Despite the white beard, Charles Darwin isn’t Santa Claus, but like Christmas, Darwin Day comes once a year, and when it comes it brings good cheer. Across the country and around the world, at colleges and universities, schools and libraries, museums and churches, people assemble around February 12 to commemorate the life and work of the British naturalist. But it’s not just about Darwin: it’s about engaging in—and enjoying—public outreach about science, evolution, and the importance of evolution education.
In 1620 the great philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon published the Novum Organum, a work outlining a new system of thought which he believed should inform all enquiry into the laws of nature. Philosophers before him had given their attention to the reasoning that underlies scientific enquiry; but Bacon's emphasis on observation and experience is often seen today as giving rise to a new phenomenon: the scientific method.
The scientific method, and the logical processes on which it is based, became a topic of intense debate in the seventeenth century, and thinkers including Isaac Newton, Thomas Huxley and Karl Popper all made important contributions. Some of the greatest discoveries of the modern age were informed by their work, although even today the term 'scientific method' remains difficult to define.
With: Simon Schaffer, Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge; John Worrall, Professor of the Philosophy of Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science; Michela Massimi, Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy of Science at University College London. Producer: Thomas Morris.
Kruse has been on this crusade for a number of years and has introduced versions of this bill before. They always died. But Republicans now control the state Senate, and Kruse is chairman of the Senate Education Committee. From this powerful perch, he can agitate for this misguided legislation.
It looks like Baba Brinkman is moving things into a new arena with the content of his live show, The Rap Guide to Evolution. Below is an update from his website. And if you happened to see his show, remember, you're a African! (Not "an"!) We all are!
We Are Made of DNA
Babosted onSeptember 21, 2011byBaba Brinkman
The Wellcome Trust Music Video Project continues to bear fruit, if perhaps a bit behind schedule. Earlier this year we completed a Crowdfunder.co.uk drive to fund the post-production phase of the project, adding £12,588 from more than 300 funders to the original Wellcome Trust grant. For those of you in the US, Crowdfunder is the UK version of Kickstarter, and they still list our project as their main successful case study.
During the crowdfunder drive we had hoped/intended that all twelve videos would be finished and ready to distribute on DVD by now, but the intricacies of coordinating a talented and underpaid team of in-demand video editors, animators, researchers, science consultants, and administrators has slowed our progress down considerably. Still, the end is in sight! Since most of the videos are mostly done and require only small fixes or tweaks, my best call at this point is that all twelve videos will be completed by the end of the year and we’ll have the educational DVDs ready for schools and funders by January. In the meantime, we’ll keep releasing the videos on the website as they are finalized, one every few weeks until the collection is complete.
The newest addition, DNA, features amazing James Bond-inspired animation from Tommy Nagle, with sultry belly dancers Sadiyya Vahed & Emmanuelle Julien illustrating the undulations of the DNA double helix, and gorgeous vocals from Noa Bodner. Science has never looked or sounded so sexy… you know, for the kids. Enjoy!
Darwin’s idea is arguably the most powerful ever to occur to a human mind. The power of a scientific theory may be measured as a ratio: the number of facts that it explains divided by the number of assumptions it needs to postulate in order to do the explaining. A theory that assumes most of what it is trying to explain is a bad theory. That is why the creationist or ‘intelligent design’ theory is such a rotten theory.
What any theory of life needs to explain is functional complexity. Complexity can be measured as statistical improbability, and living things are statistically improbable in a very particular direction: the direction of functional efficiency. The body of a bird is not just a prodigiously complicated machine, with its trillions of cells - each one in itself a marvel of miniaturized complexity - all conspiring together to make muscle or bone, kidney or brain. Its interlocking parts also conspire to make it good for something - in the case of most birds, good for flying. An aero-engineer is struck dumb with admiration for the bird as flying machine: its feathered flight-surfaces and ailerons sensitively adjusted in real time by the on-board computer which is the brain; the breast muscles, which are the engines, the ligaments, tendons and lightweight bony struts all exactly suited to the task. And the whole machine is immensely improbable in the sense that, if you randomly shook up the parts over and over again, never in a million years would they fall into the right shape to fly like a swallow, soar like a vulture, or ride the oceanic up-draughts like a wandering albatross. Any theory of life has to explain how the laws of physics can give rise to a complex flying machine like a bird or a bat or a pterosaur, a complex swimming machine like a tarpon or a dolphin, a complex burrowing machine like a mole, a complex climbing machine like a monkey, or a complex thinking machine like a person.
