03 October 2007
The final words have been written, the last edits completed, the cover design and printing done: this journey has come to an end.
Was it worth it? Well, it was for me – and I hope you find it worthwhile too.
This will, therefore, be the last posting on this Looking for Darwin blog, while the Looking for Darwin website takes over as the source of information: www.LookingforDarwin.com
Happy reading and all the best, Lloyd Spencer Davis.Tags:Looking for Darwin, published, book launch
10 August 2007
I took time out during the writing of Looking for Darwin to write a book for the Smithsonian called: Smithsonian Q&A Penguins. They bill it as the “ultimate question and answer book” and, while I would tend to be more modest, I’d like to think that it at least does its job pretty well.
The good news is that it has just been published and is now available in the USA and Canada.Tags:Smithsonian, Q&A Penguins
27 July 2007
The launch of Looking for Darwin has been delayed by a week, pushing it back to Sunday 7 October. This is to allow for delays in the shipment of the American Museum of Natural History’s exhibition on Darwin from Brazil to Auckland. The book launch is to coincide with the opening of the exhibition.
The manuscript has been copy-edited and page proofs are due very soon.
Tags:Looking for Darwin, Darwin exhibition, American Museum of Natural History, book launch
30 June 2007
As Looking for Darwin nears its publication date, the focus of this site is going to need to change. It started out life as a sort of journey, going hand-in-hand with my thought processes as I wrote the book. But having completed my journey – at least, having found what I was looking for – it seems best to turn this site into a repository of things Darwin; a sort of conscience for evolution; a destination for people who are questioning what life is all about.
Read More...Tags:SCANZ, Darwin, God, blog, journalist, Paul Callaghan
02 June 2007
Looking for Darwin will be launched on Sunday 30 September at the Auckland Museum in association with the exhibition on Darwin that is opening at the museum. This exhibition is the same one I wrote about arwin at the American Museum of Natural History">earlier on this blog and it is coming to New Zealand from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Read More...Tags:book launch, Looking for Darwin, American Museum of Natural History, Auckland Museum
28 March 2007
Looking for Darwin has been at the publishers now for nearly two months and is on track for a scheduled launch in early September this year.
At the moment it is undergoing editing. Initial reaction has been favourable, I am pleased to report. I will provide further details about the launch, which is to take place in Auckland, in due course. Read More...Tags:Looking for Darwin, book launch, journey, September
25 February 2007
In 1999 the Kansas Board of Education voted to downplay the importance of evolution in the science curriculum. This culminated in a set of science “standards” prescribed by the board in 2005 that, “challenged the validity of evolution and called it incompatible with religious doctrine.”
After a voter backlash, however, that saw more moderate members elected to the board, the board has just voted by a 6-4 majority to throw out those science standards, which they deemed to be hostile to evolution. Read More...Tags:Inelligent design, Kansas Board of Education, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Science standards, Democracy
02 February 2007
Dr Prescott with anchor that may have been used on the Beagle in its later life.
I was interested to read a three-year-old news item that suggested that the remains of Darwin’s ship, HMS Beagle, had been found:
“A team led by Dr Robert Prescott of the University of St Andrews has located what they believe are the remains of HMS Beagle beneath an Essex marsh.” Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, HMS Beagle, Mars, Essex, Prescott, Pillinger, Cape Canaveral
02 January 2007
Richard Dawkins may or may not give Christmas gifts, but I received him as a gift. Well, to be more exact, I received a copy of his book, “The God Delusion.”
I’ve started reading it and it looks interesting: well written and to say that it pulls punches would be like saying Mike Tyson intended to kiss Evander Holyfield’s ear. There is more than just a little of the pugilistic in the language, more than just a little of the boxer in his stance. Read More...Tags:Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Atheist, Evolution
04 December 2006
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
13 November 2006
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
04 October 2006
I 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
14 September 2006
Looking 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
As 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
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
21 July 2006
Looking for Darwin is nearing completion. Publication will occur in 2007.
