Evidences for evolution

[seebs]

Originally posted by Ray K

Originally posted by seebs


This is substantially false; I recommend _Christianity on Trial, by Vincent Carrol. Those Christians were the only people preserving book learning in any form, and huge quantities of scientific research were performed by monks.


Can you provide some examples of scientific research done by pre-Renaissance Christians? And how did this compare to scientific work done by Arab scientists of the same era?

How it compares is irrelevant; the assertion was that the Christian church *actively harmed* scientific progress; if they made any at all, the assertion is false.

Note also that Christianity was very important in the acceptance of the basic scientific model; the idea that the world was comprehensible and predictable, not prone to fate or inevitable cycles, gained a lot of influence through Christianity.

Christian churches were influential in the development of crop rotation and heavy plows; this may not sound like much, but if you consider the difference in scientific output between starving people and well-fed people, it's significant; it's also an innovation of sorts. Monastaries pushed the use of labor-saving devices to a previously unheard-of level, once again, paving the way for the rennaisance.

Consider this: If the Christian church was so harmful to scientific progress, why was the Rennaisance only observed in the places where the church was dominant?

I'm not sure what net effect Christianity had. I would suspect that they improved things somewhat; for instance, it was Christians who had the ethic that required them to treat the sick, and who developed a lot of the roots of medical science.

Good grief! Have you really never heard of the Hippocratic oath? Considering it was written centuries before the birth of Jesus, that claim has absolutely no merit.

There's a big gap between promising to do no harm, and starting to *STUDY* disease.

Likewise, they did an astounding amount of early astronomy... Go read a book or two about this from the other side, there's substantial evidence to be looked at, and it's not as simple as "burning bad books". (Indeed, that's more of a Southern Baptist thing than a medieval thing.)

How about listing some examples of early Christian scientific advances in medicine and astronomy? I think anyone reading this thread would like to hear about them. Enlighten us.

Then we can compare Christian scientific works to the Greek and Arab works that they burned and see if there really was any progress.

Ahh, we're back to the burning. Nevermind that monastaries *copied* many of the texts we have today, without which we'd have no such texts at all.

I believe medieval Christians developed mechanical (not water) clocks; you know, springs and gears.

Throughout the middle ages, monks were writing text after text on herbs, medicine, and treatment of disease - and they were *refining* their observations; basic scientific method, once again. They developed the windmill. Eyeglasses (however crude) were developed by Dominican monks.

Also, the university as we know it today is a direct descendant of schools founded by the church...

Mostly, though, it's the attitude that's interesting. The medieval church encouraged the idea that the world could be studied, analyzed, and tamed. Other cultures may have had a good head start - after all, they hadn't just been dropped from empire straight into war, and they may have had fewer plagues. And yet, when the rennaisance and the industrial age happened, they happened right in the middle of the territory where the Church was, and not anywhere else.

 

[brt28006]

Originally posted by seebs


Note also that Christianity was very important in the acceptance of the basic scientific model; the idea that the world was comprehensible and predictable, not prone to fate or inevitable cycles, gained a lot of influence through Christianity.

If this were true then the debate of evolution/creation would not be so fiery today.

Christian churches were influential in the development of crop rotation and heavy plows; this may not sound like much, but if you consider the difference in scientific output between starving people and well-fed people, it's significant; it's also an innovation of sorts. Monastaries pushed the use of labor-saving devices to a previously unheard-of level, once again, paving the way for the rennaisance.

Anthropologists recorded evidence of crop rotation almost from the very beginning of agricultural society, and before written history.

Consider this: If the Christian church was so harmful to scientific progress, why was the Rennaisance only observed in the places where the church was dominant?

The renaissance was a resurgence of learning. India and the Middle East had no need of a resurgence of learning because they had been learning all along.
The Dark Age was a European phenomenon.

There's a big gap between promising to do no harm, and starting to *STUDY* disease.

