THIS DAY IN HISTORY: DID DARWIN GET IT RIGHT?

By Tim Rohr

I email subscribe to the History Channel's "This Day in History" newsletter and today there was this:

“Origin of Species” is published

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England on November 24, 1859. Darwin’s theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called “natural selection.” In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species. CONTINUED

The post brought to mind a column I had written for our local Catholic paper 23 years ago. It was titled HOW HENRY VIII GAVE US RU-486, which, despite, its weird title, was centered on the common Genesis v Evolution debate. 

I had never had a problem with the theory of evolution, and from what I knew then, my Catholic Church - at least per John Paul II - was okay with it. However, in the year 2000, and when I wrote the aforesaid column, I had come across a book titled Did Darwin Get It Right-Catholics and the Theory of Evolution by George Sim Johnston. 

Johnston's questions blew my mind and led to my writing of the column HOW HENRY VIII GAVE US RU-486. 

Even though I was a weekly columnist for the local Catholic paper, the then-editor refused to run the column. I remember arguing with him on my cell phone sitting in a parking lot at Kings Restaurant. 

I don't remember what the objection was, and within a few months both him and I were fired by "the chancery" (another story I may tell someday), but I uploaded my story to my blog and forgot about it...until now. 

It's worth a read, but much more, a better read is "Did Darwin Get It Right?