Vatican's astronomer rejects young earth creationism as "a kind of paganism"; also dismisses papal infallibility

what the vatican's astronomers did to galileo is another story, however, and plays more into the authoritarian vibe.

Dude teaches astrophysics at Arizona. Started & maintains the Vatican's meteroite collection. Lectured at Harvard/MIT a while ago.

Has an asteroid named after him.

as to why the Vatican started hiring astronomers back in the 16th Centure:

They hired an astronomer to work out how to make the calendar work right. There's also a sense that the Church, in modern times, wants to show the world that it's not afraid of science, that it supports science, that it thinks science is a wonderful thing. Not only to reassure the scientists, but also to reassure the religious people science is a good thing. Don't listen to people who say you have to choose one or the other.

And there's two things going on there. One is the sense that, if God made the universe, and he made it good, and he loved the universe so much that, as the Christians believe, he sent his only son, it's up to us to honor and respect and get to know the universe. I think it was Francis Bacon who said that God sets up the universe as a marvelous puzzle for us to get to know him by getting to know how he did things. By seeing how God created, we get a little sense of God's personality. And that means, among other things not going in with any preconceived notions. We can't impose our idea of how God did things. It's up to us to see how the universe actually does work.

(dude was born in Detroit)

Also, this priest is not particulary unique. The man that invented the lazer is a priest. And, I think, the man who performed the first open-heart surgery in Europe (the first one ever was performed in South Africa) worked for the Vatican.

The best scientists in the world used to be Catholic, until they became Protestant (Newton), until they became agnostic (Einstein). Now they generally are atheistic. Although the largest practicing body of scientists are still overwhelmingly theistic -- physicians.

To assume that religion and science have always been enemies, or that they are today (to the extent that they are believed to be) indicates a certain level of ignorance of both Christian and Muslim history, and of religion as it is observed globally.

Generally, people seem to single out a minority population (even a minority within the US) of fundamentalist Christians as evidence that Christians are anti-science.

When all the evidence is taken into account, I think the opposite is true in both theory and practice.

Of course there will always be segments of any population holding to any particular ideology that are prone to ignorant and reactionary hysterics (especially one as large as Catholicism.)

A question: Do we not want science to have a conscience?

Note Brother Consolmagno is one of the Vatican's astronomers (it looks like there are eight or nine), not, like, the Capital 'A' Astronomer, or even the head of the Vatican observatory. I wouldn't be surprised if there will be some kind of modification/spin on this at some point.

Most of the doctors I know are Christian or agnostic. I wonder why this is.

Mitya, I appeciate you responding to my post, but why pick at the one thing you slightly disagree with? I think the statistics would bear out my point that scientists are very predominantly atheistic. This is not anti-science, or anti-anything. Just a fact.

fortunately in the meantime there is ethics , to examine the social implications of scientific and technological advance.

I don't think Ratzinger is anti-science, but he is promoting bioconservativism.
Recent history shows that every time people increased their freedom by having more control over their own bodies, by using condoms/pills/safe abortions etc (embryonic stem cells?) , it was victories against the will of the church and their conservative ideas.

Because none of the scientists I know are atheists. Perhaps I should've said that explicitly.

Admittedly, I don't run in an exclusively (or even largely) academic setting. Perhaps your sample size is larger, or perhaps you're talking like a specific set of elites (eg., Nobel Prize winners). If "the statistics" do bear out your opinion, then it is interesting. But I hope you will admit that without something to back it up, saying "scientists are atheists" is exaclty the kind of comment that the religious right would make to "discredit" science.

But what sort of disbelief are we talking about? A worldview in which God is unlikely is different from one in which God is disallowed.

1) All life on this planet follows the same basic patterns, and is all the effort of one "smart" but blind molecule to make copies of itself. We can even reasonably assume that this molecule appeared at random in the chemical sea of promordial Earth.

2) All of this assumes the existence of something, and no one can explain why there is something instead of nothing.

By this rationale, sounds to me like religion needs science far more than science needs religion. But as was (kinda) said upthread, it's at least good that there are people admitting that religion needs science. *Needs it*, in order to be valid. That's positive.

Why do you accept the random appearance of 1 but not 2 ?

also, i think it's cool and/or weird that the Vatican has a meteorite collection.

Where else was it going to go?

before this thread wonders off into "science vs religion" semantic/pedantic/pomo wank territory once again

I agree. pat on the back for this man. thread over.

even in the face of all the crazy shit that's been going on lately with ig'nant-ass american fundies, there are still religious folk pretty high up in the hierarchy(relatively speaking) who haven't lost their head, who are vocal about how bullshit recent efforts like ID are, and also the (novel?) mix of a guy with some authoritative background to contrast with the authoritarian mindset usually connoted with the word "Vatican."

I agree. pat on the back for this man. thread over.

haha yeah Thomas Aquinas was a crazy pomo wanker.

I was trying to wander into theology, which is probably just as bad, but still.