Transcript hspa powerpoint final

Evolution, Darwin, Faith and
Science: Teaching Biology in a
Catholic School
HSPA Professional Day
Monday, March 2, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Rev. Bruce A. Steggert, SJ
200th Anniversary of Charles Darwin’s
birth in 1809 (Feb 12)
150th Anniversary of the publication of On
the Origin of Species in 1859 (Nov 22)
January/February Issues of Current
Magazines
• Smithonian (Feb 2009) Darwin and Lincoln
• National Geographic (Feb 2009)“What
Darwin Didn’t Know”
• Scientific American (Jan 2009) The Evolution
of Evolution
• The American Biology Teacher (NABT) (Feb
2009) Dedicated to Darwin and Evolution
AP Biology/Honors Biology Teacher
Evolution: The Whole Truth
Student Questions/Comments:
• How can you as a Jesuit priest teach
Evolution?
• Doesn’t teaching evolution deny the
existence of God?
• Oh…he is a Jesuit and they teach whatever
they want!
• Don’t worry we can get the real answer in
religion class!
Other Questions of the Day:
• Isn’t teaching evolution against the teaching
of the Catholic Church?
• How can we be the object of God’s personal
love and random chance?
• What about Creationism and Intelligent
Design?
• What about this “deep” time of millions of
years? What if something went wrong?
Other Questions of the Day:
• What is all the fuss about anyway?
• What do we do with Genesis and the clear
personal love and nature of Jesus Christ?
• Is the Archdiocese going to come after me?
• What about the trial in Dover, PA or the
issues in the Board of Education in Kansas
decisions?
Theodosius
Dobzhansky
Geneticist
1900-1975
Nothing in Biology
makes sense except
in light of evolution!
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with
religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to
mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary
textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology,
and anthropology. Only if symbols are
construed to mean what they are not
intended to mean can there arise imaginary,
insoluble conflicts. ...the blunder leads to
blasphemy: the Creator is accused of
systematic deceitfulness.
Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except
in the Light of Evolution" (1973)
In a famous article, "Nothing in biology makes sense
except in the light of evolution" (Am. Biol. Teach. 35, 125–
129; 1973), Dobzhansky described his religious beliefs: "It
is wrong to hold creation and evolution as mutually exclusive
alternatives. I am a creationist and an evolutionist.
Evolution is God's, or Nature's, method of Creation."
In contrast to modern creationists, Dobzhansky accepted
macroevolution and the documented age of Earth. He argued
that "the Creator has created the living world not by
caprice (supernatural fiat) but by evolution propelled
by natural selection".
(From Kenneth Miller Georgetown Lectures 1/21/09)
Albert Einstein
(1879- 1955)
Science without
religion is lame;
religion without
science is blind.
Albert Einstein
Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin (1881- 1955)
Jesuit Priest and
Paleontologist
(Evolution) is a general postulate to which all
theories, all hypotheses, all systems must
henceforward bow and which they must
satisfy in order to be thinkable and true.
Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts,
a trajectory which all lines of thought must
follow — this is what evolution is.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
Saint Augustine (A.D.
354-430) in his work The
Literal Meaning of
Genesis (De Genesi ad
litteram libri duodecim)
provided excellent advice
for all Christians who are
faced with the task of
interpreting Scripture in
the light of scientific
knowledge.
Usually, even a non-Christian knows
something about the earth, the
heavens, and the other elements of this
world, about the motion and orbit of
the stars and even their size and relative
positions, about the predictable eclipses
of the sun and moon, the cycles of the
years and the seasons, about the kinds
of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth,
and this knowledge he holds as being
certain from reason and experience.
Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy
Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on
their wiser brethren when they are caught in
one of their mischievous false opinions and are
taken to task by those who are not bound by the
authority of our sacred books. For then, to
defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue
statements, they will try to call upon Holy
Scripture for proof and even recite from
memory many passages which they think
support their position, although they
understand neither what they say nor the things
about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy
1.7]
Pope John Paul II
(1920- 2005)
In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my
predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed
that there is no conflict between evolution
and the doctrine of the faith regarding man
and his vocation, provided that we do not
lose sight of certain fixed points.
In Humani Generis (1950), Pius XII states:
The Teaching Authority of the Church does
not forbid that, in conformity with the
present state of human sciences and sacred
theology, research and discussions, on the
part of men experienced in both fields, take
place with regard to the doctrine of
evolution, in as far as it inquires into the
origin of the human body as coming from
pre-existent and living matter—for the
Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are
immediately created by God.
