As readers of this web diary know, I love the New Yorker magazine. It happens rarely that I truly dislike an article in what I consider the best magazine in the world. A few weeks ago, however, I was quite disappointed with Jane Kramer’s portrait of Pope Benedict. I felt that she was uncharacteristically off mark, failing to get at the core of what makes Benedict tick. As I wrote previously, the tragedy of the present Pope is that when having to choose between his deep love for the traditions of the church and his love for humans beings, he sides with the traditions. But he is clearly not a reactionary nor a fool.  A few days ago, I read an summary of what the Pope says about evolution in a recent German language book on Creation and Evolution, which was based on a conference attended by the leader of the catholic church. The Pope, confirming my sense that he is a darn smart fellow, did not claim that the Darwin’s theory of evolution is wrong, but simply holds that it does not explain everything.  Even a hardcore Darwinist can agree this position. Last night I read a fantastic article in the Economist surveying the present backlash against Darwinism, which did a much better job in portraying Benedict’s intellectual positions.  For me the most interesting part of the article was to see how the catholic church itself is divided on how to deal with Darwin’s insights. Father George Coyne takes the most interesting position.

Evolution and religion
The debate over creation and evolution, once most conspicuous in America, is fast going global
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