Continued hereI think the great medievalist Etienne Gilson got the distinction exactly right in his book From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution. Here's what he says on pages 9 and 10 of the book:

Intelligent Project Article Site

QuoteMartin Hilbert is a priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Toronto (www.oratory-toronto.org). He holds a doctorate in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Toronto and teaches a course in the philosophy of science at St. Philip’s Seminary.QuoteEvolution, on the other hand, says something about the origin of man, and in this way can, at least in theory, conflict with religious dogma. And so, although the Catholic Church seldom speaks about scientific theories, from time to time it breaks the silence to address the question of biological evolution. It does so when it perceives that some Catholics accept as true a scientific theory that denies some important Christian teaching about man and his origins.

QuoteBut when science hits a question mark, that's OK with me. Ultimately, theologians hit the same question mark. We just have to push them one more step when they say God did it. They respond that God is He who need not be created. Well, can't the universe be that which needs not be created? No, they say, it's a thing and has to be created. So isn't God a thing if He is part of the universe? These are old arguments, but at some point a thoughtful theologian has to say, You're right, we don't know. So we make a metaphysical assumption and define God into existenceSo we make a metaphysical assumption and define God into existence[Just like Darwin, this guy has never read Aristotle.

QuoteToward the end of his life the great Thomist Etienne Gilson wrote a radiantly lucid book called From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution. What Ruse has done, perhaps unawares, is to write a book that proves Gilson right: only when the contentious and confused Darwinians abandon their rank philosophical amateurism and clear up their conceptual confusions with Aristotle’s clarity will this persistent (and persistently misleading) issue of teleology be resolved in biological thought.Briefly Noted

QuoteEdward T. Oakes, S.J., Ph.D.; Chester & Margaret Paluch Professor of Theology, University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, the Catholic Seminary for the Archdiocese of Chicago; Author of Pattern of Redemption: The Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs von Balthasar (co-editor), and the forthcoming Radical Naturalism: An Essay in Darwinian Platonism Complexity in Context

QuoteAbout the BookWho ought to hold claim to the more dangerous idea--Charles Darwin or C. S. Lewis? Daniel Dennett argued for Darwin in Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Touchstone Books, 1996). In this book Victor Reppert champions C. S. Lewis.Darwinists attempt to use science to show that our world and its inhabitants can be fully explained as the product of a mindless, purposeless system of physics and chemistry. But Lewis claimed in his argument from reason that if such materialism or naturalism were true then scientific reasoning itself could not be trusted.Victor Reppert believes that Lewis's arguments have been too often dismissed. In C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea Reppert offers careful, able development of Lewis's thought and demonstrates that the basic thrust of Lewis's argument from reason can bear up under the weight of the most serious philosophical attacks.Charging dismissive critics, Christian and not, with ad hominem arguments, Reppert also revisits the debate and subsequent interaction between Lewis and the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. And addressing those who might be afflicted with philosophical snobbery, Reppert demonstrates that Lewis's powerful philosophical instincts perhaps ought to place him among those other thinkers who, by contemporary standards, were also amateurs: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke and Hume.But even more than this, Reppert's work exemplifies the truth that the greatness of Lewis's mind is best measured, not by his ability to do our thinking for us, but by his capacity to provide sound direction for taking our own thought further up and further in.An Atheist cannot be too careful of what he reads

QuoteFeatures & Benefits * Explains a key idea in C. S. Lewis's apologetics * Defends and extends the "argument from reason" * Answers recent critics * Follows up the famous interchange between Lewis and philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe * Highlights recent philosophers who have taken up Lewis's argument, including William Hasker, Alvin Plantinga, J. P. Moreland and Richard Purtill * Shows that the "argument from reason" plays an important role in debates on physical determinism and naturalism

QuoteTouchstone is mentioned in professional skeptic Michael Shermer's new book, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design. Shermer, a graduate of the Campbell/Stone movement school Pepperdine University in Malibu who once aspired to Christian ministry, now is one of the most hostile critics of Christianity. In the relevant section of this volume, Shermer hopes to show that Intelligent Design is not as theologically neutral as some proponents claim. Shermer writes: In a feature article in the Christian magazine Touchstone, [William] Dembski was even more direct: 'Intelligent Design is just the Logos theory of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.' Make no mistake about it. Creationists and their Intelligent Design brethern do not just want equal time, they want all the time they can get. Read the whole blog discussion here

Hippy Sex Fiends and Brutal Machiavellians

QuoteOriginally posted by: doreillyHippy Sex Fiends and Brutal MachiavelliansDe Waal: No, armies are a purely human invention. Most soldiers who go to war nowadays don't even do it because they're inherently aggressive. Many American GIs in Iraq are poor kids who are only waging war because a couple of guys in Washington decided to send them to war. The guys in Washington, for their part, do it for territorial reasons. That brings us back to the chimpanzees, which also exhibit territorial behavior.QuoteAccording to a comprehensive study of all enlistees for the years 1998-99 and 2003 that The Heritage Foundation just released, the typical recruit in the all-volunteer force is wealthier, more educated and more rural than the average 18- to 24-year-old citizen is. Indeed, for every two recruits coming from the poorest neighborhoods, there are three recruits coming from the richest neighborhoods.Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle

QuoteOriginally posted by: HamiltonQuoteOriginally posted by: doreillyHippy Sex Fiends and Brutal MachiavelliansDe Waal: No, armies are a purely human invention. Most soldiers who go to war nowadays don't even do it because they're inherently aggressive. Many American GIs in Iraq are poor kids who are only waging war because a couple of guys in Washington decided to send them to war. The guys in Washington, for their part, do it for territorial reasons. That brings us back to the chimpanzees, which also exhibit territorial behavior.QuoteAccording to a comprehensive study of all enlistees for the years 1998-99 and 2003 that The Heritage Foundation just released, the typical recruit in the all-volunteer force is wealthier, more educated and more rural than the average 18- to 24-year-old citizen is. Indeed, for every two recruits coming from the poorest neighborhoods, there are three recruits coming from the richest neighborhoods.Well, I'll be a monkey's uncleStandards are a little lax lately. Can you have the figures for 2005 on my desk in the morning.

Dear super-hyper beauty model Doreilly:I would like to participate in your Great Ape Project as an experimental animal.However, sadfully, it's MI4 (since I am not an ape, but an excrement.)TooNeat, the Excrement

Ooh! I have been Toone'd, it tickled.