Evolution and the Baha’i Faith Redefining Humanity part 1

What does the Baha'i Faith teach about the science of evolution? We examine the Baha'i Texts on the matter which will hopefully dispel some myths and re-frame the perspective on science and what it means to be "human".
Sections:
1:35 Introduction
11:13 An Ironic Foreshadow
13:10 Man was in the Animal Kingdom
25:50 Function, not Form
43:12 What is ‘Man’?
51:27 ‘Abdu'l-Bahá’s Admonishment
57:42 Stages from ‘man’ to ‘Man’
1:03:24 Man is an Emergent Property
1:23:20 Billion Years from Now - Obvious Emergence
1:32:00 Reduction and Physicalism - Multiple Means of Realization
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[@jimrandle5958]

I am a Baha'i member and an ardent Darwinian and have studied the Baha'i writings in some depth but there seems to be an anomaly in the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. If you read 'Some Answered Questions' chapters 46-51 he actually disagrees with the mainstream science of Biology and Evolution by Natural Selection. Basically he says that we evolved separately from the animal and have never been an animal. He says that our evolutionary development parallels the development of the embryo in the womb up until it becomes an adult. This would preclude evolution by natural selection. 'Abdu’l's version is known by scientists as 'Orthogenesis' and was discounted by science many years ago. 'Orthogenesis' basically means 'guided evolution which is pre-planned and does not depend on natural selection’. As Professor Richard Dawkins says "evolution doesn't have goals, it just changes." At the same time it can only go forward and not backwards. We have 98.9% of our DNA in common with the chimpanzee which strongly indicates humans and chimpanzees having a common ancestor. We are closer to a chimpanzee than a Horse is to an Ass. If we tried to resolve this issue and simply accept evolution by natural selection then how does that fit in with Progressive Revelation? If we look back at our ancestors such as Australopithecus, Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus and so on, then when did God first start communicating with us and start choosing Prophets? I have a lovely chart I bought from Amazon called 'The Evolutionary Tree of Religion' which shows the early religions from all over the world right up to the modern day and Baha'i Faith is very nicely included. At the bottom of the chart the very earliest religions were either animists or polytheists. Animists worshipped stones and trees and possibly their own ancestors. How do you combine that chart with Progressive revelation and then with Darwinian Evolution?

[@jimrandle5958]

Jeremiah said 20:7 "O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed.