Reader Sigmund scours the news like a bloodhound, looking for the foibles of accommodationists. He’s exposed many of the inanities of BioLogos, and here turns his sights on the Clergy Letter Project, in which various churches write letters testifying to their acceptance of evolution. Note that in his discussion of Catholicism below, Martin didn’t mention that besides accepting Adam and Eve, the official Catholic position on evolution is that, unlike other animals, the appearance of humans involved God’s insertion of a soul somewhere into our being.
I couldn’t resist interpolating a few notes into Sigmund’s piece (they’re in brackets and labelled “JAC”).
___________________
Director of the Clergy Letter Project says Christians aren’t to blame for opposition to evolution
by Sigmund
In contrast to many issues in science, the level of acceptance of the theory of evolution varies widely between the developed nations. The reason for the variation is a matter of some debate but, for accommodationists at least, the answer cannot be religion.
We heard reently that South Korea is experiencing a creationist-led attempt to purge evolution from its school biology textbooks (this was highlighted by Nature and previously featured on WEIT). Those reports included a quote from Joonghwan Jeon, an evolutionary psychologist at Kyung Hee University. Jeon suggested that the current opposition to evolution is “due to strong Christianity in the country”, referring to moves by evangelical Christian groups within Korea (apparently, they haven’t received the non-aggression pact memo from Robert Wright) to hinder the teaching of evolution in that nation.
Unfortunately, Jeon’s words have fallen foul of Michael Zimmerman, the director of the accommodationist Clergy Letter Project. Writing in a piece in the Huffington Post entitled ‘Creationism expansion will level the playing field’, Zimmerman asserts:
“Christianity is not the problem either in South Korea or in the United States. Most Christian denominations, in fact, have doctrinal statements that are fully supportive of evolution. As biologist Joel Martin shows in the first chapter of his wonderful book “The Prism and the Rainbow: A Christian Explains Why Evolution Is Not a Threat,” “acceptance of evolution is a majority, and not a minority, view among Christians.”
It’s difficult, however, to find evidence supporting these two claims from Zimmerman. Christianity consists of many factions, with some estimates suggesting over 30,000 separate denominations. Are we really to believe that the majority of these, many of which are evangelical or fundamentalist churches, have “doctrinal statements that are fully supportive of evolution”? [JAC: But who, then, is to blame for the anti-evolution “problem” in Korea? And do note that the Clergy Letter Project is not a collection of official statements of denominations, but a letter stating the views of individual various pastors, preachers, rabbis, and so on.]
But let’s put the term “most Christian denominations” down as mere hyperbole and examine the rest of the first claim. Again we find a major flaw in Zimmerman’s argument.
The term “fully” implies a level of acceptance of evolution that is comparable to the acceptance of other major scientific theories, e.g., gravity or the “germ theory” of disease.
Remove the word “fully” and Zimmerman has a partial, if somewhat empty point – for instance many creationists are supportive of elements of evolutionary theory, such as the microevolution of antibiotic resistance, while discounting the rest.
Zimmerman’s accommodationist apologetics may, however, provide an unintended but useful test for religious acceptance of evolution. Perhaps the term “fully” is a necessary caveat when describing a denomination’s approach to evolution. To be fully accepting of a theory should not simply mean a religion states that they accept the theory. It also means that they do not teach as fact doctrines that are contradictory to the same theory.
Even denominations that take a non-literalist view of scripture and have an official line not directly opposed to evolution – like the Roman Catholic Church – cannot be said to be fully supportive of the theory when they assert as fact elements of the bible that contradict the physical evidence that supports evolution. Claiming that you support evolutionary theory while simultaneously insisting that Adam and Eve must have been a real couple who were ancestors to everyone on Earth is like accepting that the Sun is the centre of the solar system while still maintaining that everything in the universe revolves around the Earth! The official position of the Catholic Church on the question of human evolution, as detailed in the papal encyclical Humani Generis, explicitly rejects the idea of polygenism – the descent of the human race from a pool of ancestors:
“it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.”
Whether the Catholic Church will eventually come around to accepting the crushing evidence of modern genomics regarding polygenism is an open question (did Jesus die for a metaphor?), but at present they do not. For now, at least, the largest Christian denomination is not “fully accepting of evolution”. [JAC: note that accepting “God-guided evolution” as many Catholics or other religious people do, is not “fully” accepting of modern evolutionary theory]
As for the claim that “full” acceptance of evolution is a majority and not a minority view among Christians, we can only point to opinion polls that show Zimmerman is simply wrong. A Pew Foundation poll from 2006 showed only 25% of US Catholics believed that humans have evolved over time through natural selection. This compares to 31% of mainline Protestants, and, horrifyingly, just 6% and 8% of white and black Evangelicals respectively. And it gets worse. The 2011 Pew Forum poll of Evangelical leaders, those who might be expected to have a more accurate understanding of their own churches’ doctrines on this issue, shows a figure of just 3% who accept natural evolution.
Zimmerman may be correct that the anti-evolution movement in South Korea derives mainly from fundamentalist denominations of Christianity rather than mainstream groups like Catholicism. The failure of such mainstream groups to fully accept evolution, however, renders them weak as defenders of the teaching of evolution, particularly in the presence of a determined religious assault.
If Zimmerman is really serious about strengthening the teaching of evolution from religious attack, it would make more sense for him to rewrite the dreadful Clergy Letter such that it states something concrete in support of evolution – for example: “Humans and other living things have evolved over time due to natural processes such as natural selection”, rather than the dreadful mishmash of deepities and theology that marks the current version. As someone familiar to him once said, “When we permit theology to define our science, we end up with gibberish, but not even consistent gibberish”.
This is why they’re so stuffed. Adam and Eve has to be true otherwise the whole Jesus story, even on their own terms, is completely pointless.
You can dump pretty much everything and still remain a Christian: literal creation myth, the existence of hell, even the virgin birth. But you cannot jettison Jesus died for our sins and rose again.
Descent from a pool of ancestors = no Adam = no original sin = no point in Jesus.
But that is precisely what a full acceptance of the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection entails.
Most importantly of all, this is true regardless of demonination and regardless of whether they’re liberal or fundamentalist literalists. There is no branch of Christianity in which you can hide from this – at least not without ceasing to be a Christian in any remotely recognisable form.
No, original sin is not necessary anymore in the belief system of Christians today. Many Christians have no problem with evolution and that there was no literal Adam and Eve. Of the things you listed that can be dumped, I would say the existence of hell is actually a pretty important thing. Jesus is seen as the way to heaven (and avoid hell) – that’s the critical thing. You can take away original sin, or virgin birth, or even literal bodily resurrection, and that won’t necessarily demolish Christian eschatology.
What would demolish Christian eschatology is the non-existence of immaterial souls. The Catholic church recognizes this in conceding that evolution can be true for our physical bodies but insisting doctrinally that God inserts our souls individually. They don’t even care about individual creation of other animals or other life, just humans, and not even individual creation of our physical bodies, just the creation of souls.
“No, original sin is not necessary anymore in the belief system of Christians today.”
That may be true of some Christians, but Catholic theology still includes original sin, and so do most of the mainstream American protestant denominations.
And all of the evangelicals.
I was including them in “mainstream American protestant denominations”.
There’s a term–“mainline Protestants”–for more liberal denominations that definitely do *not* include evangelicals or fundies.
Official theology needs to have that doctrine for some consistency with tradition. But to the average person in the pew that’s irrelevant to Jesus being the way to heaven after death.
If the ‘average person in the pew’ is the benchmark then we can just give up discussion right away, if it makes them feel good and part of a community then its fine.
The discussion here is about the offical doctrines of Christianity. All three monotheisms agree on the existence of an immaterial soul. Christianity’s unique contribution is that Jesus is God and that he died for our – read Adam’s – sin, and was then resurected.
I may be colossally in error here, but as far as I understand it the resurrection is the one non-negotiable in Christianity.
Around here, DV is on the money what the lutherans believe:
“2008-04-15 21:50:24
Did Adam and Eve existed?
–
response
Hello!
I’m not literal believers in that way. Adam means “man” just like Eve. My interpretation of the Bible is more about the creation story to tell you that God created man, male and female. Adam and Eve is thus more to me that God created man, not so much that they have been as individuals.
Lars Johansson, vicar of the parish Caroli”
“2011-10-24 02:29:05
Why Jesus?
…
response
Hi
At the end of said second century Irenaeus Bishop in Lyon, one of his writings that when God creates man He has the image of Christ before them. Such was the man meant to be. Jesus is the Son of God Saviour of the world. He is our model and guide in life.
Ulf Andersson priest in Borås”
“2011-06-25 23:59:56
What to believe?
