Posted on 09/03/2006 10:52:54 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
How about if you write an equation for the total energy in the universe. When you do you will note that while the algebraic sum of the energy may be zero, the parts still exist. So where did the positive energy come from, where did the negative energy come from and how do virtual particles appear absent enrgy itself as a precursor?
True enough. The same standard of evidence can be applied to the Bible as well.
"The same standard of evidence can be applied to the Bible as well."
It confounds me to see the sniping coming from the far ends of both bleachers. My guess is the majority of opinion rests comfortably in the middle. Many of us want to see the best of science taught to our kids. And, at the same time, we remain at peace with our faith.
It is necessary to convince biologists first. They've heard "both sides" and "voted" 99.8% to 0.2% to accept evolution; this is a fact that should be reflected in the curriculum. School children are in no position to make such judgments; they need to learn the facts of natural history, basic biochem, evolution, and other elementary facts about biology and other sciences. As I said, the overwhelming acceptance of evo is a fact. Affirmative action has no place in a conservative platform.
Those who oppose Intelligent Design in the public schools are like the District Attorney who points in court to the defendant and says, "Look, your honor, that fellow is obviously guilty. It's improper even to hear his defense in court!"
Singularly inept analogy on several grounds. First, no one is actually prosecuting the anti-evolution activists, neither the creationists nor the ID-ists. A better analogy would be a crank who is always trying to sue public officials because they don't agree with the plaintiff's interpretation of the Constitution, or because they're engaged in a massive conspiracy that only the plaintiff sees. After a hearing or two, such cases are, properly, dismissed as frivolous by the courts. In the case of opposition to standard biology, to continue the legal analogy, the classroom would lack jurisdiction to consider a case; the only body that can properly hear it is the collective of biologists, paleontologists, geneticists, et al, and the venue is in the pages of scientific journals.
... These men are bent on excluding from respectful debate a Creator, or Designer, or whatever term you prefer. They would prefer that Intelligent Design be quarantined off in a corner labeled "fundamentalist rantings." I suspect that it is, more often than not, this latter approach that is used in deciding what does or does not go into a science textbook. ...
No, creationism should be in the corner labeled "hypotheses that have been shot down by evidence", along with phlogiston, astrology, the four humors, etc. It's been nearly 200 years since the Noah's Flood hypothesis was falsified. Also, the ordering of fossils shows that strictly literal Biblical/Koranic creationism is false.
ID, on the other hand, is relegated to the corner labeled "untestable, hence unscientific, hypotheses".
Because the monkeys neither see, hear, nor speak of religion.
unintelligent, natural forces.
You've got only four fossils. Three are fakes, and the fourth is Jimmy Hoffa.Why the charade, then?
What is God hiding, or, why does he 'dress it up' so, with so MUCH intricacy, so much detail (e.g. the beautiful relationship of matter with mathematics and such)?
That is something the ID crowd really, really needs to address IMO.
The ANSWER, IMNSHO, is that mankind, once again, in the form of a (few?) arrogant fundamentalists has presumed to know fully and completely what God 'ordained' in the way of the universe and life and all that exists; methinks they have spoken out of turn and overstepped their authority, interpreting God and his work with limited view and vision (limited by virtue of the fact that manlind is mankind and *not* God therefore does not posses the faculties to fully grasp what has been wrought here).
You have leapt across areas of investigation with the aplomb of a world class gymnast. The Bible and an investigation into it depends upon one's area of inquiry. These are not the same tools used when looking at the fossil record. Nonetheless, I can see how one could relate the particular discipline of "bibilical" archeaology with the investigations into the fossil record. But they are based on very different terms. It would be flawed at a fundamental level to rest upon such a comparison.
No, you are very, very wrong. This is not the current position of the Catholic Church. Were it so it would be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Compendium just to name 2 documents of the Church.
You have a vested interest in supporting a particular pro-evolutionary teaching as illustrated by your quote. This is, and I stress this, this is not the Magisterial teaching of the Church. It is gravely mistaken action to assert or even to imply that it is.
One can employ one's Jesuit formation to carve out a tiny area of discourse in which to say, in so far as the Catholic Church provides teaching on evolution and Darwinian theory, this is a current expression of how a Catholic may reasonably consider the notions. Yet that in itself is fraught with problems both in terms of the Church and education as well as to the Magisterium itself.
In science, there are not two sides.
You are attempting to elevate a religious argument to the level of a scientific one because, presumably, you believe in it.
Fine. But its still not science!
There is no "controversy" to teach. In science classes, there are only scientific theories, and the other components of the scientific process (data, hypotheses, etc.).
Nowhere in this process is there a place for divine revelation, scripture, tarot cards, Ouija boards, or public polls.
I suspect that it is, more often than not, this latter approach that is used in deciding what does or does not go into a science textbook.
No, what goes into a science textbook is science. (Duh!)
Where you there? What an idiotic statement! Where you there at the Civil War? Revolutionary War? Grade school?
...artwork not upon science? The fossils are real, not some artist's interpretation. (The artists can only get their data from the scientists; they don't do a lot of digging or interpretation on their own.) The argument is over what exactly to call the various fossils, and how to define their relationiships. That does not make any of the fossils less real. Is Pluto less real for possibly being demoted from a planet to some other designation last week? Its still there!
...tiniest number of fossils. Simply wrong. I've studied the data, and handled many of the casts. Have you? Or did you just stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night?
...enormous number of leaps of faith. Scientists deal with data and well-supported and well-tested theory. Not faith. Here is a good web definition of faith:
Faith: the belief in something for which there is no material evidence or empirical proof; acceptance of ideals, beliefs, etc., which are not necessarily demonstrable through experimentation or observation. A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny.
False.
The only "scientists" who could do that are creation "scientists" and they can't be considered to be real scientists.
Res ipsa loquitur
Of course not, he's dead. He has since learned that the Mormons were right all along.
What was I thinking?
How silly of me for quoting a creationist professor such as Marvin Lubenow.
;->
He should've taken Florida St. and the points.
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