Evolution Archives - Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Claiming Darwin

Article 4000 words Level: high school and above This article by Myrna Perez Sheldon was published in 2015 in Cosmologics Magazine, which is a project of the Science, Religion, and Culture program at Harvard Divinity School. Sheldon discusses the impact on evolutionists of both the resurgence of Creationism and Stephen Jay Gould’s ideas about “punctuated equilibrium” during the 1970’s and 1980’s. She notes that Gould framed Charles Darwin as a historical figure who had been influenced by his time and place. According to Gould, Darwin’s theory did come down to explaining natural order without recourse to God, but largely because of Darwin’s own historical context—“all the higher order harmony that used to be seen as the source of evidence for God’s benevolence is epiphenomenal upon the struggle of something lower for personal gain. That’s all.” If this framing sounded a great deal like “Adam Smith’s economics translated into nature,” it was “no accident” according to Gould. Gould went on to … Continue reading →

From Cosmologics: On Darwin and Place

Articles (two) 4500 words (total) Level: high school and above These are two articles related to work by David Livingstone of Queen’s University, Belfast, who gave the 2015 Dudleian Lecture at Harvard Divinity School. They were published in Cosmologics Magazine, which is a project of the Science, Religion, and Culture program at Harvard Divinity School. Click here to access “David Livingstone: Putting Darwinism in Its Place” from Cosmologics Magazine. This is an excerpt from Livingstone’s book Dealing with Darwin: Place, Politics and Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution. Livingstone argues that how Darwin’s ideas were received varied widely. In some places Darwin’s ideas were rejected. He notes how some sought to cast “Darwinism and Catholicism as twin allies against the inductive truths of science and the revealed truths of scripture. It thus became possible to conflate as a single object of reproach an old enemy—popery—and a new one—evolution…. these were indeed the enemies of God.” Others welcomed Darwinism as endorsing … Continue reading →

Gregor Mendel – Father of Genetics

Book 128 pages Level: all audiences This 1997 book by Roger Klare is part of the Enslow Publishers Great Minds of Science series. It provides an overview of Fr. Gregor Mendel’s life and work that is oriented towards younger readers, and that is based largely on the biography of Mendel by Hugo Iltis. From the publisher: Gregor Mendel is known as the father of genetics. Genetics is the science of explaining how parents pass certain characteristics to their offspring. Mendel was an Austrian monk. He experimented with peas and other plants in the garden of the St. Thomas Monastery in what is now the Czech Republic. Mendel would cross-breed pea plants with different traits—round peas and wrinkled peas, for example. He wanted to see what their offspring were like. His experiments led to some startling discoveries. Though Mendel thought he had discovered something important, he never knew just how important his work really was. When Mendel published the results of … Continue reading →

What Good is Stardust?

Article 4 pages Level: all audiences This 2001 article from Christianity Today by Howard J. Van Till discusses what galaxies and stars are, and what they do. What they do is, among others things, produce over time the materials needed for us to exist today. Van Till, professor (emeritus) of physics and astronomy at Calvin College, notes that “the universe is a cosmos that is fully equipped with all of the resources and capabilities to provide for the needs of the day” and that it also “is richly gifted with remarkable capabilities for organizing itself, in the course of time, into new structures and forms”. He asks whether it is expecting too much for the universe to be a creation of God that is so generously gifted that it can even in time produce living creatures themselves? Van Till writes: [I]f the universe is a creation… then its natural capabilities are part of its God-given nature. That being the case, … Continue reading →

Evolution: Waiting and Purpose

Article (book excerpt) 1300 words Level: high school and above An excerpt from the book Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God, and the Drama of Life, in which the author, John F. Haught of Georgetown University, illustrates that there is a directionality, and thus a purpose, self-evidently present in the universe—and therefore that evolution cannot be described as aimless. [Click here to download PDF] … Continue reading →

