AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion

News & Events: Public Lecture

The Origin of Species: What Do We Really Know?

Thursday, 20 April 2006
AAAS Auditorium
1200 New York Avenue, NW
Washington DC

Anti-evolutionists sometimes argue that, although they can accept the occurrence of microevolution within species (such as the evolution of antibiotic resistance), they don't see how the same set of rules could lead to new species or to the large differences seen between current organisms.

Dr. Sara Via will review current understanding of how the process of speciation by natural selection can occur, and will illustrate that there is little need to regard speciation as some type of special phenomenon that requires rules other than those of microevolution. Classical evolutionary models of speciation will be briefly summarized, and recent genetic findings about how reproductive isolation evolves will be discussed. She will conclude her talk by mentioning how results from evolutionary developmental biology may provide mechanisms for large morphological changes during evolution that seem hard to explain with "normal" mutation and natural selection.

Coverage

• Read a brief summary

• Keynote presentation by Sara Via, with introduction by Connie Bertka

  Audio and Video

• Responding presentation by Emmett Holman, with introduction by Connie Bertka

  Audio and Video

• Discussion Period

  Audio and Video

Lecturer

• Sara Via, Ph.D., Professor, Departments of Biology & Entomology, University of Maryland College Park

Respondent

• Emmett Holman, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy, George Mason University