Donate to Remove ads

Got a credit card? use our Credit Card & Finance Calculators

Thanks to johnstevens77,Bhoddhisatva,scotia,Anonymous,Cornytiv34, for Donating to support the site

Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

Religion and Philosophy
Forum rules
we are introducing this on a trial basis and that respect for other's views is important e.g. phrases like "your imaginary friend" or "you will go to hell" are not appropriate
GrandOiseau
Lemon Slice
Posts: 529
Joined: November 5th, 2016, 12:18 am
Has thanked: 31 times
Been thanked: 76 times

Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#168820

Postby GrandOiseau » September 25th, 2018, 1:27 pm

This is a quiz question on the BBC website.

Without looking at what they say is correct, what do you think?

ReformedCharacter
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3120
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 11:12 am
Has thanked: 3591 times
Been thanked: 1509 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#168834

Postby ReformedCharacter » September 25th, 2018, 2:05 pm

GrandOiseau wrote:This is a quiz question on the BBC website.

Without looking at what they say is correct, what do you think?

I have to say that I'm not concerned with the 'correct' answer :) but it does rather depend on the religion. Sticking with Christianity, as far as I know, amongst Christians there are the various flavours of literalists who - presumably - reject evolution because it doesn't agree with Adam & Eve (or whatever). On the other hand I expect the Archbishop of Canterbury probably believes in evolution as well of the merits of buying Wonga. I've met highly intelligent scientists who believe in evolution and call themselves Christians and those who profess atheism. So, the answer must be False.

RC

GrandOiseau
Lemon Slice
Posts: 529
Joined: November 5th, 2016, 12:18 am
Has thanked: 31 times
Been thanked: 76 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#168879

Postby GrandOiseau » September 25th, 2018, 4:10 pm

BBC answer was False because evolution isn't a theory of creation of the Universe.

I think technically they are correct but I'm still not sure that makes them compatable... if you look at the teachings of religion.

dfrgth
Posts: 10
Joined: October 23rd, 2017, 10:00 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#168886

Postby dfrgth » September 25th, 2018, 4:39 pm

The main problem with the quiz was it didn't define what it meant by evolution so Humans and monkeys coming from a common ancestor was described as evolution which is incompatible with religion, in particular the teaching of the bible, but natural selection was also described as evolution which is actually opposed to the ancestor to man definition and is completely compatible with religion, so it was rather difficult to answer the questions correctly though probably easy to select the answer the author had in mind.

tournesol
Lemon Pip
Posts: 64
Joined: November 6th, 2016, 9:01 am
Has thanked: 98 times
Been thanked: 41 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#168928

Postby tournesol » September 25th, 2018, 6:21 pm

I think the question in the thread header is not well phrased.

There is a lot of confusion about "Evolution" and Darwin's "Theory of Evolution".

A great deal of discussion around this subject is based on a false premise. The basic fact of evolution is not merely a theory. It is a demonstrable fact with enough evidence to convince any reasonable person. It's as observable as gravity. Gravity was accepted as fact long before anyone came up with an explanation of how it worked.

The fossil record and modern genomics clearly show beyond any vestigial doubt that living creatures have developed and changed over time - that's evolution. Animals and plants have divided into sub-species taking with them the genome of their parents and passing it on to their own descendants. Over time the genome has changed slightly but with most of it remaining unchanged that it can be clearly back tracked to earlier ancestors.

The basic fact that evolution happens was accepted before Darwin. What was not known was the mechanism by which evolution took place - what made it work? Darwin's theory did not seek to answer the question "Has life evolved over time", he took that as a given based on the evidence available. His breakthrough was the idea that spontaneous mutations, both large and small, occur by chance and are then effectively filtered by natural selection so that the genome is changed. Obviously there is no possible way that anybody can actually prove beyond any conceivable doubt that his theory of natural selection really was the primary mechanism involved, but nobody has ever put forward a coherent alternative. So it is the best explanation ever devised.

