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WASHINGTON LETTER Jul-15-2005 (780 words) Backgrounder and analysis. xxxn
Let's dance: Viennese cardinal waltzes into U.S. evolution flap
By Agostino Bono
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Can a bespectacled, balding 60-year-old cardinal in Vienna waltz his way into a flap in the United States?
Definitely yes. The orchestration was proposing that the Catholic faith and aspects of evolutionary thinking are not good dancing partners. His suggestion stepped on the toes of those who see no conflict, while it swayed rhythmically with supporters of "intelligent design."
The reaction was almost immediate after Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna wrote an article in the July 7 New York Times. The piece questioned whether aspects of evolutionary thought such as random variations and natural selection are compatible with Catholic belief in God.
Although the cardinal's article did not use the term "intelligent design," it articulated the underlying principle that intelligent design is scientifically provable.
"Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science," said the article.
Within a week, the article and a follow-up news story generated more that 200 letters to the editor, pro and con, said Thomas Feyer, Times letters editor.
"This is a good, healthy response," he told Catholic News Service. The only bigger responses are when a regular columnist writes an article readers consider highly controversial, he said.
The cardinal's article also prompted three prominent U.S. scientists who oppose intelligent design to write a letter to Pope Benedict XVI to ask him to reaffirm church support for evolution.
The article appeared at a time when the controversy over intelligent design is more than an academic dance among scientists and religious thinkers.
It's also being debated in state legislatures and by local school boards. There is pressure to get public school science classes to step up criticisms of Darwinian evolution and to incorporate intelligent design in classrooms as an alternative.
Cardinal Schonborn's article did not raise the issue of teaching intelligent design in U.S. public schools.
Mark Ryland, a promoter of intelligent design and a friend of the cardinal, helped place the article in the Times.
The cardinal also called "rather vague and unimportant" a 1996 message by Pope John Paul II supporting the scientific evidence for evolution. This message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which includes many non-Catholics in its international membership, is used by scientists and theologians as proof that evolution and Catholicism are compatible.
Critics of intelligent design say that it is not science because it interprets data nonscientifically to conclude that there is a design and a purpose in nature, similar to the way Catholics use philosophy and theology to reconcile scientific data with their faith and belief in God.
"I disagree," said Michael Behe, biochemistry professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and a proponent of "intelligent design."
"Some parts of nature are better explained by an intelligent act rather than physical laws," said Behe, author of "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution."
He told CNS the formation of the Rocky Mountains can be easily explained scientifically.
"But if you look at Mount Rushmore, not all of the answer is scientific," he said referring to the four giant heads of U.S. presidents carved into the mountain.
"You can see clear evidences of design. This is not a philosophical conclusion, but physical evidence," said Behe.
"Things like Mount Rushmore are found in life," he said. "From empirical scientific evidence parts of life were the result of purposeful, intelligent activity."
As an example, Behe said that there are biochemical systems in nature that are "irreducibly complex" in that they need various components to work together in order to function, similar to a mousetrap. The coming together of these components cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution which says that improvements occur gradually and in tiny steps, he said.
Jesuit Father Kevin FitzGerald, who holds doctorates in molecular biology and philosophy, said that intelligent design advocates "see the unresolved problems of evolution and find data that doesn't fit the theory."
But then "they make a leap from the data" and evaluate it as saying that design and purpose are present in life forms and that this is a better explanation than evolution, said Father FitzGerald, professor of Catholic health care ethics at Jesuit-run Georgetown University in Washington.
He said that the scientific task is limited to discovering data, "but the data can be looked at from nonscientific perspectives such as philosophy, history, theology, even art."
"The question of design in the universe needs to be addressed and scientific evidence brought to bear. But the ultimate terrain to judge this would be philosophy, not science," he said.
"This is what intelligent design doesn't get right," he said.
END
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