The Egyptian doctor/architect Imhotep (not to be confused with the fictional Imhotep in 'The Mummy') wrote many treatises on medicine and its practical application, including anatomy charts and where disease struck the body.
That was 1,500 years before even the Hippocratic Oath came about.

Mostly, though, it's the attitude that's interesting. The medieval church encouraged the idea that the world could be studied, analyzed, and tamed. Other cultures may have had a good head start - after all, they hadn't just been dropped from empire straight into war, and they may have had fewer plagues. And yet, when the rennaisance and the industrial age happened, they happened right in the middle of the territory where the Church was, and not anywhere else.

That second sentence is in great contrast to what other Christians have been posting in these evolution threads.

By the time of the Industrial revolution, the Empires of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, etc. had subjugated other cultures.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by brt28006

If this were true then the debate of evolution/creation would not be so fiery today.

I don't see your reasoning. Compare, not with modern industrialized cultures, but with primitive ones.

The renaissance was a resurgence of learning. India and the Middle East had no need of a resurgence of learning because they had been learning all along.
The Dark Age was a European phenomenon.

And yet, by 1700 or 1800 or so, Europe was VERY far ahead. The "dark ages" were never all that dark, and they set the stage for the first real leap past the iron age.

The Egyptian doctor/architect Imhotep (not to be confused with the fictional Imhotep in 'The Mummy') wrote many treatises on medicine and its practical application, including anatomy charts and where disease struck the body.
That was 1,500 years before even the Hippocratic Oath came about.

And then it stayed there, stagnant, with no further work. Where did the germ theory of disease come from? Europeans raised in Christian cultures.

That second sentence is in great contrast to what other Christians have been posting in these evolution threads.

By the time of the Industrial revolution, the Empires of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, etc. had subjugated other cultures.

Yes, because their cultural foundations led to a substantial technological lead over everyone else. They were learning more, faster, than everyone else... Why? Because they had a good foundation on which to build.

 

[brt28006]

Originally posted by seebs


I don't see your reasoning. Compare, not with modern industrialized cultures, but with primitive ones.

I don't see why I should. Unless I missed the point of your original post.

And yet, by 1700 or 1800 or so, Europe was VERY far ahead. The "dark ages" were never all that dark, and they set the stage for the first real leap past the iron age.

I won't debate the Europe got real far real fast after the 1600's, when the Renaissance turned into the Age of Reason.
But the dark ages were VERY dark.

And then it stayed there, stagnant, with no further work. Where did the germ theory of disease come from? Europeans raised in Christian cultures.

Most ancient Egyptian texts were burned by the Koptic Christians.
Egypt was practicing brain surgery as long as 4,000 years ago. So were the Nazca natives of S. America.
Archaeological evidence suggests the survival rate in these cultures for those who underwent brain surgery surpassed the survival rate of similar surgery in early 20th century Britain.

Also, you can't chalk up every developement made in a Christian society or by a Christian to Christianity itself. After all, Darwin was a Christian.

Yes, because their cultural foundations led to a substantial technological lead over everyone else. They were learning more, faster, than everyone else... Why? Because they had a good foundation on which to build.

They were much stronger than everyone else, that was the key.

Interesting story, On March 31st of 1492, Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain expelled all the Jews and Muslims from their country.
Unfortunately, all their merchants were Muslim and all their bankers were Jewish.
The Spanish empire's economy collapsed soon afterwards. People of different religions work together to make the world go 'round.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by brt28006

I don't see why I should. Unless I missed the point of your original post.

If you compare anyone living even a couple hundred years ago to people today, they look strange, primitive, and backwards. All of 'em.

I won't debate the Europe got real far real fast after the 1600's, when the Renaissance turned into the Age of Reason.
But the dark ages were VERY dark.

That's what they taught me in 7th grade, but since then, people have started looking more closely. The "dark ages" were the foundations of modern culture and science.

Most ancient Egyptian texts were burned by the Koptic Christians.
Egypt was practicing brain surgery as long as 4,000 years ago. So were the Nazca natives of S. America.