Today, almost half a century after the
publication of the encyclical, new knowledge
has led to the recognition of the theory of
evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is
indeed remarkable that this theory has been
progressively accepted by researchers,
following a series of discoveries in various
fields of knowledge. The convergence,
neither sought nor fabricated, of the results
of work that was conducted independently is
in itself a significant argument in favor of this
theory. (1996 Ponitifical Academy of Sciences)
What is all the fuss?
Cardinal
Schönborn
NY Times
July 7, 2005
(From Kenneth Miller Georgetown Lectures 1/21/09)
“... defenders of neo-Darwinian dogma have
often invoked the supposed acceptance - or
at least acquiescence - of the Roman
Catholic Church when they defend their
theory as somehow compatible with
Christian faith. But this is not true.”
“...his rather vague and unimportant 1996
letter about evolution is always and
everywhere cited...”
John Paul’s 1996 letter to
the Pontifical Academy was
“vague and unimportant?”
Actually, “Neo-Darwinian
evolution” is not as described
here - it is the combination
of evolutionary theory with
Mendelian genetics.
“Evolution in the sense of common
ancestry might be true, but evolution in
the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided,
unplanned process of random variation
and natural selection - is not.”
(From Kenneth Miller Georgetown Lectures 1/21/09)
Evolution in the sense of common
ancestry might be true, but evolution in
the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided,
unplanned process of random variation
and natural selection - is not. Any
system of thought that denies or seeks
to explain away the overwhelming
evidence for design in biology is
ideology, not science.
Unfortunately, the Cardinal’s
most recent writings continue to
reflect a misunderstanding of
both the state and nature of
evolutionary science.
2007 Book: Chance or Purpose?
• A fine summary of Aquinas and Augustine with respect
to natural processes reflecting God’s will.
However, it tells its readers ...
• Transitional forms absent from fossil record
• No direct genetic link between humans and animals
• Impossibility of mechanistic explanation for life
(From Kenneth Miller Georgetown Lectures 1/21/09)
What is all the fuss?
President
George
Bush
Washington
Post
August 3,
2005
Although he said that curriculum
decisions should be made by school
districts rather than the federal
government, Bush told Texas newspaper
reporters in a group interview at the
White House on Monday that he
believes that intelligent design should
be taught alongside evolution as
competing theories.
“Both sides ought to be properly taught
. . . so people can understand what the
debate is about," he said, according to
an official transcript of the session. Bush
added: "Part of education is to expose
people to different schools of thought. .
. . You're asking me whether or not
people ought to be exposed to different
ideas, and the answer is yes.”
Other Issues/Events:
• Kansas Board of Education insists on the
teaching of Creationism/Design and “missing
links” in Evolution (August 2005)
• Kansas Board members all voted out and
previous curriculum is reversed (February
2007)
Other Issues/Events:
• Dover PA Trial (December 2005) rules:
Teaching intelligent design in public school
biology classes violates the Establishment
Clause of the First Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States (and Article
I, Section 3 of the Pennsylvania State
Constitution) because intelligent design is not
science and "cannot uncouple itself from its
creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."
Other Issues/Events:
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene; The Blind
Watchmaker; The God Delusion (Extreme
Materialist and Atheist)
Still, so many people resist believing in
evolution. Where does the resistance
come from?
It comes, I'm sorry to say, from religion. And
from bad religion. You won't find any
opposition to the idea of evolution among
sophisticated, educated theologians. It comes
from an exceedingly retarded, primitive
version of religion, which unfortunately is at
present undergoing an epidemic in the
United States. Not in Europe, not in Britain,
but in the United States.
• Stephan Jay Gould, Daniel Dennett and
scores of other evolutionary biologists insist
that God does not exist!
• In attacking using the strongest of language
they do an enormous disservice to science
and religion!
How ridiculous to make evolution
the enemy of God.
What could be more elegant, more
simple, more brilliant, more
economical, more creative, indeed
more divine than a planet with millions
of life forms, distinct and yet
interactive, all ultimately derived from
accumulated variations in a single
double-stranded molecule, pliable and
fecund enough to give us mollusks and
mice, Newton and Einstein?
Even if it did give us the Kansas
State Board of Education, too.
(From Kenneth Miller
Georgetown Lectures 1/21/09)
John Haught
Francis Collins
Th. Dobzhansky
Francisco Ayala
“The [Darwinian]
universe weThe [Darwinian] universe we
observe
has precisely
the properties
observe
has precisely
the
we should
expect
there is,
at bottom,
properties
weifshould
expect
if therethe
is,
wisdom
of a provident
andnopurposeful
God,
at bottom,
no design,
purpose, no
intent
upon
fruitful
dynamic
world,
evil
andano
good, and
nothing
but blind,
and pitiless
committed
to a promise of freedom that
indifference.”
