Darwin Day

February 12, 2003 12:40 PM

Happy Darwin Day!Darwin Day is February 12th, the date of birth of Charles Darwin in the year 1809, at Shrewsbury, England. On this date, and throughout the month, people from all over the world are honoring the life, work and influence of Charles Darwin with events and activities which celebrate humanity and the science in our lives. While you're celebrating you may want to see who has won awards in his name or perhaps buy a sticker or see if there's a darwinday event near you
posted by bitdamaged (15 comments total)

I hope that some of you realize putting a Darwin fish on your car is like a giant poser batsignal device.
posted by Stan Chin at 12:46 PM on February 12, 2003

On preview and further reflection, I have refrained from posting the image of the "Product of 3.7 Billion Years of Evolution" boxers and undies. But I will retain the comment that I find the '3.7 Billion Years' a little glib and questionable from a group claiming to Really Dig Evolution.
...ok, they don't claim exactly that, but you know what I mean...
posted by freebird at 12:56 PM on February 12, 2003

Almost wish I were a pagan so I could get the pagan witch/fish bumpersticker.
posted by widdershins at 1:16 PM on February 12, 2003

Interesting article on the Darwin fish here, Stan.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 1:21 PM on February 12, 2003

Love that article, RJ. Wish I would have known about this earlier... still working on evolving into a more informed person.
posted by valval22 at 1:33 PM on February 12, 2003

a giant poser batsignal device? what i really want is an "e" that matches the other letters so i can turn my volvo into an eVolvo.
posted by th3ph17 at 1:58 PM on February 12, 2003

I thought Darwinism had been replaced by the Neo-Darwinists and the Modern Theory of Evolution school of thought. If so,wouldn't this be the same as "honoring the life, work and influence" of Karl Marks and Fredrich Engles?
posted by Mack Twain at 2:04 PM on February 12, 2003

Mack, I don't know how much Neo-Darwinism is different from the traditional sort, but Darwin is universally revered among biologists. It's probably not a stretch to say he's revered by most scientists. A lot of Marx's work, on the other hand (though not all) is currently viewed as a dead end, and the group of people that idolizes him is much smaller.
posted by lbergstr at 2:47 PM on February 12, 2003

the group of people that idolizes him is much smaller

Hello! A billion people beg to differ! (I know, I know, many of them don't idolize Marx, but enough do to invalidate your statement. And hell, you could probably find enough right here in the US just by rounding up the usual suspects at liberal-arts campuses.)
posted by languagehat at 4:01 PM on February 12, 2003

I thought Darwinism had been replaced by the Neo-Darwinists and the Modern Theory of Evolution school of thought. If so,wouldn't this be the same as "honoring the life, work and influence" of Karl Marks and Fredrich Engles?

Actually it would be more like "honoring the life, work and influence" of Newton in this post-Einstein era of physics. "Neo-Darwinism" is simply the term we apply to evolution as it is understood in light of the knowledge of genetics. Darwin was pre-Mendel (in the important sense) and didn't know about genes. Our understanding of evolution is radically different now, but Darwin's "baby" (as he called it), natural selection, is still with us and remains the key process that evolution is understood to operate by.
posted by dgaicun at 4:32 PM on February 12, 2003

Hello!

Hmmm - I wonder how many people in China still do revere Marx. Communism isn't even official economic policy now, it's "socialism with Chinese characteristics", which in practice means capitalism with Chinese characteristics.
posted by lbergstr at 4:32 PM on February 12, 2003

My mother has reported seeing a bumper on which a bigger Christian fish was eating the Darwin fish. Anyone else come across that one? (We don't know if it's a one-off or not.)
posted by thomas j wise at 5:13 PM on February 12, 2003

t-Wise: Nope, I see that *all* the time, often with the caption "Survival of the Fittest!"...There's also a "Darwin is Dead" bumperstick, which I assume means something very deep to the neo-creationists, and with which I would disagree. However, I certainly can't argue the claim itself!
posted by freebird at 5:49 PM on February 12, 2003

My mother has reported seeing a bumper sticker on which a Darwin fish is humping a Jesus fish with the caption "Pro-creation."
posted by piskycritter at 4:03 AM on February 13, 2003

My mother has reported seeing a bumper on which a bigger Christian fish was eating the Darwin fish. Anyone else come across that one? (We don't know if it's a one-off or not.)

yes, i've seen a couple versions of that one including an "Ixoye" shark eating a fish named Darwin.
posted by deborah at 5:40 PM on February 14, 2003