Sunday, February 12, 2012

Happy Darwin Day!



Today is Charles Darwin's 203rd birthday. I am grateful for his contributions to science, though I was once very much against them. Now I accept the fact of evolution and see how interesting and elegant this theory is.

Many people still have issues with what Darwin said, which seem to typically stem from higher-order beliefs about the world such as religion, or a general misunderstanding of what the theory states, or usually, both.

If you are curious to read more, or someone who is unconvinced, read what I wrote a while ago, and check out the talk.origins archive. Donald Prothero's book, "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and why it Matters" is a wonderful study of the evidence for evolution, along with Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution is True" and Richard Dawkins' "The Greatest Show on Earth." And of course, if you are really committed, you can read Charles Darwin's own monumental discovery, "On the Origin of Species," or simply browse his complete works online.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm marginally involved in a discussion about "political posts" on fb. A friend posts that he "doesn't know about everyone else, but he's tired of people's political views" being posted on fb, and that he'd like to use it to "catch up" with friends. I read through some of his friends' comments, and concluded he was talking about me since no one else posted. Part of what I've posted has an atheistic angle, but not all. Some of it is about persecution and the return of Middle Age thinking. Getting rid of birth control through personhood and attacking women's health/economic standing are the main stands I oppose there.

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