The Church supports the concept of guided evolution, which is also what the scientific evidence supports, so indeed Christianity and science are one on this issue. It's the Creationists and the Darwinists who cannot be reconciled with either science or Revelation.

Literal Creationism is evolutionary, though not Darwinist. Darwinism denies guidance.

Nihilist Darwinism as proclaimed by the likes of Richard Dawkins and ignorant Fundy Creationism can never be reconciled. But the RCC has done an admirable job of reconciling evolution with faith.

Guided evolution? What scientific evidence supports it?

The same evidence that supports all church doctrine.

Robert:

That it ended where God said it would.

Anon:

Sure, evolution's easy. It's Darwinism that's impossible.

Robert:

Haven't you heard? Even Jeff Guinn is now talking how religion and darwinism are perfectly compatible and citing the Vatican in support.

"Mr. Duquette...party of one...your table is ready."

Robert - That we've found no instance in which obeying Biblical morality doesn't lead to better health - just as God said it would. If human nature were determined by random processes, then killing babies for their spare parts, having promiscuous sex, nurturing anger, and other illicit activities would improve our health.

Instead of leading to riots in the streets of Paris & Lyons....

Peter:

You have taken my comment entirely out of context, and in the process twisted its meaning completely beyond recognition. (Context: ID/Cretionism. Meaning: The RCC insists that the findings of science need to be taken into account, or religion risks becoming reactionary fundamentalism.)

PJ:
So, in other words, you are saying that Biblical morality is wholly materialistic?

Your second sentence makes not the tiniest bit of sense.

God started the process off and then left it alone. He either knew or didn't know how it would pan out.

God guides evolution but has disguised it so that it looks exactly like it is random and unguided.

God doesn't guide evolution, but wants it to go a certain way, and it happens to go the way he wants, so he's 'cheering it on' like a sports fan.

There are 3 ways to make Darwinism compatible with God.

Brit:

Yes, and all of them imply perfect understanding of the Divine Will and intimate knowledge of every aspect of natural history. From the species that can't call the weather accurately or understand its own children.

Peter:

Have you concluded all claims to knowing divine will are specious?

BTW -- nothing Brit says requires anything more than barely approximate understanding of Divine Will.

And everything Brit has suggested is far friendlier to Christianity than anything ID/Creationism has to offer.

Yet another example of irony being the driving force of the universe.

Although Peter is right - none of them are very convincing. Which is why I don't believe that God has anything to do with evolution.

Brit:

Yes, that gets the Darwinist off the hook, by rejecting Darwinism. At which point even you 13%ers have to advocate I.D. in schools.

You've lost me, OJ.

That's as good an example of a non sequitor as one is likely to find anywhere.

Brit, did you happen to hear about the outcome of the Dover, PA school board elections?

Jeff: you mean this?

God bless America.

Brit:

Exactly.

"Guided evolution? What scientific evidence supports it?"

"That it ended where God said it would."

Did God say this before or after the fact? Because saying something will end where it will end after the fact is not much of an accomplishment. (And no, OJ, that's not what evolutionary biologists do, in case you're confused about that.)

"That we've found no instance in which obeying Biblical morality doesn't lead to better health - just as God said it would."

What a coincidence that the word of God would reach the same point as the societal concensus of what works best for the survival of the population.

In the beginning was the Word.

The societal consensus is that amorality works best, as abortion and the like. Of course, it's wrong.

"In the beginning was the Word."

And was the word that all of this would end up with homo sapiens?

"The societal consensus is that amorality works best, as abortion and the like. Of course, it's wrong."

If the societal consensus were indeed that amorality worked best, we'd have no laws against murder, theft etc. Of course, you're wrong.

Jeff, Brit,

I've pointed out before to Orrin that Americans have a pragmatic view about 'teaching the controversysignificant majority (close to 70%) do want creationism taught as science in science classes.

The recent school board election results in Dover also show this.

No, just beings in His Image.

When did God say this?

Fairly late in the evolutionary process that He describes in Genesis:

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

http://www.bartleby.com/108/01/1.html

I take it then, from the course of this thread, that this is what you propose as the 'scientific evidence' for guided evolution. It is of course nothing of the sort, and I'm guessing you can't point to any such scientific evidence.

