What do you think of the author- philosopher Teilhard de Chardin who wrote the Phenomenon of Man?

Question

He died in 1955 and was also a Jesuit priest

Answer 1

Pierre Teilhard was undoubtedly one of the prime movers in paleontology back in the day. He deserves respect for that.

It is unfortunate, however, that he let his pursuit of scientific knowledge take a back seat to his devotion to religious lore. On two counts.

His first transgression was willingly signing and suppressing his own ideas at the behest of his church. He was coerced into withdrawing his ideas numerous times and it's no accident that "Phenomenon of Man" wasn't published until after his death. To this day the Catholic Church's official position on his work is one of scorn. That he continued his work in spite of this suggests that he thought it was they who were in the wrong. It is too bad that he never took a stand.

Even though he couldn't reconcile his work with his church, that he tried to do so with his personal faith creates a lot of other problems in his work. As such, he stumbles blindly into errors that were common in his time but are widely discredited now.

For example, it is a common mis-perception that the purpose or direction of evolution is to produce more and more complex creature (this bad idea often symbolized by that tree of life with man at the top). In fact, we often see examples of creatures becoming LESS complex instead of invariably more. Judging by number of species, what is most fit to survive are simple single-celled critters... all the more complex stuff are just a comparatively few freaks.

Teilhard NEEDS that complexity, though, because that is how he manages to cram his god in there - as the source of all complexity and as a purpose for evolution and all life. And while it may be instructional on a psychological level to see how he wraps the facts in the most comfortable explanation, as a philosophical or scientific source I think he leaves a lot to be desired.

That's my take, anyway, for what it's worth. Peace.