Speaking engagement: God, Evolution, and Catholics, and zinger sauce on the side

Okay, pass on the zinger sauce. There’s no insurance against head explosions.

I will be speaking at the God and Evolution event at Biola University in Los Angeles, October 16, 2010, on “Catholics and Evolution”, from 10:50 – 11:15 am. They want $25 but the event lasts from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m, seems to include lunch, and a free copy of the book in which I have a chapter, God and Evolution.

Here are the details:

God And Evolution:

Protestants, Catholics, and Jews Explore Darwin's Challenge to Faith
with Marvin Olasky, Ph.D., Jonathan Wells, Ph.D., Ph.D., Jay Richards, Ph.D., Denyse O'Leary, John West, Ph.D., David Klinghoffer, Casey Luskin, J.D., Craig J. Hazen, Ph.D., John Bloom, Ph.D., Ph.D.

Click Here for more details & to RSVP now!

Can you believe in God and evolution at the same time? What is "theistic" evolution, and how consistent is it with traditional theism? What challenges does Darwin's theory pose for Protestants, Catholics, and Jews? Is it "anti-science" to question Darwinian theory? Explore these questions and more at this upcoming conference at Biola University.

Sponsored by the Discovery Institute and Biola's Master of Arts in Science and Religion.

Basically, I will be talking about current misrepresentations of Catholic teachings on evolution, enthusiastically promoted by Darwinists to create unwitting support for materialist atheism. My focus will be the great turn-of-the-twentieth century Catholic writers, who had the scam figured out, but were not able to stem the tide of accommodation to fashionable materialism. Anyway, I’d love to meet you if you can come.

Sightings: Atheists and theistic evolutionists sip spring water on a panel together, and ...

I am so glad that Lawrence M. Krauss, cosmologist and director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University, exists, so we don't have to invent him.

He and I turned out to share a taste for talking about religion and about journalism, which I discovered during his evening address at the Canadian Science Writers' convention in Sudbury in May. Most recently, in "God and Science don't mix" for the Wall Street Journal (June 26, 2009), he advanced the view that "A scientist can be a believer. But professionally, at least, he can't act like one." Nonetheless, he insists,

... while scientific rationality does not require atheism, it is by no means irrational to use it as the basis for arguing against the existence of God, and thus to conclude that claimed miracles like the virgin birth are incompatible with our scientific understanding of nature.

However, I bet he doesn't have nearly the same sympathy for using facts of science to demonstrate the existence of God, as astronomer Hugh Ross does. A man of science cannot afford to be that broad-minded, after all, ... but I digress.

But now, here's something really interesting: Krauss relates that he was on a "Science, Faith, Religion" panel at the World Science Festival in New York City ( June 13, 2009). As an atheist, he was paired with philosopher Colin McGinn. On the other side were "devoutly Catholic" biologist Ken Miller and Vatican astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno, with ABC's Bill Blakemore moderating. Krauss raised the question of the virgin birth of Jesus. He recalls,

When I confronted my two Catholic colleagues on the panel with the apparent miracle of the virgin birth and asked how they could reconcile this with basic biology, I was ultimately told that perhaps this biblical claim merely meant to emphasize what an important event the birth was. Neither came to the explicit defense of what is undeniably one of the central tenets of Catholic theology.

That's interesting. Because I was myself given to understand through discreet private sources that both men were devout Catholics.

Personally, I don't see the virgin birth of Jesus as much of an issue for science because it is regarded in the Christian tradition as an explicit act of God, apart from the ordinary workings of nature. So there is nothing to study and never will be.

Now, if you know for sure that there is no God, you know it didn't happen. If you know there is a God but are quite certain that he "wouldn't do things that way," you also know it didn't happen - though you are on less firm ground, more or less inventing your own modernist version of Christianity.

Dr. Krauss posts at Uncommon Descent now and then, and perhaps Ken Miller and Guy Consolmagno might also sign in and clarify their views. The latter two are, after all, important theistic evolutionists. With the appointment of near-theistic evolutionist Francis Collins, with his unusual views on the uniqueness of human life, to head of NIH, it might be a good idea to see how closely these guys map the mind space of the people they hope will listen to them.

Note: Over at Uncommon Descent, nullasalus warns that, based on an attendee's account, Krauss may have been trying to set the other panellists up, asking for a "naturalistic" account of the virgin birth, which is explicitly not available. As I say here, I hope they clarified that matter.

Darwinism and popular culture: Catholics who get the picture

In "Co-Discoverer of Natural Selection Believed in "Overruling Intelligence" Guiding Evolution"(True Catholic, July 1, 2009), Hilary White comments, referring to Michael Flannery’s new book on Wallace,

Flannery said that his book is an effort to "recast" the current dispute between materialist Darwinians and Intelligent Design proponents by examining the history of evolutionary theory. He holds that the "science" versus "creationism" conflict are "popular caricatures" that are "unhistorical and inaccurate."

He points to Wallace, a naturalist, anthropologist and biologist, who had independently developed a theory of natural selection when Darwin published his book. The two parted company in a dispute over the role of natural selection in the development of human intelligence. After years of research into this question, Wallace came to the conclusion that the processes of natural selection were guided by a higher intelligence, whereas Darwin held to the concept of "randomness" in evolution. The difference, Flannery says, is one of metaphysics, which, for Darwin, was already a settled question.

Writing in Forbes magazine, Flannery explained, "Darwin's own theory could hardly be called objectively scientific. Early influences on Darwin's youth established his predisposition to materialism and a dogmatic methodological naturalism long before his voyage on the Beagle."

It is nice to see Catholics address this head on. Too often, Catholic profs and high school teachers have been among the worst offenders in misrepresenting the purpose of Darwin's theory. (You know, the "no conflict between faith and science" crowd. ) Darwin's theory is not compatible with traditional metaphysics and was never intended to be. As Flannery points out, Darwin said as much in his notebooks, long before he published The Origin of Species or had any theory about it. Much recommended book.