…and this is a 
The Pope is not our friend: he is the friend of irrationalism, dogma, and superstition, so treat him appropriately
Category: Creationism
Posted on: April 12, 2007 11:01 AM, by PZ Myers
Here is a criticism of evolutionary biology:
…it is also true that the theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory … We cannot haul 10,000 generations into the laboratory.
If a Bill Dembski or a Michael Egnor or a Ken Ham had said this — and it is exactly the kind of thing they would say — we'd be throwing rotten fruit at them and mocking their ignorance of how science works. Nothing is proven, it's all provisional, but we do have an incredible amount of evidence in support of biology. This fellow is also deeply wrong about what we can do in the lab, and is overlooking the fact that not all science is something you do on a bench. Those statements are the kind of destructive nonsense the Discovery Institute uses, propaganda sown explicitly to spread excessive doubt where we should have very little, so that their vapid and useless 'alternative' theory looks a little more attractive. That quote is a stupid statement that ought to be ripped apart on the evolution blogs.
The critic, who if you haven't figured it out yet is Pope Benedict XVI, goes on to make more assertions.
The question is not to either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science.
Those words could have come out of the mouth of Phillip Johnson. Of course our understanding of the world has gaps; science is a successful strategy for closing them, not a complete description of the state of the cosmos. It's a pointless platitude to whine that there are possibilities beyond methodological naturalism when you can't provide any. It doesn't matter whether it is in defense of Intelligent Design creationism or Catholicism — those are philosophies that have failed to provide any insight into the machineries of the universe, and it's contemptible and pathetic for advocates of supernaturalism to only look at the triumph of scientific thought to find the questions we're still asking, and treat that as a weakness.
So why are some people treating this statement as a victory against Intelligent Design creationism? It's true that the Pope did not endorse the specific organizations promoting anti-scientific nonsense, like the Discovery Institute or Answers in Genesis, but what he did say was superstitious pablum and a carefully phrased rebuke of science — he is actually backing away somewhat from the tepid support of a previous pope, and is providing consolation to creationist philosophy.
This provides no advantage to supporters of good science. We should not be treating it as even a marginal victory. What we have here is a superstitious old man with an exaggerated reputation making stupid remarks about biology that will impede our ability to inform people about science. We should not be nice to him. We should be clearly and vigorously repudiating the sanctimonious old fart's proclamations.
Sometimes, though, our side has a regrettable tendency to make allies of the enemies of our enemies simply because they are disappointing the Discovery Institute. Ultimately, though, our enemies are not the propagandists of the DI, they are not the dishonest televangelists and wandering creationist preachers, they are not the people who have been duped by the misleading dogmas of the church — our enemies are bad ideas. The pope is a mouthpiece for bad ideas. When we go easy on bad ideas because they aren't coming out of the mouths of the usual suspects, or because they're said by someone who might support us in other ways, we have lost our perspective on what we are fighting for.
Comments
10,000 generations = 200 days for bacteria.
Just sayin'.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | April 12, 2007 11:17 AM
I miss Popo John-Paul, at least he had the guts to make it (somewhat) clear that he did not support Creationism and Intelligent Design simply because it was convenient for dogma, unlike Benedict.
Posted by: Stanton | April 12, 2007 11:20 AM
What amuses me: Ratzinger has clearly indicated he has absolutely no qualifications to use the words 'theory' or 'science' publically. As, to misquote Iniqo Montoya, I do not think they mean what he thinks they mean...
Thus, will the same deep thinkers who happily kvetch that Dawkins and Harris are 'ignorant of theology'* and thus cannot meaningfully comment on it now please tell Ratzi where he can put his opinions on science? As opposed to happily and uncritically quoting him on them?
More seriously, I do feel strongly that Ratzinger should be entitled to make as big an ass of himself as he likes, commenting upon matters of which he clearly knows about as much as Ken Ham. And that the rest of the world is equally entitled to guffaw heartily at what an utter schmuck he reveals himself to be in doing so.
*I won't enlarge on that, here. Out of place. Apart from to say: I, myself, do not particularly know the precise details of how one allegedly casts horoscopes, even assuming there is a consistent enough methodology between practitioners that I could know such a thing. But I can still fairly easily demonstrate that astrology is bunkum. But yeah, we've been there, already, haven't we? This has not been an attempted derailing. I swear.
Posted by: AJ Milne | April 12, 2007 11:22 AM
...because treating it as a sign that Catholicism and science are incompatible is more likely to drive people away from science than Catholicism?
Posted by: Carrie | April 12, 2007 11:22 AM
This is the man who is still "considering" allowing married couples where one partner has Aids to use prophylactic contraception. When that gets counted as a victory...
