UC hosts Darwinian scholars

The Darwin Sesquicentennial Celebration Committee hosted “The Vision and Legacy of Charles Darwin,” Monday, Nov. 23.

The all-day event took place in Tangeman University Center’s Great Hall. Anthony Perzigian, UC senior vice president, funded the conference.

The symposium had a two-part objective: to boost UC’s research reputation and celebrate Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species.”

“[The book is] accessible, readable and easy to understand,” said Wendy Beckman, a Darwin committee member.

The symposium included six speakers, a question and answer session, a book signing and a reception open to the public. Throughout the day, approximately 900 people attended to listen and observe.

“We wanted everyone: UC students, faculty and members of the community,” Beckman said. “We wanted to try and catch everybody. We wanted doubters and skeptics, but overall we wanted people who were interested in science.”

UC Board of Trustees chairman Buck Niehoff and Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden employee Catherine “Cat Lady” Hilker were also in attendance.

The event began at noon with UC President Gregory Williams welcoming the speakers and audience.

“One of the greatest assets that sets UC apart from thousands of other colleges and universities is our immense capacity as a major research university,” Williams said.

The keynote lecture, “Charles Darwin Against Himself: Caution versus Honesty in the Life of a Reluctant Revolutionary,” was presented by a Darwin-Wallace scholar and author David Quammen, who also graduated from St. Xavier High School.

Quammen’s speech accumulated an audience of more than 700 people including 500 students and faculty from St. Xavier.

People in the United States are not seeing facts because of their religious backgrounds and do not fully understand evolution, Beckman said.

Both Quammen and Beckman say it’s possible for a person to believe in evolution as well as religious teachings.

“I believe in evolution because there is scientific artifacts to support their theory,” said Ashley Woltermann, a fourth-year early childhood education student. “From a religious aspect, I believe God is the director or creator of evolution.”

Many scientists believe the facts of science and still have faith, Wuammen said.

Arnold Miller delivered a speech, “Learning from the Past: The Geological Record of Global Biodiversity and Mass Extinction.” Miller is an evolutionary paleontologist and a professor in the geology department at UC.

The last two speakers were Mohamed Noor and C. Owen Lovejoy.

The final lecturers perfectly rounded out the day, Beckman said.

Noor, a geneticist and biologist from Duke University, is one of the Linnean Society of London 2009 recipients of the Darwin-Wallace Medal. This medal has only been given three times in 1908, 1958 and 2008 and is awarded for advances in evolutionary biology.

His lecture was titled “Where Do New Species Come From? Understanding the Role of ‘Recombination’ in Species Formation.”

C. Owen Lovejoy is a hominoid evolutionary anthropologist and an anthropology professor at Kent State University. His lecture was titled “Ardi, Lucy and Modern Humans: What Would Darwin Have Thought?”