…and this is a 
Happy Darwin Day!
Category: Communicating science
Posted on: February 12, 2008 8:34 AM, by PZ Myers
The old man would be 199 years old today, so biologists and other science-supporting people are celebrating all around the world. Even in Morris.
I'm actually giving two lectures today. The first is a fortunate coincidence: I'm teaching an introductory biology course that emphasizes the history and philosophy of science, and today just happens to line up with my coverage of the late 19th century, and especially Darwin … so the freshman get a mini-biography of Charles Darwin. I emphasize something I think many of them can relate to, that Darwin was a young man once, who went off to college uncertain about what he was going to do with his life, and that the voyage of the Beagle was an event that changed his life. We're so used to seeing Darwin portrayed as an old man, but he was 22 when he set sail.
The second lecture is a public lecture sponsored by our biology club tonight, at 7:00, in 1020 Science. Charles Darwin's Origin is 149 years old this year, and although it is a very good book and well worth reading for the historical context and as an outline of the beginnings of a science, it is, well, 149 years old. There's much more to evolutionary biology than Darwin. My talk is titled "Evo-Devo: the future of biology?", and I'm going to be discussing new perspectives on evolution, why I think development is an essential component of our understanding of how organisms evolve, and giving several specific examples.
If you can't make it to Morris tonight, though, that's OK. This is a preliminary version of a keynote lecture I'll be giving at GECCO, the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, on 12-16 July in Atlanta, so you could always sign up for that.
Life Science
Comments
This is one of those days I'm really sad to be at a place with no biology degree. There will be maybe three of us wishing each other a happy Darwin Day, yearning for the festivities of larger campuses.
Posted by: Carlie | February 12, 2008 8:38 AM
The University of Edinburgh is certainly not celebrating it, I assume they just don't know about it. We have a major science-based schools here too so it's a shame that nothing has been arranged. Ah well, I've wished everyone in the lab Happy Darwin Day, and bought some cake from the nice cake shop up the road. Wild.
Posted by: maxi | February 12, 2008 8:46 AM
Happy Darwin Day indeed.
The Guardian newspaper has a superb series of articles on the 'Origin' including extracts, commentaries and dedications. Well worth browsing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/darwinbicentenary
Posted by: Dave Hone | February 12, 2008 8:53 AM
Happy Darwin Day everyone!
I also find it sad that my school (the University of Ottawa) likely has nothing planned - not even a note on their webpage I see! I'm sure that when I wish my labmates a happy Darwin Day they will look at me in total bewilderment... so many close-minded young scientists!
Posted by: LisaJ | February 12, 2008 9:02 AM
Today is also the 199th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, who famously said something about being unable to fool all of the people all of the time, a proposition that has yet to discourage the creationists at the Discovery Institute or Answers in Genesis.
Posted by: Zeno | February 12, 2008 9:06 AM
maxi - Why do you think that is? I am interested, as my daughter has applied to study abroad at Edinburgh...
Posted by: J-Dog | February 12, 2008 9:06 AM
J-Dog: it's partly because we Southerners have stolen one of their evolutionary biologists to come to Darwin's Birthday Party in London.
(What's your daughter going to study? I did Genetics at Edinburgh and loved it.)
Posted by: MissPrism | February 12, 2008 9:12 AM
Another thing that most of our undergrads can relate to: in his autobiography, Darwin write how dissolute his life was at Cambridge, drinking, carrousing, and gambling. Darwin played a lot of Van John, an Anglicization of Vingt Une or 21. Yep, ol' Charlie was a blackjack player! Spending a bit of time at the tables myself, I've often wondered if his card playing wasn't the real basis for natural selection. Nothing give you a better example of the effects of small changes over time than slowly winning (or losing, if you don't get out in time) a large sum with minimum bets.
By the way, I asked my Nature of Science class of 21 students yesterday whose birthday it was today. *I wasn't surprised that no one knew it was Darwin's, but none of them even knew it was Lincoln's. Ahh, the ignorance of multiculturarity!
Posted by: Ernie D | February 12, 2008 9:12 AM
I happen to have on my Darwin t-shirt here at work. I'm not even going to bother trying to explain any of it to my co-workers. I work in a machine shop in Phoenix. It's possible the particulars of Evo-Devo might be lost on a few of them. The guy I share an office with saw my shirt and just laughed. At least he gets it, but then I did tell him I planned on wearing it today.
