Spin Cycle: Why the Washington Post worries about the Catholic Church checking out of Darwinism

In "Darwin's Compost", George Neumayr says it way better than me:

Schonborn’s clarification of the Church’s rejection of any theory that considers chance an adequate cause for complexity in nature frightens the elite, as they know that the Catholic Church is the most formidable foe to the Enlightenment’s search for God-less, purely material explanations for the functioning of the universe (which is, contrary to the opportunistic denials of atheism by evolutionists, what random variation and natural selection amount to).

Dissenters inside the Church and opportunists outside it have been working hard to neutralize the Church on the crucial question of evolution. But they will not get away with this, and Schonborn’s dissent marks the beginning of a serious backlash to the Enlightenment liberalism that has been smuggled into Catholicism as “reform.”

He also points out that Darwinism is not even a purely modern idea: It was rejected by the first great philosopher of science, Aristotle, 2500 years ago. He asks, would American students be allowed to read the passage he quotes from Aristotle?


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If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.