The Vatican Gets It Right

In an article in the NY Times the official Vatican newspaper takes the side of evolution.
It reads in part;

ROME, Jan. 18
The official Vatican newspaper published an article this week labeling as "correct" the recent decision by a judge in Pennsylvania that intelligent design should not be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution.

"If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one should search for another," Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, wrote in the Jan. 16-17 edition of the paper, L'Osservatore Romano.
"But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science," he wrote, calling intelligent design unscientific. "It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious."

The article was not presented as an official church position. But in the subtle and purposely ambiguous world of the Vatican, the comments seemed notable, given their strength on a delicate question much debated under the new pope, Benedict XVI. "

I am glad to see the Vatican step away from Intelligent Design as non-science. It was, after all, Pope John II who pardoned Galileo after 400 years. The trial in Pennsylvania and the school board in Kansas shows just much our education system is under attack by people who cannot reconcile their faith with modern science.
Pope Benedict has taken an important step for Catholics to study science in the real world.

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My life is complete. I have seen the goat with a tire around it's middle.

The Robert Rauschenberg show at the Met is a very worthwhile show. It concentrates on the period between 1954 and 59 and has most of the most well known "combines". There are some canvases that are clearly cashing in on his popularity, the summer house series, but most are unique.
I didn't know about Black Mountain and his studying under Joseph Albers. Again the Bauhaus influences our culture. It also becomes clear that Jasper Johns was close to him, the coca cola piece could have been made by Johns, and there are hints at what Louise Nevelson was doing.
What is remarkable is the fact that he was a very good abstract expressionist without all the goodies hanging off the canvases.


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