…
response
Hi
I agree with what you write that it can be confusing to live in a modern society where religion is no longer a given. I as a Christian believes that belief in God is an important aspect of our lives. It gives me and many others joy and comfort. I see God as a friend I can always turn to. … We need something that is durable and resistant to, someone who never deviate from our side.
…
Ulf Andersson priest in Borås”
And so on. You can read that for modern priests Adam and Eve are metaphors for (likely soul) creation, Jesus is an ideal (not necessarily existing), God is a transitive friend (which you can equivocate existence of), the lutheran texts can’t be read “in the same way through” since it is 66 books and many more writers, and eternal life is primary.
As someone noted a few years back, if and when evolution is strongly accepted, neuroscience will be the last holdout for creationists. The soul and its promise of eternal life is more important for token christians than figures like “Jesus” and “God”.
I forgot: run through Google translate, just editing a few errors.
The discussion is not really the official doctrines of Christianity. The original poster said:
“You can dump pretty much everything and still remain a Christian” and the discussion has been what can you dump.
Many people self-identify as Christian even when they don’t adhere to official doctrines.
Most self-proclaimed “Christians” have not read the whole bible, and wouldn’t understand it even if they did. They rely on what their pastor says, or on what they hear from other christians, or on what is said in books other than the bible, or on what is said on websites, or on what is said by TV preachers, or on some other very selective and biased interpretation.
Most christians also don’t really think through the doctrines/foundations/particulars of their religious beliefs. Even if science (or just common sense) shows beyond any reasonable doubt that something in christianity (or other religion) is bullshit, the ‘faithful’ will still believe and will find ways to ignore evidence and reality.
christianity, like most or all religions, is like a drug, a feel-good drug, a feel-special drug, a feel-superior drug, a drug that helps block out the fears, pain, anxiety, depression, unknowns, and other ‘negatives’ of life, and death. It doesn’t really matter if the doctrine/foundation/particulars of a religion, whether “official” or otherwise, are true or not because the ‘faithful’ don’t really care about facts or evidence. They just want to feel good, and self-righteous of course.
What better drug could there be than one that promises the favors and protection of a god, and eternal life, if you just swallow it whole? Religion, like whiskey or cocaine, makes people feel ten feet tall and bulletproof.
Science, and common sense, has already shown that adam and ever are nonsense and that the so-called resurrection, the ark/flood, miracles, 900 year life spans, a talking snake, and other claims in the bible are fairy tales conjured up by ignorant, superstitious barbarians but the ‘faithful’ just keep going and going and going anyway. They NEED religion, like a junky needs a drug fix or an alcoholic needs a drink. It’s their crutch.
To quote MST3000: “That is some weird theology.” And what seminary did you study theology at? Me? St Mary’s in Houston, TX. It’s where I did the theo part of my phil and theo grad program. OK, let me break this down from you:
Christian eschatology is dependent of the concept of original sin. Without original sin, there is not need for salvation. Original sin is simply the loss of original integrity by the first moral human beings that has alienated humans from their own moral nature and thus from God. In order to restore us to our original moral integrity, God first gave humankind the Mosaic covenant and then by Jesus’ death and resurrection. That’s the theology. That’s Christian dogma. A teaching is called dogma in Christianity when it’s a teachings that 1) can’t change and 2) necessary for the Christian to believe in for her or his salvation.
What has changed in Catholicism, Orthodoxism and many Protestant denominations is how we see these first moral human beings. Vatican II states it is acceptable for Catholics believe that the myth of Adam and Eve represent a community of the first moral human beings. (And yes, in theology circles, calling the Genesis myth a myth is OK because they understand the difference between a myth that relates truths and historical accounts that relates facts). Strict Biblical fundamentalist reject this, of course, insisting that the Bible is infallible as a divinely guided factual account of history, and not just a human-written literary collection that conveys truths about humankind’s relationship with God, which is how the Bible in interpreted today by most non-fundie Christians, including Catholics, Orthodoxs and mainstream Protestants.
But back to this idea of community of the first moral human beings: this is where evolution complements Christianity, because nowhere does any Christian denomination that is open to this understanding of the Genesis myth insist on how the first moral human beings came to be. This is not a matter of theology and many theologians are happy to leave that to science. Evolution has often be cited as an perfectly compatible theory with how humans went from non-rational hominids to humans capable of moral choices–and with that, bad moral choices. i.e. “original sin”. It’s only once human evolve the capacity for making moral choices that theology has anything to legitimately say and any theologian worth her or his salt knows that. In other word, unless we have that ability to “fall”, i.e. make bad moral choices, there’s nothing Christian theology has to say. So yes, original sin? Still a big deal.
As for immaterial souls–eh. No. You need to study up on your Aquinas. Christianity has struggled with dualism–the idea that we are a soul with a body–and since Aquinas, it has largely regarded it as false, if not heretical. Why? Because as Aquinas pointed out, whatever our souls are, it’s clear we need our bodies to act out our souls’ will. That’s why the bodily resurrection is part of the Nicene Creed, although it wouldn’t be until Aquinas until the Church was able to theologize this effectively. Up until Aquinas, the best they could do was say the body was part of God’s creation and therefore a good as worthy as our souls. But Aquinas deduced that the soul really cannot exist without the body. The “esse” or the heart of our being isn’t our souls–it’s our ability to act out our will, and for that we need our bodies as much as a “soul.” So if science were to prove that the soul is nothing more than physical processes within the physical body, Christianity theology would actually be able to corporate that. For realz, peeps. Aquinas made it possible. Did I blow your cognitive biases against religion? I sincerely hope so.
Speaking of cognitive biases: now whether ordinary people, including supposed “rationalists”, can get past their culturally indoctrinated habitual thinking about us being dualistic beings of a soul in a body, that’s another story. But don’t blame religion–or theology–for such cognitive biases. That itself is a cognitive bias. (Also, I suggest the guest author of this article take time to contemplate that too–what’s religion and what’s actually cognitive bias that stems from experiences that are predicative to religion, religious understanding and religious education.)
BTW, I’m not religious per se. I’m agnostic. I just was able to put aside my own cognitive biases so to allow myself to study religion before being critical of it. I highly recommend that methodology.
Was all that nonsense supposed to make your interpretation of Catholicism sound more rational than biblical literalism? Because it had the opposite effect.
You did not blow any of my biases about theology out of the water, you merely confirmed them.
Yeah, as soon as I read the bit about evolution being a majority view among Christians, my reaction was “Pants on fire!” Even if you take the most expansive definition — even if you count people who believe in a distinctly god-guided evolution with a hominid population bottleneck of size 2 corresponding to Adam and Eve, you still can’t make that claim, at least not in the US. And I believe (though I may be wrong) that the numbers would be even worse globally.
Indeed, evolution by supernatural selection does not quite count as agreeing with the scientific consensus.
Sharp!
And the mindless creation of mind from mindless matter doesn’t quite agree with the Abrahamic consensus.
Procrustean bed of iron, accommodate!
I attended an all female Catholic high school in the late sixties. The day the science teacher began teaching evolution, he was a little nervous. He prefaced the lesson by telling the class that he was allowed to teach evolution as long as he made it very clear that God interrupted our evolution to insert a soul.
I wish I could remember what I thought/felt about that piece of information, but, unfortunately, my memory is altered by what I know now and by how I feel about inserting religion into science instruction. Bah humbug.
Catholic biology teacher: “And that, my child, is why you have a belly button. That’s where God put in your soul when he was creating you. Oh, and it happened at the very instant of conception, so that’s why were so hung up on that point.”
Apparently despite the fact that the ‘belly button’ didn’t form until much later…
So, therefore Adam and Eve did have belly buttons?
Sophisticated theologians are working on this vexing problem even as we speak.
at the United States Navel Academy
@ Umbilicus, MD.
/@
And angels!? Or maybe they don’t have souls?
I wonder if they’ll ever realise that doctrinal statements are the problem to begin with.
Like John Lennon said… Imagine.
I wouldn’t bother getting into an argument with Zimmerman about numbers (of either people who believe x or sects with doctrinal statements that say x).
Rather, I’d point out that he is attacking a straw man. Nobody is saying Christianity or even religion is a sufficient cause for rejecting evolution. Nobody is drawing a 1:1 ratio or making a lock-step causal argument that religion leads to rejection of evolution. Arguing against these positions is just attacking a straw man. What we are saying is: religion is a contributory cause to evolution rejection. In the case of creationism, religion might even come really close to being a necessary cause, a sort of uber-strong contributor.
Being able to point to some “friendly” evolution-accepting religions does nothing to refute the claim that the groups promoting rejection of evolution are predominantly religious. Religion does not necessarily lead to rejection, but rejection is almost always explained by religion.
Well put. *Very* well put.
I’m not sure that the nuance of religion/Xtianity as a contributing but not solely determinate factor is shared by all those who comment here, but it’s refreshing to see this.
