Blessed Nicholas Steno Honored by Google

Blessed Nicholas Steno

One of the ironies intrinsic to the world's view of the Catholic Church is that the Church has always been at odds with science.  However, over and over again I've come across so many instances of how, in actual history, Catholics have been at the forefront of science. 

Today, Google's "google" honors such a Catholic scientist.  It is Nicholas Steno's, the "father of geology", 374th birthday.  The irony is that they don't call him Blessed Nicholas Steno.  He was a Catholic Bishop who was a convert from the Lutheran church.  His inquiring mind led him to the conclusion that the Lutheran church was wrong because only the Catholic Church could answer his deep religious questions, and he had a sudden and powerful belief in the Real Presence during a Eucharistic rite.  If you click on the Google image it points one to a Christian Science Monitor article, which does not once mention the fact that he was a Catholic Bishop or that he was beatified by Pope Blessed John Paul II in 1988.  His feast day is December 5th, the day before St. Nicholas (the man who "became Santa") Day, December 6th.


Illustration from Steno's
work on fossils and strata
comparing shark teeth and
"tongue stones." 


Steno studied geological strata and built on the work of other scientists of his time.  His comparison of living shark teeth to "tongue stones," which people actually thought fell from the sky, built on the "glossary" of such "stones" by Fabio Colonna published in 1616.  His work called Preliminary discourse to a dissertation on a solid body naturally contained within a solid, published in 1669, contained his observations on fossils, crystals, strata, etc.  Thus giving him the name of "father of geology" or "father of stratagraphy" (depending on the article you read).  According to an article written for a Berkley website, he supposedly "abandoned" his scientific study when he converted.  Considering his inquisitive mind, which is why he became a scientist and a Catholic, I doubt that statement.  He may have changed the emphasis of his life (which was his more important call to holiness) but I am sure his inquisitive mind continued to follow the scientific studies of the 17th century.  Despite the propaganda, the Catholic Church neither discourages (then or now) scientific inquiry nor stops anyone from pursuing it, let alone stop them from being both a scientist and a priest (look at Gregor Mendel, a monk and the discoverer of inherited traits, and, ironically, largely ignored by the scientific community during his lifetime).  The Church is not in conflict with science.  In fact the Church, historically, has been the single largest supporter of scientific study.

There is much more to his story.  You can read the not so objective Christian Science Monitor article (which does not mention his Catholic Faith, let alone his beatification), the Wikipedia Article, Berkley's anti-Catholic article (at least they mention his conversion to the Catholic Church, but obligingly denigrate her) or the rather short Catholic Encyclopedia article.

Pill inventor slams ... pill

Published: January 08, 2009
Eighty five year old Carl Djerassi the Austrian chemist who helped invent the contraceptive pill now says that his co-creation has led to a "demographic catastrophe."
In an article published by the Vatican this week, the head of the world's Catholic doctors broadened the attack on the pill, claiming it had also brought "devastating ecological effects" by releasing into the environment "tonnes of hormones" that had impaired male fertility, The Taiwan Times says.

The assault began with a personal commentary in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard by Carl Djerassi. The Austrian chemist was one of three whose formulation of the synthetic progestogen Norethisterone marked a key step toward the earliest oral contraceptive pill.

Djerassi outlined the "horror scenario" that occurred because of the population imbalance, for which his invention was partly to blame. He said that in most of Europe there was now "no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction." He said: "This divide in Catholic Austria, a country which has on average 1.4 children per family, is now complete."

He described families who had decided against reproduction as "wanting to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it."

The fall in the birth rate, he said, was an "epidemic" far worse, but given less attention, than obesity. Young Austrians, he said, were committing national suicide if they failed to procreate. And if it were not possible to reverse the population decline they would have to understand the necessity of an "intelligent immigration policy."

The head of Austria's Catholics, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, told an interviewer that the Vatican had forecast 40 years ago that the pill would lead to a dramatic fall in the birth rate in the west.

"Somebody above suspicion like Carl Djerassi ... is saying that each family has to produce three children to maintain population levels, but we're far away from that," he said.

Schonborn told Austrian TV that when he first read Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical condemning artificial contraception he viewed it negatively as a "cold shower." But he said he had altered his views as, over time, it had proved "prophetic."

Writing for the Vatican daily, L'Osservatore Romano, the president of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, Jose Maria Simon, said research from his association also showed the pill "worked in many cases with a genuinely ... abortive effect."

Angelo Bonelli, of the Italian Green party, said it was the first he had heard of a link between the pill and environmental pollution. The worst of poisons were to be found in the water supply.

"It strikes me as idiosyncratic to be worried about this," he said.

Catholic News Agency details the claims by the president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, Dr Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, who outlined a series of scientific arguments said to confirm the prophetic nature of Pope Paul VI's encyclical on artificial contraception.

In an article published by the L'Osservatore Romano, the Spanish doctor pointed to the Federation's recent document commemorating the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, which "irrefutably shows that the most widely used anti-ovulatory pill in the industrialised world, the one made with low doses of estrogen and progesterone, in many cases works with an anti-implantation effect; that is, abortifacient [effect], because it expels a small human embryo."

Castellvi also pointed out that "this anti-implantation effect is acknowledged in scientific literature, which shamelessly speaks of an embryo loss rate. Curiously, however, this information does not reach the public at large."

He also pointed to the "devastating ecological effects of the tons of hormones discarded into the environment each year. We have sufficient data to state that one of the causes of masculine infertility in the West is the environmental contamination caused by the products of the 'pill'." Castellvi noted as well that the International Agency for Research on Cancer reported in 2005 that the pill has carcinogenic effects.

