Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, who is the head of the Catholic Church’s Pontifical Council for Culture, recently affirmed the church’s full fledged acceptance of neo-Darwinism as the mechanism by which God created the world and mankind.  He wrote, “In fact, what we mean by evolution is the world as created by God.”  

How did they goof up again? 

They overstepped their religious boundaries by making formal scientific assertions.  (Steven Jay Gould, the late biologist who argued for a vigorous separation of religious and scientific domains, might be turning in his grave right now.)  You see, the Catholic Church made the same sort of mistakes with Galileo in the 1600s.  He said that the earth and all the planets move around the sun; the Catholic Church said he was wrong and they locked him up.  The church claimed the sun and all the planets revolve around the earth.  It turns out Galileo was right and the church was wrong.

There are 2 good reasons why churches should refrain from making such statements. 

First, as Galileo pointed out to the Catholic Church hundreds of years ago, churches are in the business of saving souls, not scientific theories.  Hearing the Catholic Church make scientific truth claims is a bit like going to the butcher shop and being given legal instruction on how to write a binding contract, or going to the bank and being given medical instructions on how to treat a sports injury.  I am pleased that the LDS church has refrained from making formal statements about scientific issues.  It seems to understand better than other religions that its purpose is to bring souls unto Christ.

Second, science is an ever changing enterprise.  It is a bit hard for us to realize that well-accepted theories come and go because so many of us don’t have the benefit of living long enough to see this happen.  Here are a few recent examples.  The once widely accepted scientific theory of Phlogiston is now debunked.  The once widely accepted theory of Luminiferous Ether is now debunked.  Even several of Newton’s “irreplaceable and irrefutable” ideas have now been replaced by Einstein’s Relativity.  The geocentric (earth-centered) theory of the universe which dominated science for over 1400 years was eventually replaced, and, yes, one day evolution may also be replaced by a superior theory of the diversity of life forms.  Hard to believe?!  That is what the advocates of ether and Newton’s mechanics once thought.

What happens when a scientific theory changes or is debunked, as history has shown?  This is an important question for religions to consider.  If a religion thoroughly embraces a scientific theory, what does it say when that theory changes or is debunked?  If it claims inspiration from God, how will its leadership appear to others when it says, “Uh. Umm . . . We made a mistake, guys”?  It will appear foolish.  This is exactly what happened with the Catholic Church in its handling of the Galileo affair.

American philosopher George Santayana wrote “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”  The Catholic Church would be wise to consider this sage advice.

 


Comments

Jeff G

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 6:18:39 pm

Two things:

First, the theories of common descent and mutability of species are two of the most well confirmed theories to have ever been put to potentially falsifying scrutiny. The idea that these ideas will be completely overthrown is truly ludicrous.

Second, while the church might not have spoken out in favor (or opposition!) of many scientific issues (although ether and animal magnetism were endorsed from the general conference pulpit), they certainly have endorsed a few social issues; issues which they were eventually "shown" to be wrong about. i.e. racism, polygamy, sexism, church/state relations, slavery, etc. The church then proceeded to change in favor of what everyone else believed. The question is, why should we hold the Catholic accommodation of scientific issues against them and at the same time give the Mormons a free pass in their accommodation of social issues?

 

Proud Daughter of Eve

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 7:12:12 pm

Your post seems needlessly antagonistic and self-congratulatory. The Catholic church has at least as much right to change its position on an issue as the LDS church does.

Maybe they're wrong. Maybe they're right. In the end, there's only One who can judge. I, for one, see it as a positive step. I've never seen any reason that evolution could not be the process by which God created the earth and by promoting this view of things, the Catholic church can help tone down the increasingly strident religion vs. science arguments.

I remember how pleased I was when Pope John Paul II redefined hell as the absence of God. They don't have the Prophet but that doesn't mean they don't have ANY light or truth. We shouldn't denigrate the changes they make; we should celebrate those things we share, or come to share. Each bit of light is needed in this world.

 

Dave C.

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 9:27:49 pm

Jeff,

You said: "theories of common descent and mutability of species are two of the most well confirmed theories to have ever been put to potentially falsifying scrutiny".

