# Christian Evolutionists. When did man acquire a soul ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 16, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344 "2010-04-16T14:42:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/61 "2010-04-18T23:17:26Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Not if they discovered something that acted like a soul is typically supposed to, and which could be independently verified by other scientists. They might come up with a more “sciency” sounding official word for it, but most would refer to it as a soul in normal conversation. And by “they”, I mean whichever scientists discovered it of whatever religion, if any. > > Science is by nature hostile to religion because religion is consistently wrong, not because scientists themselves are necessarily personally hostile to religion. If souls were discovered, if the discovery could be verified by other scientists then souls would become part of the scientific mainstream. Yes, a scientist who claims to have discovered evidence of the soul in the real world is going to get " “kicked out” of the scientific mainstream" for the simple reason that no such evidence exists; but that’s simply because like pretty much all religious ideas the soul is imaginary. Not because science would reject the idea if it turned out to be true. I honestly don’t know what you’re trying to sat. No big deal… it’s kind of tangential to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![in\_hiding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c5a1d2/32.png) [@in\_hiding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/in_hiding)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/62 "2010-04-18T23:22:51Z")
Humans got souls the moment a big black monolith appeared somewhere in Africa. I’m surprised nobody said that yet. But seriously, I agree with Dawkins here - Evolution and (christian) Religion are ultimately incompatible. It’s interesting to see how people try to combine both. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Science doesn’t concern itself with the supernatural. If it comes under the umbrella of science, it is, by definition, natural. There is no supernatural. Things are, or they are not. If they are, they are natural. If they are not, they are, well, not. A Soul, if it exists, would be something natural. I don’t understand where this completely arbitrary separation comes from - there are things, but then there are _things_. Like, _special_ things. They have an impact on us, but they are … special. Not like the rest. Different. How? Why? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/63 "2010-04-18T23:24:02Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > If souls were discovered, if the discovery could be verified by other scientists then souls would become part of the scientific mainstream. And if souls do what most Christians claim that souls do, i.e. influence the meat of our brains to allow us to make moral decisions, or know God, or whatever, then souls are absolutely verifiable. In other words, the soul, in its most common formulation, is a **testable theological hypothesis**. That’s why the question in the OP is interesting. By conducting a thought experiment about when souls arrived on the scene as man evolved, we’re also considering which hypothetical models of the soul are consistent with our existing body of biological knowledge and what measurable physical traces they might leave behind for us to detect. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/64 "2010-04-18T23:35:02Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > And if souls do what most Christians claim that souls do, i.e. influence the meat of our brains to allow us to make moral decisions, or know God, or whatever, then souls are absolutely verifiable. > > In other words, the soul, in its most common formulation, is a **testable theological hypothesis**. > > That’s why the question in the OP is interesting. By conducting a thought experiment about when souls arrived on the scene as man evolved, we’re also considering which hypothetical models of the soul are consistent with our existing body of biological knowledge and what measurable physical traces they might leave behind for us to detect. Then test them:) If you know the scientific method then do it YOURSELF:)🙂 Don’t depend on the scientific community, if they exist it is simple enough for everyone to test on their own, come up with your own methods, test, refine, and retest:):)🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/65 "2010-04-18T23:47:15Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > This doesn’t make any sense to me. Theologically speaking, isn’'t having a soul supposed to influence our behavior? That certainly seems to be what some of the other posters in this thread are saying. And if our souls influence our behavior, then isn’t that a concrete example of an interaction between “matter/energy and non-matter/energy”? > > As we learn more and more about neurology, at some point we should be able to detect the influence the soul exerts on our neurons. Chemistry and physics will predict a particular pattern of neurological behavior that will deviate from what we see in the real world. That deviation will be evidence for the existence of souls. In the point soul/matter interaction I can honestly say my knowledge reaches a point where I simly accept the idea without going deeper. I really do not know how. I cannot imagine > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, according to Catholic theology by your own description souls are NOT necessary for living since the immediate ancestors of humans with souls had no souls and were alive. You are just trying to evade answering what a soul actually does. Again; if God removed your soul, what would happen?. Death. When God gave souls to the last pre-human animal and it became human, the soul became a necesity of life for that species. Like lungs in humans but not in fish > [@](#): > > Have you? Very well, thanks. > [@](#): > > You are the one who started spewing insults at me, personally. Yes, it can. It doesn’t because no such thing actually exists; but if it did, science could. [/QUOTE] Whine, whine, whine. No it coudn’t by Catholic definition of soul. No it couldn’t because by definition science cannot speak of spiritual things. