"Intelligent design" not science: Vatican paper

Reuters via Yahoo! ^ | 01/19/06 | Tom Heneghan

[peyton randolph]

PARIS (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic Church has restated its support for evolution with an article praising a U.S. court decision that rejects the "intelligent design" theory as non-scientific.

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said that teaching intelligent design -- which argues that life is so complex that it needed a supernatural creator -- alongside Darwin's theory of evolution would only cause confusion...

A court in the state of Pennsylvania last month barred a school from teaching intelligent design (ID), a blow to Christian conservatives who want it to be taught in biology classes along with the Darwinism they oppose.

[linear]

The fork was inevitable from the moment of creation, but that still doesn't bear on the viability of evolution as one of the ways in which that fork could be manifested.

[conservativebabe]

Well, I have my own thoughts, but I just like to sit back and watch the creationists go at it with the evolutionists. It's like watching Larry, MO, and Curly repeatedly slap each other.

[Squawk 8888]

I'm with you on that. Genesis is not a cookbook and science can neither prove nor disprove an article of faith so the whole ID vs. evolution argument is stupid IMO.

[linear]

Its like two people in an argument as to whether a box is more blue than it is square.

[wallcrawlr]

When discussing why man was created you do.

Romans 5:12
Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned

[peyton randolph]

After that Galileo business, the last thing anyone should take seriously is ANY Vatican announcement about what's a science or not.

What I find most interesting about this article is the split among creationists over the issue of whether ID is a science. I note that Catholic FReepers have been pinged to this thread. It will be enlightening to see their take in contrast with evangelical and fundamentalist Christians.

[TheWormster]

Yeah! Well, the vatican are just a bunch of atheists!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Ah, good, so we're agreed it's a political strategem, not science.

It's faith-based science, much like global warming.

[Kirkwood]

"I learned very young that the Catholic Church accepted evolution. Is this new?"

For me it was 1966 in a Catholic grade school.

[mugs99]

I still have yet to figure out how evolution and ID are incompatible

They aren't. Some just miss the old "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" debates.
.

[conservativebabe]

I learned a while back that these intelligent design threads are brutal. Especially, if you are not an evolutionist. So, now I just visit them to watch people beat each other up.

It's the egos and intellectuals that are the most fun, since they like to think creationists are stupid.

[Squawk 8888]

How do they reconcile this with Creation?

Not that difficult if one considers the fact that (1) the Bible states that God created the universe but does not specify the methodology, (2) seven days can be an awful long time if the planet hasn't yet started spinning and (3) the existence of civilized man matches the Bible's timeline.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Whoops - looks like you caught him!

See my post #49.

[conservativebabe]

Doesn't that discount Adam and Eve in the process then? Or am I missing something?

[peyton randolph]

Doesn't that discount Adam and Eve in the process then?

And more importantly, did Adam and Eve have belly buttons? If not, why not? If so, why?

[PatrickHenry]

Evolution Ping The List-O-Links

A conservative, pro-evolution science list, now with over 340 names. See the list's explanation, then FReepmail to be added or dropped. To assist beginners: But it's "just a theory", Evo-Troll's Toolkit, and How to argue against a scientific theory.

[conservativebabe]

LOL!

[Squawk 8888]

Not necessarily. The first known civilization started in Mesopotamia, and I think it's no coincidence that the Garden of Eden was in that region. I see Genesis as an explanation for our origins that was written for the audience of the time, who did not yet possess the tools to understand a more detailed explanation. In that context I would surmise that Adam and Eve were the founders of that civilization, IOW their predecessors were not quite fully human.

[Kirkwood]

"I still have yet to figure out how evolution and ID are i
incompatible."

It is not that they are incompatible, but that ID is not science, while evolution is. You can't prove that ID exists because you can't prove the existence of God. But you can easily show that evolution and natural selection exist using something as simple as petri dishes. For example, observing germs that become resistant to antibiotics through natural selection and evolving by passing the genes for resistance on to offspring. You can do the same with fruit flies or any other species that reproduces quickly. Whether or not you want to ascribe evolution to ID is a choice and a belief, not a scientific question that can be tested.