The Friends of Charles Darwin

Why the Red Notebook?

Well, all weblogs need a name, and I wanted this one's to have a distinctly Darwinian ring to it:

The Red Notebook (as Darwin scholars refer to it) was the first in a series of notebooks that Darwin used to record and develop his thoughts on evolution. He began the notebook towards the end of his voyage aboard HMS Beagle. Initially, he used it simply for recording the ship's location and depth soundings, but, on returning to England, he filled its later pages with his early evolutionary musings. His subsequent notebooks contained much more information, but these are referred to as Notebook B, C, D etc.—which don't have quite the same ring to them.

So the Red Notebook it is!

In 2002, at home with a broken leg, I was invited to contribute an essay to a book being compiled in celebration of Darwin Day 2003. The essay (which I have published online for the first time today) encouraged people to become amateur scientists, exhorting readers (with new emphasis added) to:

Build yourself a slug-arium; count the spots on ladybirds; look for peppered moths on tree trunks; try to create a blue sweet pea; breed pigeons; find out whether male crustaceans ever fight for the females; look for seeds in bird pellets; try floating seeds in salt-water; keep a notebook; involve your friends; email people; read books; search the web; if you have a website, publish your findings (even if they're inconclusive).

… I thought it was about time I took my own advice.

I intend to use this latter-day Red Notebook to record my own thoughts and discoveries about Darwin, evolution, natural history, and related matters. I do not claim to be an expert in any of these fields, so I am sure I will make a few mistakes on the way. In fact, I hope I make a few mistakes on the way, for mistakes are an important part of (as another of my scientific heroes, Richard Feynman, put it) the pleasure of finding things out.

It should be fun.