From the International Conference on Evolution and Society

Academic speakers from over 30 countries gathered in Alexandria, Egypt, this week for an International Conference on Evolution and Society, debating cutting edge research in evolutionary science, and the social and cultural impact of Darwinism and evolution globally.

There's been a little coverage here and there on the web. The Guardian's Riazat Butt has written an excellent series of articles on the newspaper's Comment is Free website. Nadia El-Awady, Cairo-based science journalist and President of the World Federation of Science Journalists, has penned an insightful blog post. There was also a fair bit of coverage on Twitter.

Darwin at the movies

No, not just Creation, but Jurassic Park, 2001: A Space Odyssey and, er, Alien.

A curious selection of films, but all part of Darwin, Evolution and the Movies, a film festival celebrating Darwin200 year. The films are on at the Lexi and the Rio and Shortwave cinemas in London between 20-28 November.

Several short films will precede the main features, including some funded by the Wellcome Trust: Darwin originals, Evolving Words and the Tree of Life among them.

Darwin's Inheritance at Wellcome Collection

Just a quick reminder that Wellcome Collection's Darwin Inheritance event is on tomorrow afternoon.

Event starts at 3pm. No need to book, but turn up a bit early to guarantee your place.

Communicating Darwin’s Ideas

Posted on behalf of Derek Bell

Last week I had the pleasure of taking part in the international symposium on Darwin's ideas and teaching. Communicating Darwin’s Ideas: Richness and Opportunity was held at the National Science Learning Centre (NSLC) in York. This unique event was jointly organised by the British Council, the Natural History Museum (NHM), NSLC and the Wellcome Trust (WT) as part of the Darwin celebrations programme.

Participants in the symposium came from over 20 countries as far apart as Brazil and China, South Africa and Canada, and Slovenia and Morocco. This geographical diversity was matched only by the range of professional and cultural backgrounds of those attending: scientists, teachers, science communicators university lecturers and policymakers.

The challenging programme of presentations and workshops put together by the symposium directors, Jeremy Airey (NSLC) and Honor Gay (NHM) with the support of Amy Sanders (WT), covered the science and history as well as the cultural and religious debates that surround the phenomena that are Darwin and evolution.

Driving to York for the symposium – where I was to deliver the final address – I was not sure whether the programme would work. Attempting to pull together such a wide range of perspectives was somewhat of a risk but then I guess I hadn’t allowed for the enormous pulling power of Darwin as a person and his theory of evolution by natural selection. By the time I was driving home I wondered why I had had any doubts in the first place.

In short, we had a week of stories, ideas, people and science.

The stories were of many types relating to the people, ideas and the science that surround the history, understanding and acceptance of evolution. The key point was that in trying to communicate Darwin’s ideas we need to provide an overall picture of the concepts involved. Darwin himself talked of On the Origin of Species as ‘one long argument’ emphasising the need to look at the whole picture rather than just picking off individual bits of evidence.

Ideas abounded during the week, from reclaiming science as culture to recreating Lake Malawi in a jam jar as a model of ecological niche development. Discussion, however, was never far from the central idea that in essence the concept of evolution is ‘simple’ but extremely subtle, providing great explanatory power or, as one participant put it, a “global approach to life sciences”.

People were important to Darwin. Delegates agreed that if Darwin had been alive today he would have been using email and Facebook to share and debate his ideas with his extensive social network drawn from all over the world. The debates, both scientific and cultural that began during Darwin’s time and have continued ever since, have involved a variety of fascinating characters of all faiths and none. All this underlined the feeling that Darwin and his ideas can be made accessible to everyone.

In the end, however, it is Darwin’s science that is at the heart of everything: the fascination, awe, wonder and controversy. During the week we were reminded of the importance of the traditional disciplines of biology such as taxonomy and systematics, as well as being entranced by the latest hi-tech analyses of genomics. More fundamentally, as one of the delegates said,

“Science does not have all the answers. It progresses by building on previous knowledge, is a process of gradually improving our understanding and scientists are human.”

