Darwin Celebration/Information Station 2009

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February 12, 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birthday(Darwin Day), and November 24th 2009 marks the 150 year anniversary since the publication of "The Origin of Species".

Throughout the year, Darwin and his idea will be celebrated at universities, in magazines, online journals, and television documentaries, and this thread will be the place to follow all of it!

Post cool links, ask questions, converse, or reflect on Darwin and his great idea in this thread.

Originally Posted by Darwin

"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

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Firstly, all of Darwin's publications are available in full for free online here:
Darwin Online: Darwin's Publications
And here is a list of celebrations in honor of Darwin this year(check it out, there may be one at a university/museum near you!):
Darwin Online: Darwin 2009 commemorations around the world


New Darwin documentary airing on the BBC this week. Hosted by evolutionary biologist Armand Marie Leroi, this one sounds like a must see:

BBC - BBC Four Programmes - What Darwin Didn't Know
The theory of evolution by natural selection is now scientific orthodoxy, but when it was unveiled it caused a storm of controversy, from fellow scientists as well as religious types. They criticised it for being short on evidence and long on assertion and Darwin, being the honest scientist that he was, agreed with them. He knew that his theory was riddled with 'difficulties', but he entrusted future generations to complete his work and prove the essential truth of his vision, which is what scientists have been doing for the past 150 years.

Evolutionary biologist Professor Armand Marie Leroi charts the scientific endeavour that brought about the triumphant renaissance of Darwin's theory. He argues that, with the new science of evolutionary developmental biology (evo devo), it may be possible to take that theory to a new level - to do more than explain what has evolved in the past, and start to predict what might evolve in the future.

Also be sure not to miss "Darwin's Lost Voyage" on National Geographic, airing Februrary 8, 2009:

Darwins Lost Voyage | Programmes | National Geographic Channel
Darwin's Lost Voyage
Of the five years that he spends circling the world on the H.M.S. Beagle, Darwin spends a mere five weeks in the Galápagos islands and, contrary to conventional belief, his greatest epiphanies do not occur on the famed islands. Instead, they are a cultivation of years exploring the wilds of South America where forests become the cathedral of Darwin’s religion. Encountering a world like he’s never seen before, Darwin’s senses are overwhelmed by a world teeming with life, but what he finds along the way is perplexing to a 19th century naturalist. He questions why do the fossils he discovers look like giant versions of the sloths and armadillos still living nearby; why do the penguins and other birds he sees use their wings as flippers, fins or sails – but not for flying; how could sea shells be found embedded in rock layers more than 100 miles from the sea? It is not until after he leaves the Galápagos – where mockingbirds, not finches capture his attention – that he is able to fully appreciate everything he has encountered and pull together his masterwork: The Origin of Species.

BBC's focus digital-magazine has a special issue out in honor of Darwin(requires flashplayer to load). Featured authors include: PZ Myers, Steve Jones, Richard Dawkins, Carl Zimmer, and more! Read:
Focus Magazine



Keep an eye on the Blog For Darwin project from Februrary 12-15 for more Darwin-mania:

Blog For Darwin
February 12th-15th, 2009 participating bloggers around the world will be celebrating the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth (February 12th, 1809) with a BLOG SWARM, in which posts will be aggregated on BLOG FOR DARWIN to be kept as a resource for educators, students, and others.

One last link, darwinday.org, for more general info:
Darwin Day Celebration

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The journals Nature, Science, and The Lancet have recently had features honoring Darwin, for those with journal access:

Darwin 200 : Specials : Nature News
The 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Robert Darwin falls on 12 February 2009. Darwin was arguably the most influential scientist of modern times. No single researcher has since matched his collective impact on the natural and social sciences; on politics, religions, and philosophy; on art and cultural relations, and in ways that the man himself would never have imagined. This Nature news special will provide continuously updated news, research and analysis on Darwin's life, his science and his legacy, as well as news from the Darwin200 consortium of organizations celebrating this landmark event.

