My first thought on

hearing that the Vatican’s astronomer spoke out against ID as pseudo-science (it is, more

correctly, “anti-science”), I thought, ‘wow, the Vatican has an astronomer?!’

Before you know it, they’ll be dealing with this

guy as they did Galileo. mjh

Vatican official rejects intelligent design teaching By NICOLE WINFIELD, The Associated Press

The

Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in

school programs was “wrong” and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.

“Intelligent design isn’t science even though it pretends

to be,” the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. “If you want to teach it in schools,

intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science.” …

In a June article in the

British Catholic magazine The Tablet, Coyne reaffirmed God’s role in creation, but said science explains the history of the universe.

“If they respect the results of modern science, and indeed the best of modern biblical research, religious believers must

move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a

watch that ticks along regularly.”

Rather, he argued, God should be seen more as an encouraging parent.

“God in

his infinite freedom continuously creates a world that reflects that freedom at all levels of the evolutionary process to greater and

greater complexity,” he wrote. “He is not continually intervening, but rather allows, participates, loves.”

[mjh: as Jas. put it, ‘our god is a CEO, not some middle-manager bogged down in the daily details.’]

The Vatican

Observatory, which Coyne heads, is one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world. It is based in the papal summer

residence at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome.
—–

Evolution News & Views
News Analysis of Media Coverage of the Debate Over Evolution
(a

site that believes “scientists, teachers, and students are under attack for questioning evolution” — [mjh: the cult

of paranoid victimhood])

CSC – Challenging Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and promoting Intelligent Design [mjh: The Discovery Institute is the center of their universe]