People are telling me that the French and UK versions of Google are highlighted today with the image above, a picture of Charles Darwin’s tangled bank, but that the US has snubbed the man. I think they’re wrong; I just looked, and google.com does have the above image. I can think of a few explanations: google just updated the logo a little later for our time zone, users may have been seeing a cached version of a frequently used page, or the explanation I prefer, I’m special and google takes care to present me with a special personal version of the page so that I don’t get mad at them. Admittedly, the last possibility is a tiny bit unlikely, but hey, if I’m not going to believe in a deity, maybe I can believe in a loving, omnipotent search engine. Just as long as it doesn’t start dictating what I’m allowed to do with my genitals…

In the past, I’ve tried to make my Polyphyletic Jambalaya for dinner on Darwin Day — if you make something with seafood, it’s especially easy to toss in representatives of a great many phyla all at once. Alas, this year I’m busy busy busy all afternoon and evening, with no time for anything…I may be wolfing down a crust of bread and a glass of water.

You surely have better plans.

I’m giving a talk on “Darwin and Design” at a banquet in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday. It will be fun, and it better be, because you know what I’m giving up? Valentine’s Day with the Trophy Wife! I may have to take her out to a movie or something on Friday.

There’s something else I’ll have to miss, again: the Creation Science Fair in Minneapolis will be taking place this weekend. I’ve seen enough photos to know that it’s a rather sad event, though — poor kids misled into doing weak science backed up by silly bible verses. I do get back reasonably early on Sunday, but the first thing I have to get to is…

The Darwin Year Panel Discussion in St Paul! This is open to the public, so if you’re looking for something smart to do on Sunday afternoon, come on out.

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

Down House in Kent has been closed for renovations, but it’s been opened to the public again. Take a tour of the place online — it sounds like there were some significant additions to the exhibits. Which means, of course, that I have to go back again soon.

When a blogger named Zeno proudly announces that his blog, Halfway There, is about to reach the landmark of 250,000 hits, doesn’t that imply that he’ll never ever reach 500,000 hits?

It’s getting hot and nasty in the battle over the Texas science standards. Donna Garner, one of the members of the forces of darkness, has distributed a letter in which she claims that the atheists are winning Texas (I wish!), and that those of us who are working to teach evolution must be opposed more fiercely. And, of course, any accusation levied against scientists is perfectly fair. The kicker in her letter is a bit of slander:

Jeffrey Dahmer, one of America’s most infamous serial killers who cannibalized more than 17 boys before being captured, gave an [sic] last interview with Dateline NBC nine months before his death, and he said the following about why he acted as he did:  “If a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?  That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime.  When we died, you know, that was it, there was nothing….” (Dateline NBC, The Final Interview, Nov. 29, 1994).

Well, yes, of course! Why didn’t we think of consulting a convicted and confessed sexual sadist and serial killer on matters of ethics and science? I guess this is one perspective in which the religious have an advantage over us atheists — they’re already accustomed to regarding the clergy as authorities.

As you all know, Calvin & Hobbes was the best comic strip ever.

We have a Vermont alumnus among the ScienceBorg: Kevin Beck at Dr Joan Bushwell’s Chimpanzee Refuge. He’d like to coordinate a letter-writing campaign to protest UVM’s poor choice of a commencement speaker, so maybe you should go over there and leave a comment and email address.

I’m still shaking my head over this. The man’s a notorious creationist and apologist for criminal Republican administrations. Why would anyone want to honor this guy? Is it for his work as a shill for eyedrops?

Richard Dawkins will be speaking in Northrup Auditorium at the University of Minnesota on 4 March, at 7pm. Get your tickets now!

There will also be a post-lecture pub event. I’ll post more information on that as it comes available.

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For those of you who are pining for a visit from Richard Dawkins, here is his calendar. It looks like we Minnesotans are among the fortunate few.

An essay by Dennis Overbye makes an important point: if you want a source for good values, look to science.

Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth.

That endeavor, which has transformed the world in the last few centuries, does indeed teach values. Those values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view. These are the unabashedly pragmatic working principles that guide the buzzing, testing, poking, probing, argumentative, gossiping, gadgety, joking, dreaming and tendentious cloud of activity — the writer and biologist Lewis Thomas once likened it to an anthill — that is slowly and thoroughly penetrating every nook and cranny of the world.

Nobody appeared in a cloud of smoke and taught scientists these virtues. This behavior simply evolved because it worked.

I’d broaden it a bit and use that fine phrase Jerry Coyne used, “secular reason”, instead of the narrower term of “science”, but this is exactly right. And the antithesis of that virtue is faith and dogma, which teaches deceit and self-delusion, certainty, credulity, mystery, fear and guilt, and intolerance.