THE Church of England will make an official apology to naturalist Charles Darwin for criticising his famous theory of evolution.

Coming 126 years after his death, the church's apology will focus on how wrong it was for senior bishops in the past to misunderstand and attack Darwin's theory about man being descended from apes.

Senior church officials will post the apology in the form of an article written by the Reverend Dr Malcolm Brown on the church's website tomorrow.

"Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth (in 1809), the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still,'' the article says, according to extracts printed by The Mail on Sunday newspaper.

Link

THE Church of England will make an official apology to naturalist Charles Darwin for criticising his famous theory of evolution.

Coming 126 years after his death, the church's apology will focus on how wrong it was for senior bishops in the past to misunderstand and attack Darwin's theory about man being descended from apes.

Senior church officials will post the apology in the form of an article written by the Reverend Dr Malcolm Brown on the church's website tomorrow.

"Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth (in 1809), the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still,'' the article says, according to extracts printed by The Mail on Sunday newspaper.

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you mean it is true? We really are descended from apes?

Hmmmm actually looking at some of the people I know it makes sense and some are closer to their ancestors than others

CB

Funny this, Darwin didn't say we descended from apes. Even the most hardcore evolutionist doesn't say that!

I'm more than happy to remain a literal creationist...

literal creationist...

Detail please..... it isn't a term I am familiar with.

literal creationist...

Detail please..... it isn't a term I am familiar with.

You know already Taddy, I believe in a literal 6 day creation as detailed in Genesis.

I think it's going to be a long week.

To be honest I'd rather be descended from apes than some of the historical figures I've read about.

As Tigger says, we're not descended from apes anyway, but share a common ancestor.

Where do the Catholics stand on evolution now? I've talked to a couple of priests that were quite accepting of it.

It sounds a lot more logical to me than believing a book based on Jewish fairy tales and dietary laws.

literal creationist...

Detail please..... it isn't a term I am familiar with.

You know already Taddy, I believe in a literal 6 day creation as detailed in Genesis.

I hadn't realised that, I can be thick at times.

As an ex-Geology teacher I have incredible difficulty in subscribing to the notion that at first there was nothing and then 'blam' six days later everything was as it is now.

I suppose fundamentalists want Geology banned in schools.

Or just cross out words like Cambrian in text books.

There's types of jewelry they don't like either.

A mosquito and a fly in this Baltic amber necklace are between 40 and 60 million years old

literal creationist...

Detail please..... it isn't a term I am familiar with.

You know already Taddy, I believe in a literal 6 day creation as detailed in Genesis.

I hadn't realised that, I can be thick at times.

As an ex-Geology teacher I have incredible difficulty in subscribing to the notion that at first there was nothing and then 'blam' six days later everything was as it is now.

But isn't the latest theory telling us that at the beginning there was nothing then BLAM six nanoseconds later there were all the elements needed to create the universe?

I don't go with these symbolic apologies anyway. The bloke is dead so what's the use apologising to him? It's like if the Japanese ever get round to apologising for their atrocities during WWII. The POW's suffered and died in their thousands and the perpetrators got away with it and have now mostly died of old age, an option they denied their victims.

I don't go with these symbolic apologies anyway.

It is a little like the recent apology regarding the slave trade, it was 150 years ago, now who on Earth is going to benefit from an apology for a wrong that happened so long ago.

Good Luck

Moss

As an ex-Geology teacher I have incredible difficulty in subscribing to the notion that at first there was nothing and then 'blam' six days later everything was as it is now.

As a failed Catholic I would still subscibe that it is all a miracle, if it took 6 days or 6 million years. Our tiny human minds are just not capable of understanding the truth of any of it.

Speak for yourself General.

I'm all for apologies anyway, they cost virtually nothing and may bring some sort of admittance that the former abuse was wrong.

Many descendants of slaves or indigenous peoples robbed of their land have enormous social problems and just saying "Well, that's how history works" may be enough for some of the descendants of the aggressors but I see no harm in saying I'm personally sorry to them.

I'm not sure about the apology to Darwin is wasn't like they burned him at the stake.

But these apologies are still nothing more than hollow meaningless gestures. It's not like the indigenous people will get all their land back or the descendants of the slaves get to be repatriated to their original homelands. No, the indigenous people will be given a few worthless hectares here and there where they will continue to wallow in the mire. In no way will the slave descendants want to return to their country of origin even if those countries would have them back, unless each was wrapped in US/UK/UN megasubsidies.

Will the Hutus apologise to the Tutsies? Will Sinn Fein apologise to the civillian victims and their families for the campaign of terror waged by their prodigy the IRA? Will Al Queda apologise to those non-western nations that lost citizens in 9-11?

In my book we can admit that the policies of our forbears were wrong without apologising on their behalf.

literal creationist...

Detail please..... it isn't a term I am familiar with.

You know already Taddy, I believe in a literal 6 day creation as detailed in Genesis.

I hadn't realised that, I can be thick at times.

As an ex-Geology teacher I have incredible difficulty in subscribing to the notion that at first there was nothing and then 'blam' six days later everything was as it is now.

Creation doesn't knock geology. Last week I went to a talk entitled 'Creation - the scientific evidence'. It's quite easy to prove that the universe had a begining. It's then up to the individual to believe whether or not a 'creator' was involved.

I suppose fundamentalists want Geology banned in schools.

