NYT: Leading Cardinal Redefines Church's View on Evolution

[kskiska]

An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.

The cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian who is close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Thursday, writing, "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not."

In a telephone interview from a monastery in Austria, where he was on retreat, the cardinal said that his essay had not been approved by the Vatican, but that two or three weeks before Pope Benedict XVI's election in April, he spoke with the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, about the church's position on evolution. "I said I would like to have a more explicit statement about that, and he encouraged me to go on," said Cardinal Schönborn.

He said that he had been "angry" for years about writers and theologians, many Catholics, who he said had "misrepresented" the church's position as endorsing the idea of evolution as a random process.

more…
http://nytimes.com/2005/07/09/science/09cardinal.html?hp&ex=1120881600&en=8f8f477d0e53f308&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[mike_c]

1. none are more ignorant than the willfully ignorant....

eom

[Dogmudgeon]

2. I wonder what he makes of Ohm's Law

The philosophical theory of "Intelligent Design" sure seems to attract a lot of un-intelligent people.

And they're usually talking about God when they decide to to bless us with their ignorance.

--p!

[howmad1]

32. IF GOD WAS BEHIND INTELLIGENT DESIGN,

he sure did a shitty job on humans.}(

[Auntie Bush]

43. So true...and he'd have given us better/stronger BACKBONES!

Also, if he were "All Knowing" he would have known bush* would be President and given him more BRAINS and less arrogance. God failed us!

[MichiganVote]

3. And gravity is unacceptable too. Not to mention all that planet stuff

The true Dinosaurs of the world are the men who serve in the hierarchy of the roman catholic church.

[Bo]

67. The Roman Catholic Church

is not a religous organization it is political and financial

[toddaa]

4. Evolution is NOT random

Jesus Frickin' Christ almighty, if your going to dispute a thoroughly researched scientific theory, at least HAVE A FUCKIN' CLUE ABOUT IT. Mutation is random, NOT natural selection.

[lapfog_1]

14. YUP!

random mutation and natural selection and time is all that is
required to create the most complex of organisms or pretty much
anything else.

[hedgehog]

18. Doesn't life itself go against the laws of thermodynamics?

Matter and energy shouldn't spontaneously organize into more complex forms.

[lapfog_1]

35. So... various "naturally occurring" crystals and metals are

highly organized. Hell, even planets are organized masses of
material, much of which can be demonstrated to have arisen
spontaneously from free floating matter.

Do we believe that a "creator" is needed to orgies all of this?

OTOH, this is not to say that a "creator" did not create the
laws of physics under which all of this happens...

[Solon]

36. Fatal flaw in your argument...

The second law only applies in a CLOSED system, which the Earth is not. Life would never have evolved on this planet except for one thing, the Sun. Every single organism on this planet, with few exceptions(deep ocean ecosystems) rely on the Sun to provide all their needs for survival. The Sun itself follows the 2nd law, billions of years from now, it will change, billowing into a red giant that consumes the Earth, then throwing off its outer shell of burning hydrogen and helium, leaving a faint white dwarf, or even maybe a neutron star, either of which will fade away themselves over many more billions of years.

[Shadoobie]

37. A common misconception.

The second law states that entropy of the entire Universe is >= to zero or in other word is always moving to a state of disorder. you can have small systems within the universe that display negative entropy or order but the overall entropy must be positive.

Consider the energy to sustain and create new life (food, drink, etc). The food and drink is broken down into a more disordered state. The net entropy from the food breakdown and life formation/sustenance wil be positive. With out the food and drink, life will eventually move to a state of disorder (death and decomposing).

A simple view is to consider freezing ice cubes. The water becomes more organized as it freezes but it does not happen spontaneously. Have you ever known a freezer to work without plugging it in.

Greg

[Solon]

39. You are absolutely correct...

In our case, where the food and dring(energy) ultimately comes from is the Sun, a localized source of positive energy for us, leading to negative entropy.