Thousands of men under his authority will engage in actions in Africa which will result in the spread of Aids. Willful stupidity of this kind is genocidal.
Posted by: B. Dewhirst | April 12, 2007 11:24 AM
Whatever happened to the meme that a "God" could
create species any way it wanted? Including evolution.
BTW, what sexually propagated species has the most generations/time? Just curious.
Posted by: jimvj | April 12, 2007 11:25 AM
What is the pope's degree in science? From what autority does he speak about it?
Does it matter in the slightest what he said about science?
Yes, because there are people stupid enough to listen.
Posted by: Dutch vigilante | April 12, 2007 11:27 AM
How ironic that the Pope, a man who *believes* in devils and angels, would demand the strictest proofs of science.
Posted by: carey | April 12, 2007 11:27 AM
The day I lost any respect I had for Madonna:
Sinead O'Conner once delighted me by tearing up a picture of the Pope (the last one) on stage on Saturday Night Live. *That* was rock and roll - heartfelt, honest rebellion. Then Madonna came along and condemned Sinead for meanness to the Pope, and that is when I knew that she had no rock and roll in her soul. Just the soul of an accountant in tight clothing.
Who is the rebel who will tear up the picture of this miserable old man? I would, but no one has invited me onto TV yet.
Posted by: aiabx | April 12, 2007 11:28 AM
Well, rather.
This is a gentleman who has signed up with his whole life and heart (one hopes: he is after all, the pope) and taken a vow to put his brain on a shelf in favour of, in his own words, faith. He has put aside that great inquisitive nature that has taken us, as a species, from banging two rocks together to, you know, here. He has chosen dogma instead.
I don't think this is a benign choice, either, particularly when one considers the power this one man has over the actions of so many. But the pope was never going to be anything different.
Reading about ID and creationism being taught in schools makes me wonder if we are going to have a generation of god-botherers who are unable to understand the simplest scientific concepts, or if children will somehow see through the nonsense and manage to make their own world views.
Posted by: red rabbit | April 12, 2007 11:29 AM
What he either doesn't know, or ignores, is the fact that nothing complex is "proven" by entirely recreating it in a lab. It's like saying that hurricane forecasting is not "a complete, scientifically proven theory" because we can't haul the entire cyclone into the lab, or even study every aspect of it in nature. The statement is trivially true, but deceptive in its framing.
Or perhaps a more apt analogy is if we were to suppose that we don't know, within a fairly narrow range, where the moon has been in the last 100,000,000 years, because, by God, we can't recreate its orbital motions in a laboratory. Of course not, we study motion, plus the various effectors of motion, and we extrapolate from that. True, we know more precisely where the moon was at for the last 100 million years than we know precisely the evolutionary changes occurring during the same time, but I used this example precisely to indicate what a stupid "argument" it is, not because the two are equally well understood (we study the less understood phenomenon, we don't throw up our hands and say "God").
As far as these rather reprehensible statements being treated with kid gloves, it's quite evidently because he isn't actively disagreeing with evolution, no matter how weaselly he is about it. Not a defense as such, I'm just saying why it is.
But yes, his statements confuse and oppose science (even more than I realized when I skimmed it from the PT link). John Paul's endorsement of science was probably as good as one could get out of a pope in this era, Benedict's statements aren't that far from the rhetoric opposing Galileo's (sans the iron maiden, fortunately) reliance upon "mere science".
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o
Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 12, 2007 11:33 AM
OK, I realized that this isn't totally true, but you know what I mean:
What he either doesn't know, or ignores, is the fact that nothing complex is "proven" by entirely recreating it in a lab.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o
Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 12, 2007 11:36 AM
jimjv,
The fastest grower that I know of is Vibrio cholerae. It has a doubling time of about 12 minutes (much faster than the laboratory workhorse E. coli, which doubles every 20 minutes).
Whoops, just noticed you said "sexually-propagated". C. elegans is pretty fast (2 weeks)...
Posted by: factician | April 12, 2007 11:37 AM
In breaking news, Pope Benedict announced that the heliocentric model of the solar system is not "scientifically proven" but is "only a theory," and that he was thereby retracting the official church apology to Galileo made by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.
Onward, into the fourteenth century!
I weep for humanity.
Posted by: quork | April 12, 2007 11:44 AM
...because treating it as a sign that Catholicism and science are incompatible is more likely to drive people away from science than Catholicism?
I think the best indication of the (lack of) compatibility of Catholicism and science is Pope Benny's current attempts to "fast-track" the canonization of J2P2. For me (and presumably many others), this completely torpedoes his credibility when speaking on scientific matters.