Posted by: Mercurious | February 12, 2008 9:23 AM
Happy birthday, Chuck.
(º)(º)
Vivan las tetas.
Posted by: wÒÓ† | February 12, 2008 9:26 AM
Viva La Darwin Day!
Posted by: Matt LaCrosse | February 12, 2008 9:29 AM
Viva L'Evolution!
Happy Birthday Darwin
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | February 12, 2008 9:32 AM
You're keynoting at GECCO? Now I'm definitely going to go!
Posted by: David vun Kannon | February 12, 2008 9:32 AM
J-Dog:
What is your daughter going to study? I will second MissPrism's recommendation, Eddy is a top place! Perfect for students. Plus it has a castle which fulfills my criterion for a Good Place to Live.
I say the university isn't celebrating, that is only because I have not received any emails in my school inbox for any lectures, nor is there anything posted on the intranet. However, I may be missing out on the whole picture, as I work in the veterinary school. The schools of biology/zoology/medicine might be doing something and I would not know about it.
Posted by: maxi | February 12, 2008 9:35 AM
so what's so great about darwin, who spawned a religious movement that claims only populations evolve via natural selection....when in reality, individuals generate their own adaptive evolutionary modifications?: Horizontal gene transfer, epigenetic modifications, nonrandom mutation, etc....all of which can be heritable. The Darwinian ship has giant holes all in it. There is no way selection can responsible for the prolification of new traits in a population if the individuals are non-randomly generating them themselves and passing them on.
The joke is on you people who've been tricked by the likes of Dr. Myers and company, who've laughably replaced actual science (the study of organisms as they interact with their environment) with science-fiction (the study of isolated genes, as if they act independently).
How does it feel to have the truth furiously jabbed in your crotch?
Posted by: stanley | February 12, 2008 9:35 AM
I battle bearfoot
you are riding on a window
the quieting night
ghost of a theory
riddle us this
keep on waiting
on goes the gong
the never-ending song
the never-ending song
somehow, somehow the truth is evading
somehow, somewhere the truth is explaining
embrace life like a baby
in the beauty we find a diamond
it's hidden like a misfit
viva la evolution
somewhere someone the question transpires
so there's a song for every occasion
under our spells playing creators
there's a rainbow of frustration
embrace life like a baby
in the beauty we find a diamond
it's hidden like a misfit
viva la evolution
embrace life like a baby
viva la evolution
it's hidden like a misfit
in the beauty we find a diamond
viva la evolution...
Posted by: Matt LaCrosse | February 12, 2008 9:35 AM
"The University of Edinburgh is certainly not celebrating it, I assume they just don't know about it. We have a major science-based schools here too so it's a shame that nothing has been arranged. Ah well, I've wished everyone in the lab Happy Darwin Day, and bought some cake from the nice cake shop up the road. Wild."
Could it be that the University of Edinburgh has a long memory ?
After all Darwin did study medicine there for a year before dropping out to study natural philosophy at Cambridge. It seems he could not stand the sight of blood.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | February 12, 2008 9:44 AM
Ahhh Stan, you really are a sad pathetic little man aren't you. Oh well, better you than me.
Happy Darwin Day to all!
Posted by: Dahan | February 12, 2008 9:51 AM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | February 12, 2008 9:58 AM
So next year is the bicentennial of both Lincoln and Darwin, and the sesquicentennial of Origin? We should start making some plans right now.
Posted by: Geoffrey Alexander | February 12, 2008 9:58 AM
Happy Darwin Day to you all from his home turf, and thanks for all the support from scibloggers this year.
It's such a great day I merely smiled at stan's eloquence: 'the Darwinian ship has giant holes all in it'.
They're not that big, and they're called gunports, stan.
Posted by: The Beagle Project | February 12, 2008 10:00 AM
Check out the strange story of Darwin's crabs at:
http://www.ox.ac.uk/scienceblog
Posted by: PJ | February 12, 2008 10:03 AM
what's hilarious about Darwin is this: he was so convinced that the finches proved his theory of evolution, but little did he know that the finches did not change in an "evolutionary" (aka genetic) way.....there is no change in the sequence of finch dna to make a finch-beak adaptively longer or stronger. Darwin was simply wrong: the physiological changes we see in the field today, which have long been dubbed "evolutionary" by desperate evos, are actually just adaptive, non-genetic traits self-generated by individual developing bird embryos. Signals from the outside get transmitted through the mother bird to her offspring via hormones, which go about altering morphology in an adaptive way. Too bad, so sad.
