What is Natural Selection?

Natural selection was Darwin’s key insight, the idea that truly made him famous. The idea of evolution existed before he was born, but there was no credible mechanism. Darwin, and Alfred Russell Wallace, uncovered that mechanism. Natural selection has been defined as “the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators.” Before…

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When Politicians Are Honest

Today Senator Kerry announced that he would delay the Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote on the new START Treaty. It appears that several Republican senators are on the verge of committing to vote for it, but have submitted several questions to the Obama Administration that they want answered before they…

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Save Some Dates

From the Moses Greeley Parker Lectures schedule, 2010-11 (a selected list of early fall programs): Sunday, Aug 29, 4 pm Boarding House Park, Lowell “Twelfe Night” performed by the New England Shakespeare Festival . Saturday, Oct 2, 1 pm Lowell National Historical Park Visitor Center, 246 Market St, Lowell “Jack Kerouac…

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Next Cowley?

Dick’s tweets and postings from Charles Cowley’s “Illustrated History of Lowell” (1868) raise the following questions: When is the next general history of Lowell due and what form will it take? In the 19th century, an illustrated history was “high-tech” in its own way. On top of that, Cowley gave us a…

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2002 State Election

I’ve been documenting the results of recent state elections on our “Elections” page (see the upper right corner of this page for the link). Here’s what happened in 2002: After twelve years of Republican governors, Democrats were anxious to win the state’s highest office in 2002. Paul Cellucci had resigned…

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What’s In A Name Or Nickname?

For months now I’ve checking the daily postings on the “Vast Public Indifference” blog – here. It’s a blog where Caitlin GD Hopkins indulges her fascination with history and old graveyard tombstones by posting a photo and description of her “Gravestone of the Day” with an emphasis on the names of the…

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