2006 Darwin Day

The 2006 Darwin Day celebration web site is up. It includes, among other things, some pretty spiffy Flash movies explaining the workings of the cell and DNA. The University of Tennessee has always had its own program which has been well received. This year's program will have talks by Michael Shermer and Robert Pollack. Shermer is the author of the book Why People Believe Weird Things and is director of the Skeptics Society. The event's tolerance for religious viewpoints waxes and wanes depending on who the yearly organizers are. 1998 saw Eugenie Scott of the NCSE debating William Provine of Cornell. Scott is an agnostic but is tolerant of theological perspectives, while Provine is an avowed atheist in the vein of Richard Dawkins. The event did not, shall we say, attract very many people of any faith.