Talk:Pope John Paul II and evolution

How about just "The Pope's Statement on Evolution" and a summary of the statement, both what he actually said, what he is said to have said, and why none of it matters. --Damo^Hi 18:14, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

if we do that then let's have a link to the original Pope's statement about evolution was mistranslated. I'm not Jesus (talk) 18:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I think since this is "rat wiki" and that is "evo wiki" the hard core refutals of some of these are really excellent here, but I also agree with IMJ that if we do any changes to any of these, there should be cross links as they are both under the RW foundation (cross populating is always a good thing).GodotI smell roasted chestnuts. droollllllll. 18:19, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Quality of article

1. it would be helpful to have one or two links to people actually saying "it's a miss translation".
2. discussion of their argument would be helpful - what do they think the translation should be?
3. richer background of the statement, the "it was mistranslated, needs to be included
4. we should have the original statement;
5. comment of the Pope's fluency is fairly irrelevant since the claim is that the paper mistranslated it.--GodotI smell roasted chestnuts. droollllllll. 18:29, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

from NCSE - this should help to clarify the background

Fairly quickly, however, Thomas's dismay was assuaged by an apparent translation error, which he felt allowed him to reinterpret the Pope's statement. The Vatican press release quoted John Paul II as having said (in French) that evolution was "more than a hypothesis" ("la theorie de l'evolution plus qu'une hypothese"). The subsequent official English-language translation of the speech, published October 30, 1996 in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, translated the section to read that new knowledge "has led to the recognition of more than one hypothesis in the theory of evolution" (John Paul II 1996, this issue p 382). Seizing upon the relative ambiguity of "more than one hypothesis," Thomas wrote a second column claiming, "it is clear that the Pope was not watering down or liberalizing the church's view that the origin of man remained open to debate. He said that there are several theories of origin within the scientific community" (Thomas 1997:B8). http://ncse.com/religion/creationists-popes-statement--GodotI smell roasted chestnuts. droollllllll. 18:35, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Importing from EvoWiki

We've wasted quite a bit of effort writing articles about various species of the genus homo. Some of what appears there is new to RatWiki but quite a bit could have been copied from Evowiki. I feel we need a thorough look at EvoWiki to import as much as can improve RatWiki and prevent this happening in future. I'm not Jesus (talk) 18:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

"Pope's statement" looks like we can't write.

It should read "The Pope's.." or, far better, "John Paul II's statement..." and again, what are the odds that anyone is ever gonna find this? B♭maj7 (talk) Anachronistically anachronistic 19:44, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Depends on how you link it. I had them all linked to a single page, but this was taken off that page, so I have no idea. I'd stomp petulantly, but to what end. The easy answer is to relocate it to "Pope John Paul II statement on 'evoulution", which is what the right constantly references. Course that's considered hard to do, so better just lose it in a post under John Paul, cause everyone remembers what pope said this, right? (how is that for whiny?)--GodotI smell roasted chestnuts. droollllllll. 23:22, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

What he said

Looking at what was actually said I'd say that the Catholic Church is still a bit ambiguous on the issue. It needs a "fall" to justify a large number of doctrines. And for a "fall" you need a literal Adam and Eve. (If somebody can find some pope somewhere saying that Adam and Eve were mere symbols I'll take it back - but I'm betting it's impossible.)

And a literal Adam and Eve doesn't fit very well with evolution. --Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 12:47, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

It's a case of having your Eucharist and eating it. Steven Kavanagh (talk) 12:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but he didn't talk about the fall at all, nor was he in any way ambiguous about evolution. GodotMoi j'dis, laisse beton 15:45, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

He didn't talk about the fall in that particular speech but he did elsewhere. You can't expect him to present the entire Catholic theology every time he opens his mouth.

And in that speech he did say: "Revelation teaches us that he was created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gn 1:27-29)". Which seems to suggest a separate creation for mankind which may have been his position. And that's not particularly pro-evolution.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 15:58, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

If we accept the idea that each person is created, that says nothing about the origins of the species Homo sapiens, nor about the origins of "mankind", and thus is not in conflict with evolution, which is about populations. If there is any conflict with a science, it would be in conflict with reproductive biology, not evolutionary biology. Whatever you think about the the Popes and their knowledge about science, it seems unlikely that he was speaking out in favor of Scientific storkism.TomS TDotO (talk) 17:24, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

title -

message on evo is way too simple. I get "simplify", but the whole value of the "message" is that it was Pope JP's, and not just some random message. GodotMoi j'dis, laisse beton 23:16, 15 November 2011 (UTC)