Darwin Day Petition Drive

Darwin Day is a global celebration of science and reason held on or around Feb. 12, the anniversary of the birthday of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. This year (2010) marks the 201st anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 151st anniversary of the publication of his most famous book, the Origin of Species.

As part of this year's commemoration of Darwin's birthday, the International Darwin Day Foundation has launched a petition drive to have President Obama issue a proclamation recognizing Darwin Day and the importance of Darwin's work to the science of biology.

Here's what the International Darwin Day Foundation has to say about this petition drive:

Please sign our petition urging President Obama to recognize Darwin Day!

We need our elected leaders to speak out about the importance of scientific knowledge and its contribution to the advancement of humanity, and send a signal that religious infiltration into our science classrooms will not be tolerated. That's why we're asking you to sign our petition urging President Obama to recognize Darwin Day.

Far-right extremists are using every trick in the book to keep the teaching of evolution out of science classes, and to the degree they are successful they are undermining American values of scientific inquiry and integrity.

Their thinly-veiled religious agenda will have negative effects on our society. Incomplete education about evolution in our classrooms sends the message that not only can the theory of natural selection be sidestepped, but all science can be muzzled if it doesn't neatly fit within a particular ideology. Failure to provide our children with a first rate science education will create future generations who are scientifically illiterate and unable to compete in the global market of ideas.

We need our elected leaders to speak out about the importance of scientific knowledge and its contribution to the advancement of humanity, and send a signal that religious infiltration into our science classrooms will not be tolerated. That's why we're asking you to sign our petition urging President Obama to recognize Darwin Day.

Darwin Day, celebrated every year on February 12, is a day in which people gather together to commemorate the life and work of Charles Darwin, who was born this day in 1809. Charles Darwin was the first to propose the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection—a theory that has done more to unify and bring understanding to the life sciences than any other. Darwin Day is a celebration of this discovery and of scientific progress.

Our petition asks President Obama to issue a proclamation on Darwin Day that honors Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution by natural selection and that calls on all Americans to preserve scientific discovery as a bedrock of our society. It also asks Americans to commemorate the day with appropriate events and activities.

Sign our petition today to let Obama know that you're on the side of science and you need him to be, too. If President Obama will issue a Darwin Day proclamation, it will send a strong signal to our elected officials in Congress and in the school boards that the American people want scientific integrity to be preserved.

So please sign our petition today and let your voice be heard!

Sincerely,
Roy Speckhardt
Executive Director
International Darwin Day Foundation
The International Darwin Day Foundation promotes public education about science and encourages the celebration of Science and Humanity throughout the global community.

Here is the text of a message to President Obama, urging him to proclaim February 12th as Darwin Day:

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Dear President Obama,

As an American who values scientific inquiry and integrity, I urge you to issue a presidential proclamation recognizing Darwin Day on February 12. Darwin Day is celebrated every year on the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday in 1809, and is a day in which people gather together to commemorate his life and work. Charles Darwin was the first to propose the ground-breaking scientific theory of evolution by natural selection—a theory that has done more to unify and bring understanding to the life sciences than any other—and Darwin Day is a celebration of this discovery and of scientific progress.

I believe that issuing this proclamation will send a powerful message that scientific discovery and integrity in our society are top priorities—priorities that are needed now more than ever as extremists with narrow ideological agendas are attempting to undermine science in our schools.

Please stand with me and countless others who value science and discovery by issuing the following or a similar proclamation on Darwin Day.

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And here is the text of the proposed proclamation:

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A PROCLAMATION

Charles Darwin was the first to propose the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection. On Darwin Day, celebrated on the anniversary of Darwin’s birth on February 12, 1809, we celebrate the life and discoveries of Charles Darwin and express gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.

It is sobering to imagine where the human race would be today without advances in science. Science has helped us to live longer by enabling us to find cures for diseases and alleviating pain and suffering. It has allowed us to travel before unimaginable distances, to interact with and understand people of other cultures and recognize what makes us similar as well as what makes us unique. It has allowed us to understand and maneuver in our world and has provided us insight into the complexities of life.

Charles Darwin recognized the importance and power of scientific discovery, and perhaps no one has influenced our understanding about life on earth as much as he. Darwin was an English naturalist, who on his legendary five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle made important observations about the geological and zoological diversity of the lands he visited, which helped spark his theory of evolution by natural selection. Most of what we understand about the diversity of life and the process by which it has adapted and changed has come from his profound insights, and his contribution to the canons of science cannot be overstated.

