How does one become a Theistic Evolutionist?

[sfs]

So....... one must compromise their religion to be a TE?
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Some do, some don't -- it depends on the specifics of their religious beliefs. It's part of a general phenomenon: if you want your beliefs (religious, political, whatever) to reflect reality, you have to adjust or discard them when they are contradicted by reality.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Some do, some don't -- it depends on the specifics of their religious beliefs. It's part of a general phenomenon: if you want your beliefs (religious, political, whatever) to reflect reality, you have to adjust or discard them when they are contradicted by reality.

That's because reality is not so easily adjusted nor discarded.

 

[sfs]

That's because reality is not so easily adjusted nor discarded.

Unless you want to badly enough.

 

[Tiberius]

So when a person's religious beliefs contradict evolution, what do they do? Do they re-evaluate the religious beliefs, their views on evolution or decide that one has to be eliminated altogether? (I know many creationists have eliminated evolution from their worldview entirely).

 

[gluadys]

So when a person's religious beliefs contradict evolution, what do they do? Do they re-evaluate the religious beliefs, their views on evolution or decide that one has to be eliminated altogether? (I know many creationists have eliminated evolution from their worldview entirely).

Different people do different things. You might check out the sticky thread The Full Spectrum of Christian Beliefs on Origins for an outline of the various positions. (Of course, it does not include non-Christian options, but that would be another choice or range of choices.)

 

[Mick116]

So....... one must compromise their religion to be a TE?


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Not exactly; however, if belief in a 6000 year-old earth and a creation period of 6 days was a part of one's religion, then this at least would probably need to be rejected before acceptance of evolutionary theory into one's worldview.

Perhaps reinterpretation of biblical texts is the minimum, but I think some Christians have needlessly dropped their faith altogether after being convinced by evolution; this probably as much a result of being told that evolution is incompatible with the gospel by well-meaning but misguided young-earth creationists as anything else.

 

[Mick116]

if you want your beliefs (religious, political, whatever) to reflect reality, you have to adjust or discard them when they are contradicted by reality.

Which is one way in which theology, to me, is similar (but not interchangeable) with science.

 

[Tiberius]

Theology is felxible? I'm sorry, but I can't recall of many instances of religious beliefs changing to accomodate scientific evidences...

 

[gluadys]

Theology is felxible? I'm sorry, but I can't recall of many instances of religious beliefs changing to accomodate scientific evidences...

Sure theology is flexible. Never hear of the Reformation?

And how many Christians today insist that Copernicus and Galileo et al were wrong about the movement of the earth?

Changes in theology usually take more than a generation, so that, like evolution, they are not easily seen in one life-time. But a study of the history of theology over two millennia will show just how flexible theology is. (Though I agree, not usually for reasons pertaining to science.)


A great book on the rise of modern fundamentalism in the monotheistic faiths (and fundamentalism IS modern) is Karen Armstrong's The Battle for God. It is very much about theology adapting to changing times.

 

[Markus6]

And how many Christians today insist that Copernicus and Galileo et al were wrong about the movement of the earth?

Me! Kepler FTW!1!

 

[gluadys]

Me! Kepler FTW!1!

And that makes what? 0.00001% of all Christians? (Just guessing.)

 

[Markus6]

And that makes what? 0.00001% of all Christians? (Just guessing.)

Well yes, but 99.9% of all important Christians.

(P.S. I wasn't denying heliocentrism. I was referring to Copernicus and Galileo using circular orbits and Kepler proposing elliptical ones. Just trying to be funny...)

 

[JusSumguy]

Some do, some don't -- it depends on the specifics of their religious beliefs. It's part of a general phenomenon: if you want your beliefs (religious, political, whatever) to reflect reality, you have to adjust or discard them when they are contradicted by reality.

What reality tells me that a species evolved into another?

In fact, in a strictly scientific sense, there is no evidence to refute that man just started. Strictly speaking, science supports this.

So please, what reality? Or are you putting all your beliefs in conjecture?

Folks try to separate the origin of life thingy from evolution only because it makes their argument harder to maintain when they hafta answer that question along with the rest. Like, HOW DID LIFE START? So they drop the OOL thing as if it isn't intrinsically tied to this entire issue. THAT IS THE ISSUE. The two go hand in hand.

They also continually either ignore, or point out unrelated instances, in an effort to avoid the fact that all science can tell us right now is that MAN JUST STARTED.

He's a God. Get over it. He can do ANYTHING.

How did life start?......... The rest of it is pretty well laid out.

