Posted on 03/06/2009 11:30:02 AM PST by Alex Murphy
ROME — A Vatican-backed conference on evolution is under attack from people who weren't invited to participate: those espousing creationism and intelligent design.
The Discovery Institute, the main organization supporting intelligent design research, says it was shut out from presenting its views because the meeting was funded in part by the John Templeton Foundation, a major U.S. nonprofit that has criticized the intelligent design movement.
Intelligent design holds that certain features of life forms are so complex that they can best be explained by an origin from an intelligent higher power, not an undirected process like natural selection.
Organizers of the five-day conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University said Thursday that they barred intelligent design proponents because they wanted an intellectually rigorous conference on science, theology and philosophy to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."
While there are some Darwinian dissenters present, intelligent design didn't fit the bill, they said.
"We think that it's not a scientific prospective, nor a theological or philosophical one," said the Rev. Marc Leclerc, the conference director and a professor of philosophy of nature at the Gregorian. "This makes a dialogue very difficult, maybe impossible."
He denied the decision had anything to do with Templeton's funding for the conference. "Absolutely not. We decided independently within the organizing committee, in total autonomy," Leclerc said.
The Pennsylvania-based Templeton Foundation, which has an estimated endowment of $1.5 billion and awards some $70 million in annual grants, seeks to fund projects that reconcile religion and science.
At least three of the conference speakers, including two members of its scientific committee, serve on the Templeton Foundation's board of advisers.
The Templeton representative at the conference, Paul Wason, director of the foundation's science and religion programs, said the grant had no strings attached.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
...in an e-mail, he said the conference didn't speak for the Vatican as a whole, where he said evolution and intelligent design "remain in serious and fruitful dialogue." Indeed, some influential cardinals have indicated they support intelligent design, including Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna, a close collaborator of Pope Benedict XVI. ...
...In his opening address, Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke dismissively of fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. who want schools to teach biblical creationism alongside, or instead of, evolution...
...Pope John Paul II articulated the church's position most clearly in a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, saying the theory of evolution is "more than a hypothesis."
Ping.
Not the first time Rome was wrong and I am sure it won’t be the last.
Jesus made it clear that he accepted Genesis as historical and at face value. It's a sad day when those who purport to represent Him fail to follow in His footsteps but are cowed and misled by the scoffers of II Peter 3.
Hmmm...Creation, not a theological perspective? What church is this yutz a reverend of?
They quote selectively from JPII’s 1996 address. He said it’s more than a hypothesis, it’s a theory and that in science theories are as good as the degree to which the data verify them and that verification of scientific theories rests with scientists, not theologians. This cuts two ways. One, it recognizes that evolution is the leading explanatory model. Two, it reminds scientists that the issue is how well the data support the theory, so alternative theories that explain the same data differently are legitimate and should be studied and taught.
Then he went on to insist that, since the soul is not scientifically verifiable, the issue whether ensouled man evolved from lower primates cannot be resolved by scientists. Any theory of evolution that includes the claim that ensouled man evolved from lower primates is not science and no Catholic can support such a theory. (Most scientists who think man purely evolved from apes don’t believe in souls anyway, but Christians who do believe that man differs from animals because of ensouledness, need to be aware that “man” for the materialist scientist means something other than what “man” means for them.)
The organizers of this conference do seem to have a chip on their shoulder against ID. It’s not purely a scientific approach but neither is it totally outside science. And I’d be surprised if all the participants in the conference strictly adhere to the limits of what science can say. If they do, then one might make a case for excluding ID. But I doubt that they will be so careful about the boundary between science and philosophy of science, where ID operates.
And it’s probably correct that the conference does not represent the thinking of Benedict or Cardinal Shoenborn. They are much better informed about philosophy of science and the way the issues weave back and forth across those boundaries than are a lot of Catholic scientists who like to mock the ID folks (and clump them with young earth creationists, when they are two very, very different approaches to both science and theology) in order to protect their bona fides with mateialist, secular scientism true believers.
So the ID folks have a point, though I think they are squawking louder than is warranted.
