Happy Darwin Day, every one
I was going to write a bah-humbug post about how this Darwin Day stuff is getting on my wick a bit, and we should be cheering for all the thousands of people who've given us 150 years of cool science, rather than just one Founding Father. But today's Araucaria crossword got me in the spirit. I'll be making a traditional roast tortoise tonight, and following the old Darwinmas custom of hitting wildlife with a stick.
Edit: I just invented the Origin of Species drinking game. Each player has to read out a whole sentence from the book without stopping for breath. If they can't do it, they take a swig and try the next sentence instead. If they can, the book passes to the next player. It'll go like this:
Player 1: "Finally, then, I conclude that the greater variability of specific characters, or those which distinguish species from species, than of generic characters, or those which are possessed by all the species; that the frequent extreme variability of any part which is developed in a species in an extraordinary manner in comparison with the same part in its congeners; and the slight degree of variability in a part, however extraordinarily it may be developed, if it be common to a whole group of species; that the great variability of secondary sexual characters and their great difference in closely allied species; that secondary sexual and ordinary specific differences are generally displayed in the same parts of the organisation, are all..."
(Drink)
"All being mainly due to the species of the same group being the descendants of a common progenitor, from whom they have inherited much in common, to parts which have recently and largely varied being more likely still to go on varying than parts which have long been inherited and have not varied, to natural selection having more or less completely, according to the lapse of time, overmastered the tendency to reversion and to further variability, to sexual selection being less rigid than ordinary selection, and to variations in the same parts having been accumulated by natural and sexual selection, and thus having been adapted for secondary sexual, and.."
(Drink)
Let me know if you try it and survive.
Edit: I just invented the Origin of Species drinking game. Each player has to read out a whole sentence from the book without stopping for breath. If they can't do it, they take a swig and try the next sentence instead. If they can, the book passes to the next player. It'll go like this:
Player 1: "Finally, then, I conclude that the greater variability of specific characters, or those which distinguish species from species, than of generic characters, or those which are possessed by all the species; that the frequent extreme variability of any part which is developed in a species in an extraordinary manner in comparison with the same part in its congeners; and the slight degree of variability in a part, however extraordinarily it may be developed, if it be common to a whole group of species; that the great variability of secondary sexual characters and their great difference in closely allied species; that secondary sexual and ordinary specific differences are generally displayed in the same parts of the organisation, are all..."
(Drink)
"All being mainly due to the species of the same group being the descendants of a common progenitor, from whom they have inherited much in common, to parts which have recently and largely varied being more likely still to go on varying than parts which have long been inherited and have not varied, to natural selection having more or less completely, according to the lapse of time, overmastered the tendency to reversion and to further variability, to sexual selection being less rigid than ordinary selection, and to variations in the same parts having been accumulated by natural and sexual selection, and thus having been adapted for secondary sexual, and.."
(Drink)
Let me know if you try it and survive.
Labels: Things I Like



11 Comments:
Happy Darwin Day to you,
Happy Darwin Day to you,
Happy Darwin Day dear....Darwin,
Happy Darwin Day to you! (Darwin)
YAYYYYY!
Ooh! OOOOH! Darwin-themed Araucaria! There might be a god after all!
I don't even need to play the game to start laughing!
Love it.
I am heading to the liquor store right now.
Good god, you can read that much before catching a breath? That running must be working, anyway...
The saxophone practice helps too!
Aw shit. Don't I get an asthma discount?
Did people have better breath control back then? The sentences were incredibly long and complicated (from today's point of view) and I have no idea how they managed to get through them.
Happy Dawrwin Day! (belatedly)
It's a Zahavian handicap principle thing. Victorians spoke in long sentences to prove that they didn't have tuberculosis.
Or maybe omg the interweb is RUINING our attention span to the point that we can no longer read or write all the way to what was I saying?
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