BS: Celebrate Darwin Day

Subject: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 07:58 AM

People may have missed that Monday is Chuckie's birthday.

HAPPY DARWIN DAY Monday 12 FEB (2007).
Posted: Friday, February 09, 2007 6:48 PM by Alan Boyle
The calendar boasts plenty of religious holidays, but how many scientific holidays can you name? One of the red-letter days is coming up on Monday, when more than 850 events around the globe will mark Darwin Day, the 198th anniversary of the evolutionary theorist's birth.

Links at the article provide additional information on some of the planned celebrations. (Mostly for those who wish to celebrate what he accomplished, rather than those just glad he's dead?)

Also included in the article, with links to some info on each, a list of other "science days" including:

"other scientific holidays to pencil onto your calendar, check out these dates:

March 14: Pi Day, which is also Albert Einstein's birthday. If you want to get really technical, you can focus your festivities on 1:59 p.m. or 3:14 p.m. (The a.m. times might be a bit inconvenient.)

April 12: Yuri's Night, marking the anniversary of the first manned spaceflight as well as the first space shuttle flight.

April 21: Astronomy Day, which is traditionally marked by Saturday star parties - and which serves this year as an early 17th-birthday party for the Hubble Space Telescope. Click on over to the Astronomical League or Astronomy.com to find out what's going on in your area. This year, organizers are also testing whether an autumn date - Sept. 15 - might work better for Astronomy Day.

May 4: Space Day, an educational event sponsored by Lockheed Martin to recognize past contributions to space exploration and inspire future generations of explorers and scientists.

July 20: Evoloterra, the anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing.

Oct. 4: World Space Week, which runs from Oct. 4 to 11 every year. This year Oct. 4 takes on special significance because it's the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite. That event also marked the beginning of the space age.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 09:12 AM

I know one or two really compassionate Mudcatters will think this is about the Darwin awards. :~)

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Cruiser
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 11:31 AM

Another link from John's post:

Evolution Sunday 2007

{Quote}
"Together, participating religious leaders will be making the statement that religion and science are not adversaries. And, together, they will be elevating the quality of the national debate on this topic." {End Quote}

---

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 11:37 AM

I thought it was about the Darwin Awards. First thought that entered my mind.

I find it ironical that Charles Darwin, a man with strong religious beliefs of his own, gave birth to a theory many of whose modern adherents think it disproves ALL religion! ;-) It doesn't. It merely adds an interesting further interpretation which can meld very effectively with any moderately enlightened form of religious thought. It does not meld with a certain form of literal-minded and inflexible Judeo-Christian-Islamic fundamentalism, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 12:09 PM

many of whose modern adherents think it disproves ALL religion!

Uninformed nonsense. The theory is attacked because some religionists think it would if proven correct.

Darwin hinself started as a Christian and the older he became the more skeptical he became of his childhood beliefs. The old Darwin had no strong religious belief at all if any. In his daily life he mixed with scientists and did ignore religious debaters for complete lack of interest in debating with them.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 12:27 PM

I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follow[s] from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, and I have confined myself to science. I may, however, have been unduly biassed by the pain which it would give some members of my family, if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion. (Darwin)

....During these two years (March 1837 - January 1839) I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come by this time (i.e. 1836 to 1839) to see the Old Testament, from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rain-bow as a sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian....
....Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished.
And this is a damnable doctrine.... (Darwin, autobioagraphy)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Cruiser
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 12:27 PM

If you go to the Cosmic Log John linked above, be certain to scroll down to read the very interesting comments from readers regarding the science/religion debate.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 12:40 PM

Let me put it this way, Wolfgang. Ignorant and opinionated people on BOTH sides of the debate about evolution have interpreted it incorrectly. Some of them are religious, some of them are anti-religious. Better?

To put it very simply, the most narrow-minded and arrogant fundamentalists and the most narrow-minded and arrogant atheists will BOTH happily misinterpret Darwin to support their own very negative biases toward one another and beat the drum they are most fond of beating.

Therefore, I say: a pox on both their houses.

Evolution is a concept that is admirably suited to harmonizing with many existing religious notions and theories in many cultures. It is not a concept that by definition necessarily denies the existence of either a "God" or of "Spirit". It merely says something about how physical creatures may have gradually evolved on this planet over many millions of years, and there appears to be much evidence to support that. All well and good.

Darwin is quite correct, in my opinion, that the doctrine he refers to in the last paragraph of your quote is "damnable". Indeed. I've always thought so too.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 12:51 PM

February wouldn't be complete without Silly Season, and Silly Season wouldn't be complete without ranting for, against, about, and around religion.

