Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
Wed Apr 11, 6:07 AM ET

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.

Those arguments, proposed mostly by conservative Protestants and
derided by scientists, have stoked recurring battles over the teaching
of evolution in the United States. Some European Christians and Turkish
Muslims have recently echoed these views.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070411/sc_nm/pope_evolution_dc

[ThomCat]

1. That's funny. A religious leader saying that science is too narrow.

:rofl:

[Warpy]

14. There is nothing more narrow than saying

"god did it" and then shutting off your curiosity.

[Deep13]

2. BZZZZTTT! Wrong answer.

The only answers about the nature of the universe we have ever found have been from science. I hesitate to call it "creation." I dispute that the origin and underlying mechanics of nature are beyond science's power to ascertain them. All we really know about that is we have not discovered everything. Religion has provided nothing in the way of answers. In fact, its active resistence to science means what religion has provided adds up to considerably less than nothing.

[hlthe2b]

3. Would an "intelligent designer" have "created" George W Bush?

I rest my case....:eyes:

[samq79]

4. Well thank God we have...

the completely unflawed and noncontradictory Bible to lay out how it all went down...


And science is not scientific enough...right...

[cyborg_jim]

5. Oh Chaos what a dumbass

"Just who is this 'nature' or 'evolution' as (an active) subject? It doesn't exist at all!" the Pope said.

No shit Mr Pope! What's your point?

Benedict argued that evolution had a rationality that the theory of purely random selection could not explain.

Hey, what a fucking surprise, he doesn't know what the theory even fucking is! Just like everyone else apparently.

"The process itself is rational despite the mistakes and confusion as it goes through a narrow corridor choosing a few positive mutations and using low probability," he said.

Wait, wait, there's a name for that... oh shit what is is... oh yeah NATURAL FUCKING SELECTION.

"This ... inevitably leads to a question that goes beyond science ... where did this rationality come from?" he asked. Answering his own question, he said it came from the "creative reason" of God.

Yeah, you don't get it at all.

Why should I be surprised?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. So evolution will still be taught in Catholic schools

and I bet the Pope won't be visiting the Creationism Museum in Kentucky.

[phantom power]

7. Well, he would know, wouldn't he.

Being the Infallible(tm) representative of the Almighty and all.
:eyes:

[Goblinmonger]

8. Breaking News: The Pope's an asshat

Like we didn't know that already.

Disclaimer: Given the recent cries of bigotry at ANYTHING in here recently, my comments as to asshatness were aimed at the Pope and ONLY the pope. My comment is not intended to apply to any other catholic than the pope. There may be other catholics that are asshats and plenty that are not, but the scope of this post is only the pope. I AM NOT claiming that all catholics are asshats. I bet I still get in trouble for this.

[MistressOverdone]

10. I really don't know if he is an asshat or not

but he has a really big hat. So...ouch.

[toddaa]

24. We're using disclaimers now?

Man, it's getting too damn complicated to be a godless heathen. Fuck it, I'm converting to Judaism.

[More Than A Feeling]

9. If there is a gulf between the evidence and your assumption, you drop the assumption.

Of course, when you've based your whole life and authority on that assumption...

[Deep13]

11. "...forms of life are too complex to have evolved randomly..."

G O D D A M M I T !!!! :mad:

Natural selection is not fucking random, assholes. Jesus Christ am I sick of hearing this RW meme. Darwin did not propose randomness as the basis of his theory. Natural selection is entirely determinative. It is just that the determination about what lives and what dies are based on natural, physical reality and not some invisible friend at the drawing board. Mutations are random. Natural selection is not. If a mutation hinders a critter's ability to find food, it will die out. Nothing that predictible can be characterized as random.

Random mutations alone cannot explain the development of life. This random list of letters cannot survive as a word.

JGVZDGLJHTPQAMXIHKRLWPCSMANFTOESJWO

Use the editing power of natural selection and it makes a bit more sense.

......L........I...........F..E....

So, let us all say it together.

Natural selection is not random.
Natural selection is not random.
Natural selection is not random.
Natural selection is not random.
Natural selection is not random.
Natural selection is not random.
Natural selection is not random.
Natural selection is not random.

[Red Zelda]

12. Fuck the pope

...and the hat he rode in on.
What he knows about the world wouldn't fill the eye of a needle.

[Deep13]

13. I bet he knows a lot about the Hitler Youth, since he was in it. nt

[Goblinmonger]

16. I think he gets a bad rap for that.

I am no fan of the pope (see above), but I don't think he was a Nazi. Everyone had to be in the Hitler youth. I doubt JPII would have been friends with Ratzi if Ratzi were a Nazi.

