Dear friends of evolution,

I’m excited to announce the official launch of Evolution: This View of Life in time for Darwin Day (Feb 12) 2012.

Evolution: This View of Life is an online general interest magazine in which all of the content is from an evolutionary perspective. It includes content aggregated from the internet, following the example set by the Huffington Post, as well as new content generated by our staff of editors and contributing authors in eleven subject areas: biology, culture, health, arts, technology, religion, politics, mind, economy, environment, and education.

In addition to progress within the biological sciences, evolutionary science is expanding beyond biology to include all human-related subjects. Evolution: This View of Life provides a way for the general public to grasp what Darwin meant when he said that “there is grandeur in this view of life.” It is a view that encompasses “endless forms most beautiful and wonderful,” a theoretical framework that explains how such abundant diversity could have emerged from the simplest beginnings.

The magazine provides an intellectual forum at the professional level. We will strive to portray science as it actually happens: not as a monolithic collection of facts, but as an ongoing process of constructive disagreement that gradually converts hypotheses into durable knowledge. Because our staff of editors consists largely of practicing evolutionists, we aim to achieve a higher level of discourse than most other science media outlets.

The magazine is built upon a foundation provided by two organizations: EvoS, a campus-wide evolutionary studies program that started at Binghamton University in 2003 and expanded into a multi-institution consortium with the help of NSF funding; and the Evolution Institute, founded in 2007 as the first think tank to approach public policy from an evolutionary perspective. We thank Binghamton University, the National Science Foundation, the Evolution Institute, and a number of private donors for providing the support to create Evolution: This View of Life, which will remain closely associated with its parent organizations.

Please help us establish the success of Evolution: This View of Life in the following ways:
• Spread the word among your peers, colleagues, and friends (via email, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc.), and join our own network by visiting the website, which currently features an introductory video.
• If you are a journalist or blogger, please think about covering our launch and becoming a contributing author. We are not yet in a position to pay for material, but we can still help to publicize your work.
• If you are an evolutionary scientist, please help us represent your subject area by bringing relevant material to our attention, and consider trying your own hand at science journalism.
• If you belong to an evolution-related organization, please contact us to explore how we can work together for our mutual benefit.
• Finally, if you would like to help support the magazine, please contact us to discuss possibilities.

There is no doubt that evolution will eventually play the same role for the basic and applied human-related sciences that it already plays for the biological sciences, but how fast this happens and how well the public will be informed are more uncertain. We view Evolution: This View of Life as a catalyst of change, a way to accomplish in a matter of years what might otherwise require decades. Creating the magazine has been an excellent adventure for us and we look forward to sharing it with you on Darwin Day 2012.

Sincerely,
David Sloan Wilson, Biology Editor and Editor-in-Chief
Robert Kadar, Founding Editor and Managing Editor