Introducing Geelan

Continuing the discussion from The 'modern evolutionary synthesis' versus 'Darwinism':

Glad you joined us. Tell us about yourself? How did you find Peaceful Science?

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My friend Matthew Herzel invited me to join the Peaceful Science Facebook group, and then you, @swamidass, invited me to the forum!

I’m a science educator by profession, and one of my current research interests is the ways in which science teachers explain scientific concepts to students.

I grew up Seventh-day Adventist and creationist, and have moved on from there, with much thought and discussion.

Since this introduction post can feature a leeetle shameless self-promotion, let me share links to things that might help people to have a bit more of a sense of who I am:

https://experts.griffith.edu.au/7128-david-geelan

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I probably should have mentioned that I was born in Sydney, Australia and have lived in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia in Australia, and in Papua New Guinea and Edmonton, Canada.

I’m the husband of one wife - our 33rd anniversary is next month - and have two daughters in their 20s, one married and one engaged.

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Welcome aboard.

I grew up in Western Australia, moved to USA for graduate school and stayed here. I still consider myself as part Australian.

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Welcome! How did you like our winter?

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It was a novelty for us! I’d ‘been to the snow’ (in the one small patch in the mountains that gets any in Australia) once in my life, but my wife and daughters had never seen snow before they arrived.

I did it the right way: Perth winter to Edmonton summer to take up the job in July. Sue needed to finish a degree and the kids to finish their Southern Hemisphere school years, so they came in late November. Literally from about +40 C in Perth to -25 C with a windchill of -40 in Edmonton!

Thoroughly enjoyed my work at the U of A and the lovely people, got lots of opportunities to do great things around the world. We went to Banff a fair bit and explored the west of the country, with a couple of conferences in places out east.

After 5 years the novelty had worn off, and 6 month winters were starting to drag… but my kids had great stories with which to regale their Australian classmates of walking to school in the snow!

That, plus it was hard to get back to see the grandparents and the extended family, so we came back to Oz… but my younger daughter in particular identifies as part-Canadian because those 5 years were at such a formative time.

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I like you already! :slight_smile:

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Have to say that the birds in Australia are way cool. I spent 3 weeks, Sidney to Darwin to Cairns to the wilds of South Queensland and encountered around 285 species I’d never seen before. Hope to go back some day and get to Western Australia.

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I used to raise those amazing Gouldian finches of Australia, specifically the rarer color mutations. I had to get rid of them when I moved to another state to take a new faculty post. (Getting all of the necessary bird importation permits and dealing with the transportation hassles was beyond what I wanted to navigate.)

Welcome aboard, @ProfBravus.

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Saw them in the wild, at a water hole. Sadly, I was unable to find any budgies.