Rome-da-dum-dum, Rome-da-dum-dum-duuuum
He probably meant that young earth creationism and ID are not good theology. Obviously young earth creationism is primariyl theology and, from a Catholic perspective, not very good theology. ID is a combination of science and philosophy of science. Obviously Christian theology asserts, based on revelation—not science, that God created everything and I doubt that that’s what Leclerc was rejecting.
The media can’t begin to understand that belief in creation does not equal young earth creationISM. They lump it all together. Who knows exactly what Leclerc said? He might have said “creationism” and the reporter heard “creation.” Or he might have said creation and meant creationism (in which case he’s not as well informed thoelogically as a spokesman ought to be.)
ID does not assert belief in creation, merely points to scientific evidence that creation need not be incompatible with scientific explanations. However, some theologians and philosophers do believe that, on philosophy of science grounds, ID is not good philosophy of science, that it has some flaws in its total package of reasoning about the data. I have great respect for this handful of thoughtful critiques of ID. But that’s all the more reason why ID should be welcomed in both the science and theological worlds, critiqued, its flaws argued, with its proponents allowed to defend their theories. Mocking it or dismissing it as having no standing is wrong.
Whether that’s what Leclerc was doing, who knows. We don’t trust MSM media reports on other issues, why should we blindly trust them here? Trust but verify, I think one noted American philosopher once said.
I left Rome and now live in the New Jerusalem.
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.
-Pope Benedict XVI
Don’t feel too bad about this.
The Vatican did not invite the Astrology Club to the meeting.
Nor did they invite the Flat Earth Society or the Alchemy Fellowship.
This is an academic conference (i.e researchers present and discuss their work) . There are three fields from which the lectures have been chosen; science, theology and philosophy. Intelligent Design isn’t part of any of these fields and to my knowledge there is no actual ID research.
ID will get some attention though but it will not be the kind ID advocates want.
abstracts fourth day of the conference-
Antievolution in America: From Creation Science to Intelligent Design
Ronald Numbers, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Despite Charles Darwin’s announced effort to overthrow “the dogma of separate creations,” organized opposition to his revolution did not appear until the early 1920s. Even then, the Christian fundamentalists associated with William Jennings Bryan’s crusade to eradicate Darwinism from the schools and churches of America readily accepted the paleontological evidence for the antiquity of life on earth. It was not the coming of “scientific creationism” in the 1960s and 1970s that large numbers of antievolutionists began insisting on the recent appearance of life and assigning most of the geological column to the year of Noah’s flood. During the past fifteen years or so a new, nonbiblical, form of opposition to evolution has arisen under the banner of “intelligent design,” which seeks to “reclaim science in the name of God” and to change the very rules governing the practice of science.
Creationism, “Intelligent Design” and Evolution
Jacques Arnould, Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), France
For Charles Darwin, the creationists were initially the partisans of the fixity of species. Is this idea of a theologically founded reason to refuse the idea of evolution? Dalmace Leroy thought said no. Nevertheless, from its philosophical origin, fixism has theological stakes which have all their actuality. Since Darwin, creationist movements have evolved; the current form of the intelligent design presents another type of interest in regard of theology ; ID invites theologians to re-examine the place granted to natural theology, and to analyze the temptations of the « God-of the-gaps ». If the various forms of creationism invite today to a serious and critical theological reflection on creation, on the one hand, and on the relationship between science and faith, on the other hand, theology must take with serious the current data of science, in the spirit of the speech of the pope Jean-Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in October 1996.
“There are three fields from which the lectures have been chosen; science, theology and philosophy. Intelligent Design isn’t part of any of these fields and to my knowledge there is no actual ID research.”
Who sez? ID crosses the boundaries of all three fields. Since the latter two are willing to accept just about anything within their purview (philosophy of garbage disposal, theology of womanist Filipina domestic workers and so forth) and, for that matter, even in science today the most bizarre stuff gets a place at the table, I’d say that excluding ID merely indicates that the scientists, philosophers and theologians running the conference just don’t want to have to be bothered with an intelligent engagement with ID. If ID is wrong, scientifically, theologically, philosophically, well then bring it’s adherents to the table and show them their error.
