{"id":3049,"date":"2013-02-13T05:03:55","date_gmt":"2013-02-13T05:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/?page_id=3049"},"modified":"2013-02-20T01:59:47","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T01:59:47","slug":"darwin-day","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/darwin-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Darwin Day – February 12"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Charles<\/a>
Charles Darwin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Mr.\u00a0Darwin & Us<\/b><\/p>\n

We in the Humanist Community like to celebrate Darwin Day on February 12th<\/b>, his birth date, because we sense\u00a0Darwin\u00a0would be a kindred spirit. He\u00a0expressed several\u00a0qualities\u00a0that we value, and I wish to comment on some of them.<\/p>\n

First, he was a learner,\u00a0and we hope to continue in\u00a0his example. He was a scientific learner:\u00a0a critical, discerning observer and recorder of reality, i.e., facts, details, and most importantly, patterns and their varying\u00a0consequences.\u00a0Witness his analysis of Darwin’s finches (check out the Wikipedia article on this subject).<\/p>\n

Second, he could analyze and synthesize what he observed in a rational way. That is, he created good theory from reality. To me this is not just a mechanistic process using deductive and inductive logic, but it also has an\u00a0enriching humanities\u00a0aspect, sometimes\u00a0involving\u00a0analogical or even metaphorical reasoning –\u00a0as compelling as a good story or poem, or an elegant proof of a mathematical concept.\u00a0(Some balk at this.)<\/p>\n

A third virtue of\u00a0Darwin was his strong respect for authority, but in his case it was the authority that we hear in the\u00a0Missourian\u2019s\u00a0curmudgeonly challenge,\u00a0“Show me.”\u00a0For Darwin, books\u00a0of mystical tales, guarded by priests and other holy men,\u00a0had no particular relevance in trying to learn and understand the world before us. He did not wish to be told what to believe because it says so in Genesis.<\/p>\n

A fourth point about Darwin\u2019s science is that his observational style and resources\u00a0were\u00a0not\u00a0simply a matter of\u00a0mere null-hypothesis testing. The history of scientific method is\u00a0much richer than that, allowing for the exploration of broad hypotheses.<\/p>\n

And certainly, the\u00a0outgrowths\u00a0of\u00a0Darwin’s work in the fields of genetics and elsewhere are intriguing, and we humanists find studying and discussing these ideas fascinating\u00a0\u00a0and good fun!\u00a0Again, there is a feeling that we in the HC and Darwin may be kindred spirits.<\/p>\n

Jon Stephens<\/i><\/p>\n

(And thanks, Bob\u00a0Stephens, for stirring all this\u00a0interest in\u00a0Darwin Day a while back.)<\/i><\/p>\n

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\"Darwin<\/a>
Darwin Assemblage by Helen Athey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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For more information see:
\nhttp:\/\/darwinday.org\/<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Darwin_Day<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/roy-speckhardt\/its-the-right-time-for-co_b_2535460.html<\/a><\/p>\n

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  Mr.\u00a0Darwin & Us We in the Humanist Community like to celebrate Darwin Day on February 12th, his birth date, because we sense\u00a0Darwin\u00a0would be a kindred spirit. He\u00a0expressed several\u00a0qualities\u00a0that we value, and I wish to comment on some of them. First, he was a learner,\u00a0and we hope to continue in\u00a0his example. He was a scientific … Continue reading “Darwin Day – February 12”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3049"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3049"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3137,"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3049\/revisions\/3137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.humanists.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}