2007 - 2008 Series
The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate
Forensic Record for Evolution
Tuesday, October 2nd, 7:30 pm, Atherton Union Reilly Room
Sean Carroll -
Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of
Wisconsin, Carroll is the foremost interpreter of Darwin in light
of the latest findings of molecular biology. He will speak about
the genetics of evolution and about DNA as a record of evolution.
He is also author of Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science
of Evo Devo and From DNA to Diversity.
Treating AIDs and Poverty in Africa
Tuesday, October 23rd, 7:30 pm, Atherton Union Reilly Room
Joseph Mamlin,
After Mamlin, Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Indiana University
School of Medicine, retired in 2000, he founded the AMPATH
program in Kenya. AMPATH, a partnership between IU School of
Medicine and Moi University School of Medicine in Kenya, is one of
sub-Saharan Africa's largest and most comprehensive HIV control
programs, and has been nominated for a
Nobel Prize. Dr. Mamlin will speak about his medical work in
Africa.
Bodies, Commodities and Biotechnologies
Wednesday, November 7th, 7:30 pm, Atherton Union Reilly
Room
Lesley Sharp, is Professor of
Anthropology at Barnard College and Senior Research Scientist at
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Well known
medical anthropologist and ethnographer of Madagascar, Professor
Sharp has most recently published two major volumes on the culture
and ethics of organ transplants: Bodies, Commodities, and
Biotechnologies: Death, Mourning, and Scientific Desire in the
Realm of Human Organ Transfer and Strange Harvest: Organ
Transplants, Denatured Bodies, and the Transformed Self. She
will speak about artificial forms of body replacement and how
physicians and patients think about them.
Melting Mountains, Burning Fields: Global Warming, Science and
Religion
Monday, November 12th, 7:30 pm, Atherton Union Reilly Room
Professor
of Christian Ethics at Boston University School of Theology and the
author of four books, including Sacramental Commons: Christian
Ecological Ethics, Professor Hart has lectured widely on
environmental ethics and on the relationship between science and
religion. He will speak on scientific and religious perspectives on
global warming. This lecture is cosponsored by Butler University's
Center for Faith and Vocation.
What Makes Cows Mad?
Wednesday, February 13th, noon, Robertson Hall Johnson
Room
Laura
Manuelidis is a longtime investigator of
Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (diseases like Mad Cow),
Dr. Manuelidis of the Yale School of Medicine will discuss recent
work that conflicts with what has become the reigning causal theory
of these diseases. She will argue that the prion hypothesis has yet
to be definitively established and discuss her recently published
evidence of virions that cause the brain pathology in Mad Cow and
related diseases.
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Monday, February 25th, 7:30 pm, Atherton Union Reilly Room
What do you know
about the food that you eat? Named one of the ten best books of
2006 by the New York Times and the Washington
Post, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four
Meals by Michael Pollan, Knight Professor of Science and
Environmental Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley,
is about deciding what to eat when faced with the modern industrial
food system.
The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the
Accelerating Cosmos
Monday, April 14th, 7:30 pm, Atherton Union Reilly Room
Dr. Kirshner is
Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University. His book
chronicles the research that led to an extraordinary cosmological
discovery: the expansion of the universe is accelerating under the
influence of a dark energy that makes space itself expand. He will
speak about the implications of this discovery for the future of
the universe.