The theory of evolution predates the bible. But not the explanation of the mechanisms behind it.

What is often not mentioned is the writings of the Roman philosopher Lucretius (ca. 99-ca. 55 BC). In his Epicurean epic poem "De rerum natura" or "On the nature of things", he presents an idea very much like Darwin's theory of natural selection only Darwins theory explains the mechanisms behind it.

He notes that the animals alive in his time must have survived by being specially adapted to their environment, that they were either cunning, brave or fast. Other animals like dogs, cows and sheep had survived under the protection of human beings. He then says that there must have been other species of animals that were not as well adapted and these, being vulnerable to predators or unable to find food, were sure to die out.

So it still boils down to whether we lend credence to a polytheistic writer or to monotheistic writers.

A good point well made, lots of the ancients saw hints of what was to become the theory of evolution. unfortunatley for mankind the Abrahamic religions swept out of the middle east and stunted all progress for much of our history.... we would probably have reached the level of scientific knowledge we now possess around the year 1200 if not for christianity destroying much of the ancient texts of the world and suppressing learning.

Microcosm evolution is NOT Macrocosm evolution.

We all witness inter species adaptation, however that fact does not in any way prove a Fish evolving into a Frog.

Since there is the fact that there is zero evidence of Macrocosm evolution the Belief in it is no different from any other Religion.

This thread is misleading, as the Bible is not a single volume by a single human author
The Bible is a collection of books written over a period of about 1700 years so the collection of books that we know as the Bible obviously can't be anything BC because if refers to Jesus Christ AD (anno domini - year of our Lord)

However, parts of the Old testament such as the book of Job are thought to be circa 1500BC.

ATzil321

we would probably have reached the level of scientific knowledge we now possess around the year 1200 if not for christianity destroying much of the ancient texts of the world and suppressing learning.

Indeed. When the excavation of a roman library, with books-scrolls fully carbonized (and readable under UV) your point will have even more weight. The “strange” thing is it’s an old discovery-story –and the Italian authorities don’t want to excavate it. They say it’s to preserve stuff already found, but I tend to think killing any discoveries that may contradict the history of civilisation-technology are greater reasons…
Carbonised books & scrolls: magazine.byu.edu...
See also: entertainment.timesonline.co.uk...

Originally posted by Atzil321
A good point well made, lots of the ancients saw hints of what was to become the theory of evolution. unfortunatley for mankind the Abrahamic religions swept out of the middle east and stunted all progress for much of our history.... we would probably have reached the level of scientific knowledge we now possess around the year 1200 if not for christianity destroying much of the ancient texts of the world and suppressing learning.

True that Christianity put us into a dark age and kept us there of at least 1500 years.

You only have to look at the case of Hypatia,(b. ca. AD 350–370, d. March 415) She was Greek but lived in Roman Egypt and head of the Platonist school at Alexandria and mathematician and taught philosophy and astronomy. she charting of celestial bodies

She was murdered by a mob Christian monks which accused her of causing religious turmoil.

Originally posted by sinthia
This thread is misleading, as the Bible is not a single volume by a single human author
The Bible is a collection of books written over a period of about 1700 years so the collection of books that we know as the Bible obviously can't be anything BC because if refers to Jesus Christ AD (anno domini - year of our Lord)

However, parts of the Old testament such as the book of Job are thought to be circa 1500BC.

This post has no relevance. It doesn't matter if the Christian bible is one story or one million stories. This theory of evolution was around before the bible, around before Christians unless Christians were around before Christ which can't be the case.

And it doesn't matter if something is "thought" to be. Just because it happened to make it's way into the bible doesn't place the bible before the observation of evolution that this thread is about so no it's not a misleading thread at all. That was a bit lame on your part there I think. Also alot of paganism got into the bible as well after the writers changed the names and stole the stories from the pagans. But again that isn't what this thread is about.

reply to post by steveknows

It's an interesting thread, but a source would have been nice.

Here is a relevant excerpt from wiki:

Natural selection

Several ancient philosophers expressed the idea that nature produces a huge variety of creatures, apparently randomly, and that only those creatures survive that manage to provide for themselves and reproduce successfully; well-known examples include Empedocles[23] and his intellectual successor, Lucretius,[24] while related ideas were later refined by Aristotle.[25] The struggle for existence was later described by Al-Jahiz, who argued that environmental factors influence animals to develop new characteristics to ensure survival.[26][27][28]

Abu Rayhan Biruni described the idea of artificial selection and argued that nature works in much the same way.[29] Such classical arguments were reintroduced in the 18th century by Pierre Louis Maupertuis[30] and others, including Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin. While these forerunners had an influence on Darwinism, they later had little influence on the trajectory of evolutionary thought after Charles Darwin.

Until the early 19th century, the prevailing view in Western societies was that differences between individuals of a species were uninteresting departures from their Platonic idealism (or typus) of created kinds. However, the theory of uniformitarianism in geology promoted the idea that simple, weak forces could act continuously over long periods of time to produce radical changes in the Earth's landscape. The success of this theory raised awareness of the vast scale of geological time and made plausible the idea that tiny, virtually imperceptible changes in successive generations could produce consequences on the scale of differences between species.

Part of the key to understanding was recognition of the vast time scales involved. If people thought the earth was 6000 years old, it would be hard to imagine much significant happening in 6000 years in evolutionary terms. Once we realized the earth was much older, that opened the door for Darwin.

Originally posted by brokedown
Microcosm evolution is NOT Macrocosm evolution.

We all witness inter species adaptation, however that fact does not in any way prove a Fish evolving into a Frog.

Since there is the fact that there is zero evidence of Macrocosm evolution the Belief in it is no different from any other Religion.

It depends on how you define the term "witness".

As the last paragraph of the wiki excerpt explains, what took a while to sink in is that relatively small changes we can witness over the course of a lifetime in human timescales, can turn into much larger changes (both geologically and biologically) over longer timescales.

We have in fact "witnessed" evidence of a wolf-like creature, Pakicetus, evolving into a whale with transitional forms such as ambulocetus, etc.

evolution.berkeley.edu...

Tracing the origins of whales to these creatures is pretty amazing science.

If you limit your definition to what you can "witness" to a human timescale, of course you will not be able to personally witness things happening for longer than a human timescale. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen, and we can witness evidence for the transitional forms as is demonstrated in the link provided.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Good info you've got there. However the thread was in regards to the thoery being older than the bible and not about the mechanisims behind the thoery. It's not creation v's evolution. Yes I could have posted links but it's more to do with books I've read and in the age of google I thought that the name should be enough.

Thanks for the info anyway.

reply to post by brokedown


I'm not debating either side here though I do go on the side of evolution when I do. This thread was just showing that the thoery predates the bible as Ive noticed throughout ATS and other places that the belief is that the thoery is only 150 years old.

Originally posted by brokedown
Microcosm evolution is NOT Macrocosm evolution.

We all witness inter species adaptation, however that fact does not in any way prove a Fish evolving into a Frog.

Since there is the fact that there is zero evidence of Macrocosm evolution the Belief in it is no different from any other Religion.

Only ignorant creationists make a distinction between "micro" and "macro" evolution. It's the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la can't hear you" when presented with irrefutable evidence. What exactly do you think the "micro" changes are over hundreds of millions of years