The Creationist Museum

[KnightofChrist]

Mortify has a point about materialistic nature of Neo-Darwinism.

Finding Design in Nature
By Card. Schönborn
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/opinion/07schonborn.html?_r=1

EVER since 1996,when Pope John Paul II said that evolution (a term he did not define) was "more than just a hypothesis," defenders of neo-Darwinian dogma have often invoked the spposed acceptance - or at least acquiescence - of the Roman Catholic Church when they defend their theory as somehow compatible with Christian faith.

But this is not true. The Catholic Church,while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth,proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things.

Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true,but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided,unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology,not science.

Consider the real teaching of our beloved John Paul. While his rather vague and unimportant 1996 letter about evolution is always and everywhere cited,we see no one discussing these comments from a 1985 general audience that represents his robust teaching on nature:

"All the observations concerning the development of life lead to a similar conclusion. The evolution of living beings,of which science seeks to determine the stages and to discern the mechanism,presents an internal finality which arouses admiration. This finality which directs beings in a direction for which they are not responsible or in charge,obliges one to suppose a Mind which is its inventor,its creator."

He went on: "To all these indications of the existence of God the Creator,some oppose the power of chance or of the proper mechanisms of matter. To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements and such marvelous finality in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact,this would be equivalent to admitting effects without a cause. It would be to abdicate human intelligence,which would thus refuse to think and to seek a solution for its problems."

Note that in this quotation the word "finality" is a philosophical term synonymous with final cause,purpose or design. In comments at another general audience a year later,John Paul concludes, "It is clear that the truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of materialistic philosophy. These view the cosmos as the result of an evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity."

Naturally,the authoritative Catechism of the Catholic Church agrees: "Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works,by the light of human reason." It adds: "We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever,nor of blind fate or chance."

In an unfortunate new twist on this old controversy,neo-Darwinists recently have sought to portray our new pope,Benedict XVI,as a satisfied evolutionist. They have quoted a sentence about common ancestry from a 2004 document of the International Theological Commission,pointed out that Benedict was at the time head of the commission,and concluded that the Catholic Church has no problem with the notion of "evolution" as used by mainstream biologists - that is,synonymous with neo-Darwinism.

The commission's document,however, reaffirms the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of design in nature. Commenting on the widespread abuse of John Paul's 1996 letter on evolution,the commission cautions that "the letter cannot be read as a blanket approbation of all theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which explicitly deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life in the universe."

Furthermore,according to the commission, "An unguided evolutionary process - one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence - simply cannot exist."

Indeed,in the homily at his installation just a few weeks ago,Benedict proclaimed: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved,each of us is necessary."

Throughout history the church has defended the truths of faith given by Jesus Christ. But in the modern era,the Catholic Church is in the odd position of standing in firm defense of reason as well. In the 19th century,the First Vatican Council taught a world newly enthralled by the "death of God" that by the use of reason alone mankind could come to know the reality of the Uncaused Cause,the First Mover,the God of the philosophers.

Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science,the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and necessity" are not scientific at all,but,as John Paul put it,an abdication of human intelligence.

Christoph Schönborn,the Roman Catholic cardinal archbishop of Vienna,was the lead editor of the official 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church.

[Laudate_Dominum]

I have a lot to say about that. Incidentally, I happen to know the main Discovery Institute guy responsible for coaxing the Cardinal into writing that op-ed piece and for getting him coached in ID bogus talking points. But my new rule is that a doc dump warrants a doc dump in reply and so I won't trouble you with my thoughts and opinions. I will mention that the Cardinal's subsequent book, [i]Chance or Purpose[/i], offers a much more balanced and substantial discussion. I hope he's ashamed of that op-ed.

Doc dump away!



[b]The Design of Evolution[/b]
Stephen M. Barr

Catholic theology has never really had a quarrel with the idea that the present species of plants and animals are the result of a long process of evolution—or with the idea that this process has unfolded according to natural laws. As the 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia put it, these ideas seem to be “in perfect agreement with the Christian conception of the universe.”

Catholic theologians were more hesitant with respect to the origin of the human race, but even here, the old encyclopedia admitted, evolution of the human body is “per se not improbable” and a version of it had “been propounded by St. Augustine.” The crucial doctrinal point was that the human soul, being spiritual, could not be the result of any merely material process: biological evolution any more than sexual reproduction. The soul must be conferred on each person by a special creative act of God. And so the Church is required to reject atheistic and materialistic philosophies of evolution, which deny the existence of a Creator or His providential governance of the world. As long as evolutionary theory confined itself to properly biological questions, however, it was considered benign.