Take it apart, put it back together any way you want, and it'll be old as well as useless. On any given day, we already know what we think about it. ;~)

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 12:57 PM

Wolfgang's ojection to what I said, I imagine, is that he thinks I'm saying it about him (or people who are like him).   That is not necessarily the case. There are reasonable and unreasonable people among both the religious and the non-religious. Wolfgang has always struck me as being reasonable.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Cruiser
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 01:01 PM

Wolfgang:

Thank you for posting those quotes. Darwin is still often misquoted, misinterpreted. and misunderstood after all these years. The falsehood of Darwin's deathbed recantation of evolution is still in current circulation in the 21st century.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 01:02 PM

Oh, I'm not commenting on what anyone in particular said-- just observing Mudcat in one of its most oft-repeated cycles.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 01:05 PM

Yeah. ;-) It's like the weather.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: open mike
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 01:25 PM

go here for what you thought this thread was about..
http://www.darwinawards.com/

or go to the Galpagos!

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 01:34 PM

The point that Creationists can't seem to grasp as they attack science is that religious scientists—such as Darwin—can pursue their investigations without feeling that there is any contradiction between their religious beliefs and their scientific studies. Darwin, with his study of evolution, and many cosmologists studying the origins of the universe over 12 billion year ago (as contrasted with the idea that it was created at 9:30 a.m. January 19th, 4004 B.C.), can quite calmly and reasonably say, "Yes, God created the universe and God created man. I'm merely studying God's blueprints because I want to know how He did it."

In fact, it can reinforce someone's religious beliefs. If one is a believer, then the study of science reveals the mind-boggling vastness of the universe and the amazing complexity of life. This can add an immense sense of awe and wonder to one's faith. Any intelligence that could have created all this. . . .

The book of Genesis is the mythological explanation for the beginnings of things, and science in no way contradicts what it says. Nor does it contradict science.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 01:38 PM

Well said, Don.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Peace
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 02:33 PM

From its genesis to the last post, this thread has certainly evolved.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 03:13 PM

Religion is anti-science and certainly anti-reason.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 03:21 PM

If you mean fundamentalist Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, you are right, Crazyhorse. If you mean non-fundamentalist Christianity, Sufism (mystical Islam), liberal Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, liberal Hinduism, modern spirituality (which comes in many, many forms, sometimes called New Age) and a host of other such faiths or beliefs...you are totally, absolutely wrong. All those beliefs respect science tremendously, value it tremendously, and incorporate it directly into their spiritual understanding of life.

The ancient founders of the Hindu religion, for instance, were discussing things like the atom a few thousand years before western science found such things using the microscope. Europeans were latecomers to that sort of knowledge.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 03:27 PM

No, actually pretty much the whole lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 03:39 PM

You just don't know them very well.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 03:43 PM

You're right, I don't. But any of them that are supernatural (all of them?) are anti-rational, certainly any type of christianity is anti-science and anti-rational, it's well enough documented as I'm sure you know.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Peace
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 03:46 PM

Is this the exodus part of the thread?

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 03:50 PM

To think that intelligent people cannot span both faith AND reason is itself a sign of limited thinking.

(I'm saying that simply, in straight type because there isn't an HTML code I know for the size type it would take to represent it better. Thus I choose understatement, for emphasis.)

If human life is that limited, might as well take out either everyone's left brain, or their right brain. Or take out either the eyes, or the nose. Or say, "You may have fingers to turn pages, but no toes to feel warm sand when you walk."

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 04:01 PM

There's no armour like ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 04:02 PM

There are many people of faith who's power of reasoning is formidable - except when it comes to their religion when all of a sudden the norms of inquiry are thrown out of the window.

"There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?"

Dawkins

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 04:03 PM

LH, do you deny that the christian church is anti-science?

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 04:08 PM

I don't know. I guess it depends on which particular church and which people in that church you are talking about, doesn't it? I regard mainstream Catholic doctrine as being anti-scientific in a number of respects, but I've met any number of individual Catholics who are not anti-scientific, so I don't think they're all buying it by any means.

Do you think that everything you believe at a deep level is totally rational?

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 04:19 PM

Well there is no doubt about the roman catholic church is there. They don't deny it. What was the list of forbidden books all about.

I guess many catholics are not anti-science but alot of people, especially in the states, are religious in public because they have to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 06:08 PM

And here I thought someone was alerting us to the time when Darwin got bombed.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Peace
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 06:30 PM

Who is Darwin Day and why are we celebrating him?

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 06:34 PM

Yes, Crazyhorse, you are quite right that a lot of people in the USA act religious in public because they have to. This is specially true of the politicians.

It's not that way at all in Canada or in most of Europe either from what I hear. It is that way in Iran.

Ironical, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: bobad
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 06:37 PM

"Who is Darwin Day"

Stockwell's more evolved brother?

