Item of interest for evolution-debate watchers:
Roman Catholic Cardinal Schönborn, who in a July 2005 New York Times editorial dissed evolution and backed Intelligent Design creationism, has issued a statement in which he says:
"Without a doubt, Darwin pulled off quite a feat with his main work and it remains one of the very great works of intellectual history. I see no problem combining belief in the Creator with the theory of evolution, under one condition -- that the limits of a scientific theory are respected."
In neither instance does Schönborn speak for the Roman Catholic church officially---neither his editorial nor the text quoted above was specificially approved by the Vatican---so one mustn't put the wrong kind of weight on these statements, in any case . . . and I don't know what to make of his apparent personal vacillation, either: Schönborn admits only that there may have been "misunderstanding" about what he meant in his NYT editorial, not that he is shifting his position. But some "misunderstanding" was inevitable: compare "I see no problem combining belief in the Creator with the theory of evolution" (October) to “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” (July). Yet the former line clearly does refer to an “unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection,” because that is exactly what Darwin described in his “main work,” On the Origin of Species. Many heads are being scratched out there.
Schönborn’s July wording hints that he identifies the "theory of evolution" with the work that Darwin did 150 years ago, which would be a grossly inadequate notion. This particular great work of intellectual history, the theory of evolution, has expanded manyfold in rich evidential detail, depth of understanding, experimental fruitfulness, and theoretical sophistication since the Origin hit the streets in 1859.
The news item about Schönborn's latest can be read at
