Darwin Day!

Today's papers are quite dull and predictable, except for the double page F6 spread on Charles Darwin. It's really a mashup of three articles, one on Darwin himself (in which, as always, he comes across as a lovely chap); one on the ongoing pushback against evolutionary theory; and the third on an eccentric Ottawan couple who hold an annual 'Phylum Feast' featuring burdock, sea cucumbers and god knows what -- the idea is to represent as many different taxa as possible -- in honour of the great man every Feb. 12.

The pushback stuff is spooky if unsurprising, and raises anew the question of why Canada is so different from the United States on issues like creationism, given that we in fact have just as high a proportion of mouthbreathing truth-haters in the population. But the part that really struck me was the Phylum Feast. It all sounds horribly inedible but still, these guys have the right idea. The great (and somewhat surprising) defect of secularism has always been its failure to create a calendar of emotionally satisfying, socially bonding rituals and seasonal narratives to compete with those of the church. Of course there should be a Darwin Day, with appropriate rites and feasts. Other obvious candidates for secular sainthood (in this functional and festive sense)? I would nominate Nietzsche (patron saint of the mad, and classicists), Emma Goldman, Gandhi, Mozart (the poor, child prodigies) and/or Beethoven (the deaf), for starters. Each would have to be someone you could build an interesting party around, one way or another, and collectively they would represent the diversity of human biography and all the traits you want to celebrate. (It's no barrier if they also have gigantic character flaws, as any reading of Lives of the Saints will help to make clear.) It wouldn't be hard to come up with a very appealing Secular Calendar, and as for designing the rituals we have millennia of evidence as to what works. A friend of mine was baptised by his atheist parents at home in single-malt scotch: that works for me. I vote for the annual fast period to culminate in Colette Day, on which you're obliged to prepare the most sensual self-indulgent French meal you can contrive, and for the pilgrimage to be tied to Mozart -- who wouldn't prefer a Hajj that ended up in Vienna?

So what should we do on Darwin Day? Something to do with nature, obviously -- mass country rambles, perhaps. And he was by all accounts an underachieving youth and a wonderful father, so perhaps after the walk everyone would have to take a young person out for tea and listen sympathetically.