by God. Consequently, theories of evolution which…consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.

So your contention is that the spiritual soul is a material effect of the mind? This seems to me to be in contradiction with current Catholic teaching.

 

[pitabread]

I don't agree. I see no reason why a universe could not exist where such "magic" happens. I don't think we live in such a universe, but that is not my point.

That still leaves the question of how such occurrences function in said universe. We'd still be needing an explanation for how that works.

 

[expos4ever]

That still leaves the question of how such occurrences function in said universe. We'd still be needing an explanation for how that works.

Why? Why could there not exist a universe with the fundamentally irreducible property that whatever God speaks into existence comes into existence?

 

[pitabread]

Why? Why could there not exist a universe with the fundamentally irreducible property that whatever God speaks into existence comes into existence?

I'm not saying it couldn't exist. I'm saying we lack an explanation for how such a universe would work.

 

[Yttrium]

Please stay on topic. We're looking only for an explanation of the existence of mankind. Ditto the balance of your post.

Oh, you're just going to ignore everything I said. Since I was replying directly to what you wrote, I'll assume everything you wrote in the OP was off topic too. So I'll forget about replying to the rest of the OP then.

As for the existence of mankind, creationism doesn't work with the evidence, and science is missing crucial bits (ToE only covers diversity, not origins of life). Hopefully we'll get there someday.

Theistic evolution has it covered. I can't really argue with that, in general. There are specific versions I'd have a problem with, due to what I consider to be logical contradictions within the theology, but since they don't conflict with science, I'm okay with them. I wonder if Hinduism has a problem with the evidence? I never really looked into that.

 

[Frank Robert]

That is incorrect. While Catholics are free to accept or reject bugs to primates, in the creation of man we believe the spiritual soul is immediately created by God. Consequently, theories of evolution which…consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.

You are partially correct in that the Catholic Church holds to the soul as God's creation.

From Catholic.com Adam & Eve

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that “the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.​

From CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH - SECOND EDITION

159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth."37 "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."38​

 

[o_mlly]

The principle here shouldn't be controversial. Events of the past leave evidence that we can study in the present.

The problem is in the interpretation of the evidence compounded by the indirect methods used to estimate the age bones in rocks. The greater the number of specialist appliances and specialist technicians needed to interpret the ages, the greater the uncertainty of the data.

That's not how research grants actually work.

Actually, that's how they do work. For example:

Who Pays for Dino Research? | Science | Smithsonian Magazine

https://www.burkemuseum.org/collect...nd-paleontology/vertebrate-paleontology/grant

This grant provides financial assistance for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers to study fossils in the Vertebrate Paleontology Collection at the University of Washington Burke Museum (UWBM).
Special consideration will be given to projects related to the fossil record of the Pacific Northwest.​

This is just conspiracy-mongering.

Really? I think not.
The great dinosaur fossil hoax - Cosmos Magazine.

Archaeoraptor would later be dubbed “Piltdown chicken”. Like England’s infamous Piltdown man it turned out to be a cut-and-paste fossil made of different species. For National Geographic, a bastion of scientific publishing, to have been taken in by the hoax showed the sophistication of the forgery.
The problem of faked fossils in China is serious and growing. Rather than being excavated by palaeontologists on fossil digs, most of the region’s fossils are pulled from the ground by desperately poor farmers and then sold on to dealers and museums.​

It also completely ignores the commercial side of science and the fact that the theory of evolution has practical, commercial application. When you look at the interests of commercial enterprise, such charges of systemic bias tend to fall by the wayside.

If there really was a superior alternative to the modern theory of evolution, industry is the first place you'd hear about it.

Can you provide a few links to support the claim that industry (other than sci-fi movie production companies) utilizes the theory of evolution profitably (other than the novel DNA science already allowed as highly more reliable than the evidence from the historiographical work)?

 

[Frank Robert]

evolutionists must include the question of the origin of life

Regardless what you believe the theory of evolution is not a explanation for the origins of life. The ToE starts with the first common ancestor of all life.

 

[o_mlly]

You are partially correct in that the Catholic Church holds to the soul as God's creation.

? What is it that you think is the difference in what I posted and your citations from the catechism?

 

[o_mlly]

Theistic evolution has it covered. I can't really argue with that, in general.

Then you agree with the Church that the human mind does not emanate from matter?

 

[o_mlly]

Theistic evolution has it covered. I can't really argue with that, in general.

Then you agree with the Church that the human mind does not emanate from matter?

 

[Hans Blaster]

Please stay on topic. The OP is limited to the evolution of man. What evidence does evolution theory have that demonstrates that a creature that possesses the faculties of consciousness, rational thought, ie., abstract reasoning, imagination and free will evolved from a bug?

If you're only concerned about the evolution or origin of humans, then why in the OP do you put an concern to the origin of life?

 

[Hans Blaster]

That is incorrect. While Catholics are free to accept or reject bugs to primates, in the creation of man we believe the spiritual soul is immediately created by God. Consequently, theories of evolution which…consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.

You've confused "truth" with church doctrine in the last phrase.

As for that doctrine of souls, it was never clear that it meant mind or had anything to do with brain phenomena. As they used to say to me "God gave you a brain, use it."

 

[Yttrium]

Then you agree with the Church that the human mind does not emanate from matter?

I don't disagree with it. I don't know how the consciousness comes about. The Catholic Church does provide an explanation of origins that works with science, so I can respect that. There are, of course, other explanations that also work with science. Skeptic that I am, I don't favor any of them, but I consider them to be possibilities worth considering.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Their conclusions are less derived and more contrived (at times, from outright falsified evidence) to support the evolution hypothesis that the grant money which underwrote their endeavor expects. This methodology undeniably introduces systemic bias into the findings and conclusions. The pressure to publish or perish cannot be dismissed as a motivating force to find exactly what they were looking to find. It is reasonable to claim that they shaped the evidence to support the desired end rather than being led by the evidence.

This statement makes it clear you've never had a research grant as this is not how grant programs work. Your earlier claim of being a scientist seems more dubious with each post.

 

[Ponderous Curmudgeon]

The problem is in the interpretation of the evidence compounded by the indirect methods used to estimate the age bones in rocks. The greater the number of specialist appliances and specialist technicians needed to interpret the ages, the greater the uncertainty of the data.

On the contrary, having multiple methods by multiple experts that agree on an age decreases the uncertainty. Even carpenters know this basically, ever heard of measure twice cut once.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Actually, that's how they do work. For example:

Who Pays for Dino Research? | Science | Smithsonian Magazine

https://www.burkemuseum.org/collect...nd-paleontology/vertebrate-paleontology/grant

This grant provides financial assistance for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers to study fossils in the Vertebrate Paleontology Collection at the University of Washington Burke Museum (UWBM).
Special consideration will be given to projects related to the fossil record of the Pacific Northwest.

What's the argument here? People interested in dinosaurs pay for dinosaur research? Are we supposed to be scandalized?

Next thing your going to tell me is that people who like impressionist art donate it to museums. Oh the horror.