In the midst of today's ardent popular debate surrounding evolution and intelligent design, this conference assembles world-renown scientists of diverse intellectual interests, including not only basic and medical scientists, but also scholars who examine the history of science and the philosophy of its practice.
"Considering recent assaults on the teaching of evolutionary science to the next generation of thinkers, there is no better time to showcase leading-edge research in evolutionary biology and to reiterate that the study of biology and organismal development is inherently the study of evolution and its consequences," said evolutionary geneticist Todd Martin, co-organizer of the conference along with developmental biologist Alex Wolf, both Chicago graduate students.
The conference will open with keynote addresses by Peter Holland, Ph.D., of University of Oxford, and Naomi Pierce, Ph.D., of Harvard University, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20, in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel (1156 East 59th Street). The keynote lectures are free and open to the public.
Holland is the Linacre Professor of Zoology, and the associate head of Oxford's Department of Zoology. He also is a fellow of Merton College, and the head of the Development Research Group. His research interests include evolutionary developmental biology, genome evolution, homeobox genes and molecular phylogeny. His talk is titled, "Exploiting Genomics in Evolutionary Developmental Biology."
Pierce is Harvard's Hessel Professor of Biology and curator of Lepidoptera at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. She studies behavioral ecology and the evolution of species interac
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Contact: Catherine Gianaro
catherine.gianaro@uchospitals.edu
773-702-6241
University of Chicago Medical Center
14-Oct-2005