Posted by: stanley | February 12, 2008 10:04 AM
I'm still coming to grips here... I'm trying to figure out how evolution would work without natural selection. Without a mechanism to differentiate the usefulness of adaptations it seems to me that we end up in a creationist world where things "just happen" and where evolution really is just a random process.
Posted by: Dutch Delight | February 12, 2008 10:09 AM
Whats hilarious is that you are suggesting Darwin knew anything about genetics and that you are equating genetics and evolution which makes no sense whatsoever.
Posted by: Dutch Delight | February 12, 2008 10:14 AM
check it out, PJ.......there is no "evolution" with the crab thing ---- the crabs' claws are simply exhibiting a plastic response to a changing environment. Crabs that consume diets of hard shells are likely to develop larger, more powerful claws. No evolution....just adaptive change among indiviudals.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;264/5159/710
"Crabs grown experimentally on fully shelled prey developed larger and stronger claws than those raised on nutritionally equivalent unshelled prey. When one claw was immobilized, claws also became asymmetrical. These use-induced changes differ from skeletal remodelling in vertebrates and many invertebrates because changes in the rigid exoskeleton can occur only after molting, and claw muscle mass must be reduced substantially before the molt. Such short-term adaptive responses to environmental stimuli, if heritable, could yield long-term evolutionary changes in claw size and, if combined with behavioral biases toward one side (handedness), could also promote the evolution of claw dimorphism."
it's the same with Gould's snails --- which is ironically one of his few examples of gradual evolution.....yet it is nothing of the sort! lol.....darwinian evolution is a complete and total failure to describe reality.
Posted by: stan | February 12, 2008 10:16 AM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | February 12, 2008 10:17 AM
Some ignorant troll said:
"Darwin was simply wrong: the physiological changes we see in the field today, which have long been dubbed "evolutionary" by desperate evos, are actually just adaptive, non-genetic traits self-generated by individual developing bird embryos."
So since you have all the answers, what the hell is an adaptive, non-genetic trait and how is it "self generated" by an "embryo"?
Signals from the outside get transmitted through the mother bird to her offspring via hormones, which go about altering morphology in an adaptive way. Too bad, so sad."
How are hormones made by a living organism? (Hint: not non-genetic.)
I suggest that for your Darwin Day activity you should go read a book about genetics, then read about how Darwin actually developed his theories, then think about the wrongness of your assertions of Darwin wanting to "prove evolution" If after doing that you still want to argue the specifics, I would be happy to explain why you are a moron.
Posted by: mattmc | February 12, 2008 10:26 AM
"How does it feel to have the truth furiously jabbed in your crotch?"
I don't know. Can you tell us?
Looks like the creatins are out in force today. I guess the thought of a paragon of science getting his recognition makes them feel rather emasculated.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | February 12, 2008 10:30 AM
I'm trying to figure out how evolution would work without natural selection. Without a mechanism to differentiate the usefulness of adaptations it seems to me that we end up in a creationist world where things "just happen" and where evolution really is just a random process.
There are several kinds of selection other than environmental; sexual selection is a biggie, as is predator-prey selection. And then, sometimes things do just happen, which is one of the reasons that everything isn't perfectly suited to its environment and life. Drift is usually fairly nasty to the population that experiences it, but it is still evolution too.
Stanley - Developmental biology. You're doing it wrong.
Posted by: Carlie | February 12, 2008 10:32 AM
What was that Stan? Didn't quite catch that. The worlds flat you say? The Sun revolves around the Earth? It's hard to understand you when you screech like that all the time.
Posted by: Dahan | February 12, 2008 10:34 AM
Hey Stanley,
On second thought, rather than responding to anything anyone says to you, you should explain to us how the diversity of life that we can observe on this planet came to be. Since you know that evolution did not happen, simply explain the process which did give rise to the diversity of life and how you came about your conclusions.
Posted by: mattmc | February 12, 2008 10:36 AM
sexual selection is accomplished by the mind of the female.....how else could they "sense" who is and who is not a good mate? This, of course requires intelligence on some level.
and matt, you seriously need to read a book on biology.......not genes, but the endocrine system is responsible for the release of hormones.
Posted by: stanley | February 12, 2008 10:36 AM
The Beagle Project wins the Internet!
