Ithaca to celebrate Darwin's Birthday

ITHACA — In honor of Charles Darwin's 198th birthday — and the 148 years that have passed since the publication of “The Origin of Species” — Ithaca has joined several communities across the nation in celebrating Darwin Day.

The Museum of the Earth, in partnership with Cornell University, will sponsor a series of events through Monday, Feb. 12.

Amy Naim, director of marketing and communications at the Museum of the Earth, said the museum wants to help moderate a community-wide discussion on evolution. “This is a perfect forum to bring us to the public,” she said.

David S. Wilson, a professor of evolutionary biology at Binghamton University, agrees. Wilson said he urges those who believe in evolution to apply it to their lives. He hopes this celebration will accomplish that.

“Evolution is more than just a explanation of how the world began,” he said. “It provides a way for thinking about human life.”

Wilson will speak at 7 p.m. today at the Statler Auditorium in a lecture titled “Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives.”

Rob Ross, director of education at the Museum of the Earth, believes Darwin Day provides an opportunity to share knowledge with the Ithaca community.

“Evolution is a unifying principle in biology. Darwin Day gives an opportunity to share information on how biology works,” he said.

Ross said the museum plans to help host the event every year with a special presentation in 2009 to celebrate the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the Sesquicentennial of “The Origin of Species.”

Events are planned daily at Cornell University and the Museum of the Earth, 1259 Trumansburg Road in Ithaca.

Events

* “Evolution, Eugenics, and Beyond,” 2 p.m. today in Statler Auditorium at Cornell.

* Darwin's Birthday Party, 6:30 p.m. Friday at the museum, To register, call 273-6623 ext. 11.

* A reading from the play “Inherit the Wind,” 10 a.m. Saturday at the museum.

* A film, “Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus,” 5 p.m. Saturday and 7:15 p.m. Sunday at Willard Straight Hall Theatre at Cornell ($4).

* An evolution workshop for teachers will be on Monday, Feb. 12 at the museum. Advance registration is required and can be accessed on the Museum of the Earth's Web site, www.museumoftheearth.org.

* Family Day will be all day Saturday at the museum. Additionally, the Rosamond Gifford Zoo of Syracuse will give a presentation at 11 a.m., and paleoartist John Gurche will talk at noon. Both talks are at the museum.

And from Caren Cooper, the chair of Ithaca's Kol Haverim temple, comes these Reasons to celebrate Darwin's birthday:

Imagine a law compelling the placement of baby teeth under pillows for collection by the Tooth Fairy. Of course we'd call this foolish because the Tooth Fairy is an acknowledged myth, but this example illustrates the lack of wisdom in basing public policy on beliefs that have no evidence to support them.
Yet we face a dangerous future because our government too often shapes public policy on religious ideology rather than scientific evidence.

Not content to bash religion, she turns a discussion of Darwin into an attack on global warming and, of course, President Bush

We know that in 1992, scientific evidence led the Union of Concerned Scientists to issue a severe “warning to humanity” about global warming's causes and consequences. Yet even now President Bush pays lip service to calls for a sustainable energy policy, infusing doubt about climate change into every statement (even as business leaders call for change) and suppressing scientific evidence (see recent report by Congressman Waxman). With suggestions like a 1-mph increase in fuel efficiency within three years, Bush demonstrates a “tooth under the pillow” mindset rather than one prepared to face the inconvenient truth.
The hazards of our tendency to favor hopeful beliefs rather than accept evidence calls for a reminder of the achievements of our most reliable way to obtain knowledge and improve the human condition. This reminder is Charles Darwin's birthday, typically referred to as Darwin Day, an international day in recognition of science and humanity.

