Scientific data supports design in evolution, says cardinal

Published: 2005-07-08

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Any evolutionary position that denies the "overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science" and incompatible with Catholic teaching, said Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna. Many scientists want "to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science," he said in an article in the July 7 New York Times. "Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of 'chance and necessity' are not science at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence," he said in the article which quoted the late Pope John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI holds the same position as his predecessor, said Cardinal Schonborn. The article did not discuss the current debate in the United States over some local public school boards that want science classes to incorporate views holding that creation is the result of an intelligent design.

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