Happy Darwin Day

This day marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species.Here's a thread for people to offer their personal reflections on the great naturalist's achievement. Or just propose a toast.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Just to mention it is also the 200th birthday of that other great advocate of the abolition of slavery, Abraham Lincoln.See this book for further elaboration.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

*sings* Happy birth day to you, happy birthday to youuuuuuuu!Well done Mr. Darwin, for proposing one of the most important and strong theories in science!

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I hunt for the truth

Well I'm very glad he had the observations he had and put them done on paper.I wonder what the world would look like today if he had not?

Darwin's extremely through research would have been spread out over several names and papers, probably not long after the publication of Origin. After all there was Wallace to start with.The great achievement is as much one of comprehensiveness as insight. Twenty years of hard work at least eventually convinced those of lesser diligence and ambition but roughly equivalent ability at critical thinking, even if they had to go kicking and screaming the whole way.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

I suppose great ideas can't remain hidden for too long.But consider if the social forces (cough-religion-cough) did smother the idea before it could find a foothold?

While I feel compelled to respond out of politeness, we are going wildly off-topic should we entertain a discussion concerning any what-ifs in history. Consider the opposite, what if Archimedes had made that ever so slight leap to differential and integral calculus in 200 BCE, would this discussion be in the orbit of Epsilon Indra or GC 20113?This seems more a chat topic as anything and I do that at Dreamcatcher instead of here as it is a community while this site is devoted to debate.(also I am not on UK time and should catch a few Z's before work even if I did have a long nap. If interested would like to chat with you at the right time and place should opportunity permit as I am an admirer of your work that I have seen here)

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

Happy Birthday Darwin, greatest of history's naturalists.

PHOTOS: 7 Major "Missing Links" Since DarwinTiktaalik
Archeopteryx
Amphistium: The Halfway Flatfish
Ambulocetus
Homo Ergaster
Hyracotherium/Eohippus
Thrinaxodon: The Emerging MammalI would have added Odontochelys semitestacea: The Turtle on the Half-SHelland Onychonycteris finneyi: the flappy bat
Earliest bat fossil reveals transition to flight:

quote:

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A spectacular bat fossil from Wyoming has everything one could want in want from a transitional sample: nearly every feature is intermediate between typical mammals and modern bats.

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The relatively short wings and long hindlimbs place Onychonycteris outside of all previous bat species in terms of the ratio between its limbs. In fact, a plot of this ratio puts the fossil species neatly between bats and long-armed creatures like sloths”exactly what would be expected from a species at the base of the bat lineage. The authors argue that the configuration of its limbs, combined with the claws, suggests that it would be powerful climber, able to easily scramble around trees when not flying.

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I'm sure we can add more (Pakecetus, etc)Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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Here is the content of a post I just made at
http://groups.google.com/group/panbiog?hl=en
on my experience of DarwinDays in IthacA(SOME good links within):

quote:

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I have just come from a presentation by President Emeritus Dr. Frank Rhodes on Charles Darwin”
Just a moment...

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and Dr Rhodes referred to this Times article in which the author refers to “killing” Darwin. Despite Croizat’s dislike for Darwin it seems a bit extreme even for a Croizatist to desire Darwin killed so that evolution can live. Rhodes said “his influence is huge”

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In fact the celebration of Darwin at Ithaca Darwin Days
Just a moment...

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is providing me with a valuable perspective from which to situate my own point of view.

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Although Dr. Rhodes could not say that Mayr’s reference to Darwin anticipating the notion of strong group selection in “The Descent of Man” (when I asked him directly) was as Mayr contends in “What makes biology unique?,” he did point out that Darwin came late, after Huxley, to the issues (sex dimorphism?) as contained in “The Descent of Man.”

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It is not the “ killing” of Darwin that historical biogeography needs but rather a process of investigating nature that goes into the nonequilibrial state of populations with larger numbers than needed for equilibrium but because of the dominance of the Fisherian (not Darwinian) view in Anglo-biology departments little headway seems possible in these environments.

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What Dr. Rhodes DID assert in his talk (I understand all of these presentations will eventually be available on-line
Just a moment...

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within the next week)
was that Paley’s “contrivance” BECAME natural selection and variation.

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He also indirectly indicated that igneous intrusions FROM BELOW ( not from ABOVE as in a Flood(Neptunist/Catastrophist(Jameson 1774-1854) Scenario) dictated Darwin’s view of topography later modified by his observations around and in South America.

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In one of Darwin’s papers on display
Charles Darwin: After the Origin
he speaks of bones given him in South America which were presented as having come from giants. Darwin also in his letters back to Henslow indicated (”as far as my knowledge goes’) was with respect to Saurian forms. Darwin seems to have thought he found an intermediate between Crotalous and Vipera.

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Very interestingly in the only page of handwriting on display from the Origin
"Charles Darwin: After the Origin

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Is that famous passage

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“We have in this chapter discussed some of the difficulties and objections which may be urged against my theory. Many of them are very grave; but I think that in the discussion light has been thrown on several facts, which on the theory of independent acts of creation are utterly obscure . . . We are far too ignorant, in almost every case, to be enabled to assert that any part or organ is so unimportant for the welfare of a species, that modifications in its structure could not have been slowly accumulated by means of natural selection.”

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Interestingly the part of the page where independent acts creation is supposed to lie is not there and there is something about organs at the same time and same function, as I start to be able to read Darwin’s handwriting. Look for yourself. Picture attached.

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Neither Warren Almon, director of PRI and former student of Gould, nor the head Librarian could find the correct correspondence between the text presented in the exhibit and Darwin’s writing. Perhaps it is simply on a different page.

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It would be just too easy if this was not the case because then one could relate Darwin’s notion of special creation to histogeny rather than dispersal. Croizat’s denunciation of Darwin’s biogeography would stand and it may eventually appear that competition with Wallace caused Darwin to go over the line. I will check into this and let you all know (there is a birthday party for Charles at PRI Saturday) because if it really was all this simple the coining of “vicariant” time by me may not really be that absurd after all, as at another talk (“Evolution and the Life Sciences” ) it was pointed out that genetic analysis can discriminate populations of humans on both sides of the Alps but that this has geographical vision provided by genetics has NO biological meaning. That would be where a philosophy of vicariant time might emerge. I don’t know.

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I was able to see from Darwin’s text where his notion of “distance” comes from. Specifically in the text it says “we are too ignorant” and Darwin later adds “far”. I guess it all depends on what we know.

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Sincerely,
Brad McFall

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THE TIMES, article, referred to at the google group and at Darwin Days was
Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live
Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live - The New York Times Edited by Brad McFall, : extra "not" removed

Started a side thread in the other place.

I toast"To the most famous, ....non-event"

Death knell for creationism, though, eh?

Oh! I can't believe I missed this! I had hit all of the other sites I visit but somehow forgot about my favorite site.Happy Birthday Chuck! Thank God (and especially your parents) you came along.And Happy Birthday wishes to Abraham Lincoln too.