(From Kenneth Miller
makes
genuine
love
possible.
(Richard Dawkins)
Georgetown Lectures 1/21/09)
Recent Gallop Poll
Feb 11, 2009, across the USA!
Asked about the theory of evolution:
39% believe in the theory of evolution
25% do not
36% no opinion
Asked about the theory of natural selection:
14% believe
Finally: 43% favor Creationism (higher then
number who believe in evolution)
Initial Responses
Kenneth F. Miller, Biologist, Brown University:
Finding Darwin's God Miller: pp. 267-277
The ability of science to transcend
cultural, political and even religious
differences is part of its genius, part of
its value as a way of knowing. What
science cannot do is assign either
meaning or purpose to the world it
explores. This leads some to conclude
that the world as seen by science is
devoid of meaning and absent of
purpose. It is not.
What it does mean is that our human
tendencies to assign meaning and value must
transcend science, and ultimately must come
from outside of it. The science that results, I
would suggest, is enriched and informed
from its contact with the values and
principles of faith. The God of Abraham does
not tell us which proteins control the cell
cycle. But He does give us a reason to care, a
reason to cherish that understanding, and
above all a reason to prefer the light of
knowledge to the darkness of ignorance.
Some Points to Ponder:
• Our greatest gift from God is FREEDOM!
• Does it not make sense then that God would
work and use a process rooted and grounded
in freedom, namely evolution to create
humanity?
• How bold to assert that we KNOW that God
could NOT have done it that way using
Evolution!
The Anthropic Principle is an attempt to
explain the observed fact that the
fundamental constants of physics and
chemistry are just right or fine-tuned to allow
the universe and life at we know it to exist.
The Anthropic Principle says that the
seemingly arbitrary and unrelated constants
in physics have one strange thing in common-these are precisely the values you need if
you want to have a universe capable of
producing life.
John Haught, Theologian, Georgetown
University:
Confirmation (Science and
Evolution)
This approach goes even further than the
contact position in establishing the close
connection between theism and evolution. It
argues that biblical religion with its
distinctive notion of God provides much of
the soil in which Darwinian ideas have taken
root in the first place.
The central idea of theistic religion, as the
Catholic theologian Karl Rahner (among
others) has clarified, is that the Infinite pours
itself out in love to the finite universe. This is
the fundamental meaning of "revelation."
But if we think carefully about this central
religious teaching it should lead us to
conclude that any universe related to the
inexhaustible self-giving love of God must be
an evolving one.
For if God is infinite love giving itself to the
cosmos, then the finite world cannot possibly
receive this limitless abundance of
graciousness in any single instant. In
response to the outpouring of God's
boundless love the universe would be invited
to undergo a process of self-transformation.
In order to "adapt" to the divine infinity
the finite cosmos would likely have to
intensify its own capacity to receive such
an abounding love. In other words, it
might endure what we now know
scientifically as an arduous, tortuous and
dramatic evolution.
Viewed in this light, the evolution of the
cosmos is more than just "compatible" with
theism. Faith in a God of self-giving love, it
would not be too much to say, actually
anticipates an evolving universe. It may be
very difficult to reconcile the religious
teaching about God's infinite love with any
other kind of cosmos. (John Haught)
63. According
the widely
accepted
69.
The currenttoscientific
debate
aboutscientific
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mechanisms at work in evolution requires
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an explosion
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and has
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a been
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since.
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nature
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gradually
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the
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Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some
of
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atoms,
still
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galaxies contingent
and stars, and
about 10process
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radically
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driven
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and
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on earth
aboutin4.5
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it isfavorable
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there
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not incompatible with a purposeful divine
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providence.
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demonstrated
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providential
plan
for creation.
(From Kenneth Miller Georgetown Lectures 1/21/09)
(From Kenneth Miller
Georgetown Lectures
1/21/09)
There is a grandeur in this view of life;
with its several powers having been
originally breathed by the Creator into a
few forms or into one; and that, whilst
this planet has gone cycling on
according to the fixed law of gravity,
from so simple a beginning endless
forms most wonderful and most
beautiful have been, and are being
evolved.
(Conclusion to The Origin of Species)
The world is charged with the grandeur of
God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed…
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down
things;
And though the last lights off the black West
went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward,
springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah!
bright wings!
(Hopkins)