The Orca’s Thumb

The Vatican has announced that they are having an evolution congress, and that no creationists or intelligent design creationists will be invited.

Yet, they are inviting a swarm of theologians, so their exclusion is all window-dressing, a transparent attempt to sidle medieval peddlers of superstitious nonsense up next to some serious science for a photo op and a little propaganda.

And they aren’t even trying to hide what they’re doing:

Jesuit Father Marc Leclerc, a philosophy professor at the Gregorian, told Catholic News Service Sept. 16 that organizers “wanted to create a conference that was strictly scientific” and that discussed rational philosophy and theology along with the latest scientific discoveries.

He said arguments “that cannot be critically defined as being science, or philosophy or theology did not seem feasible to include in a dialogue at this level and, therefore, for this reason we did not think to invite” supporters of creationism and intelligent design.

However, their exclusivity runs the other way, too:

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the other extreme of the evolution debate — proponents of an overly scientific conception of evolution and natural selection — also were not invited.

“Overly scientific“? WTF?
Basically, what they are saying is, that there’s too darned much science in evolution!

Phillip Sloan, a professor at Notre Dame, told the press conference the evolution debate, “especially in the United States, has been taking place without a strong Catholic presence … and the discourse has suffered accordingly.”

Science and theology are two different things, you know.
One of them is based on reality. And theology is not it.

This conference is a farce. Nothing more.