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Darwin Day is a celebration of Charles Darwin's birthday, the theory of evolution and science in general. This year marks his 210th birthday and 160 years since the publication of The Origin of Species. Those looking to celebrate or learn more about Darwin and evolution will find a wealth of events going on, or if you'd rather not leave the house, try a Darwin Day card with designs generated by simulated evolution.
Recently, an important finding in man's evolution was announced; the so-called Missing Link was confirmed. Australopithecus Sediba fossils were found in 2010 but it took a decade of research and debate for scientists to confirm that this was indeed the missing link that connects man's evolution in an unbroken chain back to primate ancestors.
Not everyone is down with Darwin. The Pew Research Center reports, "In spite of the fact that evolutionary theory is accepted by all but a small number of scientists, it continues to be rejected by many Americans. In fact, about one-in-five U.S. adults reject the basic idea that life on Earth has evolved at all." In Indiana, senator Dennis Kruse introduced a bill that would, among other things, "require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science."
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @03:52PM (49 children)
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
Mystery Red of the Great American Eclipse [siderus.io]
It has blood on it! [siderus.io]
ABCNews: Eclipse makes pendulum wander [archive.org]
Losing my religion [siderus.io]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 11 2019, @04:44PM (48 children)
And? It's not hurting anyone for them to believe something silly unless you consider exposure to things you disagree with as harm, which would be pretty fucked up of you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:25PM (32 children)
You mean other than the fact that these are the same mouth breathers that fight tooth and nail against doing the research necessary to solve our problems, right? These are the same people that constantly fight against doing research because they're not secure in their beliefs. If they were so secure in their beliefs then they should want the research to be done, so that it proves their views.
Thankfully, every year, more of them convert away from such crazy superstitions than are brought into it, meaning that eventually they'll just die out. Most mainstream religions, including Catholicism, accept evolution.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:35PM (31 children)
If you are referring to the Catholic Church based in the Vatican, I would say you need to provide a citation. The Catholic Church officially still holds geocentrism to be true, and Galileo to be incorrect. The Church has the Bible and lack of demonstrable proof of Earth motion on its side.
If the Church has concluded we are all space monkeys, that is news to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:56PM (3 children)
Geocentrism is true, and Gallileo was incorrect. So good. Now we know that geocentrism and heliocentrism are both equally correct, it is just a personal choice of reference frame.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @06:38PM
Very astute. One choice; that given by God. The other, wandering to condemnation.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:15AM (1 child)
Position laid out, and summarily refuted, Here! [discovermagazine.com].
Thank Godness that the Flat Earth Society [theflatearthsociety.org] has no truck with such nonsense.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday February 13 2019, @06:38PM
You've been around a while. Back in the day when the Christians were writing their bible, there were already philosophers who realised that the Earth was a ball and orbited the Sun and had indeed attempted to measure things like the circumference of the Earth. So why did the Christians and their church (the original one, Roman Catholic, not these Johnny-come-latelys) adopt the ludicrous flat Earth/Earth at the centre "model?"
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday February 11 2019, @06:27PM (25 children)
Citation: https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/28/pope-francis-comments-on-evolution-and-the-catholic-church [usnews.com]
Pope Francis good enough for you? Ex cathedra, and all that.
Or John Paul II, on Gallileo Gallilei: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13618460-600-vatican-admits-galileo-was-right/ [newscientist.com]
I hope these are enough citations to remedy your grevious ignorance. Your opinions seem almost Medieval, like a wall or a wheel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @06:31PM (24 children)
No, neither of those are good enough. Were the declarations of 500 years ago rescinded? Answer: No.
Francis is also wrong. He is a practicer of Lawlessness.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Monday February 11 2019, @06:43PM (23 children)
Can't read, huh? Must be a "Christian, not Catholic" sort of Christian. A Moron.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @07:28PM (10 children)
But they did not repeal the original findings. Geocentrism is still on the books.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday February 11 2019, @08:02PM
Citation lacking. What "books"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @08:05PM (6 children)
What about the In praeclara summorum? In it, Pope Benedict XV stated, "though this Earth on which we live may not be the center of the universe as at one time was thought, it was the scene of the original happiness of our first ancestors, witness of their unhappy fall, as too of the Redemption of mankind through the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ".