My goodness, Jeff! You don't realize how wrong you are to assert that common descent is one of the most proven scientific theories. On the contrary, IT HAS NEVER BEEN PROVEN! (sorry for shouting). If you can show me where one life form has evolved in the laboratory into another life form I will start a petition to nominate you to receive a nobel prize in biology.

On the other hand, you are right that evolution resulting from mutations within a species is a fact. Mind you, in my post the focus was more about the Catholic Church accepting evolution as an indisputable sole source of variation in the world.

I agree with you on the issue of the LDS Church taking sides in social issues, although I would not say it was wrong on polygamy, because the law was given by the Savior. As you probably know, the church had to give it up because it contradicted the laws of the land.

 

Dave C.

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 9:34:00 pm

Proud Daughter,

You wrote: "Your post seems needlessly antagonistic and self-congratulatory."

How am I being antagonistic? On the contrary, I am being a voice of warning to them. And how am I being self-congratulatory? On the contrary, I read nothing self-serving or hedonistic in my post.

As for the rest of your comment, I completely agree! Perhaps, therefore, you have misinterpreted the message in my post.

 

Jeff G

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 9:56:21 pm

Don't be absurd. Just like all science that hadn't been figured out over 4,000 years ago, we must rely on indirect observation in order to confirm (not prove, mind you) any scientific hypothesis. With that in mind, the mutability and common heritage of species has been very, very, very well confirmed. I offer the following list evidences:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

If one could find a single other scientific hypothesis that finds evidence from half as broad a spectrum of fields, I would be mighty impressed.

One other thing worth mentioning in this debate. If we are going to be honest, we don't care if all living things are really related to each other. Rather, we only care if humans are related to non-humans. So saying that scientists haven't shown that ALL species are descended from each other is somewhat disingenuous. Furthermore, the evidence for human descent the about as strong as one could ever hope for it to be.

 

Dave C.

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:14:49 pm

Jeff,

I agree that "the evidence for human descent the about as strong as one could ever hope for it to be."

I concede that the evidence is convincing, especially the fossil record evidencing transitionary life forms. But the crux of the matter is that it has not been proven in a deductive manner a'la the hypothetico-deductive model of science. The evidence has enabled, at best, inductive Sherlock Holmesian story telling to explain things we find in nature.

I have heard the argument that other well-accpeted theories like gravity and relativity were also discovered in similar inductive manner. This is true! - I teach it to my students. So why not accept common descent if we accept gravity and relativity?

Gravity and relativity have been *proven* in deductive, controlled experiments, common descent has not. Put differently, gravity and relativity have been subjected to crucial tests, common descent has not.

Given that common descent contradicts my personal theology, I am happy to exploit this legitimate weakness in the theory of common descent.

 

Jeff G

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:30:08 am

No, gravity and relativity have not been "proven", if only for the two reasons which always plague all of science: the inexhaustibility of the ever present ceteris paribus claus, and the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. These problems are the very embodiment of inductive reasoning and its shortcomings, and the physical sciences are just as prey to them as the life sciences are.

True, they have been confirmed in very surprising ways, and the more surprising the confirmation, the stronger it is. But then, so has the Neo-Darwinian synthesis.

I would argue, however, that not only has the Neo-Darwinian synthesis been confirmed in just as surprising of ways, but by a far greater spectrum of sources than Einsteinian physics has.

It is no stretch of the imagination at all to call Darwin the Newton of the life sciences. Indeed, we might call Darwin's achievement a bit greater than that of Newton if only due to the rather chaotic nature of data with which he had to work.

 

Dave C.

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:06:54 am

Ceterus paribus (all things being equal) is an accepted limitation of science - I rarely hear it being mentioned as a reason to continually question the results of well-constructed scientific investigations. I have done several scientific studies and have had them peer-reviewed. Reviewers don't question cause and effect relationships by bringing up ceteris paribus. Again, it is a legitimate concern, but not one that stops us for ascertaining the certainty of a scientific theory/law.

I don't know your background on these matters - it seems you speak with some authority, but it should be noted that the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent is not a deal breaker when conducting science according to the flasification criteria of Karl Popper (hypothetico-deductive model). When we attempt to falsify our theories, we are not affirming the consequent.

