Friday, January 20, 2006

More on science, evolution and intelligent design

A director of a blog dedicated to following Cardinal Schonborn kindly responded to my comments and pointed me in the direction of Schonborn Sightings, where you can read more about the Cardinal's thinking in this area. I particularly liked the clarity of an interview he gave to the Beliefnet website earlier in January, which put Darwinism, evolution and the response of the Catholic Church to science neatly into perspective. I thought this comment hit the nail on the head:

  • Evolution is a scientific theory. What I call evolutionism is an ideological view that says evolution can explain everything in the whole development of the cosmos, from the Big Bang to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. I consider that an ideology. It's not good for science if it becomes ideological, because it leaves it own field and enters the area of philosophy, of world views, maybe of religion.
The blog also led me to a Catholic News Service report on an article published this week in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano arguing that intelligent design is not science, and various comments on this article. How I wish I had more time to read this all more carefully and ponder on it. The whole debate fascinates me.

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