Professor-Turned-Pope Leads a Seminar on Evolution

The Pernicious NY Times ^ | September 2, 2006 | IAN FISHER

[neverdem]

ROME, Sept. 1 — They meet every year, the eminent German professor and his old doctoral students, for a weekend of high-minded talk on a chosen topic. For years it was nothing more than that.

But now the professor, once called Joseph Ratzinger, has become Pope Benedict XVI. And this year, for three days beginning Friday, the topic on the table is evolution, an issue perched on the ever more contentious front between science and belief.

And so the questions rise as the meeting unfolds at a papal palace just outside Rome. Is this merely another yearly seminar? Or is the leader of the world’s billion Roman Catholics signaling that he may join in earnest the emotional debate over evolution, intelligent design and all that might mean for politics and faith, especially in the United States?

There is no way to know immediately, though many church experts believe that the pope has fewer problems with the science of evolution than with its use to wipe God more cleanly from a secular world. No document will be published afterward, no news conference given.

But the seminar comes after a year particularly fraught over the issue of evolution, in America — with the fight over intelligent design — and in the church. Last year a leading cardinal, who will speak at the meeting, expressed doubts that Darwinism and Catholicism were compatible, and the pope declared the creation of the universe an “intelligent project.”

And so scientists and believers from around the world, on all sides of an extraordinarily charged debate, are watching the meeting carefully.

Proponents of intelligent design, defeated in a high-profile court case last year in Pennsylvania, say they...

--snip--

The pope’s annual seminars do not shy away from difficult topics. Last year the issue under discussion was Islam.

[Cacique]

btt

[cookcounty]

Oxymoron alert:

"The Catholic position is and has been for some time that evolution may (if not is likely to) be true and that, if so, it is guided by the hand of God."

By definition, evolution is NOT "guided" but rather the result of impersonal, unintelligent, natural forces.

[MHGinTN]

Starting with the assumption that all is based in random events yields no more than that when looking at evidence from nature. There are clues which could be interpreted as not random but that wouldn't fit the desired explanations, would it? Every time a gene is changed, there is the possibility that the change was not an accidental random event. However, it is also just as likely that only rarely does the Creator make small adjustments thus Science would be hard pressed to find the events other than by inference. Such an inference is the advent of spirit possessing beings ... when did our ancestors begin to bury their dead instead of leaving them for consumers? When did our ancestors begin helping others too old and unable to chew their food? When did our ancestors begin to paint upon their surroundings? Can Science prove these differences were gradually occurring instead of sudden behavior changes and thus possibly due to small Creator interventions?

[the invisib1e hand]

I prefer to talk about "adaptation," but he's the Pope.

[spatso]

"It is likely that for a long time the earth lacked the conditions that would eventually enable today’s animals and plants to evolve. But the succession in which fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds appeared and the speed with which they evolved raise questions that still beg for an answer. The evolutionary lineage that led to humankind appeared in the last minutes of the clock of life. Around 6 million years ago the first split is said to have occurred when the lineage that led to anthropomorphic apes broke away from the one that gave rise to the cluster of Hominid species. Eventually, the latter saw the human lineage emerge some 2 million years ago. Before modern humans could develop some 150,000 years ago, other Homo species walked the earth like Homo Erectus and, before him, Homo Habilis, to which Homo Sapiens is related."
Florenzo Facchini, Evolution and Creation

When Benedict XVI suggests that design and evolution are consistent with the Catechism of the Catholic Church it will not alter in any manner the current teaching of the Church. No matter how people may wish to interpret the final words that come forward, the teaching will be consistent with the Facchini description of evolutionary lineage. So, the Church will find a language to affirm both evolution and design. But that language will not in any way be describing anything remotely similar to the proposals of Intelligent Design. The real problem for the Church is not with the science of Intelligent Design, the problem is in the theology.

[Quark2005]

placemarker

[Maeve]

Quantum phenomena require certain small preconditions to occur. Like energy. A small thing but what the heck.

Spot on! And a high five!

[Maeve]

I prefer to talk about "adaptation," but he's the Pope.

Quite right about adaptation. Adaptation and differentiation can be discussed, demonstrated, appreciated, etc... Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory is, however, a house of cards. To do real science it is imperative to get beyond the dogmatic neo-Darwinists.

[Maeve]

"It is likely that for a long time the earth lacked the conditions that would eventually enable today’s animals and plants to evolve. But the succession in which fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds appeared and the speed with which they evolved raise questions that still beg for an answer. The evolutionary lineage that led to humankind appeared in the last minutes of the clock of life. Around 6 million years ago the first split is said to have occurred when the lineage that led to anthropomorphic apes broke away from the one that gave rise to the cluster of Hominid species. Eventually, the latter saw the human lineage emerge some 2 million years ago. Before modern humans could develop some 150,000 years ago, other Homo species walked the earth like Homo Erectus and, before him, Homo Habilis, to which Homo Sapiens is related." Florenzo Facchini, Evolution and Creation

It really does beg a "Is that so? Where you there?" Accepting the concept of Homo erectus and Homo habilis is based upon artwork not upon science. Everyone has scene the charts claiming to depict the Rise of Man. But no one gets that behind the artwork are the tiniest number of fossils not to mention an enormous number of leaps of faith.

