Harvard Museum of Natural History Events Starting February 12, 2009

Post date: Jan 26, 2009 8:14:17 PM

Beginning February 12th, the Harvard Museum of Natural History will offer a series of events to commemorate the double Darwin anniversary: his 200th birthday, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his breakthrough book.

The Darwin events are all posted here, including an important Evolution Matters lecture series. http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/lectures-classes-events/darwinyear.html. The spring will culminate with the opening of a new EVOLUTION exhibition on April 18th.

Beginning February 12th, the Harvard Museum of Natural History will display Agassiz's own annotated copy of On the Origin of Species which was given to him by Darwin at the time of their famed Harvard debates will be on display in the museum's Treasures of Nature and Science at Harvard Exhibition, along with the sand dollar which Darwin collected during the Voyage of the Beagle, and which Darwin also gave to Agassiz.

Beginning the February 12th, the museum also will offer a Darwin "Exhibit Exploration" -- a self-guided tour through the Museum's zoological and geological exhibits that highlights a number of specimens that Darwin discussed in On the Origin of Species, accompanied by excerpts from the book. The museum displays numerous specimens that were key to Darwin's theory, including the Galapagos finches (with their distinctively different beak shapes) and a fossil of the extinct Toxodon, a huge South American rhino-like herbivore which Darwin was first to discover and describe.