KU News Release

Natural History Museum invites the public to celebrate Darwin’s 200th birthday

LAWRENCE — An informal lecture, a birthday party and a giveaway will help the University of Kansas Natural History Museum mark Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday.

The celebrations are part of events scheduled worldwide to mark Darwin’s birthday on Feb. 12 and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his landmark book, “On the Origin of Species.”

To start, at 7 p.m. Feb. 4 the museum will offer “What Darwin Started: Evolution and the Fossil Record.” The talk by Bruce Lieberman, curator of invertebrate paleontology and professor of geology, will focus on the context for Darwin’s conclusions in 1859 and what scientists have learned since then through paleontology.

“One of the things that helped Darwin develop his theory of evolution was the fossil record and the geographical patterns of distribution among organisms,” Lieberman said. “He understood change to be gradual, but as we have studied the fossil record, we now understand change to be more a pattern of long periods of stability punctuated by periods of more rapid evolution.”

The talk is a part of the museum’s Wild Science series held the first Wednesday of each month.

On Feb. 12, the public is invited to see the opening of “Darwin’s Journey,” a new exhibit about Darwin and his five-year, worldwide voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. The exhibit includes photos, museum specimens and stories of Darwin’s research and process.

That afternoon from 4-6:30 p.m., the museum will have an open house birthday celebration. Birthday cake and fruit punch will be served. The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

During the event, visitors will be invited to share their thoughts about evolution in an exhibit notebook in Explore Evolution on the fifth floor. They will also be encouraged to use social networking site Twitter to post about Darwin Day (visit www.nhm.ku.edu/twitter for more information).

Everyone who joins the museum’s membership program, Friends of the Museum, during the month of February will receive a free copy of “On the Origin of the Species.” The offer is open to first-time members and those who renew between Feb. 1 and Feb. 28. Qualifying members will receive a coupon to redeem for their free book at the Oread Bookstore in the Kansas Union.

All events are free. The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

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