The challenge is how do we now improve the ways in which we communicate Darwin’s ideas. The richness and opportunity are almost unlimited as are the means of communication. Whatever the context, informal or formal, in which we work this Symposium provided a us all with a wealth of material around which we can use the ideas, the people and the science of Darwin to develop powerful explanatory stories which can help us all to better understand this amazing world in which we live.

Derek Bell is Head of Education at the Wellcome Trust.

Darwin: the comedy

No, this isn't another post about intelligent design.

Comedy group The Missing Inc. brings you the nicely titled The Beagle Has Landed, "a raucous – and wildly inaccurate – account of Charles Darwin’s voyage upon HMS Beagle, some stuff about natural selection and his marriage to his cousin Emma."

From the website:

"After receiving a letter from a mysterious hooded figure, Darwin takes to the sea on HMS Beagle, commanded by the bizarre Captain Fitzroy. Following an unsuccessful attempt at entertaining his fellow seamen, Darwin encounters the ferocious and warlike Maoris of New Zealand . With time rapidly running out, the show culminates in a grossly exaggerated retelling of Darwin’s voyage as a 1950’s radio serial, aided by screams and sound effects from the audience."

If that sounds like your cup of tea, there's a show on at the Manchester Museum this Friday (30th October) as part of the Manchester Science Festival. There's another on at the Natural History Museum in London on Friday 20th November.

For further details and tickets visit the website.

Lecture in Birmingham: Is Human Evolution Over?

If you're at a loose end in Birmingham this Thursday, the following event might be of interest:

The British Science Association (West Midlands) Prestige Lecture: Is Human Evolution Over?
Speaker: Professor Steve Jones, Professor of genetics and head of the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London.

"Many people are convinced that somehow the human race is in decline - an idea which can be traced to the Ancient Greeks. In its modern form the notion is seen in evolutionary terms as bad genes taking over. Professor Steve Jones will argue that everything we know about human evolution (which is a lot) argues for the opposite: that at least in developed countries, and at least for the time being, human evolution has slowed down or stopped."

Date: Thursday 22 October
Time: Lecture - 7pm preceded by light refreshments and the AGM to which all are welcome
Cost: FREE but booking advisable - www.thinktank.ac/adult then scroll down to find us
Location: THINKTANK Millennium Point, Curzon Street, Birmingham, B4 7XG
Theatre - Level 2

Darwin events at Wellcome Collection

Wellcome Collection is running a free event that is sure to be of interest to Tree of Life blog readers.

Darwin's Inheritance draws on Wellcome Collection's extensive range of objects, archives and illustrative materials to "contextualise the life and work of Charles Darwin and investigate the legacy of his discoveries in the 20th century."

Each session gives you a tour of Wellcome Collection's permanent galleries followed by an illustrated talk in the Wellcome Library.

There are two sessions in November, one on Thursday 5 November and another on Thursday 19 November, running for around 90 minutes from 3pm. Booking is not necessary (just turn up at the reception in good time for the start) and both events are free. For further details and more events, please see the Wellcome Collection website.

Beagle-inspired play at the RI and logbooks used for climate studies

Tree of Life blog readers who live or can get to London on the evening of Thursday 29 October might be interested in a one-off performance of Juliet Aykroyd's play The Ostrich and the Dolphin and the subsequent discussion at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Blurb from the RI website:

The Dolphin is Robert FitzRoy, pioneer of weather forecasting and captain of HMS Beagle. Charles Darwin, his seasick passenger, is the Ostrich. The outcome of their adventurous sea voyage between 1831-6 was Darwin's momentous account of the Origin of Species: a Theory which subverted FitzRoy's beliefs and threatened his very being.

In a 4-way dialogue between their younger and older selves, the play dramatises the FizRoy and Darwin's doomed friendship, and reveals one tragic aftermath of the great Beagle voyage.

