Can we use the Bible to prove evolution?

To be honest I don't see much in the Argument from Biblical Authority.

But I guess that if someone subscribes to the literal truth of this, you can use it against them. But then again, you can do so with alot of other bible verses that are either confusing, contradictory, bigoted or in outright conflict with mainstream science.

I'm not informed enough on this topic, but I did just purchase the Richard Dawkins book on who evolution is true and am really looking forward to it. I thought that his book The God Delusion was well-written and highly informative too. I'll let you you know how this book is.

I have Dawkins' The God Delusion. An excellent book but the author came across in spots as being so very arrogant. Too, I'll confess (as a former blond) that a great deal of the scientific material was simply over my head. It would take at least a second reading for me to grasp his ideas better. I'm too addicted to chess to devote that much time to science.

As for David-Neff's biblical question -- in all honesty, at this point I couldn't care less what the Bible says or doesn't say. I am so disgusted with that collection of books. It's a great historical reference to indicate how people lived and thought way back when, it's got some nice poetry, there are terrific soap opera plots, it even has some useful rules of conduct -- but all of that is interspersed with so much utter nonsense, all of it thrown at the reader as sacred text, that I really don't want to hear anything more about it for a long, long time.

Dawkins' books, like many popular science titles, can be a little challenging to people who haven't read much popular science, or just aren't science nerds like me.

I've read Dawkins' most recent book (actually, come to think of it, I think I've read all his books) "The Greatest Show On Earth", and I'm kinda ambivalent about it. No doubt it's a great book, beautifully illustrated showing some of the compelling lines of evidence that demonstrate the factuality of common descent and our evolutionary history beyond reasonable doubt, but I was hoping that this book might be the one to recommend for the not-totally-closeminded creationist, but I got the impression that it assumes a level of sophistication in it's use of language that might make it a dificult read for many.

Of Dawkins' books, I think I enjoyed "The Selfish Gene" and it's follow up "The Extended Phenotype" most, though "Ancestor's Tale" too is certainly up there among the best popular science books I've read. The Selfish Gene was one of the key "consciousness raising" experiences for me, that led me to a naturalistic view of the world.

The Extended Phenotype is the most challenging of the books, as it's aimed at an audience of professional biologists and a laymen with a better than average grasp of many biological concepts to begin with. But I found it fascinating, well worth the read, especially for it's analysis of the debates in evolutionary science.

I think that one can't 'prove' evolution by using the bible, mainly because the method is wrong. To prove evolution means to find facts in nature that support your argument. Bible is part of nature but I think the facts are wrong, i.g. birds with 4 legs.

What you could read out of the bible would be, that at the time when the text was written, some people thought that there were birds with 4 legs.

And the other conclusion could be - and that is not a new one - that all this many biblical texts often are not consistent.

The idea seems to me a bit like wanting to prove that there were Gods and creatures with human heads and animal bodies by reading Greek mythology or looking at Egyptian paintings on walls.

That's like asking if you can prove General Relativity using Mother Goose nusery rhymes.

 brilliant comment, that mad my day ;o)

I had some more thoughts about the bible and evolution.

As evolution in my eyes is one of the most forceful power that exists, it can be found everywhere,'even' in the Bible. On a non genetically view evolution means, that a certain way (idea) is more successful than another in a given environment (situation).

So the bible is full of stories, where many Gods and Religions are in competition with each other and the one (Abrahams) God always wins, or a clan like Abrahams is very successful, finds good land and fights for it. Than he binds his people to obey the rules in a brilliant way: he has a personal relation to God, who gives him the explicit right and order to take this land etc. This God given Power was used through all the Kings am Emperors since (and the churches of course). (I think GW Bush was one of them).

Than all the storys of Jesus. He died like a semen to continue his way. Death could not put a limit to his mission. Another tricky way of evolution.

And finally the modern fight between the different christian confessions, religions or finally theists against atheists. A brilliant example of struggle for power and ways to gain it. But not using so much physical power, but the power of arguments and logic - against the powerful God and its eternal truth (as my brilliant friend bryanB would say). (But here we have already left our thematic ground of the Bible).

And so, the Bible is not bushit, but a prime example how to gain power, over a very long period ot time.