Here’s another selection from the ongoing Darwin 200 celebrations.

From Emma, From Forever Ago

Everyone has a blog these days. This one is a novelty though: Emma Darwin – wife of Charles – has started blogging for the snappily titled UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology.

“On the occasion of my dear husband’s 200th birthday, and in response to the prodigious quantity of material and events marking the year, I am compelled to add my voice, soft though it may be, to the loudening din,” writes Emma (who may or may not be Karen James, of the Natural History Museum).

“… It grieves me to learn that some in these modern times think of him as a cold, hard man failing in – or even actively shunning – the preciousness of human life, for it was in its very cause that my husband worked so painstakingly to demonstrate that the bond of common descent is shared by all living things.”

Myth busting

In Scientific American Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic, writes that “two myths about evolution that persist today: that there is a prescient directionality to evolution and that survival depends entirely on cutthroat competitive fitness”.

He goes on:

Contrary to the first myth, natural selection is a description of a process, not a force. No one is “selecting” organisms for survival in the benign sense of pigeon breeders selecting for desirable traits in show breeds or for extinction in the malignant sense of Nazis selecting prisoners at death camps.

…

It may be, as the second myth holds, that organisms that are bigger, stronger, faster and brutishly competitive will reproduce more successfully, but it is just as likely that organisms that are smaller, weaker, slower and socially cooperative will do so as well.

The revolution must be finalised

The Economist has also tackled Darwin, and argues that “his revolution is not yet complete”:

Few laymen would claim they did not believe Einstein. Yet many seem proud not to believe Darwin. Even for those who do accept his line of thought his ideas often seem as difficult today as they were 150 years ago.

Routes

UK TV station Channel 4 and the Wellcome Trust have come together to produce ‘Routes’. Is it a documentary? Is it a video game?

The Guardian isn’t quite sure. Daniel Glaser, head of the mysterious sounding ‘Special Projects’ at the Wellcome Trust, told the paper:

The centrepiece of the Routes site is an eight-part video documentary following comedian Katherine Ryan as she finds out what her genes can tell her about her life. Katherine is 23 and has had cancer twice, as well as developing the autoimmune disease lupus, so she knows her genes have already had a massive influence on her life. Augmenting her story are a number of minigames and challenges for the Routes community to engage in. Each week users can build up points by taking part in various activities

What does this have to do with Darwin? Well Glaser insists it’s “part of our celebrations of the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth”.

Previously

Darwin 200 – February 02, 2009