Chardin and the Phony Ape-Men
Adapted from The Death of Evolution by Wallace Johnson
Evolution leads logically to polygenism -- that is, a belief, not in one physically perfect first man (Adam), but in groups of brutish first men and women mutating from parents who were not human.
Two claims.
1. Evolution leads logically to polygenism
Yes, apparently, but Pius XII ruled on this already, separating out the one event, human genesis, from the rest of the issue of evolution.
2. not in one physically perfect first man (Adam), but in groups of brutish first men and women mutating from parents who were not human.
No. The insertion of 'brutish' here is not helpful. Now we have to parse this out.
What Pius XII allowed was the theology of 'special transformism' which is the idea that God ensouled an existing body (or ensouled a newly conceived baby) which was physically identical in characteristics and genome to its parents or contemporaries. I.E., if this scenario which Pius allowed researched is true, then Adam looked identical to Adam's parents or brothers, had the same genome, etc.
Special transformism says that in the reception of a soul, the preternatural gifts were given to Adam.
Nothing here about 'brutish' or 'mutating'. That's a childish musunderstanding.
Polygenism plays havoc with the central Christian dogma of Original Sin.
Pius XII said it was not apparent how the two could be reconciled. 'Plays havoc' is childish scare-language, not academic, and reminds us once again that this is not an academic book.
And lately under the influence of Teilhard de Chardin's (1881-1955) evolutionary theology, all the Catholic dogmas are being turned upside-down. If we can demonstrate that the ape-men never existed, then the whole case for evolution, polygenism and Teilhardianism collapses.
No, all Catholic dogmas are not being turned upside down. In addition to being fatally imprecise, this is just silly. NO one is talking about the Trinity, for example.
The average person now believes that there were strange creatures in prehistoric times, not quite men and not wholly animal. We are being told, in the name of science, that these ape-men existed, and, that we came from them.
..and for very good reason the average person believes what has been amply demonstrated. Fish-amphibian transitions existed. Reptile-mammal transitions existed. The fossil record is not a 19th century curiosity. Moving on...
If this theory is wrong, then our era is really the darkest age of all. But right or wrong, the theory is successful. So much so that Adam and Eve are laughed out of court. We are witnessing the triumph of a very diabolical game, and the aim of the game is to get rid of God and undermine the veracity of the Bible.
Or, the aim of the game is discover human origins, defend those assertions against your peers, and win awards, get tenure, and gain money and respect.
There have been various "family trees of man" put forward for our new belief system, disagreeing and conflicting with one another. But several members of the "family" have been shown to be phony.
Ok, finally to the point. So, there are two problems in these sentences that are critical to this topic.
1.In the early days of any discipline, the rough outline of a theory is determined. It's like heliocentrism. The first decades of the discoveries were full of various models, all conflicting. Over time, observation disproves most of them, and over time, one emerged as the best fit for the data.
Any discovery works like this. If you go the early history of a field, you find exactly that - many divergent theories being winnowed by the process into few and then ultimately, one. This is how human research works. Words like 'brainstorming' are applicable to the process. If anyone has ever been part of any group process, you know how the meetings go. The first ones are all over the map, as discussion and research progress, the impractical falls away and the practical is left.
Johnson's critique of science is dishonest in the extreme. I'm sure that, at a meeting with his publishers, he made a proposal for a book, and this proposal was debated and the concept refined. If I wanted to criticize him and had the minutes I could say "Many different schemes for this book were put forward - all disagreeing and conflicting with each other!". He, being dim, would look at me and say "You idiot, that's how new ideas work!" and I'd say "Yeeeees. Exactly."
If people are trying to determine the history of something, proposing different versions and then looking for confirmation of the those versions is exactly how it works. There is no other way for it to work. This critique is so unbelievably stupid...but again, this is not a scholarly book. It's a screed that appeals only to the choir of true believers.
2.The last date in this article is 1937, and the 'bad guy' is Teilhard de Chardin.
Do you know who cares about Teilhard? Catholics and New Agers. That's it.
No one rests anything on any discoveries of Teilhard. In the heady days of the early 20th century, there was lots of excitement about finding proto-humans. Telihard was a crank. So? It has been a long, long time since those days, and of course Johnson is not dealing with anything that happened after 1937. He's gone for only the lowest-hanging fruit, because lampooning a few cranks from early in the last century is easy.
I'd like to see him deal with the endogenous retrovirus signatures in primate lines. Or in the geographic dispersion of trichromic vision in primates. Or any of a hundred other lines of reasoning linking the human ancestors with chimp and bonobo ancestors.
Look, it's a simple thing for anyone to do:
Examine your sources. Do they deal only with the scientific past? Like Neil the crazy crank here, doe he deal only with 19th century figures as if all science was done in the past? Does he ignore what is going on now? Is there discussion with and of legitimate experts in the current field?
There are, in fact, pretty darn legitimate and technical critiques of Darwinism operating today...but they are based on an Old Earth (because that is established. Solidly.) and they are based upon actual research, not fantasies. I love them. Some of them are even sort of convincing. Sadly, Catholics are being completely left out of the party. It's too bad.
Topic: Biblical Commission Of 1909 (Read 12598 times)