The Pope is for evolution — except when he’s not

April 14, 2007

Guest Post by Morbo

What exactly does Pope Benedict XVI believe about evolution?

No one seems to know for sure. Some comments he made on the topic last September have just been published in a new German book, but they haven’t shed much light on the matter. Media reports about this have been all over the map. Scanning headlines on Google News, I spotted one that read, “Pope puts his faith in the Book of Genesis, not Darwin” and just below that another announcing, “Pope Benedict says theory of evolution cannot be dismissed.”

So is he for Darwin or against him? It would help if Benedict understood what the theory of evolution maintains – and he apparently does not. As the Associated Press reported:

Benedict added that the immense time span that evolution covers made it impossible to conduct experiments in a controlled environment to finally verify or disprove the theory. “We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory,” he said.

Is the pope really this dense? Doesn’t he know that the theory of evolution is supported not by laboratory experiments but by millions of years of fossil and DNA evidence?

Some commentators are asserting that what Benedict said isn’t so bad. He seems to be saying that he cannot accept a theory of evolution that denies a supernatural creator. No surprise there. He is a religious leader, after all. But it’s disappointing that he did not go on to state that evolution and faith need not collide. Other popes, among them Benedict’s predecessor, had no problem stating forthrightly that evolution can be reconciled with church doctrine. Evolution, John Paul II believed, could have been guided by God.

John Paul was not the first Catholic leader to come up with this. When I was a kid in Catholic schools in the mid 1970s, we were taught in biology class that evolution was well established. One teacher even opined that at some point, God infused beings with souls, making them fully human in a religious sense. These beings, the teacher said, might not have been 100 percent human in a biological sense, but they would be our “Adam and Eve.”

Of course there’s no way to prove this, and the church did not try. It was a matter of faith. If that’s all Benedict is saying — that ideas of human origins must make room for God to be compatible with church doctrine — I am not surprised. But he seems to be saying a little more and perhaps opening the door to “Intelligent Design.” (Although this science blogger believes the pope’s statement is not helpful to ID backers)

The fact that the pope’s commentary has become all things to all sides is a good sign that it is muddled and ill thought-out. There is a good reason for that: The pope is a religious leader, not a scientist. Rather than muddy the waters by issuing esoteric doubletalk like this, perhaps Benedict should stick to the subjects he knows best: How to pray, how to get to Heaven, etc. and leave science to the scientists.

The Vatican once had a science advisor, the Rev. George Coyne, a foe of intelligent design who used to say some pretty level-headed things about evolution. Coyne has since retired, but my suspicion is he still has a telephone. If Benedict feels he absolutely must pop off on evolution, he should call Coyne first. After all, just because you’re considered infallible on matters of faith and dogma does not mean you know diddly squat about science.

Thanks Morbo.While I respect your respect for the Pope and I see that his opinion is important in terms of public opinion, I just don’t expect someone who is in charge of the biggest organization constructed on an edifice of ignorance and superstition to say anything intelligent by design or even by accident. To me the Pope’s a dope. He’s the maintenance man for the biggest lie ever perpetrated so a little accuracy ever once in a while doesn’t excite me.

I guess we atheists should be a little more tolerant but look what they’re asking us to tolerate!

  • Hmmm, the “can’t do experiements, so it’s not scientificially proven” is a pretty standard creationist line, not just a simple misunderstanding of science. Not encouraging.

  • What does one expect from Ratzi the Nazi? This guy’s “thinking” is muddled on everything. A better medieval mind hasn’t been found to lead the church since Pius X and his “declaration of papal infallibility.”

    “If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I
    were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred
    truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
    – Bertrand Russell

  • “When I was a kid in Catholic schools in the mid 1970s, we were taught in biology class that evolution was well established.”

    That was back in the day when Catholics largely considered themselves working class. When most Catholics lived in big cities. When we regarded knee-jerk fundamentalists as snake-handling, drooling, hateful bigots from the backwoods. When very old Catholic widows still managed to make it to Mass every Sunday morning (often daily) while their fundamentalist counterparts put their hand on the radio and contributed sizable portions of their scant worth to charlatans. When Catholics invariably voted Democrat.

    Ever since LBJ told the bigots to go screw themselves, and Nixon responded with his Southern Strategy, and the Court approved Roe v. Wade, and St. Ronald the Reagan smiled on everyone (except the poor and pacifists), the Catholics have made a whole new set of bedfellows (no, I don’t mean altar boys). If it weren’t for the incredible wealth of the American Catholic Church, and if the Church of Rome had any of its old integrity left, there’d be a Papal Interdict issued immediately. As it is, money-changing seems to have driven religion out of the temples.

