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From: Hans-Cees Speel <hanss@zondisk.sepa.tudelft.nl>
Organization: TU Delft
To: Bruce Edmonds pcp <b.edmonds@mmu.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 11:16:02 +0000
Subject: the pope and evolution
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The london times internet edition - available via
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/
Oct 25. In World news tells us that (note the name of the
reporter!?!);
Pope places some faith in Darwin's theory of evolution
FROM RICHARD OWEN IN ROME
THE Pope risked the wrath of the religious Right yesterday by
declaring that Darwin's theory of evolution was compatible with
Christian faith. In a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,
which advises the Vatican on scientific matters, the Pope said the
theory of natural selection was "more than just a hypothesis".
The Pope, who appears fully recovered from his appendix operation two
weeks ago, was responding to requests for clarification from the
80-member Academy, which is holding its 60th anniversary meeting on
"Evolution And The Origins Of Life".
Darwin's theories, as formulated in Origin Of Species By Natural
Selection and The Descent Of Man led to bitter controversy in the late
19th century, with leading churchmen denouncing them as incompatible
with the account given in Genesis.
Pope Pius XII broached the subject in 1950 in his encyclical Humani
Generis, indicating that the Church should not reject Darwin's
"serious hypothesis" out of hand. But he said that it could be misused
by Communist "dialectical materialists" whose aim was "to remove any
notion of God from people's minds".
Pope John Paul II went further than Pius XII yesterday, saying: "It is
noteworthy that the theory of evolution has progressively taken root
in the minds of researchers following a series of discoveries in
different disciplines."
He added: "The convergence, neither sought nor provoked, of results of
studies undertaken independently from each other in itself constitutes
a significant argument in favour of the theory [of evolution]."
The Pope appeared to side step the vexed theological question of
whether, if the theory of evolution from apes and Australopithecus
afarensis through Neanderthal man to Homo sapiens is correct,
creatures before modern man had souls.
But he said that, whatever man's origins, his soul was a divine
creation, declaring: "If the human body has its origin in pre-existing
living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God." No
theory was acceptable which held that the spirit emerged from "the
forces of living material".
Marghareta Hack, a leading Italian astronomer, said the pronouncement
was an important step "because for the first time the Church is
accepting evolution as a proven fact".
Francesco Barone, a scientific philosopher, told Il Messaggero that,
after Galileo's rehabilitation, acceptance of evolutionary theory was
the latest in a series of steps which were "mending the tears" in the
Church's relationship with science.
Opposition to Darwinism remains staunch in the American Bible Belt.
________
Theories come and go, the frog stays [F. Jacob]
-------------------------------------------------------
|Hans-Cees Speel School of Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and management
|Technical University Delft, Jaffalaan 5 2600 GA Delft PO Box 5015 The
Netherlands
|telephone +3115785776 telefax +3115783422 E-mail hanss@sepa.tudelft.nl
HTTP://www.sepa.tudelft.nl/~afd_ba/hanss.html featuring evolution and memetics!
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