In July Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna wrote an eyebrow-raising op-ed in the New York Times that favored Intelligent Design over evolution. Now, as far as I can tell from this Reuters story, he’s claiming he was misunderstood.
“Maybe one did not express oneself clearly enough or thoughts were not clear enough,” he said. “Such misunderstandings can be cleared up.”
Now he’s saying that evolution’s fine as long as biologists don’t conclude that evolution proves there’s no creator. Darwin’s theory is “one of the very great works of intellectual history.”
Compare this with his claim in July that “neo-Darwinism” was invented “to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science.”
I’d be curious to see the entire speech on which the report was based. As far as I can tell from the report, Schoenborn seems to be doing his best impression of Emily Litella: “Never mind.”
Originally published October 4, 2005. Copyright 2005 Carl Zimmer.