Happy Darwin Day
February 12, 2013
Today is Darwin Day. This commemorates the birthday of the one who contributed the theory of natural selection to our understanding of evolution, Charles Darwin.
Many Humanists and others celebrate this day with workshops, art contests, protests, or dinner parties serving “primordial soup.”
Darwin Day is featured by the Secular Seasons project, an interesting effort to compile holidays for the non-religious – worth checking out!
And be sure to check for Darwin Day Events in your local area.
So, enjoy your Darwin Day, and go eat some primordial soup!
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I’ve been working my way through Darwin’s very large work “The Descent of Man.” I recommend his third chapter, especially the later sections, on the overlap between the mentality of higher animals and humans. He includes here capacities for imagination, a sense of beauty, and even religion. It’s difficult to describe Darwin’s unique kind of analysis. For lack of better words, it is very “democratic,” open, free of preconceptions, and therefore wide-ranging. I come away from his pages with a heightened sense of connections and commonalities between animals and humans, together with the deadly seriousness of the struggle to just stay alive–all of which is why I mention him here.