Slashdot Mirror
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.
Normally I would espouse a policy of "attacking the message, not the messenger." But in the case of ID, the problem is the messenger. Intelligent Design proponents no more believe in their so-called theory than any other critically thinking human. ID is simply fundamentalist's latest attempt into having evolution taught in highschool science classes. They have been knocked back time and time again on this issue, and now are trying to beat science at its own game. It doesn't even have to be a good or sound "theory," so long as they can repeat the mantra that it is a theory, long and loud enough for it to stick.
As long as we (including the Vatican) formulate our arguments on ID as a theory, even to debunk it, the fundamentalists maintain their foothold. In this case, we need to attack the messenger, not the message. ID is political propoganda, nothing more. To address it as anything else is to give undue power to its proponents.
(oh, and this story does not belong in the Science category)
Mox
Thank God for rejecting Intelligent Design!
"I reject your reality and substitute my own." -Adam from MythBusters.
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.
I like to think of ID as the Theory Of Our Own Ignorance (TOOI).
Mr. Science: "Today, class, we are going to test the Theory Of Our Own Ignorance, sometimes also known as Intelligent Design, or ID. OK, who wants to volunteer?"
Johnny: "I will, Mr. Science!"
Mr. Science: "Fine, Johnny. Now, I want you to look at this bird. Do you know what kind of bird this is Johnny?"
Johnny: "Yes, sir. It is a finch."
Mr. Science: "Very good, Johnny! Now, can you tell me how the wings of this bird came to be?"
Johnny: "I suspect that they grew, Mr. Science."
Mr. Science: "No, no, Johnny. I mean, do you know how the wings of this finch evolved?
Johnny: "Gosh, no. No, I don't."
Mr. Science: "Very good, Johnny! You have confirmed my test."
Johnny: "What test is that, Mr. Science?"
Mr. Science: "I was testing to see if you knew how the wings of this bird evolved. The Theory Of Our Own Ignorance predicted that you would not know, and since you did not, this validates our theory - that we do not know how this bird developed wings!"
Class: "Awesome!"
The fundimentalists stopped listening to Jews in A.D 33
I was raised to be a Roman Catholic and even went to an all-boys Catholic school. Funny thing is the priests taught us evolution in science class. In theology, they taught us that the story of Genesis was a euphemism that was used by the writers of the Bible to explain how the universe came to be because they didn't understand the universe as we do today! (and, yes, we still have much to learn ourselves)
There is nothing incompatible between religion and science since, as a newspaper columnist pointed out recently, science is about HOW we came to be here and religion is about WHY we are here. Unfortunately, the rise of the televangelists and other people who claim that a literal reading of the Bible is the only way to understand it miss some of the points that the stories try to make. For example, the story of the loaves and fishes isn't about Jesus "magically" making more bread and fish appear to feed a crowd. The story is about Jesus leading by example, giving what little food he had to the crowd and the each person in the crowd adding what little they had to it to feed everyone. Showing that being charitable is the way to encourage others to do the same is the "miracle". This is the kind of stuff I learned in Catholic school.
I also find it funny that so many evangelicals are willing to believe Jesus did "miracles" (aka magic) but don't want their kids reading Harry Potter books because magic is "Satanic".
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
oh wait...you said Rabbi's
nevermind
A goal is a dream with a deadline
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)
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
#1. Show how ID is not scientific because it cannot be falsified.
#2. Because of #1, the people who try to push ID as an "alternative" "scientific theory" should be identified as fundamentalists intent upon using the classrooms to push their own religious beliefs upon students.
There's nothing wrong with being a fundamentalist and believing in ID.
There is a LOT wrong with trying to use the classroom to indoctrinate students with those fundamentalist beliefs.
well, compared with the people/beings they usually communicate with, surely it would be easy to talk to someone who did actually exist once?
The Vatican has also come out against the idea that thunder is caused by angels bowling.
My other sig is extremely clever...
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.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
It's not a tautology. It's actually a fallacy. Guess which one? ;)
It's also open to an infinite regression, which, just as in coding, is a sure sign that there is something wrong with your logic.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
On the whole, a good parent post. No flames required. :)
There are two types of people: those prepared for the zombie apocalypse and those who will be eaten.
