I find myself deluged with accommodationist articles today, so we’ll have one more post after this, and then, if you’re good boys and girls, we can have some cute animals.
Nobody expects the New Yorker to come down on religion. And indeed, although there are pieces that in effect express the nonbelief of their authors (see here, for instance), there’s always some lip-service paid to faith, or some atheism-dissing (in my case, my love of cats and Motown songs was characterized as “irrational love,” entirely similar to that seen in religion). On some fine day, maybe I’ll open my New Yorker to find a take-no-prisoners piece on the perfidies of faith. But that day will come when, say, we have an atheist President in the U.S.
At any rate, the New Yorker has patted itself on the back for defending science in a new piece (free online) by Michael Specter, “Pope Francis and the GOP’s bad science.” (For non-Americans, the “GOP” stands for the “Grand Old Party,” i.e., Republicans.) The author’s credential are these:
Michael Specter has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998, and has written frequently about AIDS, T.B., and malaria in the developing world, as well as about agricultural biotechnology, avian influenza, the world’s diminishing freshwater resources, and synthetic biology.
And his message is that the Pope, religious though he is, is infinitely more accepting of science than those climate- and evolution-denialist Republican politicians who dominate science policy in Congress:
It’s a shame that there is no provision in the Constitution of the United States that would permit Pope Francis to serve as the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
. . . That’s too bad, because the Pope believes that science, rational thought, and data all play powerful and positive roles in human life. The senators seem as if they do not. Last month, Francis made a lot of news when, in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, he said, essentially, that the Catholic Church had no problem with evolution or with the Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe. “When we read the account of Creation in Genesis, we risk imagining that God was a magician, complete with an all-powerful magic wand. But that was not so. … Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of Creation,’’ Francis said.
. . . Still, this Pope made a point of talking about evolution—and to do so at a time when the men and women we have chosen to represent us in Washington often equate support for Darwinism with eternal damnation.
Specter goes on to decry, correctly, that the House Science & Technology committee is peopled with representatives who call anthropogenic climate change a hoax, and don’t accept evolution. He also claims, and he’s probably right again, that Americans used to elect politicians who didn’t make their names by attacking settled science. He uses Bobby Jindal as an example of how times have changed:
Jindal, who was a Rhodes scholar and before that received an honors degree in biology from Brown University, was recently asked at a public forum if he believed in evolution. “The reality is I was not an evolutionary biologist,” he responded, as if study in that one field was required to address the issue. He then went on to say that local school systems should decide “how they teach science” in their classrooms.
No, they shouldn’t get to decide what qualifies as legitimate science, as even the Pope seems to understand. In his speech at the Pontifical Academy, he said that, at least since the creation of the universe, we have all followed a logical, scientifically defined path—not a path determined by parish priests, reactionary American senators, or local school systems.
“I am happy to express my profound esteem and my warm encouragement to carry forward scientific progress,’’ the Pope said. It would be nice if we could elect political leaders capable of that kind of thought. But, in this country, that might take a miracle.
Where Specter goes wrong is claiming that the Pope is down with evolution, and therefore is down with science, and therefore would be a good person to head a congressional committee. And that’s just wrong.
True, Francis has expressed sentiments saying that evolution did happen, and for that liberals have fallen all over themselves extolling the Pontiff’s scientific acumen. “What a great move forward for accepting evolution!”, they cry.
The problem is, as I pointed out in The New Republic, what Francis said has been church policy all along. Move along folks: Francis said nothing new. The Catholic Church has accepted the process of evolution, in a limited way, since Pope Pius XII. But there are several caveats to this:
1. Humans are an exception to naturalistic evolution, as God instilled souls into us somewhere in the hominin lineage. That is not, as Specter maintains, the church’s position that, “at least since the creation of the universe, we have all followed a logical, scientifically defined path.” Since when have souls been a pit stop on the scientifically defined path of evolution?
2. The church still maintains that Adam and Eve were the historic and sole ancestors of all modern humans.
There is no evidence for claim #1: it’s what Anthony Grayling calls an “arbitrary superfluity,” added to a scientific theory to satisfy the emotional needs of Catholics. And #2 just flies in the face of evoution per se, for we know from population genetics that at no point in the last million years did the human population sink below about 12,500 individuals, much less to two (or eight, if you take Noah, his wife, and his sons). That’s settled Church doctrine, and is explicit. There’s no metaphor in the Church’s insistence on the historicity of Adam and Eve. The policy below is from Humani Generis, written in 1950 and still representing Catholic dogma:
Not much wiggle room there, eh? You can’t metaphorize it, either, as it says that it’s wrong to think that Adam either wasn’t our historical father or that he “represented a certain number of first parents” (the tactic that metaphorizers often take).
So, really, souls and two historical ancestors of modern Homo sapiens? Not to mention Francis’s belief in Satan, demonic possession, and guardian angels. Oh, and there’s that “original sin.” What, exactly is that?
Is Francis a man we want to hold up as a model of scientific belief to oppose to Republicans? I don’t think so. He’s infested with all the metaphysical superstitions of Catholicism, and really said nothing new. The view that he’s breathing a love of science into Catholicism is based solely on wishful thinking. And when you hear someone like Specter put the Pope on a pedestal of science, without mentioning his other beliefs I’ve mentioned, you know you’re dealing with someone who is trying to osculate religion, and who has not done his homework about what the Vatican really thinks about evolution.
It would be nice if The New Yorker were as honest about the Church’s beliefs as is The New Republic.
h/t: Stephen Q. Muth, Butter’s staff ~
