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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: 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.