In the Light of Evolution IV:
The Human Condition

Organized by John C. Avise and Francisco J. Ayala, this meeting was held December 10-12, 2009 at the Beckman Center in Irvine, CA.

Meeting Overview:
The year of Darwinian celebration will close with a Sackler Colloquium devoted expressly to human evolution.  Darwin addressed the topic at length in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871).  Much has been learned since then, not least from the evidence of paleontology, comparative vertebrate biology, and comparative genomics.  This Sackler Colloquium brought together leading biologists with special expertise about human evolution, both biological and cultural. 

Recordings of speaker presentations will be linked here as they are approved for posting.
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Opening Addresses
John C. Avise (University of California, Irvine)

The Four Great Books of Darwin, Edward O. Wilson (Harvard University)

I.  Human History and the Paleontological Record 
Evolution of the Hominids, Bernard Wood (George Washington University)

The Evolution of Human Life History, Kristen Hawkes (University of Utah)

Neandertals, Archaic Homo sapiens, and the erectus grade in Europe and Asia, Juan Luis Arsuaga (Universidad Complutense, Madrid)

Peopling the Planet: Out of Africa? Douglas Wallace (University of California, Irvine)

Human Population Diversity, Anna DiRienzo (University of Chicago)

II. Structure and Function of the Human Genome
Chair, Kristen Hawkes (University of Utah)

Paleo-demography from Extant Genetics, Sarah Tishkoff (University of Pennsylvania)

Comparative Genomics: Humans, Chimps, and Other Primates, Mark A. Batzer (Louisiana State University)
 

Genomic Footprints of Natural Selection, Carlos Bustamante (Cornell University)

Phylogenomic evidence of adaptive evolution in the recent ancestry of Humans, Morris Goodman (Wayne State University)

Banquet Lecture
Introduction, Francisco J. Ayala (University of California, Irvine)

Non-intelligent Design: Inside the Human Genome, John C. Avise (University of California, Irvine)

III. The Uniqueness of Being Human
Chair, Sarah Tishkoff (University of Pennsylvania)
 
The Skin That Makes Us Human, Nina Jablonski (Pennsylvania State University)

Uniquely Human Changes in Sialic Acid Biology, Ajit P. Varki (University of California, San Diego)

How Cultures Evolve, Peter J. Richerson (University of California, Davis)

The Difference of Being Human, Francisco J. Ayala (University of California, Irvine)

IV. Cultural Evolution
Chair, Francisco J. Ayala (University of California, Irvine)
 
Whence Intelligence? Leda Cosmides (University of California, Santa Barbara)
 
Whence Language? Terrence Deacon (University of California, Berkeley)

Evolution of the Mind, Steven Pinker (Harvard University)