A weeklong celebration beginning today will highlight the work of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution.
UNM research professors will kick off a symposium honoring Darwin's 200th birthday today in the SUB. Professors will discuss their work and how it is connected to Darwin's. The event is sponsored by the President's Office, the Biology Department and the Program in Interdisciplinary Biological and Biomedical Sciences.
The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology will have an ancestor's exhibit and presentation of skeletal and artifact models that evidence evolutionary processes. The Earth and Planetary Sciences and Biology research labs will also be open to the public to view the research.
Felisa Smith, associate professor of biology, said Darwin is history's most influential scientist.
"Although we have a lot more understanding of the mechanisms that underlie these (Darwinian) concepts, Darwin had a lot of stuff right without much knowledge of the mechanisms by which evolution and ecology and things work," she said. "It's interesting that so much of what he thought turns out to be right."
Darwin published books on many topics but is best known for On the Origin of Species, which deals with the concept of adaptation, natural selection and variation of species.
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"He was influential in developing the concepts of ecology and biogeography and the biological concept of systematics - that there is a single tree of life and all things are related to each other," Smith said. "His influence goes also into architecture, design and even medicine."
Without Darwin's concepts, it might have taken scientists longer to understand and develop other sciences, Smith said.
"We might eventually have gotten there, but we would have gotten there a very different way, and science might not be where it is today," she said. "So what would have happened if we would have had modern genetics and no framework to put genetics into? I don't know. I think we would be somewhere different, but I would like to think we have made great advances because we had Darwin to hang our hats on."
Smith said she would love to see students embrace this event and what it means.
"For scientists, it's really important, but for the public, it's really important and we should really relish great thinkers and honor them," she said.
The University will also hold events this week in honor of President Lincoln's birthday, which is Thursday.
Darwin Week Schedule
WEDNESDAY
1 - 5:15 p.m. Darwin's Legacy, a symposium in honor of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday
THURSDAY
10 - 11 a.m. Ancestors Exhibit Gallery Talk
1:30 - 3:30 p.m. Earth & Planetary Sciences &
Biology Department Research Labs Open House
3:30 - 5 p.m. The New Evolutionary Synthesis: Putting Economics Back into Darwinism, a talk by
Distinguished Professor Geerat Vermeij; Biology Department Seminar
7 - 8 p.m. "Charles Darwin Against Himself: Caution Versus Honesty in the Life of a Reluctant
Revolutionary."