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That doesn’t work, since parents are not omnipotent, not omniscient, nor did they design their children from scratch. The relationship between God and humans isn’t much like parenting at all, except a severely abusive one. > > Except that simply isn’t true; we evolved from lesser intelligences, and less intelligent species evolved from species that weren’t intelligent at all. > > And there’s nothing more “naive” than being a believer. Than someone who thinks that his own evidence free, logic & physics denying fantasy just happens to be true. Never mind that religion has over and over again been proven wrong, or that it’s wildly contradictory; believe because you want to believe. That’s “naive”. Pure self indulgent fantasy. > > In other words, shut up, don’t ask questions and mindlessly believe. Why? Because a book written by deeply ignorant barbarians says so! > > Because there’s plenty of evidence for a universe, none for a god. And because the universe isn’t logically incoherent, nor is it a myth made up by primitives. > > So if your god ripped out your soul you’d become a sociopathic atheist? > > And what makes you think that? if the soul actually existed, there’s no reason to think it would be unknowable by science. DO ask questions. Don’t mindlessly ask questions. Soul ripped = death. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/66 "2010-04-19T00:17:22Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Don’t depend on the scientific community, if they exist it is simple enough for everyone to test on their own … . Not necessarily. I’m willing to acknowledge that the influence of the soul on neurological functioning may be very delicate and subtle. If, for example, humans had brains that were the size and complexity of hamsters, yet we were still able to think and reason at our current level, that would clearly indicate that something anomalous was going on. Or if humans who suffered serious head injuries were still able to think and talk normally, that would also be strong and easily observable evidence for the existence of a soul. But clearly the situation is not that simple. The physical human brain obviously plays a very large role in cognition given its size and the fact that when it’s damaged our mental processes are impaired. So if the soul does exist and is influencing our behavior, its effects must be very well-hidden – gentle nudges rather than overt shoves. Such a subtle influence will almost certainly require very careful experiments to tease out from the natural physical processes of the brain. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/67 "2010-04-19T06:18:08Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > And if souls do what most Christians claim that souls do, i.e. influence the meat of our brains to allow us to make moral decisions, or know God, or whatever, then souls are absolutely verifiable. > > In other words, the soul, in its most common formulation, is a **testable theological hypothesis**. > > That’s why the question in the OP is interesting. By conducting a thought experiment about when souls arrived on the scene as man evolved, we’re also considering which hypothetical models of the soul are consistent with our existing body of biological knowledge and what measurable physical traces they might leave behind for us to detect. When we are done with that can we go back to how many angels fit on the head of a pin? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/68 "2010-04-19T11:33:29Z")
> [@OrvilleWright](#): > > Reality exists independent of you atheist musings. > On the _profound_ issue of God “permitting” evil, the analgous situation is parenting. Why do parents allow their children to get into trouble, sometimes to harm or even kill themselves? There are many answers, but the clearest, most immediate answer is free will. You are free to do anything as stupid as you wish, regardless of your age. > > One of the fundamental mistakes in reasoning that atheists make is to pretend that the universe _created_ itself, out of nothing. Information, energy, intelligence, all from nada. The fatuous pretension of believing this is laughably naive. > > Intelligence only comes from intelligence. > > Then where did God come from? The Holy Bible answered this question more than 2000 years ago. God just IS. He said “I am.” > > Why an eternal universe was so easily believable through the mid twentieth century but an eternal God is inconceivable is a question atheists need to answer. First of all there is only the word of some Human, who wrote or said, God said anything, there is no proof that Moses was even a historical person. Also, who created the place for the God to be? If God is a Supreme being as many believe than he would need a place before He could exist or he would nor be in existence. The meaning of the saying “Iam” could mean existence itself. It is a matter of belief not fact! ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/69 "2010-04-19T11:41:23Z")
> [@OrvilleWright](#): > > Reality exists independent of you atheist musings. > On the _profound_ issue of God “permitting” evil, the analgous situation is parenting. Why do parents allow their children to get into trouble, sometimes to harm or even kill themselves? There are many answers, but the clearest, most immediate answer is free will. You are free to do anything as stupid as you wish, regardless of your age. > > One of the fundamental mistakes in reasoning that atheists make is to pretend that the universe _created_ itself, out of nothing. Information, energy, intelligence, all from nada. The fatuous pretension of believing this is laughably naive. > > Intelligence only comes from intelligence. > > Then where did God come from? The Holy Bible answered this question more than 2000 years ago. God just IS. He said “I am.” > > Why an eternal universe was so easily believable through the mid twentieth century but an eternal God is inconceivable is a question atheists need to answer. A good human parent doesn’t know ahead of time that a child will do evil things. I know if I were an all knowing being and I knew my child would be a Hitler I wouldn’t let a man near me for months. I would not knowingly concieve a evil Human,and i would like to think God knew better than me. If I so chose to have a child that I knew would do evil i would consider myself as much at fault. I am still searching for the answer to what is the difference between life and soul ? When a person dies,life leaves the body so whare does it go? Why should the soul suffer for the body or the body for the soul? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/70 "2010-04-19T11:52:48Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > When we are done with that can we go back to how many angels fit on the head of a pin? We first have to prove that angels exist!😃 ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/71 "2010-04-19T12:06:59Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > When we are done with that can we go back to how many angels fit on the head of a pin? [Straight Dope column.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1008/did-medieval-scholars-argue-over-how-many-angels-could-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin) ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/72 "2010-04-19T14:08:27Z")
God is All There Is and nothing exists outside of Him. A theistic mathematician might conceive of Him as The Set of All Sets. Each soul is eternal and is forever safe within God as an indispensable part of Himself. The soul is pure Spirit and is literally a creative extension of God’s Will within Himself. Souls exist beyond number. All souls share God’s Mind, the only Creative instrument there is. In this, they are and always will be collectively Co-creator with God, God’s Only Son. Because their wills are free, they can imagine their minds to be separate from Mind and that they have thwarted God’s Will. This, of course, does not affect their Reality. When they do this, however, they turn from Universal Knowledge to subjective belief and imagine themselves separate from God and from each other, lost in a fractally changing a space time continuum. The result of this illusion (imagined projection) is a lot of drama, laughter and tears and total insanity. We have chosen to believe that God is beyond us but accessible. God is beyond belief but He can and, given our belief in belief as reality, must be reached thru it. Jesus offered some guidelines for changing one’s beliefs in separation to a single belief in oneness. At that point, the individual awakes to the realization that it’s all been just a dream and remembers God, just like Jesus did. And just like Jesus, it is now our mission to spread the Word that sin is a lie and judgment is always one of self on self. When everyone realizes this, and only then, Salvation has come to earth. Go to it. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/73 "2010-04-19T15:08:33Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > God is All There Is and nothing exists outside of Him. A theistic mathematician might conceive of Him as The Set of All Sets. > > Each soul is eternal and is forever safe within God as an indispensable part of Himself. The soul is pure Spirit and is literally a creative extension of God’s Will within Himself. Souls exist beyond number. > > All souls share God’s Mind, the only Creative instrument there is. In this, they are and always will be collectively Co-creator with God, God’s Only Son. > > Because their wills are free, they can imagine their minds to be separate from Mind and that they have thwarted God’s Will. This, of course, does not affect their Reality. When they do this, however, they turn from Universal Knowledge to subjective belief and imagine themselves separate from God and from each other, lost in a fractally changing a space time continuum. The result of this illusion (imagined projection) is a lot of drama, laughter and tears and total insanity. > > We have chosen to believe that God is beyond us but accessible. God is beyond belief but He can and, given our belief in belief as reality, must be reached thru it. Jesus offered some guidelines for changing one’s beliefs in separation to a single belief in oneness. At that point, the individual awakes to the realization that it’s all been just a dream and remembers God, just like Jesus did. > > And just like Jesus, it is now our mission to spread the Word that sin is a lie and judgment is always one of self on self. When everyone realizes this, and only then, Salvation has come to earth. > > Go to it. Well if we are going to go for wild, fact-less speculation with nothing to back it up, I’ll posit that the soul is a blue turtle except on Thursdays when it is kinda purplish. Go to it. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/74 "2010-04-19T16:37:47Z")
Sounds like adhay is defining “God” to be “everything that exists.” That’s pretty much the definition of pantheism, which is mostly the same thing as atheism. I’m an atheist, and I believe in “everything that exists.” ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/75 "2010-04-19T16:43:12Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Well if we are going to go for wild, fact-less speculation with nothing to back it up, Seen anything else in this thread? I agree that this should be in IMHO. > [@](#): > > I’ll posit that the soul is a blue turtle except on Thursdays when it is kinda purplish. Go to it. Whatever works for you. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/76 "2010-04-19T16:53:15Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Sounds like adhay is defining “God” to be “everything that exists.” That’s pretty much the definition of pantheism, which is mostly the same thing as atheism. I’m an atheist, and I believe in “everything that exists.” Do you see yourself a part of everything that exists or as apart from everything “else” that exists apart from you? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/77 "2010-04-19T17:09:00Z")