La Evolución, Entre Ciencia, Razón y Fe

Article 20 pages Level: high school and above In this article, published in the journal Scientia et Fides in 2015, Juan-Luis Lorda of the Universidad de Navarra provides a brief overview of Darwinian evolution, using quotes from G. K. Chesterton and Leo Tolstoy as his starting point. Lorda writes: La evolución es un tema que interesa a las ciencias, a la filosofía y también a la teología cristiana. Vamos a buscar los puntos de diálogo. Seguiremos este itinerario: 1. Una introducción donde aprovechamos dos citas, de Chesterton y Tolstoi para situar nuestra reflexión. Además, pensaremos en lo que se requiere para hacer verdadera ciencia. 2. Nos plantearemos qué está demostrado científicamente sobre la evolución y qué no. 3. Trataremos sobre las afirmaciones que se inspiran en las ciencias pero son filosofía (o ideología). 4. Añadiremos lo que se puede decir desde la fe cristiana. Lorda’s conclusion: El universo, desde el Big Bang hasta el ser humano, es como un cuento … Continue reading →

Thomistic Evolution: A Catholic Approach to Understanding Evolution in the Light of Faith

Article collection Approximately 60 pages Level: high school and above The first page of the Thomistic Evolution website features the heading “Understanding Evolution with St. Thomas Aquinas”. Thomistic Evolution features a collection of sixty article written by a team of Dominicans with backgrounds in science, theology and philosophy. These are Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., who received his Ph.D. in Biology from M.I.T. and his S.T.D. in Moral Theology from the University of Fribourg; Fr. James Brent, O.P., who earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from St. Louis University; Bro. Thomas Davenport, O.P., who received his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University; and Fr. John Baptist Ku, O.P., who earned his doctorate in sacred theology (S.T.D.) from the University of Fribourg. They write: Evolutionary theory has raised numerous disputed questions among the Catholic faithful and other Christian believers concerning the relationship between faith and reason and between religion and science. As a team of Dominican friars and scholars committed to the preaching … Continue reading →

The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius who Discovered a New History of the Earth

Book 228 pages Level: high school and above The Seashell on the Mountaintop is a 2003 book by Alan Cutler, published by Dutton/Penguin, about the seventeenth century scientist and bishop Nicholaus Steno. From the dust jacket: It was an ancient puzzle that stymied history’s greatest minds: How did the fossils of seashells find their way far inland, sometimes high up into the mountains? Fossils only made sense in a world old enough to form them, and in the seventeenth century, few people could imagine such a thing. Texts no less authoritative than the Old Testament laid out very clearly the timescale of Earth’s past; in fact one Anglican archbishop went so far as to calculate the exact date of Creation…October 23, 4004, B.C. A revolution was in the making, however, and it was started by the brilliant and enigmatic Nicholaus Steno, the man whom Stephen Jay Gould called “the founder of geology.” Steno explored beyond the pages of the Bible, … Continue reading →

Being Human and Christian in a Darwinian World: An Appreciation of Józef Zycinski

Article 29 pages Level: university This article,by Phillip R. Sloan was published in Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture in 2012. Sloan (who is professor emeritus in the program of liberal studies and in the graduate program in history and philosophy of science at the University of Notre Dame and whose research specializes on the history and philosophy of life science from the early modern period to contemporary molecular biology) writes: This article is not intended to question the general validity of the Darwinian theory of species transformism by natural selection which I consider to be the best available scientific explanation of the origins and diversity of the organic forms we see around us. I am also concerned to engage with what John Haught has termed “unedited” Darwinian theory—Darwinian theory as accepted and discussed generally within the scientific community—rather than pursuing discarded alternative neo-Lamarckian, orthogenetic, and strong teleological evolutionary theories. I also do not minimize the detailed debates … Continue reading →

Robert C. Berwick – Why Only Us: The Origin of Human Language

Video 56 minutes Level: high school and above Robert C. Berwick, Professor of Computational Linguistics and Computer Science and Engineering, jointly with Brain and Cognitive Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), discusses the rapid and mysterious appearance of language and rationality in Homo Sapiens, and only in Homo Sapiens. This talk was given at the inaugural conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists. Berwick also contrasts the language of Homo Sapiens (that is, human beings) with the communications of animals. Berwick notes that, while some animals can be quite smart, research shows that there is a large and clear distinction between animals and humans, even in those cases where animals have been taught human sign language. Click here for an article from Our Sunday Visitor entitled “Catholic scientists discuss faith’s role in work”, on the first conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists—“Origins”—held April 21-23, 2017 in Chicago. Click here for the Society of Catholic Scientists “Origins” conference page. … Continue reading →

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Category Archives: Evolution