The Lancet : Volume 372, Dec 01, 2008
To commemorate in 2009 the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth and 150 years since publication of On the Origin of Species, the 2008 Special Issue of The Lancet is dedicated to Darwin's life and work and the enduring legacy of his theory of evolution. Darwin's Gifts features a collection of 17 essays covering a range of subjects from 21st century eugenics to the representation of evolution in art.

Online Collection: The Year of Darwin
The Year of Darwin

Science is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of the author's birth with a variety of news features, scientific reviews and other special content, all collected here

For those without journal access, fear not, exciting open-access Darwin features at SciAm and Science:
Scientific American:- The Evolution of EVOLUTION

Science has the Origins blog(tons of cool stuff on here):
Science- Origins Blog

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National Geographic has a cover article on Darwin for Februrary 2009(by David Quammen):

Darwin's First Clues — National Geographic Magazine
Darwin's First Clues
He was inspired by fossils of armadillos and sloths.

The journey of young Charles Darwin aboard His Majesty's Ship Beagle, during the years 1831-36, is one of the best known and most neatly mythologized episodes in the history of science. As the legend goes, Darwin sailed as ship's naturalist on the Beagle, visited the Galápagos archipelago in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and there beheld giant tortoises and finches. The finches, many species of them, were distinguishable by differently shaped beaks, suggesting adaptations to particular diets. The tortoises, island by island, carried differently shaped shells.

Matt Ridley published an excellent celebration of Darwin's idea in the spectator earlier this month:

The natural order of things | The Spectator
Matt Ridley says that Darwinian selection explains the appearance of seemingly ‘designed’ complexity throughout the world — not just in biology but in the economy, technology and the arts
Charles Darwin, who was born 200 years ago next month, has spent the 150 years since he published The Origin of Species fighting for the idea of common descent. Though physically dead, he is still doing battle for the notion that chimps are your cousins and cauliflowers your kin. It is a sufficiently weird concept to keep Darwin relevant, revered and resented in equal measure. But in some ways it is less radical and topical than his other, more philosophical legacy: that order can generate itself, that the living world is a ‘bottom-up’ place. On the internet, Darwinian unordained order is now ubiquitous as never before..

Also, another Darwin article by Ridley in National Geographic:

Modern Darwins — National Geographic Magazine
Modern Darwins
The father of evolution would be thrilled to see the science his theory has inspired.

Just two weeks before he died, Charles Darwin wrote a short paper about a tiny clam found clamped to the leg of a water beetle in a pond in the English Midlands. It was his last publication. The man who sent him the beetle was a young shoemaker and amateur naturalist named Walter Drawbridge Crick. The shoemaker eventually married and had a son named Harry, who himself had a son named Francis. In 1953, Francis Crick, together with a young American named James Watson, would make a discovery that has led inexorably to the triumphant vindication of almost everything Darwin deduced about evolution.

And this is a must for all Darwin fans out there, Richard Dawkins' award winning documentary miniseries, "The Genius of Charles Darwin":

Part 1:

Richard Dawkins: The Genius of Charles Darwin...

Part 2:

Evolution – Richard Dawkins – “Genius of Darwin”...

Part 3:

Evolution – Richard Dawkins – “Genius of Darwin”...

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Recent Darwin history podcast over at sciam, also features a discussion by Michael Shermer:

Darwin: Ghostbuster, Muse and Magistrate: Scientific American Podcast
Darwin: Ghostbuster, Muse and Magistrate
Darwin historian Richard Milner shares some of the lesser known aspects of Darwin's life. And Scientific American columnist Michael Shermer talks about the stock market, religion and other belief systems. Plus, we'll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news. Web sites related to this episode include www.darwinlive.com; www.michaelshermer.com

The above website, Darwinlive.com has some neat songs and history, so be sure to check that out too...

