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 and 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, presented below, that, leads directly to the current Darwin Day Celebration Website, was developed by individuals who have been with the project from its inception in 1994. In the fall of 1994 the Stanford Humanist Community was having a brainstorming session trying to think of a way to bring attention to the philosophy of humanism while at the same time would also be interesting and worthwhile to do. The obvious possibilities of the Winter Solstice, Samhain an other possibilities had been considered without producing much enthusiasm when Dr. Robert Stephens suggested the idea of celebrating Charles Darwin as a way to acknowledge the importance of science in the modern world. The discussion livened up and soon it was decided that a Darwin Day Celebration would make an interesting and constructive event. Sandy Gardner volunteered to chair the original Darwin Day planning committee and the Board adopted the program in early 1995. The first event 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. The event was open to the public and tickets were soled at $6:00 for a Regular ticket and $3:00 for Students.

The Stanford Humanists, now known as the Humanist Community of Palo Alto California, have continued the annual Darwin Day Celebration for the past decade and it has become an annual tradition. At some point the date of the event was changed to co-inside with Darwin’s birthday on, or near, February the 12 th each year. The list of eminent speakers they have obtained for their Celebratory Event attests to the success of their efforts. For additional information please go to the Humanists Darwin Day Website, where you will find a list of speakers and the title of their presentations.

In subsequent years after the original Darwin Day Celebration was established Dr. Stephens worked with other groups to expand the reach of the idea that, modern cultures, which rely on so heavily on scientific knowledge; developed solely on the basis of human curiosity and ingenuity, to provide them with the standard of health and prosperity that they enjoy, could employ the concept of a Darwin Day Celebration, as a way to express appreciation to the results obtained from the scientific enterprise. Two of the entities that Stephens was directly involved with their development was the Secular Student Alliance – www.secularstudents.org and The Darwin Day Program www.darwinday.org. These organizations continue to contribute significantly to the overall goals of the original concept to Celebrate the Achievements of Humanity as represented in the development of Verifiable Scientific Knowledge.

In 1997 the University of Tennessee initiated a Darwin Day Program that is sponsored by the Darwin Coalition, a group dedicate to the teaching of evolution -- http://fp.ntk.edu/darwin. In the intervening year this program has consisted of a two-day affair with multiple speakers and online discussion groups, some as ‘moderated debates’.