Or just cross out words like Cambrian in text books.

There's types of jewelry they don't like either.

A mosquito and a fly in this Baltic amber necklace are between 40 and 60 million years old

It's figures like this that cause me concern. what was it, 40 or 60 million years? Check it out, millions and billions are banded about without the scientific proof needed to verify them.

ps I love that type of jewellry. Stop making assumptions. Oh, and geology was one of my best subjects in school, I nearly took my degree in it.

Creation doesn't knock geology. Last week I went to a talk entitled 'Creation - the scientific evidence'. It's quite easy to prove that the universe had a begining. It's then up to the individual to believe whether or not a 'creator' was involved.

I don't think it is, I am quite prepared to believe that 'a creator' was involved (I would actually like there to be one) if the people that believe firmly in that creator tried to fit within the time scales involved.

I have absolutely no problem in viewing the 6 days as a simple explanation to simple people as a story they could understand.

Creation doesn't knock geology. Last week I went to a talk entitled 'Creation - the scientific evidence'. It's quite easy to prove that the universe had a begining. It's then up to the individual to believe whether or not a 'creator' was involved.

I don't think it is, I am quite prepared to believe that 'a creator' was involved (I would actually like there to be one) if the people that believe firmly in that creator tried to fit within the time scales involved.

I have absolutely no problem in viewing the 6 days as a simple explanation to simple people as a story they could understand.

Cool of you to say so. However, I don't like the 'simple people' reference, it assumes that we are so clever and all the people in the past were simple. Are these the same people who built the pyramids? Produced works of archetecture, literature and philosophy that still impresses today? Even Issac Newton believed in a literal creation.

There are many schools of thought as to the '6 day creation' I have a book written by 50 Scientists, doctorates in various disciplines, who all believe in the 6 day creation. One that may interest you (I don't hold to it myself) is that the world existed for a vast amount of time before the creation of man and this is the account we have recorded for us in Genesis. If you want the detail of the book I'll gladly supply it to you. I think you would enjoy it.

ps To any reading this thread, I don't want it to become a 'does God exist' thread. We've had many in the past and they never go anywhere...

However, I don't like the 'simple people' reference, it assumes that we are so clever and all the people in the past were simple. Are these the same people who built the pyramids?

Literally, yes.

Not the people who designed and organised the building, but the ones that hauled the blocks around.

Please don't confuse simple with stupid, I probably should have used the word ordinary.

I think that in days gone by that not only was it unusual for anyone to question the Bible, it could be extremely dangerous to do so.

You can go back a long way before Newton and find scientists and philosophers who were equally brilliant as the ones working and thinking today and I'm not sure that the guys doing the heavy work on the pyramids were any simpler then your average builders laborer in the 21st century.

Sure, the working man today may know more because of TV and the internet but I doubt that they are any smarter.

Sure, the working man today may know more because of TV and the internet but I doubt that they are any smarter.

That's the point I was driving at, in a modern society we have freedom of information (and a hel_l of a lot of misinformation) in days gone by, that wasn't the case, information was controlled and disseminated by those in charge/power.

And as you also pointed out Scea, going against that information could be a very dangerous thing to do. What Newton said in public, could be completely different to what he thought in private. (but that we will never know)

It was no secret that Darwin was nervous about publishing his findings. That is why he took so long.

In my book we can admit that the policies of our forbears were wrong without apologising on their behalf.

I couldn't agree more, or an eye for an eye soon becomes two and then everyone is blind.

But these apologies are still nothing more than hollow meaningless gestures.

Will the Hutus apologise to the Tutsies? Will Sinn Fein apologise to the civillian victims and their families for the campaign of terror waged by their prodigy the IRA? Will Al Queda apologise to those non-western nations that lost citizens in 9-11?

Or even the Tutsie's to the Hutu's, the British Gov't to the Irish, or for Western/Eastern/Northern/Southern Nations to Muslim Individuals for wrongs done to them, it goes on and on, it is actions not apologies that gets things done.

Moss

I'm all for apologies anyway, they cost virtually nothing and may bring some sort of admittance that the former abuse was wrong.

I concur. Apologies can finally mean closure for the children, grand children or great-great grand children. There was a woman not too long ago who's father was shot for being a coward / deserter during the war. She protested for years and the government have finally cleared his name and apologised. Although he is dead and it's too late for him, she has finally cleared his name as a "coward" and now gained closure for herself.

Uh oh.

Fingers, toes, evolved from fins

SCIENTIST have traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas 380 million years ago, according to a new study.

The findings, published today in the British-based science journal Nature, upend the prevailing theory on the evolution of digits.

It had long been assumed that the first creatures to develop primitive fingers were tetrapods, air-breathing animals that crawled from sea to land some 10 to 20 million years later.

The need to adapt to swampy marshlands and terra firma, the theory went, is what drove the gradual shift through natural selection from fish fins suitable only for swimming to weight-bearing limbs with articulated joints.

Something fishy about this?

And why the total lack of Sushi Fingers ...... I smell a conspiracy.

Only 10 to 20 million years ago? Is that long enough?

You can scoff all you like Tigger but here's the REAL proof.

Very good At this rate this thread will be moved to bedders!

You can scoff all you like Tigger but here's the REAL proof.

Very good At this rate this thread will be moved to bedders!

Good Luck

Moss