Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Three scientists, two of them Roman Catholic biologists, have asked Pope Benedict XVI to clarify the church's position on evolution in light of recent statements by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, an influential theologian, that the modern theory of evolution may be incompatible with Catholic faith.

The scientists asked the pope to reaffirm earlier statements on the subject by Pope John Paul II and others "that scientific rationality and the church's commitment to divine purpose and meaning in the universe were not incompatible." It is crucial, their letter says, "that in these difficult and contentious times the Catholic Church not build a new divide, long ago eradicated, between the scientific method and religious belief."

Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University, wrote the letter on behalf of himself and the two biologists, Dr. Francisco J. Ayala of the University of California, Irvine, a former Dominican priest, and Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University, a Roman Catholic who has written on the reconciliation of science and faith.

Cardinal Schönborn's remarks, which appeared Thursday in an essay on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, were prompted in part by an essay Dr. Krauss wrote in Science Times in May on the compatibility of religion and evolution. The Vatican press office, contacted Tuesday, had no comment on Cardinal Schönborn's article.

Dr. Krauss, who is not Catholic, said yesterday that the letter was en route to Cardinal Schönborn.

In his essay, Cardinal Schönborn said the theory of evolution, as it is understood by scientists today, is not true. He dismissed Pope John Paul's comments on the subject in 1996 as "rather vague and unimportant."

The ideologues cannot be converted (enlightened); they must be contained politically.

with a positive agenda.

That's like calling all atheist religionists, believers in a No-God and worshipping Him. Secularism is merely the absence of religion as a principle of political organization. It is not a distinct philosophy, with a positive agenda, as is religious fundamentalism.

JLNobody wrote:

That's like calling all atheist religionists, believers in a No-God and worshipping Him. Secularism is merely the absence of religion as a principle of political organization. It is not a distinct philosophy, with a positive agenda, as is religious fundamentalism.

That's not quite true, and I think you know it. Neo-Darwinism is often presented as excluding any possibility of any work by a creator, at any stage of the formation or evolution of the observable universe. This itself, is hardly scientific at all. This is far, not only from science, but also the disinterested "absence of religion" or a "distinct philosophy with a positive agenda" which you claim.

Creationists, the only people who use the term neo-darwinism, like to present such a strawman of evolution. This has nothing to do with evolution as understood by scientists, which again has nothing to do with secularism.

I have no idea what you are getting at, but I know you are way of base.

Einherjar wrote:

Creationists, the only people who use the term neo-darwinism, like to present such a strawman of evolution. This has nothing to do with evolution as understood by scientists, which again has nothing to do with secularism.

I have no idea what you are getting at, but I know you are way of base.

I have no idea what any of the words above might mean. Confounding definitions, masked as tautologies, along with disjoint propositions, and semantical evasions. You may be on base, but one could never tell from your words.

That's not quite true, and I think you know it. Neo-Darwinism is often presented as excluding any possibility of any work by a creator, at any stage of the formation or evolution of the observable universe. This itself, is hardly scientific at all. This is far, not only from science, but also the disinterested "absence of religion" or a "distinct philosophy with a positive agenda" which you claim.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
("The Origin of Species" (6th ed.), Chapter XV (last chapter), the last sentence.)

georgeob1 wrote:

That's not quite true, and I think you know it. Neo-Darwinism is often presented as excluding any possibility of any work by a creator, at any stage of the formation or evolution of the observable universe. This itself, is hardly scientific at all. This is far, not only from science, but also the disinterested "absence of religion" or a "distinct philosophy with a positive agenda" which you claim.

Evidently my use of the term "neo-Darwinism" was a red flag to some here. OK, suppose I has just said "Darwinism" instead. I believe the rest of the statement stands. Moreover it addresses the heart of the matter under discussion - something I have seen few of the anti-ID-in-any-form protagonists here willing to address. Why?