Really, Orrin, it's perfectly fine to accept and respect science as science and scripture as scripture.

And as has been pointed out to you before, an undefined single magic step from dust to homo sapiens can not be described as 'evolutionary', even less so if you're pretending these 'days' are meant to be taken literally. (For which there is no scientific evidence, but plenty against.)

No, that's the biblical statement of Creationism.

By the way, who do you think God was talking to? Doesn't sound like he was alone: "Let us make man in our image..." Maybe he had some other intelligent designers staying over.

So did you have any scientific evidence to support guided evolution or not? Because from the thread above it sure looks like that's where you were going with this:

"Guided evolution? What scientific evidence supports it?"

"That it ended where God said it would."

Yes, God seems unlikely to be a singularity beyond our Universe, only within.

That we've found no instance in which obeying Biblical morality doesn't lead to better health - just as God said it would. If human nature were determined by random processes, then killing babies for their spare parts, having promiscuous sex, nurturing anger, and other illicit activities would improve our health.

You really don't understand the ToE, PJ. The only part that randomness plays in evolution is in generating genetic mutations. The process of selection, which acts upon those mutations, is not random, but adaptive. Behaviors that destroy health are not adaptive, they don't help the species survive.

"That we've found no instance in which obeying Biblical morality doesn't lead to better health - just as God said it would."

Interestingly, Biblical morality says absolutely nothing about keeping human waste and drinking water strictly separated. Nor does the Bible ever suggest boiling water before drinking.

It is hard to imagine two things that could have more easily led to better health, but are conspicuous by their absence from the Bible.

Odd that God wouldn't know the germ theory of disease.

Robert:

And you don't understand its failure--there is no survival pressure. Mutations happen. It doesn't matter whether they're helpful or not.

"Mr. Duquette...party of one...your table is ready."

Peter, always being right is a lonely state of affairs.

In what way is survival pressure varying according to circumstances a failure of the theory of evolution?

"Yes, God seems unlikely to be a singularity beyond our Universe, only within."

Was this in response to something I posted? Because it comes across like a non-sequitur.

Jeff:

Always the mere materialist. Morality is about the health of your soul.

But cleanliness is next to godliness.

creeper:

Without survival pressure there is no such thing as natural selection.

OJ:

Always the obscurantist. Please re-read the original quote. Biblical morality did not lead to better health.

God could have saved those lucky enough to be born into Judeo-Christianity a horrendous amount of easily avoidable suffering and death.

It is truly odd that it took rational inquiry to make up for that absence, made all the more conspicuous by fussy dietary rules.

Which you have lauded contributing to physical health.

OJ:

Climate change and continental drift -- perhaps you have heard of it -- ensure ongoing survival pressure, providing plenty of material for natural selection.

Orrin,

"Without survival pressure there is no such thing as natural selection."

Are you trying to say that there is no such thing as survival pressure?

No. I said it.

Well, you said "there's no survival pressure", which I'm guessing is an allusion to human beings in the present day having comparatively little survival pressure placed on them.

Are you saying there is not and has never been such a thing as survival pressure? That any organism dropped in any environment will thrive just the same?

No. I'm saying that there is no survival pressure such that natural selectes amongst the myriad mutations within species.

"I'm saying that there is no survival pressure such that natural selectes amongst the myriad mutations within species."

So there is survival pressure, and has been... but it's just not the kind that natural selection requires? Is that what you're trying to say?

Could you expand on this? Because I have to say you're not really making yourself clear, and it sounds like one of those "nature stops at the edge of the solar system" type claims.

On the other hand... you don't have to pursue this, Orrin. If you're intending it as humor, it doesn't quite hit the mark, and if you're being serious, you won't be able to back it up with anything anyway.

No, you've got it: there is no survival pressure such that nature selects amongst the myriad mutations within species.

"there is no survival pressure such that nature selects amongst the myriad mutations within species"

So you are making the claim that survival pressure doesn't exist - that any organism dropped in any environment along with any other competing organisms will thrive exactly the same. By saying that nature doesn't select among mutations within species, you're saying that no matter how advantageous or disadvantageous each mutation may be, all will have the exact same chance of survival.

