Y'all know what time it is! Today is the 199th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and hundreds of organizations will celebrate the date "in honor of the discoveries and life of the man who famously described biological evolution via natural selection." I'm so excited, I totally forgot all about that other guy's birthday yesterday — what's his name? Ah, it's not important; I gotta get me a fake beard for my theme party.
The Albany, N.Y.-based Institute for Humanist Studies helped sponsor hundreds of events in cities across the world to mark the occasion, so you'll be able to party down with fellow Darwinistas from Dhaka to Berkeley. To be fair, the events feature more picnics and guest lectures than out-and-out boozefests, but any celebration that can free us from the tyranny of this guy is OK by me.
Darwin Day started in 1995 with one event and grew to include over 850 events last year. It's clearly a holiday on the rise, and this is in the face of recent Gallup polls indicating that 43 percent of Americans reject evolution in favor of creationism — a percentage that includes four 2008 presidential candidates. Honestly, if we ever want to get the kids on board, we should probably break down and just give out presents.
"Darwin Day promotes understanding of evolution and the scientific method," said Matt Cherry, executive director of the Institute for Humanist Studies. "This celebration expresses gratitude for the enormous benefit that scientific knowledge has contributed to the advancement of humanity."
But if you think this year's Darwin Day is great, hold on to your butts for next year, when Darwin turns 200 and we mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. I might just have to break out the good scotch for that one.
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