The Origins and History of DDC

We suspect that ever since Charles Darwin published his famous book, On The Origin of Species that there has been sporadic efforts to celebrate his accomplishments. One, with a recent but prolonged history, was initiated in 1980, at Salem College in Massachusetts. This weeklong event called the Darwin Festival continues to be held each year and can be reached at their website.

However, the history, that leads directly to this Darwin Day Website, was initiated by Dr. Robert (Bob) Stephens and took place at Stanford University. The first EVENT sponsered by a Stanford Strudent Group was held on April 22, 1995 featuring the famous anthropologist Dr. Donald Johanson, the discoverer of ‘Lucy’ who gave a lecture entitled Darwin and Human Origins to over 600 people in the Kresge Auditorium on the Stanford Campus. 

In subsequent years the location and date of the celebration was changed to co-inside with Darwin’s birthday and was held on, or near, February the 12 th each year. The success of the venture is reflected in the list of  speakers which include Richard Dawkins, 1996; Paul Berg,1997; Robert Sapolsky. 1998; Douglas Hofstadter,1999; Michael Shermer, 2001; Robert Stephens and Arthur Jackson 2003 and Robert and Lola Stephens 2004.

In the intervening years, after the original Darwin Day Celebration was established, Bob  worked with other groups to expand the idea of celebrating science and humanity. Modern cultures, which rely so heavily on scientific knowledge which was developed solely on the basis of human curiosity and ingenuity, had not developed a tradition by which to show appreciation for this phenomenal knowledge system which is largely responsible for providing all of us with the standard of health and prosperity that we enjoy today. Therefore, the Darwin Day Celebration was seen as an authentic way to show appreciation to all those, both past and present who have contributed to the scientific enterprise. The overall goals of the original concept was to Recognize the Achievements of Humanity as represented in the aquisition of Verifiable Scientific Knowledge.

In the year 2000 an official non-profit corporation was established and Amanda Chesworth became the Executive Diretor of The Darwin Day Program. Much was accomplished during the next 4 years and mush of the credit goes to Amanda. The number of EVENTS that took place around the world increased from 25 the first year to over 300 in both '03 and '04.  Thousands of people attended these events to learm more about Darwin, but even more importantly about Science and the role of humans  in developing the Scientific Method that permited the aquisition of the enormous amount of verifiable scientific knowledge available to modern humans. To Amanda's credit, a substantial book was published in 2003 by Tangled Bank Press entittled 'Darwin Day Collection One.'

Celebrating Science and Humanity  within our various cultures throughout the world is an idea that is overdue and the current mission of Darwin Day is to greatly expand our outreach efforts directed towards a Global Celebration in 2009 Darwin's 200th birthday. Please register your event with us.

Additional independent Darwin Celebrations have also been developed, for instance  in 1997 the University of Tennessee initiated an annual two-day event sponsored by the Tennessee Darwin Coalition. This website is an excellent example for other Universities to visit when they are considering the development of a Darwin Day project for their campus.

Baruck College has an interest Darwin website with a number of facets to it, that was started in 1998 with an ‘Introduction to Charles Darwin.’ Subsequent additions took the form of Faculty Development Colloquia and Seminars.

Shrewsbury England is the place where Charles Darwin was born and this small town in the Western Midlands near the Welsh boarder has had a week long Celebration in early February for the past four years. However, in 2005 they intend to expand the Celebration to a month-long affair. This impressive Celebration will feature films, speakers, and plays, together with many activities for citizens and visitors alike. They recognize the importance of their "most famous native son" and look forward to expanding their celebration.

Once our website was established in 2000 we invited all those around the world who wanted to join  the Celebration of Science and Humanity to register and advertize their events on this site and you can review them here  . Note that events take place in many countries and very from private dinner parties to week-long symposia. Our current objective is to reach out to ever greater numbers of people and organisations to make Darwin Day a truly International Celebration.

No doubt there are other Darwin-related events with historical significance that we are not currently aware of, however, if you will send us your information we will be happy to include it here. Thank you in advance for your assistance.