Uh-huh. And it was just as good as ours, and there's no chance at all that it was shamanism and guesswork with all the medical brilliance of trepannation, right?

Archaeological evidence suggests the survival rate in these cultures for those who underwent brain surgery surpassed the survival rate of similar surgery in early 20th century Britain.

Also, you can't chalk up every developement made in a Christian society or by a Christian to Christianity itself. After all, Darwin was a Christian.

Indeed. So, apparently, Christians are not opposed to science, are they?

Interesting story, On March 31st of 1492, Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain expelled all the Jews and Muslims from their country.
Unfortunately, all their merchants were Muslim and all their bankers were Jewish.
The Spanish empire's economy collapsed soon afterwards. People of different religions work together to make the world go 'round.

Agreed. However, I object to the categorization of the Christians as somehow specially backwards and unenlightened. They contributed a great deal to modern science, and built the foundations on which, after hundreds if not thousands of years, people finally got past the standards for "science" that earned the early Arabs such an amazing reputation.

This isn't to say they weren't also crucial, or that their work wasn't brilliant.... But they gave up, and said "we're done", and waited until someone came along and said "we can do more than this".

 

[brt28006]

Originally posted by seebs


If you compare anyone living even a couple hundred years ago to people today, they look strange, primitive, and backwards. All of 'em.

That's completely true. But what did it have to do with the original post?
I seriously don't know; its not like I'm not trying to say you were right or wrong.

That's what they taught me in 7th grade, but since then, people have started looking more closely. The "dark ages" were the foundations of modern culture and science.

Foundations of modern culture, yes, they were. Everything from nothing, sorta.

Uh-huh. And it was just as good as ours, and there's no chance at all that it was shamanism and guesswork with all the medical brilliance of trepannation, right?

Deliberately drilling into someones skull in a non-random spot to relieve pressure caused by a brain tumor (archaeological find from Old Kingdom Egypt) doesn't seem like guesswork to me.

Indeed. So, apparently, Christians are not opposed to science, are they?

I never said they were opposed to science. However, the scientific advancements made by liberal Christians probably (and I emphasize the word probably) outweighed the advancements made by literalists.
It would seem, in fact, that the literalists are only interested in disproving science not firmly rooted in Biblical belief.

Agreed. However, I object to the categorization of the Christians as somehow specially backwards and unenlightened. They contributed a great deal to modern science, and built the foundations on which, after hundreds if not thousands of years, people finally got past the standards for "science" that earned the early Arabs such an amazing reputation.

I won't argue with this, and I didn't intend to portray Christians as being especially backwards. Examples exist throughout history of a bigoted nation throwing a particular race or creed out and then realizing how important they were once it was too late.

This isn't to say they weren't also crucial, or that their work wasn't brilliant.... But they gave up, and said "we're done", and waited until someone came along and said "we can do more than this".

This is true.
Science is a group effort.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by brt28006


That's completely true. But what did it have to do with the original post?
I seriously don't know; its not like I'm not trying to say you were right or wrong.

I think the point I was trying to make is that looking at medieval Christians and saying they look backwards is uninformative; the interesting question is whether they represented progress from the cultures they replaced, and in most cases, I think they did.

Deliberately drilling into someones skull in a non-random spot to relieve pressure caused by a brain tumor (archaeological find from Old Kingdom Egypt) doesn't seem like guesswork to me.

It does to me... People come up with this independantly all the time, and it's fairly random whether it helps at all.

I never said they were opposed to science. However, the scientific advancements made by liberal Christians probably (and I emphasize the word probably) outweighed the advancements made by literalists.
It would seem, in fact, that the literalists are only interested in disproving science not firmly rooted in Biblical belief.

Agreed. I think the literalists are not giving God enough credit for being beyond our comprehension; they insist that, despite being beyond human understanding, He is obliged to document everything He does in texts dictated to people who barely had agriculture, let alone particle physics.