This was the view that was taught to generations of children in Catholic schools. The first formal statement on evolution by the magisterium did not come until the encyclical letter Humani Generis of Pope Pius XII in 1950. The only point that the pontiff arseerted as definitely dogmatic was that the human soul was not the product of evolution. As for the human body, Pius noted, its evolution from those of lower animals could be investigated as a scientific hypothesis, so long as no conclusions were made rashly.

This is how things stood for another half century. Then, in 1996, in a letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Pope John Paul II acknowledged that the theory of evolution is now recognized as “more than a hypothesis,” thanks to impressive and converging evidence coming from a variety of fields. He reiterated what he called the “essential point” made by Pius XII, namely that “if the human body takes its origin from preexistent living matter, [nevertheless] the spiritual soul is immediately created by God.”

Some commentators in the scientific and popular press took this statement to mean the Church had once rejected evolution and was now at last throwing in the towel. The truth is that Pius XII, though cautious, was clearly willing to let the scientific chips fall where they might; and John Paul II was simply noting the obvious fact that a lot of chips had since fallen. Nevertheless, John Paul's statement was a welcome reminder of the Church's real attitude toward empirical science. It was followed in 2004 by a lengthy document from the International Theological Commission (headed by Cardinal Ratzinger) entitled Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God. This important document contained, along with much else, a lucid and careful analysis of evolution and its relation to Catholic teaching.

So why did Christoph Schönborn, the cardinal archbishop of Vienna, lash out this summer at neo-Darwinism? In an opinion piece for the New York Times on July 7, he reacted indignantly to the suggestion that “the Catholic Church has no problem with the notion of ‘evolution' as used by mainstream biologists—that is, synonymous with neo-Darwinism.” Brushing off the 1996 statement of John Paul II as “vague and unimportant,” he cited other evidence (including statements by the late pope, sentences from Communion and Stewardship and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and a line from the new Pope Benedict XVI's installation homily) to make the case that neo-Darwinism is in fact incompatible with Catholic teaching.

In the United States, the harsh questions and mocking comments came fast and furious. Could it really be that the modern Church is condemning a scientific theory? How much doctrinal weight does Schönborn's article have? (After all, if a letter by a pope addressed to scientists can be called “unimportant,” how important can a letter by a cardinal to the readers of a newspaper be?) Why did he write it? (It appears that it was done at the urging and with the arseistance of his friend Mark Ryland, a philanthropist and ardent champion of the anti-Darwinian Intelligent Design movement.) And what, precisely, was the cardinal saying?

Continued...[spoiler]
The Church in recent centuries has avoided taking sides in intramural scientific disputes—which means the form as well as the content of the cardinal's article came as a shock. The issues it treats, having chiefly to do with the relation of chance and randomness to divine providence, are extremely subtle and cannot be dealt with adequately in the space of a newspaper column. It was nearly inevitable, therefore, that distinctions would get lost, terms would be ill-defined, and issues would be conflated.

By saying that “neo-Darwinism” is “synonymous” with “‘evolution' as used by mainstream biologists,” Schönborn indicates that he means the term as commonly understood among scientists. As so understood, neo-Darwinism is based on the idea that the mainspring of evolution is natural selection acting on random genetic variation. Elsewhere in his article, however, the cardinal gives another definition: “evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense [is] an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.” This is the central misstep of Cardinal Schönborn's article. He has slipped into the definition of a scientific theory, neo-Darwinism, the words “unplanned” and “unguided,” which are fraught with theological meaning.

The line he quotes from Communion and Stewardship may seem to support him: “An unguided evolutionary process—one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence—simply cannot exist.” And, since it is a fundamental Christian doctrine that God's providential plan extends to all events in the universe, nothing that happens can be “unplanned” as far as God is concerned.

But Communion and Stewardship also explicitly warns that the word “random” as used by biologists, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians in their technical work does not have the same meaning as the words “unguided” and “unplanned” as used in doctrinal statements of the Church. In common speech, “random” is often used to mean “uncaused,” “meaningless,” “inexplicable,” or “pointless.” And there is no question that some biologists, when they explain evolution to the public or to hapless students, do argue from the “randomness” of genetic mutations to the philosophical conclusion that the history of life is “unguided” and “unplanned.” Some do this because of an anti-religious animus, while others are simply careless.

