Monday, April 08, 2013

National Gardening Week coming and # 94 Evolution

National Gardening Week is coming 15th to 21st April


Soon a blanket of colour
Now that we've had a few days of reasonable weather I feel that I should be making the most of  the opportunity it gives to be outside.
At the weekend we scattered a couple of packets  in the front garden to give what we hope will turn into a blanket of colour (both free packets) one was Love-in -a mist (Shredded Wheat) the other Mr Fothergill's mixture (courtesy of RHS) it's to promote the National Gardening week (which runs 15th to 21st April).
On the allotment today I've planted Blueberries (Vaccinium  Corymbosum -Patriot) so fruit as well as flowers to look forward to.

Stop throwing plastic bags away


On other green issues I learnt that in Northern  Ireland retailers providing disposable plastic bags will  be required to make a 5p charge- similar rules apply in Wales and perhaps the UK should follow suit?

When you consider how many there are out there and that they take up to around  1,000 years to breakdown at landfill sites perhaps it's overdue?


Big Idea 94 is Evolution (perhaps we should start  to evolve?)


Darwin's The  Origin of Species  is credited as opening the door on evolution theory  but you can see that similar  work was also  under preparation by Alfred Russel Wallace.

Broadly speaking Darwin reckoned that the world might not have been created by God in 6 days and that perhaps man evolved from Homo antecessor (and the like) over many years this as a result of chance mutations and Survival of the fittest type stuff.
Now to say that this is (and was) a big idea is like saying that the sun is a long way away  (I'm rather clumsily trying to hint that it's an understatement).
Not only is it a big idea it ran counter to orthodoxy and the church's teachings (that used to be important).
So if you hear creationists now as a few dissenting voices imagine what Charles had to put up with.
And even with this (very good theory) there are (if you believe the theory is/could be correct) still a lot of questions as to why.