Friday, November 18, 2005

Intelligent Design? The Vatican Weighs in Again

You may have read earlier in the month ("Now how about that...") A post about a Catholic cardinal coming out in support of Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Well now another Vatican official weighs in on the issue:

Vatican Official Refutes Intelligent Design

What I find most exciting about this is that we seem to be getting a rare glimpse into the Vatican's discussion of this issue. If you do a google news search on the topic, (let me point out, if you know how to do a google news search, you are a geek, welcome to my club) you will find that there have been a number of news stories about statements from a number of high ranking Catholics sharing some views that are not entirely compatible. That is wonderful to watch. Say what you want about the Catholic church, they have some of the greatest theologians of our age and it is a shame when they we don't get to hear their views because they are shielded behind the publicly released opinion of only the Pope.

This may sound terribly boring to some, but this is really important stuff. How we think about creation, how we think about evolution, and how we consider God's role in all this can greatly affect how we do science and how we treat our world and each other.

peace,

will

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not boring at all. But...I was always taught that evolution and creationism go hand in hand; the first 6 "days" were not each 24 hours long.
Thank you for sharing articles like these. They're very interesting.

Unknown said...

That is an interesting comment which sparks the question of "what is science?"

The state of Kansas just changed their definition. It did read, "Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us."

It now reads, "Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation that uses observations, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."

So according to the state of Kansas, who changed their definition to more favor intelligent design, evolution is science. You may argue that it is not fact, or absolute truth, but in that it is an attempt to explain natural phenomena it is science.

There is an article on that issue on MSNBC

peace,

will