Two news items of some concern to those of us teaching science at Notre Dame:
First, some depressing news from the Indy Star: GOP lawmakers want schools to teach ‘intelligent design’. And Hoosiers are off on a race to the bottom with the fine people of Kansas.
But Cardinal Paul Poupard has been saying reasonable things about religion risking fundamentalism if it ignores science.
So some bad news, some good. At least we can sound off about idiotic curriculum proposals in the Indy Star forum.
In the msnbc article:
“Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus’ discovery that the earth revolved around the sun;”
That’s NOT what happened. I mean, it sorta is, but it sounds like the whole “The Catholic Church opposes science…” line. If the Church opposed the Copernican model, then why did the future Pope Paul III egg Copernicus on in writing down his findings during Copernicus’ life time?
Granted, there were a lot of politics involved with the whole Galileo thing, and some of it sounds like ‘The Church’ as a whole rejected his findings, but that’s simply not what happened.