Posted by: PZ Myers | February 12, 2008 10:36 AM
#15's comments come straight out of a Chick Tract. Maybe someone needs to read a real book. Exclude the Bible from that list by the way. That's like trying to get science out of Mother Goose.
Posted by: zer0 | February 12, 2008 10:37 AM
Come on, people. Stan's a deluded cherry-picking troll. Leave him alone in his under-bridge home.
Posted by: Rey Fox | February 12, 2008 10:38 AM
steve: "Ah, no, dumbass, they result from heritable changes in the regulation of the gene for bmp4"
right.....in otherwords NO CHANGE in the sequence of DNA.
Not only that, but gene regulation and alternative phenotypes is ultimately controlled by the nervous system, which regulates hormone secretion:
http://www.biology.duke.edu/nijhout/polyphenism.htm
"It appears that in the control of polyphenic development, hormones act as stimuli that induce discrete switches in developmental pathways. There is independent regulation of the pattern of hormone secretion, of tissue receptivity to the hormone, and of the developmental response of each tissue to the hormone. Because hormone secretion is regulated by the central nervous system, this mechanism allows development to become responsive to environmental variables. Variation in tissue sensitivity to the hormones allows the developmental switch to produce alternative phenotypes in response to specific environmental signals. This is interesting from an evolutionary perspective because genetic variation in the signal and the response mechanisms provide the basis for the evolution of adaptive developmental responses to environmental contingencies."
gee I bet it sucks to be a darwinist.
Posted by: stan the man | February 12, 2008 10:39 AM
Oh look at the cute little god-warrior. "I don't understand genetics so I'll pretend like large complex systems in the body just magically control themselves, with the help of big ghosty daddy in the sky of course!"
Someone as far off base on understanding what genes are, and how they work, doesn't get to tell ANYONE to read a book.
Posted by: zer0 | February 12, 2008 10:40 AM
Can we not feed the trolls? Stan has been here whining his whole 'you don't know nuffink' loop before.
Matt Penfold: Yes, I am aware Darwin spent a year at Edinburgh to study medicine, but he did leave of his own accord, it wasn't like he was kicked out or anything. Surely this is a claim to fame the university shouldn't be passing up?! I mean, we even have a Darwin Building!
Posted by: maxi | February 12, 2008 10:40 AM
"you seriously need to read a book on biology.......not genes, but the endocrine system is responsible for the release of hormones"
Nice Stan you got me there. I forgot that there is no genetic basis for the endocrine system, God created it right?
Posted by: mattmc | February 12, 2008 10:41 AM
I've just been listening to the Fossils from Saint-Saens "Carnival of the Animals" (along with the rest of it and some other tracks). Any other suggestions for suitable Darwin Day music anyone?
Posted by: SEF | February 12, 2008 10:41 AM
Might want to read what you just linked Stanley.
Gee, it sucks to be illiterate.
Posted by: zer0 | February 12, 2008 10:43 AM
From all of us to you who mean so much:
Happy Birthday CHARLES DARWIN !
If you were with us today the maniacal fundies will
be laying siege to your house and screaming for the
torture of the one who is causing them so much grief!
Even in death they rant your honorable name and memory
with fanatical derision! So nice to know that you are
still driving them isane, and perhaps, to suicide!
My utmost regard and honor to you for having lived.
Posted by: Holbach | February 12, 2008 10:46 AM
Signals from the outside get transmitted through the mother bird to her offspring via hormones, which go about altering morphology in an adaptive way.
So hormones are energy, not molecules.
And you know this... how? Can you hear them on your fillings?
Posted by: Graculus | February 12, 2008 10:53 AM
Matt: "On second thought, rather than responding to anything anyone says to you, you should explain to us how the diversity of life that we can observe on this planet came to be. Since you know that evolution did not happen, simply explain the process which did give rise to the diversity of life and how you came about your conclusions."
Well, considering adaptive phenotypic traits cannot be matched up or correlated with changes in DNA sequence, it's pretty safe to say the genome did not get built up from the adaptations we see in the field. This leaves out any scientific or naturalistic explanation for how genomes came to be.
The only thing left then, is instant creation, brotha! It's not scientific, but neither is life in general...It is not, for example, "scientific" when a waterflea pops out a new spine just because a predator comes around. Getting something from nothing (aka a spine from thoughts or sensation) is not scientific.
