Eventually, the Beagle headed south to the area of Uruguay and Argentina, still on the Atlantic Coast, where extensive mapping of the coastal waters was required.
Monthly Archives: February 2011
Darwin and the Voyage: 06 ~ Bugs
When reading the Voyage, it is impossible to miss the observation that much of the time Darwin was engaged in adolescent boy behavior: Pulling the heads off insects, noting how long they would wiggle after cut in half, closely examining the ooze and guts, occupied much of his time. Obviously, careful observation and a strong stomach were not all that was required to think up Natural Selection and his other theories, or the Origin of Species would have been written dozens of times by dozens of grown up kids.
In the following passages, Darwin is still along the Atlantic Coast, in “The Brazils,” in the general vicinity of Rio de Janeiro, ant it early summer 1832. All of these passages illustrate why insects dreaded Darwin:
Darwin and the Voyage: 05 ~ South America on Five Dollars a Day
What do you eat when you are travelling the world in search of truth about the natural world? Most of the time Darwin ate pretty well…
While traveling through the interior near Rio, Darwin makes note of some of the agricultural practices of the region. He is visiting farms … plantations .. carved out of the forest.
Darwin and the Voyage: 04 ~ Darwin Gets his Wellies Wet
I became acquainted with an Englishman who was going to visit his estate … more than a hundred miles [north] of Cape Frio. As I was quite unused to travelling, I gladly accepted his kind offer of allowing me to accompany him.
And so was the case with a number of Darwin’s excursions into the bush.
Darwin and the Voyage: 03 ~ The Rain Forest
The first time I read the following passage from The Voyage, I was reminded of my own first experience in a rain forest (in Zaire). Evident in this passage is at least a glimmering of Darwin’s appreciation for the complexity of ecosystems. Darwin could be considered the first scientific ecologist. Enough of my commentary … this passage very much stands on it’s own …
Darwin and the Voyage: 02 ~ Crossing The Atlantic
Behold this humble passage by Darwin, which is what immediately follows his discussion of the octopus. This passage is a touchstone to several important aspects of what Darwin was doing and thinking, and is a poignant link to what Darwin did not know:
Darwin and the Voyage: 01 ~ Introduction
Of his time on the Beagle (1832 – 1836), Darwin wrote, “The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career.” Of the manuscript describing that voyage, he wrote, “The success of this my first literary child always tickles my vanity more than that of any of my other books.”
Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!
And, for your birthday I’m going to repost my epic (as in long) series on Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle. And, to save electrons, each of the following (see above, because this is the blogosphere where everything is upside-down) will be a pointer to the original post. Enjoy!
You People Don’t Know What You Are Missing …
… by not having a blog that gets lots of spam.
Continue reading You People Don’t Know What You Are Missing …
Darwin and the Voyage: 11 ~ Elephants and Horses
In 1833, Darwin spent a fair amount of time on the East Coast of South America, including in the Pampas, where he had access to abundant fossil material. Here I’d like to examine his writings about some of the megafauna, including Toxodon, Mastodon, and horses, and his further considerations of biogeography and evolution.
In the vicinity of Rio Tercero…
McDougall: Are we born to run?
Suheir Hammad: Poems of war, peace, women, power
If you do something wrong, you should be fired or killed.
If you do something wrong, you should be fired or killed. Whether you should be fired or killed has nothing to do with what you did, but rather, the context in which you did it. If you do something wrong in the presence of a legal gun owner with a Conceal Carry permit and a loaded weapon, you simply need to die. If, on the other hand, you have a job and do something wrong, the only possible outcome is your being fired, no matter what it was you did. If the thing you do wrong happens in a context in which you have a job AND are in the presence of a gun-holding conceal-carry permitted person, then you should be fired, then shot.
Continue reading If you do something wrong, you should be fired or killed.
Stupidity Abounds
And I have proof:
The Idaho Press Tribune has an abysmally stupid editorial for you to read and discuss. Do you know what “Tribune” means. Clearly, they don’t at the Idaho Press Tribune.
Why is there so much hype about finding “life-friendly planets” (Page A7, Feb. 3)? Because evolutionists want support for their theory. If life evolved here, it surely evolved elsewhere in the millions and billions of years of the universe’s existence.
Not only does scientific evidence abound showing there must be an intelligent creator of everything, but our solar system cannot be billions of years old. Here are a few samples without detail.. bla bla bla.
Is it worth your trouble to log on and add a comment? Yes, of course it is! That would be at least as effective as poll crashing.
Meanwhile, Mississippi is seriously considering issuing license plates to honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. He is famous for his massacre of unarmed black soldiers during the Civil War, and for having a very significant role in forming the KKK after the war. He is worthy, very worthy indeed. But not of the honor of being screwed to the bumper of a car. He is worthy, rather, of resounding vilification. The people of Mississippi are obviously morons. You can read about this astonishing turn of events here.
Meanwhile, here in Minnesota we have Republican freshman legislator Scott Newman. He needs to go to prison, plain and simple. After his election he refused to meet with constituents who supported his opponent, and stated in writing that he had no intention of speaking with or supporting anyone who did not donate to his campaign or otherwise support him. As far as I know, that’s conspiracy and extortoin. The legislature is considering taking action on the grounds of ethics violations, and Imma let them have fun with that, but this is clearly a legal issue and must be investigated by our friendly local federal attorney. He claims, of course, that it was all a dumb mistake and he never meant to do anything inappropriate. He claims an inexperienced legislative assistant crafted and implemented the policy. Details are everywhere.
It turns out, North America is an illusion
Just as I suspected. Viewed in a different light, North America vanishes. In the upper left is the North American Nebula as seen in the visible light spectrum. Obviously, it looks just like North America:
But when viewed in different parts of the spectra, it goes away. Read the story and see the pretty pictures at NASA.