Any reasonable person must accept that evolution is a demonstrable fact. Rejecting that is like rejecting gravity or arguing against the heliocentric solar system. There is just too much compelling and consistent evidence for such rejections to make any sense.

That being said, it seems quite possible for a religious person to accept that evolution happens AND that natural selection is its underlying mechanism - but see them both as the means chosen by God to achieve his/her ends.

It also possible seems possible for a religious person to accept evolution but reject Darwin's Theory that it occurred through natural selection and instead conclude that the invisible hand of god guides every step of the evolutionary process rather than natural selection.

In neither case does the issue of incompatibility arise.

It seems to me that the people for whom there is a fundamental compatibility problem are not the religious in general, but rather the relatively small minority who regard the words of sacred texts as being literal truth. If you believe in the literal truth of the Old Testament, or any of the other accounts of divine creation embedded in the central tenets of other religions, then it's not just evolution that you will find impossible to accept, it's much of the modern view of the universe that has emerged from the past few centuries of scientific endeavour.

For example our understanding of cosmology does not tally with the genesis story. But that does not mean that cosmologists can't believe in god or for that matter in a creation. Religious cosmologists see the mechanisms employed in creation as being more complex, more subtle and more interesting that the accounts of sacred texts. And crucially predictions based on our understanding of these mechanisms can be formulated and tested.

dfrgth
Posts: 10
Joined: October 23rd, 2017, 10:00 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#169002

Postby dfrgth » September 25th, 2018, 9:40 pm

It is a demonstrable fact with enough evidence to convince any reasonable person. It's as observable as gravity.


When you say it is as observable as gravity are you referring to natural selection where we can see the changes within a species in which case I would agree with you or are you referring to the evolution of one species into another which has not been observed, the evidence for this is a particular interpretation of the fossil record.

Any reasonable person must accept that evolution is a demonstrable fact. Rejecting that is like rejecting gravity or arguing against the heliocentric solar system.


There is no other interpretation for the evidence of gravity or the evidence that the sun is the centre of our solar system however the evidence put forward for molecules to man evolution can have alternative valid interpretations and which one is accepted very much depends on the existing views of the observer.

GrandOiseau
Lemon Slice
Posts: 529
Joined: November 5th, 2016, 12:18 am
Has thanked: 31 times
Been thanked: 76 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#169024

Postby GrandOiseau » September 25th, 2018, 11:35 pm

What is religion anyway?

Can you be a Christian/Muslim but not believe in the bible/Koran

Wiki opens with the line "Hinduism includes a range of viewpoints about the origin of life, creationism and evolution. There is no single story of creation, due to dynamic diversity of Hinduism...."

And so on. You can fudge it anyway you like if you want to...

tournesol
Lemon Pip
Posts: 64
Joined: November 6th, 2016, 9:01 am
Has thanked: 98 times
Been thanked: 41 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#169198

Postby tournesol » September 26th, 2018, 3:47 pm

I'm currently working my way very slowly through an excellent book - "The Vital Question" - by Nick Lane a bio-chemist in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at UCL.

It's objective is to address the question "Why is life the way it is?" and this is does admirably well.

If I understand it correctly, it does not to my simple minded reading explain how the very first living organisms arose but at a cellular level it does explain why they had/have the structure and form they do/did and it explains how cellular evolution progressed. Much of it was to do not so much with Darwinian Natural Selection but rather with the constraints of energy transmission within cells.

we can think of all life on the earth as a family tree that branches when a genetic difference arises between two populations. After each branching off, the new population contains a genome which is almost exactly the same as its ancestral population except for some small change. Study of the various genomes allows us to work out what branched off from what and when. So we can see that bacteria branched off the tree of life long before Eukaryotes did. That means that all Bacteria had a common ancestor from which over time they have all diverged because of evolution. Likewise Eukaryotes.

