Quotes by Charles Darwin are not just the stuff of memes. Even the fake quotes. They can be the center of long arguments, or at least, they can significantly augment the arguments. For example, did you know that while Darwin never used the term “missing link” he did talk about missing links quite a bit, missing links are central to his thinking about evolution, and all those writers of today who claim that we must never speak of missing links are misguided?

My point being, Darwin quotes aren’t just quotes. They are piece of data related to the development of thought about evolution. There are about 300 pages of just quotes, organized by topic, a timeline of Darwin’s life (just a few pages), and an index. Not all the quotes are by Darwin, some are by others responding to him. Many of the quotes are from letter, labeled, of course, as to whom the letter was writtng.

I happen to have the hardcover version. It is a nicely bound, smallish format binding, a bit like a bible in size and shape. Of course. But since the book is about quotes, and this is sometimes something you might want to look up, one might seriously consider the Kindle version which would allow text searches, to the not very evolved extent Kindle devices let you do that.

In case you did not know, Janet Browne is a top Darwin biographer, an historian of science, currently at Harvard but hailing from Great Britain. She has written extensively on Darwin’s correspondence and other writings.

For more on Darwin click here and here.

Oh, and Abe Lincoln too.

For Darwin’s birthday, I want to discuss the uses of the terms “Darwinism, Darwinian, and Darwinist.” Many have written about this and many don’t like any of those words, some seem to equally dislike all three. A couple of years back, writing for the New York Times, Carl Safina said,

Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution. Such as: Gregor Mendel’s patterns of heredity (which gave Darwin’s idea of natural selection a mechanism — genetics — by which it could work); the discovery of DNA (which gave genetics a mechanism and lets us see evolutionary lineages); developmental biology (which gives DNA a mechanism); studies documenting evolution in nature (which converted the hypothetical to observable fact); evolution’s role in medicine and disease (bringing immediate relevance to the topic); and more.

By propounding “Darwinism,” even scientists and science writers perpetuate an impression that evolution is about one man, one book, one “theory.”

I don’t fully agree. Darwin proposed, discussed, and integrated into his theories of evolution the idea of inheritance. Yes, Gregor Mendel independently demonstrated an atomistic theory of inheritance and worked out key features of that process, essentially creating the concepts of “gene” and “allele” as we often use them today. Having said that, Mendelian inheritance turns out to be a very incomplete picture and more often than not is inadequate in real use. The difference between what we now know about inheritance and what Darwin needed to develop much of his evolutionary thinking isn’t really all that large. Darwin certainly did address developmental biology, in that he understood that life forms underwent changes within the lifetime that were controlled by the same factors that shaped any feature of those organisms. And so on.

In particular, Safina states that the term “Darwinism” puts too much emphasis on the contributions of one person and one book and one theory. But Darwin wrote more than one book on Evolution, and he proposed more than one theory. Mayr says there were five theories and makes a reasonable argument for that. Darwin even foresaw, though he did not develop, higher level behavioral theories such as kin selection.

Safina goes on to note that “We don’t call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism” and otherwise warns against the “ism”-ish nature of a word like “Darwinism” reminding us of Marxism, capitalism, Catholicism, and racism.

Before I go any further, I want to strongly agree with Safina and others who have eschewed the term “Darwinism” but not for most of the reasons stated. Darwin was a key figure in defining evolution, and for the most part, the “evolution” we know of today is Darwin’s evolution plus, not a form of evolution that required the overthrow of Darwin’s ideas. Newton was wrong. We can use the word “Newtonian” to refer to a subset of physics that work like Newton said they worked but only on a very limited scale. Newtonian mechanics does not describe how the universe, or reality, or matter and energy work. Newtonian physics changed from a theory of everything (dynamic and physical) to a mere approximation that is fundamentally flawed. Copernicism, as it were, more so. Darwinism (to use that term for just a moment) is still at the core of modern evolutionary thinking.

The reason to eschew the term “Darwinism” is for that final reason mentioned above: isms are sucky. So I’m fine with that. But evolution as we know of today is a Darwinian thing to a much much greater degree than physics as we know of it today is Newtonian (or for that matter, even Einsteinian!).

So, I’m happy to be a “Darwinist” but I’d prefer to use the term “Evolutionary Biologist.”

