[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.

[PatrickHenry]

Is their treatment of Galileo reflected in this latest treatment of ID?

I think it is, for the reasons I gave back in posts 385 and 391. Their position on ID is a result of what appears to be their institutional decision never again to be on the wrong side of what history will view as another Galileo affair. They were scientific boneheads once, but they're determined to avoid such a mistake in the future.