On this anniversary of Darwin’s birthday, it is important to recognize the contributions he has made to the advancement of science. It is also important that we continue to educate future generations about evolution by natural selection in our science classrooms. We must not water down the significance of Darwin’s theory, nor the breadth of evidence supporting it, and we must at every turn challenge efforts to undermine science so that we can keep alive in our children and grandchildren the wonder of discovery and the eagerness to obtain knowledge.

Now, Therefore, I, Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim February 12, 2010, as Darwin Day. I call on all Americans to recognize the importance of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution by natural selection, to endeavor to preserve scientific discovery and human curiosity as bedrocks of American society, and to commemorate this day with appropriate events and activities.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twelfth day of February, two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

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I personally think that this petition drive is a good idea, and that if it succeeds it will add significantly to both the status of evolutionary biology in America and to President Obama's reputation as a staunch supporter of science. I hope you will to go to the International Darwin Day Foundation's website and sign their petition.

And have a great Darwin Day!

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

The Darwinian Revolution To Be Shown at Cornell

There will be a free public showing of The Darwinian Revolution video series at 4 PM on Tuesday 24 November 2009 in the large classroom (room 3330) of the Tatkon Center in Balch Hall. This presentation will take place on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, and is part of Cornell's celebration of the Darwin Bicentennial. The host of the video series, Cornell evolutionary biologist Allen MacNeill, will be on hand at the presentation to discuss the videos and answer questions about evolutionary biology in general, and about The Darwinian Revolution video series in particular.

The Darwinian Revolution is a series of six videos addressing the content and history of the theory of evolution. Produced by Cornell's CyberTower program and hosted by evolutionary biologist Allen MacNeill, the six-part series includes an overview of evolutionary biology, a history of the concept of evolution in western civilization, a brief consideration of Lamarck's theory of evolution via the inheritance of acquired characteristics, a detailed look at Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, a brief exploration of Mendel's theory of particulate inheritance and its role in the origins of the "modern evolutionary synthesis", and a look forward at the future prospects for evolutionary biology. The series was videotaped at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York, and features interviews with museum director and paleontologist Warren Allman and Cornell historian of science William Provine.

This public showing of The Darwinian Revolution is free and open to the general public. It is cosponsored by Cornell's CyberTower program, in cooperation with the Museum of the Earth and Cornell's Tatkon Center as part of this year's celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species.

The Darwinian Revolution video series can also be viewed online here. For more information about the video series, go here.

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Charles Robert Darwin, Born 12 February 1809

AUTHOR: Charles Darwin

SOURCE: Origin of Species

COMMENTARY: Allen MacNeill (following the excerpt)

"In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.

"Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity; for the manner in which all organic beings are grouped, shows that the greater number of species of each genus, and all the species of many genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity as to foretell that it will be the common and widely-spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups, which will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant species. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.

"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled 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 on 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 external 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."
- Charles Darwin,
On the Origin of Species [pages 488 to 490]

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COMMENTARY:

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (and Abraham Lincoln). Just a few comments about this anniversary and about the passage, above (from the end of the first edition of the Origin of Species).

• Here is how Darwin felt on the morning of 12 February 1859 (the year the Origin of Species was published), according to a letter he wrote to W. D. Fox:

"I have been extra bad of late, with the old severe vomiting rather often & much distressing swimming of the head…

Doesn't sound much like a man who was about to turn the whole world upside down, does it? Darwin was a chronic hypochondriac, and this account of a "bad morning" was pretty typical.


• Years ago I created, directed, produced, and starred in a one-man play called "An Evening with Charles Darwin," based on excerpts from Darwin's correspondence and autobiography. In it, I had the character of Darwin (in the last year of his life) talk about the coincidence of his birthday falling on the same day as that of Abraham Lincoln. This coincidence is significant from a biographical and historical standpoint because Darwin and his family were firm and outspoken abolitionists, and counted Abraham Lincoln among their moral and political heroes. Although I am not aware that Darwin ever mentioned this coincidence, I found it useful for his character to mention it in the play, as it illustrated a facet of Darwin's personality that is rarely mentioned in popular biographical treatments of his life and character.

• In predicting the future impact of his theory, Darwin mentioned specifically only psychology and human evolutionary history. As a partisan for evolutionary psychology, I find this both gratifying and curious. Gratifying, because we really are beginning (finally!) to base psychology on "a new foundation" (i.e. comparative human ethology) and are starting to investigate how (and even, in some cases, when) "each mental power and capacity" was acquired. It's an exciting and very productive time to be working on these subjects!

