Our big University of Chicago DarwinFest, organized by Bob Richards, Neil Shubin and me, starts this Thursday and goes through Saturday evening. It features a glittering panoply of biologists, philosophers, and historians of science, reprising the famous U of C conference of 1959.
Our formal registration is full up, with 600 people having plunked down their fee, but we’ll still accept some walk-ins. The website is here and the program is here. I’ll report as much as I can consistent with my helping run the thing. In the meantime, here’s the schedule for the plenary session at Rockefeller Chapel this Thursday evening (Lewontin was my Ph.D. advisor).
6:00 p.m. Welcome by Robert Zimmer, President of the University of Chicago
6:15 p.m. Richard Lewontin (Harvard University): “Genetic Determination and Adaptation: Two Bad Metaphors”
7:00 p.m. Ronald Numbers (U. of Wisconsin): “Anti-Evolutionism in America: Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design”
7:45 p.m. Marc Hauser (Harvard University): “From Where do Morals Come? NOT Religion!”
Here’s a snap of Julian Huxley at the plenary session in 1959, also at Rockefeller Chapel:
Fig. 1. Preaching to the choir.
Wish I was there! Is it being podcast?
All the talks will be FILMED and, I hope, put up on the website after the conference is over.
That’s good news! I look forward to watching them.
That’s excellent news. It’s great to see that such events aren’t going to be restricted by geographic location. I lament that being in Australia means constantly missing out on great lectures by individuals whom I admire.
It seems a great way to propagate science too, the more information available to the general public the better. If nothing else, it equips us layman with the information required to tackle the various forms of pseudoscience that infest the general culture.
I am confused:
I guess I really want to see what this one is about. My first interpretation is that it is anti-Darwin, but what do I know?
Wow. You got Lewontin? I’m tempted to be one of those walk-ins just for that.
Great interview with Robert Richards on WFMT about the conference. You can hear it here (the October 26 show) –
http://feeds.feedburner.com/critical_thinking
It opens with the Darwin Song from the 1959 conference – I believe it is “Homeward Plows the Beagle”.