Subject: Re: Darwin Day event at the UU Fellowship (IL)?

From: "Ron Green" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:21:51 -0600

Thanks for your note.

Indeed, we are in Illinois, Macomb, IL.  Keep in touch.

Thanks,

Rev. Ron Green

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dr. R. Stephens" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 10:05 PM
Subject: Darwin Day event at the UU Fellowship (IL)?

> To our Darwin Day friends at the UU Fellowship (IL),
>
> In late 2002, Arthur Jackson sent you a long email about Darwin Day.  This
is a reminder that the project is ongoing and growing.
>
> Did you know that Charles Darwin attended a Unitarian church and school
during his earliest years in Shrewsbury, England?  We have maps and pictures
at http://darwinday.org/life/shrewsbury.html , in the first paragraph below
the map-picture and also halfway down the entire page.  Darwin's spirit
seemed to be like modern UU's, exploring all things and drawing conclusions
from real world evidence.  His family and the Wedgwoods also showed a social
conscience, being early public opponents of slavery.
>
> You may already realize that Darwin's 200th birthday will occur on
February 12, 2009.  You may have held events to 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 the minister of a Unitarian
Universalist church, you might consider a sermon 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 the false hypotheses).  You might call for
the evolution of IDEAS that do not promote survival in a new environment.
Perhaps reflect on your personal evolution and possible lessons useful to
others.  Perhaps an examination on how a failure to evolve one's life skills
makes one vulnerable to sudden shifts in circumstances.  Perhaps you could
recount Darwin's own evolution from a gentleman dabbler 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 recently 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 the schoolbooks could not be required to
have labels denigrating evolution.  Or you can develop your own better idea.
>
> 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].