Straw in the wind: Catholic bishop affirms traditional Western view rejecting "mindless evolution"

Bishop Donald Wuerl of the Diocese of Pittsburgh published an article in the Pittsburgh Catholic, in which he makes the point that great foundational thinkers in the Western tradition have generally come to the evidence-based conclusion that the cosmos is designed, without making use of theological arguments. Many were not Christians or theists.

On the one hand, in the years since Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1855, some scientists offer the theory that the best explanation for the existence of all life is random selection and the natural evolution of species.

On the other hand other scientists support the theory of intelligent design. This explanation of natural phenomena goes back, in a well documented manner, to the time of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers. The great Greek philosophers and naturalists lived some 300 years before Christ and attempted to explain the cosmos solely from the light of human reason.

That's worth keeping in mind when we hear "culture wars" interpretations of the controversy.

It is not a conflict between fundamentalism and science; it is a conflict between the consensus position of Western civilization (in favour of design) and naturalistic materialism, which has attempted to gain a monopoly in science and suppress all evidence against itself.