  • During my years of study and research in the fields of Population Ecology and Genetic at various Universities, I became familiar — I’d venture to claim ‘expert’ — in the science and theory of Evolution. One of my published theses was on the topic of Human Evolution and Technology. At that time, it was an all-consuming and thrilling passion with me which eventually resulted in the elucidation of some inconsistencies in the theory as it then stood.

    Although I’ve moved on some distance from these days, little that I have subsequently encountered has shaken or dissuaded me of the validity and beauty of Darwin’s original discoveries. As you can imagine, it’s quite hard for me to encounter outright falsities or even simply blurred understanding of what I came to appreciate was a profoundly meaningful and essential advance in the corpus of human knowledge, without which most of what we take for granted in contemporary medicine, nutrition and forensic science would not have been possible. It would be like landing on the Moon without a theory of gravity, or nuclear physics without quantum mechanics and relativity.

    I leave the issue of reconciling the comprehensive persuasiveness of the theory of evolution with a belief in a creator God to those for whom such an apparent contradiction is troublesome, not because I do not respect the genuine paradox they are faced with, but because I have my own paradox to wrestle with. About thirty years ago, I met an exiled lama from Tibet. I had already woken up to the inadequacy of material science to explain every aspect of human life, death and consciousness. I was seeking something additional to science to complete the picture, so to speak.

    It didn’t happen all at once but, over the intervening years of study and meditation, I’ve discovered a lot about the complementarities between the Oriental and Occidental systems of knowledge. Very simply, the main difference is that the former regards matter as dependent on mind, and the latter the converse. In neither system does evolution sit entirely comfortably.

    I am quite satisfied there is no need to invoke a divine creator to account for our Universe and our experience. While the origin of mind is a conundrum, it’s reality is incontrovertible. In some ways it is pretentious to even try to conjecture about the origin of mind when there is so much to learn about its nature. It is impossible for mind to explain its origin in the same way it is impossible for a knife to cut itself. That this is the nature of this Mahakalpa is quite enough to know to be going on with.

    Karma — cause, condition and result — is the process by which, over countless eons through countless livetimes since the beginning of beginningless time, we come to experience every instant exactly what we experience. Think about it. This also is true of all sentient beings, visible to us or not. Each of us continuously experiences the results of all our accumulated actions, and simultaneously creates the causes of our future experiences. Introducing a God into this equation adds nothing, and is entirely redundant.

    Retuning to Evolution, the paradox exists mainly because of a confusion — I’d go as far as to say a laziness — in our understanding of the relation between matter and mind. Biological evolution deals primarily with matter, while karma and religion deal mainly with mind. Ultimately there is no distinction, relatively there is all the difference in the world.

  • Other popes, among them Benedict’s predecessor, had no problem stating forthrightly that evolution can be reconciled with church doctrine. Evolution, John Paul II believed, could have been guided by God. — Morbo

    John Paul II was a person of healthy common sense and a pragmatist. Consider, for example, that he was more interested in striking “saints” and other miraculous stuff *off* the lists than in adding them in. And one of the saints he did add was Maximilian Kolbe, who gained his sainthood for very practical work he’d done as a prisoner in Auschwitz.

    Benedict, OTOH, is an academic and a doctrinaire. Consider his previous job: keeping a beady eye on the orthodoxy of the Church and ensuring it… Mind you, I have always thought it was both clever and hypocritical for Paul to have had the Rat as his “whip”, since it allowed Paul to seem more tolerant than he really was.

  • > Benedict added that the immense time span that evolution covers made it impossible to conduct experiments in a controlled environment to finally verify or disprove the theory. “We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory,” he said.

    Umm…. Bullshit.

    I not only “can” but have run experimental simulations demonstrating the power (and existence) of evolution — so have thousands upon thousands of other people. Evolution-based simulations have not only worked, they have spawned an entirely new field of study, “Emergent Computing”, which studies the behaviors that arise when different evolutionary pressures are places on populations. My Masters thesis will be associated with such a project — NEW-TIES — a project funded to the tune of 1.5M euros and spread across five universities in three countries.

    Anybody who says “evolution isn’t proven” is just plain wrong.

    If they want to say that “evolution is not how mankind came to be,” that’s a different question. But to deny the existence of the force in the first place is to mark oneself as somebody whose opinion on any scientific point is valueless.

  • “Doesn’t he know that the theory of evolution is supported not by laboratory experiments but by millions of years of fossil and DNA evidence?”

    Actually, it is supported by laboratory experiments in addition to DNA analysis and the fossil record. It is also supported by computer simulation work, examination of currently existing life forms, field experiments, and unintentional experiments (eg animal and plant domestication).

