The Shellfish Scene

[billy rubin]

wallace was in a fever dream too. and he also had been reading malthus.

[zorkan]

Seems like his fevers did inspire him when living in foreign lands with difficult climates.
Dawkins gives him a only a brief mention because he became a spiritualist later in life.
Wallace is claimed by Wales, but he described himself as English.
He is the forgotten man of evolution.
Strange how I've visited the place where Darwin was born, The Mount in Shrewsbury, but never Wallace's home in Monmouthshire.

Species evolve by adapting to their environment:
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/alfred-wallace/   

I own a copy of this book and it's a lot more readable than the Origin of Species.
https://www.awesomebooks.com/book/9781440062186/darwinism/used?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyIr2z8SVigMV84xQBh2oswB0EAQYAiABEgLt2_D_BwE

[The Magic Pudding..]

Seems like his fevers did inspire him when living in foreign lands with difficult climates.
Dawkins gives him a only a brief mention because he became a spiritualist later in life.
Wallace is claimed by Wales, but he described himself as English.
He is the forgotten man of evolution.
Strange how I've visited the place where Darwin was born, The Mount in Shrewsbury, but never Wallace's home in Monmouthshire.

Ah yes, he is known as the forgotten man of evolution, and hence very well known indeed, even by me, Bill Bailey has even done a doco about him, and forgotten men are always popular on particular kinds of radio programs. 

There is an actual forgotten, forgotten man of evolution, his name was Barry something.

[billy rubin]

ive read the origin of species two or three times, long ago really. spectacularly prescient.

darwin is like the later ernst mayer. he thought of everything so far in advance of everybody else that hes something of a prophet for any subsequent development of the theory.

dawkins is a kindly idiot uncle. harmless, and somewhat forgettable.

interesting that youve visited darwins home. what was it like?

here in the states we dont have anything like that.

[zorkan]

interesting that youve visited darwins home. what was it like?

Having walked up the hill from the River Severn I was told I could only view it from the outside.
It's used by the financial mafia, and they don't like intruders.
Make do with this.
https://www.myshrewsbury.co.uk/blog/a-tour-of-mount-house/

Dawkins lives close to the River Thames, and he doesn't like intruders either, but maybe not the pigeons which fascinated Darwin.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2171218/The-atheist-prof-cars-door-war-pooping-pigeons.html

Not sure if you can go inside Wallace's home.
https://onthebusesm.blogspot.com/2016/06/usk-birthplace-of-alfred-russel-wallace.html

[billy rubin]

ive walked tbrough linneaus's house in sweden.

but i would have liked to see whether anything remains of the gravel path in darwins garden that was made so famous

[Recusant]

Yes, the Sandwalk still exists at Down House. He was born in Shrewsbury, but lived and worked on his theory of evolution at Down House in Kent.

The Sandwalk was Darwin's 'thinking path', a quarter-mile walk that formed the basis of his daily perambulations around the estate. He made regular circuits five times round it at noon, for example. His children skipped alongside from time to time, teasing their father by adding stones to the pile he would kick away to count each lap, but mostly Darwin walked alone, 'using a walking-stick heavily shod with iron which he struck loudly against the ground', as Darwin's son Francis recalled.

[source]

[zorkan]

I've never seen Down House and it's still on my to-do list.
Hope to hop down to Kent next year,

A list of people in biology who are famous for not being famous should include Wallace, Franklin, Hamilton and Price.
Charles Darwin became famous after reading Alfred Wallace's letters.
Could also include Darwin's grandfather Erasmus who wrote Zoonomia which described filaments of life.
I have paid to visit his house at Lichfield.

Francis Crick and James Watson only became famous after reading Rosalind Franklin's notes.
She does at least have a building named after her at Wolverhampton University.

Would we have ever heard of Richard Dawkins if he had not known William Hamilton?
Dawkins doesn't give much credit to George Price probably because he became a Christian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._D._Hamilton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Price


 

[zorkan]

Spending Christmas with Richard Dawkins always sounds a bit grim.
Not much jollity to be had.
But here's what he said in 2020 on twitter.

"Merry Christmas! Oh SORRY, Merry Holidays! Children, hang up Holiday Stockings on Holiday Eve for Father Holidays to fill. Sing Holiday Carols round the Holiday Tree after Holiday Dinner. I'm dreaming of a White Holiday.

Well, here's one atheist wishing you a Merry Christmas."
(Grudgingly, I suspect).

Oh come on Richard. Just once a year maybe.
The Romans celebrated Sol Invictus.
The mighty sun has beaten off the dark again.

And yes It was the 25th December.
'Birthday of the Invincible Sun') on 25 December, the date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar.
In Rome, this yearly festival was celebrated with thirty chariot races'.

[Recusant]

Yeah, feet of clay. Ancient news--just ask any former member of the Dawkins forum.

[zorkan]

I did sign up to his forum, as he invited it in the god delusion.
After just one post I ran. It was awful.
He was stupid not to anticipate who would participate and it was closed.
I credit Dawkins for turning me from a complete atheist to being atheist to all gods apart from Zorka.

Click RichardDawkins.net now and up comes his foundation.
He's after your money.