There is another term that people have elected to toss out for similar reasons: Darwinain. That is an error, and most biologists who would happily agree with Safina (and me) in avoiding Darwinism use Darwinian all the time. The term Darwinian refers to one part of Darwin’s body of theory: Selection. We say that during neurogenesis, neurons over produce and over connect, and then, over time, undergo culling based on use. Neurons that are used are retained, those that are not go away. It is said to be a Darwinian process, because it is a selection process in which over production is followed by selective retention or survival. There are other examples of Darwinian process that occur in biology, and of course, they happen outside of biology and the term is often used, including but not limited to the nefarious idea of Social Darwinian process.

And now, for your reading and listening pleasure, a few Darwinian blog posts:

A podcast celebrating Darwin’s birthday. The first part is great but the part with me starts at 15:10.

A few essays focusing on Darwin’s Voyage on The Beagle

• Bon Voyage HMS Beagle
• The Voyage of the Beagle
• Darwin Crossing The Atlantic
• Charles Darwin and the Rain Forest
• Darwin Gets his Wellies Wet
• South America on Five Dollars a Day
• Bugs (Darwin)
• Darwin South of the Tropics
• Darwin and The Gauchos
• Fossil Quadrupeds
• Rheas and the Birth of Evolutionary Theory
• Elephants and Horses

photo of Darwin by kevinzim

Darwin and Wallace, chillin’

It is not usually the case that I write a blog post for a carnival. I usually just write for the blog, then now and then sit down and figure out which posts should go to with carnivals. That is not the case with this post.

Some time ago I thought, while writing a Peer Reviewed Research post, that it would be interesting to write up older papers, classics, or more recent papers that were of great interest for one reason or another but maybe a few years old. Just around that time, this idea of a classic carnival … a carnival of classic science papers … came around (details here and here), and I thought that was a very cool idea.

I have a plan to write a couple of different series of posts, one with Bob Trivers’ papers (see this for a taste), which will come along very easily, as I have taught a course based primarily on his work. Another would be on papers regarding Race and Racism. Again, this would draw heavily on my course on Race and Gender. A third stream of posts may come from the Bioanthropology tutorial I taught at Harvard. That was some years ago, so even the ‘current’ papers from that effort may now be classics (Tim Caro’s work with hyenas springs instantly to mind). Thinking about that approach led me to consider the first paper I usually assigned in that tutorial, and in fact, ‘the’ first paper in the field of evolutionary biology (perhaps, depending on your perspective).

That paper, I thought, is what this post should be about. Darwin and Wallace’s first composite paper on Natural Selection.

The only question remains: How many other people are going to do the same thing? Probably scads of them. So, I’ll have to make this a little different…..

~ A repost ~

You all know the story, and if not, I provide links a number of excellent recent writeups below. Darwin was part of the established academic elite in Britain at the time that young upstart Wallace came along with an idea very close to what everyone knew Darwin was working on. So key members of those established patched together a talk and a publication so Darwin would not be scooped and Wallace would not be ignored. Exactly who did what and how well it went can be debated, but we do have these two side by side manuscripts to compare two different perspectives.

Here, all I want to do is to present, with minimal analysis, what I see as representative excerpts of each of the two works for you to make an efficient side by side comparison. The full text can be obtained here.

Darwin

The Malthusian Imperative:

for animals without artificial means, the amount of food for each species must, on an average, be constant, whereas the increase of all organisms tends to be geometrical, and in a vast majority of cases at an enormous ratio. Suppose in a certain spot there are eight pairs of birds, and that only four pairs of them annually (including double hatches) rear only four young, and that these go on rearing their young at the same rate, then at the end of seven years (a short life, excluding violent deaths, for any bird) there will be 2048 birds, instead of the original sixteen. As this increase is quite impossible, we must conclude either that birds do not rear nearly half their young, or that the average life of a bird is, from accident, not nearly seven years. Both checks probably concur. The same kind of calculation applied to all plants and animals affords results more or less striking, but in very few instances more striking than in man

Variation in context and adaptation:

…let the external conditions of a country alter. If in a small degree, the relative proportions of the inhabitants will in most cases simply be slightly changed; …Now, can it be doubted, from the struggle each individual has to obtain subsistence, that any minute variation in structure, habits, or instincts, adapting that individual better to the new conditions, would tell upon its vigour and health? In the struggle it would have a better chance of surviving; and those of its offspring which inherited the variation, be it ever so slight, would also have a better chance.

