The Book Of The Year

IN a few minutes I'm going out, to ride the towpath to Bethlehem, watch the First Night fireworks and usher along the old and new years right -- with a bike ride. Meantime, this quote I think sums up my internal life this year, or at least lately:

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. - Charles Darwin

That reminds me very strongly of Isaac Newton and the world view he ushered in, where all the different phenomena of the world could be seen, and demonstrated to be the manifold ramifications of simple, elegant ideas. Add to that a sentiment I saw expressed in the comments to one of Pharyngula's posts: "The essence of science is asking the question 'But how do you know what you know?' " and I think we have 2005 covered. Catch you on the flipside...