Nov 25, 2009

Happy Darwin Day

Today marks the 150th Anniversary of the publishing of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
[Read it Here]

In this book, Darwin described how evolution by natural selection works — and presented a huge body of evidence, drawn from every field of biology then known, that evolution can account for the patterns we see in nature.

Which religious fundies dismiss, not because they observed contradictory scientific evidence, but simply because they "don't believe in it." Well, I'm sure I can just as easily disregard their beliefs as flippantly as they disregard science.

In the meantime, I think the word evolution has been hijacked and we need to look at the concept of 'Adaptation.' My half cent.

There are quite a few celebrations this year of one form or another—the 200th anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine; the 350th anniversary of the birth of Henry Purcell; the 250th anniversary of the death of Handel; the 200th anniversary of the death of Haydn; and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Mendelssohn. There's going to be a lot of concerts in Europe tonight.

Also, please note, it's the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, and the 150th of the book.

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