- Dawkins on Darwin – Taking anti-evolutionists to task.
- Vatican buries the hatchet with Charles Darwin – “The Vatican has admitted that Charles Darwin was on the right track when he claimed that Man descended from apes.” From DMS.
- Devolve me – Upload a photo of yourself and see what you’d look like as an Australopithecus or other human ancestor. Emory says, “It’s even more fun when you use photos of prominent creationists.”
- What Darwin means to me – Elles has a wonderful post over on Teen Skepchick.
- Ten Major Flaws of Evolution: A Refutation – This is one of those posts that you should bookmark, memorize, tattoo on your arm, etc.Â
I tried the “devolve me” thing on a picture of myself and I don’t look all that different. Should I be worried?
I’m so relieved that the Vatican has vindicated Darwin. Just like that–POOF!–the dissonance is gone.
I’m amused by the way the Vatican has “made peace” with Darwin and Galileo long, long after their deaths. Nothing like saying “I’m sorry” to a pile of bones several feet below ground level.
But if you’ve been paying attention you’ve noticed that the ID pushers have been almost exclusively non-Catholics. They’re from Pentecostal, Baptist and other Protestant churches. So this latest statement from Pope Ratzo’s peeps hardly comes as a surprise. It’s just nice to see because it surely annoy the Genesis literalists who make up the ID camp.
I though the vatican made peace with evolution ages ago. I went to a catholic school and we were taught that creation was a myth and about evolution, and so was my mom by the nunsback in the 50s. And didnt JPII make some comments to that effect it in the 80s?
@movingshadow: Yeah, that’s what I thought I was saying in my comment. They’ve not had a problem with evolution theory in a long time. This latest news story is really about their near-total ‘snubbing’ of the ID crowd in an upcoming conference. “Intelligent Design would be discussed at the fringes of the conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University, but merely as a ‘cultural phenomenon’ …” Tee-hee.
I join MovingShadow in always understanding the Theory of Evolution as the accepted Scientific Origin of Species.
Intelligent Design has been in my, extended observation, a product of protestant true believers.
I agree with DMS that the story is just one more about the fight between Catholics and Protestants. Gee, that gives the poor IDs one more group to attack.They already tell Catholics they aren’t Christians as it is. *rolls eyes* So now with Catholics and (Uh Oh) Scientists (agnostics, atheists, deists(sp)) all against them what will happen now? Oh I guess the truth.
Thanks for the devolve me link! My students have been having a blast with it.
@Steve: the same thing happened to me, I even kept my beard. I did look best as a homo erectus
One sentence in that Vatican story worries me a bit.
‘ As for the origins of Man, although we shared 97 per cent of our “genetic inheritance†with apes, the remaining 3 per cent “is what makes us uniqueâ€, including religion.’
Does this mean that someone thinks religion is genetic? It looks like the author of the article is implying that religion is part of our genetic make up. So… is there a Catholic gene, Anglican gene, Eastern Orthodox gene, or maybe even an atheist gene?
Spacepope, I don’t think the reporter meant to imply anything. He’s simply reporting what was said. Though the concept of a Catholic gene makes me chuckle.
Well, VMAT2 has been called the “god gene”. Probably more like the “woo gene”, though.
“…And didn’t JPII make some comments to that effect it in the 80s?”
Yup. With infallible Popes contradicting each other, they certainly makes their belief system crystal clear… ;-)
@DMS: Yeah, but the Catholic church never did a damn thing to Darwin personally – fortunately, Anglicans don’t torture scientists for discovering inconvenient things.
I went to Catholic school too. As much as they taught us anything, they taught evolution. Creationism might be popular with fringe traditionalist Catholic groups, but I think it’s pretty much an evangelical Protestant cause.
@QuestionAuthority: Well, if I understand correctly the Catholic doctrine, the Pope is not infallible every time, but only when some cardinals or such gather in assembly and say that yes, the Pope was indeed infallible when he said so-and-so.
That is to say, the Pope is actually infallible when a group of fallible men decide he is. What was that they say about the weakest link again?
@Andrés Diplotti: well put!
But you just don’t understand, Andrés Diplotti!
Ben Stein Devolved:
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/807/bensteindevolvedqv5.jpg
Used this pic (flipped it horizontally):
http://blog.newsok.com/bamsblog/files/2008/10/ben-stein.jpg
@KristinMH:
It amuses me that it took the Vatican a few centuries to apologise to and think about erecting a monument to Galileo.
By contrast, Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey right after he died. Clearly, evolution is less inconvenient to some strains of Christianity than others.