I have a big problem with the notion that Catholicism isn’t a literalist, fundamentalist form of Christianity. What they are is a bunch of master rhetoricians.
Sure, they say that they don’t take the Bible literally. But, when you drill down into it, what you discover is that, basically, all they mean is that they don’t accept Ussher’s chronology.
But they still believe that there was a literal Adam and a literal Eve in a literal enchanted garden with a literal talking snake and a literal angry wizard, and that said wizard literally spoke the world into existence in literally the order literally put forth in Genesis.
And they literally believe that a literal talking plant literally on fire literally gave literal magic wand lessons to the literal reluctant hero. And that Jesus literally really was a zombie and he literally had a gaping chest wound and he literally told Thomas to literally fondle his literal intestines.
Indeed, pick any bit of absurdity in the Bible, and press a Catholic authority on it, and you’ll discover that they really do literally believe it’s literally true; they’ll just use a bit of hemming and hawing to make it sound like their belief isn’t quite as absurd as it is, and they might invent some extra-Biblical faery tales (aka midrashim) to soften the impact. The Bible, they would tell you, tells the truth and nothing but the truth, but it’s not the whole truth — how could it be?
There are non-literalist Christians out there. Damned few, but they exist. And one or two of them might be nominally Catholic. But neither Catholic dogma nor leadership nor the overwhelming majority of their membership can in any reasonable way be accurately described as “non-literalist.”
Cheers,
b&
Catholics are in fact very literalist regarding everything in the Nicene creed and other stuff recurring in their liturgy. They’ll yield on minor stuff like Jonah and the Whale, but are adamant with the J-man’s virgin birth.
All selective allegory.
Just a quibble, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if a large plurality of Catholics were nonliteralists. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the in-group distribution between literalists and non-literalists was close to the distribution in the general population.
This is a sect in which the leadership strongly opposes birth control, yet somethnig like 99% of the American laity uses it. Very clearly, there are issues on which what the Pope says is an extremely poor indicator of what American Catholics actually believe.
Another quibble: just because 99% of the American laity uses birth control, it doesn’t mean that those same people think the Vatican is wrong. It would be interesting to know how many of the Catholic laity use birth control and think that they are sinning when they do it. These folks are very into guilt.
The clergy project’s letter is notably vague & nebulous on just what their actual Christian beliefs really are. This is probably because they want the endorsement of everyone from somewhat conservative folks like Francis Collins to the wild out there folks who identify as Christian in only a philosophical way and are for practical purposes nearly atheists (John Shelby Spong).
This is somewhat euphemistically acknowledged in the opening sentence “Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement” which is not just IMO referring to the tension between literalists and liberals.
Interestingly, as early as the 15th century, there were a few Christians who proposed polygenism, including Giordano Bruno in 1591 (humanists will recall him being an early supporter of Copernicus and getting burned at the stake for heresy- though not for Copernican-related reasons).
One could list nearly a dozen other early Chrstian polygenists [ not to be confused with Mormon polygamists 🙂 ], but heck, it’s all pretty much a salvage operation. Memo: The Titanic is sinking.
Genesis, IMO, is best understood as a night-language dream (not all of it pleasant, edifying, or salutary) best left more to the province of literary critics and psychoanalysts and less so to theologians.
PS. A recent clergy-turned-atheist who has been featured recently on Richard Dawkins website sees exactly the same tensions between Christianity and the allegorization of Adam as does Ken Ham.
It amazes me how apt the faithful are to lie.
This is good and useful writing mostly, and I won’t denigrate it in general. But let’s try to use language precisely, especially when it comes to the most important points:
“..insisting that Adam and Eve must have been a real couple who were ancestors to everyone on Earth..”
Well, I know that most people who call themselves Christians believe much more than this, namely the falsehood that every ancestral line backwards from every living human passes through a single couple.
What the above states is much weaker, and is quite likely true. Namely it states that at least one ancestral line from every living human passes through a single couple. If the unfortunately named mitrochondrial Eve had only a single sex partner during her entire life, this would certainly be true, and there are weaker ways in which it could be true as well.
You’re not going to succeed in some debates if you’re not willing or able to be precise about what the evidence tells us is true.
Are you sure you’re right about that? I seem to recall reading something about our male and female last common ancestors being separated by 50,000 years. So yes all human lines go through a single male and a single female. But (1) they were never a couple and (2) they weren’t ever the only people around at the time.
Peter, I’m afraid you are very wrong about this one. You are mixing up the rather trivial point that a genetic locus, such as mitochondrial DNA, will coalesce to its most recent common ancestor. This is the ‘mitochondrial Eve’ who lived about 200,000 years ago.
But humans are a mixture of different genes that are recombined each generation. This means that every gene (and non-coding locus) will also have its own most recent common ancestor – and these ancestors will most likely not be the same as the mitochondrial Eve. For instance many of us have European or Asian ancestry and therefore have neanderthal sequences which long predate mitochondrial Eve. There is no logical reason to specifically choose the last parents who shared the MRCA mitochondrial sequences as THE ancestral couple. Why not choose any of the other genomic sequences – each of which will coalesce to a different common ancestor. Indeed you could just as easily choose another genetic locus, even those that have a much deeper history – like the ABO blood groups or the mutation in L-gulano-γ-lactone oxidase that inactivates the vitamin C pathway. Were Adam and Eve prosimians living in the jungle canopies 60 million years ago?
To ERIC as well as SIGMUND:
Firstly, as a specialist in something other than biology, pardon my non-technical language, though I’m sure only that language is actually needed here. I will be glad to be corrected, if warranted. But this point seems simple enough to not require any biological technicalities at all.
First to reply to Sigmund’s last sentence: Of course we both accept, though much remains to be done, that life began ‘uniquely’ very likely, so some ‘organism’ existed such that every ancestral line backwards from every living or deceased organism goes through some one single ‘organism’. See also below –>(“There is one point…”) on a different understanding of your last sentence, in case I misunderstood.
(Pardon the large caps below, but they are there to make clearer what I am contrasting.)
But not EVERY line backwards from every living human goes back through one single human pair, even with a very generous delineation of what is human. (Say, allow going back 300,000 years to avoid quibbles about what is human.) And that is of course what says the story of Adam and Eve dead false.
But surely it IS the case that there is a human from the past such that, for every living human, AT LEAST ONE ancestral line does go back through that individual. More particularly, you can if preferred take that line to be the M-M-M-….line, where M means mother. Now if the most recent of these individuals is not what is meant by the term “mitochondrial eve”, I will be very grateful to be corrected on that, and quite surprised and chagrined at my ignorance heretofore. I think her existence is the point that Sigmund has called trivial, perhaps because it is just mathematical or logical, other than knowing that the line did not need to go back too many generations, which would have made her non-human.
Now assuming I have not just above misunderstood the various popularizations of biology explaining mitochondrial eve, suppose that this individual female had only one mate, or at least was impregnated, certainly more than once, by only one male. Then surely normal word usage in English would agree that the statement “…Adam and Eve must have been a real couple who were ancestors to everyone on Earth…” is a true statement, as long as we name those two Adam and Eve. So it seems likely that that statement actually is true, since you can, if necessary (just in case mitochondrial Eve herself was rather promiscuous), go back further, still within mothers, or use other lines (for example, beginning M-M-F-M-F-F-F-…, or all fathers)for the same “trivial” reason. Eventually surely one of these individuals produced offspring ‘using’ only one mate. But of course the quotation above, direct from Sigmund, is much weaker than the false statement that most christians believe.
And the quoted is Sigmund’s statement which I claimed ought to be stated correctly, even if doing so requires less slick language. If my understanding of the definition of the term “mitochondrial eve” is actually faulty, or, even worse, if what seems like simple logic in the paragraph following that is actually incorrect, I will be very grateful to hear from Sigmund about that. But surely it won’t require any technicalities. Everybody can sufficiently for this understand words like “ancestor” and “human” without knowing much biology. I must admit that it may be a bunch of work for me tonight to understand completely what he did say in his reply, but it certainly appeared to come from a misunderstanding of what I was trying to say originally.
There is one point here that I trust is not the one on where Sigmund believes I seem to need correction. That hinges on the phrase “..ancestors to everyone on earth…”.
I have taken that to mean all LIVING humans. I am well aware that the individual who is crowned “mitochondrial eve” gets updated every once in a while. So the present one obviously is not an ancestor of every human who has ever lived, now or IN THE PAST. But that is nowhere near the point I think. I certainly accept that the statement ‘Adam and Eve must have been the ancestors of every human who has ever lived’ trivially cannot be true, no matter which humans are given those names, quite apart from the fact that no one is usually regarded as their own ancestor and the fact that being the ancestor of a human who lived before you tends to be difficult, barring very tightly closed time-like curves in the universe. It is a silly game in deciding what is and isn’t human to ask the question of how far into the past we can go and still be able to say correctly that all humans from then onwards have a common ancestral pair who were human.
