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Historical tweets
June 4th, 2009 by Joel
This is just hilarous.
You know, I could finish blogging the Beagle much faster if I just reduced it to tweets. So much of it is about birds, anyway, and even the whale has merited a mention.
via Bug Girl.
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Silence is the Enemy
June 3rd, 2009 by Joel
In modern times, we’ve seen mass rape as an element of warfare in Congo, Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia — but the lesson here in Liberia in West Africa is that even when the fighting ends, the rape continues.
Nicholas Kristov, After Wars, Mass Rapes Persist
Young girls, some as young as three, are victims of the mass culture of rape and sexual abuse that persists in western Africa. More than half of Liberian women have been raped in the aftermath of the civil war. This situation has led Sheril Kirshenbaum over at The Intersection to start a coalition of bloggers to spread awareness of the problem. There are already many great posts up, and you can see the whole coalition here.
So, what can we do? Well, if you’ve got a blog, join in and spread the word! Write to or call your elected representatives - political interest is going to be necessary in bringing about change. And donate to charities that help to make a difference. Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors Without Borders) provides medical care in some of the most war-torn and impoverished areas of the world. You can give tax-deductable donations if you live in Australia, the USA, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates or the United Kingdom. And it’s easy!.
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Update
June 2nd, 2009 by Joel
I’m swamped with assignments right now, so much so that I’ve barely managed to get any research done for several weeks now. Let alone chapters, and let’s face it, Tierra del Fuego was never going to be an easy one. My team did come third in the Australian finals for the Imagine Cup, though.
Also, check out the Silence Is The Enemy blogswarm.
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Chapter 09 - Santa Cruz, Patagonia and the Falkland Islands
May 17th, 2009 by Joel
Another 3 week delay between chapters! I’m not very good at this…
On April 13, 1834, the Beagle anchors at the mouth of the Santa Cruz, a long river running much of the way through South America. The previous voyage of the Beagle explored a short distance of this river and FitzRoy is determined to explore more of it. As such, he sends out an expedition consisting of himself, Darwin and 23 crewmen in three whale boats. They will travel inland 140 miles, reaching a point just 60 miles from the Pacific Ocean.
Often the current is too strong to row against, and in these cases a few men are left with the boats while the rest of the party continues on foot. There are signs of Indian activity in the area, and the party feels that they have been reconnoitered.
Tags: Blogging the Beagle
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C is for creationist, that’s good enough for Denyse
May 14th, 2009 by Joel
Less than a month after sharing with us all an HIV denialist’s take on Darwin and evolution, Denyse O’Leary continues to spelunk further and further into the depths of evolution denialism.
Now she’s interviewing Adnan Oktar, a.k.a. Harun “fishing lure” Yahya. I think his responses basically speak for themselves.
What’s next? Updates on Ray Comfort’s search for a crocoduck? The results of Chuck Missler’s ongoing abiogenesis experiments? Reporting on how the atheist conspiracy that rules the world (but often struggles to post an ad on the side of buses) is suppressing Kent Hovind’s academic freedom? Is there any creationist ridiculous enough that Denyse O’Leary wouldn’t credulously promote them?
Tags: Creationism
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Chapter 08 - Banda Oriental and Patagonia
April 23rd, 2009 by Joel
This is a fairly long chapter, and much of it is a journal, from commentary on religious tolerance to the scientific education of the population (there are locals who express astonishment to learn that the world is round). And, then, suddenly, in the last couple of pages, we’re suddenly hit with biogeography, natural history, and the economy of nature. But more on that when we get there.
Having been delayed by the rebellion in Las Conchas for some time, Darwin rides to catch the Beagle before it leaves Monte Video. When he gets there, however, he discovers that the Beagle isn’t sailing for a couple of weeks, and so decides to travel across the plains of Patagonia.
A local breed of cattle, called the niata, differ from normal cattle. There’s an inkling of natural selection here: common cattle are able to browse on trees, but the niata are less able - and so die sooner during a drought. Darwin comments that this sort of thing has implications on the extinction of species - it is determined often by irregular, but nonetheless natural, events.
Tags: Blogging the Beagle
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Chapter 7 - Buenos Aires and St Fé
April 7th, 2009 by Joel
First off, the other day I mentioned that I would say something about my honour’s work sooner or later. I will, and, considering how excited I am about the upcoming Paul Nelson day, I’ll post something about it tomorrow*.
