24 December 2006 Filed in:
The Voyage of the BeagleThere is a certain irony in celebrating Christmas if one is an unabashed Darwinist. I wonder if Richard Dawkins gives Christmas gifts? Or receives them, even?
Charles Darwin acknowledged Christmas. While in New Zealand he attended a church service on Christmas Day 1835 in Pahia, where the service, somewhat ahead of its time, was in both English and Maori. Read More...Tags:Merry Christmas, Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, HMS Beagle, Reverend Williams, Pahia, New Zealand, Cannibalism, Richard Dawkins
The Beagle Project is is an ambitious undertaking to mark the 2009 bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth by building a replica of HMS Beagle and sailing it around the world stopping at the same locations as Darwin. Aboard will be an international complement of young scientists. They will compare their observations with those made by Darwin from 1831 to 1836.
Read More...Tags:The Beagle Project, HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin, David Lort-Phillips, Peter McGrath, Pembrokeshire, Replica
The entry on Charles Darwin in the online community encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, has been locked to prevent “vandalism”.
Wikipedia, like democracy, is a great idea in principal. The concept works something like this: anyone can contribute and anyone can update or improve the information. In theory, it is a self-correcting set-up that should lead ultimately to articles of authority that have been literally checked thousands of times. The problem is that it is open to abuse from “cheaters”. Read More...Tags:Wikipedia, Charles Darwin, Game theory, Cheaters, Selfish
About the time that Charles Darwin was cruising the world on the Beagle, discovering things that conflicted with the notion of a Creator, Christian missionaries were plying their way around Cape Horn too, spreading the word of God to the uninitiated in the Pacific isles. Among those was Jean Baptiste François Pompallier, a French-born Catholic just a bit over six years older than Darwin. In 1835, at the same time Darwin was making his way across the Pacific, Pope Gregory XVI created the Vicariates of Eastern and Western Oceania. Pompallier was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Western Oceania and Bishop of Maronea and, on 24 December 1836, less than three months after Darwin’s arrival back in England, he sailed from Le Havre aboard the Delphine for Western Oceania and New Zealand. Read More...Tags:Tonga, Charles Darwin, Bishop Pompalier, Christianity, Pangaimotu
There is an axiom that one should never perform with children or animals because they are bound to upstage you – well, I am going to add another: intelligent articulate 88 year-old gentlemen!
It was a pleasure to spend a little time in the spotlight with well-known theological deep thinker Lloyd Geering at the Otago Festival of the Arts as part of the Readers and Writers programme. If anyone thought that it was going to be a showdown between Darwin and Religion, they would have been bitterly disappointed. To the contrary, however, the sell-out audience seemed to really enjoy it. In fact, it was more than a sell-out: against all the fire regulations, they moved an extra 60 seats in to help cope with the demand. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Lloyd Geering, Lloyd Spencer Davis, Otago Festival of the Arts, Readers and Writers, Bernard Beckett, Religion, Christianity
04 October 2006 Filed in:
Darwin NewsI have just recently listened to the 2006 Rutherford Memorial Lecture delivered by cell biologist and Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse. In it he compared and contrasted two world views: that of John Milton in “Paradise Lost” (which really represents the Genesis story as told in the Bible) and Charles Darwin’s as outlined in “On the Origin of Species“. Read More...Tags:Sir Paul Nurse, Charles Darwin, Milton, Rutherford Memeorial Lecture
23 September 2006 Filed in:
Issues about Darwin's TheoryI have a pact with my daughter: each morning when I drive her to school, whoever turns the radio on in the car first gets to choose the station. Unfortunately, I don’t move as fast as my daughter and, as a consequence, most mornings I have to listen to an endless supply of drivel that only a 15 year-old could love.
