One of the more surprising decisions to come out of the conference is the Church’s refusal to hear a debate on Intelligent Design (ID) as a competing theory. There will be a presentation on ID, but it will be in the context of ‘cultural phenomenon’ and not serious scientific thought. ID posits that life is too complicated to simply have come about through evolution, though offers no scientific evidence to back up this claim.
This move has elicited cries of foul from the largely American-based ID community, but the Vatican seems deaf to their pleas. Father Marc Leclerc, professor of philosophy at the Gregorian University and an organizer of the conference, accepts that ID is “a phenomenon of an ideological and cultural nature,” but is most certainly not a scientifically rigorous idea.
Much to the pleasure of the Vatican this move to openly embrace modern science has been cast in very positive light by the media. While the slights and misunderstandings of the past are certainly not erased by this one act, this sort of progressive thinking from the Catholic Church might be a herald of more positive change in the future.