This is also a pretty significant chapter: there is a tremendous discussion of the biogeography of both extant and extinct species, and several instances of what are probably sexual selection, though the utility is in neither case apparent to Darwin.
Darwin first discusses bizcacha a rodent similar to an agouti. Bizcachas have never been seen east of the Uruguay River, even though the vegetation there would be well suited to their tastes. They have a habit of gathering hard objects and placing them near their burrows, but not in a way that might be employed for self-defense. He compares this to an Australian bowerbird, Chlamydera maculata. The purpose of even the bowerbird’s collections have not yet been identified: “…the Calodera maculata, which makes an elegant vaulted passage of twigs for playing in, and which collects near the spot, land and sea shells, bones and the feathers of birds, especially brightly coloured ones.” Darwin does not attempt to speculate as to the bizcacha’s purpose in accumulating these objects. The locals in both locations will, when they lose some item, will begin their searches near the nests of these creatures - often quite successfully.
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Tags: Blogging the Beagle
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Chapter 6 - Bahia Blanca to Buenos Aires
March 26th, 2009 by Joel
I’m not going to say very much about this chapter - mostly, it’s a diary of a mostly uneventful trip across the plains, via a series of military outposts. I’m only planning on bringing up a few interesting anecdotes.
Darwin passes a high mountain, unexplored by any Europeans. Naturally, therefore, there were a lot of rumours. “Hence we heard of beds of coal, of gold and silver, of caves, and of forests, all of which inflamed my curiosity, only to disappoint.”
He discusses invasive species:
Near the Guardia we find the southern limit of two European plants, now become extraordinarily common. The fennel in great profusion covers the ditch-banks in the neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Monte Video, and other towns. But the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) has a far wider range: it occurs in these latitudes on both sides of the, Cordillera [mountain range along a coastline], across the continent. I saw it in unfrequented spots in Chile, Entre Rios, Banda Oriental. In the latter country alone, very many (probably several hundred) square miles are covered by one mass of these prickly plants, and are impenetrable by man or beat. Over the undulating plains, where these greats beds occur, nothing else can now live. Before their introduction, however, the surface must have supported, as in other parts, a rank herbage. I doubt whether any case is on record of an invasion on so grand a scale of one plant over the aborigines.
Tags: Blogging the Beagle
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Chapter 05 - Bahia Blanca
March 24th, 2009 by Joel
So, uh, a three week delay. This was a really dense chapter? That’s true, certainly, but perhaps more relevantly, I completely unexpectedly started an honours degree (I didn’t actually finish the application, and wasn’t exactly planning on doing so this year anyway, but they accepted me anyway). More on that later, but let’s return to the narrative.
… I observed a fact, which seems to me very curious and instructive, as showing how every character, even though it may be in some degree independent of structure, has a tendency to vary by small degrees.
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle
After the Beagle sails from Bahia Blanca, Darwin remains on land to ride to Buenos Aires. In this chapter, Darwin discusses paleontology, ecology, the animals he finds in the area, and the war against the Indians. It’s also a rich source for fascinating insights into Darwin’s thinking, and I’ve taken the liberty of bringing out quite a few interesting quotes. Again, we can see how many observations Darwin made that led him to developing his theory.
Nearer the coast there are some plains formed from the wreck of the upper plain, and from mud, gravel, and sand thrown up by the sea during the slow elevation of the land, of which we have evidence in upraised beds of recent shells, and in rounded pebbles of pumice scattered over the country. At Punta Alta we have a section of one of these later-formed little plains, which is highly interesting from the number and extraordinary character of the remains of gigantic land-animals embedded in it.
Tags: Blogging the Beagle
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Chapter 04 - Rio Negro to Bahia Blanca
March 1st, 2009 by Joel
Thus we have a little living world within itself adapted to these inland lakes of brine.
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle
On April 3, 1833, the Beagle arrives at the mouth of the Rio Negro. Darwin begins by commenting on the geography: sandstone strata, with a layer of pumice (volcanic) pebbles - did these travel all the way (400 miles) from the Andes? The surface is largely gravel, with even brackish water scarce. The small colony, called El Carmen (or Patagones), is small and at risk from attack by Indians, and stories of several such attacks are related to Darwin.
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