[mike_c]

45. late to the dance, but I have an answer for you-- no....

Life does NOT violate the the laws of thermodynamics. The high degree of organization tht characterizes living systems is maintained by a large energy flux through the system. The overwhelming majority of that energy ultimately ends up as heat and contributes to the accumulation of entropy. Living systems are thermodynamic parasites in that sense. Equilibrium equals death.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

66. Only in closed systems. Sunlight makes Earth a non-closed system.

But I bet you heard this refutation already, didn't you?

[nolabels]

65. Including groups of interdependent organisms known as biospheres

To know where your going you must first be able to figure out where you came from. Depending on others or other things is impossible not to have to do. Religions and other hierarchal models society uses are possible only because more sublime processes and structures that are in place. All this greatness is in the fact that it's all lapped over each other to make it and it works (to what ever degree possible.

The age of enlightenment is a challenge for those who think and those who refuse to, collectively

[KittyWampus]

29. Mutation Is Not NECESSARILY Random. That Is An Opinion Not Based

on empirical facts.

It is a philosophical assertion based in Reductionism and Materialism.

[Penance]

31. Wishful thinking perhaps?

The Luria and Delbrück experiments were pretty conclusive in showing that beneficial mutations are indeed random. It's not a philisophical assertion.

[mike_c]

46. nonetheless, most point mutations are indeed random....

They're the biological equivalent of flipping a bit here or there and testing the resulting information change against a selection template-- the interaction between the expressed phenotype and its physical environment.

[Occulus]

40. And God- theirs, at any rate- MUST be assumed to be able to

insert a specific mutation or mutations into a DNA strand at a specific time or times. We are speaking of God here, are we not, Cardinal?

Where does this man not see room for his beliefs in this scientific theory? Oh, I think I get it- they don't want to admit that God might not take direct action for long periods of time, or for nonspecific, homocentric desires. They don't want God to sit halfway up the theater and watch the show, no- they want Him onstage, a Player among us.

Maybe it just makes them feel good. Sort of selfish, in any case; it's almost as if he wants a thank-you-daddy God, one who gives and gives and gives to those of proper faith- proper being apparently defined by Mr. Cardinal et al. It plays well to the crowds who suck Jimmy Swaggart or Pat Robertson out of their T.V.s; I'm talking about God delivering healings to those simple, faithful folk, and bountiful tables, and appreciable financial portfolios; their cup runneth over; yes, God will provide; Amen, amen, hallelujah, Amen.

:sarcasm:

More, the Cardinal and his Cohorts want nobody to investigate the how of the thing if they are in fact right and God really did do all of it. We have science, and technology, and all these wonderful (and wonderfully complex) tools to study and learn from such a process- say! Maybe there really isn't an energy source of some sort, a 'God battery', if you will, that we can tap into for power somehow, but if there were, these people wouldn't want us to know about it because, to them, it violates their faith- just like they seemingly want to keep us regarding the origin of species.

Does any of this sound even remotely familiar? Can we compare it to another popularly and understandably hated small and armed religious sect?

"Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." We've heard this out of Bush's mouth again and again, yet he himself continues to give religious fundamentalists more and more power in our system than ever before. Oh, to be fair, it's been going on for thirty years or more, with total control as the long-term goal. By weakening our educational system, the fundamentalists over here have set up conditions wherein Authority in church or politics can simply push them in 'the right direction' and the subjects will just bleat a couple times and go, without thinking of the consequences in the long term- and, increasingly, in the sort term as well.

It is not thinking which allows things like the Taliban and al Qaeda to exist, and for some reason this Cardinal and those around him want people to not think.

Just accept it all as a matter of faith and things will be fine- as fine for us as the Taliban. But they don't want you to think about that comparison.

[reprobate]

47. It's a matter of the priesthood maintaining power.

Without the power over the thoughts of their followers the priesthood would lose the followers to rational thought. They would also lose the huge amounts of money and investments the Churches hold.


