Radio reminder

Darwin Day.

We could make a series of it.

Phlogiston Day. Flat Earth Day. Franz Joseph Gall Day. Uri Geller Day.

Who needs evidence when you've got faith and a high wall of protection around your favorite pet theory, eh? You'd think we'd wise up after 150 years of this hubris.

--Sirius Knott

Radio 3 has joined in the celebrations.

Rather amusingly they're having a show titled "Creation" right now. I guess I can't be a real Darwinist according to Knott up there, since I rather enjoy Haydn's.

Wise up? From what I understand, we are the one's who need to wise up. We're just a bunch of doubters with no hope or belief in possibility. We don't believe in the one and only god, or is it three, or is it 72, oh wait that's virgins, or is it the promise of 72 alter boys? Oh, hell I can't figure it all out. I'm just going to take a homeopathic remedy to make myself feel better.

Didn't everybody have a Darwin Day, like about a couple weeks ago or something? Every time I turn around it's another Darwin Day somewhere.

Easter Day.

We could make a series of it.

Christmas Day. All Saints Day. Passover. Lent.

Who needs evidence when you've got faith and a high wall of protection around your favorite pet theory, eh? You'd think we'd wise up after 2000 years of this hubris.

I like the show in general, but I hate how they cut guests off mid-sentence to go to breaks.

Anyone know of any Darwin Day celebrations in the Tampa area?
Yes,I checked the website... Nothing for 100 miles. I guess I should just make a largecsigm and stand on a street corner. Something like "wake up America! It's Darwin Day!"

Oh, and It is a great podcast, I too dislike the cutting short guests for breaks. Most podcasts get past that kind of repeating issue after awhile

DangerAardvark, we're not terribly happy about it either. We're working on a couple of things that should help.

Serious Nut @ # 1, Who needs evidence when you've got faith and a high wall of protection around your favorite pet theory, eh? You'd think we'd wise up after 150 years of this hubris.

Nut, have you ever read Darwin's famous book, "On the Origin of Species"? There's plenty of evidence, Nut, documented by Darwin. He even admits that the evidence isn't as overwhelming as he'd have liked, so there is a degree of honesty that you don't often get from the religious nuts. But since Darwin, the evidence has kept coming in, & not a single thing, such as a fossilized rabbit from the Cambrian, to contradict it.

Nut, go back to your bible, & don't come here making stupid statements.

Nut, I forgot to add that your feckin' absurd god-thing, called Yahweh, probably doesn't exist. And by probably, I mean as close to absolute certainty as I can imagine.

The idea of Yahweh belongs to the Bronze Age, but unfortunately, dishonesty, social contagion, ignorance, & a fair bit of stupidity have kept it alive.

It's just the one God, thank you.

I've been called Serious Nut before. It's not very imaginative. Neither are the various references to snot, dogs and similar juvenile name-calling from folks just like yourselves: people with no real substance to their arguments but rather bold assertions.

I've read Origins. Most folks haven't. I've filed it under science fiction in my personal library. You see, Darwin gave us speculation and then he gave us objections to his theory. The problem is: ALL of the objections still stand!

It's pseudoscience.

--Sirius Knott

@Richard Harris: I just took a quick look at this nut's blog, there's some serious stupid going on over there. And this idiot claims to be a teacher! I feel really sorry for his students.

BTW, don't feed the troll @11.

Sirius, perhaps you should read a little past The Origins to see what has become of the Theory of Evolution in the last 150 years? With a properly analytical mind, you will see that the more that is learned about biology, the stronger the Theory stands.

If you think that evolution stands still at Darwin's books then you may need to shake yourself awake from your Rip Van Winkle intellectual slumber. Or do you like your sleepy-headed thinking?

Listen to today's show and Greg will help guide you into what has been happening in evolution since Darwin.

If you want some serious chucks check out the latest post on Sirius Knott's blog but don't feed the trolls.

Sirius Knott @11,

people with no real substance to their arguments but rather bold assertions.

That's ad hominem, innit? We use bad language and silly names and therefore we are wrong?

I've read Origins. Most folks haven't. I've filed it under science fiction in my personal library. You see, Darwin gave us speculation and then he gave us objections to his theory. The problem is: ALL of the objections still stand!

Oooh! Ooooh! Do you mean like this one?

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

I have still to read Origin; I can't remember where my copy might be. I guess I'll look for it when I get my last boxes over and am done trying to understand the Fourier transform and Indoeuropean.

For the regulars: have a pretty drawing of a giant squid.

For those who want it, the podcast is up.

If you are looking for more of Greg Laden, he was just interviewed for Q Transmissions this past Friday

http://qtransmissions.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/evolution-post-show-link…

the show is now being distributed on iTunes so make sure to subscribe for some great skeptical radio.

For fellow atheists, here's a hilarious post: I do believe in fairies, I do! I DO!.

This guy compares the cry "I do believe in fairies" from Peter Pan with his Christian belief, saying:

Or better yet “I do believe in Jesus, I do! I DO!” and who knows, maybe others will hear your simple little prayer and join in with you.

I know it's mean and all, but I just can't help laughing my butt off at this guy who is living in a fictional world.

Here's another Darwin Day event (from a Cornell community email announcemet), upcoming this Thursday in Ithaca, NY:

Rhodes Headlines Cornell University Library’s Darwin Celebration Library Partners with Museum of the Earth in Collaborative Exhibition

ITHACA, N.Y. (Feb. 4, 2009) – In celebration of the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, Cornell University Library will stage a major collaborative exhibition. “Charles Darwin: After the Origin” explores the scientist’s life and work during the 22 years following the 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species.

Dr. Frank H.T. Rhodes, Darwin scholar and president emeritus of Cornell University, will open the Library’s exhibition with a lecture on Thursday, Feb. 12, at 4:45 p.m. It will be held in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium in Goldwin Smith Hall, on Cornell’s main campus in Ithaca, N.Y. A reception will follow in the Hirshland Gallery, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, level 2B of the Carl A. Kroch Library. Both events are free and open to the public.

“Darwin’s work had a revolutionary impact on all aspects of contemporary thought,” Rhodes said. “Evolutionary theory didn’t just affect the scientific world; its implications reached across the entire social and political landscape of the late 19th century.”

Visiting scholar and curator Sheila Ann Dean has written a book that serves as a companion piece to the exhibition, offering an account of the work Darwin undertook while controversies instigated by the Origin were stirring the Victorian world. She will sign copies of the book, published by Cornell University Library and the Paleontological Research Institution, on Friday, Feb. 13, at the Cornell Store from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Made possible through the generosity of Stephan Loewentheil, JD ’75, the anniversary celebration is built around an exhibition of the documents, rare books, engravings, photographs and artifacts from library and other university collections, as well as rare materials borrowed from private collectors. Treasures on display will include first editions of Darwin’s work, 19th-century natural history illustrations, butterflies and beetles from Cornell's entomology collection and zoological specimens from the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates. The exhibition will remain in Kroch Library’s Hirshland Gallery until Sept. 8, 2009.

The website announcement is here. Also, the Museum of the Earth is having an all-day exhibit. If any of you lot ever come to Ithaca, the Museum is well worth a visit!

The lecture timing is really bad for me, but I plan to try to be there.