EvoDevo War Breaks out in Vatican - A Perennial Favorite

[Corlyss_D]

Creationism rift opens within The Vatican

17:50 05 August 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Shaoni Bhattacharya

A deep rift has opened within the Catholic church over the theory of evolution and its compatibility with the Christian faith.

The Vatican’s chief astronomer, George Coyne, has rebuffed controversial comments made by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn in The New York Times on 7 July that evolution is incompatible with a belief in God.

“The waters have again been darkened” writes Coyne in the latest issue of the UK Catholic weekly, The Tablet. His article follows another flare-up in the debate, when US president George W Bush commented on Monday that schools should teach children about “intelligent design”. Proponents of this idea believe that science can be used to find evidence of a creator’s design in nature.

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

In his article, Schönborn dismissed as “rather vague and unimportant” a statement made by Pope John Paul II in 1996 which seemed to indicate the church’s acceptance of evolution. “Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science,” Schönborn wrote.

But Coyne, a Jesuit priest from the US, slammed these comments. He writes that the “nagging fear” that a universe explained by scientific concepts “escapes God’s dominion” is “groundless”.

He calls for an extensive dialogue. “But we should not close off the dialogue and darken the already murky waters by fearing that God will be abandoned if we embrace the best of modern science,” he urges.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7801

[Barry]

Bravo to Mr. Coyne, and a further reminder that Kenneth Miller, Brown University biologist whose link I have at the bottom of all my posts and who is as staunch and convincing a defender of Evolution as there is (and who has frequently debated proponents of ID.......you can get links to some of those debates on his site), is a practicing and believing Catholic. One can believe in God without rejecting modern science (of course, belief isn't a prerequisite either ).

[Corlyss_D]

Bravo indeed. I must admit I like watching a good fight. I'm rooting for anyone whose job title is "Vatican astonomer."

Barry, have you ever heard of this pub The New Scientist from which I got the article? It's new to me and I'm going to check it out often. I have a feeling its a support group for the human-caused global warming crowd and other political causes for scientists, but it looked very interesting and provocative.

[Barry]

Haven't heard of it, Corlyss.

edit: Just checked out their site and it doesn't look like a propoganda page. The only mention of global warming on the home page is related to the recent drought, rather than human behavior.

[Ralph]

The Vatican hasn't gotten it right since bowing to PC pressure and exonerating the truly guilty Galileo.

[Corlyss_D]

Haven't heard of it, Corlyss.

edit: Just checked out their site and it doesn't look like a propoganda page. The only mention of global warming on the home page is related to the recent drought, rather than human behavior.

I think you are right. I see from the "About" page they have been in biz since 1956. I have never seen them on a news stand anywhere, even in Washington, DC.

[Teresa B]

Second the Bravos for Coyne!

Teresa