Today's Beagle is not making the historic voyage the HMS Beagle, which it was named after, did. But it is still navigating the same waters in Tierra del Fuego.

A section of February 12, 2008 Guardian Newspaper (UK) isdevoted to Darwin's work and developments from it with losts of links. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/darwinbicentenary

Image from http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/S/Speciation.html

February 12, 2008 is the 199th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.

Check out international activities at http://www.darwinday.org/englishL/home/2008.php and local activities at http://www.houstondarwinday.org/

whose research depends on it should explain why

Nature 451, 108 (10 January 2008) Editorial - SPREAD THE WORD

Three cheers for the US National Academy of Sciences for publishing an updated version of its booklet Science, Evolution, and Creationism (see http://www.nap.edu/sec). The document succinctly summarizes what is and isn't science, provides an overview of evidence for evolution by natural selection, and highlights how, time and again, leading religious figures have upheld evolution as consistent with their view of the world.

As the National Academy of Sciences and Padian have shown, it is possible to summarize the reasons why evolution is in effect as much a scientific fact as the existence of atoms or the orbiting of Earth round the Sun, even though there are plenty of refinements to be explored. Yet some actual and potential heads of state refuse to recognize this fact as such. And creationists have a tendency to play on the uncertainties displayed by some citizens. Evolution is of profound importance to modern biology and medicine. Accordingly, anyone who has the ability to explain the evidence behind this fact to their students, their friends and relatives should be given the ammunition to do so. Between now and the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth on 12 February 2009, every science academy and society with a stake in the credibility of evolution should summarize evidence for it on their website and take every opportunity to promote it.

Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: [Nature] (doi:10.1038/451108b), copyright (2008)

For the complete editorial, see http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html.

This NOVA program about the 2004 Kitzmiller v. Dover Trial airs Tuesday, November 13, 2007 at 7:00 pm on HoustonPBS KUHF Channel 8. For a preview of the program and resources on the trial, evolution and science education, see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/.

is much more embarassing AND it is bad science.

Dr. Homer Jacobson corrected his errors about the possible origin of life in an article which he wrote and which American Scientist, The Magazine of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society published in 1955

"He wrote in his retraction letter, ‘I am deeply embarrassed to have been the originator of such misstatements.’

It is not unusual for scientists to publish papers and, if they discover evidence that challenges them, to announce they were wrong. The idea that all scientific knowledge is provisional, able to be challenged and overturned, is one thing that separates matters of science from matters of faith.

So Dr. Jacobson's retraction is in ‘the noblest tradition of science,’ Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist, wrote in its November-December issue, which has Dr. Jacobson's letter."

From The New York Times, Science Section, October 25, 2007, by Cornelia Dean. online

Dr. Jacobson's letter is in the November-December, 2007 American Scientist. online