HENRY

As part of the 150th anniversary celebrations of a certain Charles Darwin, Radio New Zealand is getting a whole bunch of New Zealand scientists to give public lectures about Darwin’s impact on our place in the world. They’re recording them, broadcasting them over the radio, and you can listen to them on the internet here (the first two are online already).

Lecture 1 - Darwin and the Evolution of an Idea (Professor Lloyd Spencer Davis, University of Otago)

In the last 2000 years there has been one idea, above all else, that has altered the way we view the world and our place in it. That idea is evolution by natural selection and the originator of the idea was Charles Darwin

Lecture 2 - The Evolution of Biological Complexity (Professor Paul Rainey FRSNZ, Massey University).

Professor Rainey paints a picture of life’s evolution from the perspective of major evolutionary transitions, including that from solitary organisms to societies.

Lecture 3. The Principle of Evolution: Absolute Simplicity (Professor David Penny CNZM FRSNZ, Research Director, Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Massey University)

Can we find anything in biology that is not understandable, or not explainable, by the things we can observe and measure in the present? Evolution is, by far, the simplest possible way of understanding ourselves, our past, and our future.

Lecture 4. The fossil record (Professor Alan Cooper, Director, Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, The University of Adelaide)

How should we interpret what the fossil record tells us about evolution - both in general, and with regard to how New Zealand has ended up as it is today?

5. Evolutionary Psychology (Professor Russell Gray, The University of Auckland)

Attempts to explain human behaviour in evolutionary terms have a mixed history. Today, crude social Darwinian and socio-biological explanations are increasingly being replaced by richer, more complex theories.

6. The Storytelling Ape: Evolution, Art, Story, Culture (Professor Brian Boyd, The University of Auckland)

Brian Boyd will focus on art, perhaps the feature of human behavior that might seem to have least to do with a struggle for existence. Can biology explain why art (music, dance, visual art, storytelling and verse) is a human universal? Why do we so compulsively invent and engage with stories we know to be untrue?

Posted on September 2nd, 2008 by Simon Greenhill