The philosophy/history and biology sessions were held simultaneously, and as I had to stay with my people, I didn’t get to hear folks like Genie Scott, Dan Dennett, Philip Kitcher, and the like. But all their talks will soon be on the website, and I’ll let you know when they’re up. Here are a few more snaps from the conference:
Fig. 1. Looking dubious (or maybe just myopic), Doug Futuyma inspects the cast of Tiktaalik roseae that Neil Shubin brought to accompany his talk. The cast was the biggest star of the meeting.
Fig. 2. Janet Browne, author of the magisterial two-volume biography of Darwin
Fig. 3. Tom Schoener and David Kingsley
Fig. 4. Dan Dennett and co-organizer Bob Richards
Fig. 5. Genie Scott
Fig. 6. Is that a Cuba Libre, Dr. “Pretty Zonked” Myers? The Zedster tanking up shortly before he was caught in flagrante delicto with Michael Ruse.
Fig. 7. What Dr. Coyne feels like today.
Trying to speak objectively, I think the meeting was pretty successful, at least from the biology end (as I said, I didn’t see the history/philosophy talks). The talks were as I requested: broad overviews — not narrow research summaries –that were comprehensible to the biologically informed layperson. And the speakers delivered the goods, with entertaining and engrossing presentations. I know I learned a lot! Thanks to all who came, and especially to Bob Richards, who, though listed as “co-organizer” with me, really did the mastodon’s share of the work. This conference was largely his vision and his accomplishment.
h/t: Malgorzata Koraszewska for the Darwined-out puppy
I read PZ Myer’s summaries of the talks he attended. A couple of those seemed to be a bit narrow. One of them even perplexed PZ. Thanks to PZ for his hard work. I could not attend, listen and blog simultaneously as he did.
I am enthusiastically awaiting the posting of the talks.
I was extremely impressed after reading some of PZ’s blog summaries. It sounds like you guys had a great conference.
PZ’s streamofconsciousnessblog. WPM.
If I were you Jerry I would be trembling: PZ’s wrath could be epic!
Sounds like a great conference. Wish I could have been there. Are there any plans for a published conference proceedings?
Nope. I took my cue from Steve Gould’s absolutely true comment: “Symposium volumes are the world’s greatest repositories of unread scientific literature.”
Right. The only people typically tempted to read such things are those writing a review paper. And if conference papers do happen to land in a review (less likely than “real” papers), they are probably only cited (if at all) from people reading the review who haven’t actually read the paper they’re citing. Baaaad scholarship. And those papers still remain basically unread.
Cute puppy. 🙂
…”broad overviews — not narrow research summaries –that were comprehensible to the biologically informed layperson.”
I found this to be mostly true. I am not trained in biology, but I was able to follow most of the biology talks without too much trouble. Sereno’s talk on phylogenies left me bamboozled, but that might have been because of the chicken sandwich. Thanks for the great conference!