Roger Penrose Quotes
Some people take the view that we happen by accident. I think that there is something much deeper, of which we have very little inkling at the moment.
Joseph Alois Ratzinger. His predecessor, John Paul II, had shown no antipathy and had seen no conflict between religion and the concept of evolution. Benedict, was more traditional and particularly sensitive to the randomness of mutations in the process. Other theologians see no contradiction in God having created the evolutionary system with random mutation as the most superior system for developing rational man to whom he gave free will. Others see no need for God in the entire process.
This quotation is very interesting in the light of the so called “intelligent design” opponents of evolution. Darwin himself was by no means an atheist but he did not see the “hand of God in everything about him”. He did not maintain that a God could not have a hand in setting the laws of evolution which then produced all the species. However, the modern proponents of “intelligent design” insist that the evolutionary mechanism is so complex that God must have a role in the processes themselves. There are atheist evolutionists and evolutionists who believe that there was a God or prime mover setting the laws of science in motion, but all so called intelligent design enthusiasts are religious and believe that God is involved in the process. They reject the scientific method and their assertions are not subject to scientific proof or falsification. They are not scientists in contrast to the scientists who believe there was a God or prime mover initiating the process.
Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS is a British mathematical physicist, mathematician, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, an emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and University College London.
