Charles Darwin developed his early theories on board the Beagle
Posted on 07/19/2006 3:55:15 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Plans are being drawn up to build a £3.3m working replica of the boat that took Charles Darwin around the world at Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire.
Fundraising for the project, which would mark the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth in 2009, is under way.
The aim is to built a seaworthy vessel identical to the HMS Beagle on the outside, but with a modern interior.
Darwin, who showed how natural selection could explain evolution, sailed on the Beagle between 1831-36.
Sitting opposite him on the expedition was mate and surveyor John Lort Stokes.
One of Stokes' descendents, Pembrokeshire farmer David Lort Philips, together with commercial yacht master Peter McGrath, have founded the Beagle Project Pembrokeshire.
Mr McGrath said the ship would look identical to the original Beagle on the outside but would have a 21st century interior with diesel auxiliary engines and generators.
He said he hoped the fished vessel would inspire the scientists of the future and be used by researchers and scientists from across the world.
"Externally it will be exactly the same but we want it to do some serious scientific work and you would not want the crew living like they did in the 18th Century," he said.
The pair have spent three years putting their plans together and aim to raise the money through private and institutional investors along with public subscription.
"With all the Darwin 200 celebrations there is not one big project to focus the attention on," added Mr McGrath.
"I know the effect a square rigger has on young people - it's a jaw dropping site.
"But we do not want this just to be a replica - we want it to have genuine scientific benefits.
"We have started the fundraising. Construction will take 14 months and it has to be finished by early 2009.
"She will be built in Milford Haven and it will be her home. But what we want to do when she is built is visit the significant sights in Darwin's and the Beagle's life."
Researchers believe the original remains of the 27m-long Navy brig, that was sold for scrap in 1870, are embedded in a marsh near Potton Island in Essex.
Darwin, who published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, came fourth in a poll run by the BBC in 2002 to find the public's greatest Briton of all time.
His voyage on the Beagle allowed him to form the basis for much of his later work.
*** Pimento placemarker ***
Why?
Do you ever make sense or just babble on without even an attempt at thought?
There are better threads where I do try harder. I only jumped in on this one early this morning when I saw how many Pounds they were spending on this stupid ship. It must be other people's money.
Correction: You only jumped in because your search on the word "Darwin" brought you here, and you saw an opportunity to disrupt. Along with your buddies who were here by post 6....
"On the other hand, ship design has evolved since Darwin's day"
No, that's not true. You guys throw these terms around but don't really know what they mean.
Ship design has DEVELOPED since Darwin's day but it certainly has not evolved.
And the reason it has developed is because of the input of Intelligence into subsequent designs.
a documentary about Darwin which told about his father buying his way on to the ship. He was an oddball that the captain did not get along with
As noted by others Darwin and Fitzroy in fact got on very well, including collaborations after the voyage, excepting only on the issue of slavery, which they agreed to avoid after a couple very bitter arguments.
If anything it was Fitzroy -- although I would rank him overall as a HIGHLY admirable character -- who was the "oddball". Fitzroy almost rejected Darwin purely because of the shape of his (Darwin's) skull. Besides embracing the humbug pseudoscience of phrenology (which admittedly may not seem "oddball" to a creationist) Fitzroy also suffered from mental problems. It's been proposed by scholars that he was bipolar. He would eventually commit suicide later in life.
Yes. Darwin did have to pay his own way for the voyage. This was precisely because of Fitzroy's oddities, however. Fitzroy was worried about his own mental state, and tendency to depression, and so advertised for a gentleman companion to share meals and such with and so avoid loneliness and depression. (In another oddity -- or rather fetish of the extreme Tory aristocrat -- Fitzroy took the normal British naval practice of non-fraternization a step further and avoided socializing even with his officers.)
So, IOW, Darwin's position on the ship was non-official. Technically he was a passenger.
a spoiled rich boy who didn't want to or have to work for a living
Granted that Darwin's father was worried about Darwin not obtaining a respectable profession. (Science was not considered a "profession" at the time, but rather an avocation.) So Darwin, prior to the Beagle voyage, showed signs of being unfocused and wayward. His primary passions were hunting, shooting and collecting beetles.