I'll modify my beliefs according to facts, not conjecture. And right now what we KNOW fits quite nicely into what the Bible, says.


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[Dark_Lite]

So they drop the OOL thing as if it isn't intrinsically tied to this entire issue.

Because it isn't. Theories for the origin of life are separate, but related.

They also continually either ignore, or point out unrelated instances, in an effort to avoid the fact that all science can tell us right now is that MAN JUST STARTED.

And then you find the various evidence for evolution and it does a pretty good job of explaining how man got here.

 

[Tiberius]

What reality tells me that a species evolved into another?

In fact, in a strictly scientific sense, there is no evidence to refute that man just started. Strictly speaking, science supports this.

So please, what reality? Or are you putting all your beliefs in conjecture?

HERE is a page that looks at the homonid fossils we have, showing how they evolved over millions of years into modern Humans.

Folks try to separate the origin of life thingy from evolution only because it makes their argument harder to maintain when they hafta answer that question along with the rest. Like, HOW DID LIFE START? So they drop the OOL thing as if it isn't intrinsically tied to this entire issue. THAT IS THE ISSUE. The two go hand in hand.

Evolution has never tried to tell us where life started. Evolution only tells us how life changes. The two are separated because the origin of life doesn't neccessarily affect evolution. Life could have started in many different ways, but each possible way could allow evolution as we understand it to take place.

 

[sfs]

What reality tells me that a species evolved into another?

In fact, in a strictly scientific sense, there is no evidence to refute that man just started. Strictly speaking, science supports this.

So please, what reality? Or are you putting all your beliefs in conjecture?

The reality that tells us (at least those of us that are paying attention to it) that humans evolved from earlier species include comparative anatomy, fossil remains, and large quantities of genetic data. In a strict scientific sense, they provide very strong evidence that humans did not just start, but evolved from a common ancestor with chimpanzees. (It is of course impossible to refute the idea that humans just started, but just happened to start out looking exactly like they had just evolved from earlier species. Such a belief is impossible to refute, and also difficult to distinguish from insanity.)

Folks try to separate the origin of life thingy from evolution only because it makes their argument harder to maintain when they hafta answer that question along with the rest. Like, HOW DID LIFE START? So they drop the OOL thing as if it isn't intrinsically tied to this entire issue. THAT IS THE ISSUE. The two go hand in hand.

Scientific folk separate the origin of life from evolution because they are different fields of study, carried out by different people using very different methods. It's exactly the same reason we distinguish between evolution and particle physics or astronomy.

 

[marlowe007]

HERE is a page that looks at the homonid fossils we have, showing how they evolved over millions of years into modern Humans.

Sorry for the tangent here, but this little tidbit caught my attention:

"The specimen is therefore reasonably attributable to A. anamensis (Leakey et al. 1995), although the results of this study indicate that the Kanapoi specimen is not much more "human-like" than any of the other australopithecine fossils, despite prior conclusions to the contrary" (Lague and Jungers 1996)

If these scientists are willing to misrepresent a source that they cite, then why should I trust their study "proving" the Kanopi humerus to be non-human? For as Michael Cremo points out, the specimen was never "reasonably" attributed to A. anamensis by the Leakey paper:

As for the paper by Meave Leakey supposedly identifying the Kanapoi humerus as belonging to Australopithecus anamenis (Leakey et al 1995), the paper merely includes the Kanapoi humerus in a list of about 20 fossils from widely separated sites in Kenya (Allia Bay and Kanapoi), and with widely varying dates, that the authors chose to attribute to A. anamensis. The authors offer no justification for attributing the Kanapoi humerus to A. anamensis. Here is the only substantive mention of KNM KP 271 (the Kanapoi humerus) in the paper: "The distal humerus, KNM-KP 271, was originally seen to be humanlike, and it does show many derived hominoid features, including a marked median anterior capsular ligament tubercule." The authors make no attempt at all to show any nonhuman or particularly australopithecine features. They simply acknowledge the research showing it is humanlike, giving a citation to the relevant papers. It is clear that the authors included the Kanapoi humerus in the list of fossils attributed to A. anamenis simply because it was found in the same region and was about the same age as the other fossils--even though they acknowledged other authorities characterized its features as humanlike.

Leakey, Meave. G. Craig S. Felbel, Ian McDougall, and Alan Walker (1995) New four-million-year-old hominid species from Kanapoi and Allia Bay, Kenya, Nature 376: 565-571.

Amazon.com: A Customer's review of Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History o...