> I don't see why the two theories can't be merged.
No reason astrology can't be merged with astronomy either.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I think you are remembering a short story by Isaac Asimov, titled 'How It Happpened'.
Link: http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist/asimovdo.htm
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.
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.
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.
I think you need more monkeys - that's still not Shakespeare.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
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.
ID People don't want to talk about the intelligent designer. They say things like, "You can't look at a watch and tell things about the watchmaker!", and other absurdities.
If they talk about "God" as the Intelligent Designer, they give up the game and lose. So they talk about the Intelligent Designer as some sort of force we don't need to understand anything about to understand Intelligent Design. It's an absurd argument.
This whole thing was taken care of by Socrates quite some time ago (well, Plato, in Apologia). Socrates asks, "Who believes in Equestrian Phenomena, and does not acknowledge horses?" The answer of course, is no one. "Who believes in human phenomena, and does not acknowledge humans?" Again. "And who believes in divine phenomena, but does not acknowledge gods?" Answer: Intelligent Design proponents.
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.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
(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).
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.
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?
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.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
HOW IT HAPPENED - Isaac Asimov
My brother began to dictate in his best oratorical style, the one
which has the tribes hanging on his words.
"In the beginning," he said, "exactly fifteen point two billion
years ago, there was a big bang and the Universe--"
But I had stopped writing. "Fifteen billion years ago?" I said
incredulously.
"Absolutely," he said. "I'm inspired."
"I don't question your inspiration," I said. (I had better not.
He's three years younger than I am, but I don't try questioning his
inspiration. Neither does anyone else or there's hell to pay.) "But are
you going to tell the story of Creation over a period of fifteen billion
years?"
"I have to," said my brother. "That's how long it took. I have it
all here," he tapped his forehead, "and it's on the very highest authority."
By now I had put down my stylus. "Do you know the price of
papyrus?" I said.
"What?" (He may be inspired but I frequently noticed that the
inspiration didn't include such sordid matters as the price of papyrus.)
I said, "Suppose you describe one million years of events to each
roll of papyrus. That means you'll have to fill fifteen thousand rolls.
You'll have to talk long enough to fill them and you know that you begin to
stammer after a while. I'll have to write enough to fill them and my fingers
will fall off. And even if we can afford all that papyrus and you have the
voice and I have the strength, who's going to copy it? We've got to have a
guarantee of a hundred copies before we can publish and without that where
will we get the royalties from?"
My brother thought a while. He said, "You think I ought to cut it
down?"
"Way down," I said, "if you expect to reach the public."
"How about a hundred years?" he said.
"How about six days?" I said.
He said, horrified, "You can't squeeze Creation into six days."
I said, "This is all the papyrus I have. What do YOU think?"
"Oh well," he said, and began to dictate again, "In the beginning --
Does it have to be six days, Aaron?"
I said, firmly, "Six days, Moses."
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
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
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.
So, when you say things like, "now the ivory towers think themselves the purveyors and verifiers of truth" you are fundamentally wrong. The universe itself is the only purveyor and verifier of truth. That's the whole point of science -- to query the universe about its own truths. We come up with theories that try to describe truths about the universe, but the physical universe itself is what decides which theories we keep and which theories we throw away. If a theory can't be decided on by examining the physical universe, then we don't even consider it.
Wrong. FSM is satire, and has nothing to do with validating anyone's beliefs. In fact, the point is the exact opposite -- it's to discredit the beliefs of ID proponents. Let's put FSM aside, though, because I don't find satire very useful for a real discussion. Agree? It's much more useful to look at the real issues, like "irreducible complexity." Irreducible complexity is completely worthless. I'm not flaming here, I'm being serious -- and I'll back that statement up.Think about what "irreducible complexity" means. According to IDers, it means that something is so complex that it could not have arisen from natural processes. Remember that in science, the physical universe is the ultimate truth. Also note that that "natural processes" are all of the processes that exist in the physical universe. Put this all together and you get a conjecture that says that this "irreducibly complex" entity cannot exist according to the physical laws of the universe. Not the laws as we know them, but any physical laws of the universe. IDers don't say, "Gee, this looks like it's too complex to exist, therefore we musn't have a complete understanding of the universe." No, they say, "this must be the product of supernatural intervention." In science, that's going out of bounds. IDers can go there if they want, but it is NOT science and should NOT be confused with science. In science, there is no supernatural. There is only the reality that we observe. No faith required.
