Vatican City -- Intelligent design is not science and should not be taught as a scientific theory in schools alongside Darwinian evolution, an article in the Vatican newspaper said.

The article said that in pushing intelligent design some groups were improperly seeking miraculous explanations in a way that creates confusion between religious and scientific fields.

At the same time, scientists should recognize that evolutionary theory does not exclude an overall purpose in creation -- a "superior design" that may be realized
through secondary causes like natural selection, it said.

The article, published in the Jan. 17 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, was written by Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna in Italy.

The article noted that the debate over intelligent design -- the idea that certain features of life and the universe are best explained by an intelligent designer rather than adaptive evolution -- has spread from the United States to Europe.

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And for those interested in more discussion, Pontifications is currently hosting a thoughtful debate on Cardinal Schonborn's contributions to this topic.