Darwin Day Celebration AN INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF SCIENCE AND HUMANITY 2682 Middlefield Rd., Suite P, Redwood City, CA 94063-3467 ? admin@darwinday.org ? 650-701-1948 EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE 2/7/2006 at 6:00 a.m. PST Contacts: Darwin Day Celebration (DDC) Web site: darwinday.org Bob Stephens, Ph.D.: RJSTSI@aol.com (President, Darwin Day Celebration, a tax-deductible 501?c(3 organization) Telephone # 650-701-1948. William Calvin, Ph.D.: mail@williamcalvin.com (DDC Advisory Board) Daniel C. Dennett, Ph.D.: ddennett@tufts.edu (DDC Advisory Board) Steve Jones Ph.D.: j.s.jones@ucl.ac.uk (DDC Advisory Board) Carl Zimmer, Ph.D.: Mail@CarlZimmer.com (DDC Advisory Board) February 12 is Darwin Day 2006, the Celebration of Science and Humanity! Over 500 scholarly and religious institutions around the world are celebrating the discoveries of Charles Darwin around "Darwin Day", February 12, with discussions, debates, sermons, films, feasts and other fun, to honor and explore Science and Humanity. Darwin Day Celebration, a nonprofit organization, has been building support for this modern celebration for over 5 years with a Web site and email contacts. "In the past year the number of celebrations that we know about has more than tripled" according to founder and President, Dr. Robert (Bob) Stephens." Events will take place across the world for Darwin's 197th birthday this year, building toward the Bicentennial day of both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, on February 12, 2009. The general public is invited to many Celebrations at universities across the United States, from Stanford and UC Berkeley in the West, to the University of Wisconsin, Eastern Illinois University and Rice University in the heartland, and to Cornell, Rutgers, Salem College and the Univ. of Tennessee in the East. Museums, libraries, freethought groups, schools and churches have all responded in surprising numbers, Stephens said. There is also strong international participation such as that in England, which includes a month long Darwin Festival in the beautiful town of Shrewsbury, Darwin's birthplace. Italy is well represented with 34 events, 15 of which are at top universities, including one of the oldest universities in the world, Padua University in the city of Padua. In addition, events will be held in Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Pakistan, Guatemala, and even at the top of the world in Nepal. One of the major goals for the Darwin Day staff during the remainder of 2006 will be to include many additional languages on our website, so that by the fall of 2006 we will be able to directly invite people from around the world to join in the Darwin Day festivities in their own languages. "Everyone is invited to visit our educational website at DarwinDay.org", said Stephens, "and to contemplate the potential role that modern science is playing to bring all humans together. Current research in the field of genetics, including that on the human genome, has conclusively shown that all humans are essentially identical and that we are genetically related to all other living things on this planet. Thus an enlightened view of genetics is one of unity and equality among all humans and also one that fosters a deeper sense of respect and appreciation for all life. We believe that Charles Darwin is a worthy symbol on which to focus, in order to build a Global Celebration of Science and Humanity that is intended to promote a common bond among all people of the earth." Happy Darwin Day! ###