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What Did the Pope Really Say?

September 15, 2006 Posted by PaV under Intelligent Design
31 Comments

I’m sure you’re all well aware of the very angry reaction of the Muslim world to the remarks that Pope Benedict made the other day. Well, I’ve read the text of his remarks: lo, and behold, his reference to the criticism of Mohammed by a 14th century emporer were, as they say, “taken out of context”. It’s remarkable.

The entire lecture focused rather on the relationship between faith and reason. In the end, it was a critique of what might be termed “scientism”: that is, “the use of human reason in accordance with the dictates of the scientific method is the highest use of intelligence possible”, thus rendering philosophy and theology merely reason’s “step-children”: to be tolerated, but not paid attention to.

The Pope makes one remark that, in the context of the Pope’s recently ballyhooed week-long retreat focusing on evolution, takes on considerable import. From an ID perspective, you know exactly what the Pope is trying to tell the methodological naturalists out there in general, and the Darwinists in particular.

Here’s the quote:

Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought: to philosophy and theology.

I don’t know about you, but telling “scientific reason” that it has to “accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature” sure sounds like he’s saying that the “design inference” should be taken more seriously.

Here’s the link to the Pope’s 90 minute lecture:

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31 Responses to What Did the Pope Really Say?

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  1. 31
    P. PhillipsOctober 6, 2006 at 10:55 am

    Essay focusing on the Pope’s remarks on science . No apologies from me on provoking thought or civil debate.

    Also, Wall Street Journal had an essay today:

    http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110009052

    REVIEW & OUTLOOK

    Under the Microscope
    When science and politics become worlds in collision.

    Friday, October 6, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

    This was a banner week for American science. The Nobel Prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry all went to Americans. The awards underline the universally acknowledged fact that the U.S. is the world leader not only in its aggregation of talent but in its ability to nurture that talent. First-class universities, along with copious private and federal funding for research, are often cited as key enablers. But few would deny that money can’t buy the most important element: a society that encourages independent thinking, open debate and an unbounded spirit of inquiry.

    That is one reason why it is always dismaying when scientists–of all people–suggest that on some subjects there must be no questioning because debate is closed. And on one level, at least, this would seem to be the implicit message of the newly formed 527 political organization called Scientists and Engineers for America, or SEA.

    In announcing its launch last week, the group said that it is concerned about how the Bush administration has “compromised the integrity of science” with, among other things, its policies on global warming and stem-cell research and its (alleged) support for nonscientific “intelligent design” theories of evolution. SEA members have also cited a delay in making the “morning-after” pill, sold under the name Plan B, readily available over-the-counter as another example of a sustained government “assault” on science and scientists.

    Link to “The Pope Is Right About Science”

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/cal.....an161.html

    The Pope Is Right About Science

    by Gene Callahan

    Excerpt:

    The belief that the only route to genuine understanding is that provided by the physical sciences, and that they are potentially capable of explaining anything that goes on in the world, is merely a prejudice, backed neither by evidence – for after all, there are many things science has not been able to explain – nor by philosophical considerations. In fact, many notable philosophers, including Husserl, Oakeshott, Polanyi, and Nagel, have noted that the assertion that human understanding can be reduced to mechanical causes is self-defeating. It is nonsensical to label the outcome of any mechanical process as “true” or “false” – the outcome is simply what had to happen based on the physical laws relevant to the situation. Anyone arguing that human thinking can be reduced entirely to physical mechanisms must admit that his theory applies to his own thinking no less than it does to, say, moral reasoning or theology. Therefore, per his own theory, it is nonsensical to claim that the theory is true! No, even his scientific work is only the meaningless product of the jostling about of a bunch of particles within fields controlling their movements. When an evolutionary biologist suggests that all of mankind’s religious beliefs are attributable to our genes’ efforts to propagate themselves, honesty should force him to admit that his biological ideas also are just attempts by his genes to survive – the “discovery” of DNA was really nothing more than Watson’s and Crick’s best chance to get laid!

    Attempts to proclaim science as the only real form of knowledge regularly point to its “success” as plain evidence of its superiority. But such arguments suffer from a vicious circularity – the criteria by which they judge success are scientific criteria, and, therefore, first award the prize to science and then “discover” that it holds it. It is as though I tried to prove my genius by taking an IQ test I devised myself, a test in which I included only questions that I was sure I could answer correctly. And, if later I realize I made a mistake, I allow myself to go back and amend it, boasting that this offered even further proof of my pre-eminence, since it demonstrated that I am not wedded to my errors, unlike the usual taker of an intelligence test.

    Epistemology addresses questions like, “Does science provide us with a reliable way of knowing things about the world, and, if so, is the sort of knowledge it offers universal or conditional?” Trying to reach answers to those queries through a scientific investigation is logically untenable – the researcher would first have to decide that science is a valid means for discovering truths about reality, but that is the very issue his research is supposed to be helping us to resolve! I cannot avoid concluding that the Pope was standing on the philosophical high ground when he declared that such matters are inherently outside the scope of scientific inquiry, a proposition that can be convincingly defended without any appeals to religious faith or divine revelations.

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