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Peace
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 06:49 PM

Keriste, Bobad, I had a cocker spaniel who'd been dead for twelve years. I dug her up and she was more evolved than Stockwell.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 03:19 AM


Prediction: Princeton ESP lab to close

...seems somewhat relevant to the fairies in the garden?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 09:35 AM

Celebrate this day by abandoning superstition, belief in invisible friends, and other dehumanizing nonsense. Understand that the fact of evolution and its primary mechanism, natural selection, doesn't disprove the existence of deity, it just renders the concept completely unnecessary.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:22 AM

Doris's smarter nephew - que sera...

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Cruiser
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 03:44 PM

From John's link:

"The extrasensory perception lab at Princeton University will be shuttered at the end of the month. *Maybe you already knew that*.

The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory will close after 28 years of studying ESP and telekinesis, research that embarrassed university officials and outraged the scientific community."

I added the ** to highlight the sentence above.

I thought it was an obvious waste of money. However, with the current TV shows regarding "palm readers", "mediums" and people able to see spirits in the "other world" that have "crossed over", some people will be upset.

But they should have predicted it, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Peace
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 04:29 PM

The International Psychics are holding their every-other-year convention this year, but they're not telling anyone where it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 04:35 PM

That's smart. It'll keep the phonies and frauds from finding it.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 04:36 PM

As I mentioned to some Alaskan Fundamentalists who put me up in Eagle, Darwin is my "Saint Chuck".

Really appreciate the quotes by Wolfgang which say it all.

About religion, the best definition of it is my father's:

Religion is the awe in which we hold our ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 07:51 PM

When Darwin was bombed - about 180 Jap planes took part - and more bombs were dropped on the first day's attack than were dropped on Pearl Harbour.

The bombing continued for about 21 months.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 07:56 PM

Yup. They sank a lot of allied ships in that harbour.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 08:06 PM

One American Destroyer on the first day.

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: MaineDog
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 08:15 PM

Although the annual Darwin Awards competition obviously leads to improvement in the human race, I don't believe that a new species will ultimatelly result from the process.
MD

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Rowan
Date: 19 Feb 07 - 09:35 PM

Good try Foolestroupe. it only took two mentions before the penny dropped.

Knowing my father had been in Darwin during WWII I asked him what unit he'd been in.
"None" he replied.
"Everyone in the army is in some unit or another," I protested.
"I was one of three surveyors attached to Colonel XXXX's personal staff. We'd go on surveying jobs." He went on to explain that they "borrowed" some American theodolites as they, unlike the British ones issued, gave 'erect' images; they were peeved they had to return them.
"So," I said. "If I were to ask you 'What important thing did you do in the war, Dad?' what would you say?"
He thought about this and then said "I laid out the sewerage system for Darwin after the bombing."

"Well," I replied, "It was probably the only thing in Darwin that survived Cyclone Tracy untouched."

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: able
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 03:08 AM

I came to this thread thinking it was for Darwin Australia as well, my interest stems from my dad being stationed at Darwin during ww2. His unit was 1st Canadian Signals, I have looked at Oz at war, but everything seems to be like the handouts I already have. Can anyone give me more than this?

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Rowan
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 05:02 PM

Able, I'm not sure what you've already tried and I've not searched out any 'particular' info. Like many whose families lived through it, you pick up lots of family gossip and the annual repetitions of info as commentary to the Anzac Day marches means that you accumulate a spread of info over the years. I expect Canadians were like Australians, serving in almost every theatre going, thus requiring specialist search routines to find out what particular units were doing.

The Australian War Memorial (in Canberra and Googlable) keeps the national archives of what Australians did and also assists in tracking down information from Unit Diaries. It may be able to help you with info about Units from overseas who served in Australia. I don't know if Canada has an equivalent institution but I'd be very surprised if it didn't.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: GUEST,DocJ
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 05:03 PM

Don't forget 15th February - Galileo Day - one of the first scientists to be persecuted by the Christian Church for his work. Not that the Christian Church's beliefs in this had anything at all to do with Christianity; bizzarly they just followed dogmatically the unscientific nonsense of those prechristian Greeks.
DocJ

Subject: RE: BS: Celebrate Darwin Day
From: Rowan
Date: 20 Feb 07 - 05:12 PM

Able, if you ever get to Oz and Darwin, the northernmost 100 miles of the Stuart Highway (connecting Darwin with the rest of Oz) will give you some idea of the extent of OS involvement in that part of the world during WWII. Alongside the highway and only half a mile at most (usually only 200 metres) west of it there are airstrips every couple of miles. Many still have the Unit details and insignia of the groups that used them.

Worth seeing.

Cheers, Rowan