That is why people get confused. The official position of the Catholic Church is that the Earth goes around the Sun (well, they go around each other at the barycenter), but the Earth is the Center of the Universe.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday February 11 2019, @11:44PM (5 children)
The encyclical on Dante? The does not contain the quote given? Very bad citation, bad, AC!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:24AM (4 children)
What are you smoking? I'll quote the pertinent part from paragraph 4 as translated at http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xv_enc_30041921_in-praeclara-summorum.html [vatican.va]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:09AM (2 children)
Are you sure? I did a "find in page" and it returned negative on "center of the universe". Are you sure this is the proper encyclical, and that you did not mean to reference the one on Charles Chaplin?
And besides, why the obsession with Dante? Tom Hanks? Latest Dan Brown movie? Am I correct?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:29AM (1 child)
Ah, got it. Your fabled intellegence is a myth. Your just an asshat that can't read for information, such as other terms to search for or paragraph citations, or is unable to distinguish bold highlighting to determine context.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:48AM
Are you suggesting that Pope, the Pontifex Maximus, Benedict the XV, did not know how to spell "center" properly? Oh, now I see, oh squirrelly AC, that you have never been serious in this accusation from the beginning. You are just attacking the Church Universal and Triumphant, which while I disagree with that charaterization, I can see how it would be off-putting to various heresies like Donatists, Pricillianists, Arians, Lutherns, Pentecostals, Episcopalians, Copts, Cavalry Chapel, Branch Davidian, Identity Christians (white), and Mormons. So which are you, hmm? Is it the "Whore upon the Earth" of which Joe Smith, "Seer, with Stone" wrote? Or just the old, "Here I stand, I am too stupid to to other and have to rely on the Grace of God to make me not be an incel? Could you be a Southern Baptizer of recent news in Tejas? Actually, the possilities are too vast, and you have not answered the question, What "books"? And what "findings"? What the heck are you talking about? You are destroying the reputation of all the other fine ACs on SoylentNews but such substandard trolling. Do better, "be best", as someone also illiterate has said.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:52PM
What are YOU smoking? Or can you not read? From your quotation (the part you bolded):
Yes, at one time it WAS thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. It is no longer thought to be thus, and there's nothing in your quotation that implies that. And the passage you quote basically says in paraphrase, "Although it's no longer thought to be the center of the universe (as it once was), Earth is still where Jesus Christ did his thing," etc.
And really, if you're going to cite Catholic doctrine, you should consult the official Latin [vatican.va], which makes this all even clearer. Roughly, the Latin version says explicitly that "the Earth is no longer like the center of the universe, as WAS the opinion" [in the past]. And I assume the original (if modern Vatican practice is maintained) was probably first drafted in the Italian version [vatican.va], which explicitly states, "this Earth which we inhabit, although it is no longer the center of the universe, as was once believed..."
There is nothing in the English translation you quote which implies that geocentrism is "still on the books" as you claim, and the Latin and Italian versions don't have the slightly awkward grammatical element ("may") in the English that I think you're trying to exploit (which comes out of a translator trying to get the gist of the sentence in fluid English) -- they explicitly note the Earth is NOT the center of the universe. Only that it "was believed" to be such IN THE PAST.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday February 11 2019, @08:06PM (1 child)
What "findings"? The Catholic Church is not a scientific body. After the Galileo affair, primarily for political reasons, it put a ban on books teaching heliocentrism as proven fact, as well as on strong advocacy of the Copernican theory.
Which, to be clear, it was NOT proven fact at the time of Galileo, despite the fact that Galileo wanted to teach it as if it were true. It wasn't until nearly a century later with Bradley's observation of stellar aberration that we had the first empirical evidence that heliocentrism was correct. Within a decade his findings had been translated into Italian, and a few years later Copernicus was removed from the banned books list. In the early 19th century, after the final major arguments against heliocentrism were finally debunked (stellar parallax was finally explained and measured, Coriolis forces were observed), the Church raised no further objections against books that claimed heliocentrism to be fact. (See here [wikipedia.org] for the timeline; I can give citations for the rest if needed, though I've discussed this matter before here.)
