Events
month | week | day | list| « | January 04, 2008 - February 03, 2008 | » |
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01 / 4
Start: 11:00 am
 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) will jointly release a new publication, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, at 11:00 AM EST on Friday, January 4, 2008. Members of the Clergy Letter Project who live in the Washington, DC area are cordially invited to the one hour public briefing for the release of this booklet, which will take place in the Lecture Room of the National Academy of Sciences Building, 2100 C Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. Seating is limited. Click for Directions to the NAS building.
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01 / 12
Start: 2:00 pm
End: 4:00 pm
Location: National Science Foundation, Room 110 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA (see below for location details) Details at National Capital Area Skeptics Website  Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy. Employing research from complexity theory, Shermer shows how evolution and economics are both examples of a larger and still somewhat mysterious phenomenon of emergence, where one plus one equals three.
Along the way, Shermer answers such provocative questions as, Do our tribal roots mean that we will always be a sucker for brands? How is the biochemical joy of sex similar to the rewards of business cooperation? How can nations increase trust within their borders? Finally, Shermer considers the consequences of globalization and what will happen if nations allow free trade across their borders.
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01 / 13
Start: 2:00 pm
End: 4:00 pm
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01 / 31
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02 / 1
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02 / 2
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02 / 3
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There is an intersection between African American history and evolutionary science, although it is not as direct as one would assume. Since February 12, 2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, examining this intersection now is appropriate. Surprisingly, there is very little written about the impact of Darwinism on African Americans. Historically, the primary effect of evolutionary theory on African Americans has been indirect and has resulted from the misuse of Darwin's work -- in essence, Social Darwinism and "the survival of the fittest."
This Social Darwinism is how Darwinism has been framed, but it can be reframed. In Darwin, Competition and Cooperation, Ashley Montagu wrote: "I have in mind the scientists and scientific thinkers in Darwin's own and allied fields who…overstressed and misunderstood the factor of competition and either largely or altogether neglected and underestimated the factor of co-operation…They failed to give the factor of co-operation a place in the concept of natural selection in particular and in the description of the evolutionary process in general…In this substantive failure to recognize the importance of co-operation they succeeded in conveying a view of nature that was badly maimed and sadly out of focus."
