Posted on 08/24/2006 8:37:24 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna said he thought Darwin's theories on evolution deserve to be studied in schools, along with the scientific question marks that remain.
It is right to teach "the science of Darwin, not ideological Darwinism," Cardinal Schonborn said Aug. 23. He spoke at a meeting in Rimini sponsored by the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation, and his remarks were reported by Italian newspapers.
In 2005, Cardinal Schonborn helped fuel the debate over evolution and intelligent design when he wrote in The New York Times that science offers "overwhelming evidence for design in biology." He later said some scientists had turned Darwin's teachings into an ideological "dogma" that admitted no possibility of a divine design in the created world.
In Rimini, the cardinal said he did not regret writing The New York Times article, but said that in retrospect he might have been more nuanced.
"Perhaps it was too much crafted with a hatchet," he said.
"The church teaches that the first page of the Book of Genesis is not a page of science," he said.
Cardinal Schonborn said there should be no doubt that the church does not support creationism, the idea that the biblical account of the creation of the world in six days should be taken literally.
But when teaching evolutionary theory, he said, schools should underline the points still awaiting clarification, the "missing links" in the theory which were recognized by Darwin himself, he said.
Cardinal Schonborn said Darwinian theory and the faith can coexist, and he proposed a metaphorical image: Darwin's scientific ladder of rising evolutionary development on one hand, and on the other the biblical Jacob's ladder, from which angels descended from heaven to earth.
The cardinal said the images offer "two directions, two movements, which only when observed together allow for anything close to a complete perspective." At the center of these two movements is the figure of Jesus Christ, he said.
Cardinal Schonborn said it was important to realize that Darwin's theories continue to have an impact in economic as well as biological fields. For example, he cited a link between ideological Darwinism and some capitalist theories that consider high unemployment simply a byproduct of a necessary economic natural selection.
In bioethics, he said, the church's differences with ideological Darwinism become important.
"Despite sometimes heavy criticism, the church continues to firmly believe that there is in nature a language of the Creator, and therefore a binding ethical order in creation, which remains a fundamental reference point in bioethical matters," he said.
The cardinal was one of several scholars invited to join Pope Benedict XVI at his summer villa in early September for a private two-day symposium on "Creation and Evolution." The encounter is an annual one in which the pope meets with his former doctoral students from his teaching years in Germany.
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Darwinism should be taught as theoretical science.
So what if a human creature (in this case a Roman Catholic official) has an opinion?
It's interesting that anti-Darwinism can lead to anti-captialism -- i.e. socialism. I think fundamentalists tend to be socialistic and not captialistic.
Now let's see how many can recognize that this was Ann Coulter's point in the evolution discussion in Godless. She wasn't debunking the theory, she was debunking the devotion to the theory that doesn't allow scrutiny nor acknowledgement of the missing links. It isn't science when it is beyond question.
It's generally recognized that Darwin was influenced by Adam Smith. Even a big-time creationist website (Institute for Creation Research) has this article posted:
Darwin's Influence on Ruthless Laissez Faire Capitalism.
I respect your opinion as much as the next guy but the website in your tagline goes through some pretty heavy contortions to find justification of a premise not shared by the Church nor the pre-Christian Jewish faith (i.e.: How Adam could see stars when their lights took millenia to travel to Earth). So your "side" has an opinion too.
This article is so overlaid with hyperbolic value judgements it is offensive to me and useless.
Whatever does not offend us only makes us stronger.
Thanks for the ping!
And provable mathematics.
Like Gravity, Astronomy, Chemistry and all the other sciences which depend on theories (which is all of science).
All sciences, TToE included, are open to scientific scrutiny and attack. Within the Evolution community there are heated debates on the meaning and proper framework for evidence, some of which has been around quite some time.
If you know of a scientific attack, please provide a summary (and links). On all of these threads no one has yet to provide this. Will you be the first?
I've always thought that the popular fundie term "materialist [blank]" sounds a lot like the classic Soviet caricature referring to Americans as "capitalist [blank]".
Just like gravity. I don't know if you know, but the Theory of Gravity is MUCH less "fleshed out" than TToE.
Oh and lets not forget Astronomy. That goes against Genesis and we have never actually SEEN and TOUCHED much of what we infer from our cameras and telescopes. And how can we study bodies in the sky if we can't account for the Origin of the Universe? EVIL EVIL EVIL!
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