This is true.
Science is a group effort.

Yup.

 

[brt28006]

I basically agree with what you said in your last post, basically.

I think I view Dark Age Christians as being a little bit further behind than you do. Remember, that fact is not necessarily a blow against Christianity, as the Dark Age did not begin until many centuries after the Crucifixion.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by brt28006
I basically agree with what you said in your last post, basically.

I think I view Dark Age Christians as being a little bit further behind than you do. Remember, that fact is not necessarily a blow against Christianity, as the Dark Age did not begin until many centuries after the Crucifixion.

I guess, it's a question of "behind what"? They certainly started from a lower standard of technological advancement than the Arabs, or the Chinese... But they advanced at an amazing rate, because they had a strong belief in the utility and relevance of knowledge.

 

[Shane Roach]

The basic falacy of this whole "backwards Christians" model of European history is that you have to make yourself aware that Rome was demolished by European Pagans, who then adopted much of Roman culture in the way that Rome adopted Greek culture.

Originally posted by brt28006

Interesting story, On March 31st of 1492, Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain expelled all the Jews and Muslims from their country.
Unfortunately, all their merchants were Muslim and all their bankers were Jewish.
The Spanish empire's economy collapsed soon afterwards. People of different religions work together to make the world go 'round.

The reason "all" the bankers in Spain were Jewish and "all" the merchants were Muslim is because Spain had been an occupied territory for centuries, so perhaps that might help to explain the Spanish resentment. The purge was symptomatic of nationalism, one of the driving forces of civilization in Europe at the time.

Spain recovered from this economic hiccup and dominated for quite a span of time before squandering their armada in an ill-fated naval campaign against England.

 

[Shane Roach]

No small amount of scholarship these days is done proving that the European pagans were not so "dark" as Roman historians liked to protray them either. The "Dark Ages" as a name and concept are becoming something of a non-sequitur.

 

[brt28006]

The last Roman historian died hundreds of years before the Dark Ages though... unless you were referring to something else.

Spain recovered from this economic hiccup and dominated for quite a span of time before squandering their armada in an ill-fated naval campaign against England.

You mean the Spanish Armada attack on England, also known as the Fifth Crusade? That happened less than a hundred years after 1492, which is hardly a significant time span.

 

[Ray K]

Originally posted by seebs


How it compares is irrelevant; the assertion was that the Christian church *actively harmed* scientific progress; if they made any at all, the assertion is false.

Not necessarily. If you believe that "necessity is the mother of invention", then some technological progress can always be expected.

Of course, it is clear that the Christian church *actively harmed* scientific progress by burning millions of "pagan" scientific tomes. You simply cannot overlook a century of Christian persecution that represents the greatest blow to scientific knowledge in history.

Note also that Christianity was very important in the acceptance of the basic scientific model; the idea that the world was comprehensible and predictable, not prone to fate or inevitable cycles, gained a lot of influence through Christianity.

Maybe the RE-acceptance. All of those "Christian" ideas were certainly present in Ancient Greece. And the acceptance of the scientific model did not come until after the Renaissance, when Greek knowledge was making its impact on European culture and Christian theology.

Christian churches were influential in the development of crop rotation and heavy plows; this may not sound like much, but if you consider the difference in scientific output between starving people and well-fed people, it's significant; it's also an innovation of sorts. Monastaries pushed the use of labor-saving devices to a previously unheard-of level, once again, paving the way for the rennaisance.

And exactly why were people starving?

Consider this: If the Christian church was so harmful to scientific progress, why was the Rennaisance only observed in the places where the church was dominant?

This is a very interesting argument considering the incredible resistance the Church made against scientific progress during the Renaissance. The Renaissance happened despite the Church, not because of it. Some scientists were forced to recant their "heresies" (i.e Galileo) and others did not publish their work until they were on their deathbed because they feared reprisal by the Church.

