But the Vatican. That Must Be the Product of Intelligent Design!
New York Times reports on the clear, unequivocal response by the Vatican to the nonsense of intelligent design:The official Vatican newspaper published an article this week labeling as "correct" the recent decision by a judge in Pennsylvania that intelligent design should not be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution.
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What does ID have to do bioethics? What?
And one article in a newspaper is not the official stand of the Vatican. And no, I don't believe in ID. But I am wondering what separates this site from "posts in general defense of what the far-left wing of the Democratic Party believes."
- by Bradford Short on Jan 20, 2006 at 5:47 PM | link
wow, check out this nutcase's website. [remainder of comment deleted]
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- by Sheila on Jan 21, 2006 at 12:55 AM | link
Bradford, there have been several statments from the vatican to the effect that ID is not science and such forth. They see nature as a 'grand design' yes, but they also do not view evolution as conflicting with faith. In terms of supporting ID that is something the Vatican has never done and has made very sure everyone else understands that position.
[deletion - seriously folks we will not tolerate profanity or inappropriate remarks. save them for your own site]
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- by Joseph O'Donnell on Jan 21, 2006 at 5:21 AM | link
I agree that Art is still trying to change the subject and hit Wesley Smith and others with an ad hominem.
Despite the fact that Wesley and Ralph Nader! do joint statements on bioethics and that progressive organizations (CENTER FOR GENETICS AND SOCIETY) are among the opponents to Prop 71, it is to the interest of ESCR proponents to tar all opponents with the same brush as extreme religious conservatives with hairy knuckles scraping the ground.
Vatican simply said that intelligent design should not be taught as science, and that evolution as natural selection has validity. Of course, believers in any form of monotheism must believe in an Intelligent Designer. If you believe in God, you believe in a Creator, it's part of HIS job description so to speak. And the Vatican statement says as much if you bother to read the whole article.
- by Robert B on Jan 21, 2006 at 3:49 PM | link
I dunno what to say other than this:
1) Just because the Vatican has not endorsed ID does not mean that it opposes it, and to conclude as such is a non sequitur. (Also, I believe an important Italian Cardinal has basically endorsed ID, he doesn't speak for the Church either, but he has as good a claim as *one* article in a Vatican newspaper.)
2) I do believe ID happened, I also believe that it happened is not something science can/should demonstrate. It is demonstrated by theology-science and metaphysics-science hybrids that are not cults (and I get angry at anti-religionists who intimate that such uses of reason are cultish), but still are not science and that I think it is proper to keep out of High School Bio class. Unlike, say, animal personhood theories, which I also seek to keep out of High School Bio class, I believe ID really happened. So, unlike Peter Singer, I believe Michael Behe at least has the virtue of describing something that really happened. So I am a sympathetic critic of his and of-I suppose-many people who hold fellowhips at Discovery. I strongly oppose them being called charlatans. People who are wrong are wrong, they are not necessarily charlatans. Saying that they are would be another non sequitur.
3) ID is related to religious conservatism (another thing I am very sympathetic to, because I happen to be a religious conservative). Most of the things that anger modern American religious conservatives have a lot to do with bioethics, though certainly not all. Religious conservatives are angry at all the municipal nativity scenes that have been declared violative of the 1st Amendment over the past few years. Is "religious freedom"/"religion in the public square" now part of bioethics? Is bioethics now "everything that is wrong with Gary Bauer"? I mean, cut me a break.
I get into these issues on my site, but my site is not advertised as a medical ethics website. As it is, as a social issues website, I have almost never gotten into defending Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Bush/Cheney's prosecution of this war, though I am very inclined to do so if given the chance. I cannot understand why a bunch of individuals who claim to be experts on the intersection of medical science, practice and ethics start a blog on that, and then start to post whatever anti-Religious Right thoughts that enter their minds, and think that that won't lead to others saying that they are more partisans than experts.
Even if ID *is* a cult, I still don't see what that has to do with this site, or why you'd want to write about it if you really wanted to convince anyone of anything in medical ethics.
- by Bradford Short on Jan 21, 2006 at 11:28 PM | link
usu, the guys at vatican are a philosophical lot - applying a lot of philosophy and energy towards showing displeasure at others philosophies ( ID), forgettting that mankind, ID or not, is still suffering in africa, and if this time could have been spent in giving a single loaf to a hungry kid, it would have been well spent.
- by OrangeClicks on Jan 23, 2006 at 3:56 PM | link