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Science Tuesday, February 12th 2013 at 10:56 am

It’s Darwin Day 2013! How Are You Celebrating?

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Happy Darwin Day, everyone! OK, we know it’s a relatively new thing and still catching on, but we are big fans of celebrating the February 12 birthday of naturalist Charles Darwin. It’s a day to be thankful for innovative thinkers, brave scientists of all stripes, and yes, evolution in general, because frankly, we take our opposable thumbs for granted 364 days of the year, and respect should be paid.

If you’re looking for something to do in your neck of the woods to celebrate among like-minded lovers of evolution, the International Darwin Day Foundation has a guide to events at colleges, libraries and museums around the world that will be celebrating the life and work of Charles Darwin in the coming days.

Then again, there’s a strong argument for celebrating Darwin Day like an academic, poring over old tomes, decoding margin notes and taking a scholarly approach to the celebration. While it doesn’t necessarily sound like our idea of a great time, we think Darwin would approve. He’d probably be especially flattered if you went to the Biodiversity Heritage Library to look through digitized versions of the books that made up Darwin’s extensive library, complete with a guide to notes in each one made by the godfather of evolution himself.

For our part, we’re just going to really concentrate on evolving all day. Maybe get us a sixth finger, or some gills. We’ve always wanted gills. Then again, maybe our day would be better spent actually learning about how evolution works. Take it away, Richard Dawkins!

Tell us how you’re celebrating Darwin in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter @Geekosystem.

(via DarwinDay.org, image courtesy of Stanford University)

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  • http://twitter.com/rayban5016 Ray O.

    Unbelievable! Darwin was only partially correct, but not perfect. But you whack jobs hold him up like Einstein. And Richard Dakiwns is just plain evil.

  • http://twitter.com/rayban5016 Ray O.

    And what about the brave scientist who stand up to the
    global warming alarmist nut jobs? “Oh… they’re bought and paid for by
    Big Oil…ewwww” Oh, shut up.!!! And the long haired hippy envrio leftwing
    nut professors aren’t bought and paid
    for by leftist politicians looking to pass Cap & Trade? That is designed to kill industry. Science is supposed
    to question the status quo, not blindly follow the dogma of the left.

  • Enthusiast

    Related links: Bill Nye carries a torch for evolution.

    That’s NOT what science is about. You may get to the point where you say “I’m going to set that aside and accept it for the moment so I can focus on something else” but you should never get to the point where you say “That is absolutely true and I’ll denounce ANYONE as a fool for thinking otherwise!”

    Because, when it all comes down to it, we don’t have a clue. Think about it. A month ago, someone in England could have said “I can say with absolute certainty that the meat I am eating is bovine in origin.” They would have called you a fool if you had questioned it. Now, we know that they were probably wrong because some meat packer was horsing around. (See what I did there?)

    500 years ago, they’d call you a fool if you said that time was relative. 100 years from now, they’ll call anyone who holds to the quantum and relativistic physics models we have now an ignorant fool and string theorists complete nutters.

    Imagine what you believe to be true today that will be proven wrong in 100 years. Change in science when the people who fanatically hold on to an incorrect view die off and new scientists come up with open minds. If science stops being the new rationalist’s religion and goes back to being science, then we might make progress as quickly as our potential allows.

    Couldn’t hurt to stop making it a political or as a financial crowbar, either.

  • Jack Bond

    I’m celebrating by believing the things he said…

    Oh I don’t mean his evolutionary theories. I mean when he retracted those theories because they were too ludicrous even for him.

  • Countermass

    That’s just a myth religious rightwings want to believe. He never retracted. Get your facts straight.

    Oh… I forgot. “Facts” are just true, if they come from Fox News or the Church, eh.

  • Jack Bond

    Keep your childish bigotry to yourself. Evolutionists are just as fallible as religious people are. You’re so egotistical to think that just because I don’t drink the atheist cool aid that I’m in bed with the church. I think you’re all wrong, but I’m not a pompous sarcastic prick about it. Maybe both of you groups should stop being such intolerant nut cases and start acting like decent human beings for once. Maybe then we can move on to things that actually matter.

  • Countermass

    Childish bigotry? So it’s bigotry to clean up your mess when you said Darwin retracted. He never did that.

    And I’m not intolerant – I’m okay with religious people, but I’m not okay if they’re spreading lies and bullshit and churches try to grip constitutional power. And yes, I saw you in the corner of right wings and church. Why? Because if you’re not one of those, why would you post such nonsense in an article about darwin in a “nah nah nah nah naaaah naaah – darwin was wrooohoong!”-manner?

    You demand tolerance? Start by yourself and stop acting like a saint. Because your first comment? “Pompous sarcastic prick” all over.

  • Jack Bond

    No, smart guy. Bashing people over their political and religious views because they disagree with yours, before you even know what those views are. That’s bigotry.

    That’s a contradictory statement. You can’t say, “I’m okay with religious people, but I just don’t want them to have any rights or spread ideas differently from mine.” You’re being a bigot.

    Darwin IS wrong. That doesn’t automatically mean I’m a Christian. Your biased assumption shows off your bigotry. Everyone can see it.

    Like I said, I believe everyone is wrong, but I don’t pick people out and say, “OH YOU DISAGREE WITH ME YOU MUST BE X RELIGION AND THUS YOU DESERVE MY RIDICULE”. I’m not being intolerant by stating my beliefs. And I’m not being intolerant to you, because you initiated this whole conversation by being an immature asshole. That warrants a little dislike.

  • Countermass

    Darwin was wrong? Yikes. I see an ape right here.

    Get some elementary school knowledge, baby and stop your bitchin, truly. Now you act all hurt, and with the tears of saints in your eyes, but in your first comment it was totally okay just to bitch around a bit.

    But you know what? You can say what you want, but the largest part of the worlds intellectual and educated people, the largest part of scientists support evolution, and will always do. Keep your flat earth and whine on, if it helps you gettin up at morning.

    Evolution is the plain, straight truth. And nothing you can do about it, sugarpie.

  • Idlethoughts

    Ladies and gentlemen of Geekosystem, please give a hand to our three very own Evolution and AGW deniers: Ray O. , Enthusiast, and Jack Bond!

    If your looking for a good laugh or just want to kill some time, please don’t hesitate to pretended to regard them as sane, open minded, reasonable people.
    And remember you can come back anytime, don’t worry, they’ll still be here and they’ll still be just as ignorant.