The radio station she likes is called The Edge and I can just about put up with the verbal diarrhoea that passes for repartee between the three – count ‘em – three announcers. However, once per week they have a so-called Medium on (The Ghost Whisperer), who can, they all claim, communicate with the dead. Read More...Tags:Medium, Charles Darwin, The Edge, Horoscopes
14 September 2006 Filed in:
Darwin NewsLooking for Darwin featured on The Book Show, a New Zealand television programme screened on TV One on Saturday 9 September. It was described as a “documentary feature” under the weekly Finlay’s Casebook section of the show. In reality, it was an extended interview of ten minutes or so, where Finlay Macdonald interviewed me about Darwin and my aspirations as a writer. Read More...Tags:Looking for Darwin, Finlay Macdonald, TV One, The Book Show
16 August 2006 Filed in:
Darwin NewsAs part of the Writers and Readers programme in the Otago Festival of the Arts, I am to pair up with well-known theologian, Lloyd Geering, to examine “God and Darwin“. It is to be a critical and, I hope, insightful look at evolution and intelligent design. Read More...Tags:Lloyd Geering, Lloyd Spencer Davis, Otago Festival of the Arts, Inelligent design, Charles Darwin, God, The Two Ronnies
06 August 2006 Filed in:
Darwin News
The Smithsonian in Washington, DC
Charles Darwin has gone into a state somewhere between suspended animation and a coma. While I am continuing to work on the nearly completed manuscript of Looking for Darwin, I have fallen victim to my inherent inability to say “no.” That characteristic, as imbedded in me as my fingerprints, has gotten me into more trouble in my life than I care to mention. My publisher considers it a weakness. At times, as I have waited for a hangover to pass or someone to leave, I’ve considered it a failing. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Looking for Darwin, Publisher, Smithsonian, Penguins
Two seemingly unconnected events: (i) I am writing about Emperor Penguins, and (ii) I am listening to an interview on the radio about applying quantum mechanics to evolutionary biology. Read More...Tags:Quantum mechanics, Emperor penguins, Evolution, Natural Selection, Michael Schumacher, Juan Manual Fangio, Creationist, God
21 July 2006 Filed in:
Darwin NewsLooking for Darwin is nearing completion. Publication will occur in 2007.
Tags:Looking for Darwin, published, book launch
Mara are large rodents found in Argentina. Their scientific name is Dolichotis patagonum. Darwin doesn’t mention coming across Mara per se in The Voyage of the Beagle; instead he talks about encountering agoutis on the plains of Patagonia. However, there seems little doubt that what he was referring to was Mara. Read More...Tags:Mara, Dolichotis patagonum, Hare, Patagonia, Charles Darwin, Convergent evolution, Monogamy
20 June 2006 Filed in:
Darwin NewsCharles Darwin was a prodigious journal keeper. Had he been around now, it is almost certain that he would have posted a weblog of his travels on the Beagle and, perhaps, a blog about his developing ideas on evolution by natural selection. There the likes of “BisWilberforce” and “TomHux” could have left their opposing comments and traded insults about whether it was better to have an ape as an ancestor than a bishop or whatever. Read More...Tags:Journler, MacJournal, Charles Darwin, Survival of the Fittest, blog
11 June 2006 Filed in:
Darwin's Later LifeWhen Charles Darwin married Emma in January 1839, they moved into a small cottage he had just rented in London. They christened the place Macaw Cottage on account of its gaudy colour scheme, reminiscent of the birds Darwin had encountered on his voyage.
The cottage no longer exists, but how ironic, how appropriate, that the site should now be occupied by the Department of Biology of the University College London. The bland gray monster of a building that now claims 12 Upper Gower Street as its own is called – you guessed it – the Darwin Building. There is a small plaque that announces that to anyone with enough curiosity to go in its doors, but otherwise the connection with Darwin is not just downplayed, it’s decidedly absent. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Emma Darwin, Macaw Cottage, University College London, Gower Street, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Huxley, Thylacine, Galapagos Tortoise
Lucky Lincoln Hall
At the very moment that I was writing the previous entry on Mark Inglis’s climb of Mount Everest and the abandonment of English climber David Sharp, another climber – Australian Lincoln Hall – was also left for dead near the top of the world’s highest peak. He had collapsed after reaching the summit. Sherpas did try to rescue Hall, but abandoned the attempt, declaring him dead. He spent the night out alone and untreated at 8700 metres. The next day, another climber found Hall, detected signs of life, and, in contrast to the fate that had befallen David Sharp, another rescue operation was launched. Lincoln Hall is now down from the mountain and although somewhat frostbitten, showing every indication of recovery. Read More...Tags:Survival of the Fittest, Lincoln Hall, Mark Inglis, David Sharp, Mount Everest
Recently a New Zealander, Mark Inglis, who has had more than a few mountains to climb – real and personal – managed the almost unbelievable feat of climbing Mount Everest even though he is a double amputee. Inglis lost his legs just below the knees after a prolonged period of frostbite 24 years ago, when he got caught out in a snow cave for 14 days while trying to climb Mt Cook, New Zealand’s highest peak.
Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Mark Inglis, David Sharp, Richard Dawkins, John Maynard Smith, Ethics, Selfish, Selfish gene, Reciprocal altruism, Kin selection, Mount Everest
The great thing about London is the history: it’s not something to read about in books, it’s there in every building and down every famous by-way. Walk Pall Mall, Regent Street or any one of the Monopoly board names and you will find history alive, breathing.
The Royal Academy of Arts is one such place. A short stroll from Piccadilly Circus, it is somewhat hidden behind an arched entranceway that straddles the opposing doors of the Geological and Linnaean Societies. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Royal Academy of the Arts, Burlington House, Reynolds Room, Linnaean Society, London, Natural Selection, Alfred Russell Wallace
22 April 2006 Filed in:
Darwin NewsMy dog died while I was overseas. If ever there was a reminder that selection is sometimes random, that the fittest do not always survive, then this was it. I am biased admittedly, but Mocha was as fine a specimen of doghood as ever bounded across the planet on four legs.
My house seems empty now. Every room has great holes that Mocha didn’t just occupy, she filled with light.Tags:Unnatural selection, Dog, Mocha, Labrador
Down House, Charles Darwin’s home in Kent where he wrote The Origin of Species, is now administered by English Heritage and they have made great improvements to it since my last visit nearly twenty years ago Read More...Tags:Down House, Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, Drawing room, The Queen's Head, billiards, Places Darwin lived
I’m going to be leaving in a few days to go to the UK. One of the reasons for my trip is to visit Charles Darwin’s residence, Down House, in Kent. I’ve been there before but wish to return as part of my research for Looking for Darwin: I want my impressions to be fresh ones. Read More...Tags:Down House, Kent, Places Darwin lived, Charles Darwin, Sand-walk
12 March 2006 Filed in:
The Voyage of the Beagle In August 1833, when Charles Darwin was on an overland journey in Argentina from El Carmen on the Rio Negro to Bahia Blanca, he came to the encampment of General Juan Manuel de Rosas. Rosas was the wealthy leader of an army of thousands of men sent to the pampas to fight the Indians, who had reacted to the influx of foreigners by slaughtering them. Rosas dressed liked a gaucho, rode like a gaucho but was said to be much more ruthless – especially when he laughed. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, General Rosas, Gaucho, Indians, Rio Negro, El Carmen, Bahia Blance, Argentina
It is interesting to learn of Darwin’s attitude to slavery. In many ways his grandparents on both the Wedgwood and Darwin sides were instrumental in bringing about its abolition in Britain and the dominions. Slavery was only banned in Britain about the time Charles was born and it took until about the time he left on the Beagle to get full emancipation of slaves in the colonies. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Slavery, Brazil, Fitzroy
I’ve just arrived back from the Antarctic. A magnificent place of contradictions. While the perception is of a white continent, it is the subtle variations of light and colour that contribute so much to it’s beauty; covered in frozen water it is one of the driest places on Earth; and then, there are the animals. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Antarctica, Natural Selection, Creationist, Adaptation
It’s the beginning of 2006 and there is light at the end of the tunnel as far as completing the writing for Looking for Darwin. Anyone who embarks on a serious piece of writing knows how hard it can be to complete. The concept is typically easier to achieve than getting the words on paper, or the computer screen as it might be. I have finished the parts of the book devoted to Darwin’s voyage in the Beagle and I am now covering that reflective period afterwards when he really honed his ideas of Natural Selection. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Dalliance, Alfred Russell Wallace, Writing, books, Coral reefs, Geology
