Category: Faith & Science
Templeton’s Darwin Conference in Rome
“Do you know who funded it?” asked the email from the AP reporter. She and a number of other people read my post from three days ago about the Darwin conference being held in Rome. I took a deep breath and replied to the AP email, “Yes, I know who funded it.” It was the Templeton Foundation. I took a deep breath because Templeton is a powerful and well-connected. You don’t want to cross Charles Harper of Templeton if you can help it. But in public and private Harper has attacked intelligent design and Discovery Institute. He is not just interested in discussion, but in molding the discussion in certain ways. To that end, Templeton funds go to many groups Read More ›
Exotic Science and Theology in Rome
This week’s conference in Rome on Darwin and evolution, nominally sponsored by the Gregorian University and Notre Dame “under the High Patronage of the Pontifical Council on Culture,” has a public relations budget to promote some conclusions that would seem to vary from the positions of Pope Benedict. The Council on Culture has little or no funding of its own for such science conferences and has had to accept non-Vatican funding — and the guidance and other strings that go with it. Intelligent design scientists not only are not present, as a consequence, but their views were misrepresented and trashed ahead of time by the conference organizers. Instead, alongside some rather interesting speakers, you will hear a parade of atheists, Read More ›
Happy Atheist Day
Dr. Steven Novella recently took issue with an essay I wrote for Forbes.com. Forbes has a fair survey of differing opinions on Darwin’s theory, which, of course, has angered Darwinists, who realize that the continued viability of Darwin’s theory depends on its insulation from criticism. They censor criticism of Darwinism in schools, and they aren’t happy to see the weaknesses of Darwinism discussed in the public forum, along with its strengths. In my essay, I reviewed some of the scientific problems with Darwin’s theory, and I pointed out that Darwinism is itself a religious ideology. Darwin’s theory is the creation myth of atheism. Dr. Novella begins:
Reviewing Jerry Coyne, Part 3: The National Academy of Sciences Statement on Religion and Science.
Darwinist Dr. Jerry Coyne, in his New Republic article “Seeing and Believing; The never-ending attempt to reconcile science and religion, and why it is doomed to fail,” quotes the National Academy of Sciences on the reconciliation of religion and science. The NAS statement is worth a post on its own. Dr. Coyne notes: The National Academy of Sciences, America’s most prestigious scientific body, issued a pamphlet assuring us that we can have our faith and Darwin, too: “Science and religion address separate aspects of human experience. Many scientists have written eloquently about how their scientific studies of biological evolution have enhanced rather than lessened their religious faith. And many religious people and denominations accept the scientific evidence for evolution.” Science Read More ›
Reviewing Jerry Coyne, Part 2: Faith and Science.
Darwinist Dr. Jerry Coyne, in his New Republic article Seeing and Believing; The never-ending attempt to reconcile science and religion, and why it is doomed to fail”, asks if religion and science can be reconciled. He notes: …[T]here are religious scientists and Darwinian churchgoers. But this does not mean that faith and science are compatible, except in the trivial sense that both attitudes can be simultaneously embraced by a single human mind. (It is like saying that marriage and adultery are compatible because some married people are adulterers. ) It is also true that some of the tensions disappear when the literal reading of the Bible is renounced, as it is by all but the most primitive of JudeoChristian sensibilities. Read More ›