Five Public Opinions

According to John Stear of No Answers in Genesis, Carl Wieland of Creation Ministries International has claimed that his organisation is in possession of an 8-page draft of the Apology to the Stolen Generations tabled in Parliament by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. In an article in which he also lauds the denialism of Andrew Bolt on this issue, Wieland claims that the draft contains the following paragraph, excised from the final version of the speech:

‘Prior to 1861, missionaries were prepared to accept according to the principles of their religions, that Aboriginal people were every bit as capable as Europeans. But with the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origins [sic] of the Species in 1859, a new theory starts to take hold and the conception that Aboriginal people are a “disappearing race” starts to take hold in Australian public life. This had equally catastrophic consequences for Aboriginal people and communities.’

Wieland celebrates this passage as supporting the Biblical view that “we are all made in God’s image,” against the “Darwinist” view that “some [humans] must be more ‘highly evolved’ than others.” But he also bemoans, for obvious reasons, a reference to “over 50,000 years of Aboriginal wisdom and knowledge that has never been properly acknowledged or understood by Australian governments,” describing this statement as “inherent[ly] racis[t].” Read the rest of this entry »