Biological Evolution

Sleepy Jean said:

I had an interesting conversation with some of my fellow homeschoolers today at a co-op where we were studying Debate: Evolution and Creation.

There are 4 types of evolution (atheist, cosmo, bio, and human) which I am sure you've all probably discussed here. My homeschool group is formed of all Catholic families, and when this debate came along, almost all the material the teachers had was siding with Creation, and not really understanding the point trying to be made with therories of Evolution.

I find, though, that a lot of evolution can be understood, and accepted by many Christians.

Biological Evolution:
That not necessarily man, but all other living things were first created by God, but still continue to evolve into different things by the power of God.

Examples:
God created the universe, but even today, new stars are being born, so the universe is still growing... evolving.

God created lizards in many types, but they still continue to cross-breed which makes another breed of lizard... they are evolving into something else.

This was my debate with my classmates... comments?

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You are an intelligent 13 year-old.

edit: Though I disagree with your point of views...

Sleepy Jean said:

I had an interesting conversation with some of my fellow homeschoolers today at a co-op where we were studying Debate: Evolution and Creation.

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Homeschooled? I'm sorry.

There are 4 types of evolution (atheist, cosmo, bio, and human)

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Can you give us your definition of each please?

I find, though, that a lot of evolution can be understood, and accepted by many Christians.

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All of evolution can be understood and accepted by all Christians

Biological Evolution:
That not necessarily man, but all other living things were first created by God, but still continue to evolve into different things by the power of God.

Examples:
God created the universe, but even today, new stars are being born, so the universe is still growing... evolving.

God created lizards in many types, but they still continue to cross-breed which makes another breed of lizard... they are evolving into something else.

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Biological evolution encompasses far more than just this version of microevolution that you describe.

Sleepy Jean said:

There are 4 types of evolution (atheist, cosmo, bio, and human) which I am sure you've all probably discussed here.

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Not sure what you mean here, as there is only one type of evolution.

Welcome.

"There are 4 types of evolution (atheist, cosmo, bio, and human) which I am sure you've all probably discussed here."

Not really. There is one "Theory of Evolution", and multiple uses of the word "evolution"
Lets look at your four,

Atheist: Scientifically the same as the "theory of evolution" also scientifically the same as "theistic evolution" the only difference is the personal philosophy that god was not involved. The Scientific theory of evolution is agnostic, just like all of science.

Cosmo: cosmic Evolution is a term astronomers have used to describe things like the formation of stars. It is Completly Seperate from the Theory of Evolution.

Bio, Human: The Theory of Evolution. Encompasses all animals including humans.


"almost all the material the teachers had was siding with Creation, and not really understanding the point trying to be made with therories of Evolution."

Unfortunatly, many creationist articles get the definition of Evolution wrong, and misrepresent many things.

One thing to point out is that there is a difference between "creation" and "creationism."

Creation: Is generally the belief that god created. This could be through evolution or creationism, eitherway.

Creationism: Comes in a couple forms, the most common is YEC or Young Earth Creationism. Believes Micro Evolution is possible but macro evolution is not. It often goes on to redefine Macro evolution as a change between "kinds" (a different definition than the scientific one).


"God created lizards in many types, but they still continue to cross-breed which makes another breed of lizard... they are evolving into something else."

this sounds like creationism or sometimes called special creation. Unfortunatly the theory that god created each "kind" of animal (such as the Lizard kind) and that the animal only changes within its kinds, has been falsified.

Sleepy Jean said:

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Sleepy Jean said:

You'd be surprised. There are four sides, Athiest (big bang, Lucy) being the most popular.

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I think that perhaps you are taking your definitions from creationist literature, which is not the best thing to do.

Evolution has only one type. The change in allele/phenotypical frequencies in species. That's all.

Biological Evolution is what I have already defined. That God originaly created everything, but it still evolves under his power.

Human Evolution is the belief that God created man's soul, but his body evolved.

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These would be both beleifs, not a 'type' of evolution. Get what I mean?

Sleepy Jean said:

You'd be surprised. There are four sides, Athiest (big bang, Lucy) being the most popular.

