Washington, D.C. - 23 May 2002 - Our unique mental talents, intricate social communities, and reliance on symbolic communication stem from a history of adaptation to uncertainty and environmental risk in our ancestral world.
At the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), on 28 May Richard Potts, Ph.D., of the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and Stephen G. Post, Ph.D., of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, OH, will explore the human penchant for going beyond expectations, for creativity and action.
An alternative view focuses on evolution in unstable Earth environments, offering a strong basis for understanding the tendency of humans to express novelty, alter surroundings, transcend immediate space conditions, and sense the divine as part of life. Standard versions of human evolutionary history focusing on the challenges of specific habitats such as the African savanna or the European ice ages have difficulty explaining the transcendent and the uniqueness of human behavior.
A complete program of events is available at http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/seminar/default.htm.
WHAT: The Evolution of the Extraordinary in Human Life
WHEN: 28 May 2002, 5:45 - 7:15 p.m.
WHERE: AAAS, 2nd floor auditorium 1200 New York Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20005
HOST: The American Association for the Advancement of Science
RSVP: Reporters should RSVP to Monica Amarelo at 202-326-6431 or mamarelo@aaas.org
SPECIAL NOTE: The evening program will begin with a reception at 5:15 p.m. followed by the keynote address at 6:00 p.m. The program will finish by 7:30 p.m.
Contact: Monica Amarelo
mamarelo@aaas.org
202-326-6431
American Association for the Advancement of Science
23-May-2002