Sexual selection:

Besides this natural means of selection, by which those individuals are preserved, whether in their egg, or larval, or mature state, which are best adapted to the place they fill in nature, there is a second agency at work in most unisexual animals, tending to produce the same effect, namely, the struggle of the males for the females.

Diversification and speciation:

Another principle, which may be called the principle of divergence, plays, I believe, an important part in the origin of species. The same spot will support more life if occupied by very diverse forms.

Wallace

Critique of the stability of ‘species’

…varieties [subspecies or breeds] … are … unstable, and often have a tendency … to return to the normal form of the parent species; …

[this observation]… has led to a very general and somewhat prejudiced belief in the stability of species. Equally general, however, is the belief in what are called “permanent or true varieties,”–races of animals which continually propagate their like, but which differ so slightly (although constantly) from some other race, that the one is considered to be a variety of the other. Which is the variety and which the original species, there is generally no means of determining, except in those rare cases in which the one race has been known to produce an offspring unlike itself and resembling the other. This, however, would seem quite incompatible with the “permanent invariability of species,”…

… it is the object of the present paper to show that … that there is a general principle in nature which will cause many varieties to survive the parent species, and to give rise to successive variations departing further and further from the original type…

Selection

The life of wild animals is a struggle for existence. The full exertion of all their faculties and all their energies is required to preserve their own existence and provide for that of their infant offspring. The possibility of procuring food during the least favourable seasons, and of escaping the attacks of their most dangerous enemies, are the primary conditions which determine the existence both of individuals and of entire species. …

Overproduction

Even the least prolific of animals would increase rapidly if unchecked, whereas it is evident that the animal population of the globe must be stationary, or perhaps, through the influence of man, decreasing. Fluctuations there may be; but permanent increase, except in restricted localities, is almost impossible….

And more selection

… so long as a country remains physically unchanged, the numbers of its animal population cannot materially increase. If one species does so, some others requiring the same kind of food must diminish in proportion. The numbers that die annually must be immense; and as the individual existence of each animal depends upon itself, those that die must be the weakest–the very young, the aged, and the diseased,–while those that prolong their existence can only be the most perfect in health and vigour–those who are best able to obtain food regularly, and avoid their numerous enemies. It is, as we commenced by remarking, “a struggle for existence,” in which the weakest and least perfectly organized must always succumb.

Species level selection (or macro patterns of evolution)

Now it is clear that what takes place among the individuals of a species must also occur among the several allied species of a group,–viz. that those which are best adapted to obtain a regular supply of food, and to defend themselves against the attacks of their enemies and the vicissitudes of the seasons, must necessarily obtain and preserve a superiority in population; while those species which from some defect of power or organization are the least capable of counteracting the vicissitudes of food, supply, &c., must diminish in numbers, and, in extreme cases, become altogether extinct. Between these extremes the species will present various degrees of capacity for ensuring the means of preserving life; and it is thus we account for the abundance or rarity of species…

The nature of the arguments are very different, but the principles at work are similar. Wallace and Darwin have different (but overlapping) mechanisms in mind for the source of variation, and both are pretty undeveloped at this stage. Both have strong Malthusian principles at work, both have a range of descriptions for the kinds of competition. Wallace sees more inter-species struggle than Darwin discusses here, but if you read the rest of Darwin, they are not too different in this respect. It has been fashionable to underscore the differences between them (and that is quite interesting) but if each of these writings were proffered as answers to an AP biology exam question asking “What is Natural Selection … how does it work and what is the evidence for it?” the two essays would score about the same grade.

I wonder what the grade would be?

More about Darwin and Wallace at The Austringer and here at the Beagle Project.

Darwin, C. R. and A. R. Wallace. 1858. On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. [Read 1 July] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. Zoology 3: 46-50. On line here.

I’m including this on the Sb peer Reviewed Journal Article Feed because I regard this as a peer reviewed article. If you don’t, let me know. We can talk.

The answers are Yes, argued by Stephen Cici and Wendy Williams of the Dept of Human Development at Cornell, and No, argued by Steven Rose, a neuroscientist at Open University.

I would like to weigh in.

The real answer, as is so often the case, is “You dumbass, what kind of question is that? Think about it further and rephrase the question!”

But I don’t think they are going to do that.

I find it very interesting that even though the question does not mention IQ across gender, the details of the ‘debate’ (disguised as ‘rules’) actually specify that the commentators will tackle both race and gender links. Kinda proving that Nature is indeed playing the race card.