You cannot revise European history to suit your position. You are proposing scenario in which the Church resists scientific advance while simultaneously taking credit for it.

There's a big gap between promising to do no harm, and starting to *STUDY* disease.

What? Are you suggesting that the Greeks didn't *study* disease?

Please give me a account of any significant pre-Renaissance medical *advances* in Europe and I'll concede this point.

Ahh, we're back to the burning. Nevermind that monastaries *copied* many of the texts we have today, without which we'd have no such texts at all.

Maybe you can explain why most of the Greek works were translated to Latin from *Arabic*. While the Christians were burning pagan books, the Arabs were building libraries, soliciting Greek scholars, and translating pagan books to Arabic (via Syriac).

Many Greek words were added to the Arabic language to facilitate this translation effort.

I believe medieval Christians developed mechanical (not water) clocks; you know, springs and gears.

That's curious. Why would you go out of your way to exclude water clocks? I know why. Let's look at a brief history of clocks in general:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Jesse/CLOCK1A.html

Here are some excerpts:
"Until the development of stereography by Hipparchos in the middle of the second century BC., the Greeks measured time with various types of water clocks"

"By incorporating these two planispheric projections of the sky into the display of a clepsydra, the Greeks discovered a way for providing the constant source of motion necessary for an accurate representation of time"

"The evolution of the anaphoric clock depended on several hundred years of Greek science"

"Members of the school of Posidonios created a device to compute the positions of the sun and the moon--what we now call "The Antikythera Mechanism... Archaeological evidence suggests that after the Antikythera Mechanism was lost in a shipwreck, the differential gear essentially disappeared from western knowledge until 1575, when it reappeared in a globe clock designed by Jobst Bürgi."

Also, check out: http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1506.htm

"Mechanical clocks replaced the old water clocks, which, by the 13th century, had been around for millennia... So we can only guess that the first mechanical clocks were made in the late 1200s. "

Late-1200s? That's decades AFTER the re-introduction of Greek science back into medieval Europe.

Throughout the middle ages, monks were writing text after text on herbs, medicine, and treatment of disease - and they were *refining* their observations; basic scientific method, once again. They developed the windmill. Eyeglasses (however crude) were developed by Dominican monks.

google search on "history of windmills"... you should try it sometime... From http://www.lldkids.com/documents/history_windmills.html

"The first windmills were invented in Persia around 600 A.D. to grind grain."

Also, the university as we know it today is a direct descendant of schools founded by the church...

You are swinging and missing badly now! The universities in the middle ages taught GREEK SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. I know you won't believe me, so let's do a google search on "medieval universities" and find this link:

http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/ls201/medieval_curriculum.html

Here's a good quote for you:
"The course of study with its different disciplines that came to be adopted by medieval universities was derived from the Aristotelian models of Ancient Greece. This body of knowledge had been divided into separate categories known as disciplines, thus establishing a model of categorization and organization that still forms the basis of academic disciplines today. "

Mostly, though, it's the attitude that's interesting. The medieval church encouraged the idea that the world could be studied, analyzed, and tamed. Other cultures may have had a good head start - after all, they hadn't just been dropped from empire straight into war, and they may have had fewer plagues. And yet, when the rennaisance and the industrial age happened, they happened right in the middle of the territory where the Church was, and not anywhere else.

I disagree completely. You sound like you're parrotting "Christian and science" propaganda from the probe.org website.

Essentially, you are giving the church credit for something that they notoriously resisted for centuries.

My point is that no significant scientific advances occurred in Europe until the re-introduction of Greek scientific works. And considering the impact that Greek philosophy had on Christian theology (Aristotle's "Metaphysics" through Thomas Aquinas), you cannot separate Christian science from Greek knowledge at that point.

 

[LouisBooth]

"The propensity for Christians to burn pagan works is much higher than for other faiths. That religion is single-handedly responsible for the destruction of more accumulated scientific knowledge than any other. "

You haven't read much history have you?

