Darwin

The Andersen family's turtles are cold-blooded competitors. Speedy, a red-nosed slider, won the first heat by a red nose yesterday at the 66th annual Chesapeake Turtle Derby in Patterson Park. The next race went to the Bel Air family's other slider, Claude. "One of them always wins," Charlie Andersen said of the turtles. "It's almost embarrassing. We've got probably 10 trophies from turtle races at our house." Andersen, who attended the race with his wife, son and daughter, said the family has been competing in turtle derbies since they adopted Claude in 1998.

I was only 2 years old when my parents left war-ravaged Belgium in 1955 to seek a new life. They arrived in the Galapagos Islands when almost no one knew the islands even existed and raised they their two children in the midst of nature.My earliest memories are of sunshine and endless beaches marked only by the footprints of turtles and seabirds, of diving among sea lions in search of abundant lobsters, of climbing volcanoes and helping my father hunt wild goats for the dinner table.I wore no shoes and few clothes, knew no electricity or running water, saw my first automobile when I was 10. But life was rich beyond measure.

Mill Creek, just north of Annapolis, was socked in by fog Friday morning as Capt. Ed Darwin moved about the Becky D, lighting the kerosene heater, warming the engine and chatting easily with a late-season charter party."

Quote: "If you don't have your stuff against that lineup, you're going to get hit hard. I was up and over the middle of the plate all day. It was just one of those days when I didn't have anything." -- Giants starter Danny Darwin, who gave up seven runs in 3 1/3 innings to the Braves.It's a fact: The Cardinals' three homers gave them 145, breaking last year's team record for homers in a season.Who's hot: The Mets' Armando Reynoso is 3-0 with an 0.82 ERA in three starts since coming off the disabled list.

Quote: "I probably should be out shopping or doing work that needs to be done. But when I saw that we got [Mike Piazza], I wanted to come out and see his first game with the Mets." -- Mets fan Jack Sanchez.It's a fact: The paid attendance of 15,663 was the largest at Olympic Stadium since April 12, when the Cubs' Kerry Wood made his major-league debut.Who's hot: The Mets' Al Leiter lowered his ERA to a major-league-best 1.49 and has allowed just six runs and 24 hits in his past 35 1/3 innings.

CHICAGO -- So what if the Orioles have scored five runs while stranding the entire South Side in three games. A slump is in the eye of the hitter, and Roberto Alomar sees no slumps.Doing his best to jack the Orioles from their most pronounced offensive funk of the season, Alomar made the most of yesterday's reunion with Chicago White Sox starter Danny Darwin. While Darwin's underpowered but well-placed assortment represents kryptonite to most of the Orioles' superbats, he is putty to Alomar.

When the Toronto Blue Jays signed Danny Darwin on April 11, it took up a couple of agate lines in the transactions column of newspapers around the country. In other words, you had to be paying close attention to even notice.The still defending World Series champions had picked up a marquee pitcher when they traded for David Cone. The New York Yankees had previously traded for Jack McDowell. The Orioles countered those moves by adding free agent Kevin Brown as the top American League East contenders jockeyed for pitching superiority.

Pop quiz before you read this column: If you caught the biggest rockfish in the world, would you:Eat it.Mount it.Let it go.*Aboard the Becky D, Ren Bowman grins with delight as his fishing rod throbs with the energy of a large rockfish."

Capt. Ed Darwin's first decision of the day was the hardest -- whether to run south from Mill Creek near Annapolis to fish for black drum off Poplar Island or to head north and go for white perch on the humps off Gibson Island and Bodkin Point."

Pitching coach Dick Bosman and Gregg Olson reported progress for the injured reliever yesterday, but manager Johnny Oates remains cautious about the possible return of the Orioles' closer."

On May 30, 2009, DARWIN WARREN WILSON; beloved husband of Mildred Wilson. On Thursday, friends may call at VAUGHN C. GREENE FUNERAL SERVICES (RANDALLSTOWN), 8728 Liberty Road from 5 to 8 P.M. On Friday, Mr. Wilson will lie in state at Gospel Tabernacle Baptist Church, 3100 Walbrook Avenue, where the family will receive friends 10 to 11 A.M with services to follow. Inquires to (410) 655-0015.