God did not make animals pre-adapted to specific environments, He made them so they are individually adaptive to a wide array of environments. Therefore what has long been dubbed as a populational process that would take thousands of years for a trait to spread throughout a population, can actually happen in just one generation. What we see in the field and fossil record is actually just a historical process of individual change. There are, of course, limits to change, as the developmental program of a dog, for example, cannot be changed into a developmental program of a cat or a fish. But within their kinds, there is a vast array of poential. This potential is seen in finches, but there is no genetic change involved -- it's just an internal process in each developing organism, which responds somatically to external conditions.
Posted by: stanman | February 12, 2008 10:55 AM
zero...the "genetic variation" is a guess about the past, it's not observed. He needed to throw that in there so not to tick off his fellow scientists.
Posted by: stan | February 12, 2008 10:57 AM
Hormones are like light Graculus. I would think you knew that. They're part wave, part particle, and they always travel at a certain speed called "Stan's Constant".
Posted by: Dahan | February 12, 2008 11:02 AM
"I'm teaching an introductory biology course that emphasizes the history and philosophy of science, and today just happens to line up with my coverage of the late 19th century, and especially Darwin ... so the freshman get a mini-biography of Charles Darwin. "
We need more of this.
Posted by: Steven | February 12, 2008 11:03 AM
So when a tree grows stunted and leaning to the north, it's becaue mommy tree sang the wrong cradle song to the acorn, and not because there is a strong southerly wind.
Riiiiiight.
Posted by: Graculus | February 12, 2008 11:04 AM
We had a Darwin Day event scheduled. Sean Carroll was coming in to talk to us tonight. But we got walloped by an icestorm last night, and for the first time since I got here in 1999, the university is closed due to the weather. ARRGGGHHH!!!
I am very disappointed. We put a lot of work in, got the word out, expected a good audience and...bam. Our Darwin Day event got canceled due to weather last year, too. Utterly stunning... I think we will not be trying again next year, or we'll time it with some other event in Darwin's life rather than his birthday. Mid-February is too risky!
Posted by: Frank Anderson | February 12, 2008 11:04 AM
Frank Anderson:
Give up, God is clearly punishing you.
Posted by: maxi | February 12, 2008 11:07 AM
ELL OH ELL
Luckily for us (the ones defending the evil that is Darwin) our side doesn't substantiate its claims by saying anything just "pops out a new..." or "...something from nothing". If we did, the science of it all would fall flat on its ass. What we do say however, is that over long periods of time the long spiny appendage (that has grown longer over time) has proven to be advantageous to the water flea, reducing the likelihood of predation. Here's a news flash for you Stanley... if you're less likely to get eaten, you're more likely to have offspring, because *GASP* you're around to HAVE OFFSPRING. Those offspring also have the advantage of being less likely to be eaten, which means they are -- are you still with my Stanley? -- more likely to have offspring. Thus, the advantage can happily over hundreds or thousands of years propagate nicely into a population.
Now, Stanley, I would suggest you stop using Conservapedia as your only source. Maybe you should actually try to learn about what your arguing against.
Posted by: zer0 | February 12, 2008 11:10 AM
Frank Anderson:
Give up, God is clearly punishing you.
Yes, the jokes were already flying around my department yesterday...
Posted by: Frank Anderson | February 12, 2008 11:13 AM
Stan,
Thanks but a simple GODDIDIT would have been sufficient.
Now, do you have a "scientific" argument to support any of your bizarre scientific claims, or are you just trolling for attention?
Posted by: mattmc | February 12, 2008 11:14 AM
I realize that Darwin day is not promoted in order to attack the Bible directly. However, since many would say that it is, and they swear their preference for Lincoln (see Expelled's webpage), here:
So let's see, Lincoln pointedly attacked Christianity, Darwin did science and tried to avoid attacking Christianity. I say let Ben Stein and his fellow IDiots plump up Lincoln, since the latter was anti-religion, the former was not, or at least not unambiguously so.
I have heard it claimed that Lincoln did accept evolution as the probable explanation for the variety of species as well, however I have not found anything to confirm that statement (and don't have enough time-interest to search further). It wouldn't surprise me, though, as there appears to have been nothing (no Xian religious prejudices) to prevent it.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | February 12, 2008 11:19 AM
Stanley's musical tribute to Charles Darwin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esl2NNOtHQE
Posted by: Bubba | February 12, 2008 11:23 AM
There's no question that Darwin gave to us a new sense of how systems can become ordered. Newton gave us order underlying the chaos, but Darwin told us of order coming out of the chaos. More importantly, new orders arise in relation to each other, orders which are constrained by physics, yet which are not actually predicted by physics (though aspects of evolution are predictable).
