Right now there’s nothing there. I’ll check again in Feb.

…

(See, I can always bring it back on topic!)

In my continuing efforts to further derail this discussion, Windows 7 will include an updated MS Paint. Wow. That’s only, what, 20 years overdue?

They were still shipping Edlin through Windows NT! The crappier the software, the longer Microsoft lets it live!

Just because you do not believe in the existence of a deity does not necessarily mean you think evolution exists.

And the reverse is true, too, of course. Just because you believe in evolution, doesn’t make you an atheist. Plenty of religious, deeply religious, people believe in evolution. The two are not mutually exclusive.

And, Ron, if you ever do want the images (or anything) turned into a PDF, just let me know. I’m a graphic designer by trade so I have the tools to turn your two graphics into one PDF if you ever want it.

Anyway, I agree with the idol worship point, Ron. The more we (rightfully or not) point out how amazing the man, Darwin, is, the more it feeds into his status of him being the “atheist god.” It is important to note that atheism does not require evolution (nor the reverse, really). Just because you do not believe in the existence of a deity does not necessarily mean you think evolution exists. This is a point fundies often mistake. Quite often it may be true, but belief in either does not necessitate belief in the other.

Is there a really good lay evolution link? I don’t know of one off-hand. That would certainly play the least into the fundies’ fear mongering.

I remember getting scolded by angry high school english teachers for the comma issue.

They mean well, but they have to know when to let go of outdated ideas. I didn’t know until today that the reason for the rule was originally because of a technical problem. How lame!

Ron, if you’d like, I’d be happy to turn your images into a PDF file. Might make it easier for folk to print. Just let me know.

I don’t know if that’s necessary. Everybody has at least a crappy paint program on their computer, so I’m guessing that printing it won’t be a problem.

I already have the ability to turn them into PDFs, but since these occupy two files, it would have to be two PDFs (that’s the limitation of my software). One reason I kept them as PNGs is it makes it easier for the end user to edit himself.

How about darwin-year-2009.org for the URL?

I’m looking for a site that is specifically about teaching evolution to laymen. Darwin-year-2009.org is more about Darwin himself. I’m not into idol worship. It also just feeds into the fundies’ belief that he’s our co-god (Richard Dawkins is our other co-god, of course).

Darwin Day is an excellent opportunity to try to educate people on why this is such an important theory and how it is fundamental to all of the life sciences. There has been a shying away from the topic of evolution on the part of teachers in the last couple of decades, because it is so “controversial”. (OMG! I put the period outside the quotation marks!) Darwin Day gives us a chance to try to wear down that injustice and try to dispel the misconception.

If there actually were a controversy we’d be happy to teach it.

Two other thoughts:

I’ve always disliked the punctuation always inside the quotation marks rule.

Ron, if you’d like, I’d be happy to turn your images into a PDF file. Might make it easier for folk to print. Just let me know.

According to the MLA I used back in college, periods belong inside quotation marks.

That’s no longer true. The trend has been away from that over the last couple of decades, especially in technical material. Also, I think it was never true for single words.

This article has a couple of interesting statements on the issue:

Now, keep in mind that this comma and period inside the quotation marks business is strictly American usage. The British don’t do it that way. They are inclined to place commas and periods logically rather than conventionally, depending on whether the punctuation belongs to the quotation or to the sentence that contains the quotation, just as we do with question marks and exclamation points.

So their spelling may be completely daft, but at least they know how to do punctuation. Here’s why:

And just why, you may ask, do they belong there? Well, it seems to be the result of historical accident. When type was handset, a period or comma outside of quotation marks at the end of a sentence tended to get knocked out of position, so the printers tucked the little devils inside the quotation marks to keep them safe and out of trouble. But apparently only American printers were more attached to convenience than logic, since British printers continued to risk the misalignment of their periods and commas.