Darwin Day Symposium: "Darwin and Me"
Five superb scientists and scholars from the Harvard community will speak for ten minutes each on the theme "Darwin and Me". Hear them discuss the importance of Darwin's 'dangerous idea' to the work that they do and the lives that they lead! Open to all. Presentations are for a general audience, and no registration is required.
Details
- Venue: BioLabs 1068 (Main Auditorium, just beyond the rhino-flanked doors)
- Date: Feb 12, 2009 (Thursday)
- Time: 1 - 2:30 pm
- Contact: Leslie Beh (
lbeh at fas.harvard.edu )
Speakers and Talk Summaries
- Janet Browne - "What Darwin Means to Me"
- Steven Pinker - "The Design of Language"
- Marc Hauser - "The Evolutionary Origins of Patience"
- Hopi Hoekstra - "What Darwin Didn't Know - the Genetics of Adaptation"
- Arkhat Abzhanov - "Darwin's Finches in Evolutionary Theory - Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow"
Janet Browne explains the fascination of Darwin's lifestory--an unusual combination of adventure, radical thinking, and quiet respectability. (Website)
(Website)
We put away money for retirement, avoid eating fatty foods so that we can look svelte, invest years into education so that we can cash in on good jobs and the satisfaction that comes from knowing something deeply. How did we evolve such patience? I adopt the Darwinian comparative method to answer this question, showcasing new results on how social and ecological pressures shaped our own and our ancestors' capacity to forego immediate gratification for delayed rewards. (Website)
Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was especially remarkable because he was, at the time, without any knowledge of genetics. Since Darwin, the discovery of chromosomes and later DNA, has provided that missing mechanism of inheritance. More recently, we have been able to take advantage of genetic, and now genomic, tools to provide yet another layer of evidence to instantiate Darwin's theory. I will present some new results -- from both the laboratory and the field -- on the genetics of adaptation in natural populations. (Website)
Darwin's finches, along with other species mentioned by Charles Darwin in his works, were instrumental in formation of the theory of evolution. Over the last 100 years Darwin's finches were studied by many other scientists and became key examples of many processes in evolution. Our work builds on that heritage and aims to provide more genetic and molecular explanations using latest developmental biology techniques. (Website)