And this is really cool, a new Darwin comic coming out soon, "Darwin: A Graphic Biography". Looks like this one will be fun for the whole family:

Blog coverage on this can be found here:
Pharyngula: Darwin gets a graphic novel
Monkey Trials: COMICS, EVOLVING!
The Forbidden Planet-- Darwin: a Graphic Biography

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Long time nature show-host David Attenborough is having a special on the BBC on Feb 1, 2009 entitled "Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life":

BBC - Darwin
David Attenborough is a passionate Darwinian. He sees evolution as the cornerstone of all the programmes he has ever made. In this one-hour special - a highlight of the Darwin Season - David shares his personal view on Darwin's controversial idea.

Taking us on a journey that tracks 200 years of scientific discovery, David concludes: "Now we can trace the ancestry of all animals in the tree of life and demonstrate the truth of Darwin's basic proposition - all life is related".

YouTube - Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life...

An interview with Attenborough about Darwin and the new special appeared recently in the timesonline:

David Attenborough on Charles Darwin - Times Online
January 22, 2009
David Attenborough on Charles Darwin
On the 200th anniversary of the great scientist's birth, Sir David Attenborough muses on how he changed the world

The Tree of Life is one of Sir David's most personal programmes. It is the “fabuloso” story of how Darwin changed “the way we see the world and our place in it”. Sir David leads the viewer gently through Darwin's journey to the Galápagos Islands and his observations in his garden at Down House in Kent that formed his theory of natural selection; that all life forms originated from a common simple beginning and evolved through mutations that created new species and led to the extinction of others over hundreds of millions of years.

We are taken on Sir David's own journey, too, as he returns to the rocks where he hunted for fossils as a child in Leicestershire, and shows us his own well-thumbed copy of Darwin's work, which he encountered for the first time at 18. “I didn't read it cover to cover. I read chapters. But it is very readable.” He starts quoting the exquisite conclusion to the book, which describes “an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds...”

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Exciting Darwin history news for the upcoming year:

Down House is being nominated as a World Heritage Site
darwinatdowne.co.uk.
Article on Down House from The Times earlier this month:

Britain’s Galápagos offers insight into evolutionary ideas
The living laboratory where Charles Darwin developed much of his evolutionary thinking, described by scientists as “Britain’s Galápagos”, is to reopen to the public next month to mark the bicentenary of the great biologist’s birth.

A £900,000 revamp of Down House, the Darwin family home near Orpington, Kent, will give visitors fresh insights into the story of evolution, with a new exhibition and the opportunity to be guided around its grounds by leading intellectuals.

Sir David Attenborough, Lord Bragg and the evolutionary biologist Steve Jones, are among the narrators of a multimedia tour of the gardens and fields around Down House, which will set out on handheld monitors their role as a natural laboratory for Darwin’s science. Professor Jones, of University College London, described the site as “Britain’s Galápagos”, because the observations that Darwin made there were as important to his intellectual development as those that he made during the voyage of HMS Beagle to South America.

Video of Steve Jones on the grounds discussing Down House and Darwin:
Darwin at Downe - World Heritage

YouTube - Steve Jones at Down House discussing...

Over at The Beagle Project, a replica of the HMS Beagle is being constructed and will set sail in 2009:

We aim to rebuild the ship that carried Charles Darwin around the world, starting in Darwin's bicentenary year of 2009. The new Beagle will sail the world in Darwin's wake, and will inspire global audiences through unique public engagement and learning programmes, and original scientific research in evolutionary biology, biodiversity and climate change.

Check out their blog for updates related to the project or Darwin in general:
The Beagle Project Blog

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Couple items of interest here, first, an evolutionary biologist who just so happened to never have read Darwin's "Origin" is doing so, and blogging his experience over at scienceblogs:

Blogging the Origin : Coming out
Hi! My name is John. I've got a PhD in evolutionary biology, and I've spent much of the past decade writing about evolutionary ideas, as applied to everything from literary criticism, to language, to anti-terror policy, and even on occasion to biology. And I've got a confession - I've never read the Origin of Species.