I'm not defending the church's censorship actions, but once there was actual empirical evidence for heliocentrism, the church dropped its censorship soon after. And after there was clear resolution of the major (empirical) objections against heliocentrism that had been puzzled over by scientists for centuries, the church raised no further objection to teaching it as proven fact. The ruling there (over 150 years ago) clearly indicated that the church recognized the proven fact of heliocentrism, which can't be true if geocentrism is also true. I haven't looked at the detailed ruling from the 1800s, but I'm pretty sure it's no longer keeping "geocentrism on the books."
What more do you need?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @10:58PM
From the Wiki page: "It did not, however, explicitly rescind the decisions issued by the Inquisition in its judgement of 1633 against Galileo, or lift the prohibition of uncensored versions of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus or Galileo's Dialogue. "
Later: "Copernicus's De Revolutionibus and Galileo's Dialogue were then subsequently omitted from the next edition of the Index when it appeared in 1835."
Note no rescinding of the original judgments.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday February 11 2019, @07:44PM (11 children)
Don't bother. The A/C is probably khallow, who looks at the evidence you provide that prove him incorrect in his weird, tiny little world view, and and then sticks his fingers in his ears and screams "I CAN'T HEAR YOU"!!!!!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 11 2019, @11:23PM (10 children)
More likely Freeman, who thinks Gish Galloping link-spam to JW propaganda outfits is an argument...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:15AM (9 children)
Really? A JW?
Goodness, there are some odd people on this site some days.
I wonder if his upline* knows he's associating with "worldly" people. Usually the JW leaders like to keep the rank-and-file away from anyone who might introduce them to new ideas.
* I'm pretty sure that's the name they use for the leaders the average JW's have to report to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:17AM
What about the Social Jehovah's Witnesses (SJWs)I keep seeing reference to here on SN? Are they a splinter group?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:26AM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:34AM (2 children)
Would it? Really?
Thanks for the good advice.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:28AM
Thinking about why you don't have to pay attention to an idiotic opinion is a rational argument! It is like, "Wow, this is a Nine Khallow load! Best to ignore it. Even an oblivious rebuttal is not in order."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @08:16PM
You're welcome. Of course, good advice is best followed, but I get we're not to that stage yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:49PM (1 child)
You are a prime example of why people need to "walk the walk" if they want to tell other people how to act. You are one of the worst offenders. Doctor heal thyself! And no, it ain't lupus.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 12 2019, @08:12PM
Then you should be able to think of an example of that, right? I can't fix behavior (or be shamed), if one merely says things and never backs them up.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:32PM (1 child)
I'm actually not sure if he's an orthodox JW or just something similar, but he keeps linking to this "amazing facts" website that sounds very JW-ish. I will give him credit for having done enough research to understand that the proper reading of the Bible specifies Annihilationism rather than endless torment in Hell for the "unsaved," but it's likely he didn't even come to THAT on his own, just parroted from that site or whatever.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 13 2019, @07:04PM
Yeah, well, reading the bible to try to figure out what to believe seems like a bit of a fool's errand to me, but people have seemed to spend a lot of time and effort on it over the years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @06:53PM
Poop Pius XII, ENCYCLICAL: HUMANI GENERIS [vatican.va]
, Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, 12 August 1950,
"You never see a commie drink water, right Mandrake?" Darn Dialectical Materialism!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:59PM (14 children)
It is when their misinformation is forming their voting pattern. We have 3 choices - work to get voters to deal with reality, suppress their vote, or have them elect idiots. We are currently mostly going with option 3 and it's failing spectacularly. I find option 2 repugnant. That leaves me with option 1.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:34AM (13 children)
You're missing the point. They have the absolute right to be as wrong as they care to be. Including in their voting patterns.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:33AM (4 children)
Perhaps. Only if they never, ever, tell anyone else about it. If they open their yapper, they are harming their family, their children, future generations, the Choctow Nation, residents of the greater Phillidelphia area, the world, and the progress of the sciences. So we are right to mock them, punch them in the face, ban them from twitter and peer-reviewed academic journals, commit them to instituions for the criminally insane, and if all else fails, make them watch Fox News until they die.