When scientists are actually doing science, however, they do not use the words “unguided” and “unplanned.” The Institute for Scientific Information's well-known Science Citation Index reveals that only 48 papers exist in the scientific literature with the word “unguided” in the title, most having to do with missiles. Only 467 have the word “unplanned,” almost all referring to pregnancies or medical procedures. By contrast there are 52,633 papers with “random” in the title, from all fields of scientific research. The word “random” is a basic technical term in most branches of science. It is used to discuss the motions of molecules in a gas, the fluctuations of quantum fields, noise in electronic devices, and the statistical errors in a data set, to give but a few examples. So if the word “random” necessarily entails the idea that some events are “unguided” in the sense of falling “outside of the bounds of divine providence,” we should have to condemn as incompatible with Christian faith a great deal of modern physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy, as well as biology.

This is absurd, of course. The word “random” as used in science does not mean uncaused, unplanned, or inexplicable; it means uncorrelated. My children like to observe the license plates of the cars that pass us on the highway, to see which states they are from. The sequence of states exhibits a degree of randomness: a car from Kentucky, then New Jersey, then Florida, and so on—because the cars are uncorrelated: Knowing where one car comes from tells us nothing about where the next one comes from. And yet, each car comes to that place at that time for a reason. Each trip is planned, each guided by some map and schedule. Each driver's trip fits into the story of his life in some intelligible way, though the story of these drivers' lives are not usually closely correlated with the other drivers' lives.

Or consider this analogy. Prose, unlike a sonnet, has lines with final syllables that do not rhyme. The sequence those syllables form will therefore exhibit randomness. But this does not mean a prose work is “unguided” or “unplanned.” True enough, the writer did not select the words with an eye to rhyming them, imposing on them that particular kind of correlation. But the words are still chosen. So God, though he planned His work with infinite care, may not have chosen to impose certain kinds of correlations on certain kinds of events, and the motions of the different molecules in a gas, for example, may exhibit no statistically verifiable correlation.

We should distinguish between what we may call “statistical randomness,” which implies nothing about whether a process was planned or guided, and “randomness” in other senses. Statistical randomness, based on the lack of correlation among things or events, can be exploited to understand and explain phenomena through the use of probability theory. We may wish to determine, for example, whether the incidence of cancer in a certain county is consistent with statistical expectations, or whether there is some as-yet-unknown causal factor at work. By looking at the actuarial statistics, the age profile, and so on, one can compute the expected number of deaths due to cancer and see whether there is a statistically significant deviation from it. Implicit in all such computations are arseumptions about randomness. Entire subfields in science (such as “statistical mechanics”) are based on these methods: The properties of gases, liquids, and solids, for instance, can be understood and accurately calculated by methods that make arseumptions about the randomness of molecular and atomic motions.

The promoters of the anti-Darwinian Intelligent Design movement usually admit that the ideas of statistical randomness, probability, and chance can be part of legitimate explanation of phenomena. They argue instead that to be able to make a scientific inference of “design” in some set of data one must first exclude other explanations, including “chance.” The members of the International Theological Commission were clearly referring to the Intelligent Design movement when they wrote in Communion and Stewardship: “A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology.”

If an “inference of chance” as part of the explanation of a phenomenon cannot be ruled out on theological grounds, then the competing claims of neo-Darwinians and their Intelligent Design critics about biological complexity cannot be settled by theology. To their credit, many of the best writers in the Intelligent Design movement, including William Dembski and Michael Behe, also insist the issue is one to be settled scientifically.

We cannot settle the issue of the role of “chance” in evolution theologically, because God is omnipotent and can therefore produce effects in different ways. Suppose a man wants to see a particular poker hand dealt. If he deals from a single shuffled deck, his chance of seeing a royal straight flush is 1 in 649,740. So he might decide to stack the deck, introducing the right correlations into the deck before dealing. Alternatively, he might decide to deal a hand from each of a billion shuffled decks. In that case the desired hand will turn up almost infallibly. (The chances it will not are infinitesimal: 10 to the -669 power.) In which way did God make life? Was the molecular deck “stacked” or “shuffled”?

This poker analogy is weak, of course. We don't know the order of a shuffled deck—that's one reason we shuffle it. But God knows all the details of the universe from all eternity. He knows what's in the cards. The scientist and the poker player do not look at things from God's point of view, however, and so they talk about “probabilities.”

People have used the words “random,” “probability,” “chance,” for millennia without anyone imagining that it must always imply a denial of divine providence. “I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all,” as Ecclesiastes notes. Or, to make the point in dry technical terms, there is not a perfect correlation between being strong and winning or between having bread and being wise.

Why is there statistical randomness and lack of correlation in our world? It is because events do not march in lockstep, according to some simple formula, but are part of a vastly complex web of contingency. The notion of contingency is important in Catholic theology, and it is intimately connected to what in ordinary speech would be called “chance.”

Communion and Stewardship settles this point. “Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality,” the document observes. “But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a purely contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God's providential plan. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: ‘The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity, happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.' In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science.”

It is not neo-Darwinists as such that are being criticized here, but only the invalid inference drawn by “many” of them (along with “some of their critics”) that the putative “randomness” of genetic variation necessarily implies an “absolutely unguided” process. It is clearly the intention of this parseage to distinguish sharply the actual hypotheses of legitimate science from the philosophical errors often mistakenly thought to follow from them.

In his article, Schönborn cites the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “We believe that God created the world according to His wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance.” And yet, it is one thing to say that the whole world is a product of chance and the existence of the universe a fluke, and quite another to say that within the universe there is statistical randomness. The cardinal also quotes the following parseage from an address of the late pope: “To all these indications of the existence of God the Creator, some oppose the power of chance or of the proper mechanisms of matter. To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements and marvelous finality in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us.” Indeed. But to employ arguments in science based on statistical randomness and probability is not necessarily to “oppose” the idea of chance to the existence of God the Creator.

Even within the neo-Darwinian framework, there are many ways that one could see evidence of that “finality” (the directedness of the universe and life) to which John Paul II refers. The possibility of an evolutionary process that could produce the marvelously intricate forms we see presupposes the existence of a universe whose structure, matter, processes, and laws are of a special character. This is the lesson of the many “anthropic coincidences” that have been identified by physicists and chemists. It is also quite likely, as suggested by the eminent neo-Darwinian biologist Simon Conway Morris, that certain evolutionary endpoints (or “solutions”) are built into the rules of physics and chemistry, so that the “random variations” keep ending up at the same destinations, somewhat as meandering rivers always find the sea. In his book Life's Solution, Morris adduces much impressive evidence of such evolutionary tropisms. And, of course, we must never forget that each of us has spiritual powers of intellect, rationality, and freedom that cannot be accounted for by mere biology, whether as conceived by neo-Darwinians or their Intelligent Design critics.

I personally am not at all sure that the neo-Darwinian framework is a sufficient one for biology. But if it turns out to be so, it would in no way invalidate what Pope Benedict has said: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.” In his New York Times article, Cardinal Schönborn understandably wanted to counter those neo-Darwinian advocates who claim that the theory of evolution precludes a Creator's providential guidance of creation. Regrettably, he ended up giving credibility to their claim and obscuring the clear teaching of the Church that no truth of science can contradict the truth of revelation.

[url="http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/the-design-of-evolution-22"]http://www.firstthin...of-evolution-22[/url]

[/spoiler]


Doc dump II (bonus)

[spoiler]

[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]Science is and should be seen as “completely neutral” on the issue of the theistic or atheistic implications of scientific results, says Father George V. Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory, while noting that “science and religion are totally separate pursuits.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]Father Coyne is scheduled to deliver the annual Aquinas Lecture on “Science Does Not Need God, or Does It? A Catholic Scientist Looks at Evolution” at Palm Beach Atlantic University, an interdenominational Christian university of about 3,100 students, here Jan. 31. The talk is sponsored by the Newman Club, and scheduled in conjunction with the Jan. 28 feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]Catholic Online received an advance copy of the remarks from the Jesuit priest-astronomer, who heads the Vatican Observatory, which has sites at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, and on Mount Graham in Arizona.[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]Christianity is “radically creationist,” Father George V. Coyne said, but it is not best described by the “crude creationism” of the fundamental, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis or by the Newtonian dictatorial God who makes the universe tick along like a watch. Rather, he stresses, God acts as a parent toward the universe, nurturing, encouraging and working with it.[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]In his remarks, he also criticizes the cardinal archbishop of Vienna’s support for Intelligent Design and notes that Pope John Paul’s declaration that “evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis” is “a fundamental church teaching” which advances the evolutionary debate.[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]He calls “mistaken” the belief that the Bible should be used “as a source of scientific knowledge,” which then serves to “unduly complicate the debate over evolution.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]And while Charles Darwin receives most of the attention in the debate over evolution, Father Coyne said it was the 18th-century French naturalist Georges Buffon, condemned a hundred years before Darwin for suggesting that “it took billions of years to form the crust of the earth,” who “caused problems for the theologians with the implications that might be drawn from the theory of evolution.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]He points to the “marvelous intuition” of Roman Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman who said in 1868, “the theory of Darwin, true or not, is not necessarily atheistic; on the contrary, it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of divine providence and skill.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]Pope John Paul Paul II, he adds, told the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996 that “new scientific knowledge has led us to the conclusion that the theory of evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]He criticizes Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna for instigating a “tragic” episode “in the relationship of the Catholic Church to science” through the prelate’s July 7, 2005, article he wrote for the [i]New York Times[/i] that “neo-Darwinian evolution is not compatible with Catholic doctrine,” while the Intelligent Design theory is.[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]Cardinal Schonborn “is in error,” the Vatican observatory director says, on “at least five fundamental issues.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]“One, the scientific theory of evolution, as all scientific theories, is completely neutral with respect to religious thinking; two, the message of John Paul II, which I have just referred to and which is dismissed by the cardinal as ‘rather vague and unimportant,’ is a fundamental church teaching which significantly advances the evolution debate; three, neo-Darwinian evolution is not in the words of the cardinal, ‘an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection;’ four, the apparent directionality seen by science in the evolutionary process does not require a designer; five, Intelligent Design is not science despite the cardinal’s statement that ‘neo-Darwinism and the multi-verse hypothesis in cosmology [were] invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science,’” Father Coyne says.[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]Christianity is “radically creationist” and God is the “creator of the universe,” he says, but in “a totally different sense” than creationism has come to mean.[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]“It is unfortunate that, especially here in America, creationism has come to mean some fundamentalistic, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis,” he stresses. “It is rooted in a belief that everything depends upon God, or better, all is a gift from God. The universe is not God and it cannot exist independently of God. Neither pantheism nor naturalism is true.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]He says that God is not needed to explain the “scientific picture of life’s origins in terms of religious belief.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]“To need God would be a very denial of God. God is not a response to a need,” the Jesuit says, adding that some religious believers act as if they “fondly hope for the durability of certain gaps in our scientific knowledge of evolution, so that they can fill them with God.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]Yet, he adds, this is the opposite of what human intelligence should be working toward. “We should be seeking for the fullness of God in creation.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]Modern science reveals to the religious believer “God who made a universe that has within it a certain dynamism and thus participates in the very creativity of God,” Father Coyne says, adding that this view of creation is not new but can be found in early Christian writings, including from those of St. Augustine.[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]“Religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]He proposes to describe God’s relationship with the universe as that of a parent with a child, with God nurturing, preserving and enriching its individual character. “God should be seen more as a parent or as one who speaks encouraging and sustaining words.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]He stresses that the theory of Intelligent Design diminishes God into “an engineer who designs systems rather than a lover.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]“God in his infinite freedom continuously creates a world which reflects that freedom at all levels of the evolutionary process to greater and greater complexity,” he said. “God lets the world be what it will be in its continuous evolution. He does not intervene, but rather allows, participates, loves.”[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3]The concludes his prepared remarks noting that science challenges believers’ traditional understanding of God and the universe to look beyond “crude creationism” to a view that preserves the special character of both.[/size][/font][/color]

[color=#333333][font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif][size=3][url="http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=18503"]http://www.catholic....ry.php?id=18503[/url][/size][/font][/color]

[/spoiler]

[KnightofChrist]

Why should he be ashamed? I hope you'll be ashamed one day of how you talk down to people who do not share or challenges your world view.

[Laudate_Dominum]

P.S. I think it is more appropriate to quote a paragraph or so from an article and give a link to the source.[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1340925605' post='2450175']
Mortify has a point about materialistic nature of Neo-Darwinism.[/quote]
Not from my pov. Neo-Darwinism is basically a tool for understanding and modelling how populations of organisms undergo change over time. Discussions beyond that are typically philosophy or religion. I argue that believing in purpose and design in nature, the supernatural, transcendent meaning, and so on, is just as compatible with the science (properly speaking) as is the contrary worldview. To me Neo-Darwinism is just about as "atheistic" as developmental biology, celestial mechanics, and atmospheric physics.
I guess there can be problems if one's theology requires a god of thunder who controls the weather like a puppet master, or a genie who creates life forms at the snap of a finger.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1340930456' post='2450211']
Why should he be ashamed? I hope you'll be ashamed one day of how you talk down to people who do not share or challenges your world view.
[/quote]
Flamebait?