Rational thought and religion cannot coexist. They are anathema to each other.


Remember, always follow the money.

[H5N1]

5. Damn these money hungry bastards!

[msongs]

6. the virgin mary had blue eyes, blonde hair, and pale white skin. n/t

[hedgehog]

9. Which explains why Our Lady of of Guadalupe is one of the

most popular images In the US Catholic Church today. Sheesh - if you're going to go after Catholics, please check us out first. We've got our share of fruitcakes and crooks, but so does any large family.

[hedgehog]

7. How could anyone tell a guided process from an unguided one?

Maybe the process looks random only until we understand it better. In the meantime, I wonder if calling the process totally random is as much a matter of faith as suggesting that it is purposeful.

[Old and In the Way]

8. Sad, the Catholic Church appears to be devolving.

Soon, we should be re-entering the Dark Ages....

Actually, I think the RCC has pretty much given up on modern society and is setting their sights on the 3rd world. I'm sure the uneducated will be far more malleable for their dogma.

[Massacure]

10. Cardinal Schönborn doesn't know what he is talking about.

Natural selection does not have to be random. It is entirely possible that "God" effects or manipulates events on Earth to cause evolution to go one way or another.

Christians can call it god, but I'll call it mother nature. We may believe in two different entities, but the effect is the same. Evolution.

[hedgehog]

12. I think he'd argue with you about Mother Nature vs God,

but otherwise he seems to be in agreement with you. IMO, there's no proof one way or the other. It's possible that the process can be described more easily if events are assumed to be random, but I don't know that assuming a guiding force causes any problems. I wouldn't teach guided evolution in school precisely because there is no proof. All we can do is describe what happened, not why.

[Massacure]

16. Mother nature is quite dependant on physics though.

Sure there is some randomness, but physics has a good deal to do with it. There are so many things we do not yet understand that can affect long term climate. Maybe someday we will be better able to forecast things by understanding these variables. Maybe not, in which case they will continue to be "random." Only time will tell.

[hedgehog]

17. Ah, but where does the physics come from?

COnsider the number e. My calculus text seems to go in circles defining it, but it describes so many aspects of nature. I can't remember if sunflower seeds are arranged on a flower according to e or according to the Fibonacci sequence, but in either case, how do they know? All science can do is observe and describe. What can't be seen must be defined by each one of us for ourselves.

[Massacure]

19. Ah, I see where you are coming at now.

I was looking at evolution based soley on climate and hibitat. You are looking at it from a couple steps behind me, in the context of "what generates climate to generate evolution?"

Who knows? It is fun to think about though. :)

[hedgehog]

22. If you can't have fun with it, what's the point?

Personally, I mistrust any "Christians" who don't believe the Creator, Son or especially the Holy Spirit doesn't have a sense of humor. I can understand those who turn away from Jesus though. The man was entirely too fond of puns!

[jwcomer]

49. "Ah, but where does god come from?"

Fibonacci sequence is a geometrical sequence (actually a linear combination of two geometrical sequences.) All geometrical sequences can be expressed in terms of e. Therefore there is no meaningful difference. Your calculus text book does not go in circles to define e. There just happen to be a great many perfectly reasonable definitions. Physics may in fact come from nothing. Max Tegmark (of the Institute for Advanced Studies) has many interesting things to say on the matter; in particular, it may turn out that all mathematically expressible universes do exist. Fully fleshed out, this idea does away entirely with the need for a God or higher level of universe within which this one sits. Besides, "Where does god come from?", "Does god have a god?" and "After eternity comes around does this god go to his god's heaven or hell?" Just some things you might want to ponder, when you consider whether your argument holds any weight as a criticism to the ultimate finality of Physics.

Your last statement I have enormous problems with. I hope you do not believe it in the form you've written. Taken to an extreme, it could be used to defend Hitler after all.