BUT Darwin was neither "spoiled" nor lazy. He was extremely vigorous, loyal, and readily took on hardships, both to advance his own natural history interests, and in the aid of his crew-mates. During the voyage he could be found clambering up and down mountains; riding with gauchos across the pampas, in hostile Indian territory, and sleeping on the open ground; pulling barges hundreds of miles up rivers; and etc.
A real champion of today's left.
Hardly. Personally Darwin was a conservative. (He was a Whig. Here in America the Whigs were the party of Lincoln and eventually became the Republican Party.) Although Whigs were the "liberal" party with respect to the Tories of the day, they represented the "classical" liberalism that today we understand as "conservative,". Tories represented merchantilist as opposed to market economies and artisocratic privelege as opposed to standards of professional merit.
Darwin was an ardent capitalist, who read Adam Smith and the Scottish economists of his own day. His shrewd investments multiplied the inheritence left him several times over.
As to his theory, it was widely REJECTED (in it's uniquely Darwinian elements) by the political left over most of the last hundred and fifty years. Yes, the left were evolutionists, but they overwhelmingly favored Lamarckian as opposed to Darwinian versions of the theory.
The text makes claims that are in reasonable accord with physical reality. The physical evidence is clear that the heavens and earth exist and function in an orderly manner. This is what the biblical texts say about it: that an almighty Creator put them in pace and still sustains them. So, the claims of the text are substantiated by phyiscal reality. So is intelligent design. There's nothing superstitious or magical about it, unless you think your own thoughts and actions are superstitious and mystical.
The biblical texts plainly state the ultimate origins, purpose, and destination for physical reality, and thus eliminate the need to speculate about these things. They even make clear what is the intent of the almighty Creator toward this creation. So . . . they serve as a light, not as superstitious babbling such as demonstrated by Darwinism and so called knowledge that has no foundation other than the imagination of men.
If you claim that you exist is there no evidence present in the claim itself? Or do we have to see you first? Of course there is evidence in the claim itself.
Actually, it is the creationists that are pushing for the law of the land to mandate creationism as science, when, in fact, it is not. The mentality of some creationsist would be to dictate science rather than let the facts speak for themselves, just as the governments of Stalin and Hitler did.
Search my posts for the word "bible" and then get back to me when you learn how to use language and logic more accurately.
Charlie's Ark. It's got mythical status dontcha know.
You sound a bit like a gorebot commenting on the 2000 election controversy.
It was a complete goron fantasy that the SCOTUS wrongly conferred legitimacy on Bush's victory. Bush won, and had always led, every single vote count in Florida. He was certified as the winner under the law. Bush therefore NEEDED no such validation. The SCOTUS simply recognized these evident facts. Gore had FAILED on all these counts. He's the one that NEEDED unearned legitimacy confered on him by the courts.
So it is a complete fantasy that evolution NEEDS judicial validation. It has achieved its status in curricula by succeeding, on merit, in the marketplace of scientific ideas. Creationistic and antievolutionary ideas have either refused to compete in this venue, or consistently failed therein.
As with Bush v. Gore, the only reason for the judicial intervention were irrational and invidious attempts to undermine EARNED legitimacy or steal UNEARNED legitimacy.
Personally, I doubt it ever existed.
I'm curious what "still sustains" means. Is that like angels pushing the arrows through the air?
It was a joke son, in the words of my favorite rooster.
How about when Hitler said this:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison."
Now, can you find one speech where Hitler said he was following Darwin?
"The bible and the biblical texts are not necessarily co extant."
Oh stop trying to weasel out of it Fester. The *Bible* is the same as *biblical texts*. You're *reasoning* like a Clinton. It only makes you look worse.
You aren't fooling anybody.
"Meanwhile I am happy to note one small area where the Dali Lama and Hitler have commonality: both exalt their own reason over the plain biblical texts. That is not a "logical fallacy" as you asserted. Just a simple fact."
It's a logical fallacy when the ONLY reason you mention Hitler in that regard is because you wish to link Darwin with Hitler's actions. That being said, I am not aware of any reason to believe that Hitler didn't accept the accuracy of the biblical texts (you know, the Bible), at least in part.
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