[Laudate_Dominum]

P.S. What is my worldview and how has it been challenged? I don't understand where you're coming from.

[timwho]

I see nothing wrong with neodarwinianism. As a science student, I see no conflict at all between evolution and religion. I choose to believe that the natural world does indeed proclaim the glory of God, and more often than not evidence does point to neodarwinianism, the synthesis of genetics and natural selection. I also do not believe that it excludes the work of a God. I personally like this statement:

[quote][color=#333333][font='Lucida Grande', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][size=3][background=rgb(246, 246, 240)]" It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the parseage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure parseages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation."[/background][/size][/font][/color]

[color=#333333][font='Lucida Grande', 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][size=3][background=rgb(246, 246, 240)]— De Genesi ad literam 1:19–20, Chapt. 19[/background][/size][/font][/color][/quote]

I believe science, the synthesis of framework from observed evidence, has no intrinsic incompatability with the idea of a Creator God that helps effect the direction of the mechanisms he chooses to employ. But idk.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1340931831' post='2450217']
Flamebait?
[/quote]
Welcome to Phatmass!

Edited June 29, 2012 by USAirwaysIHS

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1340932018' post='2450220']
P.S. What is my worldview and how has it been challenged? I don't understand where you're coming from.
[/quote]

Your world view as in Neo-Darwinism. You come across as an ass and a snob when you attack those that are critical of that world view personally. The Cardinal does not have to be and should not be ashamed. The professor you insult as a crackpot is not. He may be wrong but that does not make him stupid or insane which is what crackpot implies. The ding against the intelligence of your theology teacher friend was uncalled for. These kinds of insults to dismiss critics is a common trait of neo-darwinists, and I hate it with a parseion, it has no place in science and it makes it seem the theory is more of a dogma that cannot be questioned than science where free thinking should be allowed. There isnt anything wrong with being critical of ideas but this marginalization and insults to the intelligence or character of the critics of neo-darwinism is total bs and unnecessary.

Edited June 29, 2012 by KnightofChrist

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1340939681' post='2450258']
Your world view as in Neo-Darwinism. You come across as an ass and a snob when you attack those that are critical of that world view personally. The Cardinal does not have to be and should not be ashamed. The professor you insult as a crackpot is not. He may be wrong but that does not make him stupid or insane which is what crackpot implies. The ding against the intelligence of your theology teacher friend was uncalled for. These kinds of insults to dismiss critics is a common trait of neo-darwinists, and I hate it with a parseion, it has no place in science and it makes it seem the theory is more of a dogma that cannot be questioned than science where free thinking should be allowed. There isnt anything wrong with being critical of ideas but this marginalization and insults to the intelligence or character of the critics of neo-darwinism is total bs and unnecessary.
[/quote] He is giving his OPINION of the critics and you call [i]him[/i] names?? seriously?? He thinks your evidence is bunk and this is your response? When you resort to this tactic you have simply run out of real arguments....

[Vincent Vega]

It's pretty clear that LD has been defeated, and embarrarseingly so.
LD, to save face, you should shake the dust of this place from your feet and move on....

[Amppax]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1340941001' post='2450265']
It's pretty clear that LD has been defeated, and embarrarseingly so.
LD, to save face, you should shake the dust of this place from your feet and move on....
[/quote]

I need to go create a second account so I can prop that again.

[Winchester]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1340930456' post='2450211']
Why should he be ashamed? I hope you'll be ashamed one day of how you talk down to people who do not share or challenges your world view.
[/quote]
I wouldn't be ashamed. He's pretty good at it. I mean, you're crying, so he's obviously effective.

[Vincent Vega]

You sure are mean for such a pretty girl, winchester.

[Laudate_Dominum]

I humbly suggest making a new thread for critiquing my character. My arsehood and snobbery are pretty big topics and I'd hate to hijack this thread.

If you're genuinely curious, I can elaborate on whatever statements offended you. It may be that my meaning and intentions are not as bad as you think.