![]() A University of California Museum of Paleontology short course Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809. His birthday is an opportunity to celebrate his contribution to science and its influence in such diverse academic fields as biology, anthropology, and medicine. To kick off the multiple celebrations that will be taking place in the Bay Area, UCMP offers you the opportunity to join historians and evolutionary biologists as they discuss the extraordinary life of Charles Darwin, his contributions, his legacy, and our current understandings of evolutionary theory. Speakers will include Keith Thomson, Kipling Will, Kevin Padian, and Eugenie Scott. Saturday, February 7, 2009 As an added bonus, a teacher workshop on evolution presented by UCMP, California Academy of Sciences, Human Evolution Research Center, KQED QUEST, SETI, and the National Center for Science Education will be held the following day on Sunday, February 8, 9:30 am to 3:00 pm (registration opens at 9:00 am). The workshop, held in 2063 VLSB, will include behind-the-scenes tours of the Human Evolution Research Center and lunch. More information is available here. Agenda
Campus parking map (pdf) |
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8:00-9:00 |
Registration |
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9:00-9:15 |
Introductory remarks |
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9:15-10:15 |
What were the sources of Darwin's ideas? |
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10:15-10:25 |
Break |
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10:25-11:25 |
Darwin's scientific legacy |
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11:25-12:00 |
Discussion and audience Q&A on Charles Darwin Kevin Padian and Keith Thomson. |
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12:00-1:15 |
Lunch (on your own) |
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1:15-2:15 |
A Taste for Insects |
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2:15-2:25 |
Break |
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2:25-3:00 |
Evolution and Intelligent Design: A view from the Dover trial |
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3:00-3:30 |
What will the creationists do next? |
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3:30-4:00 |
Discussion Kevin Padian and Eugenie Scott |
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About the speakers Keith Thomson is professor emeritus of Natural History, University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow of the American Philosophical Society. Previously he was professor and director of the University Museum, Oxford, University; University Distinguished-Scientist-in-Residence, New School for Social Research; president, Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia; and professor, dean, and director of the Peabody Museum at Yale University. He is the author of thirteen books including Living Fossil (1991); HMS Beagle (1995) Fossils: A very Short Introduction (2005), Before Darwin (2005), The Legacy of the Mastodon (2008); A Passion for Nature: Thomas Jefferson and Natural History (2008) and The Young Charles Darwin (2009). Kevin Padian has been a professor of evolutionary biology and paleontology at Berkeley since 1980. He is interested in how big changes get started in evolution, and in the history of thought about biology and evolution. A lot of his focus is on the age of dinosaurs and how dinosaurs evolved into birds. He is also the long-time President of the National Center for Science Education, the pre-eminent organization that explains the creationism vs. science issue to the public. In 2005 he was an expert witness in the Dover, Pennsylvania "Intelligent Design" trial. Kipling Will is an Associate Professor and Insect Systematist in Environmental Science Policy and Management and Associate Director of the Essig Museum of Entomology, UC Berkeley. He is a systematist and taxonomist with interests in defensive chemical and behavioral evolution, historical biogeography, and the theory and practice of systematics. His studies use a broad range of data types to develop phylogenetic hypotheses for massively diverse worldwide beetle groups, with an emphasis on groups distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. Eugenie C. Scott is Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, Inc., a non-profit organization that supports the teaching of evolution in the public schools. A former university professor, she is internationally-known as an authority on the creationism/evolution controversy in the United States. Questions? Contact Read about past UCMP short courses.
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