[reprobate]

48. To postulate a "God" you must describe that "God" and it's effects.

Just how does this "God" effect the universe? By what method or force does the "God" express her/his/it's wishes? What facors go into the decisions this "God" makes?

If you could answer these and other questions that would arise you would go a long way towards solving the controversy.

Otherwise, you're just playing with words and that's meaningless.



The problem comes when you try to falsify the idea. It all falls apart then.

[renaissanceguy]

68. if only they even knew what God is

or even what he or she wants and thinks. That's why we're humans and not deities...we DON'T know those answers.

They think they have all the answers, but it's just hot air.


http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues/472476

[Mountainman]

11. Anyone who says they know the truth about the origin of things is full of

kaka.

None of us can say for sure about evolution. We can only say what we think the truth is. And each of us has a brain and we don't need some fool in red robes to tell us what to think.

[lapfog_1]

13. He should read one more book

"Adaptation in natural and artificial systems" by John Holland.

If you build computer models and let them "adapt" you can create
very complex mechanisms (automata) that IF one didn't know better,
one would believe to have been intelligently created to best fit
the environment they find themselves in. Very complex. Starting
with a moderate population of very simple mechanisms (but which
HAVE the ability to mutate).

It's sort of like how fractal geometry works... or chaos theory.

random mutation and a large number of generations are all that
is needed.

It's not rocket science (and, by the way, neither is rocket
science... try aerodynamics - that's MUCH harder)

[hedgehog]

23. But in your model, someone programs the computer .

[lapfog_1]

38. So...

What you are saying is that someone created the laws of physics.

The computer (and it's software) provide a schema by which modeling
occurs, not the actual modeling. And the resulting automata
which has evolved does so in ways never imagined by the schema
or the programmer who created it.

[Solly Mack]

15. Someones zucchetto is too tight

it appears to be causing brain cramps...

[sjdnb]

20. As a devote Roman Catholic

I've found the movie "Dogma" best explains the only truth . . .

We all can only have a 'good idea' -- no one knows ANYTHING for sure!

[hedgehog]

21. I love that movie - and I agree with the sentiment.

[DemBones DemBones]

28. Quite right -- no one should exclude

any possibility. I'm also a devout Catholic but aware that none of us know with absolute certainty that there is a God. No one knows with absolute certainty that there is NOT a God, either. Best to keep an open mind.

[really annoyed]

34. If you claim something exists...

The burden of proof lies on you.

An atheist doesn't have to confirm their non-belief.

I'm sorry, but if having an open-mind means accepting every theory that I disagree with, call me a bigot.

[shrike]

50. An open mind doesn't mean accepting every theory

To me, having an open mind means that I have to be comfortable with the fact I may be wrong. Or that we all may be wrong. Look at the the field of science: Quantum Physics, String theory. There were a fair share of serious scientists prior to the computer age and some of their theories proved correct. Some of them ultimately didn't.

Hell, maybe we're all wrong. Maybe when we die we step over into another dimension, do it all over -- wouldn't that be a kick? Maybe we're energy that's programmed to exist in different realities, endless. Or maybe this is all a dream and when I wake up I'll be in a totally different world. Wouldn't that be nice? It would mean we wouldn't have Bush in office.

[hedgehog]

24. I submit that the platypus is proof both of guided evolution and

the Creator's sense of humor. On the other hand, people in general would also serve as proof.

[DemBones DemBones]

25. No need to get upset. The headline implies

that Cardinal Schonborn has formulated a new teaching or policy for the Roman Catholic Church but that is not the case. For starters, he doesn't have the power to do so.

Instead, if you read his op ed, he is giving his view of the meaning of Catholic teaching on evolution and backing it up with his interpretation of comments and writings by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Popes have the power to change Catholic doctrine but only when they speak ex cathedra, which neither has done here.

Cardinal Schonborn is making a statement in support of the immanence of God; a statement that there is more to life than mechanistic explanations. It's only an anti-scientific statement if you take the view that science must be atheistic.