 

[LouisBooth]

I also thought it was kinda funny how Joel systematically shined some light on some pretty big holes

 

[Sinai]

When discussing evolution, a distinction should be made between micro-evolution (the gradual evolution of a trait that only slightly alters the morphology of the plant or animal) and macro-evolution (the gradual evolution of one body plan into another, such as a worm or insect or mollusk gradually evolving into a bird or a fish).

There is plenty of evidence of micro-evolution. It can be documented that gray moths can change into black moths or that pink daisies can evolve into blue daisies. In just a few thousand years, a wide variety of cichlid fish species evolved in Lake Victoria. And we are all aware of the introduction of new varieties of corn or of dogs or of other species. As I said earlier, micro-evolution is supported in the Bible (and in the fossil record). It is macro-evolution--the gradual evolution of one body plan into another--that finds no support in the Bible, in the fossil record or in the lab.

In Origin of Species, Darwin repeatedly implored his readers to ignore the evidence of the fossil record as a refutation of his concept of evolution or to "use imagination to fill in its gaps." He claimed the fossil record's leaps and bounds were the result of its being incomplete. That was quite plausible at the time Darwin penned his theory.

The fact that the long anticipated "missing links" are still missing has caused many scientists within the area to become increasingly skeptical about the full validity of a theory that had been widely accepted only a few decades ago. Granted, there are at least potentially valid reasons why transitional fossil forms might be lacking. Nevertheless, today's extensive paleontological evidence has shown a staccoto pattern in which new life forms suddenly appear in the fossil record without the theorized long gradual development or adaptation.

If you check the works of such professionals active in evolutionary biology as Gould and Dawkins, Eldredge and Smith, you will find that there has been a battle raging over whether gradual evolution ever occurred and if it did, why it is not evident in the fossil record.

 

[Heath Anderson]

Originally posted by Sinai
Granted, there are at least potentially valid reasons why transitional fossil forms might be lacking.

Punctuated Equilibrium seems to be one of the leading reasons

 

[Shane Roach]

Originally posted by brt28006
The last Roman historian died hundreds of years before the Dark Ages though... unless you were referring to something else.


You mean the Spanish Armada attack on England, also known as the Fifth Crusade? That happened less than a hundred years after 1492, which is hardly a significant time span.

Regarding Rome, yes, I am referring to something else. I am talking about pre-Christian Europe, and the idea, passed down from Roman times and only recently really being given proper critical scrutiny, that the Europian "barbarians" were indeed all that backwards. They did, after all, overthrow Rome.

As to Spain, so you're saying Spain was devestated economically by Ferdinand and Isabella, yet somehow remained the leading European power for nearly a hundred years, and contiued to be a leading European power for another century or so? Where is this devestation supposed to have taken place?

I gues what you're point is here is that the ceturies of civil war prior to this point were actually better for Spain, and that even though Spain reached the apex of its power after being re-united, it was still better for the Spanish to be ruled by foreigners in their own land? Is that the point you're trying to make? Do you have a point other than reaching for any straw that you feel might make Christianity look bad?

It doesn't seem as if you do.

 

[Shane Roach]

Originally posted by Heath Anderson


Punctuated Equilibrium seems to be one of the leading reasons

Rationalization you mean.

I missed, was it on this thread or another, whether you ever told me that you believe the common ancestor of all life was one living thing, or a group of spontaneously generated living thigns that were all identical?

 

[Ray K]

Originally posted by LouisBooth
"The propensity for Christians to burn pagan works is much higher than for other faiths. That religion is single-handedly responsible for the destruction of more accumulated scientific knowledge than any other. "

You haven't read much history have you?

Actually, quite a bit, and Christians are still burning books today. Here's a link to a list of Christian contributions to knowledge:

http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/bookburn.html

"To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing." - Alexandrian philosopher and mathematician Hypatia, dragged to her death by a Christian mob in 415, which then peeled her body with oyster shells and then threw her parts into a fire.