 

[gluadys]

Sorry for the tangent here, but this little tidbit caught my attention:

"The specimen is therefore reasonably attributable to A. anamensis (Leakey et al. 1995), although the results of this study indicate that the Kanapoi specimen is not much more "human-like" than any of the other australopithecine fossils, despite prior conclusions to the contrary" (Lague and Jungers 1996)

If these scientists are willing to misrepresent a source that they cite, then why should I trust their study "proving" the Kanopi humerus to be non-human? For as Michael Cremo points out, the specimen was never "reasonably" attributed to A. anamensis by the Leakey paper:



Amazon.com: A Customer's review of Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History o...

I am having a bit of difficulty spotting the alleged misrepresentation. If I follow this correctly, the lower humerus was found by the Leakey's and in a 1995 paper by Maeve Leakey it was included in a list of finds they deemed to be A. anamensis (Leakey et al. 1995). Is that listing misrepresented?

The only notation said "The distal humerus, KNM-KP 271, was originally seen to be humanlike, and it does show many derived hominoid features, including a marked median anterior capsular ligament tubercule." So although it was listed among fossils deemed to be A.anamensis, there was reference to a prior evalution that it was "human-like". Is that notation misrepresented?

The following year a second paper reported the results of a detailed study of this and other hominid fossils as well as of apes and humans. This study showed that it was very unlikely to be human and that is the conclusion you cited (Lague and Jungers 1996) Is that conclusion misrepresented?

Sounds to me like a typical procedure of initial evaluation followed up by a more detailed study leading to a firmer conclusion. What is misrepresented?

 

[marlowe007]

I am having a bit of difficulty spotting the alleged misrepresentation. If I follow this correctly, the lower humerus was found by the Leakey's and in a 1995 paper by Maeve Leakey it was included in a list of finds they deemed to be A. anamensis (Leakey et al. 1995). Is that listing misrepresented?

The only notation said "The distal humerus, KNM-KP 271, was originally seen to be humanlike, and it does show many derived hominoid features, including a marked median anterior capsular ligament tubercule." So although it was listed among fossils deemed to be A.anamensis, there was reference to a prior evalution that it was "human-like". Is that notation misrepresented?

The following year a second paper reported the results of a detailed study of this and other hominid fossils as well as of apes and humans. This study showed that it was very unlikely to be human and that is the conclusion you cited (Lague and Jungers 1996) Is that conclusion misrepresented?

Sounds to me like a typical procedure of initial evaluation followed up by a more detailed study leading to a firmer conclusion. What is misrepresented?

The discovery was not made by the Leakeys, but Patterson in 1965, and his initial evaluation being that the humerus was remarkably human-like. Cremo's summation, if correct, turns the statement that the Leakey paper reasonably attributed the specimen to Australopithecus topsy-turvy. It's all in a word.

At any rate, I've no reason to assume the 1996 study has any more value than the investigations done in previous years, which have arrived at the opposite conclusion. The ugly reality here is that there is an ideological agenda behind each of these conclusions:

Since Talk.Origins' cited source post-dates Bones of Contention this makes the claim at worst out of date. However, Talk.Origins implies that Lubenow based his conclusion that KP 271 is human on a visual inspection only, when he actually based it on three anatomical studies, one of which used the same method as Talk.Origins' source.

One reason why Talk.Origins' source could be in error is that it is most likely that these studies used replicas and not the actual bones. Molds tend to become less accurate as they are used, so Talk.Origins' source may have been using replicas that were less accurate than those used by Lubenow's sources. The accuracy of Lubenow's sources are supported by their agreement.

http://creationwiki.org/KP_271_(a_fossil_humerus)_was_human_(Talk.Origins)

 

[gluadys]

The discovery was not made by the Leakeys, but Patterson in 1965,

OK that was not clear either from what you cited or the talkorigins page. So by placing this humerus with fossils they deemed to be australopithecine, Maeve Leakey, et al were signalling a disagreement with Patterson.

and his initial evaluation being that the humerus belonged to a human. Cremo's summation, if correct, turns the statement that the Leakey paper reasonably attributed the specimen to Australopithecus topsy-turvy. It's all in a word.

No, it means Cremo is incorrect in saying that the Leakey's "reasonably attributed the specimen to Australopithecus " That was the conclusion of Lague and Jungers paper in 1996.

The quote you copied is from that paper, not the 1995 Leakey paper.

At any rate, I've no reason to assume the 1996 study has any more value than the investigations done in previous years, which have arrived at the opposite conclusion.

Maybe you would if you read the 1996 paper. Apparently the Leakeys never did a definitive study. Did Pattterson? And how do the 1965 methods of study compare with the methods of 1996?