• Sharp-eyed readers will note the lack of reference to "the Creator" in the final paragraph. This passage is taken from the first edition of the Origin, published in 1859. In that original edition, Darwin wrote

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one..."

Poetic, but more to the point, clearly not theological, as asserted by some creationists, who are motivated to show that even Darwin refers to creation in the Origin.

• However, Darwin does refer to the Creator, even in this first edition:

"To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual."

From this passage, it is clear that the full extent of the intervention in nature by the Creator was to establish the natural laws that govern what happens in nature. Throughout the Origin, Darwin makes it clear that it isn't necessary to ascribe any other kind of intervention into by Creator, for any reason. Therefore, the Creator cited by Darwin in this concluding passage is clearly the kind of God venerated by Deists. And Deism, as Will Provine and others have repeatedly pointed out, is functionally equivalent to atheism. A Creator that is, by His own choice, constrained to function entirely through the laws of nature (which He Himself created) is unnecessary for the creation and implementation of "secondary causes" (i.e. everything that happens after the universe and its governing laws have been created).

• Think of the courage it must have taken for Darwin to publish the Origin:

"Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created." [emphasis added].

Despite his modest fame among the educated public as author of the
Journal of the Voyages of HMS Beagle and his reputation among naturalists as the author of four monographs on barnacles, Darwin was essentially an amateur naturalist who dared to propose a theory that was in direct opposition to the publicly stated positions of the most admired professional naturalists and scientists of his time, not to mention two millennia of European history and politics.It is a measure of his confidence in the truth of his own ideas and observations that he went ahead and published the Origin. After that, writing and publishing The Descent of Man... would have been a relative cakewalk.

So, happy birthday, Charles Darwin (and all of his admirers out there in cyberspace) – Many happy returns!

--Allen

It's Darwin-Malthus Day!

AUTHOR: Allen MacNeill

SOURCE: Original essay

COMMENTARY: That's up to you...

Most readers of this blog are aware that next year is the Darwin Bicentennial. It's the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species. Regular readers also know that this celebration really started this past July 1st, which marked the 150th anniversary of the joint presentation of Darwin and Wallace's theory of evolution by natural selection at the summer meeting of the Linnean Society in London.

However, what many people don't know is that today is also a very significant anniversary of a crucial development in Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. On this day in 1838, Darwin

"...happened to read for amusement 'Malthus on Population,' and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck [him] that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species." [Darwin's Autobiography, page 83]

According to his autobiography, Darwin read Malthus' famous essay in the evening, and the idea of natural selection sprang fully formed into his mind: "Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work...", and indeed he had. But Darwin was an extraordinarily cautious man, always seeking to avoid controversy and notoriety. In his autobiography he says,

"...I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it."

And indeed, he did not. It wasn't until 1842 that he felt confident enough about his theory to set it down on paper, and it wasn't until two years later that he had this original "pencil sketch of 1842" copied out and put into a form that he felt confidant enough about to share with his closest friends. It was this "Essay of 1844", along with a letter to the American botanist, Asa Gray, that were read at the July, 1858 meeting of the Linnean Society along with Alfred Russell Wallace's unpublished manuscript "On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type", which marks the beginning of evolutionary theory's annus mirabilis.

So, the "evolution revolution" really began on a rainy evening in late September in 1838, when Charles Darwin read Malthus "for amusement"...

...and it's also my birthday.

As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Announcing a New Blog: Evolutionary Psychology

AUTHOR: Allen MacNeill

SOURCE: Evolutionary Psychology

COMMENTARY: That's up to you...

As if I didn't already have enough to do, I have started a new blog. Entitled "Evolutionary Psychology", it is intended as a companion blog to The Evolution List. I have felt for quite a while that there are no really informative blogs on the subject of the evolution of human behavior, and so decided this morning to do one myself.

I have been learning about and doing research in evolutionary psychology for over thirty years (that is, since it used to be called "sociobiology"). Several years ago, I prepared a series of lectures on the subject, complete with images, links, and references, which I intended to use as the basis for a course on the subject. These "lectures" will therefore serve as the core of the new Evolutionary Psychology blog.

The first post on the new blog (The Capacity for Religious Experience is an Evolutionary Adaptation for Warfare) is a repost of one of the most popular posts here at The Evolution List. I have reposted it again, partly to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and partly to give the new blog a good kickoff. I hope you will take a look, and if you like it, please spread the news.

