[asa] Evolution Conference Washington, DC

When

Saturday, September 12, 2009, 8:30am – 5pm

Venue

Natural History Museum

Event Location

Baird Auditorium, Ground Floor (enter from Constitution Ave.)

Cost

Free; first come, first served

Since Darwin: The Evolution of Evolution

Natural History Museum scientists Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues (associate director for Research and Collections) and Dr. Douglas Erwin (curator, Department of Paleobiology) host a symposium celebrating the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book On the Origin of Species. This all-day event features talks by internationally renowned experts from the museum and other institutions.

Morning Session:
- 8:30-8:45: Cristian Samper (director, NMNH): Introduction
- 8:45-9:30: Janet Browne (Department of the History of Science, Harvard University): Two hundred years of Darwin: the role of anniversaries in the history of biology
- 9:30-10:00: Jonathan Coddington (Department of Entomology, NMNH): Darwin's tree
- 10:00-10:20: Coffee break
- 10:20-10:50: Gene Hunt (Department of Paleobiology, NMNH): The fossil record and the evolution of species
- 10:50-11:20: Jim Lake (Molecular Biology Institute, University of California at Los Angeles): Selection for cooperation in the first two billion years
- 11:20-11:50: Peter Crane (Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago): No longer mysterious? An update on the origin and early evolution of angiosperms
- 11:50-12:00: Questions for morning session

- 12:00-1:30: Lunch break

Afternoon Session:
- 1:30-2:00: Douglas Erwin (Department of Paleobiology, NMNH): The challenge of the Cambrian Explosion: the construction of animal biodiversity
- 2:00-2:30: Naomi Pierce (Museum of Comparative Zoology and Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University): Nabokov meets Darwin: origin and evolution of blue butterflies
- 2:30-3:00: Per Ahlberg (Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University): When fins became feet: fossils, genes, and the move from water to land
- 3:00-3:20: Coffee break
- 3:20-3:50: Hans Sues (associate director for Research and Collections, NMNH): Unearthing mammalian origins: the fossil record of a major evolutionary transition
- 3:50-4:20: Richard Potts (Department of Anthropology, NMNH): 'Light would be thrown on the origin ...': what we have learned about human evolution since Darwin
- 4:20-4:30: Questions for afternoon session
- 4:30-5:00: General discussion moderated by Drs. Sues and Erwin