galileo – The Friends of Charles Darwin

400 years of telescopic astronomy

400 years ago today, on 26th July, 1609, the early English scientist Thomas Harriot pointed his new-fangled telescope at the moon and made a drawing.

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Here's a sentence I don't get to use very often…

I'm with the Vatican on this one.

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The right kinds of relics

What is it with keeping the remains of dead people as relics?

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Hello, Azerbaijan!
I am delighted to announce that the Friends of Charles Darwin have their first member from Azerbaijan.
A cat among the pigeons
Could Charles Darwin really have been a moggy murderer?
Maureen Brian, FCD (12 June 1942 – 31 July 2018)
I was sad to learn via Facebook that Maureen Brian died earlier today.
The problem writing a book about Charles Darwin
…there are so damn many of the things already, how do you make your book different?
Re. Joyce
How the Friends of Charles Darwin motto was pre-empted by James Joyce.

14-May-1856: Darwin starts writing his ‘big species book’
On 14 May 1856, Charles Darwin recorded in his journal that, on the advice of his friend Charles Lyell, after almost 20 years exploring the subject, he had finally begun writing a ‘sketch’ of his ideas on species.
If humans evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys?
This is a question frequently posed by creationists—and quite often by perfectly rational people…
13-Jan-1833: The day HMS Beagle nearly sank
Charles Darwin's closest brush with death during the Beagle voyage came on Sunday 13th January 1833, near that most infamous of nautical perils, Cape Horn.
The great Darwin fossil hunt
In which a friend beyond measure arranges a behind-the-scenes visit to the Natural History Museum to see fossils collected by Charles Darwin during the Beagle voyage.
Spandrel sight-seeing
In which I visit the spandrels of San Marco in Venice.