ID and the Vatican

The last few months have brought an almost dizzying series of statements from various vatican officials about intelligent design and evolution. One cardinal says ID is valid, another says it's not. The Pope himself makes a statement about intelligence being behind the universe, IDers think that is an endorsement of ID, and so on. But here's an unambiguous statement from the Vatican's chief astronomer:

The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was "wrong" and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.

"Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be," the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. "If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science."

More like this

Ah Egnor. The chief purveyor of foot-in-mouth disease at Evolution News and Views takes on Dunford's recent post on the intellectual dishonesty of the intelligent design creationist movement and shows exactly why Dunford has a point. Intelligent design is a cheesy attempt to smear a patina of…
The Pope has fired the Vatican Observatory director, the highly respected Dr George Coyne , and replaced him with Dr Jose Gabriel Funes. Well, now we know. Seen on Pharyngula "...speaking at a conference in Florida, Father Coyne said that "intelligent design isn't science, even if it pretends to be…
The story about Creationist school board in Brunswick Co, NC is now getting some legs: Brunswick school board to consider creationism teaching: The board allowed Fanti to speak longer than he was allowed, and at the end of his speech he volunteered to teach creationism and received applause from…
Ross Olson of the Twin Cities Creation Science Association has sent me the results of the survey that was given at the debate. He is trying to spin it as supporting the claim that this kind of debate was "useful" — but I'm unimpressed. About 500 people attended, 290 returned the survey. The survey…