Subject: RE: Darwin Day event at Philadelphia Assoc for Critical Thinking (PA)?

From: "eric krieg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 07:54:56 -0500

Thanks very much, I put out an announcement on the PhACT email list.  Our
Feb 19 event is a lecture by Colin Purrington who has gotten press coverage
for his alternative book disclaimer stickers.  Do you think that still could
be considered a Darwin day event?   What ideas do you have for making the
press aware of all this?

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. R. Stephens [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 9:14 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Darwin Day event at Philadelphia Assoc for Critical Thinking (PA)?

To our Darwin Day friends at Philadelphia Assoc for Critical Thinking (PA), 

In late 2002, Arthur Jackson sent you a long email about Darwin Day.  This
is a reminder that the project is ongoing and growing.

You may already realize that Darwin's 200th birthday will occur on February
12, 2009.  You may have held events that celebrate science and humanity in
previous years.  For those who don't know, Darwin Day Celebration is a
nonprofit organization designed to promote an international celebration of
Science and Humanity each year on or near Feb. 12, as we proceed towards
2009.  Darwin and the theory of evolution are being used as symbols of
scientific progress, and our goal is to achieve a global celebration by
2009.  Currently, events are being registered on our Web site for 2005.  The
purpose of this letter is to invite you to visit our website at
http://www.darwinday.org -- and then to consider joining many others in this
constructive educational effort.  

If you are a leader in a secular oriented or rationalist group, you might
consider a discussion related to Darwin and evolution.  Perhaps an
examination of how knowledge is obtained through traditional faith
(receiving beliefs from earlier generations, gathering supporting evidence,
and avoiding challenges) versus how knowledge is obtained in science
(guessing about truth through falsifiable hypotheses and encouraging
attempts to disprove hypotheses that are not true).  You might try to
identify IDEAS that do not promote survival in today's environment.  Perhaps
you could recount Darwin's own evolution from a gentleman dabbler (he almost
became a parson so he could live a relaxed naturalist life) to a reluctant
revolutionary, because the evidence he saw convinced him of a new truth.
Perhaps you could reflect on the likely consequences of the recent results
of DNA sequence comparisons that show that all humans lived in Africa until
about 100,000 years ago and we are VERY closely related.  Perhaps something
about current events relating to Darwin's ideas, like the Georgia court's
recent ruling that schoolbooks could not be required to have labels
denigrating evolution.  Or you can develop your own, better, idea.  And
whatever you plan, please use the DarwinDay.org Web site to publicize your
event to the whole world.

We recently revised the DarwinDay.org site to emphasize science education
and the very human story of Darwin's life.  Our Web site offers information
to assist you in developing ideas for a celebration event that is suitable
for your own unique circumstances.  To sign up quickly as a supporter,
register at http://darwinday.org/register/index.php  and to publicize your
event go to http://darwinday.org/regevent/index.php .  If you have reason
not to register at our site, we'd still like to hear what you are doing, so
feel free to e-mail to us at mailto:[email-masked] 

Supporters of Darwin Day include prominent scientists, educators,
philosophers, and writers such as: Patrick Bateson, Provost, Kings College,
Cambridge; Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University; Richard Dawkins, Oxford
University; Daniel C. Dennett, Tufts University; Steven Pinker, Harvard
University; Helena Cronin, London School of Economics; Eugenie Scott,
National Center for Science Education; Steve Jones, Univ. College London;
and many others.  We encourage you to join them and become an enthusiastic
participant in this project. 

Sincerely yours, 

Robert J. (Bob) Stephens, Ph. D. 
Emeritus Director, Cell Biology Program, 
SRI International, formerly Stanford Research Institute. 
Chairman of the Board, Darwin Day Celebration, a nonprofit corporation 
http://darwinday.org 

P.S. If you do not want to receive additional e-mail from Darwin Day
Celebration, simply reply to this e-mail at [email-masked].

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