So I think it really comes down to using quantifiers properly and referring explicitly to ancestral lines. To preach to the converted, the two admirable works by DNA people which make us sure that
(1) the Adam and Eve story is bullshit; but that
(2) present-day humans surely do have a common ancestral pair of human mates;
amount to showing (1) that bottlenecks never got down to just 2 or even 222, and (2) that mitochondrial eve, and her analogues for many specified M/F sequences did exist within the last 200,000 years or so, not way earlier. And “sure” in both statements of course really means true with prohibitively high probability since this is science, not just logic.
One other minor point where I think I did follow what Sigmund was trying to say in his reply to me: No, I did not claim that all living humans have a UNIQUE common human ancestor or ancestral pair. But, as I said above, we all do have at least one such ancestral pair of mates very likely.
And a minor point to Eric: I think your statement “…our male and female last common ancestors being separated by 50,000 years…” has to do with two entirely different lines, the F-F-F-…, (F=father) as well as the M-M-M-… referred to above. So this is not a counterexample to what I said.
At the risk of tedium (but no more tedious than the endless repetitions of the evils and stupidities of religion in these replies), I have to admit to hate being actually wrong in public, so let me add a bit. Since Sigmund and Eric have not replied to my response, I’ll take that to imply that they agree that their replies missed the point I tried to make, and then made in much tedious detail (below, I guess).
Possibly Sigmund might contend that his phrase
“..insisting that Adam and Eve must have been a real couple who were ancestors to everyone on Earth..”
was intended to refer to all humans who have EVER lived, now and in the past. In that case the criticism I made of it would be unnecessary since that would be what believers in the literal, not metaphoric, Adam and Eve actually maintain, of course as long as one adopts a sort of mathematical convention that we are all ancestors of ourselves (backward chain of parents of length zero). But, as written, it sounds a lot more to me like “everyone on Earth” refers to presently living humans, and so I’m just fussing about loose language. And even with the interpretation including all earlier humans as well, it leaves quibblers open to the diversion of how well defined is what we mean by an earlier ape being a human. For that reason, and because of the fact that this is what DNA people can actually show to be false I think, it would seem better to me to refer to backward chains of parents emanating from present day humans, every one of which is supposed to pass through a single couple, according to the seriously deluded christians.
Finally to repeat the other point: Does anyone here dispute that there did exist a HUMAN couple in the past who are ancestors of every LIVING human? I don’t think this is a big deal, but there sure seems to be a lot of fuzzy thinking about mitochondrial eve and the like, not just among fundamentalist christians.
“Does anyone here dispute that there did exist a HUMAN couple in the past who are ancestors of every LIVING human?” — If you mean a one and only one human couple, yes, I dispute that.
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If I didn’t say one AND ONLY ONE, I didn’t say it. If I said “there is a horse which is white”, it would not mean “there is one and only one horse which is white”, would it?
Take the trouble to read the whole thing, and you will find that I very nearly said explicitly the opposite: for example, apply exactly the same logic to the F(ather)-F-F-… line; conclude there is a male something or other such that that line backwards from every living human goes through ‘him’; apply the much more subtle work of DNA people to conclude that the latest and many earlier of those were actually human; apply ‘common sense’ to conclude at least some of those successfully impregnated only one female; apply really trivial logic again to have found a second pair of humans who are ancestors to every living human.
Sorry to keep repeating this, but some people need help, and it is important to give it if they are fellow atheists who are trying to help young people see the light, not see some vague, pseudo-atheist, thoughtless anti-religious fulminations, spewed out more to make them feel good than for any other reason, as far as I can make out. I’m not asking every public atheist to be a logical genius, just to take a bit of time and care thinking, before ‘mouthing’ off. This paragraph is intended for those two to whom the reply is directed, not to Sigmund.
Well, peter, what you write substitutes length for clarity. So it should not be surprising that someone would respond with “If you mean…”
Besides the fact that you are offended by something that you call “pseudo-atheists” (what the hell does that mean?) I doubt that anyone understands what you are trying to say/ask. Phrases like “apply the much more subtle work of DNA people to conclude that the latest and many earlier of those were actually human” are not meaningful strings of words.
Yes, there was a “mitochondrial Eve”, a single person from whom all living humans inherited our mitochondrial DNA. Yes, there was a “Y-Adam”, a single male ancestor for the Y chromosome in all human males. But the rest of the genome is a stew. Talking about single pairs of ancestors is not a meaningful exercise.
“what you write substitutes length for clarity”
For ‘short-attention-spam atheism and biology’, there are probably other, more suitable blogs.
“pseudo-atheists”:
Atheists who wish to go public, but haven’t thought much about what they are saying. Sorry for spelling it out only indirectly earlier.
“apply the much more subtle work of DNA people to conclude that the latest and many earlier of those were actually human”:
The logic is not particularly deep, that any fixed (potentially infinite) sequence of M’s and/or F’s, including the two sequences which are all M’s, and all F’s resp., must go back, one from all living humans to eventually all reach a single individual. The work by DNA scientists to show, for some such sequences, from the actual DNA, that this individual was almost certainly first reached less than 200,000 years ago, is much more subtle. (I hope you are still with me, despite the lengthy words and sentences. I would be grateful to you to hear that expressed, still correctly, but more briefly.)
“Yes, there was a ‘mitochondrial Eve’…. Yes, there was a ‘Y-Adam’… But the rest of the genome is a stew.”:
You are simply wrong if your claim is that there are no other analogues for other fixed sequences. The logic for the others is exactly the same. But “…is a stew” is not a model of clarity and precision, though I’ll grant you that it is a model of brevity. Tell me what your claim is, if it’s not as above.
Yes, you are confused. You should learn a bit about how gene recombination works. Your search for a pair of individuals who are ancestral to everyone alive is going to continue for a very long time.
Reply to gbjames
There existed at least one mating pair (now fix one of them) such that every human alive today is descended from that one particular pair.
This is nothing like what you just said; it is also nothing like what the story of Adam and Eve says; it seemed to me to be just what Sigmund said originally without intending to; it is true by a combination of fairly simple logic and careful DNA studies; and finally it is hard to believe that I seem to need to say it about 8 times here.
Hold on, you’re the one mouthing on about loose language, and yet you came out with an ambiguous statement like “there did exist a HUMAN couple in the past who are ancestors of every LIVING human”? Why say “a” if you meant “one or many” rather than “one and only one”?
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…because, when a person says “there is a white horse”, they are saying that there is at least one. This is the way that quantifiers are used in logic, in mathematics, in English by the educated, and in several other languages of which I am aware. Perhaps you can find a language where it is otherwise. That language is one which has never been used on this blog. And it is also one whose clever young people likely have somewhat more difficulty in learning to do logic, mathematics and theoretical science, compared to equivalently clever young people whose native language is Indo-european.
My cat has three legs.
What tragedy, you might ask, befell the poor beast that cost him one of his legs? Why, none, of course. In addition to his three legs, he also has a fourth.
So, it is technically a true statement that Baihu has three legs, but it is also plainly misleading. I would only ever state that he has three legs if it were true that he has precisely three legs. It is, in short, a lie to state that he has three legs.
This is such a fundamental property of English that even the youngest of children don’t need to have it explained to them.
Cheers,
b&
TO BEN GOREN :
“My cat has three legs.
“…What tragedy, you might ask, befell the poor beast that cost him one of his legs? Why, none, of course. In addition to his three legs, he also has a fourth.
So, it is technically a true statement that Baihu has three legs, but it is also plainly misleading…”
Yes, Ben, you are correct about that usage of English.
But that usage is an extremely poor analogue of the usage we are discussing.
I will grant you that the meaning to readers of “There is an x with properties a,b, etc.” is often clear enough using material experience and not just logic. So normal speakers sometimes interpret it as “There is one and only one x…”, and other times as “There is at least one x….”, depending on the extra experience that we all share.
“There is a white horse in this 8 foot by 2 foot barn” is an example of the first; “There is a white horse living on the surface of the earth” of the second. Every non-symbolic language is full of ambiguities.
Do you dispute that in logic and mathematics, there is never a need to explicitly express “possibly more than one” in the formal language? My impression is that the ‘backwards E’ for the existential quantifiers always means ‘at least one’, and it is preceded by an exclamation mark to state ‘exactly one’. Since my statement in dispute is scientific, and not one to which “extra experience that we all share” is very applicable, it should be clear to anyone here that it was not claiming uniqueness, quite apart from the fact that I had virtually explicitly given a recipe PROVING its non-uniqueness well before this query about uniqueness even came up.