[the invisib1e hand]

Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory is, however, a house of cards.

I'm always relieved when I don't get flamed, even by flaming redheads. Often so much so that I'm compelled to investige why I haven't been flamed, and usually look for clues on the non-offending FReeper's profile page.

I'm always moved when citizens of other countries say they pray for America.

Someone posted (at my request) a list of the scientific accomplishments of Catholics, and it was much more impressive and even longer than I had expected. Why was that so? I guess that Catholic scientists don't get talked about too much, unless they're Galileo.

And oh, how those scientests seem to delight in learning the Wisdom of God and in the thrill of being let in on His marvelous secrets. Back when learning and education were a joy, not a joke.

Well, look at who's ranting...

[stands2reason]

Nice slander.

[spatso]

"But no one gets that behind the artwork are the tiniest number of fossils not to mention an enormous number of leaps of faith."

The original quote I provided is essentially the current position of the Catholic church as it understands and teaches evolution. This is not an issue of science but a matter of theology for the world's largest Christian faith community. So, your comment about "leaps of faith" is appropriate. This is not really a scientific debate, it is a foundational matter of faith that only has meaning in the realm of theology.

[dread78645]

But no one gets that behind the artwork are the tiniest number of fossils

Well, I guess for very large values of 'tiny' ...

"Africa--1390 fossil individuals discovered through 1976.
Europe and the U.S.S.R.--1516 fossil individuals discovered through 1970 (the figure for France, one of the most prolific fossil areas, goes only through 1969).
The Americas, Asia, and Australasia--1092 fossil individuals discovered through 1974. "

~Marvin L. Lubenow, Bones of Contention, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1992), p. 29

... Ardipithecus ramidus, which lived about 4.4 million years ago. this species is known from forty-three specimens of several individuals, including a partial skeleton that has yet to be described....
Australopithecus afarensis, which lived between 4 and 3 million years ago in East Africa. Its remains number 324 specimens of at least 111 individuals from Hadar, Ethiopia, and thirty-one specimens from Laetoli, Tanzania. The best known specimens are the partial skeleton A.L. 288-1, or Lucy, and 214 bones from thirteen individuals from the single locality A.L. 333. ...
In South Africa, the species Australopithecus africanus is represented by at least 120 individuals from Sterkfontein alone, plus the single individual from Taung, and a few from Makapanstage. The most abundant South African hominid site is the cave of Swartkrans, where painstaking excavation of breccia has yielded about 200 Australopithecus robustus, and six Homo fossils, which can [be] attributed to a minimum of eighty-five individuals and six individuals,, respectively....
The earliest form of robust australopithecine in East Africa is Australopithecus aethiopicus ('southern ape of Ethiopia'). It appeared about 2.5 million years ago and is known from three specimens belonging to three individuals ...
Outside of Africa, the oldest hominid remains belong to Homo erectus. Specimens from at least forty-eight H. erectus individuals --a third of the total worldwide sample of this species--have been found in Java, mainly at Trinil, Sangiran, Ngandong, and Modjokerto. These fossils include crania, skullcaps, and skull fragments from thirty individuals, jaws or jaw teeth. Another third of the world's erectus fossils come from China, mainly from the single site of Zhoukoudian, where forty-five hominid specimens from fifteen individuals were recovered. ...
From the Middle Pleistocene, Homo heidelbergensis is represented by hundreds of bones from at least thirty individuals from Atapuerca and four individuals at the nearby site of Gran Dolina, plus tweny others, usually partial or complete crania, from elsewhere in Europe and Africa. Much more abundant are the Neandertals, the probable direct descendants of H. heidelbergensis. Remains of about 500 H. neanderthalensis individuals have been discovered, largely in western Europe, central Europe, and the Near East.

~Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar, From Lucy to Language, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), p. 22-23

... not to mention an enormous number of leaps of faith.

I thought faith was supposed to be a good thing?

[PatrickHenry]

You've got only four fossils. Three are fakes, and the fourth is Jimmy Hoffa.
</creationism mode>

[dread78645]

So why are there still monkeys?

[PatrickHenry]

They're all fakes, just like your fossils.

[spatso]

"They're all fakes, just like your fossils"

I don't understand why the issue of fossils keeps being repeated. As a matter of faith Catholics have decided what they believe. They choose to believe that evolution is consistent with their belief in a Creator God. I am not sure what is left to argue.

[dread78645]

They're all fakes, just like your fossils.

"Touch my monkey. Love him!"

"Enough of that. Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance watch the Fla St-Miami game."