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Accepting the fact that the universe was created in the big bang or that Lucy is an exemplary example of one of our ancestors does not make one an atheist. Accepting the fact that God created the universe via the big bang and either guided all the natural processes which eventually led to our creation or sat back and watched it all unfold before Him without His intervention does not make one an atheist.

Those are extrapolations that we make from the evidence that abounds in God's creation. They do nothing to hamper belief in A) God or B) Jesus Christ.

Personally I think that evolution better displays Gods power. It is the difference between just switching a TV on and creating a two mile chain of intricately laid out dominos to ultimately push the power button on the TV.

I do agree you are pretty smart for a 13 year old. I still thought evolution meant that one day a monkey gave birth to a human at your age. Now I know that there were apes in between there

revolutio said:

I still thought evolution meant that one day a monkey gave birth to a human at your age. Now I know that there were apes in between there

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*ahem* we are an ape

Data said:

*ahem* we are an ape

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*hits Data in the head with a baseball bat*

That'll teach you to correct me!

Sleepy Jean said:

Did I remember the wrong word?

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I'm not sure if you have the right word. The entire process that lead to our creation (God, big bang, cooling of matter, formation of simple elements, stellar formation, stellar fusion, a couple of super novas, planetary formation, abiogenesis, and biological evolution) doesn't really have one big name; it's just how it happened.

Sorry for all my errors...

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No need to worry. We're all here to teach and to learn (and occasionally get shot down big time)

Sleepy Jean said:

Did I remember the wrong word? Sorry for all my errors... I'm not trying to offend anyone, just have a discussion. I haven't got that good of a memory for stuff like this, so please feel free to correct me when you please.

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Don't worry about it

What you meant should probably worded more like:

There are three main beleifs.
That God originaly created everything, but it still evolves under his power.
That God created with evolution, and man's soul was created by God.
That evolution occured without a god.

Sleepy Jean said:

Hey hey, haven't we evolved past the caveman age already?

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We are just an ape because we are really closely related to other apes, we look like them, we have very similar DNA, there just isn't enough difference to say we are a seperate group. However we are still humans, this is just the broader grouping. Just like how we are also classed as a mammal and a primate, we are an ape, but we are also uniquely human.

Sleepy Jean said:

Hey hey, haven't we evolved past the caveman age already?

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*hits Sleepy Jean upside her head also*

Zug zug!

Yeah, I would recomend you check out some different (correct) definitions of Evolution.

Others have said it, but,

•Evolution does Not equal atheism.
•The Big Bang is Not part of the Theory of Evolution.
•Abiogenesis (life from non life) is Not part of the Theory of Evolution.

Sleepy Jean said:

Hey hey, haven't we evolved past the caveman age already?

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excellent joke please don't mind them! they will catch up with the human race at some stage

people already have done, but let's break this down a little more;

The Theory of Evolution is basically this: "Descent with modification, with natural selection as a selecting force". The basic principle is that whenever something has offspring, there will be slight variations in the offspring either as a result of genetic mutations, chromosome mutations, or just general gene shuffling in the case of sexual reproduction. The general scientific viewpoint (which encompasses everyone from atheistic to theistic evolutionists, since science is agnostic) is that life began, and evolved from a single cell to everything we have now.

How did life begin? well that is a different subject, and not strictly covered by evolution as described above. The theory of how life started is called Abiogenesis.
Evolution does not care how life got here, it could have been God that started the first cell, or it could have come about as a result of chemical reactions.

Next we have physical theories which have nothing to do with the theory of evolution as above, but they do use the word evolution (in the context of change) These include stellar evolution - the formation of stars and planets from the stuff that came from the Big Bang, and later, other stars that exploded.

In a similar vein to evolution and abiogenesis, people ask "well where does all the matter come from?" well this is Big Bang cosmology, and there are a number of possible first causes. Stellar evolution does not care how all the matter and time came about, and only deals with the universe once it exists.

so now we have 4 areas of science, that are all independent in terms of being studied;

1) the big bang (how it all began)
2) stellar "evolution" (how the stars and planets formed once it all began)
3) abiogenesis (how life began)
4) evolution (how life changes)

Another important point as I mentioned, is that science is agnostic. It simply describes the mechanisms and things that we see. It does not care about God. God could be there inside all of these things, nudging them and pushing them along, it just doesn't say.