And finally, the most recent response of gbjames, namely “…Your search for a pair of individuals who are ancestral to everyone alive is going to continue for a very long time.” can surely only be interpreted as the extraordinary claim that such a pair does not exist. (Humourously, it is the exact opposite to what he seemed to be agreeing with earlier, being a non-existence claim rather than an ‘abundant’ existence claim.)
Since you weighed in on this, I hope you will tell us whether no pairs exist; exactly one pair exists; or many pairs exist as seems obvious to me. If, as would extraordinarily surprise me, you actually opted for the first, I trust you will educate me in at least a bit of detail as to why I am wrong. But surely that won’t be necessary—I’m reasonably confident, and, after all, Sigmund, the original one I expressed some unhappiness about, has made no attempt to back up his subsequent faulty criticism.
peter: Many pairs of ancestral humans existed. In fact ALL of our human, and non-human primate ancestors, formed pairs for mating purposes at least. What exactly is your point? Please state it in three sentences or less and please leave out extraneous obnoxious attacks on other posters.
@ peter : Yes, English is such a wonderfully unambiguous language that there’s no need for people to devise languages such as lojban.
“There is a horse that has won every Kentucky Derby.” How many horses am I talking about?
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Yeah, me, too. I dispute it.
My reply to your very latest did not appear directly underneath it, so look further up.
TO ANT:
Sorry where this is appearing; cannot seem to go right under your latest. Maybe it’s only Safari that won’t show a reply button under your latest.
As a scientific statement, it asserts the existence of one or more horses who have won all the derbies. As a falsehood, it is of little interest for a reader to even consider whether uniqueness might be meant, and as a falsehood it also does not contain enough additional facts about the world to allow the reader to determine uniqueness or not.
If you said the “latest Kentucky derby”, it would again say at least one, would be true, as would the stronger statement that there is only one such horse. As I said to Ben, many persons would apply their knowledge of the meaning of “Kentucky derby” to assume the speaker meant only one here. Many others, even English speakers, would have no idea what “Kentucky derby” meant, much to the surprise of some USians, I expect.
I remain surprised that after at least twice giving an easy argument that more than one mating pair of (universal ancestors to present-day-humans) would be a fact, someone who ostensibly read the thread would wonder whether saying that a pair existed there might imply that only one pair existed, thereby volunteering to be a dissenter. If I sound irritated, it has more to do with some peoples’ unwillingness to read carefully than it has to do with English usage.
Hmm… you sure use a lot of words to say not very much.
I’m not sure how you parse that sentence to determine that there might be more than one horse, without assuming it’s ungrammatical (which it isn’t), even though it clearly cannot be factually true (no horse is so long-lived).
:-/
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I decided to resend my reply here, rather thanhave you search further up. Again my apologies for perhaps not knowing some computer stuff allowing me to reply directly underneath.
FROM gbjames
peter: Many pairs of ancestral humans existed. In fact ALL of our human, and non-human primate ancestors, formed pairs for mating purposes at least. What exactly is your point? Please state it in three sentences or less and please leave out extraneous obnoxious attacks on other posters.
MY REPLY:
There existed at least one mating pair of humans(now fix one of them) such that every human alive today is descended from that one particular pair.
This is nothing like what you just said; it is also nothing like what the story of Adam and Eve says; it seemed to me to be just what Sigmund said originally without intending to; it is true by a combination of fairly simple logic and careful DNA studies; and finally it is hard to believe that I seem to need to say it about 8 times here.
Here’s the thing… It is meaningless to talk in terms of a count of mating pairs (one or n) from which all living humans descend. I don’t think it is even theoretically possible to do so given the way genes recombine with every fertilized egg. (Except for the special cases of mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA)
So, while I realize I’m probably just inviting another snark response, I suggest you go off and study up on how gene recombination happens before resuming your quest these people. They are not findable.
Firstly, I am going to explain patiently in detail the easy argument, assuming the two dissenters accept the existence of mitochondrial eve. It is too bad this takes more than three sentences, but it does. Let me say to others that, except for those two, it is (jokingly) class dismissed, since surely nobody else needs this explained to them in painful detail, and this thread is surely boring the hell out of all the others.
Just in case one of those two might even later start quibbling about the existence of mitochondrial eve, after the first explanation, I will go through the well known argument for the existence of mitochondrial eve. But I will say clearly where that starts, so then everybody can stop reading presumably, since I don’t think either of them or anyone else here will dispute her existence.
I will lead you by the nose through the easy argument for the existence of a pair of human mates such that every presently living human has this particular pair as an ancestral pair.
To avoid misreading, the conclusion of the argument does not claim that this single pair is the only single pair with that property. But please read this carefully and note that I did not say merely there were several pairs such that each human has at least one of those as an ancestor. This is a confusion that both of you seem to be making. A single pair exists which is an ancestral pair of all presently living humans. And actually another single pair exists, ancestral to every presently living human. And yet another pair.
Again, please do not misunderstand this to be saying that there are a whole bunch of pairs such that every human has one or another of those pairs as an ancestor. That fact is trivial beyond belief, but seems to be all that the two of you are prepared to accept. Or at least with the various bizarre statements, it is the best I can make out of what you accept.
And of course do not misunderstand this as saying that this is an ancestral pair to every human who ever existed; or, somewhat weaker, that every chain of successive parents starting from living humans must go through that pair; or any other version of the bullshit story of Adam and Eve.
Here is the argument in painful detail:
Call the mother of mitochondrial eve by the name Madam (US pronunciation emphasizing the first syllable, not the second as the French do). Let the name of the father of mitochondrial eve be Steve. Then I claim that (Madam , Steve) is an ancestral pair for every human who is presently alive. To prove this, let x0 be any human alive today. Let x1 be the mother of x0. Let x2 be the mother of x1. And so on till you reach mitochondrial eve, who, for the sake of specificity, might be x18372. (That last number might very well differ for starting with different x0’s, but that makes no difference, so please don’t start fussing about that.) So there is a line backwards of immediate parents, starting with the given presently living human x0, and, with one more step, ending back with Madam, and such that Steve is the father with respect to the child x18372 (AKA mito. eve). That is the definition of Madam and Steve being an ancestral pair for x0. Since x0 may be any present day living human, therefore Madam and Steve form an ancestral pair for every present day living human.
That is one argument for the existence of such a pair. Please don’t start bitching that there are other arguments. I didn’t say it was the only argument. And to repeat, I didn’t say that Madam and Steve were the only pair. If you somehow don’t accept that argument, please respond to it specifically. It is completely consistent with everything I said previously. It is completely independent of any knowledge at all of modern biology. But the existence of mitochondrial eve does depend on modern biology. I trust that you know the difference between disputing an argument, and disputing one of the premisses in that argument.
Next let me say two somewhat word-for-word identical things which help to explain the need for mitochondrial eve (or for something analogous), to show how that fundamental premiss (or the analogous premiss) is essential:
(1) The existence of a mating pair of organisms of which all presently living humans are descendants follows almost by pure logic from what every human has known for centuries, with one small proviso: there needs to have been enough generations of sexual reproduction, or you would have to alter it slightly.
(2) The existence of a mating pair of humans of which all presently living humans are descendants is stronger, simply because the number of generations is much less, and again follows almost by pure logic from what every human has known for centuries, with one larger proviso: mitochondrial eve (or one of the analogous beings corresponding to a sequence other than M-M-M- …) must exist as a human, as I believe only modern biology, the study of DNA, can establish.
Finally, here is the mathematical argument plus empirical knowledge establishing the existence of mitochondrial eve. So maybe even you two can stop reading here, since this is well known and I believe you accept it.
Let S0 be the set of all presently living humans. Let S1 be the set of all mothers of all those in S0. Let S2 be the set of all mothers of all those in S1. And so on. These sets clearly cannot increase in size, and at first they certainly all decrease. Once the size is small enough, sometimes it may remain the same for one step, or even a few.
But until the size actually reaches just one, the non-decrease cannot continue forever. So it reaches one, and that fact Darwin would have been aware of. But he would also have realized that by that time, maybe the organism in that singleton set was not human. However, careful study of DNA shows with probability infinitesimally close to 1 that she was a human (and also approximately where she lived).
Well, peter, you have won the Horse’s Ass Award.
The existence of Mitochondrial Eve is not in question and has never been on this page. So you are have very dramatically, and with a powerful large string of verbiage, crashed through an open door. Great Grandma Mito-Eve would be proud of you.
But you still need to go learn the basics of gene recombination. Come back after some basic study of the subject.