Posted by: Theo Bromine | April 12, 2007 11:46 AM
Exactly right, Mr. Meyers.
Pope Benedict even goes so far as to describe the selection in natural selection as being driven by the "creative reason" of God. (I discussed it briefly on my blog)
That sure sounds like a version of creationism to me, but stuffed into a smaller gap.
Posted by: JP Burke | April 12, 2007 11:47 AM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 12, 2007 11:49 AM
How can someone be "ignorant of theology" anyhow? Don't you just make it up as you go along?
I like asking about the underlying laws of theology. "What?" Yeah, sure. When someone says "God gave his only begotten blah blah to save the world from sin." I ask them where their understanding of the universal laws of sin and redemption come from. I mean, if God HAD to do that, then there's a higher law he has to follow - which is interesting that a mere mortal would have access to. Hmmm.. So then I ask them "So it sounds like since God has to follow rules he's not all-powerful? Who made those rules? God? Was this son-sacrifice some kind of self-inflicted rule?"
Getting people to explain theology as if it's logical is very very fun. If you think "evolution has holes in it" you ought to try theology! When believers say "evolution has holes in it" compared to theology that's the collander calling the hoover damn "holy" if I may mangle a figure of speech.
mjr.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | April 12, 2007 11:51 AM
...
...
This is catty, unworthy, unscientific, and totally subjective. But ...
I've noticed that, sometimes, certain tweaked people actually LOOK tweaked. I can't say it any better than that, but I've noticed some indefinable element in the appearance of, say, some hard-edged child molesters, people like that.
(Actually, it seemed to me that Tammie Faye Bakker and Ted Haggard had that look too - even without knowing what they did, if I met either of them at a bus stop I would be repelled. For me, they had a kind of sticky-nasty Something about them.)
It's like their inner tweaked-ness has somehow eroded away their common humanity until their outward appearance matches that inner self in some indescribable and unclean way.
To me, Pope Benedict LOOKS tweaked.
This is not just some I-hate-the-pope atheist thingie either, because despite disagreeing with him radically on many things, Pope John Paul II looked to me like a nice grandfatherly man.
...
...
Posted by: Hank Fox | April 12, 2007 11:53 AM
Well, he is a theologian, and that places his him in "rarified air," meaning that he has thought the deep thoughts, discerned the grand design, he has seen the face of God and lived. He has been placed above the rest of us all, been given "infallibility" and the import to speak on matters for which we mere mortals can have no clue.
If what the Pope says is stupid then it is at a level of stupidity that we can never hope to achieve, because we have neither the weight of 1.1 billion Catholics behind us, nor do we have a 2,000 year old tradition of stupidity behind us to give us the authority to have our words taken seriously.
Now, when Dawkins is criticized for not taking into account the "serious" God, it is okay because he doesn't have all the answers about all of the versions of God. A guy like Ratzinger, well, he knows it all even when he doesn't.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich | April 12, 2007 11:54 AM
Ah, now you see, eh?? This Pope has been meddling in every aspect of Italian politics since he was nominated to office. That is ALL this fellow does!! Right-wing politics: anti-stem cell research, anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-artificial insemination (over here, the Church effectively made it next to impossible), anti-gay rights, anti-gay manifestations (the Church has organized a so-called "family day" which does not include guess which types of families??), he has issues proclamations and diktats declaring that Catholic politicians in Italy cannot vote against Papal dogma on pain of going to eternal damnation, etc.etc,etc,etc,ùù
He is the last totalitarian monarch in the Western world. Ten thousand times more powerful, dangerous, wealthy and evil than your Protestant fundies.
Ok, maybe I've been living over here too damned long....but it's pretty bad, I can tell you.
Posted by: Francesco Franco | April 12, 2007 11:59 AM
The Pope.
The epitome of arrogant, ceremony-enriched authoritarianism, decider of the status of children in Purgatory, believer in Hell, gay basher, anti-feminist, thinks his position alone gives him the right to pass judgment on all of science.
Presides over a vast, self-perpetuating bureaucracy whose primary funtion is to keep people in ignorance and get them to overpopulate the planet with more Catholics.
The one nice thing that can be said about him is that he is anti-war.
Time for the whole house of cards to come tumbling down.
Posted by: CalGeorge | April 12, 2007 12:02 PM
...because treating it as a sign that Catholicism and science are incompatible is more likely to drive people away from science than Catholicism?
Carrie, do you really think this is the only alternative to lauding the Pope's statement as a "win" for evolution?
