Singapore Humanism Meetup Book Club #004 - On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

In conjunction with Darwin's Day falling on February 12, Singapore Humanism Meetup book club meetup #004 selected The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin as our reading on 26-Feb-2011 Saturday. But for the first time, members were not restricted to just one book. An alternative title  Darwin: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) was also recommended for a more layman approach to understanding Darwin and his theory of evolution. The end result? A wide array of books made an appearance at the book club! (refer picture above)

Different variety of books on Darwin and evolution were read by a total of 7 members who turned up for the meetup: from different edition of The Origin of Species, to Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Corney, to a manga version of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation, The Decent of Man, and someone (we shall not disclose who) even dragged along his/her Biological Science text book! Talk about an enthusiastic turnout!

The session started out with the arrival of the members around 2pm, followed by an informal introduction. By 2:30pm, everyone has settled themselves down at the host's living room and the discussion started out with the host Eric giving a brief summary of The Origin of Species. Before you know it, everyone was jumping in on the discussion.

Just a recap of what was discussed

• How natural selection is an individual process, and not a group or species process
• The evolution of animals and what drives them to do so, from sea to land, and land to sea
• Laws of variation and how every single one of us is different for a purpose
• Why did it took so long for a book on evolution to be written
• Does our genetic determine how we turn out in life

A brief tea break of cakes, cookies and tea were held around 4pm, and members continued on a more informal discussion till 6pm! That's a 4 hour meetup!

If you would like to join in the fun of the book club, do not hesitate to RSVP for our next meetup on 20-Mar-2011 Sunday, 2pm-4pm @ Westcoast where we would be reading Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer.This is a session with lots of ghost, witches, UFO, alien abduction etc! Do login to Singapore Humanist Meetup Group to RSVP before all spots are taken up! Note: prior reading before each session is required.

The coordinator would like to thank Eric, our host and his wife for making us cookies! Our co-host Aloysius, and the wonderful people who made this an enjoyable afternoon: Doug, Liyan (Thanks for the delicious Cranberry Orange Cake!), Momin and Koi Hin.


References and resources:

• All Darwin's writing are also available at http://darwin-online.org.uk with more specifically the Origin at http://darwin-online.org.uk/contents.html#origin.
• The Origin of Species is also available as an ebook on Gutenberg. Stanza and other iPhone and Android eBook apps would have it for free.http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2009
• The last chapter of the Origin explained/commented by Richard Dawkins