Subject: Info for Items 6 and 7 on our agenda.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 18:33:51 EST

Hi All: 
 
Here is the info on my email exchanges  with Amanda.
 
To read this info in proper sequence read  my letter to Amanda first (2nd 
letter bellow) and then her letter back  to me. The paragraph being discussed is 
the one at the very bottom of the  page.
Bob.
 
Bob,
 
I appreciate your email and the paragraph you included below. I do like  this 
version and would very much appreciate it if the existing history could be  
replaced with this. I honestly did not want the type of credit you have  
described in past emails - I just had a very hard time giving this up because I  
felt so personally attached. I now see the mistakes I made and am glad I was  
able to finally give it up and that you are progressing with it and I apologize  
for all of the unfortunate months we had to go through before I was able to do 
 this. Thank you for being so reasonable and considerate.
 
Re: a Darwin Day Collection Two... before we had even completed the first  
one, we began receiving requests for content contributions to the second. If you 
 agree I would simply like to do what we did with the first one and oversee 
this  project myself. I already have the formatting in place and various 
connections  with the magazines, newspapers, and organizations that contributed to 
our first  volume, as well as others I've met through CSICOP. We could invite 
some of the  fellows from CSICOP also, who are "big" names (you can view the 
list here: _http://www.csicop.org/about/fellows.html_ 
(http://www.csicop.org/about/fellows.html)  )  Dave Feroe charged us $2000 for his work on the design 
and formatting. The  printing of 1000 copies cost just over $5000. We could 
accept content  contributions via the Tangled Bank Press web site and also through 
the Darwin  Day site and we could use the same editors as before, as well as 
new ones if  they are available. I was able to do most of the editing myself 
but I did send  specific papers to others who were able to give them a second 
going over. I can  provide more details in a future email but let me know what 
you think so  far.
 
Best,
Amanda

----- Original Message ----- 
From:  [email-masked] (mailto:[email-masked])   
To: [email-masked] (mailto:[email-masked])  
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 8:18  PM
Subject: Re: Our diccussion on the  History of DD.

Hi Amanda: 
 
I'm sure you enjoyed giving your  talk at the Center for Inquiry last 
Saturday, was it well attended? Eugenie  Scott gave a talk on the evening of the 12th 
with the title "What would Darwin  think of Creationism" to the local 
Humanist Group here in Palo Alto and  the turnout even on a Saturday evening was 
quite good at about 150. The event  that David and I attended at Berkeley, hosted 
by the Entomology Department was  most interesting. They had Grad students 
talking about evolution and used  examples from their the insect collection, 
followed by a birthday cake at  about 5:00 -- then after dinner they had 5, 
20-minute presentations  on various subjects in Dwinelle Hall with about 250 or so 
in  attendance, people were sitting on all of the steps and along the back wall 
as  well so it was very successful.
 
I realize that you and I have  substantially differing views of the past but 
to me there is nothing to be  gained from letting our attempts to continue to 
cooperate break down into a,  he said, she said discussion. You are aware that 
the only reason that I  had to bring a lawyer into the picture was that you, 
with Massimo's  concurrence tried to dissolve our corporation illegally. If 
you look at the  emails from me even after this happened you will find that I 
tried to salvage  our efforts but there was no cooperation. I honestly do not 
wish either of you  any problems and welcome any contributions that either of 
you make to the  promotion of Darwin Day in the future. I fully expect that 
there will be  many individuals and groups that will begin to Celebrate Darwin in  
many different ways, especially during the next 4 years. They may or may  not 
coordinate their efforts with us but I welcome their efforts, as I  think 
that we need this type of expansion to succeed, and everyone will  benefit from 
it. 
 
You may not know that the current  nonprofit corporation has a very active 
Board of Directors and we meet every  month to discuss every detail of what is 
being done. I appreciate this  involvement, and now that February 12 is behind 
us we can look back on a very  successful effort this season. The response has 
certainly passed my  expectations this year and we can look forward to doing 
much more next year.  

The Board and I agree that the  "history" presented on the website should be 
brief as the details will not be  of much interest to people visiting the 
site. With that in mind I have  redone the paragraph beginning with -------In the 
year 2000, -------- to meet  some of your concerns. If you agree with the 
wording I will present it to the  Board and ask for their approval at our next 
meeting on the 10th of  March.
 
Best wishes;
Bob
           
PS. Could you give me your thoughts in  regard to how you see that we might 
cooperate in publishing another book,  perhaps during the current year? I think 
it's a good idea for us to  cooperate, if possible but can you explain what 
you have in mind? At this  point I have not given any thought about the details 
of how this might  work or as to how the Board might see this.
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------

In the year 2000, after a serendipitous  meeting between two Darwin 
enthusiasts, Amanda Chesworth and Bob Stephens  -- they co-founded the Darwin Day 
Program. Bob became  Chairman of the Board and President of the nonprofit  
corporation while Amanda became a member of the Board, Secretary and  Executive 
Director of the Program. Amanda's interest in Darwin  complimented those of Dr. 
Stephen's by having had a long-standing  interest in Darwinian evolution and also, 
by having independently  hosted previous Darwin events.  The third member of 
the Board was Dr. Massimo Pigliucci who,  also independently, initiated an 
annual Darwin Day event at the  University of Tennessee in 1997, became the Vice 
President (link to  the U. of Tennessee's DD page). Arthur Jackson who had 
been involved  since the original Darwin Day Celebration in 1995 became a member 
of  the Board in 2002. Much was  accomplished during the next 3 years and much 
of the credit goes to  Amanda. The number of EVENTS that took place around 
the world increased  substantially over these years and thousands of people 
attended these  events to learn more about Darwin. More importantly however, they  
learned about Science and the role of humans in developing the Scientific  
Method that permitted the acquisition of an enormous amount of verifiable  
scientific knowledge, that is now available to modern humans. To Amanda's  credit, 
a substantial book was published in 2003 by Tangled Bank Press  entitled 
Darwin Day Collection One.