[PatrickHenry]

... I believe you and CG just went off on your own sidebar ...

I don't think the Galileo affair is a sidebar in this thread, which is, after all, about the Vatican's position on ID. It all ties together. Science vs. scripture, and how to deal with such issues. The Galileo affair is the inevitable background to understanding the current position of the Church on such issues.

[b_sharp]

"I don't think the Galileo affair is a sidebar in this thread, which is, after all, about the Vatican's position on ID. It all ties together. Science vs. scripture, and how to deal with such issues. The Galileo affair is the inevitable background to understanding the current position of the Church on such issues"

Only if it can be shown that the Galileo affair has had some impact on Vatican decisions of today. Is their treatment of Galileo reflected in this latest treatment of ID?

The thread has left it's original path of discussing the Vatican's current view on science and followed a new path to what the Vatican's view was almost 400 years ago without causally linking the two.

In any case I have no weapons to bring to bear to the debate about Galileo. I know nothing.

[jcb8199]

The Galileo affair is the inevitable background to understanding the current position of the Church on such issues.

And the ONLY background often mentioned...

The Church is never credited for fostering and growing science and education, only for standing in its way as "proven" by the Galileo affair. As I said a second ago, it can be said that the Church was acting in the interests of science in insisting the heliocentric model be taught as hypothesis, since not enough evidence was available to prove it. Scientists (good ones, anyway) don't make claims they can't back up--they make hypotheses that are subject to change or affirmation with the discovery of new information.