The 2007 Catholic Blog Awards are open for voting, and we'd like to thank our loyal readers for nominating us to these categories:
Smartest Blog
Best Written Catholic Blog
Best Political/Social Commentary Catholic Blog
Best Group Blog
Welcome to any new readers who found us while sifting through the press of candidates.
**Update (from Darwin)**
Clearly, we'd be gready to run actively for all of these. Given that the awards this year allow you to vote only once, and require that you do so in all categories you're going to vote in at once, votes must be used wisely. If anyone wants to chime in with guidance as to what our campaign strategy should be, feel free. Otherwise, we'll come in with some ideas from campaign headquarters once we've convinced the little ones that it is not acceptable to fight in the war room.
Studiousness
2 hours ago
9 comments:
I have just completed my civic duty. Good luck, you guys!
"Clearly, we'd be gready to run actively for all of these."
Is it too late to rescind my vote for best written and smartest?
LOL
Sorry...couldn't help it, MrsD.
Have fun...I just voted a little bit ago.
oooh...that was Darwin's handy-work... tsk tsk :)
Congratulations!
By the way, your kind efforts in my behalf got me nominated in several categories.
I'll keep my eye on this blog, but no votes for it until there is some better historical work done by the bloggers. One calling oneself "Darwin" ought to have studied not only the theories of Darwin, but the social history and biography of the man a little better before so zealously endorsing the theories. That I have read more on the matter than the blogger is unsettling, as I have read very little, and it is outside my field (judging from the blogger's bio, it is outside of his as well, though...food for thought).
Best wishes, and good luck, but these questions seem to me consdirerably more complex than the bloggers make of them.
NAT
Nat,
Since it seems to worry you, it might not be a bad time to link to the kick-off post for the blog a year and a half ago. As it happens, the "Darwin" in DarwinCatholic actually had very little to do with evolution per se and a great deal to do with the demographic assertion that Catholic culture and morals result in healthy population growth, while the "culture of death" results in population implosion.
Though I do, of course, get drawn into discussing evolution every so often, as that's been something I've been reading and writing about for ten years or so now.
As for more historical context on the life of Charles Darwin and early evolution proponents -- I will doubtless get around to reading more about Darwin himself in the years to come. What I've read so far both about him and by him doesn't strike me as painting quite so black a picture as you have suggested, but I may prove wrong on that. Nonetheless, I think it's important not to get so caught up in worrying about the pop-science and pop-philosophy trappings that have sprung up around evolutionary theory that one loses track of the truth or lack thereof of the theory itself. Otherwise we'll end up like the Thomas Aquinas College rep who convinced me not to go there back when I was in high school by arguing that the Ptolemeic model of the solar system was "more true" than the modern astronomical understanding because it had been "the understanding of the age of faith" and was "more beautiful" regardless of whether it actually reflected reality.
I'm not the slightest bit worried. Nor am I the slightest bit concerned with pop-anything (science or otherwise). Nor do I think I painted a "black" picture of Darwin: there are many many aspects of history to consider regarding him. (effects of the Anglican reformation, Unitarianism, etc in the formation of 19th century British intellectual history). If anything, I find Charles Darwin to be a sad but sympathetic figure.
My comment was meant to be constructive. Perhaps this will help: if one googles "Darwin" and "Catholic", this blog comes up. I happened to be doing some biographical research on Darwin (non-science related, by the way), and I am a Catholic, so I dropped in. On the menu were many things, including anti-ID arguments, etc (I have no opinion on ID, by the way, being too ignorant to comment). From my perspective, and what I found out, was that this is really a clever blog about living as a young Catholic couple with kids. That's fine, but it is not what it seems to be billed as. The mere fact that you had to link me to your first post to prove that the scientific title was more jest than substance is telling. One feels a certain bait & switch quality to the page: surely this makes sense?
One last observation (which you may take or leave): Your science background is obviously amature, and I don't believe amatures should be quick to make pronouncements as to what constitues "real" or "pop" science quite so quickly as you do...I have many friends who are PhD scientists (mostly chemists, admittedly, but others as well) who are nowhere near so dogmatically sure of many of the things asserted here in the science arguments. I've noticed, though, that some Catholics are so against being associated with protestant fundamentalists, that they will turn off their minds when it comes to actual reasonable arguments against Darwinian (note the qualification) Evolution. Beware: this might not really be science either.
NAT
Indeed. And I'll readily agree that the blog has ended up focusing on evolution more frequently than demographics. Having grown up constantly around the Earth Science department of the college where my late father taught, I've found myself inheritor of strong opinions on the interface of faith and science, and occasionally been egged on by the antics of some of the people I've run into along the way: such as one of the erstwhile classics profs I knew at Steubenville who now (despite rather less science background than my own) writes books and articles on ID for the Discovery Institute. So I have rather consciously cultivated our Google visibility in regards to the topic. (Note to self, must see what the new blogger tools can do about getting the evolution posts better organized.)
That said, I try to keep aware of the limitations of being very much an amateur in regards to the topic -- and one whose reading time does not necessarily equal his capacity for buying more books on the topic.
On the one hand, I think that amateurs (so long as they combine a certain degree of education with their enthusiasm) fill an important niche in helping knowledge permeate society. (Or at least, as someone who intends to homeschool his children, I certainly hope they can -- since I can hardly be a professional in everything.) On the other hand, it's without question true that there's a limit to what an amateur can do: generally compile and propogate, not produce much new knowledge.
Well and honestly answered, sir...
NAT
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