Darwin explained all of this with one brilliantly simple idea - natural selection, driving gradual evolution over immensities of geological time. His is a good theory because of the huge ratio of what it explains (all the complexity of life) divided by what it needs to assume (simply the nonrandom survival of hereditary information through many generations). The rival theory to explain the functional complexity of life - creationism - is about as bad a theory as has ever been proposed. What it postulates (an intelligent designer) is even more complex, even more statistically improbable than what it explains. In fact it is such a bad theory it doesn’t deserve to be called a theory at all, and it certainly doesn’t deserve to be taught alongside evolution in science classes.
The simplicity of Darwin’s idea, then, is a virtue for three reasons. First, and most important, it is the signature of its immense power as a theory, when compared with the mass of disparate facts that it explains - everything about life including our own existence. Second, it makes it easy for children to understand (in addition to the obvious virtue of being true!), which means that it could be taught in the early years of school. And finally, it makes it extremely beautiful, one of the most beautiful ideas anyone ever had as well as arguably the most powerful. To die in ignorance of its elegance, and power to explain our own existence, is a tragic loss, comparable to dying without ever having experienced great music, great literature, or a beautiful sunset.
“…by and large, he proselytizes about evolution not by attacking its deniers, but by revealing the subject’s scope, from natural selection to the evolution of human culture and language. At the same time, he teases the audience, sends up post-modernism, mocks himself and satirizes the genre of hip-hop, all with fizzing energy and spell-binding charisma. Like I said, astonishing.” - The New York Times
“Brilliantly conceived and effervescently performed…not only is it factually correct, it’s also dazzlingly intelligent…after seeing this show, you'll never look at a hip-hop music video in the same way again!” ★★★★ - The Scotsman, Edinburgh
“One of the world’s great intelligent rappers…what Baba does is amazing - his knowledge of rap genres and styles is encyclopaedic…a flash of verbal fireworks!” ★★★★ - BroadwayBaby.com, Edinburgh
“The juxtaposition of hip-hop with Darwin is striking. By boldly making use of hip-hop in a most unusual but still provocative way, Brinkman harmoniously fuses art with evolution.” ★★★★ - Time Out Magazine, Hong Kong
“A work of genius. Never since Charles Darwin have we had a more eloquent exposition” ★★★★ Dr. Mark Pallen, author of The Rough Guide to Evolution
“With lyrics that were sometimes sly, often hilarious, and always smart and thought-provoking, Brinkman married the fast, complex, literate delivery of Eminem with the evolutionary expertise and confrontational manner of Dawkins… Anyone provided with an open mind and a hint of musical rhythm should rush out to see this show if they’re fortunate enough for it to make an appearance nearby.” - Science Magazine, Cambridge
Begun in 2009 as a "blog carnival" for the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth (Feb. 12th, 1809) and involving 165 online participants from the Galapagos, Catalonia, Britain, Turkey, the US, and elsewhere, and including paleontologists, poets, geneticists, visual artists, biologists, members of the clergy, nanotech experts, and others, Blog for Darwin continues to highlight news and information about evolution, Charles Dawin, science education, and other related topics.
A miner has found a fossil from a shark jawbone deep in a central Kentucky mine and now it is on display at the University of Kentucky.
The fossil was found in February in Webster County, Ky., where 25-year-old miner Jay Wright was working to bolt a roof 700 feet underground. The 300-million-year-old black jawbone is believed to be from a shark from the Edestus genus that once swam the seas over what is now Kentucky.
Wright said in an interview Friday with The Lexington Herald Leader that his first thought was "Gosh, what is this thing?"
Jerry Weisenfluh, associate director of the Kentucky Geological Survey in Lexington, said a fossil this large is rare. It's now on display in the lobby of UK's Mines and Minerals building.
165 bloggers participated in the Blog For Darwin "blog carnival" (or "blog swarm") February 12th-15th in celebration of the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth (February 12th, 1809). Hailing from the Galapagos, Catalonia, Britain, Turkey, the US, and elsewhere, participants included paleontologists, poets, geneticists, visual artists, biologists, members of the clergy, nanotechnology experts, historians, oceanographers, and others.
It was when I first drew a life-size skeleton that I became mesmerized by bones--and also seriously curious about what I had always been taught about the "higher" nature of humans over animals. Since then, I have been an artist, and through my art-making, a lover of science. I am completely amazed and grateful for the work Darwin carried out and for those who found his work believable, obvious even (after he helped us see it). These photographs are of a paddlefish skeleton I found washed ashore on the banks of the Mississippi River this past summer. I am a bone collector, a bone drawer, and a bone photographer. Thanks for allowing me to participate in the celebration of Charles Darwin. Happy 200th Birthday!