Catholic Online has published an article in which the director of the Vatican Observatory, Jesuit Father George V. Coyne speaks out, once again, against the perils of intelligent design.

Father Coyne observes that

Intelligent Design reduces and belittles God's power and might, according to the director of the Vatican Observatory.

But Father Coyne goes much further

In his remarks, he also criticizes the cardinal archbishop of Vienna's support for Intelligent Design and notes that Pope John Paul's declaration that "evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis" is "a fundamental church teaching" which advances the evolutionary debate.

Father Coyne corrects several of the flaws in the Cardinal's (Schoenborn) claims:

"One, the scientific theory of evolution, as all scientific theories, is completely neutral with respect to religious thinking; two, the message of John Paul II, which I have just referred to and which is dismissed by the cardinal as 'rather vague and unimportant,' is a fundamental church teaching which significantly advances the evolution debate; three, neo-Darwinian evolution is not in the words of the cardinal, 'an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection;' four, the apparent directionality seen by science in the evolutionary process does not require a designer; five, Intelligent Design is not science despite the cardinal's statement that 'neo-Darwinism and the multi-verse hypothesis in cosmology [were] invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science,'"

The words of a dedicated scientist and a person of great faith.

Discussion

Intelligent Design belittles God, by Gaudia, Gil [09-Feb-06]