Jay, either you have not read many of my posts, or else your have not understood them. In stating the position of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II stated that, although scientific evidence supported the (Darwinian) theory of evolution for the development of all biological life on earth–including the biological nature of humankind–what is distinct about humankind is our Spirit, our Souls, and these are created separately and individually by God. Atheistic science cannot allow for any human exceptionalism of this kind, especially since it concludes that this exceptionalism was NOT the result of evolution as directed by chance; i.e. by natural selection. As you know, Alfred Wallace, evolution’s co-discoverer with Charles Darwin, thought humans were an exception, and strongly disapproved of the latter’s book “The Descent of Man”. Lacking today’s evidence that supports exceptionalism, Wallace turned to Spiritualism, and lost credibility with the scientific community.
Early in the 20th century a Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, saw the clear evidence for evolution before his superiors (or the Vatican) did. He saw that humankind, with its ability for abstract thought and the ability to communicate it through language, actually ushered a new Sphere into the universe–a Nous-(Mind)-Sphere which followed upon the Cosmosphere and the Biosphere. The increase in primate brain size was very rapid on an evolutionary time scale–over 3-fold in 3 million years–but still could be explained by sexually transmitted favorable mutations, selected by survival rates. The key point in the argument I am making is that about 50K yrs. ago the behavior of Homo sapiens took a Great Leap Forward. They buried their dead with valuable tools and gifts for an afterlife (dawn of religion; the Covenant of Scripture), artistic talent (sculpture, painting) worthy of the best of today, and communication skills that fostered larger cooperative societies. All this in direct contradiction to “small chance mutations causing very small changes in no particular direction”. Theologians predicted that humans arrived suddenly on the earthly scene. The GLF was no surprise to them. Science is as yet unable to suggest a mechanism. Sure, it is as if the primate Brain circuits already present were ‘programmed’ to become Mind. That’s just a hunch that may tell scientists the best places to look. I’ll wager that eventually science is going to discover the mechanism God chose to use. But until then, Theology leads the way to the Truth.
Al Leo