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Author Topic: Vatican Paper Hits 'Intelligent Design'
Snuckles
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2764

posted 19 January 2006 09:01 AM      Profile for Snuckles   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press Writer
VATICAN CITY

The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying "intelligent design" is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.

The article in Tuesday's editions of L'Osservatore Romano was the latest in a series of interventions by Vatican officials - including the pope - on the issue that has dominated headlines in the United States.

The author, Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, laid out the scientific rationale for Darwin's theory of evolution, saying that in the scientific world, biological evolution "represents the interpretative key of the history of life on Earth."

He lamented that certain American "creationists" had brought the debate back to the "dogmatic" 1800s, and said their arguments weren't science but ideology.


Read it here.


From: Hell | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
Snuckles
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2764

posted 19 January 2006 09:04 AM      Profile for Snuckles   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Also see In 'Design' vs. Darwinism, Darwin Wins Point in Rome

quote:
By IAN FISHER and CORNELIA DEAN
Published: January 19, 2006

ROME, Jan. 18 - The official Vatican newspaper published an article this week labeling as "correct" the recent decision by a judge in Pennsylvania that intelligent design should not be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution.

"If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one should search for another," Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, wrote in the Jan. 16-17 edition of the paper, L'Osservatore Romano.

"But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science," he wrote, calling intelligent design unscientific. "It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious."

The article was not presented as an official church position. But in the subtle and purposely ambiguous world of the Vatican, the comments seemed notable, given their strength on a delicate question much debated under the new pope, Benedict XVI.



From: Hell | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
voice of the damned
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Babbler # 6943

posted 19 January 2006 10:24 AM      Profile for voice of the damned     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying "intelligent design" is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.


Bit off topic, but I've always been amused by the way Catholics use the word "confusion" to mean "belief in false ideas". It makes it sound as if the people who believe these things are stumbling around in a perplexed daze, trying in vain to figure out what's going on around them. When in reality, of course, those people are probably just as certain of their opinions as the Pope is of his.


From: Asia | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 19 January 2006 11:40 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Catholics are not the only religion seeking to put some daylight between themselves and ID:
quote:
"There has been a belief, for years and years and years, that Mormonism and evolution are diametrically opposed," Jeffery said in a recent phone call. He hopes the book will illuminate the grayer areas of the church's position. Jeffery calls himself a "theistic evolutionist."

Included in the book are four official First Presidency statements released in 1992 by Brigham Young University in a special "evolution packet" for students. In 1999 the packet was distributed to all teachers in the Church Education System.

According to Evenson, "the LDS Church has really been careful over the years not to get into a box where they are taking a position that later gets undermined by science and other developments of human knowledge. I don't think that's well understood by people who would like to have this be a settled issue."



But there are still the die-hards, of course:
quote:
Fundamentalist Christians take the Bible literally that God created the Earth in six days, and have made clear their position on the teaching of evolution.

Muslims believe that Adam was the first human but have not publicly joined in the debate over evolution. It's also not a matter of debate within the Muslim community, says Imam Shuaib-Ud Din of Khadeeja Mosque in West Valley City. "It's probably a debate within the very intellectually elite, but for most of the people, it's a 'no-brainer.' God created Adam, and that's the end."

"Scientific theories change over time," he adds. "If science someday proves Darwin's theory to be a fact, without a speck of doubt, then we would somehow find a way to make it compatible with the word of God."

Orthodox Judaism, too, has a literal approach to creation, taken from the Old Testament and the Talmud, known collectively as Torah.

"Torah does not believe in evolution," said Rabbi Benny Zippel of Chabad Lubavitch of Utah. "Torah believes that during the six days of creation, God created man in God's image."



From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged

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