You keep making this assertion; saying it eight times or more doesn’t make it any more correct. While it’s clear the we can trace human ancestry back to one or more individuals – such as m-Eve or Y-Adam – I still don’t see that makes it certain (i.e., undisputed) that there was one or more such pairs. Surely, we’d have to assume lifelong monogamy of the key partner? While that might be true of at least one, it ain’t necessarily so.
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The need to say it more than once came from the existence of a few people, two anyway, who misunderstood it. You seem now to believe the argument may not be correct. That needs two comments:
(1) Just above I have provided the argument in painful detail for you and gbjames, so respond to that if you still disbelieve it.
(2) After your first response here, I assumed you accepted the existence of a pair, and were complaining that I might think there was only one such pair, since I could hardly believe that anyone accepting modern biology would not accept the pair’s existence. So your present dubiousness came as a bit of a shock. Upon reflection, I am now thinking that your initial insistence on more than one pair must have instead meant that all you would accept was the existence of many pairs such that every living human is a descendant of at least one of the pairs. That of course is tautologically trivial.
In any case, your other point about mitochondrial eve needing to have only one partner is:
(1) something I had already alluded to at least twice earlier as one way to make the argument work;
(2) is clearly not necessary, since it instead could have been her mother with only one partner, or instead her mother’s mother, etc., also pointed out earlier by me;
(3) even that is not the only way, since you can use other backwards sequences such as the sequence of all fathers, again pointed out earlier;
(4) the only-one-partner argument is not the best one anyway—the Madam and Steve argument in my above response to both of you is better. But earlier I was trying not to be painful in detail, that argument needs a few extra words, and I had not realized how painful it was going to be to get through to you two.
@ peter
Oh, good grief! It’s that obvious. And so simple, in fact, that it could’ve been expressed in, say, four or five words. And much earlier in the conversation. Yet you’re so prolix and use so much of the “loose language” that you profess to despise, and so keen to insult and belittle people about whom you have no knowledge regarding their background or intellect, calling them “brain dead” but never making allowances for the possibility of fatigue or alcohol, so carried away by the joy of your own verbosity, that you completely obfuscate the point you are trying to make until finally it comes through, a light hidden under a bushel – no, a cart-load – of verbal diarrhœa.
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I might add that my original to which you objected was very brief:
“Does anyone here dispute that there did exist a HUMAN couple in the past who are ancestors of every LIVING human?”
That the earlier argument, rather than merely statement, for its existence, and simultaneously the existence of lots of other pairs, actually took more than three sentences is just one of those things that excludes some people from access. It seems better to me to give reasons, rather than just blurt opinions.
Shirley, you jest. That question was at the end of several paragraphs of prep work, most of which was reminiscent of a photo of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Now, read your second to last sentence above. The one that begins with “That the earlier…” and ends with “… some people from access.”
What exactly is that sentence saying? The reason that you are getting a lot of push-back is because you keep making convoluted and obtuse assertions that appear to mask a confused understanding of how genes are transmitted over the generations.
Please, read your comments before you click that little “Post” button.
The question asked did not depend on the previous paragraphs of that.
The meaning of my “That the earlier argument….. actually took more than three sentences is just one of those things that excludes some people from access” was meant to convey that people, such as you, who insist on only brief snippets, will not have access to quite a bit of truth, as discovered by humans. If the briefness is as little as three sentences, then even rather easy bits of truth such as the existence of pairs of mates such as we have been discussing will remain forever beyond your intellectual horizons. But surely you were joking mr. james?
I do not insist on brief snippets, I insist on clarity. Neither seem to be your particular strengths.
Short version, for XXX and gbjames:
(0) You are brain-dead.
(1) However you are not actually dead.
(2) So Mit. Eve is your ancestor.
(3) So her parents Madam and Steve are ancestral to you.
(4) Since “you” could be anyone satisfying (1), M &S are an ancestral pair to all the living humans.
Sorry, gbjames, that (1) to (4) cannot be a smaller number of sentences.
However your “…go learn the basics of gene recombination..” is a 3-sentence (your explicit preference) argument with many applications. For example
(1) Godel claims his theorem.
(2) He clearly knows no gene recombination–he died too soon.
(3) So Godel’s theorem is clearly false, and he should go away and learn the basics of gene recombination.
And another:
(1) Einstein claims SR.
(2) He knew not the structure of DNA.
(3) So Special Relativity is false, and he should go learn some modern biochemistry.
This is fun. I enjoy making analogies which put me up next to the giant intellects, so here’s yet another:
(1) Andrew Wiles claims to have finally proved Fermat’s Last Theorem.
(2) However he is clearly ignorant of continental drift, since otherwise he would not have needed to actually move to get from his position in Cambridge, U.K. to a professorship in Princeton, U.S.
(3) So FLT cannot be true, and he should go and learn some modern geology.
I know, I know. “Peter has too much time on his hands.” That is code for “Stop, cuz I’m just a 2-sentence guy.” Please don’t say it, cuz I’m actually a real sensitive guy. And besides, it’s utterly unoriginal, just like the Horse’s Ass that seems to fascinate you. I had thought this fascination held only for a small percentage, 5% or so, of male horses.
It is common as a tactic, though I hadn’t seen it on this blog before, to:
(1) Demonstrate irretrievable stupidity, or at least pretend to be exhibiting that.
(2) Thereby make it necessary to have stuff spelled out in painful detail—preferring S&M to M(adam)&S(teve).
(3) Then feign boredom to avoid the real discussion.
I’d like to give you two an out, so please, please: say you were just pretending to be stupid, not really being that.
Really, you shouldn’t call other readers stupid or brain-dead. There is simply no need for such invective and insults when we’re discussing a scientific issue.
–C.C.
First of all I’m amazed that anybody other than those two are reading still. Second of all, I’m amazed that being called a horse’s ass is acceptable, but being asked to say you were feigning stupidity is unacceptable.
Ceiling Cat is always watching you!
To the point: This is Jerry’s website and he dislikes people pissing on his carpet.
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To ANT:
It is good to finally realize
“..never making allowances for the possibility of fatigue or alcohol..”
that one need only reply to an egregious error, by you at least, as follows: ‘Now that he is rested and sober, he realizes his error, and so there is no need to publicly correct it.’
Hopeless.
Does gbjames then now accept that Madam and Steve are his ancestors?
I’m waiting for you, peter, to return from getting some basic education in gene recombination. I recognize that it will be a long wait. I have little hope that you will do so. It has relevance to your search for great grandpa and grandma of us all but you are more interested in repeating yourself endlessly and hurling insults than you are in advancing the conversation.
The squirming is becoming more and more obvious.
Like I said. Hopeless.
My question you are avoiding about your progenitors,
“Does gbjames then now accept that Madam and Steve (the parents of mitochondrial Eve) are his ancestors?”
seems to have only 3 possible answers.
(1) yes, which is of course correct, but answering that way you’d finally lose the game, but graciously finally, since the reason for that being true applies to all seven billion or so of us;
(2) don’t know, but that would imply a deficiency of intelligence which I’m sure you don’t have and don’t wish to pretend to have. (One dares not say some 6-letter word starting with “s” and ending with “d” which would shorten this!); and
(3) no, for which one is bewildered what type of advice might help cure whatever caused this nonsensical answer. Here one cannot help see the analogy with numerous apparently intelligent religiosos, who know perfectly well intellectually that they believe nonsense, but just cannot for poorly understood emotional reasons change their minds (much worse: not stop teaching vulnerable youngsters to believe the same nonsense). Of course, I am not saying our gbjames is like that, only that anyone named gbjames answering no to that question would be believing patent nonsense.
I might add that the word “hopeless” you use is here intended to be applied to a person, rather than an idea, the sort of ad hominem which Jerry seems to have no patience with. I trust that he tries to apply this type of ‘censorship’ dispassionately, just as much to yes-men as to others. I think probably an actual horse’s ass, rather than the metaphorical one you intended, would be a bit unusual to actually be hopeless.
When accomodationists say we shouldn’t blame Christianity for the the pseudoscience of creationism—which is based on a Christian interpretation of the Christian bible—I expect next to see and hear them claiming that we should blame the victims of the church who were tortured and murdered for being witches and heretics; or saying it was Bruno’s fault that he was burned at the stake by the Christian church; or that it was Galileo’s fault that he was imprisoned by the Inquisition. Okay, Bruno and Galileo could have escaped had they been silent and not offend religious leaders like the accomodationists say we should do but they would have had to ignore such unimportant things—apparently in the minds of accomodationists—like truth and science. Yes, even those Christian churches who accept some form of evolution are to blame for creationism because, as the article points out, they refuse to condemn the Young Earth Creationists. But accomodationists are apparently so terrified that someone might blame religion they can’t see that
Hi there!
I just wanted to point out that not all religious people are close minded. Prof of this, is this kind of articles (this is one of the few I could find in english) published in a latinamerican theology magazine.
http://www.servicioskoinonia.org/relat/424e.htm
So, people, inside the churches know that we are in a time of change, and change is good.