After the play there will be a discussion of the play's themes and Darwin's ideas featuring Juliet Aykroyd, Lord Julian Hunt, former Chief Executive of the Met Office, and Professor Armand Leroi, an evolutionary developmental biologist. The discussion is chaired by Baroness Susan Greenfield, Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Tickets cost £8 (£6 concessions, £4 for members of the RI) and can be booked here.

In related Beagle news, earlier this week the BBC reported that the logbooks of the HMS Beagle are to be used in retrospective climate studies, which may give researchers clues as to past climate. Hat-tip to the Beagle Project blog for this.

Darwin exhibition and talk in Manchester

A couple of events of interest coming up at the Manchester Museum.

Charles Darwin: Evolution of a Scientist is on now until 30 August 2010. The exhibit allows you to "Discover who Charles Darwin was and the impact of his work... showcasing fantastic objects - some collected by Darwin himself - and illustrated in a graphic novel style."

It's all part of their Darwin extravaganza 'The Evolutionist'. Visit the website for more details.

The Manchester Museum is also the venue for a British Society for the History of Science public lecture by Thomas Dixon. 'Darwinism vs creationism: a very American conflict' will explain how the culture, law, and politics of the USA helped to create a confrontation between evolution and Christian creationism in the second half of the twentieth century.

The lecture is on Monday 12 October 5.30-7pm and is free to attend, no booking required.

Darwin: the ballet

For something completely different you might like to attend what sounds like a very ambitious, but intriguing, dance interpretation of Darwin's theories.

The Rambert Dance Company will soon begin a UK tour of its ballet, Comedy of Change, "combining the fascinating and exuberant worlds of evolution and dance". The Guardian has an in-depth feature article on the ballet.

Themes of the performance include avian intelligence (featuring an "avian tango") and an interpretation of the Darwinian concept of time ("In nature, very different time cycles interact. A rock appears to be static, when, in fact, it's changing over a long period of time. The blades of grass growing between the rocks have a much faster life cycle, while the bird pecking at the grass displays a frantic degree of energy, activity and change," says the ballet's music composer Julian Anderson).

Other underlying themes include "the concept that beauty, intelligence, art and the religious impulse are fundamental in the battle for survival; and that the process of evolution has, for better or worse, elevated the human race to the highest species on the planet," says Marc Baldwin, who choreographed Comedy of Change.

Baldwin came up with the ballet after an approach from his friend Stephen Keynes, great-grandson of Charles Darwin and founder of the Darwin Trust. I wonder if his grandfather was a ballet fan?

Comedy for Change starts in Plymouth on 16 September and will tour throughout the UK. Visit the Rambert website for more details.

Dawkins in person

Further to last week's post on Richard Dawkins' new evolution book, The Greatest Show on Earth, the man himself will be putting in a few appearances over the next few months to promote it.

In conversation with James Harding, Editor of The Times
Wednesday 16 September
The Logan Hall, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London.
£7

In conversation with Erica Wagner, Literary Editor of The Times
Wednesday 23 September
Royal Northern College of Music, 124 Oxford Road, Manchester

Friday Evening Talk at the V&A
Tuesday 24 November
V&A, South Kensington, London
£8

More events on Dawkins' official website.

Thanks to the Londonist for the initial tip.

Darwin Endless forms - exhibition and podcast

The Darwin Endless Forms exhibition explores Darwin's interest in the visual arts, alongside some of the artistic responses to his ideas in the later 19th century.

The exhibition, supported by the Wellcome Trust as part of its Darwin200 activities, opens this week at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and runs until October. Featuring works by Turner, Degas, Monet and Cézanne it looks at the impact of the theory of evolution upon artists of the late nineteenth century, offering "an intriguing new perspective on the cultural resonance of Darwin’s theories."

The exhibition is accompanied by a series of podcasts exploring Darwin's life, work and legacy. The first two looked at Darwin's fascination with Geology and his student days at Christ College Cambridge. You can download and watch the audio and video files here.