Posted on 01/19/2006 1:33:32 PM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Its not pro- or anti- evolution. It's "Whatever happened, God did it."
That got a COL or Chuckle Out Loud, or at least a sound approximating a moment of mirth out of me.
Someone needs to point out that this is basically the equivalent of an op-ed by a biology professor. It's not some sort of binding statement of Catholic doctrine, an infallible Papal pronouncement, a change in church policy, or anything like that.
Thanks. :)
Thank You. I'm not Catholic, but in post #94 I was trying to make the point you reference in your post.
How interesting, "Evolution" means change, and ID is just
Evolution with a plan, so how are they both not science?
I like to be a little more precise than always saying LOL, even if it was just a little snort. :)
Sounds like you know as much about the Galileo affair as you do about Biblical interpretation or science...
Nicholas Copernicus was the first to present the heliocentric model of the Universe, 70 years before Galileo, and what happened to him? He was asked by the Pope to provide input on the reform the ecclesiastical calendar... And the people who opposed Copernicuss ideas? Protestant theologians...
Galileo's problem was that he taught it as FACT, despite an agreement he signed promising to teach it as a possibility, and he ventured into the realm of theology, saying that the interpretation of the Bible was wrong. Keep in mind this was early 1600s--the Protestant Reformation had already happened nearly 100 years before. Scientists and theologians alike saw the Earth as the center. The Church wanted only to proceed judiciously, to gather facts and evaluate evidence, not turn the conception of the Earth on its head because of the observations of one man.
Also, Galileo wasn't tortured, he spent his days in an Italian villa in the mountains, living rather comfortably until his death...
thats where I was sent and I received a darn good education. I sent my kids to public schools and they did very well too, but then we do not live in an 'ID' community.
God did it. How God did it is up to us to discover, to uncover the beauty and mystery of His creation.
I love my son's Catholic pre-school, but he'll probably end up in the public schools here because they're very good, and because our property taxes are sky-high because of those schools. If we weren't paying so much for the schools already, we'd almost definitely have him stay there.
LOL!
But on a serious note, its round.
I agree. That is completely compatible with faith. Judaism is an ancienct religion, to be sure, but they had to spread their message just the same as anyone. The best way to explain their worldview was through stories (literacy is hardly something ancient peoples are known for). The gist of the story is that GOD did it.
The interpretation of the Bible was wrong.
Right--this is kind of the non-news story of the day. The Church has never opposed or supported evolution. It's just said "let's get all the facts we can, so we can understand God's creation better."
The ID argument that the eye is irreducibly complex has been kicking around since Darwin's time (it was Darwin who acknowledged it.) However, recent research, particularly surrounding a conserved transcription factor called Pax6, have seriously undermined this common ID argument.
Go here and type 'eye, evolution, review' for the latest reviews on the literature.
Couple of recent articles:-
Arendt D (2003). Evolution of eyes and photoreceptor cell types. Int J Dev Biol. 47, 563
Treisman JE (2004). How to make an eye. Development. 131, 3823
Nilsson DE (2004). Eye evolution: a question of genetic promiscuity.
Of course, none of this precludes the existence of God. It simply supports the notion that eyes, like all other structures, appear to evolve from a common ancestral origin. It makes absolute sense really; even an incredibly crude collection of photosensitive cells can give an organism a significant advantage over its competitors, and thus send that photoreceptive organ down the path of natural selection and evolution.
Of course, the most important thing is not to subscribe to the 'well, science hasn't come up with the answer so it must be God' argument. As has been shown with the eye, you have to give science a chance to tackle the problem before you dismiss it out of hand.
Beg your pardon.
Go here and type 'eye, evolution, review'.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&itool=toolbar
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