February 12, 2001
On Darwin's 192nd Birthday, Monday, February 12 at 6:30
PM
the Dept. of Biological Sciences at the College of Letters
and Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
along with the Whitewater chapter of BBB, and
the Biology Undergraduate Honors Society presented the
Third Annual Darwin Day Lecture
There was a pre-talk reception
in the Biology Museum on the third floor of Upham Hall
featuring the world's largest edible tree of life!
Students prepare a long spread of food shaped as living entities.
Prof. Jeff McKinnon is challenged to recognize each edible entity and
diagram the evolutionary relationship amongst the species.
Some future members of the Friends of Charles Darwin
in front of the WORLD'S LARGEST edible TREE OF LIFE!
The highlight of the Darwin Day event was
Prof. Steven Austad (University of Idaho) who spoke on
"How Can Aging Evolve and What Can Be Done About It?"
Synopsis of Presentation
This talk resolved a paradox. Namely, living organisms can almost be
defined by their capacity to repair themselves. So how can aging, the
gradual disintegration of corporeal integrity and a process that is
uncontroversially harmful for the organism that ages, result in the face of
an optimizing natural selection? Having resolved this paradox using
evolutionary logic, Dr. Austad focused on what the evolution of aging can tell us
about the prospects of current medical efforts to turn back the biological
clock in humans. [Prof. Austad is perhaps best known for his 1997 book
WHY WE AGE (John Wiley & Sons), now available in 8 languages. He
has written numerous scientific publications as well as popular articles for
Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American and Natural History.]
I snapped a few pictures of Dr. Austad's slides showing Darwin at different ages.
Darwin, surprisingly, never addressed aging in his writings, though his theory has
held up in our understanding of aging. Evolutionary effects occur in relation to
reproduction, so diseases that only are expressed in old age are not selected out.
Finally, the Whitewater BBB had some GREAT tee shirts for sale.
I paid for mine with a new 10 pound Darwin (like the one shown!)
.
