Posted on 06/24/2005 4:07:28 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
USFQ (Universidad San Francisco de Quito) hosted the World Summit on Evolution from June 9-12 at the island of San Cristóbal in the Galapagos Archipelago. This one-of-a-kind conference brought together the world’s most prominent biologists to discuss and debate what is evolution, the different fields of study, and what are the future horizons for evolution biology. This conference was unique because it compromised all subfields of evolution from microbes to humans, plus participants came from all around the world (more than 20 countries represented).
The format was also special because it consisted of a presentation given by a speaker followed by a talk given by a commentator in the same field. Once all speakers and commentators presented their work a discussion was opened to the public. This procedure created a unique mechanism of feedback and interaction among all participants.
During the various sessions speakers, commentators and session chairs debated old and new ideas. In some cases participants called for a radical reorganization of approaches to their subfield, i.e., sexual selection (Roughgarden) and genetic drift (Provine). Others such as developmental biologists (Wagner) talked about how they are able to answer centuries-old questions of morphological evolution using genetic techniques. Other ideas debated were: early evolution (Lazcano, Mexico), lateral gene transfer in microbes, selection in natural populations (Peter and Rosemary Grant, USA), selection at multiple levels (Avilés, Ecuador), and symbiogenesis (Margulis, USA).
Graduate students were also an integral part of the conference. Students from outside Ecuador were chosen from lists submitted by the speakers, among them six Ecuadorean students were included. Funding provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) made it possible for more than two dozen students attend the conference and present their recent research in a poster session.
The success of this conference lies in the broad impacts it will offer the world regarding evolution theory, research and its diffusion. All speakers and commentators agreed the need for a dissemination of all the ideas and research presented at the event. Carlos Montúfar (USFQ) and Antonio Lazcano are leading the group that will edit a volume containing the proceedings of this meeting. As a corollary, many scientists including the NSF made a call for more diffusion of evolution theory in US schools to combat the rise of Intelligent Design Theory. As Michael Shermer, who gave a vivid and controversial talk on the rhetoric that this movement employs, put it, “IDT [Intelligent Design Theory] is nothing more than creationism under the guise of pseudo-science.”
As a summary of the impacts of this conference it is clear the need for future conferences on evolution that will address specific problems in evolution biology, as well as developing strategies to deal with creationism and Intelligent Design Theory in schools and at a public level. Furthermore, several academic institutions, among them the University of Illinois, sealed cooperation agreements with USFQ (GAIAS) to do research in the islands.
A video documentary of this conference is being produced by John Feldman and Hummingbird Films with cooperation of the College of Communication and Contemporary Arts of USFQ. This documentary to be released in the US by the end of this year gathers interviews with scientists such as Will Provine, Richard Michod, Frank Sulloway, Antonio Lazcano, Peter and Rosemary Grant, Geoff McFadden, Joan Roughgarden, Daniel Dennett, and Laura Katz who discuss the major questions of evolution from their subfields.
Rarely have so many experts been gathered to discuss their views and projections within an area of study. It is expected that this documentary will become a long lasting document of the state of evolution at the beginning of the 21st century.
The World Evolution Summit 2005 is a project of Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) and its Galapagos Academic Institute for the Arts and Sciences (GAIAS), established in 2002. This meeting was made possible thanks to the collaboration of private businesses such as OCP Ecuador S. A., Hilton Hotels, Metropolitan Touring, Time Warner Cable, Skeptic Magazine, and public and cultural institutions such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), UNESCO, WQLN, NPR, Ecuadorian Government, Ecuadorean Ministry of Tourism, and the Consul of Ecuador in Turkey.
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We can also witness DEEVOLUTION by looking at the liberals as they deevolve back into sheep!
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Nice.
Will we be hosting it at Darwin Central? If so, I'd better start on getting the banquet hall prepared.
As someone who is open-minded on the subject, can you tell me one aspect of the Theory of Evolution which has been scientifically verified, and can be be stated to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt.
You know I have your url link bookmarked now.
Way cool and again thanks.
I wonder how many "subfields" Intellegent Design has? But at least they have 2 countries involved, the Christians from the US and Islamists from Turkey. It's the Turks, who have recently shown how far advanced they are over us by banning evolution from their schools on threats of religious violence.
Funding provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) made it possible for more than two dozen students attend the conference and present their recent research in a poster session.
Wow. 20+ graduate students presenting real research on evolution. The article doesn't say how many professionals had new research.
Looks like a theory in crisis to me. [/sarcasm]
If I were PH, I wouldn't answer such a question. The OJ Jury "had a shadow of a doubt". They were completely wrong, but they had a shadow of a doubt. PH could post to you till he's blue in the fact and no doubt you'd "have a shadow of a doubt". Check out his List-O-Links for mountains of evidence if you're truly interested.
The anti-evolutionists at the Discovery Institute and ICR have all the believability of Holocaust deniers. The handful of pseudo scientists at those places scream "EVOLUTION IS IN CRISIS" based on zero original research, as conferences gather in the Galapagos with apparently hundreds of researchers with zero doubt about the fundamental fact of evolution.
I'm not a scientist. But I can spot Intelligent Design quacks selling snake oil when I see them. Like the "Duke" and the "Dauphin" in Mark Twains Huck Finn, revival preaching and snake oil selling seem to go hand in hand.
Evolution has been a theory in crisis for 150 years. Its demise is emminant, just as it has been for each of those years.
Pay no attention to physics, chemistry, astronomy, paleontology, geology. They are all pseudosciences.
One aspect of evolution that has received a bit of confirmation is the age of the earth. Darwin was the first to assert that the earth was at least several hundred milion years old. At the time he made this assertion, physics pegged the maximum possible age of the sun at about 50 million years.
But that was before the discovery of radioactivity.
Only executives from Darwin Central were invited. Since I am only janatorial staff, I certainly did not qualify. (However, in cleaning a waste basket, I saw the memo)
Have you ever seen radioactivity? You sure it's not a conspiracy concocted by the entire scientific community to shore up Darwin???
No, but one time I detected it on my second layer of protective gear. Fortunately, it didn't contaminate my third layer. Third layer was my skin. (I was a hazardous waste technician at the time. That was the ONE and ONLY time that I had to deal with that stuff).
The choice of the Galapagos Islands wasn't exactly random, you know. That's Darwin Central's world HQ. We had a hospitality suite going 24 hours a day, staffed by the usual cohort of nubile ladies.
Well, I am PH, and I had already shrugged off the question before I got to your excellent post. All they have to do is hum a few notes and I can recognize the song.
That's not how science works.
I would regard two things as having been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt: deep geological time (the Earth is 4,500 million years old), and descent with modification from a common ancestor.
Mainstream science regards the mechanism for evolution to be chance plus necessity: random variation and natural selection, i.e., Darwinism. I am inclined to agree with mainstream science, but the ID theorists offer various arguments as to why this cannot be so. I regard Darwinism to have been proved but not beyond a shadow of a doubt; I respect the ID theorists but again I do not think they are correct.
Thanks for the ping!
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