Other than that, I think Ratzi is a huge prick.

[Deep13]

17. JPII fought against Hitler.

Look, I would not fault a guy for having been in the Hitler Youth if he lived in Germany at that time. Still, I wouldn't want him as the leader of a major global religion. Couldn't the RC church have found someone just as qualified who did not take up arms to fight for Hitler?

[Goblinmonger]

19. Again, I have no love for the guy.

The point is that I don't think Ratzi "took up arms to fight for Hitler." From my understanding, everyone had to be in the Hitler youth or face serious consequences. All reports show that Ratzi was not an active member. It was fascism then, remember. He was very young. Ratzi has a lot of problems, I just don't see being a Nazi as one of them.

That being said, if it were my choice I probably would have gone with the guy from Mexico of the African guy. But it isn't surprising to me that the church picked a conservative catholic. That seems to be the norm for the church.

[moggie]

21. It was also many years ago

A church which believes we are all sinners, and that we can change for the better, shouldn't condemn the man for being in the Hitler youth nearly seventy years ago. Provided, of course, he's since spoken out unequivocally against Nazism, and in particular expressed regret about the fate of those kids who resisted and suffered the consequences (they did exist). Er, I presume he has done this, hasn't he? Anyone?

[MindPilot]

15. All you need to disprove evolution is peanut butter.

The evolution myth is BUSTED!!

http://www.glumbert.com/media/peanutbutter

[cosmik debris]

18. Listen to the Pope!

The Catholic Church has an excellent track record on scientific thought. i.e. they are wrong almost all of the time.

So listen to the Pope's advice on science--then believe the opposite.

[kenny blankenship]

20. While religion doesn't really EXPLAIN anything at all

[TreasonousBastard]

22. So, the Pope defends evolution and scientific thought, but...

he still gets trashed here because he's, well, the Pope and Popes get trashed here because they dare to beleive in God. And they are Catholic.

The article made perfect sense to any of the millions of educated Christians, or Jews, for that matter, or many other religious, in that it accepted the scientific method as far as it goes, with a spritual component behind, and perhaps above, it.

What is the problem with that that demands an immediate onslaught of snark?

[Evoman]

23. The only problem I have here is that the pope really

doesn't have either the knowledge, nor the authority, to say that "science is too narrow". Hey...the pope is the pope, but he really is begging the question when he talks about "creation".

Because maybe science is to narrow to explain creation because there is no such thing as creation.

[TreasonousBastard]

28. Why doesn't he? As a theologian, which...

is simply a philosopher with an eye on God, he doesn't need to be a an expert on quantum mechanics to define limits on knowledge and belief.

Science IS limited to the observable and measurable, and if all you're interested in is observing and measuring, then science is all you need. To some of us, however, even some scientists, we ponder the unobservable and unmeasurable, and that is the realm of philosophy.

[cyborg_jim]

29. I've said it before and I'll say it again

Science is philosophy that produces results.

What exactly does pondering the unobservable and unmeasurable get us? That's nice for storytelling but not much good for anything else.

Besides the simple fact is that he misrepresented what the theory of evolution actually says. Maybe he should get a goddamn clue about it before he can make any sort of philosophical comparisons.

[TreasonousBastard]

40. Such pondering is good for something called...

civilization.

Science was never very good at defining the limits of things like personal freedom or setting up a government or creating art. Or even making a good pastrami sandwich.

Say anything you want as often as you want, but you ain't Aristotle and the Pope may be far from perfect, buit he has more clues than you think.

[More Than A Feeling]

26. He didn't defend either of those things.

1. He got evolution wrong. As someone else pointed out above, it isn't random at all. If you are the pope, and you are going to make news by talking about evolution, you have a responsibility to get it right.

2. Part of scientific thought is not jumping to conclusions when you have no evidence at all. Making supernatural assumptions based on a current lack of knowledge is the very opposite of science, and despite the Pope's denials, does fall into the "god of the gaps" style of apologetics.

The Pope has a vested interest in people not understanding that supernatural assumptions conflict with science and the scientific method. All his authority is derived from the claims the Catholic Church makes about the supernatural. If people thought those claims were baseless, there would be no reason to listen to the Catholic Church, or the Pope, or any other religious leader.

[TreasonousBastard]

30. Alas, there is a random element in evolution, even if...

the end effect appears to be directed. Then of course, we have to ask just why and how a particular evolutionary direction has been chosen...