The difference in the pre-Darwinian and post-Darwinian worlds are staggering, partly because Newton had to take a "God's-eye" view of the cosmos in order to understand it and we no longer have to, and partly because information affecting other information has since become part of our conception. The anti-evolutionists still can't wrap their minds around co-evolution and the massive integrations possible through that process, and instead must have the most infinitely complex mind figuring out the entire biosphere, either creating it de novo, or tweaking it constantly with nearly infinite knowledge.
Effectively, then, they're incapable of dealing with the age of information. They cannot understand how an individual is shaped by a much larger whole, how culture develops, and how economies function. Top-down control from the "God's-eye" point of view is all that they know, and why they flock to churches to be controlled and to control.
Indeed, it is likely that anti-evolution is not as much a threat to biology as it is to the broader understanding of functions, from languages to weather systems. For if you sever observations of biological integration from the only processes capable of actually producing such a combination of historical constraint and nearly infinite variation, you have effectively denied understanding of the nearly ubiquitous systems evolutions that are all around us. No doubt some are able to compartmentalize and deny biological evolution while accepting economic evolution, however such compartmentalization makes a huge rent in the fabric of the understanding of our integrated world, one likely to adversely affect much of their understanding.
The information age may be considered to have started with Darwin, and the efforts of a few precursors to his thought. I know that top-down control is often credited, such as those produced by Babbage, Jacquard, and Hollerith, and these indeed deserve credit. But however important top-down computing is, what it always bumps up against is the extreme complexity of evolved systems. Biological evolution is not really computable at any large scale (especially great temporal scales), and likely never will be. We even use genetic algorithms to deal with complexity that top-down computing does not handle very well by straightforward design principles.
Newton, Einstein, and the various QM physicists gave us the basics, but Darwin (with others, of course) told us why initial conditions inform us so very little about the complex arrangements we see today. Interactions of information are the reason, with biology being far and away the best medium in which a combination of conserved information and rampant variation can produce amazing adaptations. In fact, it is not so very surprising that all cannot understand the beauty of such complex evolutions, but it perhaps is surprising that 150 years after we emerged from great darkness that many still wish to hide themselves and others from increases in knowledge.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | February 12, 2008 12:01 PM
Ugh, I'm in no mood for stupid trolls today (as if there were another kind?)
A few years ago (2002, I think), I took an introductory paleontology/geology course from Dr. Hans Machel here at the U of Alberta. He's definitely one of the nuttier professor-types--he likes to illustrate the earth's history with a 2 km long spool of twine, compares the process of fossilization to that of the process of roadkill (flattening, disarticulation, etc.) plays Bad Religion before starting class, and irritates woo-woo practitioners on his days off.
On Feb 12 in that class we celebrated Darwin's birthday with a cake, candles, and balloons.
So, happy birthday, Chuck!
And, Stan, you snivelling little nitwit, I share this with you so you know you can't place the blame solely on Dr. Myers. Not only are 99.9% of academics and scientists in the 'Darwinist Conspiracy' (ever wondered why biology professors are all so opulently rich?) but you forgot to point your Christian judging finger at the worst perpetrator of all:
The data.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 12, 2008 12:20 PM
Hormones are like light Graculus. I would think you knew that. They're part wave, part particle, and they always travel at a certain speed called "Stan's Constant".
NO. Light doesn't travel to us, our eyes spring out and collect the image. In the same way, the mother's hormones must jump out of her body, figure out what's going on, and then return into the body. AFter all, cells have consciousness.
Posted by: MAJeff | February 12, 2008 12:38 PM
Well said Glen D. Someone's fishing for a Molly ;)
Posted by: zer0 | February 12, 2008 12:38 PM
To the parent who was concerned whether there was some problem with evolution at the University of Edinburgh: that University has one of the finest groups of evolutionary biologists in the world. They are certainly not negative about Darwin or eviolution.
Posted by: Joe Felsenstein | February 12, 2008 12:49 PM
Brownian, it's not just academics & scientists who are part of the Darwinist Conspiracy; it's degenerate artists like me. And I plan on opening an painting school to teach others how to paint portraits of our lord and master Charles Darwin.
