Sunday Meetings

Sunday, February 21 at 1:00 pm

Evolutionary Biology Today

Presented by David Seaborg

In Honor of Darwin Day

David Seaborg, the Bay Area’s eminent evolutionary biologist, will speak this afternoon on the exciting principles of evolutionary biology.  His talk will be on what science knows about evolution today — bringing in the latest scientific findings, theories, and thinking.  It will cover the evolution of altruistic behavior;  sex;  sexuality and mating behavior;  how much of evolution is due to natural selection as opposed to random factors affecting neutral genes that are not affected by natural selection;  how new species evolve;  mass extinctions;  species interactions, such as competition, symbiosis (alliances between species), and predator-prey interactions.  Adaptations to survive, such as mimicry (an example of this is harmless species resembling poisonous ones), and what determines how fast species evolve, from species that change very quickly to those that do not change for eons, will also be discussed.

David will bring live animals as well as fossils to his talk to illustrate principles of evolution.  Anyone who wants to hold either the animals or fossils will be given the opportunity to do so, but no one will forced to.  David will facilitate a question and answer session following his lecture.

http://www.worldrainforest.org