Three years ago this weekend, my wife, Kristy, and I welcomed our youngest daughter, Rylan, into the world. She and her older sister, Avery, are a constant source of joy and wonder in our lives. I truly cherish the opportunity to share my life with such genuinely inquisitive and sweet little girls.

By sheer coincidence, Kristy's original due date with Rylan was February 12, the birthdate of one of the most influential figures in all of modern science, Charles Darwin. This fact did not go unnoticed on my part, to the point that I remember being somewhat disappointed by our doctor's recommendation to induce labor two days early.

(Please don't misunderstand me. I completely supported Kristy's decision to go with the induction. I was just envisioning someday having an evolution-themed birthday party, including a game of "Pin the Tail on the Monkey" and a stratigraphically-layered birthday cake complete with candy fossils. Hey, a science teacher can dream can't he?)

Around the time that Rylan was born, I was undergoing a transition in my professional life as a Biology teacher. I had already developed an intense interest in the social and political controversies surrounding evolution. Up to that point, however, I had been content to confine my public advocacy for quality science education to my personal website, An Evolving Creation.

My original goal for the website was to offer some ideas about how one might reconcile belief in God with the continually expanding scientific understanding of humanity's place in the universe. My advocacy for this viewpoint eventually led to me being interviewed in January 2005 for an article in TIME Magazine about what it is like to teach evolution in Kansas. I was surprised by the attention the article brought me, but I figured things would die down soon enough.

Little did I know that this was only the beginning.

About a week before Kristy was due to give birth, I made the decision to finally step out of my comfort zone. I attended one of the public comment sessions to express my opinion about the revisions to the Kansas Science Standards that had been proposed by proponents of intelligent design (ID). As luck would have it, I ended up being among the first of many people that night to express support for REAL science. As a result, some of my commentary appeared on at least one local television station, in a couple of the local newspapers, and even on CNN Headline News.

What was Kristy's reaction to seeing my testimony on TV?

She just shook her head and laughed.

The following week, on February 9, 2005, the Kansas State Board of Education (KBoE) passed a resolution that outlined their plans to circumvent the established procedure for revising the science standards and give the ID proponents a special platform to advance their anti-evolution agenda.

Rylan was born on February 10, 2005. The following day, as my wife and newborn daughter slept next to me in the hospital room, I wrote an open letter to the KBoE majority expressing my disappointment with their recent shenanigans. When Kristy found out what I had been working on while she was asleep, she just shook her head again and laughed. By now, she had come to accept the fact that I was deeply passionate about defending the integrity of my chosen profession.

What followed were several months of intense media scrutiny, beginning with an Intelligently-Designed "Kangaroo Court" and culminating with the KBoE majority inevitably voting to adopt the ID-friendly standards on November 8, 2005.

During this period of time, I got to interact with supporters of REAL science from across the state of Kansas and beyond by becoming an active member of an online discussion forum at Kansas Citizens for Science. This was how I got to know many of my science education buddies, including Cheryl Shepherd-Adams, my co-blogger. In fact, I have been thinking lately that it's about time for Cheryl and I to actually meet in person!

Also at this time, thanks to my friend and mentor Harry McDonald, I was on a short list of Kansas Biology teachers who were willing to talk to reporters. I was interviewed by an AP reporter for a series of newpaper articles. I also welcomed television news crews from Canada and France into my classroom for interviews with me and my students.

Predictably, the science standards issue turned out to be a major reason why the Board eventually lost its ID-friendly majority. But they would not go down without a fight. Indeed, I created the "stand up for REAL science" website in response to an attempt by ID proponents to influence the outcome of the 2006 primary elections (archived article).

On February 12, 2006, Charles Darwin's 197th birthday, I celebrated the inaugural Evolution Sunday as Rylan was baptized into the Christian faith. At the time, I remember thinking that it was quite fitting that my daughter would be baptized on a day with such historic, scientific, and now religious significance.

Last year, on Evolution Sunday 2007, our pastor preached a sermon that, in part, emphasized the compatibility of modern science and Christianity. After the worship service was over, I informed him that he had just finished preaching about the reconciliation of faith and science on a weekend that had been specifically claimed by others for exactly that purpose.

He had no idea.

This revelation struck me as yet another notable coincidence.

The next day marked Darwin's 198th birthday. By another stroke of sheer luck, the following day was a snow day and I had the distinct pleasure of sitting at home and listening online as the newly-elected KBoE majority voted to replace the ID-influenced Kansas Science Standards with the standards recommended by the committee of scientists and educators originally appointed by the Board.

You see, had I been teaching that day, I would have been unable to listen to the meeting, and I would have missed out on hearing the efforts of so many folks like me finally paying off.

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So why did I feel the need to share all of this?

Is there some kind of hidden meaning behind all of these weird coincidences?

Are these experiences evidence of synchronicity?

Or are they merely examples of confirmation bias?

I honestly don't know. But I plan to wait a few more years before I completely reject the notion that Charles Darwin's birthday holds some type of special significance for me and my family.

Right now, I'm just looking forward to enjoying cake and ice cream with my three-year-old and hoping that one day she'll grow up to write something like this about me: