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Happy Darwin Day! 69

Posted by Zonk from the go-evolution-its-your-birthday dept.
proclus writes "In honor of the day, I have released some autobiographical material, which forms the background for GNU-Darwin and some other projects. Alternatively, you can celebrate by joining the Friends of Charles Darwin, or baking some Trilobite Cookies."
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Happy Darwin Day! More

Happy Darwin Day!

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  • If you are fortunate enough (Score:3, Funny)

    by Pan T. Hose ( 707794 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @05:52PM (#11647534) Homepage Journal
    You might even win a Darwin Award! Which I wish you all, Happy Darwin Day!

  • MMMMMM Cookies (Score:2, Funny)

    by varuul ( 663954 )
    There were too many words in front of the cookie part.
    • jajaja Cookies are the best
    • ...since while they're right at the bottom of the geological column but they've also got a bunch of highly developed features like their powerful underwater low-light eyesight. They've also got living relatives (which somehow managed to "not evolve") in horseshoe crabs.

      Better avoid Darwin's Finches, too, since they turned out to be homeostatic around a norm. And the wings are a bastard to get off the tray without breakage.

      If you wanted glow-in-the-dark bikkies, you could try a coleocanth - except that all
  • ...in one day [slashdot.org]! Repent!

  • Insane (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 11, 2005 @06:05PM (#11647660)
    A Darwin day? I'd like to remind you people that evolution is only a theory, but this story shows that for some Evolutionists it is indeed a religion. This is crazy. Do we have a Newton day when we sing together and celebrate gravitation? No, because there are no Gravitationists like there are Evolutionists. And before you flame me for saying the obvious, ask yourself a question: who is worse, a religious nut praying to his God, or another religious nut praying to Darwin? Who is stupider? Who is more close-minded? This is an interesting question.

    • Re:Insane (Score:2, Insightful)

      by varuul ( 663954 )
      "This is crazy. Do we have a Newton day when we sing together and celebrate gravitation? No, because there are no Gravitationists like there are Evolutionists."
      I am all in favor of a few Fig Newton's. [nabiscoworld.com]
    • I'd just point out two benefits for Evolutionism becoming a religion:

      1. Evolutionists are no longer expected to prove their beliefs to be true, as long as they publish those beliefs in nice leatherbound books.
      2. Donations to the Church become tax-deductible.

    • Re:Insane (Score:3, Informative)

      by FleaPlus ( 6935 )
      This is crazy. Do we have a Newton day when we sing together and celebrate gravitation?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtonmas [wikipedia.org]

      Plus, I think you're also forgetting things like Pi Day. Back when I was at Carnegie Mellon, it was a pretty hard-core holiday.

    • Re:Insane (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Madcapjack ( 635982 ) on Saturday February 12, 2005 @02:25AM (#11650206)
      No, because there are no Gravitationists like there are Evolutionists

      the only reason there are no Gravitationists like there are Evolutionists (as you say it), is simply because gravitational theory does not directly contradict people's religious beliefs like the theory of evolution does. Evolutionists are evolutionists because anti-evolutionists call them evolutionists instead of calling them what they call themselves, biologists.

      • I believe that up is down you insensitive clod!
      • It's the Mathematicians who don't think evolution is possible [pathlights.com].

        Mostly because it isn't, if you set the boundary anywhere less than about 1e300,000 in a universe 1e18 seconds old and containing 1e81 atoms recombining 1e12 times a second. (-:

        PS, is this day for Erasmus Darwin, or really for Charles? Erasmus has a better claim on having "invented" evolution.
        • "It's the Mathematicians who don't think evolution is possible"

          Correction: some mathematicians Certainly not the majority who actually care to become intimately familiar with the subject.

          Two: Evolution has occured irregardless of whether Darwinian theory of the mechanics of evolution are correct. The fossil evidence is massively clear.

          • No transitionals, ever-increasing range and overlap for our index fossils, a single massive explosion in complexity over a very narrow range, ecologically grouped fossils, fossils of incredibly delicate creatures, "boneyards" of fossils, fossils with soft parts intact or only partially fossilised, total stasis of form in everything from mosquitos to sharks, and full-blown complex critters (e.g. trilobite) right at the bottom of the stack.

            From this, it is obvious that either there has been no evolution, or
        • Thanx for the link! It was a good laugh :)

          And just in case you were serious, it's actually mathemticians who are demonstrating that the mathematics of evolution are immensely more powerful than biologists realized.

          If you have reasonable scientific and mathematical capability then I recommend googling on Implicit Parallelism. [google.com] Of course if you really do think that evolution is impossible then I suspect the mathematics and evolutionary systems of Implicit Parallelism are likely going to be over your head. Bu
          • But I don't see how massively amplifying the negative factors as well as the positive in any way helps your case.
            • It deosn't "amplify negative factors". It operates within the information processing/creation stages.

              People get too hung up on mutation. Mutation is practically the least powerful thing going on. It's a little AA-battery in the turbocharged infromation processing powerplant of evolution. It mainly serves to keep the selection-and-recombination engine from stalling out. It's perfectly true that mutation is neutral or harmful in the overwhelming majority of cases. It doesn't matter because the information pr
              • ...of this thesis, or should I call it a sermon? (-:

                However, it stuill stumbles over a few mundane problems.

                Regardless of the species-level information processing capabilities available (and how would that come about in the first place? one wonders), the actual litmus test of a gene's suitability is the survival-to-reproduction or not of individuals within the species. The engine cannot be divorced from its parts. If these mutations are not lethal and are spread therough the population, then the whole spe
                • As I said I "skimmed my way to the end". It was a long post as it was, and trying to cover everything would have made it far longer.

                  The engine cannot be divorced from its parts.

                  Right, I left a lot out. I hoped that if I explained how an internal combustion cylinder can work that I wouldn't have to explain an alternator and transmission and the entire engine. There's a "car" sitting in front of your face in the fossile record and all of nature. There are entire post-graduate programs of study in the feil

        • Re:Er, that's Mathematicians (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          That's because mathematicians aren't biologists.

          It sounds like it's creation that they don't think is possible. For example, the one guy, Murray Eden, apparently claims "...that the genes of E. coli contain over a trillion (10^12) bits of data." However that's not true because the entire anotated genetic sequence is downloadable here: http://www.genome.wisc.edu/pub/sequence/U00096.2. g bk

          An average strain of E. coli might have 5 million base pairs, each being one of A, C, G, or T, for a total of 10 millio
          • You've forgotten to account for the DNA itself, and the composition of the supporting proteins, to say nothing of the gazillion or so chunks of supporting machinery and other stuff which is imported wholesale along with the DNA.

            And then he presumed that the whole thing had to just appear randomly at once.

            That's actually more reasonable in statistical terms. Meet Dr Periannan Senepathy [mattox.com], respected biologist with many important papers to his name.

            Your Pentium IV analogy is hilarious!

            Who took parts of the

    • Re:Insane (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Nuts come in all shapes and sizes: Christianity has All Saints Day,Christmas, Easter, Lent, ...; Judaism has Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Hannukah, ...; Islam has Ramadan, Eid El Fitr (end of Ramadan feast), Eid of Adha, ...; Hinduism has Krishna Janmashtami, Navaratri, Diwali, ... and that is only to name a few. All of which are "celebrations " of the specific religion towards (a) specific deity (god, gods, person, ...).

      The questions should not be who is stupider? who is more close minded? or who is worse?
    • I'd like to remind you people that evolution is only a theory

      I'd like to remind you that gravity is equally a theory.

      No, because there are no Gravitationists like there are Evolutionists.

      Well "Gravitationists" and "Evolutionists" generally call themselves scientists and physisists and biologists and whatnot. Some of them simply call themselves ordinary rational people. We just don't have a bunch of idiots running around thinking that the sun goes around the earth and calling calling other people "Grav
  • I wish these guys a lot of luck. Free (as in freedom) distros are important. If FOSS ever gets big enough that the big shots will take shots at it, via copyright issues, patents etc, then distros like GNU-Darwin may provide a refuge. Or at least won't stop working when private companies recall all their linux binaries. This is kind of what Redhat fear I suppose. Hence no DVD or MP3 support in fedora.

    Unlikely? People would have said a situation like the SCO debauckle was unlikely. If companies supplying Lin
  • To clarify, evolution and the theory of evolution are two different things. If you are talking about evolution, then you are refering to a change in a species over time. This is proven to occur and explains the great variety of different kinds of dogs. The theory of evolution, on the other hand, refers to a theory that claims a species can evolve into into an entirely different species, most noteably, Homo neanderthalensis to Homo sapien. This theory has a great deal of evidence supporting it, and the o
    • politics is the force that produces bad science, and it forces relious beleifs to change.P=SR2
    • The 'enter' key isn't your enemy either

    • Re:Science and religion are not enemies. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I didn't bother to read past the first few sentences, but...

      A) The theory of evolution is not the theory of macroevolution. The theory that states that a species can change into a different species-- the theory macroevolution-- is a natural combination of math and information theory, AKA indisputable science. The theory of evolution is the supposed evolutionary history of the Earth, and is subject to debate.

      B) Neanderthals did not become Homo Sapiens at a later stage in their evolution. This theory has be
    • Key phrase - "commonly held interpretations of these texts". Briefly, ALL religious texts are historical documents based on oral accounts of events and ascribed meanings set down (usually) long after the events actually occurred, and not always by individuals directly present. These texts are then passed down and often edited (christian bible was in almost continuous revision from about 360 - 1611 AD, you can look it up). All the religious "scholarship" in the universe cannot get past the fact that the very

  • How evolution works (Score:1, Informative)

    by Semnae ( 858673 )
    Happy Darwin Day everybody! For this sort of thread, I feel it is necessary to briefly explain how the theory of evolution, for which Darwin is best known, works. Male and female gametes (eggs and sperm) are created during a process called Meiosis. These are haploid cells, meaning they only have half the dna of a normal cell. When the gametes meet, the dna goes through a process called crossing over, in which the dna of the two cells are combined. It is very rare, but occasionally some acids will be lo
    • ...how asexual critters evolve, how sexuality arose in the first place and provide some kind of viable cover for abiogeneis, I think you'd be on to something.

      One major problem with existing mutations is that they all represent destruction of information. My favourite analogy is of a blind man trying to improve the structure of a Lego diorama using only a rifle from across the street. There seems to be no way to add new and useful information, which is kind of essential, nor to prevent any which somehow mag
      • There seems to be no way to add new and useful information

        As with many creationists, you seem to apply magical thinking [wikipedia.org] to the idea of "information", assuming it is something that can only be generated by an ineffable intelligence.

        A genome is a bit stream. One can add information to it by inserting or flipping bits. Useful information is, in this context, changes that incrementally benefit reproduction.

        That analogy may be your favourite, but it's also fairly silly, primarily because there is no select
        • ...if improvements to reproduction were the goal, we'd all be lemmings - or E. Coli.

          Mutagenic influences don't just move blocks, they damage and randomise them.

          The selection feedback is the shop assistant removing the damaged blocks and replacing them with fresh ones (and presumably calling a glazier about the window).

          In Evolution (capital E for molecules-to-man) there is no observer, only a blind man with no feeling in his hands.

          Genetic evolution requires a complex computer, and rules. Another way of

    • Re:How evolution works (Score:3, Informative)

      by chgros ( 690878 )
      Happy Darwin Day everybody! For this sort of thread, I feel it is necessary to briefly explain how the theory of evolution, for which Darwin is best known, works
      Darwin's theory of evolution isn't this at all (DNA was discovered in the second half of the twentieth century). His theory was that of natural selection, meaning that there are (random) variations in individuals (that can be caused by crossing over and mutations), and that those better adapted for the environment are more likely to be passed on to
    • Save it for the Creationists, buddy. They'll be here soon....

  • Do urself a favour (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Do urself a favour
    buy this book
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895 262002/qid=1108195258/sr=8-10/ref=pd_bbs_10/002-06 91541-5684038?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 [amazon.com]Evolution Myth or Science
    and how many transitional species exist today.
    Name one species which is 'evolving' today.

    and Read the last chapter of origin of species
    and Darwin was a racist(Read the damn book)

  • To celebrate Darwin Day (12th February) two academics have performed extracts from The Origin of Species in dub (hybrid form of reggae) as the Genomic Dub Collective [bham.ac.uk]. The BBC has an informative piece [bbc.co.uk] about the inspiration for doing this.

    The aim is to create a new musical genre, Genomic Dub, that celebrates recent successes in the field of genomics and evolutionary biology. They also aim to highlight common threads that link current scientific, artistic and social issues with the past (e.g. t

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