Celebrate Darwin Day on 12-02

If it wasn’t for Darwin, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have a (future) job.

I’ve had such a busy day I was unable to party properly, but I can say that I have kicked up a stink at work, as my colleague sitting next to me claims to be a creationist (although I don’t think he knows exactly what that means these days, I think he’s just VERY religious). I ended up telling him that god must have placed him next to me to test his faith and went on hardee-harring at 6 day creation belief. I know this is a bit mean, but boohoo. They would have burnt me at the stake in a different century, being the rebellious witch whore I am, so I took this day as an excuse to be a wee bit malicious.
I still had a good time looking at the website I mentioned in my last post and learning the word “phylogeny”.

I’m probably too late (and too oddly shaped) to wear any of these excellent shirts for the big day, but I am sorely tempted to order one anyway. It’s Darwin Year all year, after all.

On the Dutch language site creatie.info, containing the usual pseudofacts, a request for donations has been posted for a door to door (6.6 million households) spreading of their 8-page pamflet “Evolutie of Schepping? Wat geloof jij?” (Evolution or Creation, what do you believe? – (stamped: VITALLY IMPORTANT!))
This is to be spread around Darwin’s birthday 12 feb, 2009.

The pamflet is available on their site, it’s the third book on creatie.info .
It is well illustrated so non-Dutchies will also get an idea from looking at it. Haeckels embryo’s, creation needs a creator, such stuff.

Page two contains an illustration to show different world views: the theist watches a bird with his mind full of a red heart and God, and the evolutionismist has a colourless heart and a grey cloud with a questionmark.

People have already come up with an answer, which is a spoof version of the official Dutch “no unsollicited mail, please!”-sticker you can put on your mail box. The normal version comes with Nee – Nee in orange, meaning you don’t want stuff without your name on it, and Nee – Ja, which means nothing without your name, but still unnamed mail like the general info from your local council, etc.
So this look-alike will be attached to my mail box. Since the original stickers are sold out (yay!), I had to print it out at work.

Why not? I know some other people are doing it. Not sure what this entails, but it should be fun.

I’ve never given much thought to Darwin before, but I guess that now, in an age where creationism (or, ahem, “intelligent design”) is being taught in schools, it’s more important than ever to tip our hats to the man who debunked that ridiculous idea in the first place. So thanks, Charles, for your staggeringly important discoveries. You moved humankind’s understanding of itself on in leaps and bounds. And you had a really really great beard.

Happy birthday to you,
I saw an evolved organism,
And I thought it was you!

This text is from this website

“Lay people often misinterpret the language used by scientists. And for that reason, they sometimes draw the wrong conclusions as to what the scientific terms mean.

Three such terms that are often used interchangeably are “scientific law,” “hypothesis,” and “theory.”

In layman’s terms, if something is said to be “just a theory”, it usually means that it is a mere guess, or is unproved. It might even lack credibility. But in scientific terms, a theory implies that something has been proven and is generally accepted as being true.

Here is what each of these terms means to a scientist:

Scientific Law: This is a statement of fact meant to explain, in concise terms, an action or set of actions. It is generally accepted to be true and univseral, and can sometimes be expressed in terms of a single mathematical equation. Scientific laws are similar to mathematical postulates. They don’t really need any complex external proofs; they are accepted at face value based upon the fact that they have always been observed to be true.

Specifically, scientific laws must be simple, true, universal, and absolute. They represent the cornerstone of scientific discovery, because if a law ever did not apply, then all science based upon that law would collapse.

Some scientific laws, or laws of nature, include the law of gravity, Newton’s laws of motion, the laws of thermodynamics, Boyle’s law of gases, the law of conservation of mass and energy, and Hook’s law of elasticity.

Hypothesis: This is an educated guess based upon observation. It is a rational explanation of a single event or phenomenon based upon what is observed, but which has not been proved. Most hypotheses can be supported or refuted by experimentation or continued observation.

Theory: A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

In general, both a scientific theory and a scientific law are accepted to be true by the scientific community as a whole. Both are used to make predictions of events. Both are used to advance technology. [...]
The biggest difference between a law and a theory is that a theory is much more complex and dynamic. A law governs a single action, whereas a theory explains an entire group of related phenomena.
[...]

Development of a Simple Theory by the Scientific Method:

• Observation: Every swan I’ve ever seen is white.
• Hypothesis: All swans must be white.
• Test: A random sampling of swans from each continent where swans are indigenous produces only white swans.
• Publication: “My global research has indicated that swans are always white, wherever they are observed.”
• Verification: Every swan any other scientist has ever observed in any country has always been white.
• Theory: All swans are white. “

I would like to celebrate this day in my own humble, silly way.

I am no scientist, heck, I don’t understand much scientific stuff. In fact, I quit some scientific subjects in school as soon as I could: first physics, then chemistry. I just can’t work with formulas. In biology, I think I undestood a lot, but when it came to regurgitating facts for my oral exam, I did rather badly. Maths was my absolute nightmare…
So I’m sorry if I can’t impress anyone with a great essay about new facts and findings. I’ll have to stick to learning the slow way. I read, I watch all sorts of documentaries, and every once in a while, bf has to explain to me (again, yawn) how an nuclear reactor works or how Newton’s theory of gravity is different from Einstein’s. But I’m trying!
Today, I shall think of science in a loving way and embrace reason, I am reading “A Devil’s Chaplain” (yes, Dawkins!) and for some fun, I’m posting a link to this sweet video on the Evolution of Dance for y’all… Or, if you like it harder, here is Korn. Enjoy!

“They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.”
- Terry Prattchet

PS: I took this picture in my garden, where I celebrate a meager few of this world’s multitude of wondrous species.