The Friends of Charles Darwin

I'm with the Vatican on this one:

BBC: Vatican recants with a statue of Galileo

Four hundred years after it put Galileo on trial for heresy the Vatican is to complete its rehabilitation of the great scientist by erecting a statue of him inside the Vatican walls.

The planned statue is to stand in the Vatican gardens near the apartment in which Galileo was incarcerated while awaiting trial in 1633 for advocating heliocentrism, the Copernican doctrine that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

Nicola Cabibbo, head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and a nuclear physicist, said: "The Church wants to close the Galileo affair and reach a definitive understanding not only of his great legacy but also of the relationship between science and faith."

Pharyngula says it's too little, too late, too cheesy, and Civil Commotion describes it as chutzpah (whatever that means), but, to me, it sounds like a genuine attempt to draw a line under the whole Galileo business and acknowledge, straight cough, that they were wrong. If that is indeed the case, kudos to them (whatever that means too).

And, on his rare, conciliatory occasion with the Roman Catholic church, why don't I go the whole hog and disagree with Lunartalks too?

BBC: Italy row over Galileo's remains

The Renaissance genius Galileo Galilei is once again at the centre of a row between Church and science more than 360 years after his death…

Researchers in Florence want to exhume the two bodies from the city's Basilica of the Holy Cross but the rector of the basilica is having none of it - describing the plan as disrespectful.

Galileo's memorial,
Santa Croce.
(cc) Richard Carter

I don't think the refusal of the rector to allow Galileo to be exhumed is hypocrisy; it is entirely consistent with the church's belief in showing respect to the dead. Why should we let someone dig up the remains of a scientific genius just because it would be interesting? Where's your respect, people? Leave the poor sod alone!

Besides, even if it were justifiable to dig up Galileo, standard archaeological best practice advises that most remains should stay in the ground because, in future, our techniques for examining them will no doubt have improved.

Whatever next? Digging up Darwin just to see if he really did have Chagas Disease?

I hope there would be an outcry.