Good Morning Lowcountry

Celebrating Darwin

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin ... on Tuesday.

The father of evolution will be 199.

"Perhaps no individual has had such a sweeping influence on so many facets of social and intellectual life as Charles Darwin, born on 12 February 1809," Kevin Padian, professor of integrative biology and curator in the Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, and president of the National Center for Science Education, wrote in the journal Nature last week.

"Of the other two of the great 19th-century triumvirate of European thinkers, Marx's ideas have been distorted beyond recognition in their political execution, and Freud's approach to the psyche no longer merits scientific recognition."

Hundreds of events around the world celebrate the Great Man on his birthday ... Darwin Day ... tomorrow. But Charleston will be celebrating Darwin all week long.

It's free. The public is invited to the following Darwin Week events on the College of Charleston campus.

-- Today. 4 p.m. Former state superintendent of education Inez Tenenbaum. "Science vs. Politics: How the 2006 South Carolina Science Standards Were Approved." Wachovia Auditorium.

-- Tuesday. 4 p.m. Dr. Stephen Nowicki, dean of undergraduate education at Duke University. "Do Animals Lie? The Evolution of Honesty and Deception in Animal Communication." Physicians' Auditorium. Birthday party for Charles Darwin to follow.

-- Tuesday. 7 p.m. Dr. Robert T. Dillon Jr., associate professor of biology at C of C. "Darwin's Place in the 21st Century." Addlestone Library, Room 227.

-- Wednesday. 4 p.m. Dr. Zhe-Xi Luo, curator of vertebrate paleontology and associate director of science at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. Fossils, Furs and Mammalian Ancestors. Hollings Science Center, Room 123.

-- Thursday. 4 p.m. Terry R. Richardson, professor of physics and astronomy at C of C. "Stars, the Universe, Intelligent Design and the Anthropic Principle." Hollings Science Center, Room 123.

-- Thursday. 6:30 p.m. Dr. Robert T. Dillon, Jr. and Dr. Donald S. Clark, a biochemist. "A Debate — Evolution and the Christian Faith: Conflict, Compatibility or Independence?" Charleston County Public Library Auditorium.

For more info, see www.sc-scied.org/EE/index.php/scied/charleston_darwin_week.

Wired Science also suggests a fun Photoshop Tennis contest in honor of Charles Darwin.

Add sunglasses, hats and other items to his image until he evolves into something unrecognizable at flickr.com/groups/pstennis.

Next year, Darwin will be 200, and 2009 will also mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."

The Natural History Museum in New York City is exhibiting the most comprehensive ever on Darwin's life and work. "Darwin" includes more than 400 artifacts, specimens and documents.

It closes May 29 and moves to the Museum of Science in Boston, the Field Museum in Chicago, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and the Natural History Museum in London.

Closer to home, College of Charleston's Addlestone Library has recently acquired a first edition of the 1859 "The Origin of Species." It is one of only 1,250 copies printed in the book's first run.

"It's in very, very good condition," said Jenny Fowler, director of advancement for the library. "It's really exciting."

The library's special collections section will have an exhibition next week of "Origin" and its newly restored, first-edition copy of "The Zoology of the Voyage of the HMS Beagle" (1839) along with photographs of the Galapagos Islands by John Henry Dick.

Go see it.

Call 937-5564. Write gmlc@postandcourier.com. Find the blog at gmlc.typepad.com.