Other speakers include Eugenie Scott, Seth Shostak, Kirsten Sanford, Brian Dunning, and more.  See the list of speakers.

• Date: Saturday, April 24, 2010. 9AM to 6PM.
• Location: Brower Center, Berkeley, California.
• Sponsors: Bay Area Skeptics and Sacramento-Area Skeptics
• Tickets: Tickets are $40 for the regular registration and $55 for registration and a t-shirt. See the fantastic t-shirt design by Ranch7 Creative. This event is expected to sell out, so please reserve your ticket as soon as possible!

Last year was the big year – 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of “The Origin of Species.”  This video essay was my first project for Time Magazine’s website.  Produced by Craig Duff and edited by Jim Fields:

Video:  Lincoln and Darwin: Birthdays and Evolution

The February theme was Evolution, as we mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species, hailed by many – including E. O. Wilson – as the greatest science book ever written.

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is the cornerstone of biology as we understand it today.  Since its publication it has been reinforced by discoveries in many disparate fields of research, including paleontology, geology, nuclear physics, comparative anatomy, and genetics.

There is hardly a theory in all of science that is better supported by multiple lines of study.

Yet, somehow, it remains controversial to this day, especially in the United States, where perhaps 50% of the general public (but only 0.15% of scientists) are still clinging to a vision of creation that involves talking snakes and an improbable ark capable of carrying mating pairs of several million species.  I wonder who fed and cleaned up after them everyday?  Why do 99.85% of scientists believe in evolution?

Incredibly, as Sean B. Carroll points out in The Making of the Fittest, despite the rejection of evolution by half the nation’s populace, our legal system relies on DNA evidence to determine the freedom or incarceration – even the life or death – of thousands of individuals every year.  DNA evidence which, of course, is firmly grounded in our understanding of evolution and is utterly meaningless outside of it.

I suppose we’ll always be a nation of contradictions but some are more glaring than others.

There is no insult in the fact that we are related to every living thing on this planet!

It’s really quite astounding what can become of a single-celled organism given a few billion years and a variety of ecosystems.  If you’ve ever left a casserole in your refrigerator for even a couple months, you start to get the picture.

Things change.

Related posts:
Year of Science, March: Nobel, Edison and the Speed of Light
Year of Science, March: JetBlue and Cell Phones
Year of Science, January:  Why is the Sky Blue?

Now, combine that with my obvious respect for Charles Darwin – who shares his birthday with Lincoln (February 12, 1809) – and you’ll know how excited I am to have tied it all together in a video piece celebrating their birthdays – and also the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species.”

I wrote the piece and it was produced by Craig Duff – and today it’s featured on the front page of Time.com – as a “Must See” video about Lincoln and Darwin.

“Lincoln and Darwin – Birthdays and Evolution”

Check it out, let me know what you think – and please feel free to forward it to EVERYONE!

* Update 2/23/09: Although it was only a “Must See” video for a short time, now it’s displayed as one of the most popular videos!

It was one of her favorite things to say: “Stand up straight!”

Many other people, I have discovered, also grew up hearing that phrase. It’s nearly universal. As if mothers were programmed to say it. In fact, I believe mothers have been telling their children to “stand up straight” longer than we realize. Perhaps even to pre-human days.

What if that were the driving force behind the evolutionary trend to walk erect?

Mothers nagging their children up the evolutionary ladder:

“Stand up straight!
“Don’t drag your knuckles when you walk!
“What’re ya born in a tree?
“You want the other families to think we’re not evolving?”

“No, mom…”

Then: “How many times do I have to tell you?”

And, therein lies the origin of mathematics:

“How many times?…well, if I put the three here and carry the one….”

A couple clips from my 2008 performance appear earlier in this blog (on cell phones and Karma) and more are coming soon.