After explaining that the "natural methods of regulating fertility are the ones that are effective and that respect the nature of the person," Castellvi stated that "in celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man we can say that the contraceptive methods violate at least five important rights: the right to life, the right to health, the right to education, the right to information (its dissemination occurs to the detriment of information about natural methods) and the right of equality between the sexes (responsibility for contraceptive use almost always falls to the woman)."

SOURCE

Catholic Church renews its attack on contraceptive pill (Taipei Times)

Medical Association points out prophetic nature of Humanae Vitae (Catholic News Agency)
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=11004

St. Walburga's blog: This is a good news/bad news kind of thing. Good news: The Church was right!! Bad news: The Church was right!

Pope John Paul II, Darwin, and Evolution Catholic Opinions on Evolutionary Origins

By Austin Cline, About.com

In America one is accustomed to seeing religious figures condemn evolutionary theory and argue that teaching evolution is incompatible with Christianity. Catholicism, however, not only doesn’t reject evolution but in fact has supported evolutionary theory for quite some time - Pope John Paul II even expressed some support for it. This continues to surprise people because it’s simply not reported in the news very often.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII wrote in his encyclical Humani generis:

“The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, insofar as it inquiries into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter.”
[The full encyclical can be read here: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12HUMAN.HTM]

On October 23, 1996, Pope John Paul II said in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences:

“[N]ew 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.”

“A theory is a meta-scientific elaboration, which is distinct from, but in harmony with, the results of observation. With the 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 be revised.”
[To read Pope John Paul II's words on the matter: http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP961022.HTM]

None of this necessarily means that Pope John Paul II accepted evolution as a fact and it certainly doesn’t mean that Catholics are required to accept evolution as a fact. John Paul’s address was designed to explain the Vatican’s theological position on human origins, not the Vatican’s position on science. The address wasn’t meant to be either an endorsement or (obviously) a condemnation.

Instead, the address was meant to lay out for Catholics a basis for accepting evolutionary theory. There are many scientific facts that the Catholic Church doesn’t require Catholics to accept — that the Sun in as the center of the solar system and that the Earth is round, for example. The truth of these statements is obvious to everyone, but that doesn’t make them appropriate for religious doctrine either.

On a practical level, evolutionary theory is taught without reservation at Catholic educational institutions. This has been a problem because the general anti-evolution trends in American society has made teaching evolution more difficult, even at private Catholic schools. This has led to calls for more detailed teaching about evolution in these schools. David Byers, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Science and Human Values from 1984 to 2003, has said that, “Denying that humans evolved seems by this point a waste of time.”



My note: He expressed the Catholic position on the subject of evolution very well. This author is a contributor to About.com is an Agnostic/Atheistic 'guide'. I wanted to show that someone who is NOT Catholic grasps the Catholic concept of the acceptance of the THEORY of evolution. I, even as a Catholic, am free to make up my own mind about it. As I have said, I believe there is a lot of validity to evolution within species, however, the THEORY of evolution does NOT account for the beginning of life nor does it account for the complexity thereof. [bolding, italics, brackets mine]

For 'Bob' and All Those Ignorant of the Meaning of Intelligent Design

I got the following from Intelligentdesign.com.
http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php I hope it will help those who are ignorant of the difference between Intelligent Design and so-called "creation science."

[quote]
What is intelligent design?

Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.

Is intelligent design the same as creationism?

No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural.

Honest critics of intelligent design acknowledge the difference between intelligent design and creationism. University of Wisconsin historian of science Ronald Numbers is critical of intelligent design, yet according to the Associated Press, he "agrees the creationist label is inaccurate when it comes to the ID [intelligent design] movement." Why, then, do some Darwinists keep trying to conflate intelligent design with creationism? According to Dr. Numbers, it is because they think such claims are "the easiest way to discredit intelligent design." In other words, the charge that intelligent design is "creationism" is a rhetorical strategy on the part of Darwinists who wish to delegitimize design theory without actually addressing the merits of its case.

Is intelligent design a scientific theory?

Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.
[unquote]

I hope you've learned something today.
Go in Peace.

Ben Stein and Intelligent Design

We finally got around to watching Ben Stein's wonderful documentary "Expelled". I highly recommend this movie to anyone interested in the alternative to Darwinism taught as established fact. Since, it has never explained the origin of life, why can't some one put forth the idea that their is an intelligence behind life? PLEASE, please see this movie. If you homeschool, if you have teenagers with questions, if you are at all interested in the debate in the science community, see this movie! My son is studying Biology at this time in his 9th grade homeschool course. This movie fit in perfectly with the chapter on Darwin he just read. As can be predicted Darwin's unsubstantiated theory is presented as fact in his textbook. I was happy to present "Is Evolution Fit to Survive?" I am sure this informative book is available elsewhere but I got it through Kolbe Academy: http://www.kolbe.org/Biology___Is_Evolution_Fit_to_Survive__Book-p21819.html It is $14.50. My son asked why he need to learn about it. I told him that if he were to get anywhere in any scientific field or study biology in college, I want him to be prepared for such a discussion. We do not believe in sheltering our kids behind a homeschool wall. They have to live outside that wall someday and I want them prepared for anything.
Trailer and image from http://expelledthemovie.com/ Which also has the video for sale as well as wallpapers, academic freedom petition, and more. ONLY FOR THE INTELLIGENT AND OPEN MINDED!