Vatican Rejects Intelligent Design?

typobox43 writes "A Vatican representative has expressed a defense of the theory of evolution, stating that it is "perfectly compatible" with the Genesis story of creation. "The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator"." Of course, it'd probably be best if fundmentalists actually talked to, say, the rabbis who wrote the whole thing down. The Orthodox rabbis I've spoken find it amazingly amusing that people take the creation story as literal truth, rather then a story about YHWH's power.

Comments

Evolution isn't a theory about the start of life.

[Ieshan]

Evolution isn't a theory about the start of life. Evolution is an attempt to explain variability (and patterns of variability) among and within different species, and how that variability is systematically affected by certain factors.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, commence flame war.

Re:A few points

[FortKnox]

Quick points:
1.) You mean JP II (there is no JPIII, yet).
2.) This claim comes from up top, so its basically the view of the vatican unless Pope Benedict contradicts it
2.5) JPII pardoned Galileo

(Yes, I'm registered member of the Catholic faith)

Re:Sorry,

[Burb]

It may be a troll, but I will bite. Rarely has a short comment had so many errors in it. And I don't mean spelling errors. "Fundamentalism" in the way it's understood by many modern Western Christians is a relatively new phenomenon, and certainly it has very specific overtones that relate to 19th/20th century American Christianity. As for "stopped listening to Jews" perhaps the poster should acquaint himself with the book of Acts in which some of the discussions and controversies between Jews and Christians are described. Some of this was by way of preaching and dialog and, yes, some was by less pleasant methods. Judaism as we know it today is different from the Jewish faith practiced in the early 1st century if only because of the destruction of the temple in AD70. AD33 is an approximation since no one is entirely sure of the crucifiction/resurrection dates. And Hemos, leave out the editorialising. It's not necessary.

Re:A few points

[the_ed_dawg]

However, the Vatican regularly declared heresy against anyone who challenged the accepted "facts" of the Universe.

I have a friend at a Catholic seminary right now. He's told me that they actually teach some watered-down versions of some really difficult sciences, so priests can avoid a lot of the mistakes that the church has made in the past. He actually had an introductory course in quantum mechanics!

On the whole, a good parent post. No flames required. :)

Re:Attack the messenger (please)

[MightyMartian]

Intelligent Design is an alternative to the origins of life, not the continuing processes since that have shaped our world.

How is ID an alternative to the abiogenesis question? Other than "somehow something produced life" what does it bring to the table? Can it tell us about potential chemical pathways? Can it be falsified?

Abiogenesis researchers do not pretend that they can answer the question of how life on this planet developed from prebiotic organic chemicals, because even when they find a potential pathway, that might not be THE pathway. For all we know, there may be dozens of different means by which organic molecules began to function as self-replicating systems. But the key here is that each and every abiogenesis theory is falsifiable.

ID, as formulated by the likes of Behe and Dembski, can tell us nothing. It is an empty argument from incredulity.

Re:Talk to those that wrote it down?

[Will2k_is_here]

If I recall corectly, the Pentateuch was writen by Moses as dictated to him by God. This includes Genesis.

That depends on who you ask. Researchers believe the pentateuch was more likely written by at least 4 scholars/rabbis during the exile in Babylon.
See:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible1.html
or this book.

Re:Attack the messenger (please)

[Thuktun]

evolution comes alogn and says that matter is eternal: we've been in an unending cycle of compression and expansion of matter for eternity

Er, no. The theory of evolution (natural selection) doesn't address the origins of the Universe, of matter and energy, etc., nor should it. It only describes a general mechanism by which more complex, better-suited organisms can form from lesser ones.

Re:Talk to those that wrote it down?

[petaflop]

Obviously, the authorship of the Pentateuch (and consequently the date) is a subject of debate.

Orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Christians generally support the Mosaic authorship, with datings in the 13th-15th century BCE.

Most other scholars (90% according to wikipedia), including secular, Jewish and Christian scholars, would date the final redaction to 6-7th century BCE (see for example the documentary hypothesis, which although it is not the latest theory forms a background and frequently a basis for newer theories). The final form was based on earlier documents and oral traditions, with the earliest written parts going back to about the 9th or 10th century BCE. More info here: Dating the bible.

Re:A few points

[Red Flayer]

TFA & submitter seem to miss a very important point -- most of the Christian fundamentalists who are proponents of ID are not Catholic.

Furthermore, they don't take guidance or leadership from the Catholic church.