Eukaryotes are forms of life with more complex cell structures than bacteria and include fungi, plants and animals - all of which share a common ancestor. So we are relatively closely related to mushrooms or plants for example but are very distant from bacteria.

If all this seems incredible the recent development of genomics has shone a new light on the subject. The thing which has most struck me is that most of our dna - and for that matter the dna of other species - is junk. It plays no part in the actual transmission or development of life. It is simply outdated stuff inherited from our ancestors that we have not got rid of. Looking at the junk is very informative because we can see that our junk is almost identical with the junk in other species - which tells us that we both got it from the same place.

It's a bit like finding that my family photograph album and yours both contain an identical copy of an ancient ancestral photograph taken long long ago. That immediately tells us that we must be related at some level. And if we compare and contrast our photo albums and those of other people then we can deduce what relationships exist between different species.

Interestingly there is no relationship between the size of the genome species has and its position on the evolutionary scale. Onions have bigger genomes than we do. Salamanders have genomes 40x the size of ours.

dfrgth
Posts: 10
Joined: October 23rd, 2017, 10:00 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#169306

Postby dfrgth » September 26th, 2018, 10:10 pm

The thing which has most struck me is that most of our dna - and for that matter the dna of other species - is junk. It plays no part in the actual transmission or development of life. It is simply outdated stuff inherited from our ancestors that we have not got rid of. Looking at the junk is very informative because we can see that our junk is almost identical with the junk in other species - which tells us that we both got it from the same place.


I didn't think Nick Lane's book was all that old, but we now know that so called 'Junk' DNA is no such thing in fact it is now more accurately known as non-coding DNA and it is known what about 80% of human non-coding DNA does and it has a vital function in switching protein creating DNA on and off. It could be reasonably argued that the evolutionary view of Junk DNA has hindered genome research.

ReformedCharacter
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3120
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 11:12 am
Has thanked: 3591 times
Been thanked: 1509 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#169325

Postby ReformedCharacter » September 26th, 2018, 11:45 pm

dfrgth wrote:
I didn't think Nick Lane's book was all that old, but we now know that so called 'Junk' DNA is no such thing in fact it is now more accurately known as non-coding DNA and it is known what about 80% of human non-coding DNA does and it has a vital function in switching protein creating DNA on and off. It could be reasonably argued that the evolutionary view of Junk DNA has hindered genome research.

Interesting item about 'junk DNA' and addiction:

Addiction genes inserted into humans’ ‘dark DNA’ by ancient viruses, study finds


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 52996.html

RC

gryffron
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3606
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 10:00 am
Has thanked: 550 times
Been thanked: 1586 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#169394

Postby gryffron » September 27th, 2018, 10:30 am

Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

False - in principle. If you must have gods, you could easily make up a religion which stated that god(s) wrote the rules of the universe then let it run. That does mean that both humans and earth aren't very special. And there's no reason why we would want to thank Them, let alone praise Them.

All current religions contain conflicting creation stories, so true.

Gryff

DiamondEcho
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3131
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 3:39 pm
Has thanked: 3060 times
Been thanked: 554 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#170042

Postby DiamondEcho » September 29th, 2018, 11:17 am

Why not put the question as a poll? 8-)

My own view on the literal phrasing of the subject question is 'false' since evolution is a matter of fact whereas religion is an act of faith (over fact).

As to an earlier question re: has the creation of a new species been observed, IDK but I'd imagine not. Genetics is a relatively recent science, as in parallel is the broad gazetting of species. The creation of x-species hybrids has been observed in for example ligers, tigons - IDK at what point a hybrid might be considered a new species.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger


GJHarney
Lemon Slice
Posts: 452
Joined: November 26th, 2016, 11:06 am
Been thanked: 23 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#171189

Postby GJHarney » October 3rd, 2018, 7:19 pm

GrandOiseau wrote:This is a quiz question on the BBC website.

Without looking at what they say is correct, what do you think?


