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

Why Christians should abhor ID

[G4from128k]

If Intelligent Design is really a science, then the next step is to generate and test hypotheses about the designer(s). Surely the fossil record and current genetic and phenotypic characteristics of organisms could be used to hypothesize the nature of the designer(s). If scientists did this I suspect that Christians might be less supportive of the theory. Consider these likely hypotheses about the designer:

1. Multiple Designers: Why are there so many different designs for the eye and what does that say about the designer(s)? Why does the human eye lack important innovations such as the reflective layer in the cat's eye that improves night vision or the more logical retina-over-blood network of the octopus eye or the four-color vision of the jumping spider eye (or the 6-color vision of the mantis shrimp) or the polarization sensitivity used by bees and ants for navigation? One strong hypothesis is that multiple designers participated -- different designers, working independently, created these different designs. Perhaps the joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee is really true.

2. Flawed Designer(s): The waves of extinctions and vast numbers of extinct species suggest that the designer(s) were flawed in their designs. It would seem that the designer(s) thought that velociraptors, plesiosaurs, trilobites, Homo erectus, etc. were good ideas, but then changed their mind(s) or found they created creatures that were too flawed to survive.

3. Lazy Designer(s): The fossil record suggests that little happened for the first 6/7ths of the Earth's existence -- everything happened on the seventh "day". Out of the last 4.5 billion years of the planet's existence complex life only in the last 600 million years or so have complex life forms appears. Humans didn't appear until about 30 seconds to midnight late on the metaphorical 7th day. (Note that this fact is used by some non-atheistic scientists to say that a deity set up the rules of evolution and then "rested" while the mechanism of evolution created everything. This explanation refutes IS because then the designer is not participating in the creation of all these complex organisms on the seventh day).

Overall, I'd wager that the scientific evidence would provide more "scientific" support for a polytheistic religion with humanistic/flawed dieties (such as the ancient Roman/Greek religions) than for an omnipotent monotheistic religion such as Christianity.

The bigger issues is that the allegedly religious ID people probably don't want to entertain hypotheses about designer(s) and would be especially uncomfortable letting school children even discuss these questions. Yet the entire purpose of science is to ask these questions and that is why it doesn't mix well with religion which is entirely based on faith. From a theological standpoint, I would suspect that Christians would prefer a separation between church and science.

Re:Evolution isn't a theory about the start of lif

[Roger_Wilco]

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

I suppose it depends what you mean by "start" and "life" :)

If you read Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, he argues that chemical compounds which replicate begin evolution, even if they aren't something that one would consider to be "alive". If the chemical can make a copy of itself, that chemical will quickly become quite common. A few of the copies won't be perfect, and a few of these imperfect copies will be better (faster, more stable, etc.), and will thus make more copies than the original.

The "start of life" need be only the random coincidence of an amino acid, perhaps one which attracts matching atoms until it is full, at which point it splits into two copies of the original. If you allow that, (and I seem to recall it's been done in a lab, but I can't find a reference right now), evolution will proceed from there.

Re:The Church of the Fyling Spaghetti Monster

[Sycraft-fu]

Funny though the FSM thing is, it's tactics could work, though not the FSM theory itself. If the ID thing ever comes to the school district here, I'll be making a trip over to all the reservations and talking to any tribal leaders that will listen. I suspect I'll be able to get them to come and argue that fine, if Christian creation is taught, their creation has to be taught as well (and it varys per tribe). They can also play the all-powerful race card if people try to shut them down.

Re:Exactly!

[MightyMartian]

I would not put too much stock in what comes out of the Vatican - weren't they in the "world is flat" camp for quite some time?

No, they were never in that camp. They were, for a goodly long time, along with everyone else, in the geocentric camp, and that's where the embarassment that makes them far less willing to make grand pronouncements on science than certain religious groups in the US.

What I find ironic is how closed minded "objective people of science" can be. Just because an event described in the Bible cannot be explained by our current understanding of the universe does not mean it should be excluded from being a possibility.

The problem lies in the fact that the Bible, when read by someone who has taken the theological blinders off, doesn't exactly read like any accurate historical document, and makes a number of rather extraordinary claims that should require something other than "It says so in the Bible" to be taken as evidence. Do you also think that Greek or Hindu mythology ought to be given similar weight?

