Cardinal Cristoph Schönborn [fanboy site here] flew across the radar a few years back for a purile pro-ID op-ed in the New York Times that was egged-on by the Discovery Institute's Bruce Chapman,. Now Chapman - a relatively recent convert to Catholicism - is having a mini-orgasm about a lecture Schoenborn gave
in New York yesterday, one that was sponsored by the Homeland Foundation, a group that funds cultural and religious programs, many involving the Catholic Church. (As this page notes, some members of the Homeland Foundation's board are members of Opus Dei and some grants are given to Opus Dei-affiliated foundations. Though this foundation may not be run by Opus Dei, it may be influenced by them.)
Schönborn said of Darwinism:
''Commonly in the scientific community every inquiry into the scientific weaknesses of the theory is blocked off at the very outset, To some extent there prevails a type of censoring here of the sort for which one eagerly reproached the church in former times.''
The irony of this statement is apparently totally lost on Chapman. As is the fact that censorship by the Church is hardly restricted to "former times".
Schönborn goes on to pronounce that "[a] truly liberal society would at least allow students to hear of the debate" so I guess he would be fine with students hearing about any debate ... such as that about Catholic collusion with the Nazis. Given Schoenborn's close association with Ratzinger, it's a miracle that his head didn't explode when he used the word "liberal".
Apparently, the Cardinal met with Behe and other ID flacks. Behe "made it clear in his own remarks that the scientific theory of ID doesn't tread on the roles of theology or philosophy. Science can do many things, including detect design, but it cannot take over roles that properly belong to religion and philosophy. ID definitely is compatible with these other ways of knowing, of course." Once again, the issue of the identity of the Designer is off the table ... as is the idea that those aliens could have done
it. Let's face it folks, grow some and just admit it is the Judeo-Christian god. We might respect you more then.
Strangely, Chapman does not quote Schönborn's statement that ''the Catholic faith can accept'' the possibility that God uses evolution as a tool. I wonder why?
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Chapman and Schoenborn need to get a room. This is like the Snickers Super Bowl ad, and this type of blatant man-on-man kissy-butt should not be seen in public. I am sure that even Pastor Ted Haggard would agree!
Maybe Mein Pope Fuhrer Benedict should "instruct" Sturbanfuhrer Schoenborn to Shutten Zee Up.
Given Schoenborn's close association with Ratzinger, it's a miracle that his head didn't explode when he used the word "liberal".
Conservatives make a distinction between "Capital L Liberals" as referring to us anti-patriotic types in America, and "small l liberal" when referring to establishing a liberal democracy in Iraq. They are using liberal as an adjective to a concept and not as an adjective to a hated social order. That's why his head didn't explode.
Did you know that in Canada the Western Provinces were home to something called the Progressive Conservative Pary?
"Shutten Zee Up."
The German expression is "Hau ab!"
It can mean not only "Shut up!" but "F*ck off!" as well.
AustinAtheist - Danke!
Klink: Ah General Burkhalter! What a pleasant surprise!
General Burkhalter: Klink, hau ab!
You don't have to look very far to falsify Schönborn's claim. While the biological community may not have initially welcomed Kimura's Neutral Theory with open arms, there was never any attempt to censor it. It is entirely appropriate for new ideas to be met with skepticism by the scientific community. That's what scientists do--refuse to accept new ideas until adequate supporting evidence is available.
The problem with ID is that it's not a new idea. It's an old one with a new paint job. It's essentially the argument that Darwin so enthusiastically embraced as an undergraduate. But after sailing around the world and recording extensive observations of natural history, then ruminating on them for twenty years and corresponding with the leading naturalists of his day, Darwin proposed a new explanation for the appearance of design in nature.
Typically, naturalists were initially resistant to this idea as well, but like all good science, eventually it displaced all competing explanations and has become the only known theory to adequately explain the appearance of design in nature.
It isn't just that advocates of design never succeeded in finding a designer. Natural Selection provides a better explanation by using observable processes, such as variation, surplus fecundity and competition, and accounting for such observations as imperfection, anatomical analogy and geological succession, for which design provides no rationale.
So while it may be fair to say that science is skeptical of new ideas, it simply has no place for old ones. This is not censorship. It is simply a realization that there is no point in resurrecting disproved explanations out of anything other than historical interest.
