Search For the Tomb of Copernicus Reaches an End 243
duh P3rf3ss3r writes "The Associated Press reports that after 200 years of speculation and investigation, the tomb of Nicolaus Copernicus has been found. Although the heliocentric concept had been suggested earlier, Copernicus is widely thought of as the father of the scientific theory of the heliocentric solar system. The positive identification was made by comparing the DNA from a skeleton's teeth with that from hairs in a book known to have belonged to Copernicus. A computer-generated facial reconstruction is said to also bear a resemblance to contemporary portraits of the scientist."
Re:From TFA: (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe you can try and read what is there instead of what you want to read.
1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
So here we have the original creation. Who knows how long ago. It does not say.
2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The part "was without form, void" is a bad translation and should say "became without form, and void;". So apparently something happened, and who knows how much time went by, between the first creation and the second "re-creation" of the surface of the earth.
In any case when you read what is actually says there is nothing there that disagrees with what modern science has observed.
Re:This is good news for the church (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I fail to see how facial reconstruction... (Score:5, Informative)
... can give, from a skull, any hint about the size of the nose and the shape of the ear, both of which are made of just cartilage.
Any hint ?
It's a bit of an art, but even artists use models.
In this case, with facial recontstruction you have a lot of data to work from. We have been cataloging human anatomy for a long time, as such we have a lot of evidence for what certain bones look like. We have also are able to combine those bones with pictures of the actual person, or at least compare to facial features of that person's ethnic background.
Bones give a lot of clues to the soft tissue that used to surround them. Ligaments will leave 'scars' on the bones which indicate a whole slew of factors. Did that person use the muscle a lot, was it ever torn. By measuring the size and condition of the 'scar' you can extrapolate what the muscle that connected to it would have been like. The same way you can tell the joint of a 50yr old that ran a lot from a 30 yr old that was just a scribe.
Now the face is a bit different, but for the most part, you know what muscles go where, and they don't vary much. As for noses and ears, look at where the cartilage was attached and you will see similar effects as due to the ligaments. Combine that shape with what you have measured on 1000s of skulls before, and you select the shape of the nose or ear that corresponds to those markings.
And pictures help too ;)
Re:From TFA: (Score:3, Informative)
Have you ever talking about sunset or sunrise, or the ? I don't imagine that when you do, you're making a scientific statement. Similarly, poetic and narrative descriptions of the location or procession of the sun should not be taken as scientific descriptions. People back then had no great reason to think that heliocentrism was better than geocentrism, but the Bible doesn't come out and endorse any position, or even raise it as a subject.
Re:This is good news for the church (Score:5, Informative)
They didn't take objection to HIS work because his work was published posthumously. The unfortunate bastard who came after Copernicus, Galileo, was the one who received the ire of the church. Not just because he was contradicting church doctrine, but because he was also using evidence to support his claims.
Re:From TFA: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm going to have to reread Genesis. [virginia.edu] I don't recall seeing anywhere where it says the earth is the center of anything, let alone the universe.
Genesis doesn't. However, there are verses in other books of the Bible that state things like (paraphrased) "God established the Earth such that it cannot move".
Such verses used to be interpreted to mean the Earth did not, in fact, move, which would mean that everything that looked like it was circling the Earth actually was - which logically means the Earth would be the center of the Universe.
Those verses are now interpreted differently.
Re:The sun is the center of the universe? (Score:5, Informative)
Happy to throw people in jail? Really? That's a bit odd when you consider that On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres was prefaced by a Lutheran theologian, dedicated to the Pope and been prompted to be written by the Archbishop of Capua. Even a cursory glance at Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] would make that clear. Why do you think the church was throwing people in jail? over astronomy? A big chunk of astronomers were clerics or funded by the church.
Re:This is good news for the church (Score:1, Informative)
Not just because he was contradicting church doctrine, but because he was also using evidence to support his claims.
Actually, it was mostly because he called the Pope an idiot and actually wasn't showing as much evidence as the some would have liked. The myth is that he proved the earth wasn't the center of the universe, and them them big meanie Catholics came down to ruin his day, because, for unexplained reasons, they hate all thing factual.
Re:From TFA: (Score:5, Informative)
The part "was without form, void" is a bad translation and should say "became without form, and void;"
That is what we call a "theological translation". You believe that only because somebody told you that. It could just as well mean that in the process of creating the earth, it was, at the particular point in time we are noting, formless and empty.
The verb is hayah. In Gen. 2:1, it's just your basic "be" verb, in the Qal 3rd person form. "At that point in time, it so was". If it was speaking of a future event, it would be "it will be".
The verb has no connotation of some process of becoming, nor does it imply some transitional state that proceeded it. It merely means that at this particular point in time, whatever may have been, it is this way now.
This is Hebrew 101. It's just a "be" verb. This is simple stuff, dude. And that is why any major translation you care to name: KJV, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, NIV, ESV, NASB, JPS, NJB, the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, Luther's 1545 German, translate it: "the earth was ...". But of course, they must all have been inept translators . . .
Re:Center of the universe (Score:3, Informative)
Now it's Haiku!