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Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, elaborating his views on evolution for the first time as Pontiff, says science has narrowed the way life's origins are understood and Christians should take a broader approach to the question.

The Pope also says the Darwinist theory of evolution is not completely provable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be reproduced in a laboratory.

But Benedict, whose remarks were published on Wednesday in Germany in the book "Schoepfung und Evolution" (Creation and Evolution), praised scientific progress and did not endorse creationist or "intelligent design" views about life's origins.. . .

. . .In the book, Benedict defended what is known as "theistic evolution," the view held by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant churches that God created life through evolution and religion and science need not clash over this.

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[ 13 April 2007: Message edited by: Bobolink ]

Religion can be characterized as a scientific issue.

I stopped reading it about 10 years ago.

I had switched to new scientist a few years ago, and they have some excellent article, however, they also have a tendency to sensationalize crap.

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Originally posted by Bobolink:
Actually, Benedict is following a Catholic line of thought that traces back to the encyclical of Pius XII Humani Generis of 1950. Pius argued that the theory of biological evolution was probably correct if not fully proven. This would be expanded on by Jean-Paul II in a document entitled "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth" from 1996 that indicates that the evidence of biological evolution has become overwhelming. Benedict is following contemporary Catholic and main-line Protestant thinking on evolution.

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This seems like a sensible compromise until you consider the soul. At which point between self-replicating amoeba and homo-sapiens did souls evolve? If all life evolved from a common ancestor and us humans have souls then either they evolved at some stage or all creatures have them.

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:
If one believes that the creator kicked off the whole thing, then the soul can be the remenant of the actions of the creator in all things. The more conscious a thing is, the greater the power and energy of the soul.

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If one believes that the creator kicked off the whole thing, then the soul can be the remenant of the actions of the creator in all things. The more conscious a thing is, the greater the power and energy of the soul.

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I know the air in Calgary is very thin, and all that H2S can't be good, but whoooaaa.

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It is evolution by natural selection that characterizes the scientific view and distinguishes it from theological views that masquerade as science.

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IMO, the contribution of natural selection to evolutionary variation is vastly overrated by people like Dawkins and his ilk, whose devotion to it borders on the religious .

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Originally posted by Jingles:

I know the air in Calgary is very thin, and all that H2S can't be good, but whoooaaa.

Whatever yer smokin' pass it over.

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I don't think that's too wild an idea. If you believe in a giant all powerful all knowing being that encompasses everything and is everywhere all the time, than the more understanding you have of yourself means the more understanding you have of the Almighty GOD, even if it's only an understanding of yourself as a living creature, which, as previously stated, is a small part of an all encompassing god..

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
I knew Scientific American had been dumbed-down for a mass audience, but I never realized they had a Religion Editor!

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Originally posted by Sisyphus:
IMO, the contribution of natural selection to evolutionary variation is vastly overrated by people like Dawkins and his ilk, whose devotion to it borders on the religious .

Genetic drift --in concert with the founder effect-- and sexual selection (in vertebrates) are far more significant agents of evolutionary change.

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Sexual versus natural selection

Although evolutionists agree that adaptations invariably result from natural selection, there are many traits, such as the elaborate plumage of male birds and size differences between the sexes in many species, that are better explained by "sexual selection": selection based on members of one sex (usually females) preferring to mate with members of the other sex that show certain desirable traits. Evolutionists debate how many features of animals have resulted from sexual as opposed to natural selection; some, like Darwin himself, feel that many physical features differentiating human "races" resulted from sexual selection.
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Natural selection versus genetic drift

Natural selection is a process that leads to the replacement of one gene by another in a predictable way. But there is also a "random" evolutionary process called genetic drift, which is the genetic equivalent of coin-tossing. Genetic drift leads to unpredictable changes in the frequencies of genes that don't make much difference to the adaptation of their carriers, and can cause evolution by changing the genetic composition of populations. Many features of DNA are said to have evolved by genetic drift. Evolutionary geneticists disagree about the importance of selection versus drift in explaining features of organisms and their DNA. All evolutionists agree that genetic drift can't explain adaptive evolution. But not all evolution is adaptive.

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[ 16 April 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]