We get mail: what's with the puppet?

The puppet (below) was the idea (and dare I say creation?) of biologist blogger Miss Prism, who ran a blog and buy sale in aid for Beagle Project build funds. This caught the attention of PZ at Pharyngula, and the rush of bids resulted in Charles being relocated to the home of an Humblewoodcutter in Canada. Humble is an evolved homeschooler, and she recently got in touch to say that Charles Darwin now occupies pride of place in her house, where a recent visitor saw him and asked: 'Is that God?'
In her own words: 'Cue thigh slapping laughter.'

The red noticeboard (Darwin's first evolutionary scribbling were in a red notebook, also the title of the Friends of Charles Darwin weblog) was photoshopped onto MissPrism's original pic by me, and her guest post by Charles Robert Darwin is well worth a click. If anyone else has any great ideas for Beagle fundraising, let us know. (T-shirts are underway.)

Sorry...

Good news: a big commercial sponsor is nibbling. BUT that doesn't mean we don't still need Darwins and Jacksons.

Intelligent design: it's not even wrong.

First, a confession. I lifted this zinger of a title from a refreshingly mindful statement by a US Representative (that'd be Rush Holt of the 12th Congressional district of New Jersey), and also from Peter Woit's excellent physics blog Not Even Wrong.

Plagiaristic tendencies aside, the title does get right to the point. For while it may be true that intelligent design isn't right, more catastrophically for its pretensions as a scientific alternative to evolution, intelligent design is not even wrong. After all, science is about 1) standing on the shoulders of giants and using their foundational theories to make predictions about the outcomes of future experiments, then 2) doing the experiments, and then 3) forcing the scientific community to eat a big fat slice of humble pie if your results suggest the theories were wrong. What happens next usually involves the front cover of Science or Nature.

In short, valid scientific theories are falsifiable (spectacularly so) and intelligent design is not.

So why all this flurry about intelligent design on the Beagle Project blog? Well, it turns out that Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus might be coming to a big screen near you, all proceeds to the Beagle Project. And how appropriate, too, since the Beagle will be a vehicle for science outreach, the improvement of which is what this film is all about. All we need is a venue. Any suggestions? Better yet, any offers?

Another scienceblogger rallies to the cause:

Coturnix at blog around the clock gives us a great write up ('majestic,' no less) and muses on blogging from the Beagle. We will have sat comms, and crew will be able blog their voyage as it happens. We can't get every young scientist who wants to sail aboard, but anyone with an internet connection will be able to take part. Coturnix plugs the other great fundraising ideas, admits he can't knit to support MissPrism's bring and blog (what do they teach Ph.Ds these days? Watson and Crick made several bedspreads while discovering the structure of DNA). Coturnix has offered a copy of his book The Open Laboratory, a compendium of the best writing on science blogs 2006 to a randomly selected donor. Thanks, for the blog entry and the book.

Coturnix' enthusiastic broadsides has been picked up by Turinas of Messing about in sailboats who has also suggested an ebay auction of unwanted stuff for the Beagle. I still have a dream of a Beagle built entirely through the goodwill, originality and vitality of the science community.

Tags: hms beagle replica, the beagle project, charles darwin, evolution, fundraising