Birthdays to remember

摘要

Anniversaries are big business in the cultural world and have long been convenient events for promoting agendas. Tourism, commerce, education; all these can be boosted in the name of an anniversary. In science, anniversaries help us to explore the implications of truly important achievements, confirm shared ideas, highlight the value of key players and look forward to new problems to resolve. As we fast approach 2009, the bicentenary of Darwin's birth and the 150th year since the publication of On the Origin of Species, it is worth remembering that scientific anniversaries also provide an opportunity to push an agenda, and even to adapt the past, so telling us what we like best to hear.