Stranger Fruit

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has once more taken a stance on evolution and once more illustrated his lack on knowledge:

“What I desire intensely is that, also in school programs, questions be explained, at the scientific level, opened by the theory of evolution, such as the famous question of the missing rings [sic],” Cardinal Schönborn said.

The cardinal said that 150 years after Darwin’s theory, “there is no evidence in the geological strata of intermediate species that should exist, according to Darwin’s theory.”

No “missing rings” eh?

It’s hard to know which is sadder, Schönborn’s ignorance or the fact that certain IDologists seem to fetishize the opinion of a bunch of priests in scientific matters.

Comments

#1 kemibe
August 26, 2006

“…according to Darwin’s theory.”

This shit-encrusted piece of “reasoning” is trotted out by evolution deniers so often that its inanity is typically lost on those of us who tend to focus on holes in the deniers’ scientific claims. To hear people like the Cardinal tell it, Charles Darwin is the only man ever to study evolution and the entire field remains in the state it was in circa 1860. Sorry, dipshit, this ain’t religious ideology.
#2 Dave Carlson
August 26, 2006

Okay, I think I missed something. What are these “rings” that the good Cardinal is referring to? I’m pretty familiar with the alleged missing links, but the missing rings are new to me. Is this some sort of translation issue?
#3 Zeno
August 26, 2006

In German, “links” means “left”, doesn’t it? I guess he left it out. So they’re missing.

Hey, that doesn’t make any sense. Even to me. Pretty much like the cardinal.
#4 Rob Knop
August 26, 2006

If I recall correctly, the missing rings have something to do with hobbits and Sauron.
#5 John Lynch
August 26, 2006

Hard to know whether it’s an indication of Schönborn’s ignorance or not. In German, missing links is “fehlende Verbindungen” while missing rings would be “fehlende Ringe” – seem difficult to misstranslate, if you ask me.

Interestingly, the German YEC site “Wort Und Wissen” provides a hit for “fehlende Ringe” in a discussion of C-14 dating and dendrochronology.
#6 NJ
August 26, 2006

If I recall correctly, the missing rings have something to do with hobbits and Sauron.

Bumperstickerisms – Take your pick:

Frodo failed. Cheney has the ring.

Chaney/Sauron 2008
#7 SPARC
August 27, 2006

Schönborns position is aproaching IDism more and more. And he makes the very same statements (currently only available in German) which of course don’t get better if they are repeated:
Some examples:

According to http://www.diepresse.com Schönborn was talking abbout censorship in the scientific community on Alpach Technology Forum 2006 in Alpbach, Austria http://www.alpbach.org/English/forum2006/technologie.htm
His talk was entitled “Fides, Ratio, Scientia” (Faith, rationality and science) in which he refers to his ID NY Times comment. Within his talk he claimed that
the catholic church is defending rationality. (“…wobei sich seiner Meinung nach die Kirche als Verteidigerin der Vernunft versteht”) and does not fight evolution theory but evolutionism.
According to “Radio Stephansdom” http://stephanscom.at/news/0/articles/2006/08/25/a11362/ seemingly the official radio sation of the Vienna diocese he stated that evolutionism is indeed imbellished Communism and Nazism, nowadays showing up in economical social darwinism.
(“Der ideologische Evolutionismus sei nicht umsonst die “wissenschaftliche Verbrämung sowohl des Kommunismus wie des Nationalsozialismus” gewesen, warnte der Erzbischof vor den Gefahren einer solchen Position. Heute zeige sich diese Ideologie im wirtschaftlichen Sozialdarwinismus, der einen schrankenlosen wirtschaftlichen “Kampf ums Dasein” rechtfertigen will.”)

You can find a movie of Schönborn’s talk (in German) here: http://streaming.telekom.at/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=401&Itemid=336
#8 sparc
August 27, 2006

Hard to know whether it’s an indication of Schönborn’s ignorance or not. In German, missing links is “fehlende Verbindungen” while missing rings would be “fehlende Ringe” – seem difficult to misstranslate, if you ask me.

“missing link” is commonly used in German rather then translated if one is talking about evolution. Nobody would use the term “fehlende Verbindung”. A propper translation is “fehlendes Glied” which like in English refers to a missing link in a chain. Still, this does not help to understand what Schönborn actually wanted to say. The only propper interpretation is that he doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about. At least in terms of biology. In political terms I am pretty sure that he has similar goals as IDists in the US.
#9 sparc
August 28, 2006

I forgot the link to the article “Censorship within the scientific community” on http://www.diepresse.com which cites Schönborn’s “Fides, Ratio, Scientia” talk:

http://www.diepresse.com/Artikel.aspx?channel=h&ressort=ws&id=580747