Got all excited about finding a local Darwin Day celebration before discovering Georgia is not even listed on the website
If anyone knows of one that just isn’t listed, let me know! I found out UGA is having one, but it’s a bit far for me to go and with the abundance of scientific institutions in the Atlanta area I’m quite disappointed.
The last zoological facility I worked at in the UK had free entry to celebrate his 200th birthday. It was a great day to educate.
Did I ever tell you about the time I was clearing out behind the shelves at the bookshop I used to work at…
…and discovered almost every single atheism-related book we sold suspiciously stuffed down, damaged and out of sight, behind the religion section?
None of us had witnessed the perpetrator, but the discovery of it was hilarious. And then very sad, as I thought about the motivations of the person who did it.
“Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”
- Carl Sagan, In the Valley of the Shadow (1996)
“Video montage of Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson giving lectures and interviews on science, creationism, and intelligent design. It is a greatest hits intellectual parade of logic, reason and humor against ignorance and mysticism.”
I love this man.
