Get out and celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the most important scientists of all time, Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of one of the most important books in biology, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It's that day!
I'm in Minnesota, and you have a couple of options here. The Bell Museum in Minneapolis is having a party!
Darwin Day Party
Thursday, February 12, 2009, 7 to 9 p.m.
Bell Museum Auditorium
$10/ free to museum members and University studentsThe speakers will present in the auditorium from 7 to 8 pm. Birthday cake and refreshments are served after the presentations.
Celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday! Part of a world wide celebration, the Twin Cities' version is at The Bell Museum of Natural History this Thursday night. Join in the fun with cake, drinks and presentations by U of M scientists and educators. They will present funny, outrageous and controversial rapid-fire, media-rich presentations about Darwin and evolution. From the big bang to the human genome, hear the newest research and controversy on evolution and Darwin.
I'm rather far from Minneapolis, unfortunately — if you live in the west central part of the state, or the eastern part of the Dakotas, we're having an open lecture here at the University of Minnesota Morris. Nic McPhee of the computer science discipline and PZ Myers of biology will be talking about "Paths to Complexity: How Biology and Computation can Build Intricate Processes and Systems" — it's a kind of anti-intelligent-design talk that focuses on the amazing stuff we do know about how chance and selection can build complex systems and efficient solutions.
We'll be on the UMM campus in HFA 6, at 5pm this evening. No charge, but come early — we expect to fill the joint up. If you can't make it, it is going to be recorded and a podcast made available later.
36 Comments
Mark Farmer · 12 February 2009
Happy 200 Chuck!
And if you are in Georgia please join us for Darwin Day at UGA
www.uga.edu/darwinday
Edwin Hensley · 12 February 2009
Happy Birthday to an amazing man!
Science Nut · 12 February 2009
If you are near Grayslake, IL (40 mi. N of Chicago) please consider joining the Darwin's Bulldogs in celebration of Chuck's 200th.
Date: February 12, 2009
Time: 7:00 PM
Admission: FREE
Location: The Byron Colby Barn, Grayslake, IL.
The Byron Colby Barn is located at 1561 Jones Point Road in Grayslake,1/2 mile south of Rt. 120 on the west side of Rt. 45.
This event is unique, because Darwin “himself” will appear, played by storyteller and science teacher Brian “Fox” Ellis.
Ellis is renowned across the U.S. and internationally for his portrayals of Darwin, who was surprisingly droll and self-deprecating, and who possessed an entirely British sense of humor. Ellis’s research is impeccable, and his depth of knowledge about Darwin and his times is unparalleled. He wears period dress, and brings an extensive show-and-tell display. The fossils, insects, plants and animal skins provide a hands-on experience for the audience. Ellis has been a frequent featured speaker at regional and international conferences on environmental concern
shishir · 12 February 2009
Survival of the fittest.
well if we go by Darwin we must ask the question whether his theory would survive the times when every one is after one single question http://controversial-affairs.blogspot.com/2009/02/darwin.html
eric · 12 February 2009
Farcall · 12 February 2009
In a survey just released by Gallup poll, and confirmed by PEW, only about 39% of Americans "Believe in Evolution". At least, that is the report from Fox News. That depresses the heck out of me. I can't help but feel we're losing the cultural wars...
Henry J · 12 February 2009
I wonder what percentage "believe in" quantum mechanics, relativity, the periodic table of the elements, the "big bang", etc.
Farcall · 12 February 2009
Most probably don't know a thing about Quantum Mechanics, little about Relativity, accept the Periodic Table because it seems like a nice "hard" fact and uncontroversial. Many, in my own experience, reject the Big Bang for the same reason they reject Evolution. Goddidit.