Stumbled upon this page over at genome.gov, a list of celebrations and activities in the US at various scientific institutions:

genome.gov | 2009 News Feature: Darwin @ 200
February 12, 2009, marks the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and the 150th year since publication of his seminal work, On the Origin of Species. The renowned 19th century naturalist made observations on plant and animal life that set science on a new course, introducing evolution as the unifying concept in all of genetics and biology. Students of U.S. history will note that the date is also the 200th birthday of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) will observe Darwin's life and accomplishments at events at the NIH's Bethesda campus and at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.

Here is another list of events from the Guardian for UK readers:

Charles Darwin: Special events in the UK | Science | guardian.co.uk

Bicentenary events: The omniscient and omnipresent Mr Charles Darwin
For all true disciples of Darwin, there are a wealth of TV and radio shows, events and exhibitions to help you celebrate his 200th birthday. Here are just some of the highlights

An article about Darwin in the times by biologist Steve Jones:

Darwin's brilliant ideas evolved far beyond the origin of species | Steve Jones - Times Online
Darwin's brilliant ideas evolved far beyond the origin of species
The father of modern biology is 200 years old but the enormous range of his work has never been more relevant than today
Anniversaries are the last refuge of the journalist and 2009 is no exception. Happy 40th, then, to the Moon landings, felice quattro centesimo compleanno to Galileo's telescope, and glücklich vier Hundertstel Geburtstag to Kepler and his laws of planetary motion. One birthday boy gets two slices of cake, for Charles Darwin is 200 this year and his best-known book is 50 years younger. To look back on his life is to be astonished by his almost uncanny ability to predict the course of biology to the present day and beyond.

And lastly, a couple complaints from the science blogosphere about poor journalism, sensationalism, and Darwin:
Pharyngula: New Scientist says Darwin was wrong
Evolving Thoughts: Darwin worship, and demonisation
Evolving Thoughts: Darwin was wrong...ish

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BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | UK launches Darwin heritage bid
UK launches Darwin heritage bid
The laboratory where Charles Darwin developed his famous theory of evolution is to be the UK's 2009 nomination for a World Heritage Site.

[...]
Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said: "Darwin's contribution to our understanding of the natural world is unrivalled. His life of science was based on meticulous research in and around his home and the surrounding farmed valleys.

"These still survive as the tangible context for his original scientific insight. They remain - 200 years exactly after his birth - an inspiration to shape the thinking of future generations on our approach to biodiversity, ecosystems and the role nature can play in helping people adjust to the effects of climate change."

He added: "World Heritage Sites are usually associated with cultural landmarks like the Great Wall of China and Stonehenge or outstanding natural landscapes like the Grand Canyon National Park.

"But it is also essential to acknowledge scientific endeavour and discovery, which are both key components in our understanding of environmental conservation."

The above article also contains a neat video clilp of the World Heritage Site nomination, Down House.


New clip of David Attenborough discussing Darwin from Nature Video:

YouTube - Nature Video: David Attenborough on...

Article about Steve Jones' latest book on Darwin:

Steve Jones, intrepid explorer of Darwin's Island review | Non-fiction book reviews - Times Online
Darwin's Island is ostensibly about England, where the Beagle's most privileged passenger remained for the rest of his life after returning from his five-year world voyage in 1836. It was England, not the Galápagos nor the islands of the South Pacific, that inspired the epic works on worms, bees, barnacles and moving plants that fleshed out much of the argument Darwin expounded in great haste in The Origin. But Jones's book is also about modern genetics and the spectacular confirmation it provides of evolutionary theory.

So which is the proof? Were Darwin's observations enough, or did we have to wait for Watson and Crick and the mapping of the genome - which shows how natural selection actually works - to be sure he'd got it right?