Blue eyes are typically associated with beauty, or perhaps Frank Sinatra. But to University of Wisconsin anthropologist John Hawks, they represent an evolutionary mystery. For nearly all of human history, everyone in the world had brown eyes. Then, between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, the first blue-eyed baby was born somewhere near the Black Sea. For some reason, that baby's descendants gained a 5 percent evolutionary advantage over their brown-eyed competitors, and today the number of people with blue eyes tops half a billion.

Man found stabbed in Southwest Baltimore dies A man was found stabbed in South Baltimore early yesterday and later died at Maryland Shock Trauma Center, city police said. Baltimore police found the man at 6:54 a.m. in the 200 block of W. Dickman St., said Officer Troy Harris, a police spokesman. The unidentified man was taken to Shock Trauma, where he died about 8:30 a.m. yesterday. Police said they had no suspects and knew of no motive for the killing. Nicole Fuller Fire destroys home in Fallston; no one hurt Fire destroyed a 12,000-square-foot home in Fallston late Saturday night while the residents were away, authorities said yesterday.

The Andersen family's turtles are cold-blooded competitors. Speedy, a red-nosed slider, won the first heat by a red nose yesterday at the 66th annual Chesapeake Turtle Derby in Patterson Park. The next race went to the Bel Air family's other slider, Claude. "One of them always wins," Charlie Andersen said of the turtles. "It's almost embarrassing. We've got probably 10 trophies from turtle races at our house." Andersen, who attended the race with his wife, son and daughter, said the family has been competing in turtle derbies since they adopted Claude in 1998.

WASHINGTON -- In a nation where 91 percent of citizens profess to believe in God, it's a safe bet we won't see an atheist in the White House anytime soon. But what about a president who doesn't believe in Darwin? And are Darwin and God mutually exclusive? These are the questions that (still) trouble men's souls. And still cause trouble for presidential candidates forced unfairly to essentially choose between God and science. In the "gotcha" question of the first GOP debate, journalist Jim VandeHei, relaying a citizen's question, asked John McCain: "Do you believe in evolution?"

The eight women form two parallel lines in the deep end of Riverside Park Pool, gracefully spinning in time to the chants of director Emily Burtt. "One, two, three, four," she counts. "Nice toes. Keep those toes real pointy." Soon, the colorful caps, lizard tails and starfish suits on the swimmers make it clear this isn't your grandmother's water aerobics. The swimmers are rehearsing a scene from It's a Wonderful Species, this year's water ballet from Baltimore-based performance group Fluid Movement.

What is it about evolution? Over the centuries, there have been many scientific findings that have differed from religious beliefs, causing all sorts of controversy. But evidence accumulated and the faithful came around, agreeing with near-unanimity that the Earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa, or that people with mental illnesses were not possessed by demons. That has not happened with evolution. Though in the century and a half since the publication of The Origin of Species virtually every biologist has concluded that Darwin got it essentially right, many still refuse to agree.

Some years back, I was given a tour of Down House, Charles Darwin's country estate near London, and allowed to sit in the special chair in which he wrote The Origin of Species and other revolutionary works. The chair was one he had devised himself: High-backed, stuffed with horsehair, it had casters attached so that he could scoot around his study to reach his books, his working table and his microscope. He had fashioned a cloth-covered board to fit over the arms as a writing surface. Once ensconced there, with the board lowered in place, I felt an indescribable thrill, like a child settling into the swing at a country fair when the bar descends to lock him in place.

WASHINGTON - At a time when America's children need to learn how to compete with India, Ireland and other countries to which we are rapidly losing jobs, some Americans would rather fuss and fret about whether man evolved from the apes. That's what I imagine the master lawyer Clarence Darrow would be saying if he were around to redefend Charles Darwin's theory of evolution against today's new version of creationism. I'm sure Mr. Darrow would be amazed and amused at last week's events in Topeka, Kan. Eighty years after his famous defendant, John Scopes, was arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee public schools, the Kansas Board of Education opened hearings in Topeka to hear new challenges to the teaching of Darwin.

Despite the overwhelming evidence for it, evolution generates more controversy today than it did in 1859, when Charles Darwin first dropped the bomb called The Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The descendants of groups who objected then are still raging now, and on the same grounds: Evolution denies the existence of God, nullifies the Bible and handicaps man's potential. After all, how moral can we be if we're descended from monkeys?