Sir Arthur Eddington's 1919 journey to African to test the theory of Relativity is far superior to any test proffered by advocates of common descent. He found that the sun's gravity well deflected the apparent position of stars during a solar eclipse.
And what about the 1971 atomic clock experiment supporting Relativity? Hafele and Keating synchronized 4 atomic clocks and then placed them on planes that flew around the world twice. True to Einstein's predictions, the eastward flying clocks lost nanoseconds and the westward flying clocks gained nanoseconds. These and other tests provide conclusive evidence that allows us to assert the *certainty* of Relativity. These hypotheses were formed and tested in the traditional hypothetico-deductive manner.

The evidence for common descent pales by comparison. It is all inductive evidence.

 

Jeff G

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:42:50 pm

All evidence in science is inductive. All of it without exception. The hypothetico-deductive method is a method whereby you deduce a particular result from a set of posited initial conditions. However, it is impossible to ever actually list all of the initial conditions, so we simply list those we think are relevant. However, what evidence could we ever have that we knew ALL of the relevant initial conditions? This is the problem with both biology and physics share together.

That's why you can never say that you know a scientific model is true, only that it works. This is true to relativity and natural selection. The precision in physics certainly surpasses that of biology, but that doesn't make it any more or less "truer". To restate, the precision of those experiments which confirm gravity and relativity do NOT mean that we should have more confidence in the truth of them than we should in natural selection.

What lends credibility to models and theories is not precision, for the biological realm is not a world which lends itself to micrometer precision. What lends credibility to theories is how unexpected their confirmed results would be is the theory were not true. The fact that we would observe light bending and time dilation WITHOUT relativity would be flat out shocking. That is why it is such strong evidence. But it is still not deductive proof. Similarly, the fact that we observe those 29+ phenomena that I linked to WITHOUT Neo-Darwinian evolution would be flat out astounding. Consider the case of the discovery of Tiktaalik: scientists knew what to look for and where, and lo and behold they actually found it in Greenland. I'm sorry, but that is absolutely astounding and as such counts as VERY strong evidence in favor of evolution. On such a large scale and in such a chaotic "lab" you could never in a million years hope for a better case of the hypothetico-deductive method at work.

 

Jeff G

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:46:53 pm

Just to be clear, what makes the evidence for gravity and relativity is not the precision of the predicted results, per se, but the surprising nature of how precision of the predicted results. The same can be said for the evidence supporting the Neo-Darwinian synthesis.

 

Dave C.

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 2:23:31 pm

Jeff,

Yes, all scientific evidence is ultimately inductive - even hypothetico-deductive results are inductive evidence for the theory; in other words, they are not deductive evidence in the sense of providing the absolute truth of theories.

I am talking more of degrees of certainty or establishing the verisimilitde (truthlikeness) of our theories. This is why I surrounded *certainty* with an asterix in previous posts. I attribute a far greater degree of verisimilitude to theories corroborated with hypothetico-deductive evidence than what I call inductive-type evidence.

Nevertheless, I acknowledge that you have presented legitimate and compelling arguments for the other side, and so I have thoroughly enjoyed this exchange.

Cheers!

 

Jacob J

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 3:27:24 pm

Very good discussion. Always great to see Jeff G on a tear about science.

As to this idea that churches are in the business of saving souls and should therefore keep their mouth shut about science, I think this is a bit shortsighted. Religion is a much more expansive enterprise than that. It does not simply attempt to save souls, but also to explain the true nature of our existence. Mormonism has long included the idea that all truth falls under its purview. Given that, I think it is appropriate for religious institutions to integrate and wrestle with scientific knowledge just as any individual might.

 

Jeff G

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 4:34:32 pm

I guess I just don't see why all those evidences listed in the 29+ link don't count as "hypothetico-dedective" in nature. While there is certainly a difference in degree on many counts, I don't see it as a difference in kind at all.

 

Dave C.

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 9:26:52 am

Jacob,
I agree. In the LDS faith general authorities have made several statements about science, but as far as I can tell, the council of the 12 and the 1st presidency has never formally supported (or rejected) a scientific theory. I admit that we are talking about a fine line here. I am concerned about churches making formal declarations about scientific theory, which is what the Catholic Church appears to have done.

 

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