Tags:Looking for Darwin, published, book launch
20 June 2006
Charles 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
18 May 2006
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
My 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
22 April 2006
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
24 March 2006
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
28 February 2006
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
29 January 2006
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
09 January 2006
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
29 December 2005
The ruling by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones that the the Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania cannot teach Intelligent Design as part of the Science curriculum strikes a blow for logic. That’s not to say that Darwinism and Creationism (or any other religious view) should not go head to head (as they are in Looking for Darwin): but there is a time and a place and the science curriculum is not one of them. The judge got it right when he concluded that so-called Intelligent Design is nothing more than religion dressed up as science. Read More...Tags:Intelligent design, Judge John E. Jones, Pennsylvania, Science, Darwinism, Creationist, Creationism
02 December 2005
A new and extensive exhibition on Darwin has opened at New York’s American Museum of Natural History. It runs until 29 May 2006 and even features live Galapagos Tortoises. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, American Museum of Natural History, Darwin exhibition
07 November 2005
Darwin came to New Zealand – the far north – but he didn’t stay long and he didn’t like it. I’m trying to imagine what he may have experienced had he wandered to the South Island and the rugged mountains of the Southern Alps. Unlike the Andes in South America, he would have observed that these were very young mountains, perhaps 5 to 7 million years old. But I think what he would have noticed most – at least it was what I noticed most when I tried to put myself in his shoes – would have been the preponderance of white flowers and butterflies. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Adaptation, White apline flowers, White butterflies, Pollination, New Zealand, Southern Alps
06 October 2005
I’ve just finished writing about Darwin’s experiences in the Galapagos Islands and, surprizingly, it took less time and less space than I had originally anticipated. On reflection I can see that this should not have been a surprize because Charles Darwin spent a relatively trifling amount of time in the Galapagos considering the duration of his journey on the Beagle and, when there, it certainly did not strike him as the key to evolution as it has often been portrayed. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Galapagos Islands, Evolution, Natural Selection, Finches, Galapagos Tortoise, Flamingoes, Galapagos penguin
25 September 2005
It was my dog’s birthday yesterday. Mocha, a chocolate lab, is a marvel of evolution that surely would have made Charles Darwin proud. That she could cause literally thousands of dollars worth of damage and still live to experience her second birthday tells me that she knows more about survival of the fittest than I can ever hope to discover during the process of writing this book. Of course, I love her: but I love her in spite of her naughtiness, not because of it. Read More...Tags:Dog, Charles Darwin, Polly, Terrier, Looking for Darwin, Survival of the Fittest, Mocha, Labrador
13 September 2005
Darwin’s final staging post before pushing off the South American continent for the Galapagos Islands was Peru. Recently I have been researching and writing about that part of the Voyage of the Beagle. But I have also been using it as an opportunity to digress and explore the relationship between religion and the indigenous South Americans, from rampant Catholicism to the beliefs that preceded the Spanish invasion. Read More...Tags:Monastery, Lima, Catacombs, Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, Monasterio de San Francisco
29 August 2005
2009 will be the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. A website has been formed by a group in the United States with the aim of co-ordinating celebrations to acknowledge Darwin’s contribution to our lives. Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, 200th anniversary, Birth, The Origin of Species, Looking for Darwin
23 August 2005
When I visited Shrewsbury, Charles Darwin’s birthplace, I was appalled at how little effort the city made to acknowledge the greatness that it had spawned. Here is the place where Darwin spent his formative years and yet you’d need the eyes of an eagle to spot any celebration of that fact. His home is, bizarrely, home to the Shrewsbury Valuation Office; his old school (now the library) has a statue but nothing else; and where, oh where, are the signs at the entrance to the city that should proclaim to the visitor that they are about to enter biology’s hallowed turf? Read More...Tags:Charles Darwin, Shrewsbury, Darwin's birthplace, Birth
18 August 2005
A publisher has urged me, in no uncertain terms, to take down the extracts from Looking for Darwin that I had posted. I admit that it is a difficult issue. Obviously by posting contents that I intend to publish in printed form later, it could be construed that I have “devalued” them somewhat by putting them on the internet beforehand for all the world to see. Also, the publisher worried that others might steal my words. And while that may well be the sincerest form of flattery, in my view someone would have to be pretty desperate to do that. Read More...Tags:Looking for Darwin, Charles Darwin, Evolution, Theory of Evolution, Publisher
17 August 2005
This Thing of Darkness, a novel by Harry Thompson about FitzRoy and Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle, has made the longlist for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2005. The book has only just been released and I have not been able to get my hands on a copy in New Zealand yet; but by all accounts it is a ripping yarn that focuses on the conflicting views and, eventually, lives, of FitzRoy and Darwin. Read More...Tags:This Thing of Darkness, Harry Thompson, Booker Prize, Looking for Darwin, Fitzroy, Charles Darwin
13 August 2005
The cover story in the current issue of Time Magazine is headlined “Evolution Wars”. It reports on the growing push within the United States to have “Intelligent Design” taught alongside evolution in schools as an alternative theory. Perhaps the most telling line in the whole article is the one that quotes the results of a Harris poll of 1,000 American adults: “54% did not believe humans had developed from an earlier species”. Read More...Tags:Time Magazine, Evolution, Charles Darwin, Evolution wars, Looking for Darwin, Intelligent design, Natural Selection
31 July 2005
The above topic title was the one automatically assigned to this first post by WordPress – the engine that is powering this blog – and I have retained it because it seems especially appropriate. Firstly, greetings to the world – I hope this reaches a wide audience and that we can enjoy this journey together! Secondly, this site is devoted to developing an understanding of the world: it is based upon my experiences associated with writing a book called Looking for Darwin where I am attempting to unravel what this life and this world are all about. How did we get here? Read More...Tags:Looking for Darwin, blog, Lloyd Spencer Davis, Charles Darwin, Natural Selection, Introduction, Evolution