The Pope is, and apparently always has, making a clear distinction between scientific and spiritual thinking-- a distinction that is common in much religious writing on science, going back to Maimonedes.

It is difficult for the Catholic Church to avoid god of the gaps since they've spent thousands of years defining every aspect of the religion. However, they are doing a pretty good job of digging themselves out of much of the hole of dogma they've dug in that time. This is simply a bit more digging out, and the attacks on the church and the Pope for this are unwarranted.

[More Than A Feeling]

31. You're ok with him trying to preserve the relevance of the Catholic church

at the expense of scientific thought? Take a look at this part of the article:

"'But in the joy at the extent of its discoveries, it tends to take away from us dimensions of reason that we still need. Its results lead to questions that go beyond its methodical canon and cannot be answered within it,' he said."

The only reason anyone considers the Pope qualified to comment on those "questions beyond its methodical canon" is that he makes claims which violate said methodical canon. Doesn't it strike you as hypocritical to claim to respect science, and then claim authority in a way that flies in the face of science?

[Random_Australian]

33. Ah yes, of course. The people could be responding like this because

A) Someone, who's not even a scientist, claims to know all about it to the point of proving that it is insufficient.

OR

B) That someone is a christian, like the majority of America. Of course, given that every atheist here will have friends and family that is christian, it seems a little illogical that they'd not like christians... wait a second, I'm bieng logical. Anyway, Christians are bieng persecuted! Look at that persecution! I bet they didn't even read the comments, just saw Catholic and started posting that they thought it was evil.

Take a guess! A or B, you choose. :)

[beam me up scottie]

34. I trash the pope because he's a liar, a hypocrite and what was the other thing? Oh yeah, a murderer.

He instructs his priests to tell catholics in third world nations that using condoms spreads AIDS.

I have a LOT of problems with someone who could save millions of lives by just telling the truth and chooses not to.

Snark is something I use to trash idiots, not murderers.

[silverweb]

25. One DUer said it best.

I don't remember who or exactly when, but it was quite some time ago, and it sounded like a succinct end of the argument to me:

Science seeks the HOW of the universe, while faith seeks the WHO.

Many religionists are arrogant enough to insist that they have not only all the answers, but the only answers.

Scientists, on the other hand, continually seek new information to either confirm or modify their accumulated body of knowledge and hypotheses. That's the honest approach.

The conflict between science and faith is a false one because they are attempting to codify entirely different information.

There really is no harm in believing that a deity was responsible for creating the universe (or not), just as long as the study of HOW that was accomplished is left, unhindered, to science.

Just IMHO, of course.

[TreasonousBastard]

27. Possibly me, although...

I usually phrase it as science seeking the how, while religion, or philosophy, seeks the why.

[silverweb]

32. Might have been you...

...and maybe I just remembered somewhat inaccurately. Or it might have been someone else with a slightly different way of putting it.

New, full version:

Science seeks the HOW, philosophy seeks the WHY, and religion seeks the WHO.

How's that? :)

In any case, each branch of study needs to be able to do its seeking unencumbered by the others.

[skepticscott]

35. Same old creationist baloney

Benedict is dancing around in those funny shoes and trying to sound all-inclusive, but there's no doubt which side of the fence he's coming down on-the medieval, anti-knowledge, anti-science side. When he says that the evolution debate is about "the great fundamental questions of philosophy - where man and the world came from and where they are going" he's just betraying his ignorance and his nihilistic agenda. Evolution is NOT a philosophical debate and it has nothing to do with where the world came from; it is about how life got to be the way we see it now. And though not quoted in this particular article, he also trots out the old scare tactic that we must tread carefully with evolution, as it brings up uncomfortable moral and social issues. Well, tough. If the truth has unpleasant social consequences, don't blame the truth-it is what it is. Philosophers and theologians can deal with it however they please, but don't expect rationalists to back away from the facts just because they give you the heebie-jeebies.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

36. Science says Pope too narrow to understand reason.

Clip at 11.

[Heartling]

37. I like the way Penn and Teller described it.

Penn recited what Charles Darwin said about evolution to follow up with the famous quote of the definition of Natural selection. When he asked Teller what the creationist argument was Teller hit Penn with the bible square on the head (yes I spelled bible purposefully in lower case).

[JerseygirlCT]

38. Pope's theology too narrow to comprehend God...

But God in a box goes so well with the Prada shoes.

[varkam]

39. Well if the pope says it, it must be true!

He is, after all, infallible! C'mon, why would Joey Rats lie to us?

[cain_7777]

41. Pope too narrow to understand science