I get just a tad tired of this smarmy “you ID guys are a bunch of trailer trash intellectuals” dismissal.
I do not defend ID as an explanatory model. I noted in a previous post that some theologians I highly respect have serious theological reservations about some of its reasoning. I don’t know whose right. But for God’s sake, ID deserves a place at the table and so far all I’ve seen from the scientific mainstream is a refusal to engage it intellectually and a massive stonewalling.
When I see that stonewalling and mocking dismissal coming from politicians or lawyers or doctors or historians (I am a hstorian), I smell a rat. The lady protests too much.
I think you meant to say, "there is no actual ID scientific research?
Does this betray your unspoken assumption that only scienctific research is "research"? If so, would you agree that the philosophers and theologians at this conference will be presenting research results? I would say, of course they will be.
I assume your dimissive tone about ID "research" refers to the fact that ID advocates largely draw on the results of others' scientific research and then offer an explanatory model for the results and data that includes a combination of philosophy and science. That's exactly what the philosophers and theologians at this conference will be doing. They themselves, for the most part, are not scientific researchers engaged in laboratory research. As theologians and philosophers they take the results of scientific research and offer theological and philosophical reflections on its significance. Many of them may also have degrees in science or history or philosophy of science; at the very least they will be well acquainted with scientific research. They have to be if they are to intelligently comment on the theological and philosophical meaning of scientific research results.
That's a legitimate academic endeavor. And it's just about exactly what ID does. I salute the conference for recognizing that science does not exist in a vacuum. Far too many scientists do their own interpreting of the philosophical or theological meaning of their scientific research. Many stay narrowly within the bounds of science but all too often they make philosophical claims (e.g., the soul does not exist or man evolved totallly from lower primates) that a scientist cannot, in scientific terms, make, but they don't realize they've crossed over into philosophy or theology.
I'm glad this conference brings all these fields together. But I don't see how ID can be excluded on grounds that it doesn't fit the disciplinary boundaries involved.
Those three fields get to say. However you value (or don’t value) the work of those fields, they get to decide what they are. The Catholic Church agrees with this and is IMO the source of the distinction between those fields.
“I get just a tad tired of this smarmy “you ID guys are a bunch of trailer trash intellectuals” dismissal.”
Where has ID earned more than that? Words have meanings. ID claims to be science but won’t adhere to the axioms by which science defines itself. Also, why should these researchers be required to treat people to a free class of Bio 101 at an academic conference. How many times does someone have to answer “Yes we’ve seen speciation in the lab” and “No thermodynamics doesn’t negate evolution”? .
ID needs to get past that.
No I said what I meant. Biologists do biology. Chemists do chemistry, historians do history etc. A lawyer reading about someones biology research and giving his opinion of the field and it’s results is not research.
“Far too many scientists do their own interpreting of the philosophical or theological meaning of their scientific research.”
Scientist will sometimes give a popular account or interpretation of their work. When they do this it isn’t science. The Church rightly rejects any such inapropriate metaphysical interpretions.
“Many stay narrowly within the bounds of science”
I’ve had a subscription to the journal Science for 20 years. I’ve never seen a research article that strayed to philosophy or theology. Perhaps it’s done in Europe
” but all too often they make philosophical claims (e.g., the soul does not exist”
That’s a theological claim and you’re right it’s not science.
“or man evolved totally from lower primates”
The physical body is believed to have evolved from lower primates. The Church doesn’t have a problem with that as long as it stops there. I’d say most scientists are on the Church’s side on that one.
“that a scientist cannot, in scientific terms, make, but they don’t realize they’ve crossed over into philosophy or theology.”
They certainly shouldn’t and this is a big reason it’s so good the Church is stepping up to the plate with conferences like this one. It helps to remind scientists exactly where their place is and helps to confine them to the better of us all. The only people who hate it are evangelical atheists like Dawkins and the Discovery Institute people who both think science must prove or disprove the Creator.
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