You are so wrong, Buzzy, so wrong that you would not recognize right if it bit right on the end of your line.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 12 2019, @11:54AM (3 children)
You're right, ari. Now where do you hang your sandals so we can come execute you for wrongthink again?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:33PM (2 children)
Silly Buzzard! This is what philosophers do! Get executed by idiots with stupid beliefs! Are you not aware that my pregenitor Pythagoras was forced to flee and live for years in a cave, because of the beliefs of Polycrates, the Tyrant of Samos? Ultimately he left for Italy, but then was murdered by townsfolk with stupid beliefs. And then there was Socrates, whom I assume you have heard of. Zeno? Soranus? Seneca the Younger, forced to commit suicide by the God-emperor, Nero, another with incorrect beliefs. Justin Martyr? Sopater, put to death by Constantine? Boethius? Ayn-al-Qużāt Hamadānī, "Shahāb ad-Dīn" Yahya ibn Habash Suhrawardī and others killed by alleged Muslims with wrong views. Algernon Sidney, executed by Charles II, another king with silly beliefs. Giordano Bruno, burned at the stake by persons with very small beliefs. Antonio Gramsci, killed by the idiot Mussolini with his fascist beliefs.
Almost all these philosophers were killed by egoistic rulers, or conservative religious establishments, or in general the right-wing of historical politics. Not surprising that now the alt-right seeks to continue the fine tradition, having to as it were, "destroy western civilization in order to save it." (Ben Tre [wikipedia.org] strategy, from America's victory in Vietnam, engineered and operated by people with erroneous beliefs.)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:19AM (1 child)
Pythagoras, he invented triangles, right? Big fan. You're going to need to leave western civilization if you want to get executed though. Might I suggest China, Russia, or the Middle East?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday February 14 2019, @04:18PM
You are belying your sig, Oh Micturating Buzzard!
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday February 13 2019, @04:38AM (7 children)
And others have the absolute right to attempt to change their voting patterns, including by pointing out how wrong they are.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:23AM (6 children)
Absolutely. That's the entire purpose behind the first amendment. Our founders thought it was exceedingly less shitty to convince others by reasoned or even heated argument than by seeking to impose your will upon others. Check again which is being called for here by the anti-theists.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 14 2019, @05:41PM (5 children)
The first amendment was just about the Federal government overriding the States rights to impose their wills on others. It was pretty pointed that only Congress was limited by the 1st. We're talking about a country that embraced slavery and theft of land.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 15 2019, @03:09AM (4 children)
Get some context on your butthurt. Europe gave the Americas over a hundred and fifty years before there even was a United States. Less than a hundred years after freeing ourselves, we also freed the slaves. Now we give preferential treatment to descendants of slaves so far removed from it that their grandparents never met anyone who was previously a slave.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday February 15 2019, @04:07AM (3 children)
The Colonists reacted pretty strongly about the Royal Proclamation of 1763, between it allowing Catholics to participate in government and the King stating that all his subjects were equal, so don't steal or otherwise settle land east of I forget exactly where, one of the seeds of revolution were planted.
What happened in the middle of the 19th century doesn't take away the fact that while your Constitution said everyone was equal, it also valued a slave as 3/5ths of a free man and those rights in the Bill of Rights that referred to persons didn't include slaves. Basically right from the beginning, the founding principles were ignored when convenient and today, Congress passes laws limiting speech, laws infringing on the right to bear arms and Congress people push for religious laws and appoint Justices based on religion rather then capability.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 15 2019, @11:57AM (2 children)
So you're objecting to people hundreds of years ago not having culturally evolved to modern ethical standards, yes? Guilt is not hereditary and you'd be extremely hard pressed to find any civilization in history that didn't come from one far more barbaric and less ethically sound by today's standards. You should probably back up and punt on this particular line of argument.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday February 16 2019, @04:31AM (1 child)
I was objecting to this statement,
and the fact that their actions were in disagreement of their words.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 17 2019, @02:18AM
Oh, you're demanding absolute perfection of anyone to see the merit in them then. Roger.
Dude, nobody's perfect. Don't even look for it because you will always be disappointed. Especially don't look for perfection by today's standards in men who lived over two hundred years ago. Societal values and mores were nothing like they are now. It's perfectly acceptable to consider someone a great human being without approving of their every thought and deed (especially in massive hindsight); they need only have done something worthy of calling great.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.