On this Jones is clear: Darwin nailed it. His theory, with hindsight, is blindingly simple. With the help of Thomas Malthus, who had pointed out the huge excess of births over adult deaths in the animal kingdom, Darwin realised that many creatures must be dying before they reproduced. “And if they're different in their chances of dying and how [those chances] are passed on to their offspring, you've got natural selection, and it will cause evolution. That's the core of his theory.”

There has been quite a bit of buzz about Darwin's ideas being inspired by his anti-racist and abolitionist sentiments. I know from my own readings that Darwin was staunchly opposed to racism, and unlike many of his contemporaries, believed no race to be superior to others(and this directly follows from a naturalistic interpretation of his ideas, I think).
Here is a recent review of the books on the topic from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/bo...html?ref=books
Two arresting new books, timed to co*incide with Darwin’s 200th birthday, make the case that his epochal achievement in Victorian England can best be under*stood in relation to events — involving neither tortoises nor finches — on the other side of the Atlantic. Both books confront the touchy subject of Darwin and race head on; both conclude that Darwin, despite the pernicious spread of “social Darwinism” (the notion, popularized by Herbert Spencer, that human society progresses through the “survival of the fittest”), was no racist.

Adrian Desmond and James Moore published a highly regarded biography of Darwin in 1991. The argument of their new book, “Darwin’s Sacred Cause,” is bluntly stated in its subtitle: “How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution.” They set out to overturn the widespread view that Darwin was a “tough-minded scientist” who unflinchingly followed the trail of empirical research until it led to the stunning and unavoidable theory of evolution. This narrative, they claim, is precisely backward. “Darwin’s starting point,” they write, “was the abolitionist belief in blood kinship, a ‘common descent’ ” of all human beings.

In other news, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is erecting signs both honoring Darwin, and spreading another message:

Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc.

To celebrate and call attention to the Year of Darwin, the national Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., is unveiling a new billboard message: "Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief."

The message is debuting in Madison on Regent Street, near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Billboards with the Darwin message will also be going up in time for Darwin's Feb. 12 birthday bicentennial in two significant locations: Dayton, Tenn., and Dover, Penn.

Dayton was the site of the infamous 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial," and Dover was the Pennsylvania hamlet where an attempt to promote "intelligent design" by the local school board was quashed by a federal judge in a historic 2005 decision.

More coverage here:
Chattanooga Times Free Press | Tennessee: Evolutionist group erects Darwin billboard


And lastly, John Wilkins over at ET has some more criticism of recent and poor Darwin/evolution journalism:
Evolving Thoughts: More on the really bad journalism

[InfiniteNow]

What a marvelous collection of resources! Very cool thread, my friend.


I offer one small contribution to your already righteous thread. WIRED magazine has done a piece called "Celebrate Darwin's 200th Birthday With a Natural Selection of Books."


WIRED: Celebrate Darwin's 200th Birthday With a Natural Selection of Books

"For Charles Darwin, 2009 is a doubly significant year. First, if he had been fit enough to survive, he would be turning 200 in February. Second, it's the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, evolution's holy writ. This happy coincidence means a bonanza for readers, with new works by scientists, novelists, and even the odd party-crashing creationist, all lined up for publication. Here we channel Darwin to do a little natural selection on these offerings."

They have selected 7 books on evolution, and on the right of the page they present three summary bits on each:

• The premise
• Why Charlie would like it
• Evolutionary state

The last summary item, evolutionary state, is fun because it is a graphic rating based on the classic human evolution diagram.

One of the seven books is a real knife to the creationist jugular.
It is Coynes "Why Evolution is True."

The premise
Following up on his devastating 2005 takedown of intelligent design in The New Republic, Coyne gently and systematically assembles all the latest findings and cold hard data in one place.

Why Charlie would like it
Coyne is as graceful a stylist and as clear a scientific explainer as Darwin himself (no mean feat). It's one of the best single-volume introductions to evolutionary theory ever.

Evolutionary state

They are all, however, pretty profound pieces of writing.
Enjoy.