And concludes that faith has no place in developing public policy:

As children grow up, the discovery of the truth about the Tooth Fairy helps them learn to distinguish between the real and the imaginary. As citizens grow in their civic involvement, we must learn to put aside religious beliefs when developing sound policy for the common good

Did Darwin recant?
by Russell M. Grigg

Charles Darwin died on 19 April 1882, at the age of 73. To some it was deplorable that he should have departed an unbeliever, and in the years that followed several stories surfaced that Darwin had undergone a death-bed conversion and renounced evolution. These stories began to be included in sermons as early as May 1882.1 However, the best known is that attributed to a Lady Hope, who claimed she had visited a bedridden Charles at Down House2 in the autumn of 1881. She alleged that when she arrived he was reading the Book of Hebrews, that he became distressed when she mentioned the Genesis account of creation, and that he asked her to come again the next day to speak on the subject of Jesus Christ to a gathering of servants, tenants and neighbours in the garden summer house which, he said, held about 30 people. This story first appeared in print as a 521-word article in the American Baptist journal, the Watchman Examiner,3 and since then has been reprinted in many books, magazines and tracts.

The main problem with all these stories is that they were all denied by members of Darwin's family. Francis Darwin wrote to Thomas Huxley on 8 February 1887, that a report that Charles had renounced evolution on his deathbed was 'false and without any kind of foundation',4 and in 1917 Francis affirmed that he had 'no reason whatever to believe that he [his father] ever altered his agnostic point of view'.5 Charles's daughter Henrietta (Litchfield) wrote on page 12 of the London evangelical weekly, The Christian, for 23 February 1922, 'I was present at his deathbed. Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier … . The whole story has no foundation whatever'.6 Some have even concluded that there was no Lady Hope.

So what should we think?

Darwin's biographer, Dr James Moore, lecturer in the history of science and technology at The Open University in the UK, has spent 20 years researching the data over three continents. He produced a 218-page book examining what he calls the 'Darwin legend'.7 He says there was a Lady Hope. Born Elizabeth Reid Cotton in 1842, she married a widower, retired Admiral Sir James Hope, in 1877. She engaged in tent evangelism and in visiting the elderly and sick in Kent in the 1880s, and died of cancer in Sydney, Australia, in 1922, where her tomb may be seen to this day.8

Moore concludes that Lady Hope probably did visit Charles between Wednesday, 28 September and Sunday, 2 October 1881, almost certainly when Francis and Henrietta were absent, but his wife, Emma, probably was present.9 He describes Lady Hope as 'a skilled raconteur, able to summon up poignant scenes and conversations, and embroider them with sentimental spirituality'.10 He points out that her published story contained some authentic details as to time and place, but also factual inaccuracies—Charles was not bedridden six months before he died, and the summer house was far too small to accommodate 30 people. The most important aspect of the story, however, is that it does not say that Charles either renounced evolution or embraced Christianity. He merely is said to have expressed concern over the fate of his youthful speculations and to have spoken in favour of a few people's attending a religious meeting. The alleged recantation/conversion are embellishments that others have either read into the story or made up for themselves. Moore calls such doings 'holy fabrication'!

It should be noted that for most of her married life Emma was deeply pained by the irreligious nature of Charles's views, and would have been strongly motivated to have corroborated any story of a genuine conversion, if such had occurred. She never did.

It therefore appears that Darwin did not recant, and it is a pity that to this day the Lady Hope story occasionally appears in tracts published and given out by well-meaning people.

References
James Moore, The Darwin Legend, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1994, pp. 113-14.
Down House retained the spelling of the old name of Darwin's village, which was changed to Downe in the mid-nineteenth century to avoid confusion with County Down in Northern Ireland. Source: Ref. 1, p. 176.
Watchman Examiner, Boston, 19 August 1915, p. 1071. Source: Ref. 1 , pp. 92-93 and 190.
Ref. 1, pp. 117, 144.
ibid, p. 145.
ibid, p. 146.
ibid.
After the death of Admiral Hope in 1881, Lady Hope married T.A. Denny, a 'pork philanthropist', in 1893, but preferred to retain her former name and title (Ref. 1, pp. 85; 89-90).
Ref. 1, p. 167.
ibid, p. 94.

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