Evolution and Intelligent Design - January 2008
Introduction
Author: Gerald McKenny
Few issues concerning science in the public arena are capable of arousing the passions that characterize recent debates about intelligent design and evolution in the United States. In Kansas, California, and Pennsylvania, in laboratories, churches, statehouses, classrooms, and courtrooms, the argument rages over whether intelligent design is a legitimate scientific alternative to evolution and whether intelligent design should be taught in the science classroom. At stake are important questions about the nature of science, its relationship to religion, the place of religion in American public life, and the control of public education. With so much at stake, it is hardly surprising that passion more often than not triumphs over reason. > More
Other Entries:
- Catholic Faith and Evolution: Has Anything Changed? by Matthew Ashley The most recent debates over the relationship between the Catholic Church and evolution were prompted by remarks made by Cristoph Cardinal Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, in 2005. This essay places the cardinal's comments in the broader context of the Church's approach to evolution during the past century, points out where it differs from the Church's position as articulated in recent years, and argues for the superiority of the position stated by Pope John Paul II.
- Creation, Evolution, and the Catholic Tradition by
William E. Carroll
In debates about evolution both sides often assume that if the
evolutionary account of natural processes is true then beliefs about God as creator must be false. The Catholic tradition as represented by Thomas Aquinas, however, makes careful distinctions between biological arguments on the one hand, and philosophical and theological claims, on the other hand, and these distinctions make it possible to understand how both evolutionary theory and theology contribute in complementary ways to our knowledge of the world. From this point of view the intelligent design model is not only scientifically suspect but also theologically suspect. - Science Does Not Need God. Or Does It? by George V. Coyne Far from conflicting with religious faith, the contemporary scientific view of the universe, itself untainted by religious considerations, offers for religious believers the opportunity for a deeper understanding of their faith. While science itself is neutral with regard to theism or atheism, religious faith is able to gain knowledge of God by analogy with the universe as we know it today through science.
- American Jews & Intelligent Design by Noah Efron For the most part, American Jews have accepted evolution as posing no theological challenge, thanks partly to an approach to the interpretation of scripture that devalues literalism. But even many American Jews who worry that evolution is incomplete or mistaken strongly oppose the inclusion of intelligent design in public school science instruction out of a desire to preserve a secular domain of public education in which Americans of all kinds enjoy equal opportunities.
- Intelligent Design: Any Wrinkles in this Old Idea? by
Christopher Hamlin
Design arguments constitute a species of natural theology with a long and
complicated history. Not always the default view of Christians or other
theists, design arguments and natural theology more generally also did not
always go unchallenged prior to Darwin. - Where's the Intelligence in 'Intelligent Design'? by Don Howard The theological payoff of design arguments might appear to be diminished when one thinks seriously about the arbitrariness of the analogies central to all such arguments and about the contingency of the scientific claims that provide premises essential to design arguments. Moreover, the same scientific findings that propel design arguments sometimes undercut those arguments if the scientific findings are taken in their entirety.
- Intelligent Design and Evolution: Some Clarifications by
Phillip R. Sloan
Intelligent design arguments have a history predating Christian natural
theology of the modern period, early examples being found, for example, in
the work of Galen in the 2nd century. The contemporary debate between
proponents of intelligent design and their critics is complicated by
confusion over the mechanisms of consensus formation in the sciences and
over whether design claims are meant to be assessed by the same
methodological criteria as other scientific hypotheses.
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