Rome meeting snubs intelligent design, creationism

Google: The Associated Press ^ | March 5th 2009 | NICOLE WINFIELD

[FewsOrange]

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.

… 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 perspective, nor a theological or philosophical one," said the Rev. Marc Leclerc,

… He denied the decision had anything to do with Templeton's funding for the conference.

… 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 … said the grant had no strings attached.

… Indeed, some influential cardinals have indicated they support intelligent design, including Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna, a close collaborator of Pope Benedict XVI. … Muslim creationists also complained about the conference.

… Vatican teaching holds that Roman Catholicism and evolutionary theory are not necessarily at odds. The church under Benedict has been trying to stress that, along with its overall belief that there is no incompatibility between faith and reason.

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."

[Alter Kaker]

Intelligent Design is a legal scam based on making an end run around the US establishment clause. It has nothing to do with science or theology. Kudos to the Vatican for recognizing that.

[GunRunner]

Amen to that. The Vatican got one right this time.

[dangus]

I’d like to point out something to all the Catholic-bashing lurkers who may be out there:

There is a wide gulf between old-earth creationism, which allows for sexual selection (often called “natural selection,” a term Darwin himself later rejected), and scientific / naturalistis nihilism. Many people falsely interpret the Catholic Church’s openness towards old-earth creationism as embracing naturalistic nihilism.

[navysealdad]

Do you agree that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, such as God??

[Varda]

Unless Templeton has spent incredible gobs of money, they are a very minor player in this conference. It’s not surprising that there would be Templeton and not Discovery people involved though. Templeton has been an academic player in this subject for a long time and this is at it’s core an academic conference.

The Vatican says the major organizers are the
Pontifical Gregorian University, University of Notre Dame (Indiana) and the Pontifical Council for Culture.

[Capn Nickerson]

“Do you agree that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, such as God??”

Which ones, exactly?

[navysealdad]

All

[vpintheak]

Good thing they did. It’s already written in the Bible. No further discussion needed.

[Capn Nickerson]

One of the defining principles of science is that natural phenomena have natural causes.

[Retain Mike]

Best scientific answers coalesce when one observes, measures, replicates by experiment, and computes formulas for phenomenon. Examinations for many physical events have not reached this four-fold rationality.

One example is String Theory, or the “theory of everything”; everything for atomic, micro-processes. Elegant mathematical models utilize eleven dimensions to unify gravitational, electromagnetic, and nuclear strong and weak forces. Here is computation without experiment, measurement, or observation. Niels Bohr would say, “Yes, yes you have the mathematics. But does it make sense?” Notable critics say scientists utilize mathematics, but inadvertently venture into philosophy or religion. Rigorous debate continues.

The other extreme is Darwinism or macroevolution, where all is observation. Rigorous measurements and experiments require 1,000 to 10,000 times recorded history. Scientists contemplate observed phenomenon, and decide evolution explains everything. Yet macroevolution fails computational testing, with vanishing small probabilities, using Thermodynamics, which covers all macro-processes. Natural processes in open systems, as required by natural selection, create increased disorder, release energy, and increase entropy. Even huge energy inputs result in Katrina, and not the Brooklyn Bridge absent intentionality. All debate prohibited.

Darwinist advocates contend contrary arguments require intrusion of God. Yet good theologians of desert religions would say a god hedged in by observation, measurement, experiment, and computation ends up equivalent to the Golden Calf the Israelites constructed in the Wilderness. They contend God can only be found by mystical, faith encounters.

Best macroevolution investigation requires intrusion by scientists such as String Theory theoretical physicists, who neither shrink before, nor embrace religious heresy. Macroevolution should join mainstream science.

[D-fendr]

Looked at objectively and in perspective, the Church has quite a good record on science throughout the centuries.

I think this is very important: Believers should not be forced into the false choice of science or religion.

[ak267]

Old joke from my 6th grade Bible class....

God created man, but He got the idea from a monkey.

[Mrs. Don-o]

bump to read later

[Wonder Warthog]

"Yet macroevolution fails computational testing, with vanishing small probabilities, using Thermodynamics, which covers all macro-processes. Natural processes in open systems, as required by natural selection, create increased disorder, release energy, and increase entropy."

Anybody who makes this argument simply shows that they have zero understanding of thermodynamics. "Macroevolution" (which is actually no different from "microevolution") is in perfect accord with thermodynamics. And FYI, evolution HAS been proven by experiments, in laboratories, both with microorganisms AND with more complex biological entities.

[ambeeeant]

Well right here in the “land of the free” we have an outspoken creationist serving 10 years in prison for trumped up tax charges that were filed on him and his wife. The liberal, evolutionist, communists are so afraid of his teachings on creationism that they put him behind bars. Just check out Dr. Dino, Kent Hovind. You’ll be amazed.

[Rockingham]

It bears mention here that the primary Catholic profession of faith known as the Apostles’ Creed requires belief in “God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.”

Thus Catholics believe in God as the Creator of all in both material and spiritual realms. Catholics thereby reject the naturalism and philosophical materialism of leading evolutionists. At the same time, Catholic teaching recognizes science as a source of valid authority, including as to the mechanisms of evolution, but not to contradict Catholic belief in God as the Creator.

Of course, this does not satisfy either evolutionists or creationists, who seem to agree in wanting to pit faith and science against each other.

[Oztrich Boy]

Aw! The Disinformation Institute gets no respect

[Buck W.]

"A Vatican-backed conference on evolution is under attack from people who weren't invited to participate: those espousing creationism and intelligent design. "

It is an evolution conference, after all, and evolution is already perfectly compatible with Christianity.

[Retain Mike]

Micro evolution occures in closed systems and macro evolution occures in open systems. What has been proven is that if ones assumes away human involvement in building the laboratory,computers, printers, monitors, and software, and then carefully design the environment the result intended will obtain.

A huge number of probabilities have been assumed to be one, which would not be the case in an open system. Assume 20 steps have a significant probability of 1 in 10, 999,980 steps have probability of one, and only 1,000,000 steps reside between the primordial soup and the first mammal. The probability for these combined leaps in chemical formula would be .000000000000000001 percent. Not included here are probabilities that the first fish with legs and lizards with fur can find each other in a world of predators and make enough babies to continue the process. At the other end of the spectrum, a formula for random selection must account for the 40 quadrillion electrochemical connections between cells in the human brain which cause function.