If it is religion in a generic sense of belief then no, not at all, religious ideas will always adapt to their material (historical/social) context, one example being the current Pope who has accepted the Big Bang and evolutionary theories of creation, which in turn could only happen in modern times (so for all the tradition there is also adaptation within the church).

If it is specific religions that take a literalist approach to texts or ideology then yes, it will be incompatible.

In any case, followers of most religions take a pick and mix approach t their sacred texts and always have done.

dfrgth
Posts: 10
Joined: October 23rd, 2017, 10:00 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#171395

Postby dfrgth » October 4th, 2018, 12:45 pm

The creation of x-species hybrids has been observed in for example ligers, tigons - IDK at what point a hybrid might be considered a new species.


The biblical creation account speaks of the animals being created after their kind so the fact that hybrids of Lions and Tigers are possible would indicate that they were of the same biblical 'kind' and the process of natural selection has produced the separate species of Lions and Tigers. From this we would expect that there was a population of large cat kind which had the genetic diversity to produce the current large cat species each of which has a reduced genetic diversity when compared with the original population. Though this is called evolution the process is opposite to that that would be required to produce the original genetically diverse population as a further change in the environment would likely result in the extinction of the species as they no longer possess the genetic diversity to adapt. Which is why the original question was flawed as it failed to define what was meant by the term evolution, the process of producing several separate species from an original parent population through natural selection is a fact and is observable and scientifically verifiable and as far as the question is concerned is compatible with religious creation accounts. However, the production of the original parent populations from unrelated populations requiring the increase in genetic diversity or addition of genetic traits has not been observed is not scientifically verifiable and is based on supposition and particular interpretations of the existing evidence, When evolution is used to refer to this process then it is incompatible with religious creation texts. Unfortunately the two uses of evolution are conflated and one being demonstrable fact is used to declare evolution as a whole a fact.

colin
Lemon Slice
Posts: 663
Joined: December 10th, 2016, 7:16 pm
Has thanked: 24 times
Been thanked: 114 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#187021

Postby colin » December 15th, 2018, 11:07 am

God created the laws of the universe which would then allow evolution by means of natural selection to proceed.

ReformedCharacter
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3120
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 11:12 am
Has thanked: 3591 times
Been thanked: 1509 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#187060

Postby ReformedCharacter » December 15th, 2018, 1:46 pm

colin wrote:God created the laws of the universe which would then allow evolution by means of natural selection to proceed.


You may be right but where is the proof? If you cannot prove it then that is just a matter of opinion.

RC

stewamax
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 2417
Joined: November 7th, 2016, 2:40 pm
Has thanked: 83 times
Been thanked: 782 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#187088

Postby stewamax » December 15th, 2018, 3:51 pm

GrandOiseau wrote:BBC answer was False because evolution isn't a theory of creation of the Universe.

it has been proposed (John Wheeler; Lee Smolin et al) that universes (plural) could be born -the 'big bounces' - from black holes that are created in preceding universes. Given that some universes would create more black holes than others through random events (the 'variation'), this 'cosmic evolution' would favour (the 'selection') of those universes that created most black holes. So our universe could indeed be the result of evolution thought natural selection - but not quite as Darwin imagined!

colin
Lemon Slice
Posts: 663
Joined: December 10th, 2016, 7:16 pm
Has thanked: 24 times
Been thanked: 114 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#187099

Postby colin » December 15th, 2018, 4:38 pm

ReformedCharacter wroteYou may be right but where is the proof? If you cannot prove it then that is just a matter of opinion.

What's that got to do with the question asked in the OP?

gryffron
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3606
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 10:00 am
Has thanked: 550 times
Been thanked: 1586 times

Re: Evolution and religion are incompatible. True or false?

#187229

Postby gryffron » December 16th, 2018, 1:08 pm

Evolution has lead to the creation of religion (NOT the other way round), so no, clearly and demonstrably they are not incompatible, or they couldn't both exist.

Gryff


Return to “The Meaning of Life”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests