The University of Toronto is hosting a celebration of Darwin next Novermber [Origin of Species at 150: a celebratory conference].
150 Years after Origin: Biological, Historical, and Philosophical PerspectivesThe emphasis is on history and philosophy. It would be a perfect opportunity to put Darwin into the context of the modern world. It would be a crying shame if the conference was wasted on promoting natural selection and misrepresenting modern evolutionary theory. Do the conference organizers really mean it when they say that a 150 year old book, Origin of Species, is, "the unifying theoretical framework for all modern biology?
Victoria College, University of Toronto, November 21-24, 2009
Darwin wrote in his autobiography, “In July [1837] I opened my first notebook for facts in relation to the Origin of Species, about which I had long reflected, and never ceased working for the next twenty years.” In 1842, he wrote a “very brief abstract” of his theory (35 pages), which in the summer of 1844 he expanded to 230 pages. Beginning in September 1858, after receiving an essay from Alfred Russell Wallace, “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type,” which outlined the central mechanism of evolution on which Darwin had been working, he began work on completing the manuscript of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. John Murray, the publisher, launched the book on November 24, 1859 by releasing 1,250 copies. The impact of The Origin of Species has equalled the impact of Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. It is the unifying theoretical framework for all modern biology.
November 24, 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin and The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and the Department of Philosophy at University of Toronto are mounting a Gala Celebratory Conference. The conference will culminate in a gala dinner on November 24 at which participants will toast the tremendous achievement of Charles Robert Darwin.
Five multi-disciplinary symposia have been organized. For each symposium, the panel consists of a biologist, a historian of biology and a philosopher of biology.
The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology is located on the elegant, historic Victoria University campus (one of the University of Toronto’s federated universities) and the conference will be held in that location
Here's the preliminary program.
Saturday November 21, 2009Most of the speakers are strangers to me. I have no idea where they might be coming from in terms of their understanding of evolutionary theory.
6-7 pm: Keynote Address: to be announced
7-9pm: Reception
Sunday November 22, 2009
9-10 am: Keynote Address
Evelyn Fox Keller (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
10 am-12 pm: Symposium:
Gender, Evolution, and Sexual Selection
Lisa Lloyd (Indiana University)
Marlene Zuk (University of California)
Erika Milam (Clemson University)
12-2 pm: Lunch Break
2-3 pm: Keynote Address
Michael Ruse (Florida State University)
3-4 pm: Contributed Papers Session
to be announced
4-5 pm: Contributed Papers Session
to be announced
5-6 pm: Keynote Address
James Moore (University of Cambridge)
Monday November 23, 2009
9-11 am: Symposium:
Evolution and Development
Manfred Laubichler (Arizona State University)
Jane Maienschein (Arizona State University)
Michael Dietrich (Dartmouth College)
11am-12pm: Contributed Papers Session
to be announced
12-2 pm: Lunch Break
2-4 pm: Symposium:
Species
John Beatty (University of British Columbia)
Kevin de Queiroz (National Museum of Natural History)
Marc Ereshefsky (University of Calgary)
4-5 pm: Contributed Papers Session
to be announced
5-6 pm: Keynote Address
Alison Pearn (Darwin Correspondence Project)
6-7 pm: Special Presentation
A Play: "Re: Design (A Dramatisation of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin and Asa Gray)"
Tuesday November 24, 2009
9-11 am: Symposium:
Taxonomy
Mary Winsor (University of Toronto)
Kevin Padian (Berkeley)
Richard Richards (University of Alabama)
11am-12pm
Contributed Papers Session
to be announced
12-2 pm: Lunch Break
2-4 pm: Symposium:
Ecology
Joan Roughgarden (Stanford University)
Gregg Mitman (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Gregory Cooper (Washington and Lee University)
4-5 pm: Contributed Papers Session
to be announced
5-6 pm: Keynote Address
Sean Carroll (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
6-7 pm: Break
7-8 pm: Keynote Address
Spencer Barrett (University of Toronto)
8-10:30 pm: Origin at 150 Gala Dinner
Of the ones I do know, Sean Carroll is a fan of natural selection and Spencer Barrett is a classic adaptationist. It's worrisome that the organizers invited Michael Ruse to give a keynote address. As I've mentioned before, Ruse does not seem to have a very good handle on modern evolutionary theory. I fear that the conference participants will be subjected to a particular point of view that will not be a fair description of how Darwin contributed to modern biology.
If The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science thinks Michael Ruse is going to give a good overview of Darwin's contribution then this does not bode well for the conference. They should have learned from his appearance at the Royal Ontario Museum last June [Darwinism at the ROM].
At that symposium Ruse asked, "Is Darwin's Theory Past Its "Sell By" Date." I think Michael Ruse has passed his "best before" date. It's time for him to retire.
21 comments :
You have strong feelings about the conference and are well-informed on the topic, yet you write as if you are not one of the organizers. Aren't you involved?
Another Darwin celebration? How many anniversaries does that guy have!
embarrassingly many. one fr the birth, opne for the death, one for the publication of the "origin", probabaly one for the "beagle" trip, and so forth...
Ruse is going to be everywhere next year. He will be at OU February 26th, so Ill give you a heads-up if hes dreadful.
Sean Carroll is also heavily into evo-devo, a subject on which Prof. Moran is decidedly dubious.
Hmm, it seems as though we're going to be treading dangerous waters with all the 'Darwin' celebrations next year - I've already received a few calls from journals for submission of papers dealing with evolutionary questions specifically related to theories made by Darwin himself. Maybe it's just me, but the people who tend to invoke the name of Darwin the most, are the people who are still operating exclusively on 150 year old principles. I sincerely hope that the material that comes out of these publications emphasizes the wonderful progress we've made in the field that was initiated by Darwin.
Sean Carroll is also heavily into evo-devo, a subject on which Prof. Moran is decidedly dubious.
I've kind of become an evo-devo person myself, and I have to admit that I'm a bit skeptical of some of the more fanciful claims coming out of the field. For example, in 2006 an evo-devo paper[1] published in Science asserted that "neither class of explanation [classical, incremental change and macroevolutionary theory] provides an explanation of evolution in terms of mechanistic changes in the genetic regulatory program for the development of the body plan, where it must lie." Basically current evolutionary theory was insufficient to explain the evolution of animal phyla. A subsequent comment published by J.A. Coyne [2] provided a very thorough criticism of that position.
Obviously, this isn't to say that evo-devo discoveries won't change our understanding of evolution - but we're far from the point of throwing out basic pop gen just yet.
[1] Davidson EH, Erwin DH. 2006. Gene regulatory networks and the evolution of animal body plans. Science 313:796-800.
[2] Coyne JA. 2006. Comment on "Gene regulatory networks and the evolution of animal body plans". Science 313:761.
ERV:Ruse is going to be everywhere next year.Seemingly he will not be on the 2009 Cologne Spring Meeting on The variable Genome. Unfortunately, the program is not available yet but you will find the speakers list including Sydney Brenner, Svante Pääbo, William Provine and Steve Joneshere.
The nice thing: The meeting is open and no registration or attendance fee is required.
I see on the U of T IHPST web site that the conference may still have room for contributed papers.
Perhaps Prof. Moran could speak on "Darwin and Drift" or "Darwin and the Plurality of Evolutionary Mechanisms".
It wasn't until after Darwin's death that ultra-selectionists such as August Weismann challenged the "Darwinian" (in the original sense of the word) pluralism, which admitted both selection and (incorrectly) direct induction from the environment (inheritance of acquired characters). And while the anti-selectionist neo-Larmarckians (many closely associated with American biology and the AMNH) were overcome, the pluralist impulse lived on and re-emerged with Kimura and Gould (and, lo and behold, the AMNH).
Why has American biology continued to chafe at selectionism?
Prof. Moran might be able to retore a more accurate, pluraslist reading of the Origin and shed some light on the long US-led campaign to reduce natural selection to one mechanism among several.
Ummm . . . natural selection *is* one mechanism among several.
Based on his book, "The Making of the Fittest," Prof. Carroll is in the Dawkins school of adaptationism. Has Prof. Moran read the book and if so, what is his reaction?
[Ba! Stupid computer published before I'd finished. To reiterate:]
Umm . . . natural selection *is* one mechanism among several.
The argument isn't "natural selection is *the* mechanism for evolution", it's "natural selection is *the most important* mechanism for evolution.
Even the most ardent adaptionists agree that other mechanisms exist, they just sideline them in favour of natural selection as the most important (or, depending on who you talk to, "overwhelming") mechanism for evolution.
Non-adaptionists agree that natural selection is an important mechanism for evolution, especially in generating diversity. But, at a more fundamental level, other mechanisms, such as drift, occur, that are of equal, if not greater, importance.
Carrol and Davidson, Evo-Devo? More like Geno-Evo. And write that "evo" part small. Davidson tends to wipe his ass with natural history more often than take it seriously.
The debate between Carroll and Coyne is funny. Both represent caricaturesque extremes. Obviously, both coding and non-coding sequences are important for evolution, both morphological and physiological. That debate is not going down as one of the most enlightened ones
I think Carroll is not the man to bring evo-devo to the front. The way he thinks he's keeping it as a mere footnote to pop gen
To Chris Nedin:
"Non-adaptionists agree that natural selection is an important mechanism for evolution, especially in generating diversity. But, at a more fundamental level, other mechanisms, such as drift, occur, that are of equal, if not greater, importance."
Okay, which is it? Is selection of "greater importance" or is drift of greater importance? Seems an important question. I assume that adaptationists and those who study diversity would opt for selection. Isn't drift just the emergence of variation on which selection will operate? Isn't drift just the accumulation of genetic diversity in a population when selection is relaxed? Drift isn't a mechanism, it is a stage in the process... ?
But my main point is that a paper from Prof. Moran might make an interesting addition to the U of T Darwin conference in November. He might comment on the historiography of Darwinism--or the "uses and abuses" of history as the story of Darwin and Darwinism (and neo-Darwinism and antineodarwinism) is deployed to bolster or undermine current controversies in biology. He might argue for a "strict constuctionist" reading of the Origin, where Darwin grapples (unsuccessfully) with the causes of variation.
anonymous asks,
Okay, which is it? Is selection of "greater importance" or is drift of greater importance? Seems an important question. I assume that adaptationists and those who study diversity would opt for selection.
In terms of percentage of alleles fixed, random genetic drift is way more important that natural selection. It's no contest, really. In humans it works out to about 99% of all mutations are fixed by drift.
That means that only 1% of the diversity is due to natural selection. It may be a higher percentage if you restrict the diversity to large visible changes but even then most of it is due to drift. (Unless you think that everything that distinguishes you from other members of your family is an adaptation.)
Isn't drift just the emergence of variation on which selection will operate?
Nope. Not even close to being correct.
Isn't drift just the accumulation of genetic diversity in a population when selection is relaxed?
Only if you can imagine a situation where every single nucleotide change has to be either adaptive or detrimental. No other mutations are possible.
Drift isn't a mechanism, it is a stage in the process... ?
Random genetic drift is a mechanism by which the frequency of alleles in a population change. Natural selection is another mechanism.
Read Random Genetic Drift.
Anonymous,
What Larry said! :-)
But I agree with you that Larry would make an interesting addition to the conference.
Heck, I might even go if Larry speaks.
Drift is not evolution
Evolution is adaptive change + speciation (ie adaptive change in isolation). Drift is, by definition, non-adaptive change (in allele frequencies). It is therefore non-evolutionary (neutral). Drift is not evolution.
Drift tends to homozygosity. Homozygosity precludes further adaptation. When the environment changes, populations that have drifted to homozygosity cannot adapt. They may go extinct. Perhaps the operation of drift accounts for the high rate of extictions at the end of stable, long-term environmental and ecological conditions. Thus, indirectly, drift, which is non-evolutionary in itself, creates opportunities for evolution (adaptive radiation) by contributing to extinctions (through the elimination of genetic diversity in populations) and the opening of ecological opportunities for surviving species.
Evolution is adaptation and, by extension, adaptive radiation. Differential fitness (selection) is its mechanism.
To Chris Nedin:
You should attend the U of T Darwin conference whether or not Prof. Moran presents. No doubt there will be many opportunities to discuss the "uses and abuses" of the Origin of Species and "Darwin" as a weapon in current and past controversies in evolutionary biology.
Anonymous,
I don't know where you got your definition of evolution from, but it's inaccurate.
Most standard definitions of evolution invoke change in allele frequency over time. Adapation is a consequence of that change, it does not define it.
Genetic drift is by far the most common mechanism producing change in allele fequency, and therefore is the most common form of evolution.
Arguing that evolution = adapation is like arguing cars are a form of motorised transport, therefor all motorised transports are cars.
When environments change, it is the forms that are most adapted to the previous environment that go extinct.
Populations that have evolved through drift may well be in a better position to exploit new enviroments because they may have alleles fixed that are useful in the new enviroment, whereas an adapted species - by your definition - would not, as those alleles may not have been selected for in the adapted population.
Chris:
Evolution = change in allele frequency over time?
I would say that evolution is a populational and a organismal phenomenon in which alleles are involved as parts of a whole physiological and developmental process. In other words, we shouldn't ascribe fitness to genes, but to whole individual organisms in populations. One allele is only fitter than another BECAUSE the organism in which the allele exists is fitter than another organism in the same population. The Dawkins view of "selfish genes" -- as if strings of bases possess agency -- is a clever rhetorical trick, but not true.
If I were a paleontologist I would tend to see evolution (correctly) as patterns of diversity and morphology. For neontologists, the human/chimp comparison is instructive. Here are two very different animals with almost identical genomes. Based on genetics alone they should be lumped together, but we know that morphologically and behaviourally, they are dramatically different.
Anon:
Yes, the fitness of the entire organism is important, but what matters is the fitness that a gene contributes to the overall organism relative to it's alternate alleles. Genes that more often than not contribute survival or reproductive success are then positively selected and those who take it away negatively selected. Most are neutral or mildly deleterious and then genetic drift is dominant.
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