Pope endorses theistic evolution, DI spins like mad
The Pope has clarified the Church’s views on evolution:
Benedict defended what is known as ‘theistic evolution,’ the view held by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant churches that God created life through evolution and religion and science need not clash over this.
The Discovery Institute – which despite claims to nonreligion, relies heavily on religious pronouncements for support – says “don’t read too much into media spin,” and quotes Privileged Planet backer Jay Richards:
This issue is just not that complicated, despite the sociological pressures to keep the fog machines going at all times. Either (some or all) of the history and complexity of life are the product of design or they’re not. Either that design is discernible or it’s not. Evolution is either purely random or it’s not. Not even God can direct an undirected process.
As Einstein argued against quantum mechanics by claiming “God does not play dice,” Neils Bohr is reported to have told Einstein, “Stop telling God what to do.” The same goes for Jay Richards and the rest of the Discovery crew.
On a less esoteric note, the suggestion that completely random processes can’t be directed is wrong. While each subatomic particle in a baseball is governed by the randomness of quantum mechanics (Einstein lost that fight), a baseball player can still predict what will happen after he throws the ball. Random processes, in aggregate, are predictable.
You don’t have to bind those random agents together with atomic forces to make that happen. If you systematically limit the range over which the randomness can vary, for instance through selection based on consistent criteria, you can influence the process as a whole. That’s what natural selection is all about, and it’s why no one claims evolution is a completely random process. This surprises no one but creationists.
6 COMMENTS
One of the curious things about the ID/DI-ers is that they don’t even do good theology, as far as this atheist can see. Bohr’s point is right on the mark. How do they presume to know the mind of God?
Josh needs to read up on his Einstein history. AE’s work provided much of the foundation of quantum mechanics and he did not “argue against” the new field.
He felt there were yet undiscovered laws of nature that would some day explain quantum mechanics’ otherwise unexplainable phenomena, including the random results that can be precisely predicted by formulae. It is a stated goal of physicists to determine these laws by the year 2010.
No, Einstein did not “lose that fight”, nor did Bohr. They were just approaching the subject from different positions. Einstein wanted to know “why?” while Bohr pursued “what?”.
IF YOU BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION YOU HAVE MORE FAITH THAN THOES WHO BELIEVE IN THE BEGINING GOD CREATED
there has never been any evidence the life can come from non life , instead we see life begets life
no transitional forms in the fossil record. 98 percent of life living today has been found “fully formed” along with extinct animals.instead we see the bibical model cats have cats dogs have dogs monkeys have monkeys and humans have humans. darwin said that there would be more transitions than fully formed if his theory was true
at 20 billion years to get to the point we are now, there should be over 3 million genetic changes a second. yet there are none to speak of , there are mutations wich is a loss of information and harmfull to the creature.
animals rot they dont get slowly covered up by surroundings. fossils are from a rapid covering sealing it from contact with elements that decompose degratable material. fossils can be found of animals giving birth or in process of giving birth. how is this ? how was that moment frozen in time
jelly fish have been fossilized how can a soft jelliton creature last long periods of time to slowly get covered up? they cant, unless rapidly covered
clams around the world have been fossilized as whole clams both parts top and botom when clams die the shell seperates as youll find on any beach.
multa strata fossils going through multiple levels. explain that?
its called hydrological sorting mixing diffrent elements in flowing water and they will aoutomatically seperate in to there own kind making diffrent strata.
at the supposed 20 billion years to know the amount of stars calculated there should be 31,000 stars form every secondwe see stars die but never born.
Language sanscript has upto 500 variations on a single word
thats complicated no language on earth can beat the number 12 , we are devolving
from the architecture of the pyrimads in egept to the aqua ducts of rome and numerous other structures are superior to todays capabilitys
fossils are result of the great flood
and it says in 2nd peter. in the last days men would profess to be wise saying i came from that rock or tree denying that God had created them and the great flood.
evolution is a a 17 century idea that was disprooven in the 1800
in darwins time they thought mice grew out of trash, and flies from rotting or stinky material and frogs from mud which where all disprooven in the early 1800s
evolution is fairy tale that has no proof , just people who say could have been , might of , popular opinion,could have, possibly,
its all speculation and they (evolutionist)will fight all the way because it is a religous beliefe that they hope and pray for. Dont trust man all men are lyars seeking after there own lusts.
I wonder if anyone in the media will call up Kay O’Connor and ask for her comment on this.
It hardly seems worth responding to the wealth of falsehoods in kazgnik’s post; suffice it to say that I don’t see anything accurate in it.
The most fundamental error is referring to “belief” in evolution. I don’t “believe” in evolution any more than I “believe” in gravity. I accept what the evidence tells me. Check talkorigins.org/indexcc for rebuttals of the claims above.
Josh, it ain’t worth it, so don’t bother. Frankly it looks like a cut and paste job from some flyer the guy probably spam mails to every site he can think of.