Reading: Which "Side" is the Catholic Church On?

Over here is an interesting timeline A History of Evolutionary Thought with links to short biographies of people through history who have contributed to the study of life. Like many sources, it has a bias in favor of modern scientific thinking, but unlike some sources, it does not merely repeat propaganda.

Also, here (below) is an excerpt from an article by a Catholic which sheds some light on how our church thinks about these things. I'll probably keep putting up excerpts as we keep studying biology, and also probably have you read some of the biographies and writings of some of the scientists who came earlier in history.

Read:

From Evolution: A Catholic Perspective by James Stenson

On newscasts and talk shows, partisans from both sides have had their say on camera. On the one hand, fundamentalist Protestants have insisted on an absolutely literal interpretation of Genesis: a "special creation" of each separate species in only seven days, beginning a few thousand years ago. Opposing them, some scientists-turned-celebrities have proclaimed with equal fervor the supreme triumph of chance: matter blindly developing from molecules to man, with no intervention by a Deity,and no need for One to explain anything. Thus the controversy has been reduced, in public perception, to a disquieting choice--"superstition" vs. "atheism."

What is a Catholic to make of this? To anyone who knows even a little theology and science, the choice presented here is clearly false. In this, as in so many other heated controversies, the first casualty is truth. The Catholic faith is dedicated to truth, indeed to Truth Himself. And science, open-mindedly and fairly exercised, is committed to the pursuit of truthful knowledge. A Catholic should suspect, therefore, even before studying the question closely, that faith and scientific knowledge must complement, not contradict, each other.

This suspicion is confirmed by fact. The more one studies what the Catholic Church teaches and what science knows for certain, the more clearly he sees that Catholic faith and scientific knowledge are wholly compatible. The conflicts being aired today are really a pseudo-controversy. Dogmatic fundamentalists do not reflect Catholic tradition, and dogmatic evolutionists do not fairly represent science.