Sorry I'm so late to this party. I finished a surreal portrait of the birthday boy for the website The Eloquent Atheist, which should be up some time today.
To further this shameless plug, you can see a 'making of' at my site. Let your eyes jump out and collect the image, MAJeff.
Posted by: The Flying Trilobite | February 12, 2008 12:51 PM
... evolution, not "eviolution" or "evilution", that is ...
Posted by: Joe Felsenstein | February 12, 2008 12:51 PM
Saturday's 'Guardian' included a free guide to 'Origin' introduced by Dawkins. Nice for 199, but next year we need to push for something bigger.
UK readers should consider the vacant plinth in Trafalgar square and our paucity of public holidays compared to the rest of Europe.
Posted by: Don | February 12, 2008 12:59 PM
to LisaJ:
Too bad Ottawa U isn't having any official Darwin day celebrations. However, the Ottawa Skeptics are having a get-together tonight at the Clocktower Brewpub ( http://skeptics.meetup.com/166/calendar/7276267/ ). And, if you can wait a couple of weeks, there will be an event on Feb 29 at your university, jointly sponsored by Ottawa U Skeptics, Carleton Secular Association and the Humanist Association of Ottawa: The Weakest Missing Link - a game show on evolution vs creationism. http://secularhumanism.meetup.com/7/calendar/6050501/ (We are having it so late to avoid conflicts with long weekends and winter breaks etc)
Posted by: Theo Bromine | February 12, 2008 1:07 PM
Happy Darwin Day !
Happy Lincoln Day !
@PZ Myers:
U r too kind sir ....why do u insist on letting trolls
live ? Plz end their miserable existence on this fine place
Posted by: astrolieber | February 12, 2008 1:12 PM
Brownian, it's not just academics & scientists who are part of the Darwinist Conspiracy; it's degenerate artists like me.
True, and as I mentioned, the biggest perpetrators of the Darwinian fraud are the fossils, the geology of the Earth, the atmosphere of the Earth, the DNA and morphological features of every living thing on the planet, past and present,....
All those things should be ashamed of themselves, existing merely to irritate stupid biblical literalists.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 12, 2008 1:12 PM
Posted by: SEF | February 12, 2008 1:17 PM
Ha, ha! I'm inspired.
10, maybe 15 minutes later...
Happy Darwin Day! I'm celebrating with my new manifesto:
The Evil Darwin Conspiracy for Dummies
Posted by: Moses | February 12, 2008 1:18 PM
Well, that didn't work right. Memo to self: Don't italacize href calls in the future...
Anyway, used one of those "Dummies" parody book cover generators.
Mine is here: http://thefaithfulpenguin.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-darwin-day.html
Have fun here: http://www.customsigngenerator.com/
Posted by: Moses | February 12, 2008 1:20 PM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | February 12, 2008 1:21 PM
#65: Do you want a cheezburger or something? PZ is a loving blog host, he does not smite.
Posted by: Rey Fox | February 12, 2008 1:24 PM
I'm dominant/neutral with occasional flips into submissive. I 'm not into S&M though I do like light bondage and fetish/erotic gear. I'd ask you if you liked fetish gear or liked to be tied up but, while I'm a bit twisted, I'm not a closeted-gay-Republican so I'll have to pass on your kinky foreplay. Also, I'm extremely monogamous so the thought of going extra-marital is abhorrent, so in any case I'm not available.
Good luck, though. And try one of those S&M sites. You'll get all the crotch stabbing you seem to crave. Here you'll just get mocked for being an idiot.
Posted by: Moses | February 12, 2008 1:29 PM
I have mixed feelings about celebrating Darwin Day.
The funda-mental-ists already think of Charles Darwin as a prophet who only needs to be falsified to bring down the foundation on which pretty much the whole of biology rests. Wouldn't celebrating his birthday look too much like acknowledging him as a prophet? Society today seems to pay more attention to what things look like than what they really are.
On the other hand, if we don't celebrate Darwin Day, then doesn't that mean the cdesign proponentsists have won by default?
Posted by: AJS | February 12, 2008 1:40 PM
Perhaps Darwin Day should be viewed as an opportunity to celebrate others who contributed to evolutionary theory rather than a singular focus on one figure. My suggestions: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, James Mark Baldwin, R.A. Fisher, Richard Goldschmidt, William D. Hamilton.
Posted by: Colugo | February 12, 2008 1:52 PM
AJS, I understand your concern. But shedding more light on a subject, such as Darwin's remarkable contributions to science, will do more good than harm.