I don't see PZ saying what you describe. I certainly didn't regard it as one of two options for my response to the article when I first read it. My reaction was simply that here we had a man whose words are accorded considerable respect by many across the world, who was talking nonsense, and nonsense quite separate from his being religious. I did not think "clearly Catholicism and science are incompatible" (at least, I didn't think it in response to seeing this article), but simply "isn't it a shame that influential people don't check whether their words are anywhere close to meaningful, and isn't it a good thing that most Catholics I know are well used to dismissing most of what the Pope says on an issue as irrelevant anyway".
Posted by: Morgan | April 12, 2007 12:05 PM
Evolution as Fact and Theory
by Stephen Jay Gould
...
Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.
Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
...
[ Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," May 1981; from Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994, pp. 253-262. ]
Posted by: quork | April 12, 2007 12:05 PM
Hank Fox:
What did Bill Hicks say about Jimmy Swaggart? "First of all, he's gonna slit his wrists in a bathtub beneath a pecan tree and write in blood I've been a bad boy. In his attic the police are going to find the skins of dead children — flies buzzing in and out of the eaves — and on CNN, over and over again, his wife saying, I always wondered about Jimmy's collection of little shoes." That's more or less it, I believe.
Mike Haubrich:
Well, so have I, but I don't make that big a deal out of it. Three years ago, I was in the front row when Mary Prankster sang "Irresponsible Woman".
She autographed my CD of Lemonade Live. That's more evidence for the miraculous than anybody else has ever provided.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | April 12, 2007 12:08 PM
To continually suggest, that true Catholics (never mind other religions of course, Arabs, Jews, Hindu - its all ok...) are silly buggers is just misleading. No matter if one is religious or not, what matters is ones education. The previous pope knew, that Evolution was a fact. If one is ignorant, being atheist will not help. Why so many Americans do not still know that it is earth that goes around the sun, not the other way around, where is Europe, who was the last president etc etc. Lots o people are plain stupid - deal with it, it's also a fact...
Posted by: peter | April 12, 2007 12:09 PM
>>>Carey It's not ironic, its his job (devils, angels and the lot) ;)
Posted by: peter | April 12, 2007 12:11 PM
Excuse me, Mr. Pope, but I think you have better things to worry about than evolution.
What was that about religion being the source of morality, again?
*fumes*
Posted by: ERV | April 12, 2007 12:17 PM
I'm saying that it's a lot more useful - from a strictly anti-creationism point of view - to treat this as "The Pope is a theistic evolutionist, just like always" than "The Pope's position on evolution is crappy and non-scientific," even if both are true. I haven't checked the DI's site, but I'm guessing they have or will soon be spinning this as "The Pope is recognizing all the exciting new evidence casting doubt on evolution!" It would be nice to not agree that they're on the same team against evolutionists.
Steve @ 17, I think it's possible it might drive some people who understand science away from Catholicism, or to a more liberal brand of "eh, screw the pope" Catholicism, but I think people with very little understanding of science, who have always been uncomfortable with this whole man-evolved-from-monkeys idea, would be very happy to have an excuse to fight it. I know my Catholic aunt is very fond of "just a theory" type language.
Posted by: Carrie | April 12, 2007 12:27 PM
When Ratzinger was first elected Pope, I thought it was horrible. In hindsight, it was my disgust for him and what he represented that finally gave me the courage to quit Catholicism and religion in general. So, in that light, the Jerk was good for me.
Posted by: TB | April 12, 2007 12:38 PM
The pope and the Catholic church need to shut the fuck up about evolutionary biology.
The Pope has no more credibility or authority to comment about evolution than he does to give advice about how to construct a high-rise building or wire a house.
Would you take advice on how to install plumbing for a new bathroom from your corner bartender? I doubt it. Why then do so many people defer to religious know-nothings when it comes to evolutionary biology?
Posted by: ZacharySmith | April 12, 2007 12:42 PM
Twenty-first century Christianity is more ignorant than fifth century Christianity (no mean feat):
Posted by: Saint Augustine | April 12, 2007 12:50 PM
Carrie, your response merely amounts to the tautology "People who don't care about science don't care about science". Your aunt is simply not relevant to the question at hand- she doesn't care about anything but Catholic dogma. She won't change her mind about anything just because PZ starts talking nice about the pope.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 12, 2007 1:01 PM
Perhaps Ratzy should stop the novenas and switch on the NOVA. This coming Tuesday's NOVA is on the evolution of flowers: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/flower/
Flowers! Pretty, evolved flowers. Guys who wear long flowy dresses and funny pointy hats must love flowers, don't they? Maybe he'd like to learn how the lilies of the valley and the sweet rose of Sharon really got here.
