Claim OwnershipThe Darwin 2009 Festival - Day 2
Subscribed: 2Played: 21
Subscribe
Description
The Darwin 2009 Festival, 5-10 July 2009, celebrated the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the sesquicentenary of the publication of his most famous book, On the Origin of Species. About 1500 people attended the core Festival and at least the same number again attended the related exhibitions, tours and fringe events during the week. The programme comprised over 70 separate events and included 110 outstanding speakers. Intended to appeal to a broad audience, from academics to teenagers, the Festival covered a highly varied range of topics. The Festival encapsulated the current state of understanding of evolution. It addressed the agreements and disagreements; it revealed how far we have come and the possibilities and choices that may face us in the future. Video recordings of all the morning sessions listed by day, can be found on these web pages. Each session commences with a quote from Darwin’s correspondence. This is followed by two talks of around 25 minutes each. These are followed by presentations from 4 panellists each taking around 8 minutes. A selection of audio recordings of talks from the afternoon sessions can also be found on these pages. The full programme and abstract booklet for the Festival can be down loaded at http://www.darwin2009.cam.ac.uk/Festival/
6 Episodes
Reverse
Darwin and the ascent of emotionally modern man: how humans became such hypersocial apes
Professor Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (University of California, Davis, USA)
Summary: As Darwin observed early on, humans are remarkably similar to other apes. Like their larger brained, bipedal ‘cousins’, great apes also use tools and exhibit a rudimentary understanding of causality and ‘theory of mind’. However, other apes fall short of humans in intention-reading and cooperation. In this lecture I explain why I am convinced that the psychological and emotional underpinnings for apes to care so much about what others intend and feel emerged as a byproduct of shared parental and alloparental care and provisioning of young, what sociobiologists refer to as ‘cooperative breeding’. According to widely accepted chronology, large-brained, anatomically modern humans evolved around 150,000 years ago, and behaviourally modern humans, capable of symbolic thought and language, more recently still, between 50,000–80,000 years ago. But (I argue) emotionally modern humans, newly interested in the mental and subjective states of others and characterized by prosocial impulses to give and share, emerged far earlier along with what, for an ape, was a peculiar mode of rearing young.
Professor Sir John Sulston (University of Manchester, UK). Abstract: Darwin liberated us from dogma by making biology comprehensible, so allowing us to move forward. But whilst natural selection provides an explanation for our existence, it does not tell us how to behave. We must ourselves face up to our future as a thinking and powerful animal.
Voice of Darwin (in morning sessions). Terry Molloy is an actor, director, producer, trainer and corporate presenter. He is the voice of 'Mike Tucker' (the milkman from hell) in The Archers (BBC Radio 4), and has appeared on TV in Dr Who as the Doctor's nemesis 'Davros', creator of the Daleks, from 1983 to 1989, continuing through to today on audio CDs. He is currently appearing as 'Charles Darwin' in 'Re: Design' by Craig Baxter.
Cell biology and evolutionary medicine. Professor Sir Paul Nurse (Rockefeller University, New York, USA). Summary: Darwin's ideas of the tree of life and natural selection continue to inform medicine and biomedical research. For example, the single tree of life means that model organisms from bacteria to mice can be recruited to better understand human health and disease, whilst natural selection is applicable to the immune system and to cancer.
What do we mean by Darwinism? Professor Evelyn Fox Keller (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts, USA). Summary: The neo-Darwinian synthesis brought great simplicity to Darwin's ideas, but at a cost. Today, new scientific developments require a re-conceptualization of Darwinism that may be of particular importance to the social sciences: evolution is not just about DNA; it also depends crucially on heritable changes that occur without a change in DNA sequence, behavioural and symbolic inheritance.
Darwinian medicine. Professor Randolph Nesse (University of Michigan, USA). Summary: At least three kinds of evolutionary applications are transforming medicine and public health. First are well-established population genetic and phylogenetic evolutionary methods that are now being used on new genetic data. Second are attempts to address evolutionary questions about why natural selection left our bodies vulnerable. Some of the most powerful applications are in infectious disease, not just antibiotic resistance but evolutionary models that show how vaccines can shape pathogens to make them worse killers. Thirdly, Darwin's discovery means that our fundamental metaphor for the body has been incorrect. Thinking about the body as if it is a machine designed by an engineer conceals the reality of a body shaped by natural selection, vastly better than any machine can be in many respects, but hopelessly flawed in other ways that no engineer would tolerate for a minute. These insights are changing medical research and they will improve human health.
Comments
Top Podcasts
The Best New Comedy Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best News Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Business Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Sports Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New True Crime Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Joe Rogan Experience Podcast Right Now – June 20The Best New Dan Bongino Show Podcast Right Now – June 20The Best New Mark Levin Podcast – June 2024
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States