Happy 200th Birthday Charles Darwin
February 12th, 2009Today marks the 200th birthday of English naturalist Charles Darwin, whose ground-break science book On the Origin of Species, turns 150 this year.
Here’s are just a few of the mainstream news reports out today on the event. We will have a special report on Darwin from Tennessee later on in the spring.
Reuters – Should the world celebrate the 200th anniversary today of the birth of English naturalist Charles Darwin by working to limit the number of tourists visiting the Galapagos Islands or Antarctica to protect their spectacular wildlife?
On Darwin anniversary: tourist limits to Galapagos, Antarctica?
Time- Much has been made in recent weeks of the shared birthday of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, two juggernauts not only of their own age, but of all the years since. New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik explores their legacies in this book-length series of essays, focusing on their abilities as writers and thinkers of the highest caliber. As Gopnik writes, “Literary eloquence is essential to liberal civilization; our heroes should be men and women possessed by the urgency of utterance.” With their adherence to logic and observation, and devotion to thoughtful expression, Lincoln and Darwin — in addition to everything else the accomplished — helped kickstart the engine of the modern age.
Angels and Ages: How Darwin and Lincoln Ushered in the Modern World
Washington Post – Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, disturber of the peace, and this year also marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s On The Origin of Species. It seems only fitting to reflect on the reasons why Darwin’s conclusions about the origins and evolution of human–and all–life continue to trouble and challenge members of the human species in the 21st century. This lasting “disturber effect” is, I would argue, one of the most convincing proofs of Darwin’s genius. People don’t get all riled up, 150 years after the fact, by bland, small, discredited ideas.
New York Times – I can’t help wondering what Charles Darwin would think if he could survey the state of his intellectual achievement today, 200 years after his birth and 150 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, the book that changed everything. His central idea — evolution by means of natural selection — was in some sense the product of his time, as Darwin well knew.
February 13th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
If Darwin was right, why haven’t possums learned
to stay out of the road?
February 13th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Well, possums are not exactly an endangered species. Maybe they have a suicide complex? Armadillos seem to have the same problem, as do white-tailed deer : )
At least in Alabama, thanks to the road kill bill, you can eat them if you hit them. Might come in handy as the Bush recession deepens into a depression, if the Obama stimulous bill doesn’t fix some things soon : (
February 13th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
I have killed four deer with my cars and trucks,
the last one Friday night. I harbored no malice
toward any of them. They brought it on themselves.
My daddy said, back during the Great Depression,
everytime he saw a rabbit running across a field
there would be a dozen people chasing it.
He also said, during this time, he broke his arm
one morning while eating breakfast.
He fell out of an apple tree.