At the CARTA Symposium on Early Hominids, held October 1, 2010 at UC San Diego, UC Berkeley’s Tim White, better known for directing the team that brought Ardipithecus Ramidus, or “Ardi” to light, commented on Charles Darwin:
“175 years ago, Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos. He arrived at the Galapagos as a creationist, and he left the Galapagos as a creationist.”
Darwin, of course, was a keen observer. And he not only left the Galapagos as a creationist, he also left with many observations of the natural world–observations he used to help develop his idea of evolution by natural selection. His ideas were based on the physical evidence the natural world presented him. And you’ll get the same opportunity with these new talks from this fascinating CARTA symposium.
OK, you won’t get a trip to the Galapagos, but you will get a journey through time from all over Africa in a dazzling array of evidence presented directly to you by the individuals who are digging, unearthing and bringing to light — in shards, bits of teeth, phalanges, crania and climatic records — the evidence, the record, the hard proof of the very, very early history of Hominids – our Clade, our Family.
It is one of, if not the most, complete and compelling collections of evidence on this subject I have ever seen presented to the public and, as Tim exhorts at the beginning of the symposium, “there has never been a symposium like this, and it is exceedingly unlikely that there will ever be another one.”
Don’t miss the series. Really, don’t. It starts airing every Wednesday night in February, beginning February 2 with Tim White’s fascinating and compelling overview of the search for evidence of our earliest ancestors, and Andrew Hill’s vivid picture of what our earliest ancestors’ world looked like, and how it influenced their evolution.
On another note, a dime a day, just one thin dime….actually, less than one thin dime….two CRV redemptions…”What?” You say?
You may be aware of the dire future facing the University of California and public education as a whole. To gain a little perspective, here are some amazing facts and research about the financial future of public education or, more accurately, what it could be, and how little it would really take. Do the math, it’s all there, more than you need, really…and well, the math doesn’t lie.