  • Infallible, right. Like when he stated unequivocally just a couple weeks before Easter that hell is a real place where bad people really do go after they die to suffer eternal torment. Then, perhaps wanting to dull the edge of that papal blade just a bit, he came out in the middle of Holy Week to mention that if you happen to eat meat on Good Friday you won’t (necessarily) go to hell. Aw shucks, Ratzy, you’re a swell pope. Thanks for the break.

    Not to put too fine a point on my intolerance, but anybody who looks to this sanctimonious twit for guidance in anything has got their head up their ass. I don’t care if he declares Richard Dawkins a saint, he’s still a bad medieval joke who happened to make it to this century. Hell, indeed. I find myself wishing her wasn’t wrong about it, because I’m sure there’d be a room with his name on it.

  • And you idiots want to know why 95% of the population hold athiests in contempt. You’re so busy stroking yourselves you’re incapable of engaging in any sort of dialog that’s outside the narrow bounds of what you understand or control. In what way are you any different than the fundementalists you claim moral superiority to?

    The catholic church and the pope are saying evolution is a fact, but all you can do is pounce on the miniscule parts you disagree with and use them to bludgeon every person of faith in the world because you don’t like some of the things other people do.

    I’m an agnostic, but I can’t see a lick of difference between the comments on this thread and the ones I read on right wing sites. If you are morally superior, maybe you should start acting like it.

  • No td, you’ve got it wrong. Atheists aren’t the ones who claim to be morally superior. That would be the religionists you’re talking about.

    I stand by my comment, offensive as it may be to Catholics (me being an ex-seminarian), that listening to Ratzy is a clear indication of delusion (aka head up ass). Anybody who can’t see the utter ridiculousness of the dogma of hell is so far beyond rational thought as to deserve naught but scorn. Or perhaps pity.

  • Goldilocks (#5): Karma — cause, condition and result — is the process by which, over countless eons through countless livetimes since the beginning of beginningless time, we come to experience every instant exactly what we experience. Think about it.

    Goldilocks, as someone who did a heck of a lot of meditation (mostly Zen style) over the years, I was with you up to this point. Then all of a sudden you toss reincarnation into the mix as a fact, and move along from there as if we all assume that perspective. NOT! Your leap seems no more valid than a leap to belief in God. Think about it? I did. It doesn’t wash anymore than any number of other faith-based (ie. non-evidentiary) beliefs.

    You can’t argue a point using logic and rationalism, then suddenly toss in some tenet of faith and move on in the same vein basing your arguments on that leap. It’s the same thing we constantly see among Christians who base their arguments on the Bible being the word of God. Just wrapped up a little differently.

  • Re: Pres. Lindsay:

    Hell in the Bible is used symbolically, the same with fire. The Bible makes it clear that when a person dies they cease to exists. And if they are cleared in the Judgment they will be resurrected Just as Christ was and will live in the opposite place of the so-called hell. The Bible is full of symbolism. It cannot be read like a story book. Logic needs to be included.

    Many people, when they can’t provide evidence for their theory, adopt the strategy of falsehood. Such is the case with many of those who have fallen victim to the propaganda of renowned evolutionists.

    If evolutionists want to end the arguments all they have to do is, get their brilliant heads together and assemble a ‘simple’ living cell. This should be possible, since they certainly have a very great amount of knowledge about what is inside the ‘simple’ cell.

    After all, shouldn’t all the combined Intelligence of all the worlds scientist be able the do what chance encounters with random chemicals, without a set of instructions, accomplished about 4 billion years ago,according to the evolutionists, having no intelligence at all available to help them along in their quest to become a living entity. Surely then the evolutionists scientists today should be able to make us a ‘simple’ cell.

    If it weren’t so pitiful it would be humorous, that intelligent people have swallowed the evolution mythology.

    Beyond doubt, the main reason people believe in evolution is that sources they admire, say it is so. It would pay for these people to do a thorough examination of all the evidence CONTRARY to evolution that is readily available: Try answersingenesis.org. The evolutionists should honestly examine the SUPPOSED evidence ‘FOR’ evolution for THEMSELVES.

    Build us a cell, from scratch, with the required raw material, that is with NO cell material, just the ‘raw’ stuff, and the argument is over. But if the scientists are unsuccessful, perhaps they should try Mother Earth’s recipe, you know, the one they claim worked the first time about 4 billion years ago, so they say. All they need to do is to gather all the chemicals that we know are essential for life, pour them into a large clay pot and stir vigorously for a few billion years, and Walla, LIFE!

    Oh, you don’t believe the ‘original’ Mother Earth recipe will work? You are NOT alone, Neither do I, and MILLIONS of others!

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