Vatican: we were wrong, Darwin was right

February 12, 2009

Famously, it took the Church about 400 years to concede that Galileo was right to reject geocentricity, the idea that the earth is at the center of the universe. Now the Vatican is restating its view of recent years that Darwin was right about the origin of species, that human beings evolved from less complex life forms. They’re getting quicker: Darwin was born 200 years ago today, his theory completely transforming the foundations of biology and profoundly changing the studies of paleontology, genetics, cosmology, physics and many more scientific disciplines.

Originally, the Church rejected Darwin’s explanation of the origins of complex life because it so clearly contradicted their literal reading of the book of Genesis, the first book of the bible which tells the story of God creating the universe out of nothing in six days. Now the Vatican concedes that they were simply misreading the bible: Genesis was never intended to be read literally, but rather as a metaphor asserting that God is the originator of life and all that we see (the authors of Genesis, living thousands of years before Darwin, of course had no scientific knowledge of exactly how God did it!).

From a Times article today:

Conceding that the Church had been hostile to Darwin because his theory appeared to conflict with the account of creation in Genesis, Archbishop Ravasi argued yesterday that biological evolution and the Christian view of Creation were complementary.

Marc Leclerc, who teaches natural philosophy at the [Pontifical] Gregorian University, said that no scholar could “remain indifferent” to the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth tomorrow.

WHILE YOU'RE HERE...

11 Comments

Jaccalyn on February 12, 2009 | Permalink

even if i was not a believer, i would still NOT believe darwin….I did NOT evolve from a monkey!
John on February 13, 2009 | Permalink

I’m a believer who does accept evolution, based solely on the overwhelming evidence for it (which I’d be happy to show you!) – nevertheless, you didn’t evolve from a monkey: both you and the monkey evolved from common ancestors. The only people who still reject evolution do so not on the basis of science but on the basis of religious belief. (There are no atheists disagreeing with Darwin, for example.) That’s bad science. It’s also bad theology, because it certainly isn’t necessary to insist that Genesis is literal; we don’t do that with Revelation or Song of Songs!
kingrupertpupkin on February 18, 2009 | Permalink

I am a non-believer, primarily for historical reasons. John is right, evolution is not incompatible with belief in God. But Jaccalyn your response is, sadly, quite common. It isn’t about believing in Darwin. Since his death there have been mountains of evidence (particularly in terms of DNA) validating his concept of evolution. Are you seriously going to reject ALL of that evidence because you can’t deal with the FACT that you are a close relative of a monkey. About 60% of human DNA is also found in a blade of grass. What do you think about that? Refuse to accept that as well?
Jonathan CHM on March 25, 2009 | Permalink

Genesis 1:27, “So God made man in his own image”.
Genesis 2:7, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.”
Genesis 2:21-22, “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, …the Lord had taken from man, made he a woman, & brought her unto the man”.
From the above verses, it is obvious that God formed man/woman from dust instead of transforming apes to human beings.
John on March 26, 2009 | Permalink

Jonathan:

“From the above verses, it is obvious that God formed man/woman from dust instead of transforming apes to human beings.”

From the verses you quote it is obvious that the writer didn’t know a thing about science! And how could he? He was writing about the role of God in creation. It’s a hymn, an inspirational piece of literature describing beginnings in a manner befitting someone in that era. Today we know much more than the author of Genesis about beginnings, and to suggest we should ignore all the evidence pointing to evolution and instead rely on an ancient piece of theology is not only asinine but inconsistent with the way you live your own life. You wouldn’t rely on 6000-year old thought about medicine when you get sick, would you? Science is your friend, man.
Robb on December 8, 2010 | Permalink

I am an agnostic soul. I don’t believe in Religions per se, I do however, believe in a higher power; a creator. I can’t see how we still believe Darwin as an “Origin of Species” given the scientific truth that is DNA.

You can’t build a house without a plan. You can not take wood, doors, cabinets, toilets etc. to a site and put them together without having a plan. Given that information, it’s entirely probable that we were created or at least the basics of us was created first and foremost. As for evolution, I doubt very little of the premise of evolution. Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest, are essential components to life. They ensure in nature that animals not only survive, but thrive. Without the basics of evolution animals and even mankind, would cease to exist.