[shrike]

51. Any individual who believes in a deity would probably think

that the deity, no matter what or who it is, would be behind evolution in some ways.

As I said in an earlier thread, this isn't so different than what I learned in Catholic school. We learned about evolution, Cro Magnon Man, Australopithecus. We were also taught -- in religion class, they were two different things -- that God created the universe and all its natural laws, one of which was evolution. And the universe operated by these laws.

I have to wonder how this got reported. One Cardinal is going to write an essay and articulate his thoughts and opinions and it's blasted all over the globe.

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. It got reported because the Cardinal, and creationsists, wanted it

From the article:

Mark Ryland, a vice president of the institute, said in an interview that he had urged the cardinal to write the essay. Both Mr. Ryland and Cardinal Schönborn said that an essay in May in The Times about the compatibility of religion and evolutionary theory by Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, suggested to them that it was time to clarify the church's position on evolution.

The cardinal's essay was submitted to The Times by a Virginia public relations firm, Creative Response Concepts, which also represents the Discovery Institute.

Mr. Ryland, who said he knew the cardinal through the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria, where he is chancellor and Mr. Ryland is on the board, said supporters of intelligent design were "very excited" that a church leader had taken a position opposing Darwinian evolution. "It clarified that in some sense the Catholics aren't fine with it," he said.

So the NYT published the essay, and has now written this article.

The important point is that this is not claiming that evolution is a natural law, that God designed and then allowed to run. It's claiming that all organisms have been specifically designed by God to be exactly as they are. It says that God wanted mosquitoes to spread malaria.

[KittyWampus]

26. Oh For Pity's Sake. Yes, "Randomness" Is Also A Philosophical Assertion

whether science establishment partisans want to admit it or not.

But you'd think or HOPE there'd be more important things for the freaking Catholic heirarchy to be concerning themselves with.

[hedgehog]

30. Bingo!

on both counts!

[DanCa]

27. I'll be a monkey's uncle

You know my mom told me stories of how they bishop broke her tooth when they slapped her for confimation and made her kneel on rice for listening to elvis. (This is going way back when they slapped you at confirmation). What is it with these embryo lovers?

[really annoyed]

33. Gee, another persecution thread

It gets old.

And the "we don't know how the Earth was created" line is BS.

[Endangered Specie]

41. and anyone who takes a cardinals advice on matters of science...

I have nice land on Sedna to sell them.

[DeepModem Mom]

42. Page one, NYT today. nt

[Jack Rabbit]

44. Musical interlude

Onward, Christian soldiers! marching off to war!
Science and the Enlightenment will be never more.
Freud, he shall be banned, Darwin made to leave
Textbooks must teach our kids about Adam and Eve.

Lord, we will teach Your word, we will glorify Thee
Math books will henceforth say pi is an even three
Geography is all wrong, but we'll work to fix that
We will rewrite the books to say that the Earth is flat.

[burrowowl]

52. I respect

Teillard de Chardin much more than this IDIOT!
Austrian Neo-Nazi maybe?!?!

[hedgehog]

53. Didn't Teillard de Chardin postulate the creation is striving to

reach the "Omega point"? Having only read of him, I realize that is a gross simplification. None the less, it sounds closer to what the Cardinal said than to the notion of a completely random development. In his time, De Chardin was subject to a lot of suspicion, but the mainstream come to him in the tears since.

[burrowowl]

55. He believe in evolution

Interpretation is another matter.

[cap]

57. Teilhard de Chardin reconciled evolution with Church teachings

I think the new Pope is throwing us back to the dark ages and trying to push the Death of Reason along with the fundamentalists.

Between this and the "attack on London is anti-Christian", I have lost respect for this Pope. It is just as bad as we all feared... we just didnt know the manifestations of all of this.

[Demeter]

56. Gregor Mendel Is Rolling In His Grave

The monk who described the fundamentals of genetic inheritance would be a heretic, I suppose.

