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The Evolution Meetings 2003-2004
Joint meetings of:
The American Society of Naturalists
The Society for the Study of Evolution
The Society of Systematic Biologists
Recorded Presentations
Audio Slide Shows (requires the use of QCShow Player)
Instructions on viewing lectures: If you are a first-time viewer, follow the links above and download the free QCShow Player. After you have installed the player, return here and click on the lecture of your choice.
Evolution 2003
The 2003 Public Understanding of Evolution Lecture
The Challenge of Intelligent Design
Eugenie Scott, National Center for Science Education, Inc.
Summary: Whether or not Intelligent Design poses a serious threat or challenge to Darwinian biology, it cannot be ignored as a socio-political phenomenon. Intelligent design may be said to have begun with the 1984 book, the "Mystery of Life's Origin" by Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen, which though limited to the topic of chemical evolution included the kernel of modern ID and its claim that certain scientific problems are inherently unexplainable through natural causes and require explanation by an outside intelligence. Proponents of intelligent design thus juxtapose it with evolution as a competing scientific explanation of the natural world. Throughout the 1990s several books and conferences refined the intelligent design perspective. In 1996, the Discovery Institute in Seattle announced the establishment of the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture. The ID - intelligent design - movement developed two major components. One was "cultural renewal", the goals of which were social and religious. The Center for Renewal of Science and Culture, quote, "seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies. New developments in biology, physics, and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have reopened the case for the supernatural."
Run Time: 1:02:07 Bit Rate: 46 kbps
The 2003 SSB Presidential Lecture
The Future of Systematics
Elizabeth Kellogg, University of Missouri, St. Louis
Summary: Most of us became systematicists because of our love of exploring the variation that we find in morphologies within groups of living organisms. But taxonomies based on morphologies are often confusing. No where is that more true than in the grasses. Morphologically-based phylogenies in the grasses are not well resolved due to the presence of homoplasious combinatorial gene expressions. Thus we need to reverse the question: "Ask not what your morphology can do for elucidating a phylogeny, but what your phylogeny can do for your understanding of morphological variation." Understanding the nature of evolutionary change requires not only creating a phylogeny of species, but also a detailed study of development and the underlying genetics of the organism. Studies are underway that include molecular genetics in elucidating a group's evolutionary history. This talk focusses on the members of the grass family, which is uniquely suited to a combined study of genetics and phylogenetics.
Run Time: 42:24 Bit Rate: 45 kbps
Evolution 2004
The 2004 Public Understanding of Evolution Lecture
There is a Striking Resemblance between You and a Monkey: The Epperson vs. Arkansas Evolution Ruling, Supreme Court, 1968
Susan Epperson, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
"In any event, we do not rest our decision upon the asserted vagueness of the statute. On either interpretation of its language, Arkansas' statute cannot stand. It is of no moment whether the law is deemed to prohibit mention of Darwin's theory, or to forbid any or all of the infinite varieties of communication embraced within the term 'teaching.' Under either interpretation, the law must be stricken because of its conflict with the constitutional prohibition of state laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The overriding fact is that Arkansas' law selects from the body of knowledge a particular segment which it proscribes for the sole reason that it is deemed to conflict with a particular religious doctrine; that is, with a particular interpretation of the Book of Genesis by a particular religious group.
"The antecedents of today's decision are many and unmistakable. They are rooted in the foundation soil of our Nation. They are fundamental to freedom.
"Government in our democracy, state and national, must be neutral in matters of religious theory, doctrine, and practice. It may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of noreligion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another or even against the militant opposite. The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion."
Susan EPPERSON et al., Appellants, v. ARKANSAS.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued Oct. 16, 1968.
Decided Nov. 12, 1968.
Run Time: 52:49 Bit Rate: 33 kbps
The 2004 SSB Presidential Lecture
What is the Information Content of the Phylogenetic Tree of Life?
Michael Sanderson, University of California, Davis
Summary: GenBank archives data on over 100,000 species (a surprisingly large fraction of described species diversity), but is extremely "sparse," composed almost entirely of small blocks of homologous data across relatively small sets of organisms. We have begun to outline strategies for optimal extraction of complete phylogenetic data sets from such sparse databases and have worked extensively on the problem of assembling the trees that result from these discrete analyses via supertree methods. The main goal of the research is to use these and similar algorithms to characterize the potential phylogenetic information content of sequence databases and to develop software to make "high-throughput" phylogenomics a reality. In the last few years, however, the research has shifted toward computational phylogenetic problems at the scale of the "tree of life", with an empirical emphasis on all green plants. Across these various levels we have been attracted to phylogenetic problems that pose methodological obstacles or present unusual quantitative challenges. The same is true of the evolutionary problems that have been addressed, most of which concern quantitative analyses of rates of molecular evolution (especially in relation to divergence time problems) or taxonomic diversification.
Run Time: 45:53 Bit Rate: 41 kbps
The 2004 ASN Presidential Lecture
Natural History for the 21st Century: Would Darwin Make the Short List?
Rick Grosberg, University of California, Davis
Summary: What is "natural history"? And why don't we see advertisements for natural historians in academic departments? Could someone like Darwin even be hired nowadays? To many, natural history is no longer science. Rather, it is at best merely an empathy with nature. But there are others who argue that a deep understanding of "natural history" lies at the base of our knowledge of biology. Gary Vermeij wrote in 2003, "There exists a natural history of organisms, of morphology, of developing parts of an embryo, and of the coding and constructional molecules that provide the machinery of life. At every scale of inclusion, a unit of life affects - and is affected by - its internal and external context; it is an entity incomprehensible when taken out of context. Ever since Darwin, natural history - however we choose to define it - provides the context in which organisms and their parts function and evolve. Without natural history, we neither understand ecology nor evolution."
The last 30 minutes of this address is a quiz for the audience, assessing the natural history aptitudes of those in attendance. The questions in the quiz are musically framed by the world-famous band, PhyloZydeco.
Run Time: 1:23:53 Bit Rate: 41 kbps
These lectures were recorded with financial assistance
from the US National Science Foundation.
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