What we need now is to re-apply the basic principles of evolution to humanity. Without it we’ll surely devolve into the single-cell organism from which some would argue, we came.
John on December 13, 2010 | Permalink

Robb, explain your comment about DNA? Do you think DNA somehow contradicts Darwin?

By the way, we understand very well how life came to be as it is without a ‘plan’ or ‘blueprint’. It’s one of the wonders of the natural world, and it doesn’t require a creator to work.
Robb on December 13, 2010 | Permalink

A strand of DNA contains about 1 Gb of information. I believe that if Darwin knew that, he would not believe in randomness as he did. I believe that it’s improbable (not impossible) that we came about without a plan or blueprint. It can’t be duplicated in a science lab (going from inorganic to organic) and so leads me to believe that there is a creator involved.

As the analogy I used above, I think it takes someone or something with intelligence to design our world. The odds are astronomical in terms of where the world is in relation to the sun. A few hundred thousand miles closer and we cook; a few hundred thousand miles farther away and we freeze. It is just illogical to me that it happened without a plan.

Personally I believe that “believers” who only believe in their religion whether it’s Christianity, Islam, Conservatism, Liberalism, Buddhism, Environmentalism et al need to have the “invisible man in the sky” or “big brother” looking over their shoulders making sure that they are doing the right things on a daily basis. I don’t need that belief system in place to know what is right and to do the right thing.
John on December 13, 2010 | Permalink

But natural selection is NOT random. Genes are continually selected for survival so that a completely nonrandom process of betterment exists without a blueprint of any kind. The only ‘blueprint’, if you will, is “whatever aids survival”. Evidently the sort of things which aid survival include things which breathe, things which are mobile, things which digest other organic things, things which can see. But to suggest that there’s an inevitable path for evolution beyond that isn’t supported by the science.

As for your comments about the “Goldilocks Zone” of the earth in relation to the sun, surely the statistics are on the side of SOME planets out of the trillions upon trillions upon trillions of solar systems which exist? Astronomy has just identified a very, very close one, suggesting that it isn’t that uncommon. Again, we don’t need a designer for that. Life on earth is a happy byproduct of the REAL mechanisms in cosmology: a gaseous explosion of matter which coalesced into galaxies and will, eventually, fall apart in time too.

All that said, I don’t have any philosophical objections to the idea of a being or beings outside of space-time. But I’m extremely wary of plugging a hypothetical God into the gaps in scientific knowledge as though we won’t eventually fill those gaps with real knowledge eventually (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps).
Robb on December 15, 2010 | Permalink

I think therein lies the problem. I’m not saying “God” per se but rather an intelligent creator. I don’t believe that the creator gives a rats behind about us specifically. I believe that religions are control mechanisms. I believe that we’ve been given reason, faculties and the ability to discern our surroundings. It is up to us as individuals to make the best of life as we can.

Honestly though John, I believe that unless and until we can create something that self replicates, advances on its own, then how is it unreasonable to believe that it takes something of intelligence to put it all together? I believe that it’s an arrogant position; and I am one of the most arrogant people you will ever know, to believe unequivocally that everything happened without something creating it. As has been explained in Expelled, the odds are incredibly slim that because of Natural Selection’s role in evolution, that this happens without some type of design.

Just as the motor that drives a cell contains 40 parts that all have to be there and all have to be in exactly the right order in order to move the cell. If that cell is created with a motor that doesn’t contain all it should, it would die off and not “evolve.” Your position is the cell developed the first time exactly right? Have you ever done something perfectly the first time? I haven’t. Almost everything I’ve accomplished, has evolved in a sense. I’ve written letters that after reading, had to be edited to get the point across.

I understand the “God of Gaps” position. I’m only filling in a designer to life given the odds against it happening on its own. The odds of a cell developing correctly, amino acids forming correctly etc. to form life without a designer is improbable… not impossible mind you but improbable.
Robb on December 15, 2010 | Permalink

And how do you reconcile believing in God and evolution? If evolution has taken care of life then what part does God play? What’s his “purpose?” Doesn’t faith in God lend itself to the idea that he also created everything?

Creation is pure fantasy as written, but I find it difficult to grasp how one can “believe” and also think evolution explains all life…