Dear NNNNN,

As we move closer to Darwin's bicentennial birthday on February 12, 2009 more and more college and university science clubs are joining the annual International Darwin Day Celebration of Science and Humanity!  If you have not previously participated we hope that 2006 will be the year you join in the fun and informal education. 

Science clubs have begun to establish yearly traditions by joining with the department of science with which they are affiliated, to put on annual Darwin Day EVENTS.  Here are a few examples:

• http://facstaff.uww.edu/mckinnoj/uwwdarwinday2005.html and note that when you go to the bottom of their announcement page and click on Biological Sciences, that the whole faculty is featured -- while the NavBar at the top of the page contains "Darwin Day" among other links.
• Another college that has a long tradition of Celebrating Darwin is Salem State College http://www.salemstate.edu/%7Epkelly/darwin .  Clearly their events have had significant support. 
• Darwin Day at UC Berkeley has become an even more elaborate event and last year involved the famous Essig Museum of Entomology: http://essig.berkeley.edu/pages/darwin.htm .
• Finally the Univ. of Tennessee has a well established Darwin Day: http://eeb.bio.utk.edu/darwin . 
• Many additional examples can be found on our Website http://darwinday.org! 

The increasing response to the idea of celebrating Darwin, Science and Humanity appears to be at least partially due to attempts to discredit the scientific theory of evolution with superstition and pseudo-science.  It's time for science to respond creatively -- and now is the time to begin planning for the Darwin Day Celebration for 2006!  Please take a little time to visit our Website darwinday.org where we maintain extensive information that will help you plan your EVENT. 

The staff here at darwinday.org has been very busy this past year and we are pleased to report that the DarwinDay organization has greatly improved its Website and our ability to communicate with large numbers of people.  This ability will allow us to encourage the development of many more Darwin Day Celebrations worldwide.  Pleased take time to read the new information we have recently posted, and that will be frequently updated on the DarwinDay homepage under 'Don't Miss These Current Articles.'  There are also improvements to be found in most sections of the Website.  For instance under "News & Views" we have recently added statements and essays that support evolution and the need to celebrate Darwin, Science and Humanity -- so do take a little time to browse! 

Another goal that we hope to achieve during the remainder of this year and throughout 2006 is to translate our Website into a number of additional languages so that the international nature of the festivities will be even more of a reality.  I'm pleased to report that this process has begun and our first postings will come later this year.

Finally we have introduced a section on the Home page about 'Two Emancipators', born on the same day in the same year: Abraham Lincoln, emancipator of the American slaves, and Charles Darwin, emancipator of the human mind.  This item is further developed in an essay available from our home page at http://darwinday.org .

Sincerely yours,

Robert J. ("Bob") Stephens, Ph. D.

Emeritus Director, Cell Biology Program

SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute)

President, Darwin Day Celebration, a nonprofit, tax-deductible 501(c)3 corp.

http://darwinday.org

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