Origin of Species: The Chick Flick

Just joking! Creation is much better than that. "Skeptical" Jon Abrams thinks so too.


Minor historical gripes: Annie was not the Darwin's first child, but the second. And she died in 1851, while the bulk of the movie's plot clearly takes place in 1858 and 1859, with the arrival of Wallace's letter precipitating the completion of Origin of Species. Was Darwin really a cranky hysterical for seven long years? I know, time gets compressed in Movieland....

A Day of Two Books

So, I'm on the bus this morning, reading Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth, and he spends a couple of pages explaining how, before Darwin, everyone thought species had essences; they were natural kinds, which of course makes it very hard to imagine how one species could turn into another. But Darwin showed us how to think of species in terms of populations containing lots of variation, and the average of the distribution can shift over time until it's so different we no longer call it the same species. This narrative about how the idea of "species" changed (as opposed to the species themselves changing, if you get my meaning -- like, I'm talking in a meta-level here...oh, never mind), Dawkins credits to biologist Ernst Mayr, who explained it all to us back in the 1950s.

Then the bus gets to work, and I spend a few hours doing workish things.

And when I return home this evening, there is awaiting me a padded envelope which opens to reveal this book:

...by this guy.

And of course John wastes no time (as in: right in the Prologue, before we even get to Chapter The First) telling us that Mayr got it all wrong, in fact the whole book is about how wrong he was, almost no one was an essentialist, ever.

It's fun when that kind of thing happens.

Darwin Week in Ottawa

Just because we don't worship Charles Darwin doesn't mean we will refrain from celebrating all those round numbers: Carleton University has a series of lectures planned next week (plus one in April) to celebrate the Darwin anniversaries.

http://www.carleton.ca/fass/darwinweek/index.html

Monday Feb 9th
"Darwin and the Evolution of Reasons" – Daniel Dennett
(Reception following this event is sponsored by the Humanist Association of Ottawa)

Tuesday Fed 10th
"Darwin's Landscape Vision" - Michael Summerfield

Wednesday Feb 11th
"Putting Darwinism and Religion in their Place" - David Livingstone

Thursday Feb 12th
"The Struggle for Existence in the World of Climate Change" Charles Krebs

Friday Feb 13th
"Killing Time: An Explanation for the Contrivances of Males for Seizing and Restraining Females that Darwin Did Not Attempt to Explain" - Dr Patricia Gowaty

PZed Myers comes to TO

TO is also known as Toronto, Ontario (Canada), and not to be confused with t.o aka usenet newsgroup talk.origins, (where I had my first encounter with PZed, known to some as PZ, some mumblety many years ago).

PZed's Toronto talk was sponsored by the Centre for Inquiry, Ontario. Co-opting the gourd carving meme from the local religious observance, the CFI displayed a cephalopumpkin*:



and also this:



- possibly a flower, or a ghost with a belly-button, but I interpret it as a curcurbit representation of electron orbits around the atomic nucleus.

On to the talk - an overview of various aspects of the conflict between religion and science education
.

Though some have commented that PZed was preaching to the choir, so to speak, everyone was very surprised to see Ken Ham in attendance! Here's a picture of Ken at the pub asking Jesus (who was just hanging around at the bar) to sign a copy of the book He wrote.




The symposium (original Greek usage) following the meeting continued for some time after Eamon and I wimped out.




* not to be confused with a punkin-head

Announcing My Reconversion

Sorry, fellow atheists, but I really can't argue with the logic of this:

(OK, as PZ points out, I can argue with it. But why spoil the joke?)