2003-03-14

The Blank Slate- converging discoveries


Extract
The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, 11 'The Fear of Nihilism' (p186)


A sophisticated version of the religious concern was formulated by Pope John
Paul II in a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, "Truth Cannot
Contradict Truth."[1] The Pope acknowledged that Darwin's theory of evolution
is "more that just a hypothesis," because converging discoveries in many
independent fields, "neither sought not fabricated," argue in its favor.



[1] October 22, 1996; reprinted in the English edition of <i>L'Osservatore
Romano</i>, October 30, 1996.

(Footnotes refer to papers in the 'References' section.)