Steve Jones, like me, is in rant mode, but he goes one step further in today's Telegraph and says let's just forget about Darwin entirely:Can we please forget about Charles Darwin?
I can see where he is coming from, but I will wait two more weeks before I join him in this position, after our Darwin roadshow and Darwin Day is over (of which more exciting details later)!
I understand everyone's Darwin fatigue, and I admit having a touch of it too, but it would be an absolutely huge mistake to 'forget about Darwin' after Darwin year. Why? Because those of us who eat and breathe Darwin are in the very small minority and we aren't the target audience. What happens in 2010 when a young boy or girl walks into science class or comes to the Natural History Museum but doesn't learn about Darwin's voyage on the Beagle (to pick an example out of the blue - har har) because his/her teachers or museum guides had had enough of Darwin in 2009 and followed Jones' advice just to "forget about Darwin". It's not about us and our ivory-tower Darwin fatigue. It's about everyone else, especially young people. /rant
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I understand everyone's Darwin fatigue, and I admit having a touch of it too, but it would be an absolutely huge mistake to 'forget about Darwin' after Darwin year. Why? Because those of us who eat and breathe Darwin are in the very small minority and we aren't the target audience. What happens in 2010 when a young boy or girl walks into science class or comes to the Natural History Museum but doesn't learn about Darwin's voyage on the Beagle (to pick an example out of the blue - har har) because his/her teachers or museum guides had had enough of Darwin in 2009 and followed Jones' advice just to "forget about Darwin". It's not about us and our ivory-tower Darwin fatigue. It's about everyone else, especially young people. /rant
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