As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Day One of the Evolution Revolution

AUTHOR: Allen MacNeill

SOURCE: Original essay

COMMENTARY: That's up to you...

I have mentioned several times in other posts that 2008 is the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin and the sesquicentennial of the publication of the Origin of Species. Hundreds of scientific and cultural organizations are gearing up to celebrate Darwin's birthday on February 12th, proclaiming it the kickoff for the "Darwin bicentennial year".

However, in a very real sense, today is the first day of that centennial celebration. On the first of July 1858 two papers and two letters were read to the members of the Linnean Society in London. One of the papers, entitled "On the Tendency for Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type", was written by Alfred Russell Wallace. The other paper and the two letters were written by Charles Darwin, and outlined his theory of evolution by natural selection.

The paper by Wallace had been sent to Darwin, with a request by Wallace that if it were of sufficient merit, would he please forward to the society for publication? Darwin was stunned; he had been working on the very same idea for almost twenty years. Here is what he wrote on 18 June 1858 to his friend, the geologist Charles Lyell, following his receipt of Wallace's paper:

My dear Lyell

Some year or so ago, you recommended me to read a paper by Wallace in the Annals [a natural history journal], which had interested you & as I was writing to him, I knew this would please him much, so I told him. He has to day sent me the enclosed [manuscript] & asked me to forward it to you. It seems to me well worth reading. Your words have come true with a vengeance that I shd be forestalled. You said this when I explained to you here very briefly my views of “Natural Selection” depending on the Struggle for existence.—I never saw a more striking coincidence. if Wallace had my M.S. sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as Heads of my Chapters.

Please return me the M.S. which he does not say he wishes me to publish; but I shall of course at once write & offer to send to any Journal. So all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed. Though my Book, if it will ever have any value, will not be deteriorated; as all the labour consists in the application of the theory.

I hope you will approve of Wallace’s sketch, that I may tell him what you say.

My dear Lyell
Yours most truly

C. Darwin

Knowing how long Darwin had labored on his theory, Lyell and botanist Joseph Hooker prevailed on Darwin to allow them to read his unpublished essay on natural selection (written in 1844) and two letters on the same subject from Darwin to Hooker and to the American botanist, Asa Gray, along with Wallace's paper at the July meeting of the Linnean Society. Neither Darwin nor Wallace attended the meeting (Darwin was at his home at Down, in Kent, mourning the death of his son, Charles, who had died three days earlier; Wallace was still in the Maylay archipelago), and the joint reading raised hardly a ripple of comment.

Despite their lack of notoriety at first, these papers and letters were the first public presentation of the theory that would fundamentally and radically change the way we view ourselves and the natural world around us.

Here are some links to websites with much more information about this sesquicentennial event:

Happy 150th Birthday Natural Selection!

On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties

How Darwin won the evolution race

Darwin, Wallace and The Linnean Society of London

150th Anniversary of the Darwin-Wallace Papers

The Darwin-Wallace Letters of 1858

Fire the starting gun! The Darwin year begins…NOW!

Previous anniversary celebrations

July 1, 1858: Darwin and Wallace Shift the Paradigm

As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Darwin Day in America

TITLE: Darwin Day in America

AUTHOR: John West

COMMENTARY: Allen MacNeill:

Meanwhile, back at the Discovery Institute/Neo-Creationism Propaganda Ministry, John West has published a much-balleyhooed book that makes the case that virtually all of society’s ills can be traced to poor old Charles Darwin and his latter-day minions. I’m going to force myself to read Darwin Day in America, not because I expect to find any new arguments or evidence in it (IDers like John West and his fellow creationists aren’t interested in new ideas, and are positively repelled by evidence, especially if it involves entering a lab or going out into the field), but because I want to be prepared for the mini-tidal wave of disinformation that it might generate vis-a-vis the pernicious effects of “Darwinism” on society.

This despite the fact that (according to the DI/NCPM’s favorite statistics), less than 10% of Americans believe in non-theistic evolution, and even fewer are atheists. Two thoughts immediately come to mind:

• Shouldn’t the prisons be stuffed with evolutionary biologists and atheists (i.e. greater than 10% of the prison population), and

•Isn’t this in a perverse way empirical evidence that evolutionary biologists and atheists have an influence on society out of all proportion to our numbers?

Ah, but that would imply a direct contradition in logic: something that the DI/NCPM is, of course, perfectly comfortable with, but which strikes the <10% of the population that attempts to be rational as…well, irrational.

So it goes…

--Allen