Rising Hegemon
Granted, I still find the church's position on sexual orientation, birth control, and other things illogical and self-defeating, but by and large they are not what they used to be in regards to science. In fact, by and large, the Church outside of America has actually tried to be science friendly. Sadly, in this country, the evangelical streak is strong -- as is the desire for simple answers and simple people (almost always white men) to lead.
And you cannot get simpler answers from simpler men than our current Chimp.
But anyway, back to the topic at hand:
Poupard and others at the news conference were asked about the religion-science debate raging in the United States over evolution and "intelligent design."
Intelligent design's supporters argue that natural selection, an element of evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.
Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis."
"A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."
He was asked about comments made in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who dismissed in a New York Times article the 1996 statement by John Paul as "rather vague and unimportant" and seemed to back intelligent design.
Basti concurred that John Paul's 1996 letter "is not a very clear expression from a definition point of view," but he said evolution was assuming ever more authority as scientific proof develops.
We put up a lot of polls showing the Chimp to be graduating from disdained to loathed, but there are other disturbing polls. Those polls show consistently that most people in this country are woefully ignorant.
One small, but important, victory at a time.
By the way, there is not a better site on these issues than Pharyngula.
No comments:
Post a Comment