Francis and Science

With all the pomp of an intrepid investigative reporter who has uncovered the next Watergate, Jerry Coyne announces that Catholics believe that God created the world: “The Church’s support of evolution, then, has been equivocal: while allowing that humans had evolved, it also affirmed human exceptionalism in the form of our unique soul. And the historical doctrine of Adam and Eve is profoundly unscientific, for we could not have descended from only two people, something that itself implies special creation. The Vatican, in other words, embraces a view of evolution that is partly scientific but also partly ‘theistic,’ reflecting God’s intervention to produce a species made in His own image.”

Even Pope Francis believes it, as it turns out. Coyne’s disappointment is touching: Francis teaches “the Church’s traditional view of non-naturalistic, theistic evolution, expressed in words that sound good, but that still reflect a form of creationism.” Worse, it appears that “creationism of some sort is still an essential part of Francis’s view of life. Although the media, besotted by a supposedly ‘modern’ Pope, is all excited about what Francis said, his views don’t differ in substance from that of his recent predecessors. As usual, Francis appears to be a voice for modernity but still clings to old dogma.”

Well, yes, Mr. Coyne. That “God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth” is in the Christian creeds, and has been there a long time and it’s not going anywhere.