[girl gone mad]

58. Pardon me, Cardinal, but..

I'm going to take the word of those who get their data and information from places other than just one 1500 year old book.

[edhopper]

59. Neo-Darwinism?

Does this idiot have any scientific training? Biologist do not talk about "neo-darwinism" that sounds like a creationist buzz word. Scientist talk about evolution, adaptation, genetic change, survivability...
This sounds like more crap from the anti-science crowd. Set up false debates to persuade the gullible populace.

[muriel_volestrangler]

60. No, biologists do use the term

Here's an article by Richard Dawkins, Oxford Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, orginally written for the Encarta Encyclopedia.

This makes all the difference to the mathematical plausibility of the theory of natural selection. If heredity is particulate, natural selection really can work. As was first realised by the British mathematician G H Hardy and the German scientist W Weinberg, there is no inherent tendency for genes to disappear from the gene pool. If they do disappear, it will be because of bad luck, or because of natural selection – because something about those genes influences the probability that individuals possessing them will survive and reproduce. The modern version of Darwinism, often called Neodarwinism, is based upon this insight. It was worked out in the 1920s and 1930s by the population geneticists R A Fisher, J B S Haldane and Sewall Wright, and later consolidated into the synthesis of the 1940s known as Neodarwinism. The recent revolution in molecular biology, beginning in the 1950s, has reinforced and confirmed, rather than changed, the synthetic theory of the 1930s and 40s.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/leghist/dawkins.htm

[panzerfaust]

61. Most apropos: This being on the anniversary ...

... of JT's Trial in one of our progressive Southern States (same state where a couple more Black Churches just were torched) for violating the state law which prohibited the teaching of “...any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible...”.

Of course, a LITERAL interpretation of that same law would also prohibit the teaching of the latest contortion of Biblical Creation: “Intelligent Design” (sic).

Personally, I have long favored the “We Came From Space” hypothesis. But that only removes the “Creation Story” to another time and place, and, sadly, completely fails to explain the homology of our DNA with chimpanzees, or even with our Glorious, God-Picked, President.

I'm not really sure what the plural of “chimpanzee”, Pan troglodytes, might be, but I suspect that it is Homo republicianensis - arrgh, there's that word again. I tell you Sally, they are everywhere - but that does not mean that they are immanent, though some of them are eminent.

No. Guess that's an untruth. Pan troglodytes is less judgemental, more tolerant, and therefore more Christian in actions than your average Republithug - or Cardinal for that matter.

Peace,
but likely not in our time.

[liberaliraqvet26]

62. is molestation just a theory to them also....

that would explain why they allowed it to happen for centuries. Why do theses people have any credibility left anyway. Catholics used to be a step up from the born agains but now they are all the same to me.

[jhain]

63. Gravity is a theory, too,

and despite his self image he is NOT floating up in the stratosphere.

Freakin' idiots.

'fossils were put here by Satan to lead us from God's path'. Have a friend who teaches science and some parent actually disrupted a field trip with that lovely announcement to all in attendance.

Freakin' idiots.

[starroute]

64. Creative Response Concepts strikes again

From the article: "The cardinal's essay was submitted to The Times by a Virginia public relations firm, Creative Response Concepts, which also represents the Discovery Institute."

That would be this Creative Response Concepts:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/10/forgery/

Sept. 10, 2004

Creative Response Concepts, the Arlington, Va., Republican public relations firm run by former Pat Buchanan communications director Greg Mueller, with help from former Pat Robertson communications director Mike Russell, sent out a media advisory Thursday to hawk a right-wing news dispatch: "60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake." Creative Response Concepts has played a crucial role in hyping the inaccurate, secondhand Swift Boat allegations, with Russell serving as the group's official spokesman. A company spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Swiftboat liars, Rathersgate, and now messing with the Catholic Church? They're getting ambitious.