Yesterday Liz Craig, the evil lady of the Kansas Citizen's for Science if you believe John Calvert from IDnet , sent a link to an illuminating interview on Metanexus with the Catholic theologian John Haught which gives a close look at Catholics and Intelligent design. This is an interesting interview since certain people in the political fray about the teaching of evolution have tried to portray Catholics as being intelligent design types. Indeed, some are; for instance Michael Behe, here commenting on an earlier work by John Haught. But others are not such as Ken Miller.
Haught says about intelligent design advocates:
"Particularly regarding the interpretation of scripture, the ID people are not, as a rule, Biblical literalists, although some of them are and some of them come close. What they share is a kind of theological confusion of science with religious ideas, and they tend together to propose that this should be wedged into the science classroom. So, I argued that historically, motivationally, rhetorically, and finally theologically, there is no way that you could logically identify intelligent design with the kind of discourse that goes on in any good science classroom."
Later on he observes quite correctly I believe that there is no unified Catholic stance on evolution but what Catholics reject is materialism as the belief that matter is all there is, since that would imply that there is no God or soul. I am not sure this is a correct theological interpretation, but hey I am not a theologian, just a liberal Catholic biologist trying to muddle along.
At any rate, the interview is definitely worth a look.
Other links:
Trial Transcript of Haught's Testimony in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Hearings.
Evolution of an ID Canard. This page details John Calvert's attack on Liz Craig. Tip of the antenna to Pat Hayes at Red State Rabble for this link.
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