Posted by: Greg Peterson | April 12, 2007 1:03 PM
Hank, for the sake of argument...
Using that logic, I bet you would say Quasimodo was a bit tweaked too, but I heard he was actually a nice guy. Also the elephant man, the kid from the movie "mask", Rosie O'Donnel, Anne Coulter, not to mention Stephen Hawking, one of our true Gods.
Posted by: Scholar | April 12, 2007 1:04 PM
Mendel may lie uneasy in his grave today. One pope dug up his predecessor, put him on trial, found him guilty, chopped off the poor chap's blessing fingers and threw his body in the Tiber. (Perfectly sane behaviour, felt like doing it many times myself.) Benedict was JPII's consigliere, often called his Rottweiler and was through to be more hardline than JPII, so it comes a no surprise that he's written this bilge. I'm sure there's a little list somewhere in the Vatican of scientists to be hauled before the Inquisition when the prayers are answered (we used to say prayers for the conversion of England and, if I remember rightly, Russia. Honest.) and everyone becomes Catholic. Then PZ can have his Galileo moment muttering the evolutionary equivalent of 'Eppur si muove' when shown the instruments. Of torture, obviously.
Posted by: Peter McGrath | April 12, 2007 1:05 PM
I was just reading this regarding the Pope:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-04-12-pope-evolution_N.htm#uslPageReturn
The comments are encouraging because before I started reading I figured they would be heavy on religious nuttiness, but that's not quite the case.
Posted by: Bonzo | April 12, 2007 1:05 PM
Just my usual call for a little more circumspection. What we have here is a news media soundbyte pulled out of a book in German that actually isn't even publically available yet. Myself, I'll wait to see what he actually says in context and without ellipses. I am willing to bet he isn't really saying what you all think he is saying. In particular I don't think he's meaning to make a "*criticism* of evolutionary biology" at all.
Posted by: Michael Kremer | April 12, 2007 1:07 PM
Oh, by the by, you folks who keep praising JPII and contrasting him with Ratz: please, please never forget that JPII is the man responsible for the ideological cleansing of the Vatican hierachy, the Papal commissions, the Secretariates, the Congregation for the Dogma, etc.. He did everything in his power (which was indeed considerable!!) to eliminate every last vestige of progressive (liberal means something different over here) social democratic thought and represenation from all the instituions of the Church. The RCC (I speak as one who has family on the INSIDE, for jupitrìs sake) is now so throughly and irredemably reactionary that it was only a matter of time before they started backpedaling on evolution.
You can't even being to imagine some of the articles and books that are inconspiciously published over here in magazines like "Avenire" and in books by right-wing Catholic "intellectuals"like Antonio Soci. Well, actually you can!! It's a great deal like the Church of about the 13th century.
"Muslim invasion", "Crusades were not really the fault of Catholics", "Those persecuted Christians in modern secular society". My cousin Dimitri is a wealthy lawyer who teaches theology at a local university. He recently published a book on the "True origins of Life". One passage went "that absurd
book by Darwin"; another stated "Darwinism is a materialistic, atheistic and nihilistic ideology with no evidecnce" etc.. He sent it to the Vatican and it was was given a sort of offical seal of approval by Cardinal Secretery of State Angelo Sodano!!
Point: The Vatican is is moving gradually, but inevitable, to the right because it has to compete with hideous beast of fundemantalist Islam taking over Europe and with Protebnstant fundemnatlost in the third world. The world is becoming divided between anti-modernist, anti-scence, anti-liberal fundamentalists of all stripes and the secular, free thinking world. Religious moderates are finished!! It's a dying breed. Some of you folks don't seem to get this.
Posted by: Francesco Franco | April 12, 2007 1:07 PM
Oh, by the by, you folks who keep praising JPII and contrasting him with Ratz: please, please never forget that JPII is the man responsible for the ideological cleansing of the Vatican hierarchy, the Papal commissions, the Secretariats, the Congregation for the Dogma, etc.. He did everything in his power (which was indeed considerable!!) to eliminate every last vestige of progressive (liberal means something different over here) social democratic thought and representation from all the institutions of the Church. The RCC (I speak as one who has family on the INSIDE, for Jupiter's sake) is now so thoroughly and irredeemably reactionary that it was only a matter of time before they started backpedaling on evolution.
You can't even being to imagine some of the articles and books that are inconspicuously published over here in magazines like "Avenire" and in books by right-wing Catholic "intellectuals"like Antonio Soci. Well, actually you can!! It's a great deal like the Church of about the 13th century.