"there is no survival pressure such that nature selects amongst the myriad mutations within species"

So, OJ, you deny that continental drift occurred?

And that continental drift doesn't impose a changing environment on terrestrial life?

And that a changing environment doesn't impose survival pressure?

Jeff: Exactly. Survival pressure is so minimal as to be completely ignorable, especially when we're speaking of mutations from already existing creatures.

We've long since disposed of this continental drift fascination you have by identifying a single creature that lives on all continents and in all climates.

Also, you all are again falling implicitly into the classic twin Darwinian traps of teleology and of assuming the existence of some feedback mechanism from survival pressure to mutation.

This isn't even controversial among actual biologists is it?

OJ: I had thought so. Isn't that what makes the modern synthesis modern and synthetic?

Jeff: Maybe we'd be better making a related but slightly different point. Survival pressure, to the extent that it exists, tends to promote stasis rather than change.

David:

Huh?

All parcels of Earth's surface have transited all climatological zones. In the process, plate tectonics has broken them up along the way, ensuring (where developing terrrain hadn't already) isolating breeding populations.

For those who aren't under a self-imposed zip code rule, it is readily apparent that essentially all (but one)forms of life are very climatologically specific -- prolonged change in climate, far from minimal, is fundamental.

That a particular creature developed clothing is the exception that proves the rule. Take away clothes and see how specific humans get.

Also, you need to demonstrate how asserting continental drift is a prime contributor to survival pressure has even the first thing to do with teleology, or implies some feedback mechanism between geology and mutation.

OJ:

No, it isn't. All biologists accept that plate tectonics, for the reasons I cite above, plays a signficant role in evolution.

Perhaps either of you can suggest, given that all land masses have transited essentially all available climates, and how climatologically specific all life is, how it is there is any terrestrial life at all?

Jeff: Yes, if we can start ignoring inconvenient adaptations, the whole project becomes easier. But there isn't just one such creature; there are bacterias and, if we consider them alive, viruses and mites, etc., that exist on all the continents. If we're willing to ignore Antarctica as a special case, then there are any number of animals that exist in all climates that have not invented clothes. Bears, for example, are everywhere.

These theories are teleological because they start by assuming things as they are and the truth of Darwinism, and then work their way backward.

Strong natural selection theory requires an implicit feedback loop because it has to explain how random mutations repeatedly come up with solutions to specific threats to survival. Again, we come back to the drug-resistant bacteria, which Darwinists insist are "created" by the threat from antibiotics. This leads to the applied Darwinist fantasy that designer selection pressures can drive evolution: if we shoot all the babies without ESP, we can create ESP in babies.

All there is is survival. Fitness has nothing to do with it, except tautologically.

David:

Actually, bears aren't everywhere. (Australia, for instance; Africa for another; and, although I am less certain here, South America for a third) and they most certainly don't exist in all climates. And where they do exist, they are climatologically specific. Polar bears would never make it in Idaho, nor would grizzlies survive a season in the Arctic.

You have used this approach to teleology before, and I still don't understand it.

There is nothing teleological about the fact of plate tectonics, nor the fact that because of it, populations become isolated in a myriad of ways.

And there is nothing teleological about the observations that all isolated populations diverge, and that all species (not families, or genuses, etc -- your responses sometimes conflate the various levels of the Linnean classification) are climatologically specific.

As well, there is nothing teleological about the fact that life is recursive -- there is your strong feedback loop -- and that mutations exist.

Your assertion that "random mutations repeatedly come up with solutions to specific threats" is simply wrong. Randomness is just that, and nothing more -- it is a component part of what is effectively a Monte Carlo simulation.

Unless, of course, you wish to maintain that mutations (or simple gaussian distribution), in the presence of a changing climate, can never provide a survival advantage inheritable by the next generation.

It would be teleological to insist evolution would produce bears, or humans, or any other particular thing.

What is teleological is to insist that a recursive system that includes variation does not have all the requirements to self-adapt to changing circumstances, and that some external agent is required to produce the adaptation.