Evolutionary Gems

2009 sees the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and institutions across the globe will be celebrating Darwin Year with a huge range of public engagement activities.

But you don't have to be part of the official outreach events to take part--use the bicentennial as an excuse to share one of the most profound insights into the workings of the natural world with family, friends, kids, the world in general. To help you out, the journal Nature has thoughtfully provided "Evolutionary Gems": 15 lines of evidence in support of evolution by natural selection, all published in the journal over the past decade. Download it here and pass it on: evolutiongems.pdf

In an earlier editorial, the journal said: "Evolution is of profound importance to modern biology and medicine. Accordingly, anyone who has the ability to explain the evidence behind this fact to their students, their friends and relatives should be given the ammunition to do so." Hear, hear.

Of course, the 15 gems are just a few examples, but they will hopefully provide useful ammunition for the reasoned arguments (and all-out flame wars) that are set to take place this year (for a preview, check out Adam Rutherford's blog post on Darwin Year and the ream of comments that follow it in yesterday's Guardian).

Trouble is, the most shrill and intransigent opponents of Darwin's ideas get a lot of media attention and web space. But they are in the minority: according to a Nature editorial last year, up to 55% of the US population say they "aren't sure" about evolution. So engaging the public about evolution doesn't have to mean banging your head against a brick wall on a die-hard creationist message board. Feed the curiosity of the undecideds, and you could be on to a winner.