"Muslim invasion", "Crusades were not really the fault of Catholics", "Those persecuted Christians in modern secular society". My cousin Dimitri is a wealthy lawyer who teaches theology at a local university. He recently published a book on the "True origins of Life". One passage went "that absurd
book by Darwin"; another stated "Darwinism is a materialistic, atheistic and nihilistic ideology with no evidence" etc.. He sent it to the Vatican and it was was given a sort of official seal of approval by Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano!!
Point: The Vatican is is moving gradually, but inevitable, to the right because it has to compete with hideous beast of fundamentalist Islam taking over Europe and with Protestant fundamentalist in the third world. The world is becoming divided between anti-modernist, anti-science, anti-liberal fundamentalists of all stripes and the secular, free thinking world. Religious moderates are finished!! It's a dying breed. Some of you folks don't seem to get this.
Posted by: Francesco Franco | April 12, 2007 1:08 PM
Don Imus and Garrison Keillor also look like they got subjected to some kind of medieval skull-warping torture. Also that senator Inhofe seems tweaked.
Posted by: Scholar | April 12, 2007 1:09 PM
Just my usual call for a little more circumspection. What we have here is a news media soundbyte pulled out of a book in German that doesn't seem to even be publically available yet. (Try to buy it on Amazon.de -- the title is Schopfung und Evolution -- it is not yet available.) Myself, I'll wait to see what he actually says in context and without ellipses. I am willing to bet he isn't really saying what you all think he is saying. In particular I don't think he's meaning to make a "*criticism* of evolutionary biology" at all.
Posted by: Michael Kremer | April 12, 2007 1:12 PM
Fair enough, Michael. Now, if it turns out (as I expect it will) that he really did say something that stupid, what will your response be then?
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 12, 2007 1:12 PM
Scholar: Not to start an outright dogfight, but what part of "This is catty, unworthy, unscientific, and totally subjective" don't you understand?
Now, to be fair (and with respect to Hank), if I found myself opening a statement with those words, I probably would stop there.
Ah, and Mr. Kremer, how I've missed your apologetics. I'd like your take on how the meaning of "or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science" got lost in translation.
Posted by: rrt | April 12, 2007 1:13 PM
Carrie appears to be another appeaser. She wants us to pretend that we think "theistic evolutionism" is an intellectually respectable position, deserving of respect.
I refuse to be complicit in what I consider to be a lie.
Posted by: Jason | April 12, 2007 1:17 PM
Steve, there's a difference between not caring about science and actively opposing it. If Citizen X doesn't know about science but trust the Pope, what happens when Citizen X Junior starts learning about evolution in school? If the pope says evolution is okay, Junior gets to learn science without a fuss. If the pope says evolution is bad, at the very least you get wasted class time when Junior argues with the teacher, and at most you get enough social pressure for disclaimers, skipped chapters, weak science standards and bad textbooks.
Posted by: Carrie | April 12, 2007 1:24 PM
Ugh. For all the ridiculously stupid views of the Catholic Church, one thing they didn't take part in under JPII was anti-evolution craziness. Even before I ran away from the church I could never manage any respect for this new moron. The church is already pretty backwards and now they're backpedaling... I'm so glad I'm not part of that anymore.
Posted by: Keely | April 12, 2007 1:25 PM
Steve: if he said something stupid, I'll just say he said something stupid. (Note that this isn't a problem even for the strictest Catholic -- this book is not a doctrinal statement or a piece of official Church teaching in any sense. It's just Ratzinger expressing his opinion in a dialogue with scientists and theologians.) But let's wait and see what he actuall said.
rrt: Well, I have other things to do than butt heads here continually. But on what you quoted, I think he's not referring to evolutionary theory as such. He's referring to anyone who presents evolutionary theory (or even science in general) as if it answers all meaningful questions. That is, he's only critiquing a use of evolutionary theory which pretends to answer questions that (he and I both think) it can't answer. The "gaps" here aren't things like "gaps in the fossil record" or "gaps in the possibilities of explaining irreducible complexity". They are "gaps" in our basic understanding of the world at a more fundamental level (such as the inability to answer the question why the world exhibits an intelligible structure that permits it to be studies scientifically at all). (Note too that the word "gaps" is a choice of a news agency translator, since the document itself only exists in German.)
Anyway, I've said my piece and won't get drawn in further today. Lunch break is over.
Posted by: Michael Kremer | April 12, 2007 1:26 PM
Pope also believes Jews should wear yellow badges
Assuming that the Pope accepts all official Catholic doctrine, the former Hitler-Jugend must also believe that Jews and Muslims must wear a special dress to enable them to be distinguished from Christians (Judenhut, yellow badge). And that Jews are not to go outdoors during the last for days of Easter. Its all in the Papally issued Fourth Council of the Lateran of 1215. This, and many other Catholic doctrines, puts the current Pope in bind. Does he admit that forcing Jews to wear yellow badges is morally wrong and thus admit that his own church and past popes were immoral? Or does he just sweep it all under a rug and pretend it never existed? Also, and PZ should take note, Canon 3 of the Lateran council requests that temporal lords confiscate the property of heretics. In effect, the Hitler-Jugend Pope is still asking Chimpy to take away your home and give it to the local Catholic diocese because the 4th Lateran Council is still official church doctrine.
For me, any institution scores negative points when it slaps a yellow badge on Jews or confiscates the property of those disagree with it. And ultimately, there is no redemption for that institution. My only hope is that the hundreds of millions of uninformed catholics out there are really just ignorant or kept in the dark about the official doctrine of their church.
Fourth Council of the Lateran
Posted by: attotheobscure | April 12, 2007 1:30 PM
I totally agree with Hank Fox. Tweaked is as good a way to put it as anything I've come up with. I get the same feeling about Pope Ratzi (and Carl Rove, for that matter) as Hank does.
Also, I got to see Pope JP2 back in 1981. He was a riveting speaker and just radiated kindness. I can't think of another way to put it. Very charismatic, but not in a creepy or manipulative way at all. (This is just my impression of the man and not to say that I believe that he used his powers for the general good of mankind.)
Posted by: twincats | April 12, 2007 1:33 PM
Just to add an alternative take on what the Pope said:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070411-0300-pope-evolution-.html
You still might not like it, but it's closer to what I expected. Now, I'm off.
Posted by: Michael Kremer | April 12, 2007 1:34 PM
Well, Carrie, I don't see these new crusaders springing up (the serious, active anti-evolutionists, as opposed to mentally lazy fellow-travellers, are a fairly small band of dedicated kooks), whereas every day there are people rejcting religion because they can no longer tolerate its conflict with reality. So color me unpersuaded. Note also that the occasion for PZ's comment would not even have arisen had Ratzinger simply shut up about matters of which he knows nothing.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | April 12, 2007 1:34 PM
See a visual commentary on the Catholic Church's inability to evolve...here:
www.thoughttheater.com
Posted by: Daniel DiRito | April 12, 2007 1:38 PM
"The Pope is not our friend"
I nominate this for the Understatement of the Year award.
Posted by: jba | April 12, 2007 1:57 PM
The new Popemobile
Posted by: quork | April 12, 2007 2:02 PM
PZ Better Be Careful, Lest He Get a Hot Pear of Anguish Up His Poop Shoot
PZ better fall in line or suffer the same fate of heretics and free thinkers of yore. I'm sure if Pope Benedict could, he would have the Inquistors pay PZ a visit for a good ol'fashioned Catholic twist and burn torture session.
My advice to PZ when they put him on the Judas cradle. Simply mumber the two favorite words of all Catholic clergy everywhere for the past two millenia.
"I recant"
Posted by: αθεοι | April 12, 2007 2:02 PM
Michael, I'd like to agree with you, but I think it's a stretch. It's classic creationist language, and even your milder interpretation is an unsupported design inference. The universe is designed because we can understand at least some of it?
Anyway, I agree, not looking to tussle, and I'd like to think he was going purely after the "science and the supernatural are totally separate" angle. I just don't think so.
Posted by: rrt | April 12, 2007 2:06 PM
Okay, first, I'm defending Wes, not the Pope. I would be very happy if the Pope had kept his trap shut about evolution, but since he didn't I think we need to interpret it as best we can.
Second, really? You don't see new crusaders springing up? Rogers, Arkansas? Sisters, Oregon? Kearny, New Jersey? There are plenty of anti-evolutionists out there.
Posted by: Carrie | April 12, 2007 2:11 PM
Posted by: αθεοι | April 12, 2007 2:17 PM
Ratzy's tweakedness doesn't seem to come from a medical condition. Most of it is in his eyes. Look at any tweaked picture of him (and that's most pictures of him). He's got the look of someone deeply involved in evil all his life. It's not fair to judge people on their looks, but he was Hitler Youth, and he is the current Pope, and he happily remains responsible for exacerbating overpopulation and the spread of AIDS.
Another nomination for understatement of the year.
Posted by: Grimalkin | April 12, 2007 2:44 PM
"make allies of the enemies of our enemies"
An individual can be on the right side of one issue and on the wrong side of another. For example, the previous Pope was on the right side against Soviet Communism - alongside democratic leftists like Vaclav Havel - while on the other side on issues like reproductive freedom and gay rights.