I like the idea of addressing both the questions of gender and race in relation to any differences (IQ or whatever). The course that I have taught in many forms in the past, and will likely teach again next Spring, does this. I like to do this because of the very important difference of differences. Gender is, biologically, much much more “real” than race. Gender is demonstrably real (in many aspects) and race is demonstrably not real (in almost all aspects). Also, almost all race differences we see bandied about are linked to nefarious racism one way or another. Gender differences, however, run the full spectrum from really destructive to very positive, with a lot of difficult ambiguity in the in between parts. So, looking at the myriad of purported gender differences first, then race second, turns out to be very very interesting. (One could do it the other way round as well, but for various reasons this works better in the context of my class.)

Let me say a few things about each of these papers first (citations below), then I would like to make a few broader remarks about gender, race, and “IQ.”

Steven Rose does a very good job of explaining all the reasons why the answer to this particular question should be “No” … although I hope he would also agree with me that this is not exactly the question that should be asked. He rightly discusses motivation, noting that we are busy comparing certain “races” by IQ while utterly ignoring equally oft constructed multichotomies of difference.

The categories judged relevant to the study of group differences are clearly unstable, dependent on social, cultural and political context. No one, to my knowledge, is arguing for research on group differences in intelligence between north and south Welsh (although there are well-established average genetic differences between people living in the two regions). This calls into question the motivation behind looking for such specific group differences in intelligence, sheds doubt on whether such research is well-founded, and begs whether answers could possibly be put to good use.

He does not spend enough time on, but does address, the fundamental flaw of the question: If race is not a valid categorization of people, then how do we justify funding scientific research of it? He also notes that while people may bellyache about adjusting IQ scores across ‘racial’ groups, no one seems to complain about nor notice the adjustment of IQ scores between gender, whereby boy’s scores are raised to make them seem equal to girls. Who are smarter, obviously.

The other side of the coin argued by Cici and Williams is the usual drek that should not pass for scientific discourse. Race should be studied because … it is truth. Race should be studied because Stalin tried to stop this kind of thing. Race should be studied because … Larry Summers and James Watson and others have been victimized by the Liberal Left.

Whatever whatever.

I would like to note that the “yes” side is being argued by geneticists. That is pretty typical. Geneticists don’t study intelligence, they study genes and they overrate the value of knowledge of genetics and always have. The “no” side is argued by a neurbiologist. Neurobiologists understand things like culling and plasticity. Do you know what culling is? If not you don’t have a valid opinion about race and IQ. That would be like not knowing what an “Internal Combustion Engine” and a “transmission” are and thinking you have a valid idea of how to fix your car’s drive train. You’d be wrong.

About Gender vs. Race and IQ (or any other trait): Gender is both very real and highly constructed. It is probably often more constructed by context and upbringing than ever race is, but there are real aspects of gender. The vast majority of individuals who are constructed as women cannot inseminate a person with viable sperm in the absence of special technology. The vast majority of individuals who are constructed as men cannot carry and birth a baby at this time. Except in that one movie. This is for a number of biological reasons. The evidence suggests that a certain number of measurable gender differences in behavior between various genders are linked to biological differences and probably have something to do with hormonal conditioning which, in turn, may be mediated in some cases by behavior and cultural or social environment (so even hormonal differences are not entirely independent of constructed context). But there is all sorts of biological stuff going on there. And everything in the above paragraph applies to rats as well as humans.

Of course, you don’t inherit your gender, exactly. Well, OK, there is an ongoing argument that gay-osity is heritable. Maybe or maybe not. The argument seems to gain strength then get shot down again and again, like one of those tings many people need to believe is true but isn’t. If it is true, it is pretty wishy washy and depends a lot on stuff that is in turn hard to pin down. But your basic maleness vs. femaleness with respect to reproductive parts and so on is basically not inherited but is provided genetically, as we all know.

“Race” on the other hand is inherited, but in a very complex way. Since race is a social construct, two elements are needed to produce a certain race. First, there must be a construct extant that responds so some signal (like skin color or language dialect), then there must be a signal produced by a particular genetic variant (like skin color) or, in some cases, just a construct (like language dialect).

Imagine a racist act. Many racist acts occur in a broader social context and can be understood by all the people in that cultural milieu as such. Racists acts often have names or commonly understood index terms associated with them. Most people know at least roughly what the racist act is, how it is done, to whom (which race) it is done and by whom (which race) it is done, etc. That is the socially constructed racist act, and linked to it is a socially constructed race.

Then there are the people. Among the people there will be allelic variation … everybody has the same genes, but the genes themselves have variants … alleles … that result in different phenotypes. So among the people there will be individuals of one socially constructed race and individuals of another socially constructed race, and the defined differences and identities will be an interaction between the alleles and the social constructs.

So if you have a handful of alleles that make you seem to be a Native American, for instance, some professor of higher education may look at you and think “Oh, another one of these guys. Last Native American I had to deal with …. well that didn’t go so well. Let’s get rid of this guy.”

That was the expression of a genetic trait possessed by the victim of a racist act. The genotype was the set of alleles that code for Native Americanosity, and the trait, in its fully expressed glory, was a racist act that emerged from the social context.

The same sorts of things happen with respect to both gender and race. In all cases it is hard to draw lines or make clear links between genotype and phenotypes. It is not so hard to understand the power relationships that usually drive the acts themselves. Even if most people engaged in these gendered and race-driven act are not cognizant of the power relationships, they are usually there.

Research in gene-behavior interaction is important. Research in genetic variation is important. Research based on either a race model (of any kind) or a simple two-step gender model is neither important or valid because such research is based on assumptions that not only cart-before-horse but are also sufficiently discredited to be abandoned. And, I suspect that not too much of this research is actually being funded anyway. A fair amount is published, but I’d love to see the actual link between funding source, proposal, research, and publication. I’d wager there is some disconnect there.

Steven Rose (2009). Darwin 200: Should scientists study race and IQ? NO: Science and society do not benefit Nature, 457 (7231), 786-788 DOI: 10.1038/457786a

Stephen Ceci, Wendy M. Williams (2009). Darwin 200: Should scientists study race and IQ? YES: The scientific truth must be pursued Nature, 457 (7231), 788-789 DOI: 10.1038/457788a

There were several ways in which this discussion was interesting, and I’ll tell you a few of them here. Presumably PZ will have something as well. (UPDATE: PZ has this.)

To begin with, this was a pretty full room (a hundred or so?) and almost everyone in this room was an atheist, agnostic, rationalist, or some such thing, so the kinds of questions one gets are different than in other contexts. This did not obviate some of the common sorts of misunderstandings about human evolution, somewhat conservative/libertarian welfare stigmata, or even the occasional notation that “well we don’t call it a soul but there is a soul.”

One of the most interesting things that came out, I thought, was when PZ Myers, preparing to follow up on a comment I made, admitted publicly (and this was recorded on audio tape and at least two video camera, and there were plenty of witnesses) that I am meaner than he is.

An important theme that came up was how we teach evolution in classrooms that include dyed in the wool creationist student. Randy talked about being very straight up with the students about the fact that this is a science class. Sehoya talked about an experiment she is doing with her students, in which she does not mention Darwin the whole time but still teaches evolution.

Jane and I are not currently teaching at this level in UG college, so we did not have as much to say, but I noted my technique of yore: I make an explicit statement on day one that creationism would not be mentioned ever in this classroom. Then, for the rest of the semester, I mention creationism, always as an aside, always snarkily, always with disdain, always with humor, so an increasingly large number of students join in with uproarious laughter at the expense of the increasingly smaller and smaller number of “out” creationist. In other words, I invoke the ugly Weapon of Mass Destruction known as peer pressure.

PZ probably has the best method, which is to teach a course in the history of scientific thought with creationism/evolution as a theme, and then eventually get to the details of the biology. Even if that does not leave as much time as one might like to do the details of the biology itself, this would be a very valuable experience for the students.

I’m teaching a more advanced evo course next year. Maybe I’ll try something like that.

I just want to mention one point that I made that I feel is very important: There is a big difference between what can and should happen in a college classroom and a high school classroom, owing to the difference in relationship between instructor and administration, instructor and student, and instructor and parents. And school boards (colleges, we don’t have ’em!). These differences need to be kept in mind when discussing strategies. For example, PZ’s strategy and my strategy would not work in a high school. For long.

The last Giants’ was hosted at The Questionable Authority, here. The next issue will be hosted at The Evilutionary Biologist: All Science, All The Time, which resided here.

Since this is Darwin Month in Darwin Year and almost, indeed, Darwin Day, we start with … Paleontology. We’ll get to Darwin at the end.

