Does anybody else believe in God and evolution?
I believe in God, the Big Bang and evolution. I'm a theistic evolutionist.
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The Catholic Church holds that they can all be reconciled. I don't really buy it, but eh. Also, about 60% of the American population believes in evolution and something over 70% believe in standard religions. So there has to be a lot of overlap there.
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
"The Catholic Church holds that they can all be reconciled"
The catholic church is, of course, being deceptive in that claim.
They refer to 'evolution', but they never refer to the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.
The idea of evolution has been around for centuries, but the concept of Natural Selection is the piece of brilliance that Darwin brought to bear (well, that and a mountain of evidence which he painstakingly gathered over decades)
Additionally, the catholic church completely rejects the evidence that humans, like all other plants and animals, have evolved. They ring-fence humans, claiming that humans alone have not been part of the evolutionary process.
They do that because human evolution removes the myth of Adam and Eve. Without that myth, there's no 'original sin'. Without original sin, there's no need for Jesus. Without a need for Jesus, there's no point to the catholic church.
The catholic church is, of course, being deceptive in that claim.
They refer to 'evolution', but they never refer to the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.
The idea of evolution has been around for centuries, but the concept of Natural Selection is the piece of brilliance that Darwin brought to bear (well, that and a mountain of evidence which he painstakingly gathered over decades)
Additionally, the catholic church completely rejects the evidence that humans, like all other plants and animals, have evolved. They ring-fence humans, claiming that humans alone have not been part of the evolutionary process.
They do that because human evolution removes the myth of Adam and Eve. Without that myth, there's no 'original sin'. Without original sin, there's no need for Jesus. Without a need for Jesus, there's no point to the catholic church.
You're not wrong. I was simply giving them their due. They do accept that even Darwinism can be correct up to a point, but they also adopt a special creation view of humans.
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
Yes indeed, and that point beyond which they dare not go is Natural Selection, because that is the mechanism of evolution... so there's absolutely no need for magical entities to be involved.
They realise that the game is up, and from this point on they're just going to milk their scam for as long as possible before they have to switch off the lights. To that end, they bandy around 'evolution' in a desperate attempt to avoid spooking the herd, by making it look like there's no problem.
In fact, the problem is catastrophic and fatal.
They realise that the game is up, and from this point on they're just going to milk their scam for as long as possible before they have to switch off the lights. To that end, they bandy around 'evolution' in a desperate attempt to avoid spooking the herd, by making it look like there's no problem.
In fact, the problem is catastrophic and fatal.
Again, I have seen some talk about natural selection - up to a point. That point again being humans. It's better than the picture you paint, but still flawed. Unfortunately, a lot of left-leaning people take an equally special creationist view of homo sapiens, insisting either that races don't exist or adaptationism is false or cultural evolution nullifies genetics. I don't see a lot of good ideological alternatives on offer, even among biologists themselves.
newjaninev2 · 56-60, F
Well, there's no genetic basis for the concept of race. Any randomly assembled group of members of a race will have as much inter-group genetic variation than any similar-size group of humans gathered from all over the world... and just as many identical alleles.
There's only one race... the human race.
It seems to me that what is commonly attributed to 'race' is in fact culture. We see enormous differences in behaviours, attitudes, beliefs, styles, etc between one group and another group, and attribute those differences to skin colour, eye shape, etc. In such cases, we're merely making simplistic associations between what people do and how people look. From there, confirmation bias is away and running.
If we control for cultural factors, the behaviours and attitudes of all humans suddenly become homogeneous.
There's only one race... the human race.
It seems to me that what is commonly attributed to 'race' is in fact culture. We see enormous differences in behaviours, attitudes, beliefs, styles, etc between one group and another group, and attribute those differences to skin colour, eye shape, etc. In such cases, we're merely making simplistic associations between what people do and how people look. From there, confirmation bias is away and running.
If we control for cultural factors, the behaviours and attitudes of all humans suddenly become homogeneous.
My point in a nutshell. The denial of heritably clustered alleles in favor of asserting 19th Century ideas only to deny them is just empty. The fact that the ceiling and floor in variation for an African is roughly the same as the ceiling or floor for a European doesn't mean the means are the same, and denying that is obtuse.