And from an atheistic scientific perspective, theistic evolution is at least partly correct.
Posted by: Colugo | April 12, 2007 3:13 PM
In fact, scientists do pull 10,000 generations into the lab when they study fossils and when they study molecular genetic evidence of common descent.
I think the pope was trying to avoid the god of the gaps trap, but he fell squarely into it anyway. There is no scientific evidence of god, so those firmly rooted in belief in god as creator always fall to a gap. Some move back beyond the big bang, which a somewhat better safe haven for now, while others chose to deny current science to provide for a more active role for god in daily life.
Posted by: George | April 12, 2007 3:33 PM
Yeah, I do see what you mean. I've always thought there was something, well, creepy-looking about that guy.
Posted by: Leon | April 12, 2007 3:57 PM
Colugo, I just don't think the Pope can be considered a theistic evolutionist. Like Ken Miller? You don't hear Ken Miller mouthing DI talking points about 'gaps' in the theory. BXI's trying to assure RCs who have no clue about science that, hey, it's okay. If he actually had some passing experience with how science is done, he would never have said a word about 'gaps'.
Frankly, he'd be sounding a lot more like Pope Leo XIII, who was pretty pro science compared to his 20th century successors.
Posted by: John Farrell | April 12, 2007 4:08 PM
John Farrell: "I just don't think the Pope can be considered a theistic evolutionist."
Now that I've given the matter some more thought, I think you're right. He sounds more like an evolutionary IDist like Behe than a theistic evolutionist like Miller.
Posted by: Colugo | April 12, 2007 4:28 PM
Colugo,
Even a stopped clock, as they say, is right twice a day. The Pope may happen to be on the right side of some issues, but that's just a happy accident, not any kind of validation of his belief system.
Posted by: Jason | April 12, 2007 4:28 PM
Scientific thinking, education, common sense, and any other rational thinking process will never be able to overcome the lack of thought I see in people of faith.
People of faith do not actually need to think, they "believe" and that is enough for them. Because they believe, then all of the facts and data that humans have available to us are meaningless to them. This information is as useless to them as it would be to a sea slug. (Sorry sea slugs.)
Posted by: Ron Hager | April 12, 2007 4:30 PM
Pope HitlerYouth Will Eat Your Soul for the Dark Side! And just like FORMER-Speaker Hastert, he's (at least) complicit in the rape of children by fascists.
And Haggard? In "Root of all Evil?" he definitely had a bit of the 'jaw-going-to-break-from-forcing-this-smile' freakanoid crazy about him.
Posted by: stogoe | April 12, 2007 4:36 PM
Whatever individual Popes may say, the official teaching of the Catholic Church is that the existence of God, the creator of all things, can be known with certainty through reason. The teaching is not merely that there is evidence for God, or that reason suggests that there may be a God, but that the existence of God is a certainty, established through rational thought.
Posted by: Jason | April 12, 2007 4:37 PM
Certainly some Hitler Youth were perpetrators in the Holocaust and other atrocities. But being a member of the Hitler Youth, by itself, is not like being a member of the Waffen-SS, as novelist Gunther Grass was. Philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend served as a Wehrmacht lieutenant in the Eastern Front. And Paul de Man, a Belgian pro-Nazi antisemitic propagandist and later literary theorist, arguably shares more culpability for Nazi crimes than Ratzinger, Feyerabend, or Grass.
Posted by: Colugo | April 12, 2007 4:43 PM
I didn't realize that noting that Benedict had apparently rejected Intelligent Design Creationism and backed "theistic evolution" (and that it would piss off the Disco Institute), was declaring victory. Are you sure this isn't one of those irony thingies you were telling us about over at Wilkin's place?
And I suppose that waiting to hear a bit more about what he really said, rather than going by news reports, would be too much to expect in the face of the affront of the Pope not agreeing with you 100%.
But hey! If you get the Pope to agree to give up the "superstitious pablum" (as you define it), through this kind of argument, that'll be real news ...
Posted by: John Pieret | April 12, 2007 4:49 PM
Pope Benedict is far more conservative than his predecessor. John Paul is a better man for science. I'm sure we won't agree with everything he says but he was open evolution and accepted big bang and he was able to reconcile good science with good religion.
What a shame.
Posted by: Geral | April 12, 2007 4:54 PM
Not to stick up for the pope, but in all fairness his membership in the Hitler Youth was probably not his first choice of vocations.
Parents of the time were strongly "encouraged" to enlist their children in the Hitler Youth, and there was also serious peer pressure from the pro-Nazi youth.
Posted by: ZacharySmith | April 12, 2007 4:59