When did the Watchtower start opposing evolution with respect to animals?

by slimboyfat 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  sir82

  Are there any references in current WT literature about micro-evolution

  Here is a quote from the August 2015 Awake, just a few months ago:

  In that light, where does evolution stand?* Its operation cannot be observed. It cannot be reproduced. And it cannot make accurate predictions. Can evolution even be considered a scientific hypothesis? The same encyclopedia defines a hypothesis as “a more tentative observation of facts [than a theory],” yet lends itself “to deductions that can be experimentally tested.”

  *By “evolution,” we mean “macroevolution”—apes turning into humans, for example. “Microevolution” refers to small changes within a species, perhaps through selective breeding.

  So it seems that they accept "microevolution", acceding that even "selective breeding" is a form of evolution.

  
  
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  slimboyfat

  Yeah 1950 was "Evolution vs. The New World".

  Good to bear in mind that when Russell era literature was endorsing animal evolution it was not talking about so-called micro-evolution that creationists and JWs accept even today. It states that God originally directed the evolution of animals into distinct kinds and then fixed them in those kinds after that. Only man was said to be a direct creation by God in his current form.

  Strange idea, because it doesn't solve much if you still believe in the flood, but that's what they taught at the time.
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  Phizzy

  They must believe in the Evolution of animals, two by two into the Ark, yet we have the huge variety we see today.

  They do not admit that species evolve into new species.

  Their definition of Macro evolution above reflects this attitude, not of course that it is any way a proper definition, who claims that "Apes turned into Humans " ?

  "In that light, where does evolution stand?* Its operation cannot be observed. It cannot be reproduced. And it cannot make accurate predictions."

  This is just so wrong of course.
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  slimboyfat

  Yeah Phizzy strange stuff.

  I wonder, do they believe that every species of cat for example, was preserved individually on the ark: two tigers, two lions, two cheetahs, two pumas and so on? There are said to be around 40 species of cats. If so, and repeat that for all animals - how on earth was there enough room?

  On the other hand if there were just two generic cats on the ark, and they "micro-evolved" since into all these different species, how the hell did that happen in the space of just a couple of thousand years? And how come human cultures have always known tigers and lions and pumas and so on as distinct species as far back as records go?

  Utterly incredible either way.
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  Phizzy

  Yup, even their tacit acceptance of micro-evolution fails, they are saying that from the Ark until now it took place about twenty times quicker than science tells us it did.

  I suppose it all comes down to "All things are possible with Big J" in their tiny minds.

  The Pope and therefore R.C Church have given up the fight against the overwhelming proof for Evolution by Natural Selection, I guess the JW religion will catch up eventually, some how. They seem to want to go mainstream, well they won't do that by being Bible Literalists.
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  Vidiot

  The fact is, if you subscribe to virtually any iteration of the "Genesis-as-literal-history" concept, evolution is pretty much off the table.
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  Phizzy

  Spot on Vid, and of course the JW leaders do not wish to lose their chief proof for us being born in Sin, i.e the Adam and Eve myth, so that have to hang on to the literal interpretation as long as they can.

  If Sin, the inherited kind, could not be used as a bludgeon, how could they claim to be the only way to Salvation ?
• 

  LoveUniHateExams

  Good points, SBF and Phizzy.

  I wonder, do they believe that every species of cat for example, was preserved individually on the ark: two tigers, two lions, two cheetahs, two pumas and so on? There are said to be around 40 species of cats. If so, and repeat that for all animals - how on earth was there enough room?

  I had a conversation with a JW that almost matched your last post verbatim. We established that the ark couldn't have had enough room for all cat species.

  When I learned the cat family, species were spread across 4 genera: Panthera, Acinonyx, Felis and Lynx. Felis is now split up into other genera - Puma and others I can't remember. The clouded leopard is placed in Neofelis.

  The JW said that kinds didn't respond to species. So I said "several pairs of cat kinds went into the arc, and then, ~4,000 years later, all the modern cats evolved from these". Crickets plus deer-in-the-headlights look ...
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  sir82

  Crickets plus deer-in-the-headlights look ..

  There are many topics JWs, from the lowest "spiritually weak" guy all the way up to GB member, prefer not to discuss.

  The implications of accepting the ark legend as literal history (millions of species somehow micro-evolving from a handful of 'kinds' (whatever that is) over a span of merely 4000 years) is one of those topics.
  
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  slimboyfat

  Not only that sir82 but 4000 years is far too generous an allowance for their explanation. After all there were lions already when the Sphinx was built and when the book of Daniel was written, and tigers were around when the Chinese calendar was invented before Christ. If cats "micro-evolved" into 40 different species after the flood and before humans had time to notice and record the different species in their various cultures, they only had what, a few hundred years to do it? Mmm. I can see why they don't like talking about it.