Early palaentologists and the Giant killer lungfish from Hell as well as the Revenge of the Giant Killer Lungfish from Hell, at Laelaps, serve as instructive historical arguments worth a read by any paleontologist, fishy or otherwise.

Today, “spooky” in physics means stuff that happens at the smallest scales with photons and other subatomic bits and pieces. But back in the 18th and 19th centuries, simple electricity and magnetism was sufficiently spooky to keep everyone busy. Skullsinthestars writes about the complex history of discovery of the connection between the two, revealing a complex plot involving Faraday, Morichini, Somerville and the rest of them: A physics history-mystery: magnetism from light? Also from Skulls we have “Do optics like Darwin’s Dad!” The same author also has an historical look at the role of Evolution in pulp fiction, here.

We’re coming up on the golden anniversary of some very important experiments that were milestones in confirming relativity and were enabled by a breakthrough in nuclear physics, the Mossbauer effect. Mossbauer’s discovery (published in 1958) of the Mossbauer effect … Read about this in Testing Einstein at Swans on Tea.

The Aetosaur Paper That Changed Everything is very interesting foray into nineteenth century (and later) palaeontology, implicating everyone from Agassiz to Cope to B.J. Small, posted at Chinleana.

Ninja Cats are a recent phenomenon, but the question of the moon’s influence on human behavior has a long history. PodBlack Cat explores this literature: Ninja Kittens Don’t Steal The Moon – Crime Rates And Lunar Phase Research

An excellent post on how the heck alloys work, which in turn is based on models developed during the pre-WWII days, is posted at Materialia Indica: Classics in Materials Science: The Bragg-Williams model of order-disorder transformations.

John J. McKay has produced a tour de force series of blog posts on the history of everything, tied together with the theme of a mysterious specter haunting Europe and Asia from the late seventeenth century onward. “Some said it was a monster that lived underground; others said it lived in the water. No one had seen it alive. It was said to die on exposure to sunlight or air. All, however, agreed that it was an enormous beast–bigger than anything known–and that it had teeth (or horns) longer than a man. The natives called it ….” Click here to find out. And here, here, here, and here. Oh, and here. This is really great stuff. It should be a book!

It seems that almost every important thread of biological research eventually runs through the world of birds at some point or another. Grrrrrrrrrrrl Scientist speaks to this in particular with regards to species radiations in her post: Meet the Great Speciators: The White-Eyes

A book review for you: Tides of History by Michael S. Reidy at The Dispersal of Darwin Blog. … “I received this book from the publisher last year, so I am now finally able to put up my review. But I also had to read it for my current graduate class on historical writing, taught by Michael Reidy (my advisor and the author of the book!).” What luck!

Everybody hates Francis Bacon. Srsly. Chris Mooney covers this, so far, in Part I and Part II of a post of the same name.

Ah, now on to Darwin. We start with Larry Moran, who claims to not really be a Darwinist, Re-reading the Origin of Species. Then we move on to yours truly, re-reading the Voyage of the Beagle.

Then we have Mike Dunford, on Darwin, Experimentalist.

A Primate of Modern Aspect blog discusses Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Human Evolution

This just in from SciCurious: Friday Weird Science: Of Testicles and Cocks

It’s been a great pleasure to read the Origin of Specie … I had forgotten how clever Darwin was and how he carefully weighs his arguments for evolution.

I had also fallen prey to several myths about the book. For example, I didn’t realize that Origin of Species is all about speciation and the difference between species and varieties.

Go read all about it. Very much worth a look.

2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origins of Species. In honor of this, we have assembled a distinguished panel of scientists to give us their thoughts on evolution, creationism, and Darwin. The panelists are: PZ Myers, Randy Moore, Greg Laden, Sehoya Cotner, and Jane Phillips.

The discussion will be moderated by Lynn Fellman. Lynn is a frequent science interviewer on our Atheists Talk radio program. She is also an independent artist and designer (FellmanStudio.com) who incorporates science into her work.

This event is free and open to the public.

Location:
Rondo Community Outreach Library
461 N Dale St
Saint Paul, MN 55103
651-266-7400

Minnesota Atheists Feburary Membership Meeting

February 15, 2009

1:00-1:15 p.m. – Social time.
1:15-1:45 p.m. – MNA business meeting, including annual elections.
1:45-2:00 p.m. – Social time.
2:00-3:00 p.m. – Panel discussion.
3:00-3:30 p.m. – Social time.
4:00 p.m. – Dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Mn Atheist Web Site