Seminars
Medicine and Evolution
Date: May 29, 2009
Venue: CasaPiedra
Av. San José María Escrivá de Balaguer 5600, Vitacura, Santiago.
Invited Speakers:
Dr Randolph M. Nesse (The University of Michigan)
Dr Paul W. Ewald (University of Louisville)
Coordinators: Dr César Ojeda and Dr Enrique Jadresic
In Brief: Many of the manifestations of what we have come to regard as illnesses are our body’s adaptation to the ecological niche of our hunter-gather ancestors from whom we have evolved. For example, the stress that we experience today when we labor under tension, with its capacity to block arterial vessels and provoke heart attacks, provided an increased level of natural blood anticoagulants the prevented our ancestors from bleeding to death. This capacity helped them survive, when the attack by ferocious animals was their every day reality. This seminar will explore the forms in which this viewpoint aid in the generation of novel and fruitful hypotheses in medical science.
»» see Friday May 29 SCHEDULE (general audience)
Economics y Evolutionary Psychology
Date: June 25, 2009
Venue: CasaPiedra
Av. San José María Escrivá de Balaguer 5600, Vitacura, Santiago.
Invited Speakers:
Dr Kevin A. McCabe (George Mason University)
Dr Michael B. Shermer (The Skeptics Society)
Dr Ulrich Witt (Max Planck Institute of Economics)
Coordinators: Harald Beyer and Leonidas Montes
In Brief: Economics is a discipline endeavors to explain the interchanges between people. These exchanges are products of human behaviors, whereas evolutionary psychology tries to understand the roots of central human motivations that underlie human conduct. When viewed together both Economics and Psychology are enriched. This seminar will address the intersections and common points of both disciplines.
Law and Public Policy
Date: July 27, 2009
Venue: CasaPiedra
Av. San José María Escrivá de Balaguer 5600, Vitacura, Santiago.
Invited Speakers:
Dr Robert O. Kurzaban (University of Pennsylvania)
Dr James H. Fowler (University of California, San Diego)
Coordinator: Eugenio Guzmán
In Brief: In the case of Law, the evolutionary perspective may be characterized by a set of coexistent rules (constitutions, legal systems, penalties or moral structures) within which people interact, and that ultimately service to extend the lives of those in the community. These structures can, by extension, be seen as the tools with which human beings realize a social existence-that create boundaries for human cognitive and emotional systems. So when social bond become strained, this set of social rules aids in adaptation.
Darwin’s Intellectual Legacy to the 21st Century
Date: September 7-8, 2009
Venue: CasaPiedra
Av. San José María Escrivá de Balaguer 5600, Vitacura, Santiago.
Invited Speakers:
Dr Helena Cronin (Darwin@LSE)
Dr Leda Cosmides (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Dr Daniel C. Dennett (Tufts University)
Dr Nicholas K. Humphrey (London School of Economics)
Ian R. McEwan (Novelist)
Dr Steven A. Pinker (Harvard University)
Dr Matthew W. Ridley (Zoologist and Journalist)
Dr John Tooby (University of California, Santa Barbara)
In Brief: The goal of this seminar will be to examine the constructs and consequences of Darwin’s concepts on the world of ideas as well as the scientific disciplines. Our intention is to illuminate and discuss how Darwinian thought influenced the disciplines that focus on the study the individuals (biology, neuroscience, psychology); the individual within their social interactions (anthropology, sociology, economy, political science); and how these concepts pertain, in general, to a moral philosophy.
We wish to explore how, from Darwinian thought, there emerges a vision of what it is to be a human being. And that this vision is fundamental and coherent with the entire body of accumulated scientific knowledge. With reverence for the details of their application, it is the impact of Darwin’s ideas that is the reason we are celebrating Darwin’s anniversary.
»» see September 7-8 SCHEDULE (general audience)
