Happy Darwin Day!

February 12, 2016 • 4:51 pm

My talk is over and I’m exhausted, but it went well, or so I was told (it’s hard to tell when you’re up at the podium). Tomorrow I have lunch with the Other Secularist with Famous Hair, and also a trip to the British Museum. If you know a good local in Bloomsbury, give me a shout.

In the meantime, Happy Darwin Day, and here’s an appropriate cartoon from reader Pliny the in Between. He/she told me, “I bet you are one of the few who can identify the 3 other figures in this image.” (Besides Darwin, that is.)

Can you? Click to enlarge.

darwin-sistine

24 thoughts on “Happy Darwin Day!”

      1. Hmmm….. i think you may be right. And more on point to the subject matter at hand.

        Do we split the prize?

        What is the prize, anyway? Don’t tell me it’s just the fame and glory.

        1. In a supremely appropriate irony the 3rd person has yet to be recognized, much like his contributions to the subject, sigh

  2. Prof Coyne. It is some few years since I was there but The Princess Louise pub at 208 High Holbourn (5 min. walk from British Museum) should be well worth a visit. Fine Victorian pub with splendid fittings. Food and ale still excellent, so I am told.
    Enjoy.

      1. They have the original Edwardian urinals in the men’s room,

        So does the Geological Society in Piccadilly’s Burlington House. And on the other side of “the courtyard” is the Linnean Society, in whose meeting room a certain pair of papers were read in 1858, so I’d expect them to have similarly listed lavvies.

  3. Hi Jerry,
    Yes it did go well, and thanks for signing my copy of WEIT although you did date it 2012 instead of 2016 🙂
    Thanks again for a great talk, and it’s always a shame you aren’t allowed to get a few more questions in.
    Pesky back buttons!
    Simon

  6. It was a fabulous talk, despite that pesky back button, impassioned and well argued. Thanks too for the cat drawing in my copy of Faith vs. Fact. Enjoy the rest of your stay in England.

  7. What a mighty fine day today, too ! Darwin Day y2016 —

    Whilst we long and long – locals normally do not concern ourselves re such –0 Fahrenheit – degree temperatures, today’s is Iowa’s very lowest this month. And will continue thus for at least two to four more days’ time.

    And for the very first time this actual Northern Hemispheric / USA’s Midwest wintertime, wha’ do I … … SPOT ?! within 20 minutes’ of each other late this afternoon and … … discern that they both are quite obviously troubled by today’s outdoors here ?

    Not one but .two. of these, one on Campus and one near our home across the city:
    Turdus migratorius. Seriously.

    Is there anything by humans to be done about this ? At the time when one sees such a beastie, can one do something right then ?

    Or ?
    Blue

  10. It’s Wallace and Mendel on the far right; the woman in the middle is in the original. The third substitution is the elder gentleman resting his chin on Darwin’s left shoulder. He looks like Karl Popper, although I doubt that’s who Pliny put in there.

  13. Hi Jerry

    I thoroughly enjoyed your talk in London recently.

    The part I found most fascinating was your assertion that universal health care and reducing the income gap between rich and poor will result in the population of those countries becoming less religious. Both of those things the Republican Party in America oppose. Do the republicans know that’s what happens or am I giving them more credit than they deserve?

    Food snack suggestions next time you’re in the UK. Quavers and Hula Hoops.

    Kind regards

    Andrew

    1. The Republicans don’t much case what happens to the poor and marginalized. That’s the big difference between the parties, at least in principle.

      I have never heard of Quavers and Hula Hoops!

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