BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 09:30 PM

John on the Sunset Coast:

In my boyhood we had separate holidays for Lincoln and Washington, on the 12th and 22nd of February. I remember when I was young enough not to be sure which was which.

Presidents' Day is, to my way of thinking, a sloppy-minded, lazy abomination.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 09:00 PM

Since we're celebrating things Darwin-- with good reason-- perhaps we should be honest enough to admit that though he is often cited as patron saint by many of the atheists who grace Mudcat, he himself was no atheist--and he made that clear.

Nor were many of the other usual suspects cited in Mudcat atheists' screeds--Jefferson, Washington, Franklin.   Nor Einstein.

Paine--very likely. But he was a decidedly a mixed bag.   Many positives.   But also called Washington a coward. Being imprisoned in France did not agree with him.

And offered Napoleon a strategy to conquer the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 07:15 PM

"Nov. 22, 1963
JFK - Aldous Huxley (Author Huxley's death went virtually unnoticed in the USA owing to the enormity of the JFK assassination.) " John on the Sunset Coast

You're right, John. I don't even remember Huxley's death. If we look I'll bet we can find other significant but unnoted events on that day.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: gnu
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 03:52 PM

The Discovery Channel's Daily Planet show is all Darwin tonight, I believe??? Should be good.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 02:34 PM

Nov. 22, 1963
JFK - Aldous Huxley (Author Huxley's death went virtually unnoticed in the USA owing to the enormity of the JFK assassination.)

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 01:24 PM

Darwin - Lincoln: born on the same day, same year

Adams - Jefferson: died on the same day, same year

How many other coincidences can you list? (I recognize the significance of your birthday, Rap. Happy belated Birthday wishes. )

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 12:13 PM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAINT CHUCK!


from a mostly happy evolver

to paraphrase Firesign Theatre

"I'm with you Chuck, but you still put me through too many changes!"

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 12:10 PM

Well, it's been obvious from the Beginning that I am the center of the Universe.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 11:51 AM

I note from that Post article that 42% of those polled in a national Pew Research poll 'believe' that humans have "existed in their present from since the beginning of time".

It will TAKE some time for science to overcome viewpoints based on acceptance of certain 'authorities' which try to interpret every new 'fact' according to what they are already sure of.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 11:36 AM

Please note that today is also the 100th anniversary of the founding of the NAACP.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: fretless
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 11:31 AM

Expanding on the topic of Lincoln's birthday and events not noted in the U.S., I was reminded yesterday that February is Black History Month in the U.S., and that this is the first year since the founding of the U.S. republic that the president signing the declaration for the month-long recognition was himself black/African American. Which, I guess, could be taken as a good thing -- that Obama's blackness has taken a back seat to his role as a president and an individual -- or a bad one: that the media is so insensitive to the historic nature of his presidency that they ignored the historic symbolism. The friend who reminded me ascribes to the latter interpretation. I'm less sure. But who can deny that this is a historic moment?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 11:25 AM

...and, as the Wash Post notes today in a LONG article, science now has the tools and is beginning the process of detailed analysis of human evolution, using DNA and the fruits of the Human Genome Project.

That museum, with dinosaurs mixed with bible characters, will remain an amusement, just as meetings of the Flat Earth Society do.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: goatfell
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 11:23 AM

From a Christian happy birthday Darwin and Lincoln

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 11:02 AM

We just watched Inherit the Wind again - what a movie. Happy 200th!

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 10:31 AM

Yes, there used to be an actually observered holiday for both Lincoln and Washington (Feb 22). Now we have a bastardized Monday holiday that celebrates presidents in total...including a James Buchanon, a Richard Nixon and a Jimmy Carter. It gives US government workers, and some private industry, a three day holiday, but not much in the way of celebrating these two great presidents, or US history.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: JamesBerriman
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 10:28 AM

Celebrate with Darwin's ghost at the Leopard in Burslem tonight:

http://stoke.twestival.com/2009/02/09/the-best-ghosts/

Quote:

So, in a previous post we were pondering whether Charles Darwin, who celebrates his 200th birthday on Twestival night (coincidence? I think not), spent any time at the Leopard in Burslem.

Well, there's evidence. The landlord, Neil, took a moment out of ripping out a few 1950s 'improvements' to let us know that he has a diary entry in which Darwin writes about helping a family servant out by placing her in the Leopard as landlady and then, to help her settle in, spending a summer there. Well, it is hard just to stay there for 'one drink'…

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Peter T.
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 10:19 AM

Didn't there used to be a holiday for Lincoln in the US? Replaced by President's Day or some other imperialist crap?

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 09:55 AM

"And on the topic of timely birthdays, let's not forget that Abe Lincoln was born on the same day in 1809."

Thank you fretless. To read the LA Times today, you'd barely know it was his birthday. While I don't expect Mudcat to necessarily note his birthday--after all we are an international community--I expect more of what is supposed to be a major American newspaper.

Incidentally, LAT had a wonderful page 5, main section story on Darwin and his legacy.

I guess this is what is more important in the LA Times' world.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 09:40 AM

Yes, and I was born the day before but not in the same years. Edison was too. Great minds were all born within 24 hours of each other.

Yeah, Chuck and Abe -- what a pair they were! I remember one time we were sittin' around playing Old Sledge with Sam Clemens when Abe said...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...............snort.....(pulls up the covers)...........

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: fretless
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 09:29 AM

This seems like a good place to put in a plug for Laurie Lebo's Devil in Dover, an excellent recounting of the recent trial in Dover Pennsylvania that set the precedent for the removal of intelligent design (i.e. creationist) curricula in Dover's public school science classes. It is a really fine read -- get your local library to order it so others can read it too.

Ol' Chuck Darwin has been getting some knocks in the US press lately, because, it is claimed, others were prepared to offer theories of evolution/natural selection around the same time he was. Happy Birthday anyway, fella. We're better off for what you did.

And on the topic of timely birthdays, let's not forget that Abe Lincoln was born on the same day in 1809.

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: DannyC
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 07:43 AM

...   and yet, here in my State (USA), we host a 'Creationist' Theme Park wherein (I am told) mechanical figurines of various Bible characters can be seen riding on the backs of dinosaurs. Where's Clarence Darrow when you need him?

Subject: RE: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 07:39 AM

You have to be a speed reader to read all of it in one day! Luckily my copy is safe somewhere in all the boxes crated up for a house move, along with "Voyage of the Beagle".

Happy Darwin Day to all.

Subject: BS: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!!
From: Peter T.
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 06:50 AM

The god of my idolatry, Charles Darwin, was born 200 years ago today, descended from pools of slime!

(A good day to read On the Origin Of Species, which is an amazing book almost no one reads, though everyone refers to it. A record of an awesome mind at work.)

Happy Birthday, Charles!