Meet the Prizewinning Catholic Biologist Creationists Can’t Stand

[DonViejo]

Karl W. Giberson

Kenneth Miller wrote the biology textbook often targeted by creationists who want to toss if from public schools. Oh, and now he’s won one of the Catholic Church’s top prizes.

Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, one of America’s leading advocates, has just received one of America’s oldest and most prestigious awards—from the Roman Catholic Church.

At commencement on May 18, the University of Notre Dame will honor Miller with the 2014 Laetare Medal, an award given annually to a Catholic “whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.” The award was first given in 1883 and previous recipients include former President John F. Kennedy, and West Wing’s popular acting president Martin Sheen.

Many consider Miller a paradoxical figure who occupies the thinly populated no-man’s land between science and religion, embracing both with enthusiasm and finding no conflict. He is a life-long practicing Catholic and accepts church teachings on salvation, the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus. He described himself in the PBS “Evolution” series as simply a “traditional” Catholic, one who has not had to abandon or distort his beliefs to accommodate his other passion: evolutionary biology. Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins describes Miller as an “incisive witness both to scientific acumen and religious belief.”

Consistent with most Catholic believers, and supported by official statements over the years from the Vatican, Miller embraces mainstream science with enthusiasm, accepting that the world is God’s creation. “I see the Creator’s plan and purpose fulfilled in our universe,” he wrote in a personal reflection about evolution. Miller sees the earth “bursting with evolutionary possibilities,” and understands God to be continuously creating with providentially ordered “design to life.” But—and here the salvos begin to be launched from conservative anti-evolutionists—he says “the name of the design is evolution.” Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis says Miller “appears to be blind” in his support for evolution, and unable to “distinguish between science and religious indoctrination.” The Discovery Institute has literally dozens of articles attacking Miller accusing him of everything from shoddy scholarship to duplicity.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/06/meet-the-prizewinning-catholic-biologist-creationists-can-t-stand.html

[goldent]

1. Given the Catholic Church has no fundamental argument with evolution

this should not be surprising.

At the conference "SCIENTIFIC INSIGHTS INTO THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE AND OF LIFE," held at the Vatican, Pope Benedict said the following in his opening address:

Distinguished Academicians, I wish to conclude by recalling the words
addressed to you by my predecessor Pope John Paul II in November 2003:
‘scientific truth, which is itself a participation in divine Truth, can help
philosophy and theology to understand ever more fully the human person
and God’s Revelation about man, a Revelation that is completed and perfected
in Jesus Christ. For this important mutual enrichment in the search
for the truth and the benefit of mankind, I am, with the whole Church,
profoundly grateful’.

(emphasis mine)

Proceeding of the conference are freely available at http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/acta20/acta20.pdf. It is for the most part heavy reading, written by academics in the area of evolution, but fascinating if you are in to it.

I found this remark by GIORGIO BERNARDI to be remarkable:

I would like to start this contribution on a personal note by mentioning
that I come from one of the few, perhaps the only Institute in the world, the
Stazione Zoologica of Naples, which was established in order to prove a theory,
in our case Darwin’s theory

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

2. About the Pope and evolution

In 1996, John Paul II made an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in which he said

Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of the encyclical some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis New findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.help of such a theory a group of data and independent facts can be related to one another and interpreted in one comprehensive explanation. The theory proves its validity by the measure to which it can be verified. It is constantly being tested against the facts; when it can no longer explain these facts, it shows its limits and its lack of usefulness, and it must

A theory is a meta-scientific elaboration, which is distinct from, but in harmony with, the results of observation. With the be revised.

("The encyclical" is Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis).

There are some who claim that he was talking about there being "more than one hypothesis", but this is disproven by the original French:

« Aujourdhui, près dun demi-siècle après la parution de l'encyclique, de nouvelles connaissances conduisent à reconnaitre dans la théorie de l'évolution plus qu'une hypothèse. »