Distancing itself from the days of locking up the Galileo's of the world, the Vatican has taken yet another stance in favor of evolution.
Sort of.
Pope Benedict spent this past weekend in a seminar with some of his former doctoral students, and a small cadre of philosophers and theologians. The seminar focused on discussing the relationship between faith and science, particularly with regard to the origin of life.
Interestingly, the minutes from the seminar will be published and available for all to see. The minutes should be released around November.
These minutes, Reuters reports, "… will show how Catholic theologians see no contradiction between their belief in divine creation and the scientific theory of evolution."
Now, the question is how this event will affect the firestorm over the teaching of evolution in the U.S. My hope is that the American evangelical movement will follow the Vatican's lead and pull its head out of the sand on this issue.
I'm not holding my breath.
Expecting Protestants to lineup behind views of the Catholic Church is as absurd as claiming that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. It would be as irrational as, say, claiming that all life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.
It would almost be as illogical as religious fundamentalism.
But the Vatican's continued support for evolution points to just how monumental of a waste of time the evolution-intelligent design debate is.
If the conservative Catholic Church – which still bans women from the priesthood and disavows the use of any form of contraceptive – can accept evolution, then every other Christian denomination ought to be able to do the same.
They ought to, yet it is clear that fundamentalist conservatives have no intention of changing their strict opposition to the teaching of evolution.
Evangelicals, as they like to be called, believe the Bible is the literal word of God and anything that contradicts their literal interpretation of the Good Book should be flatly rejected.
And I'm fine with that.
At some point we all have to realize that there is no reaching these people. They have their beliefs, and there is no argument in the world that is going to convince them otherwise.
Wasting time debating the merits of evolution with many of these fundamentalists is tantamount to wasting an afternoon trying to convince the various nut-job street preachers on campus that, contrary to their beliefs, we are not all "little Satans brainwashed by [our] evil professors in the Sun Devil capitol."
Some people just are not going to be reached. This is typically what happens when people debate abortion. People on opposite sides of the issue spend a couple hours yelling at each other, with the participants all the more convinced of their own correctness by the end.
With this in mind, those of us who believe in evolution (and other scientific facts like gravity and genetics) should no longer try to convince creationists that they are misguided. Instead, we owe it to creationists to give them what they want: freedom from the pseudo-science of evolution.
Simply leaving evolution out of science textbooks and public school classrooms is not enough. We must help isolate creationists from the perils of evolution entirely.
Those who reject evolution should not have it forced upon them. This includes preventing creationists from enjoying any of the discoveries of, or anything that has used research from, the field of evolutionary biology.
The triumphs of modern science are due in large part to the understanding of living organisms in terms of their evolutionary history. With this in mind, I urge all creationists to live consistently with their principles and shun modern medicine.
As for the Catholic Church, instead of Galileo, can you lock up Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson instead?
Macy Hanson is a philosophy and political science senior. Contact him at macy.hanson@asu.edu