It's precisely because so many people don't understand evolution by natural selection that they can be swayed into thinking "Darwinists" are "worshipping" his breakthrough ideas.
Posted by: The Flying Trilobite | February 12, 2008 2:00 PM
AJS, I've wondered that too - lots of nutters do seem to have the idea that we "worship" Darwin, and things like Darwin Day and the Darwin Fish sometimes play up to that deliberately to enrage them.
Nothing wrong with enraging nutters of course - good clean fun - but maybe we should show that we aren't obsessed with one great scienist by also celebrating Mendel Day, Morgan Day, McClintock Day, Muller Day, Fisher Day, Dobzhansky Day, Wallace Day, Haldane Day, Sewall Wright Day, Crick Day...
Posted by: MissPrism | February 12, 2008 2:02 PM
My "Darwin Day" entry from my blog, cross-posting here -
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There is no such thing as "Darwinism".
It's important to be clear about that. "Darwinism" is an idea made up by lying ignorant hate-mongering slimeballs who only see the world purely in terms of faith, bias and dogma - and who believe that everyone else does, as well.
There is no such thing as a "Darwinist". Charles Darwin was not a Holy Lawgiver, his groundbreaking work On The Origin Of Species is not a sacred text. He was merely an intelligent, thoughtful and honest man who reached the logical conclusion of many years of careful, painstaking work; his book was merely the beginning of modern scientific understanding that has progressed far beyond the limits of available knowledge at its initial publication 149 years ago.
Charles Darwin was a scientist. He sought knowledge and understanding. He didn't just wake up one morning and declare "Today, I will discover that natural selection is the mechanism that explains the fact of common descent that we observe in Nature"; he gathered information and made observations and, when he had enough data that the data told him something, he wrote up his conclusions. After publication, his conclusions were there to stand or fall on their own merits. 149 years later they not only stand, but have been bolstered by a vast array of findings from many fields of scientific endeavour, from work done by the future generations who came after to expand the trail he blazed into a complex superhighway that leads to greater knowledge and understanding at every turn.
There is no reverence for Charles Darwin, and he would be appalled if there were. There is only the respect due a man industrious enough to do his work, intelligent enough to see where it led, and honest enough to speak the truth about it. These qualities are nowhere to be found in the self-appointed and self-described "culture warriors" who shriek that Darwin is responsible for racism and slavery and Nazism and whatever alleged "moral decay" is tacked onto this week's list of talking points, who set forth a pogrom of lies and hatred and censorship and misdirection and contempt for law and lack of integrity or common decency and threats of violence... all the while falsely accusing honest men and women of these same faults in a transparent and pathetic act of projection.
There is no "Darwinism" and there are no "Darwinists", there is merely a recognition of the self-evident fact of evolution, and people who understand that. That such people do not base this understanding upon an ideology, and indeed derive no ideology from it, is terrifyingly incomprehensible to those for whom everything is ideologically driven - and we would pity them were they not so pernicious and dangerous.
The brittle strawman of "Darwinism" is everything that the modern theory of evolution by natural selection is not, and reveals only the intellectual and moral vacuity of those who hurl the word like a club at anyone who refuses to be as petty and hateful and small-minded as themselves. To them I give nothing but my scorn. To Charles Darwin I give a respectful salute and my thanks for his work, and then I give my full attention to those who now patiently and enthusiastically push back the frontiers of human knowledge for the betterment of us all.
Happy Darwin Day, everyone.
Posted by: Eric Saveau | February 12, 2008 2:13 PM
MissPrism, AJS,
I'd add another set of holidays, based on Carl Sagan's cosmic calender. We'd get a great mess of holidays in December, and lots of presents.
You can see the calender here:
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/universe/itsawesome/cosmiccalendar/page2.html
Posted by: The Flying Trilobite | February 12, 2008 2:21 PM
AJS: My thought is that we've handed the creationists a small victory just by worrying about what they may think with everything we do.
Posted by: Rey Fox | February 12, 2008 2:35 PM
AAA! Look what I found at http://darwinday.org/NEWlang/home/2008.php :
Title: Discovery Institute Presents: Darwin Day in America ( Public )
Start Date and Time: 2008-02-12 12:00:00
Event Website: http://atheists.meetup.com/530/
Activities:
Meeting Description: https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=EV08A05&track=0