Henry J · 12 February 2009
HDX · 12 February 2009
HDX · 12 February 2009
sorry, wrong link to UD
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/frustrating-evolution-polls/
KP · 12 February 2009
John Kwok · 12 February 2009
In reply to Casey Luskin's inane commentary about "Darwin Day" published in the latest online edition of US News and World Report, I posted this:
IDiots (Intelligent Design advocates) like Casey Luskin have had twenty years to demonstrate that Intelligent Design is valid science. However, we have not seen any valid research programs from leading Intelligent Design advocates like mathematician and philosopher William Dembski and biochemist Michael Behe. We have not seen any testable predictions made by IDiots demonstrating how Intelligent Design does a better job than contemporary evolutionary theory - which admittedly is still quite imperfect - in explaining the origins, history and current composition of Earth's biodiversity. Instead, all we get from the likes of Dembski and Behe and Luskin are gross distortions, serious omissions, and abysmal errors which demonstrate not only their woeful ignorance of biology, but also, of mathematics, especially probability and statistics, and indeed, much of science too. Since Intelligent Design advocates like Luskin devote their time to ample lying and dissembling, then we ought to view them correctly as mendacious intellectual pornographers who excel in successful promotion of the mendacious intellectual pornography known as Intelligent Design creationism.
We live in a most remarkable time in which ample data from sciences unknown to Darwin like genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, and evolutionary developmental biology (better known as "evo - devo") are strongly supporting every day, the predictions made by Darwin and Wallace when they developed independently the theory of evolution via natural selection back in the mid 19th Century. But you would never know that to be true from the inane commentary written by Luskin and his fellow Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographers. Moreover, these new sciences offer the promise of yielding an "Extended Modern Synthesis" which may allow us to understand extinction, especially the role of mass extinctions in radically reshaping Earth's biodiversity not just once, but at least seven times in the past 550-odd million years, and the importance of long-term evolutionary stasis.
US News and World Report should be ashamed of itself for becoming a platform for the gross lies and exaggerations written by a mendacious intellectual pornographer such as Casey Luskin. I strongly doubt this fine magazine would provide a similar platform to an unrepentant Nazi or Communist. Then why should Luskin be granted this opportunity?
Matt G · 12 February 2009
Did anyone see the article in the Washington Post's opinion section today? I didn't know that mutations were part of Darwin's "revelation," as the article's author Rick Weiss puts it. More shoddy work going out to an already under- and misinformed public.
Matt G · 12 February 2009
386sx · 12 February 2009
I celebrated by watching Ray Comfort explain the theory of evolution on the 700 club this morning. It don't get any better than that, folks.
John Kwok · 12 February 2009
I am celebrating by having lunch at my favorite midtown Manhattan Indian restaurant and attending a talk later this evening that will be presented by eminent Columbia University philosopher of science Philip Kitcher.
mrg (iml8) · 12 February 2009
Diagoras · 12 February 2009
Happy Darwin day everybody. Cool article at http://worldismycountry.org/?p=93 saying how right he was and mocking ID into the bargain
raven · 12 February 2009
Matt G · 12 February 2009
John Kwok · 12 February 2009
Frank J · 13 February 2009
Dov Henis · 13 February 2009
A Mumbo Jumbo Gallop Poll
re Darwin's 200 finds just 39% of Americans 'believe' in evolution
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/02/12/1791814.aspx
The language and terms of this Gallup poll is a glaring example of...meaningles mumbo-jumbo...
A proper poll would present a brief scientific definition-description of Life's Evolution, summarized in numbered sentences or paras, and solicit YES-NO- ACCEPT of each of them.
Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1
Life's Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/112.page#578
Matt G · 13 February 2009
Frank J · 13 February 2009
Tardis · 13 February 2009
A post script and slightly off topic. I was very disappointed in the television selection last night.
PBS – Nothing (But the did do Lincoln)
Networks – Nothing (No real surprise here)
History – Nothing
History International – 1 show on Scopes
Discovery – Nothing
The Learning Channel – Nothing
Only the Science Channel ran a series of programs. “Galapagos – Beyond Darwin” (part 1 and 2) and “What Darwin Didn’t Know” which was better than I thought it would be.
If this was 197 or some such number I would have understood, but it wasn’t – this was 200 and 150.