You don't have to be a scientist, and you don't even have to understand why a woldview that's entirely based on physical observations is useful. But please, try to understand the fundamental difference between science and religion, and why science cannot allow the two to mix and still be science.
[javac] 100 errors
(what the hell do you call someone from Kansas anyway?)
Pretty soon, we'll call them "Uneducated."
So close....
9 585133/103-1081140-1817412?v=glance
;-)) that my karma does run over your dogma...
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/-/013
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
29 mpg. YMMV.
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.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
Evolutionary theory has plenty of predictive power. Here are just a few examples;
* Darwin predicted, based on homologies with African apes, that human ancestors arose in Africa. That prediction has been supported by fossil and genetic evidence (Ingman et al. 2000).
* Theory predicted that organisms in heterogeneous and rapidly changing environments should have higher mutation rates. This has been found in the case of bacteria infecting the lungs of chronic cystic fibrosis patients (Oliver et al. 2000).
* Predator-prey dynamics are altered in predictable ways by evolution of the prey (Yoshida et al. 2003).
* Ernst Mayr predicted in 1954 that speciation should be accompanied with faster genetic evolution. A phylogenetic analysis has supported this prediction (Webster et al. 2003).
* Several authors predicted characteristics of the ancestor of craniates. On the basis of a detailed study, they found the fossil Haikouella "fit these predictions closely" (Mallatt and Chen 2003).
* Evolution predicts that different sets of character data should still give the same phylogenetic trees. This has been confirmed informally myriad times and quantitatively, with different protein sequences, by Penny et al. (1982).
* Insect wings evolved from gills, with an intermediate stage of skimming on the water surface. Since the primitive surface-skimming condition is widespread among stoneflies, J. H. Marden predicted that stoneflies would likely retain other primitive traits, too. This prediction led to the discovery in stoneflies of functional hemocyanin, used for oxygen transport in other arthropods but never before found in insects (Hagner-Holler et al. 2004; Marden 2005).
and
# Bioinformatics, a multi-billion-dollar industry, consists largely of the comparison of genetic sequences. Descent with modification is one of its most basic assumptions.
# Diseases and pests evolve resistance to the drugs and pesticides we use against them. Evolutionary theory is used in the field of resistance management in both medicine and agriculture (Bull and Wichman 2001).
# Evolutionary theory is used to manage fisheries for greater yields (Conover and Munch 2002).
# Artificial selection has been used since prehistory, but it has become much more efficient with the addition of quantitative trait locus mapping.
# Knowledge of the evolution of parasite virulence in human populations can help guide public health policy (Galvani 2003).
# Sex allocation theory, based on evolution theory, was used to predict conditions under which the highly endangered kakapo bird would produce more female offspring, which retrieved it from the brink of extinction (Sutherland 2002).
And
# Tracing genes of known function and comparing how they are related to unknown genes helps one to predict unknown gene function, which is foundational for drug discovery (Branca 2002; Eisen and Wu 2002; Searls 2003).
# Phylogenetic analysis is a standard part of epidemiology, since it allows the identification of disease reservoirs and sometimes the tracking of step-by-step transmission of disease. For example, phylogenetic analysis confirmed that a Florida dentist was infecting his patients with HIV, that HIV-1 and HIV-2 were transmitted to humans from chimpanzees and mangabey monkeys in the twentieth century, and, when polio was being eradicated from the Americas, that new cases were not coming from hidden reservoirs (Bull and Wichman 2001). It was used in 2002 to help convict a man of intentionally infecting someone with HIV (Vogel 1998). The same principle can be used to trace the source of bioweapons (Cummings and Relman 2002).
# Phylogenetic analysis to track the diversity of a pathogen can be used to select an appropriate vaccine for a particular region (Gaschen et al. 2002).
# Ribotyping is a technique for iden