Non-accommodationists are merely observing that this isn’t enough.
The church has had millenniums to recognize that empiricists are correct and education primary, they have had centuries to recognize that evolution is correct – and they have never stood up against the fundamentalists and for science and education.
I’m sure there are non-close minded people within the religions, in fact I’m sure there have always been. And they never speak up. (In your ref, which I briefly browsed, they seem to laud “a silent confrontation of science with religion”. I may be mistaken.)
So the change isn’t much changing, seems to me.
Funny thing that. Creationists hold that a certain (mythological) account of the creation is correct and all evidence to the contrary is no more than the delusional ravings of the evilutionists.
Yet…that particular account of creation just happens to be drawn from the xtians’ very own holy scripture. Gee, that’s sorta funny. Who’d ever have thought! A miracle, by gum!
Now if you can show me, say, a group of Chinese Taoists who hold the the biblical account of creation to be The Right One, yet don’t accept any of the religious implications of the bible, then maybe I’ll come back and read more. But until then, I have one thing to say to Sigmund: pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
Christianity per se is not the problem either in South Korea or in the United States. Rather, the root of the problem appears to be in the religious but not specifically Christian attitude towards traditional doctrinal sources/understandings, elevating those over results of empirical reasoning, and favoring them in the event of apparent conflict.
It appears that to the degree such favoring of religious doctrine (or disfavoring science) occurs, there tends to be a favoring of creationism and rejection of evolution. (EG, the GSS responses on TRUSTSCI and RELTRUTH versus EVOLVED.) Essentially, the religious will only trust science up to the point where it starts contradicting religious “truths” held from the strength of tradition; and the more strongly religious tend to do hold fast to religious tradition stronger.
So, Christianity per se is not the problem; rather, it is the tendency to down-play trust in science and up-play the merit of religious truth… which is very much correlated with (but not absolutely caused by) Christianity and Christian tradition.
Not only is there a clear correlation between christianity and rejection of evolution, see the statistics, but as RFW noted just before your comment the origin of the problems can be sourced to post-semitic religions (PSR) in particular.
That other religions are far less adamant on shoring up their traditions with militancy, as it seems in practice, may be because most have much more accepting and less militant view of how to handle co-social beliefs than the atrocious PSRs.
I think it’s mostly due to a difference in attitude towards the religion’s Book — which, yes, does seem a development central to the PSRs. (PZ has an essay that makes an argument on those lines….)
I’m not a professional scholar in Religious Studies, so I don’t consider myself familiar enough with Eastern religions to discuss that comparison in depth. I suspect, however, that a comparably book-oriented eastern faith would be similarly intolerant of ideas contradicting those of their book.
That is — I don’t think it’s entirely the content, but the rigid codification that the written word facilitates.
That religion (specifically Christianity) is behind the creationism we deal with in the U.S. seems one of those “well, duh!” things to me.
However, there are atheist creationists out there, too. Not a lot of them, but I’ve had some as students. They’re just sure ancient aliens seeded planets with humanoids. I think they don’t consider our evolving from the same ancestors as maple trees and penguins to be special enough.
“the official Catholic position on evolution is that, unlike other animals, the appearance of humans involved God’s insertion of a soul somewhere into our being.”
The official materialist position appears to be that we evolved free will, even though it does not fit the theory.
Creationism is nonsensical gobbledegook of course. However, I cannot help but note that the polls referred to here are US-based, and creationism appears a largely US-based phenomenon. Here in Norway for example the theory appears far less controversial in religious circles, my own experience with missionaries, clergymen and theologians appear to support a majority support FOR the theory of evolution. Creationism is not really a part of the theological debate, though some charismatic americans are trying to bring it across from the US (May they never succeed in their folly!)
In addition I could of course point out that the literalist interpretation which creationists cling to like drowning men (or rats) is nnot and has never been a universally accepted one. It is true that some church fathers did adopt a literalist viewpoint, but one should not forget that there were others – like Origen – who considered the literalist interpretations nonsensical. Origen went so far as to say he did not think anyone would be stupid enough to read genesis literally, indicating that there was likely little to virtually no support in his environment for the literalist interpretations today embraced by americans seeking easy and simple answers.
Do not forget Africa and all places where Islam dominates. It is not just the US.
True, but I think it could be beneficial to point out this discrepancy to vocal supporters of creationism. Not only do they not have the support they claim among fellow religious people (in the west) – nor do they have the historic support they claim to have.
I suppose it will make little to no difference, their position is falsified as it is. But perhaps pointing out a few theological and historic issues might help a little?
Try this: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/evolution-comes-under-fire-in-turkeys-higher-education/258258/
Before I weigh in on the topic, let me situate myself. I am a Christian with several advanced degrees in theology (i.e., not one of those who “hasn’t read the Bible). I am also a grad student in rhetoric, where my focus is on the creationist vs. evolutionist debates; my dissertation project will be the Creation Museum. I grew up fundamentalist but now identify as a liberal Christian.
Because of my project, I probably have a more thorough grasp of the historical debate than most of you; few people are aware of the debates that happened between Darwin’s explosive work and publication in the 1860s and the Scopes trial in 1925. I think this interesting and relevant because during that time period (and for quite a bit afterward), the most stimulating intellectual debates on the subject were *not* between nonbelievers and Christians but among Christians. (Quite naturally! Few were not Christians in public American life). In other words, creationism vs. evolution began in America primarily as an *internal* religious debate. There were some amazing sermons in that time period that actually did some of the intellectual heavy lifting in bringing evolution to the attention of Americans!
I think this is notable simply to point out that there is a tradition in American Christianity of science-acceptance. That strain of thought mostly *lost* the debates; fundamentalism in America rose as a reaction to churches teaching evolution. However, for those who wish to both keep their faith and support science, there is some intellectual precedent for it. We do not have to completely chuck all of Christian history in order to do so; nor does it render our faith, as one poster would have it above, so divorced from traditional Christianity as to be meaningless in the tradition. It is perpetually frustrating that the media and American electorate would far rather highlight screaming ignorance over civilized intellectual engagement, but the intellectual engagement is *there* in the past as well as the present.
Clearly, here, I’m talking primarily about Protestants. Catholics are much more constrained by the official teachings of the RCC.
There is no excuse for the reactionary fundamentalism so dominant in American life, and there is no excuse for its denial of basic scientific understanding. I am not an apologist. I would probably go further than many of you in arguing that leaving children in fundamentalist families is tantamount to child abuse. I think most of you have likely *not* dedicated your professional lives to battling creationism, as I have.
Which brings me to this question: what do you want of Christian allies? Can there be a place for Christian allies who gladly affirm natural selection, acknowledging that the Garden of Eden is a metaphor, or is any Christian automatically accommodationist in your views?
Speaking for myself, I’d like them to explain the basis they have for picking the good parts out from the bad. I’d like them to explain how it is possible for them to believe that their particular idea of a deity is any more legitimate than those advocated by the fundamentalists. I’d like them to tell me which parts of their religion are not metaphors. I’d like them to explain why they worship a metaphorical god. I’d ask them (you) to state explicitly what specific religious facts you hold true from your holy book and why those facts deserve more respect that the talking snake does.
But, regardless of what I’d like, I’m puzzled by the fact that you are asking these questions. Evolution is an important science and it is great that you have spent your professional time countering creationists. But is that supposed to give you some kind of pass when it comes to your (presumed) belief in other nonsensical ideas?
At its best, I believe the Christian Bible is a record of people struggling to create community and find a sense of purpose in the world. As you no doubt know, theorists have detailed evolutionary reasons for human societies to form belief structures, including worship.
I find an incredible amount of wisdom in the metaphors, from the Garden of Eden in which the tragic trade is made of wisdom for immortality: we are now wise, and wisdom includes understanding that we shall die… to the depiction of the horsemen in Revelation, which beautifully mirror the effects of the Roman Empire on the outlying conquered provinces. (The third horse, Famine, is a good example, as it describes the practice of making bread in Rome proper *very* cheap and, in outlying provinces, actually replacing regular farmland with olive groves and vineyards. The result: both the peasants and the wealthy in Rome were happy and satisfied–but at the expense of famine in outlying regions).