GvlGeologist, FCD · 13 February 2009
Frank J · 13 February 2009
More on the latest Gallup poll: The 36% that say "unsure" is alarming. I'm not sure if the wording is the same (or if was even Gallup) but I reacll a poll from ~3 years ago that showed the % unsure increasing from 7% to 21% in the previous ~20 years. That contrasts to the fairly constant results when not given the option of "unsure." If that 36% can be compared to the previous results, that tells me that ID's "don't ask, don't tell" strategy might be working.
stevaroni · 13 February 2009
Matt G · 13 February 2009
I also hate the use of the word "believe" when describing views of evolution, but I use it myself when I'm not being careful. One of our (scientists) biggest problems in communicating with the public is poor word choice. We also give ammunition to creationists by being careless.
jasonmitchell · 13 February 2009
John Kwok · 13 February 2009
I just want to remind everyone that they can weigh in with comments after Luskin's latest example of breathtaking inanity here:
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/02/10/darwin-intelligent-design-and-freedom-of-discovery-on-evolutionists-holy-day.html
John Kwok · 14 February 2009
I hope others will join me in recounting their Darwin Day experiences, so I am starting off with this terse summary of a
Darwin Day celebration - which was held actually yesterday - at Queens College of the City University of New York. Ample thanks are due to assistant professor of biology John Dennehy for organizing it. His symposium, which was held in a state-of-the-art concert hall at the Queens College School of Music (If you want an idea as to how good the sound quality is, then buy a copy of pianist Jonathan Biss's recent recording of two Mozart piano concerti with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, since it was recorded in this very hall.), was quite popular. More than one hundred people heard talks presented by ecologist Peter Chabora, ecologist Susan Foster, biologist anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz, microbial ecologist Paul Turner, and evolutionary developmental biologist Patricia Wittkop; not just the general public, but primarily Queens College undergraduates and an Intel Research class from neighboring Townshend Harris High School, taught by a former high school teacher of mine, who is now that school's assistant principal of science.
Dennehy's Queens College colleague, Professor Chabora, began with a terse introduction of the basic principles of natural selection and recounting Darwin's five year-long voyage aboard HMS Beagle. Professor Foster (Clark University) discussed adaptive radiation, using her research on the post-Pleistocene history of the stickleback in North America, demonstrating repeated instances of species radiations that produce the same types of ecological specializations for each radiation (e. g. surface and bottom feeders) from the same morphologically conservative marine ancestral stock. Professor Schwartz (University of Pittsburgh) presented a rather fascinating history of evolutionary developmental biology prior to the advent of the Modern Synthesis, making a most persuasive case that at least some of the German researchers, most notably invertebrate paleontologist Otto Schindewolf, may have been on the right track.
Paul Turner (Yale University), gave a brilliant overview of evolutionary medicine as seen from the perspective of infectious diseases. He gave a rather lucid exposition describing how natural selection works to produce antibiotic-resistant bacteria and drug-resistant HIV/AIDS retroviruses (Among his many important points was noting that viruses exhibit the fastest mutation rates seen, in contrast to metazoans like ourselves, but did not try to infer that we have a much better understanding of evolution by studying viruses.). He closed with some unpublished work describing how he and his lab is trying to find potential virulent diseases.
Patricia Wittkopp (University of Michigan) may be familiar to some of those here at Panda's Thumb, since one of her papers was recently cited by Nature as among its fifteen "gems of evolution". She is interested in pigmentation in North American Drosophila (fruit fly) species, as the experimental system to try to understand the evolution of pigmentation from the perspective of evolutionary developmental biology, with special emphasis on the molecular mechanisms controlling gene expression.
Frank J · 14 February 2009
John Kwok · 17 February 2009
Matt G -
This is a bit off topic, but in lieu of Baluchi's, I'd have to recommend instead, Purnima, which is located on 54th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue, almost directly across the street from the theater where the musical "Pal Joey" is playing. The head chef there, Vikas Khanna, is a long-lost friend of mine, and quite good. I was there the other day with a relative for a second time, and we were overwhelmed by both the quality and presentation of the food. Both this little restaurant and Spice Fusion Indian Bistro, are IMHO two of the very best Indian restaurants in Midtown now.
Regards,
John