John, the discussion about the veracity of the ID hypothesis has already, so there isn't much in that arena we can learn from this. One can use this lecture as a study of framing evolutionary theory for the public at large. Note Schönborn describes the current curriculum of as atheistic and materialistic. While science is inherently agnostic rather then agnostic, the world of importance is materialism. The Cardinal is a smart enough man to know that most of his audience will think of monetary greed rather than "all is matter" when they hear about materialism. So Schönborn is interjecting a moral argument into here that we often miss. That naturalistic agnostic evolutionary theory is connected to all the vices of this current age. Sound familiar?
Unnoticed (again) by the Discovery Institute was a Schonborn's answer to a question from a Cathloic YEC group, The Maximillian Kolbe Society. The Cardinal shot them down in flames, direclty stating YEC is not part of Catholic Theology.
So the Cardnial made four points:
1. God could have acted through evolution. Bad news for the DI!)
2. YEC is theologically and scietifically a loser. (Bad news for half the DI backers and all of the fundamentalists)
3. There is a God and philosophically, God must have "designed" the universe. (Not surprising for a Catholic Cardinal, but not a scientific opinion and defintely not a ringing endorsement of the DI)
4. Kitzmiller was incoorectly decided. (I can see how Kitzmiller woudl be a weird decision from a European perspective, but he's still wrong.)
Overall cold comfort to the DI, but they can't afford to look the gift horse inthe eye.
I agree with him about scientifically but on the theology I think they have a stronger case than IMHO the rationalists who seek to pretend that the bible speaks of ages instead of days. On this one the fundies seem to have the better of the play.
Joe makes a good point, but still, I think the Cardinal spends way too much time in the company of intellectually dishonest flaks like Chapman and the other IDiots. You can already see how some of their nonsense has rubbed off on him when he claims that views opposed to evolution are censored. Sheesh.
The use of "liberal" as "crypto-communist" or a similar insult is entirely limited to the USA. Probably Schönborn has simply never heard of it. He's uneducated about the peculiarities of US political life -- just as he's uneducated about the generalities of evolutionary biology. That's how John Farrell can be right.
GH, don't forget that there are two creation accounts in the Bible, first the one with the 7 days where humans are created last, after the rest of the world, and "as man and woman he created them", then (immediately following) the one where Adam is created first (made of clay), then the Garden of Eden, and then Eve. These two contradict each other so blatantly that you simply can't take both of them literally. Catholic theology may be full of logic that hangs in the air, but it does not contain any easy logical fallacies -- and if he knows nothing else, Schönborn self-evidently knows Catholic theology. It is no wonder at all that he "shot down" what he doubtless considers a gang of heretics (who usurp the name of a martyr who died in a Nazi concentration camp!) "in flames".
This may throw some light on the ethical friability of the Holy Cardinal.
http://www.traditioninaction.org/bev/056bev7-20-2004.htm
Thanks for keeping an eye on this cardinal, who is viewed by many traditional Catholics as a potential entrant in the next papal sweepstakes. If you think it doesn't actually matter who presides over the Vatican's myth factory, consider how much worse it could be with the influence of an ID-driven pope.
I recently wrote a pair of posts that relate to Cardinal Schönborn and intelligent design advocacy in Catholic circles:
The heretic sniffer
A flip of the Coyne
In German 'liberal' is used in a different sense as in US English. And it has two different although related meanings. Originally 'liberal' related to economic freedom of the individuum for which of course personal freedom is necessary. Today 'liberal' is used to describe either a standpoint of tolerance and defense of civil and human rights or a free market standpoint.
However, in a catholic sense 'liberal' has another meaning because the catholic church claims that an individuum can only find freedom in God.
And, as Kenneth Miller pointed out, the ID-designer is supposed to design from "outside of nature". by means that are undetectable. Therefore they're not suspectible to observation or analysis, and hence not science!
Zeno, thanks for posting your links. Your points there are well taken...
AustinAtheist:
IIRC "hau ab" is an imperative, but J-Dog originally wrote
which introduces a raft of problems, if I remember my High School German correctly.
Given the way German verbs switch position, "Shönborn should shut up" is "Schönborn soll abhauen", "Schönborn should upshut".
But J-Dog said what Benedict should tell Schönborn: "Benedict sollte Schönborn sagen ab zu hauen", "Benedict should Schönborn tell up to shut".
I'd hate to see how Mark Twain would've translated "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" into German.
'Hau ab' means 'piss off'.
'Shut up' means that somebody should stop talking. This would rater translate to 'Sei still', 'Sei ruhig', 'Halt's Maul' or just 'Schnauze'. The last two are really unpolite and would thus fit to AustinAtheist's intention.