I think lots of the Bible is not metaphor. The history recounted in Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles is as good as other histories of the time–which is to say, embellished, exaggerated, taken apart and recombined in interesting ways. They would not pass historical muster by *modern* standards, but very little prior to the Enlightenment would. In other words, they provide clues as to what was important to certain people at certain times in history. As to separating the good from the bad–morality has evolved through human history, and standards change from one generation to the next. Our generation looks with horror on slavery; the next generation will likely be horrified at how much of the population we felt it was okay to have in jail for minor drug crimes; the generation after that will be horrified about something else. This is one reason I find my Bible interesting and valuable: it shows over the span of at least a millennium how people wrestled with these questions and evolved morally. The God of the Torah is a very different God than that found in the gospels. Even in just the beginning of Genesis, one can see the evolution of the concept of God, from one among many (let “us” make man in “our” image–definitely plural, the idea being that there was a council of gods) to a singular God. Even the command “thou shalt have no gods before me” indicates that there in fact *are* other gods–something that later stories would stridently countermand. So which parts are “good” and which parts are “bad”? I don’t really look at it in those terms. It’s all indicative of what people believed at some point in time. Their struggles can inform our struggles–both as exemplars of the highest good and as cautionary tales. I am convinced that there is value in the Christian community (and in other religious communities), if only because the human brain has evolved to respond to it as a way of facilitating cooperation.
The reason that I’m asking these questions is because I see us (atheists and liberal religious folks) as potential allies in the battle against creationists–because it *is* a battle (when only 40 percent of the U.S. population believes “in” evolution and Scopes might as well not have happened at this point). I wondered if those who are clearly anti-religious felt the same, or if my theism means that there can’t be a bridge to work together on this issue.
If you are saying that the bible is a document that can be examined for insight into the lives and times of the people who shaped it, then we are all in agreement. But I sense that there is something more in it for you that you won’t quite come out and admit. Do you believe in a virgin birth? A dead guy coming back to life after three days in a tomb? In any of the miraculous events that the book/library describes?
If the answer to these questions is “no” and you don’t actually believe any of this stuff, then you are like the rest of us here. And I remain puzzled as to why you would ask the commenters (and host?) of a site called “Why Evolution Is True” if they have an interest in countering creationism. If the answer is “yes” then my earlier questions remain, still unanswered.
Virgin birth seems unlikely. Resurrection, not sure. Miracles–well, I’m of the camp that suggests that getting people to share with each other is a greater miracle than making five loaves and a couple of fish feed a giant crowd.
That’s all, I think, beside the simple point: I think that some religious people may be better allies than opponents to atheists/agnostics in this fight.
Judging from the responses, I think I have my answer; thanks for the dialogue.
Resurrection, not sure? Really?
On what basis do you consider this a reasonable possibility but the talking snake is not?
Wisdom? Give me a break.
Genesis is a story about an enchanted garden with talking animals and an angry giant.
And the moral of the story is horrific. The deadbeat father leaves his young kids in the house with his drug-addict cousin. Said cousin tricks the kids into drinking the paint thinner the dad had put in a juice bottle in the refrigerator. The dad comes home, find the kids puking their guts out, flies into a rage at what they’re doing to the carpet, and throws them naked and still puking to the curb and permanently banishes them from their home. The End. PS: the dad is portrayed as the ultimate good guy and we’re told the kids deserved everything they got and more.
And that’s one of the least horrific and least absurd stories in the book.
Sorry, but there’s nothing intrinsically redeeming about the Bible. It’s useful for anthropology, but not for much of anything else.
Cheers,
b&
We will disagree on that, although I do agree with Kierkegaard that if people seriously consider the ramifications of, say, the Abraham and Isaac story, the proper reaction is fear and trembling, not a warm fuzzy.
I think we’re quite far afield of the point, here, though. Thanks for the dialogue–I think I have the answer to my question.
It depends.
What role, if any, does or did any of your various gods have in evolution, including of humankind?
If your gods all sat idly by and let nature run its course, then your notion of evolution is at least, on first blush, compatible with the modern scientific understanding.
But if your gods guide evolution, or step in now and again (e.g., to inject a soul into a protohuman), then, scientifically, you’re no better than a young-earth creationist who accepts “microevolution.” Or somebody who thinks that Leprechauns stash pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, for that matter.
Cheers,
b&
Some might call this a weasel answer, but it’s the truth: I don’t know. I can’t say that I’m a firm materialist (which is what your litmus test seems to be), but I’m not anti-materialist. I don’t think we have access to that information. I’m not prepared to completely deny the possibly of divine intervention, but I also wouldn’t affirm it.
Faith is a tricky beast–I do believe in divinity despite the absence of evidence. In no way, however, would I prescribe that for anyone else or even hold that dogmatically for myself. A certain amount of humility is, I think, necessary when dealing with subjects with which we have *no* way of accessing information, either pro or con. It’s certainly not outside the realm of the possible that there’s nothing beyond the material world.
There’s a dragon in my garage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJRy3Kl_z5E
Cheers,
b&
Yes, I’m familiar with Sagan–read the Demon-Haunted World, too, and all that.
Dragon-in-the-garage seems to me to be a spurious analogy to the simple idea that there exists something more than the material world.
PS: For those, like me, who are too impatient to sit through the video version of just about anything, here’s a text link:
http://godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm
Your response demonstrates as clearly as anything Dr. Sagan ever wrote that, for all your claimed familiarity with the story of the dragon in the garage, you still believe that you really do have an actual, real, live, honest-to-goodness invisible dragon in your very own garage.
Cheers,
b&
Oh, one more thing–in case I was too dismissive. I still think the analogy is spurious, but if I accepted it…
I’m not asking you to believe in the dragon in my garage, which is Sagan’s point: he can’t be expected to believe in it. Well, I don’t expect that of him, you, or anyone. I don’t believe anyone’s going to hell for not believing it, I don’t think that the only way to live morally is through religion, and I think religious people are in no way superior to non-religious people.
I have, on occasion in my life, encountered a moment of mystical experience that made me wonder if I’ve touched another plane of existence or the divine or whatnot. As William James wrote, my religious experience is completely authoritative for me and completely non-authoritative for you. I agree that “Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder,” as Sagan would have it; however, that doesn’t negate that there is potentially some value in inspiring us or exciting our sense of wonder. Not everything is about whether an idea is empirically verifiable or not. Now, *science* is… but there is more in the world of value than just science.
Well, of course there is more of value in the world than just science!
Christopher Hitchens: “We have a need for what I would call ‘the transcendent’ or ‘the numinous’ or even ‘the ecstatic,’ which comes out in love and music, poetry, and landscape. I wouldn’t trust anyone who didn`t respond to things of that sort. But I think the cultural task is to separate those impulses and those needs and desires from the supernatural and, above all, from the superstitious.”
That we have such feelings is no indication that there exists anything beyond the material, any other plane of existence, anything “divine”. They are just states of mind. And, ironically, understanding those states of mind will likely come through science (or not at all).
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No, but you do expect us to respect you, perhaps even admire you, because you think you’ve got a dragon in your garage.
Sorry, but that’s not the reaction you deserve. You either deserve pity and assistance for your mental illness or ridicule and shame for your willful self-delusion.
b&
You don’t expect us to believe in the invisible dragon in your garage, but you would like us to act as if that’s a reasonable belief to hold. Not gonna happen.
“Faith is a tricky beast–I do believe in divinity despite the absence of evidence. ”
I think you misspelled “irrational” as “tricky”.
“Which brings me to this question: what do you want of Christian allies?”
I want you to stop pretending that the Christian Bible is some special book, considered more reliable and more insightful than other works of literature.
As long as you publicly buy into the idea that the Christian Bible is more likely to be “true” than other books, you are indirectly supporting ideas that come from Biblical literalism. When you say “true” you may mean some lit-crit definition of “true”, but when other people hear you they are going to hear the normal meaning of “true”, “factually correct”.
For me, the Bible is like a family photo album that’s been passed down for a *long* time. The photos may not be of particularly nice quality, but they document something important to me.
I don’t expect them to be special to *you*, so I’m not sure why everyone is so offended that they’re special to *me*. Someone wrote this above: “No, but you do expect us to respect you, perhaps even admire you, because you think you’ve got a dragon in your garage.”
No, actually, I don’t. I don’t expect your respect or admiration and don’t even think that would be appropriate, unless “respect” is simply defined as “tolerate and accept.” I do expect you to tolerate and accept that other people do not agree with you, and that neither makes them idiots nor unworthy of dialogue and alliance.
That may be what the Bible means to you, but you know damn well that’s not what it means to most other Christians. By pretending to be one of them, you’re helping to prop up their belief that the Bible was inspired by God, and is more authoritative than other books.
This doesn’t offend me, it angers me.
We tolerate and accept idiots all the time, depending on one’s definition of toleration and acceptance. That doesn’t make idiots any less idiotic nor does it require that the ridiculous be immunized from ridicule.
What you think of as a treasured family heirloom is a deeply rooted part of some of the worst of humanity’s past and present. I can tolerate the fact that you treasure it (nobody has come to burn your copy, have they?) while criticizing you for thinking it is anything but a collection of poisonous old myths. Tolerance does not provide immunity from criticism.