What’s the difference? If I take the set of “everything that exists,” then clearly, I am part of that. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/78 "2010-04-19T21:25:33Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Sounds like adhay is defining “God” to be “everything that exists.” That’s pretty much the definition of pantheism, which is mostly the same thing as atheism. I’m an atheist, and I believe in “everything that exists.” Sounds like **adhay** is positing that “everything that exists” is a _sentient, conscious entity_. And that souls exist which are “pure spirit”. I dunno about you but this is a pretty far cry from _my_ brand of atheism. Frankly I found his thesis a bit difficult to parse; it seems that the theory is that reality itself is a figment of our imaginations - a deranged hallucination, maybe? (I don’t know what “a fractally changing a space time continuum” is, really.) My read of it is that this fractal reality isn’t objectively real, so that would make us all solipsists, I guess. Solipsists wallowing in an insanity we deliberately chose, to be specific. So, I guess in this model, cro-magnons didn’t have souls because there _were_ no cro-magnons; we just made them up. I’m presumably hallucinating this message board, so none of you have souls either, and neither does anyone I imagine I’ve met, since nobody else that I imagine I encounter is actually real. There’s just me, wallowing in my own delusion, imagining that **adhay** exists and is telling me to realize that reality is an illusion like he did. Though I can’t help but wonder, if **adhay** woken up from the dream and is now seeing the true reality of universal monotonous oneness, how is he managing to post on the message board I’m hallucinating? It’s not impossible that I’m misundersanding his thesis. ---
**Author:** ![Aelita\_Daystar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Aelita\_Daystar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aelita_Daystar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/79 "2010-04-20T02:21:17Z")
> [@Stealth\_Potato](#): > > [ul][li]“This animal has no soul; therefore it is morally acceptable for me to kill it and eat it.”[/li][li]“It is morally acceptable for me to kill and eat this animal.”[/li][/ul] > > But moral codes, intelligence, social structure, and so on are _observably_ traits that arise from the physical structure of our consciousness. The only possible way to define the “soul” that won’t be flatly contradicted by physical science is to say "it is undetectable and immeasurable and has no influence on consciousness or behavior. Um… no, not if it it’s the thing that causes consciousness to exist. Problem is you’re using a common but totally nonsensical definition of a soul. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That, again, is evading the question. Suppose your god yanks the soul out of someone; surely Mr Omnipotent could do that. What happens? What does a soul do for someone? And the answer can’t be “they die”, if human ancestors were wandering around soulless. If there is such a thing as a soul, I suggest that these hypothetically soulless people would be reduced to simply writhing randomly and uselessly like Galvani’s dissected frog. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That doesn’t work, since parents are not omnipotent, not omniscient, nor did they design their children from scratch. The relationship between God and humans isn’t much like parenting at all, except a severely abusive one. I was going to say this pretty much, but you covered it well. Parents simply don’t have the power to do what OrvilleWright was suggesting. And anything that even came close would likely harm them in other ways. So it kinda isn’t even possible at all. > [@Stealth\_Potato](#): > > But what makes it possible to witness, observe, or verify this difference? In other words, suppose I build a robot with an artificial consciousness that precisely counterfeits the working of a human brain – it has thoughts, memories, opinions, morals, emotions, everything. What is it that makes _me_ a “person” and the robot just a machine? This is a good question. 🙂 I’d like to ask though, if you counterfeit it, does it still experience those things? That’s the question, and I’m not sure if that can be answered. On the other hand, if it’s completely identical to the working of a brain, whose to say it’s not “grabbing” a soul of it’s own just like (presumably) when a brain is formed? > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > If the soul has a measurable effect on the material world (as you say it does by allowing us to know good and evil and experience God) then the soul is ABSOLUTELY knowable by science. All we have to do is track down how the behavior of our neurons deviates from what chemistry and physics would predict. That deviation would be concrete evidence for the soul at work. And what do chemistry and physics predict on this? Isn’t this overestimating what we know about cognitive function right now? I’d think before any evidence of a soul were to be found we’d have to have a clearer understanding of such things. Right now there isn’t any scientific basis to say one way or the other. Until claims can be tested, there isn’t any reason to say so, especially given how… academic? the question is. ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344/80 "2010-04-20T02:49:18Z")
I remember reading that in the 18th or 19th century, some scientists tried to find evidence for a soul by weighing a person right before and after their death and measuring any change. Theoretically, at the moment of death, the soul would be exiting the body, and this would cause the body to slightly decrease in mass. Of course, this assumes that souls are composed of baryonic matter (we can’t very well say that souls are massless, otherwise they would catastrophically exit the body at the speed of light, since anything with zero mass must always travel at _c_). Now perhaps souls are composed of some kind of exotic matter that’s not currently part of the standard model of particle physics. But given that the soul exists in this universe, it would have to be detectable somehow, and in some way interact with normal matter (in much the same way that dark matter is invisible and almost nonexistant except that it interacts with normal matter via gravity). Hey, maybe we can create soul particles at the LHC. Has anyone submitted a proposal for this yet? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-evolutionists-when-did-man-acquire-a-soul/536344.md?page=5)