If you believe God created the universe, how much harder would it have been for Him to create everything in a way that made it appear much older than it is? Is He not allowed to specify initial conditions in His own universe?

Omphalism creates some pretty severe problems for the faithful, because it essentially makes God into a liar. On the emperical end of things, it's a meaningless statement. If the Universe was created last Thursday with the appearance of great age, then science could still function simply by accepting that age and leaving the theological Last Thursdayism claim out of the picture entirely.

Where you stumble, I'm afraid, is on the idea that somehow science is a quest for TRUTH(tm). It is a search for the best explanation for the evidence. If some uber-powerful being has made the Universe appear as it is by the proverbial snap of a finger, then yes, science cannot find that truth, because that truth could never be arrived at by any rational, emperical means.

Designed by WHO?

[trurl7]

Guys (and the occasional girl),

Picture this: your friend Tom comes to tell you about his friend "Bob". Now, you've never met Bob. For some reason Bob is never around, and Tom has never introduced him to you. But Tom tells you that Bob exists, and they hang out, and talk, and things like that. Frequently, Bob will have these amazing things that Tom doesn't, and Tom will excitedly tell you about them. Sometimes Tom relates things that Bob has told him, or opinions he has based on something Bob says.

Now, what kind of behavior is that? If Tom is 8, we call that "having an imaginary friend". If Tom is 30, he's probably hallucinating, or schizophrenic (or experiencing some psychosis). But....if Tom is 30, and we replace "Bob" with "God", and this is said in the context of "faith and community" then Tom is a fundamentalist christian who has a "personal relationship with God".

So, what's the difference? What's the difference between a serial killer who "hears voices in his head" telling him to go into McDonalds and let loose with an Uzi, and a drunk frat boy hearing the voice of God saying "You will be president", and staging a couple of wars? It's only a question of degree, yet the first is clearly a candidate for a white jacket and a padded cell, while the latter is the "Leader of the Free World (tm)".

Ladies and Gentlemen: There Is No God. None. Nada. He ain't there. Nobody home. Get it? Stop using your insecurity and inadequacy, and face the world for what it is - a harsh, brutal, and sometimes beautiful place. It's harder this way, but at least you are an adult human being, not a kid hiding behind an "imaginary friend". Any form of belief that starts out with "there's an invisible man who did X" is utter madness and self-dulsion. This is the 21st century! How did 300 years of progress and science and rational thinking pass you by? ID is crap not because it's not consistent, or because it's not a theory, but because it presupposes the existence of a god. Stop whining, get off your knees, and quit talking to yourself - no one's listening. Whipe your own butt and face reality like Monday morning - it's tough, and you're tired, but when you get up you are a Man.

A Jew's perspective

[AB3A]

Having read "Bresheet" (Most English speakers call it the Book of Genesis) for many years in the original Hebrew, and having been through the experience of a technical education, these are my opinions:

1) The Catholic Church isn't stupid about this issue. They've learned a thing or two since they contradicted Galileo. Basically, The Bible is not a text to tell us what we can figure out for ourselves. It is a text for the purpose of telling us the appropriate morals upon which we can build a lasting society. To assign it a purpose other than that would denigrate the human race's image in God's eyes.

2) The real miracles are not physical. They are social. The miracles we should be thankful for are when a criminal develops a concience and turns him/her-self in; when a person finds a large sum of unmarked money and returns it to the owner; or when a person reveals the truth on the witness stand in a court of law. Those are the acts of faith that we should all take note of and be thankful for. If they didn't exist, our societies would not last long.

3) Many people are happy with a very childish God-in-Sky view of things. But for those who seek it, there is plenty more to study in most religions. I am quite content and clear minded about my beliefs. I also don't think those beliefs have anything to do with Science except in an extremely abstract way.

4) Fundamentalists and cults of all faiths attempt to install a denial of surrounding community in their followers so that they can wrench their flock from the communities and build one of their very own. It's a power trip. There are plenty of wide eyed people who are willing to follow because they do not understand the nature of religion. I fault the leaders of these movements, but I also fault the followers just as well. We all have a responsibility to understand the world around us better. You can't get that veiwpoint from inside a cult, a fundamentalist movement, or even from a nebulous bit of philosophical quackery called Intelligent Design.