The Vatican gets it right (for once)

My thanks to Steve, a Church of the Churchless reader, for letting me know that the Vatican says the faithful should listen to science. Since it is likely that a majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices soon will be Catholics, maybe this will help spur the court to make a correct decision if an Evolution v. Intelligent Design case comes up.

It was encouraging to hear that at least some Vatican functionaries have a decent understanding of what differentiates evolution and intelligent design/creationism: proof.

Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis." "A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."

Intelligent design is a hypothesis. That’s all. Christianity also is merely a hypothesis, but I don’t expect the Vatican will be holding a news conference anytime soon to admit this. Nor will any other religion, the tenets of which all are hypotheses—not facts or even theories.

Advocates of intelligent design misuse these scientific terms: “hypothesis,” “fact,” “theory.” For example, in the case challenging the school board in Pennsylvania that wants to put evolution and intelligent design on an equal footing, it was claimed that “Charles Darwin’s theory is not a fact.”

Well, how could it be? Facts and theories are different according to definitions of the National Academy of Sciences.

A fact is an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as true. A theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

The theory of evolution is supported by countless facts. But a theory is more than a collection of facts. It is an explanation, a higher-order level of knowledge.

However, when speaking informally scientists also use “fact” to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. In this sense evolution is indeed a fact, as the “Is evolution a fact or a theory?” FAQ says.

Almost certainly, no religious hypothesis ever is going to become a fact. For a “hypothesis” is a tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested. Tested, not accepted on faith.

I can’t think of any genuinely religious hypothesis that has been confirmed by science after being tested. What statement in the Bible, Koran, Vedas, or whatever has turned out to be scientifically true?

I’m sure it’s possible to find general propositions that are in tune with modern science (this is the premise of “The Tao of Physics” and similar books), but so far as I’m aware no prophet or saint ever has revealed a hitherto unknown truth about the natural world.

If you’re looking for spiritual facts, they’re going to have to be directly realized and proved by yourself. Facts are observations. Spiritual observations, by definition, aren’t material. Thus they can’t be shared with others, as when we say “Look at that bird over there!” and the other person sees what we’re talking about.

With spirituality, no one ever is going to see what we’re talking about. That’s why science is science and religion is religion, notwithstanding the efforts of true believers to blur the distinction.

Cardinal Paul Poupard’s warning is apt: religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason. For once, the Vatican got it right.

Comments

[John Marikos]

Two other ways of looking at this discussion of science and spirituality. If you look at the history of science you will find that the scientists of any given day felt they had all the pieces of information necessary to justify making statements as to what was true from a scientific point of view. History also shows that they frequently didn't have all the pieces of information they needed and later future scientists discovered that this "scientific truth" wasn't necessarily so. So, these scientists made new declarations of truth.

It makes good sense to stop treating science like a religion to avoid having a later crisis of faith with it. Just because something cannot be proven today, it doesn't mean it isn't true. We may not have the ability, yet, to prove it or disprove it. Science risks fundamentalism when it ignores its own history.

The scientific method is a marvelous tool. It can even be used to prove to oneself the reality of a spiritual experience. What people forget is that replication of a given experiment depends up on all conditions being the same as the original experiment. Some experiments aren't too fussy about the conditions being exactly alike. Others require extreme precision and everything must be almost exactly the same as the first time or it just won't work. A spiritual experience happens to a unique individual at a time when he or she has a unique level of understanding combined with certain physical, emotional and mental states and environments. It would be extremely difficult--almost impossible--to come up with the exact same conditions again--even for the same person. Because he or she has been changed by the experience. Therefore the conditions can no longer be the same. However, this individual can use the methods of science to set up new "experiments" to have similar experiences with different results based on conditions and questions he or she now has. Others can set up their own "experiments" with their uniques conditions and questions and get something similar but from a different point of view.

One of the dangers of both science and religion/spirituality comes from accepting the results of someone else's experiment as the only truth. Truth isn't limited. Our perceptions of it, when we're functioning as humans, is. Truth doesn't depend upon a vote--the majority doesn't get to decide what Truth is. But people who are unable to experiment on their own with any kind of precision, will be limited in their perceptions and understandings. And they will think they can vote on the nature of truth. Our country was designed to prevent this from happening, to give everyone the opportunity to determine for himself or herself the nature of truth. This, not these momentary glimpses of truth we call science and religion, is what we need to protect.

[Navyug Sandhu]

I agree with Marikos when he says"It makes good sense to stop treating science like a religion to avoid having a later crisis of faith with it".Science is a tool, not the end. Science is essentially lying within the purview of human perception, and no one can deny that all is not within human perception.Whether science can deduce accurate conclusions about non-perceptible is debatable.
One word regarding the debate of evolution vs intelligent design. I think there is a possibility that intelligent design could incorporate the evolution itself. For example,such a design is possible with our modern machine- the computer. Think of a design which is programmed to include evolution of its characters with time.
But this whole concept of evolution is linked with time. And my personal belief is that most of the truth associated with creation is beyond time and space. This would be a realm where this debate just loses its meaning.