Rhetorical Activitiy 3

The Daily Athenaeum, September 17, 2008
"Posthumous Apology to Darwin Useless"

There isn't an issue "under debate", really. a guest editorial from the Iowa State Daily is talking about how the Church of England issued a statement saying they were sorry for "rejecting his (Darwin's) theory of evolution" and how that was nice and everything, except for the fact that he's dead now and he'll never be able to hear it himself. The article brings up other issues that the Church should also apologize for, noting that all of them will be too little, too late anyway. Given the writer's account of the issue, I would have to say that the argument seems to lie between the Definition and Quality stasis, because they are saying "this is what is happening" and "this is a bad thing". The position being argued against is the Church and their ultra-Conservative, no-one-is-right-unless-they-agree-with-us-attitude, in which science and minorities and etc are wrong because they go against the Church itself and/or its teachings. I do not believe the writer can achieve stasis with his opponents, given the way he wrote the article, because he comes off as sarcastic and argumentative. (Granted, this is a university newspaper, but) The Church would most likely be offended and embarrassed if they read this and therefore take up a defensive stance (I would assume). Maybe not, though-maybe they would admit they had been wrong, as with the case of evolution? But anyway, considering the tone the author used, those being criticized would probably not take well to the argument and would set up defensively to attack back.