Interview with Father Rafael Pascual, L.C. (C.I., Feb., 2006, pp. 39-39).

(C.I. Feb., 2006, pp. 39-39)

At the outset of the interview about evolution Father Pascual makes three erroneous assertions: (1) that evolution is a scientific theory; (2) that it is based on empirical data; and (3) that it is well affirmed.

Among current publishing authors who disagree with these assertions am Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biochemistry, Department of Biological Sciences, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania; Guy Berthault, Sedimentologist, State University of Colorado; William Dembski, Mathematician, Professor and Senior Fallow with the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, Seattle; and Phillip E. Johnson, Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley.

Arguing on the basis of science, mathematics, and logic, these authors say there is no proof for the theory of evolution. In fact, it is not strictly speaking a "theory" at all: i.e., a testable hypothesis with explanatory and predictive power. It is more akin to science fiction.

Toronto, ON

From Terry Snyder

Father Rafael Pascual's interview on "Creation and evolution can be compatible" makes the false assumption that evolution is a viable theory, though he explains clearly that it does not necessarily detract from our Catholicity.

Evolution is based on the illogical extrapolations of small changes within a species (natural selection or the science of genetics), and invalid assumptions and contradictory evidence for the long time periods, used to justify not being able to observe the necessary fossil mutations.

Natural selection does not produce new genetic material. No known mechanism for it to have occurred has been found. Fruit fly experiments over 90 years, with radiation 1,500 times the normal, only produced malformed or dead flies.

Natural museum curators and many scientists admit that, of the millions of fossils acquired, there are no transitional ones. In an attempt to overcome this total lack of evidence, some evolutionists in a 1980 meeting in Chicago suggested a "punctuated equilibria" hypothesis. It involved a buildup of changes that would burst forth to create a new species without transitional fossils. No evidence has ever been found to support it.

Its vacuousness is further confirmed by its rejection of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the simple will never make the complex without the input of programmed information.

When one sees a car or a computer, one knows that much reasoning and effort was involved, yet we are asked to believe that humans with their trillions of cells, each with 25 to 30 thousand genes and an estimated half million pages of information, evolved by chance.

Logic based on the overwhelming complexity of life is a true scientific understanding that an awesome creator was required for all of creation.

Windsor, ON

Editor: We asked our science contributor, Dr. David Beresford, to send in a comment:

In the interview, Fr. Pascual asserted correctly that biological evolution is compatible with Catholic doctrine. In making this point, Fr. Pasqual was simply repeating the consistent Catholic teaching on this subject as presented by various popes over the last 100 years. This is not the place to argue whether evolution is true or not; that is a biological question, and was not in fact, the point of the interview. The writers of the letters make it very clear that they do not accept natural selection or evolution in any form. That is their right, and certainly in no way compromises their Catholicity.

Biology examines the material causes of how living things got to be the way they are; it cannot, and does not even try, to answer questions about the nature of creation. As Fr. Pascual stated: "Divine causality cannot be excluded a priori. Science can neither affirm or deny it." The Church, infallible guide on matters pertaining to faith and morals, makes its mind known both by what it says and what it does not say. Regarding evolution, in his message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (Oct. 22, 1996), the late Pope John Paul II stated:

In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation. Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an 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 favour of the theory.

Natural selection has been seen in nature (antibiotic resistant bacteria, apple maggot flies, among others) and has been reproduced in the lab. Genetic changes can be brought about by transposons rearranging the genome--often in response to changes in the environment (bacteria). The fossil record contains examples of species changing and diverging into new species (snails). The rarity of these fossil series is consistent with the way species evolve, with rapid changes occurring in small isolated groups rather than slow change within large populations. Finally, evolution continues to produce useful and testable hypotheses.

From Jean-Nil Chabot on the same subject

The interview with Father Rafael Pascual is a welcome clarification on an issue that still causes saliva and ink to flow.

Father Rafael quoted from one of Cardinal Ratzinger's homilies where he said that "the account of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, does not in fact tell us how man originated."

I think these words of the Cardinal refer to the scientific knowledge of man's origin.

However, from the philosophical point of view, this biblical passage does tell us something about evolution. The passage is as follows: "God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being." Dust becoming man through God's creative power implies a progressive development whereby forms are accumulated and diversified according to a designed order. At some point, along the process of becoming man, dust is no more dust and yet not man.

There is a continuity between dust and man which cannot be breached without nullifying the biblical affirmation. However, the Bible reveals that this becoming stops short of the man as spiritual being. That "ontological leap" happened when God breathed the breath of life into the creature He had fashioned so far. Man appeared on the last day of creation, but, in the words of St. Peter, "with the Lord 'a day' can mean a thousand years, and a thousand words is like one day." We could say, as well, that with the Lord one day can be a thousand million years, since God is outside of time and not limited by it. Finally, as Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out, the biblical verse does not tell us how it happened, which is left to science; but it does tell us what happened.

Barry's Bay, ON