This is one of the reasons that the Xtian Fundies are so hard to convince of anything -- they aren't likely to take guidance from a hierarchical power. Instead, the individual (or the congregation) is supposed to interpret God's word themselves -- as related in the Bible, which is the source of their entire faith. Invalidating any part of the Bible therefore invalidates the Bible as the true word of God, and therefore invalidates their faith.

It's easy (relatively) for Catholics to accept that the Bible isn't literal; they have a hierarchy of leadership, and a set of dogma, that means that their religion is more than just the words in the Bible. The authority structure allows the Catholic faith to, as a whole, reinterpret the Bible as necessary.

So please, don't conflate Catholicism with Christian Fundamentalism.

Re:Talk to those that wrote it down?

[petaflop]

The "straight dope" article is pretty good, but I'm afraid your summary doesn't do it justice. The "4 Rabbis" are more likely to be schools or traditions, separated by up to 5 centuries, and the common position is that at least J, E and D are pre-exilic. The redaction probably took place during the exile.

(A few scholars however, e.g. Van Seters, argue that the J source, instead of being the earliest in 9th-10th century BCE, is actually post-exilic).

Re:Attack the messenger (please)

[Silburn_Luke]

Okay, I'm getting a bit sick of this. "So-called theory" is charged language (flamebait); it's a theory. When we're not in the realm of pure math (and we're not), a theory is a conjecture used to explain a phenomenon.

Nope. You are in fact describing a conjecture. Once the conjecture has been extended to include some falsifiable predictions it becomes a hypothesis and if those predictions match the observed evidence (and the new observations give rise to new conjectures and hypotheses that turn out to be productive) it becomes a theory. ID has made no predictions and thus has no supporting evidence and the 'observed phenomena' (all those irreducible complexity examples - a couple of decades ago it was eyeballs, now its bacterial flagellum) are problems being attacked by real, actual, scientists.

ID isn't a theory. Its not even a hypothesis. You might call that 'charged language', I'd call it 'stating an objective fact'.

This is not the case; the idea has been around for as long as I can remember (admittedly, that's only about two decades, but still...), and has long been held as a possibility by Christian scientists

If you're talking about irreducible complexity, then this has been around for a very long time - Paley was going on about the presence of a watch on a heath implying the existence of a watchmaker back in 1800 - so the basic concept predates Darwin (Charles at least) by several decades. The problem the basic conjecture has is that to date every example of something irreducibly complex that has been advanced as evidence for a designer has turned out, upon examination, to not be irreducibly complex after all.

Regards
Luke

wrong Re:Talk to those that wrote it down?

[boxlight]

> If I recall corectly, the Pentateuch was writen by Moses as dictated to him by God.

Which, if true, must have been very depressing to Moses, since his death is recorded in the second of the the five books.

I guess it's easy to throw around untrue statements and get modded up.

The death of Moses is in Deuteronomy 32:48-52; 34:1-12. This is the end of the FIFTH book of the Bible.

boxlight

Re:Talk to those that wrote it down?

[PHPfanboy]

So close....

The 4 writers are not just because of the 4 names of God, but also the massive discrepancies in style and content of various parts of the bible. How else do you square the Babylonian creation myths of Genesis with the temple accounts of Leviticus and then the need to recount everything all over again in Deuteronomy. Highly recommend Richard Elliot Friedman's "Who Wrote the Bible" to anyone really interested in this. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0139 585133/103-1081140-1817412?v=glance
Spoiler: not written by Rabbi's but by High Priest in Josiah's reign to cement the legitimacy of the new monarchy with the old priestly sects and monarchy bloodline (Rabbi's being a relatively late addition to Judaism, the priestly Cohen sect was more important for spiritual leadership back then)

The Dead Sea scrolls don't play such an important part here, although they are very interesting especially to understand the socio-political developments of Roman period Judea. And in fact there's another myth that there were not different versions of the Pentateuch. Apparently the Karaite bible has at least 13 differences and you can assume they are just as accurate with protecting their textual tradition (and if you're into lamb barbecue's Mt. Gerizim outside Nablus is the place to be around Passover time).

Anyway, your evidence is very patchy. If you're looking for Orthodox Rabbi's to claim creation is allegorical you can start hunting around Maimonides (Rambam), IIRC you'll find plenty there.

And yes, it's trite, but I believe (with a complete belief ;-)) that my karma does run over your dogma...