Darwin and the Boundaries of Science Conference

Darwin April 17 - 18, 2009
New York University
Gallatin School of Individualized Study
715 Broadway (Entrance at 1 Washington Place)
The Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts

Darwin and the Boundaries of Science commemorates the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin. The two-day conference will examine how Darwin's ideas have changed the boundaries of knowledge: between science and religion, between speculation and theory, between the past and the present, and between humans and the world around us. Interdisciplinary in scope, the event draws upon the expertise of scholars from a wide range of fields, including biology, astronomy and astrophysics, mechanical engineering, philosophy, sociology and history. Speakers will discuss not just the content of Darwin's discoveries, but also the way these discoveries forever altered what counted as knowledge and what could be ultimately understood. We will draw on both scientific and historical expertise to form a robust perspective on how science does—or does not—relate to the wider culture of which it is a part. Scientists will have an opportunity to explain how and why they draw the boundaries of their disciplines, and humanities scholars will demonstrate the complex processes that formed and continue to reshape these boundaries.

Conference Schedule

Friday, April 17, 2009

Session I: Darwin Before the Origin

10:00am – 12:30pm

  • George Levine: "Learning to See: Darwin's Prophetic Apprenticeship on the Beagle Voyage"
  • Paul Brinkman: "Charles Darwins's Beagle Voyage, Fossil Vertebrate Succession, and 'The gradual Birth and Death of Species'"
  • Richard Bellon: "Why Naturalists Were Right to Reject Darwin's Theory (in 1858)"
Break

12:30pm – 2:00pm

Session II: Boundaries of Science

2:00pm – 5:00pm

  • Carl Zimmer: "Microbes and Mind: How Darwin Broke the Boundaries Between Human Nature and Non-Human Behavior"
  • David Kohn: "Inner Boundaries: Darwin's Trees from Metaphor to Principle"
  • Mark Borrello: "The Evolution of Group Selection: From Darwin to E. O. Wilson"

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Session I: Science and Non-Science

10:00am – 12:30pm

  • Ronald L. Numbers: "Creation, Evolution, and the Boundaries of Science and Religion"
  • Richard England: "Darwin, Design, and the Boundaries of Metaphor: Variations on the Stone House Argument"
  • Ed Larson: "Applied Evolution: The Boundary Between the Science of Evolutionary Genetics and Eugenic Social Politics, 1880-1930"
Break

12:30pm – 2:00pm

Session II: Darwin Between Private and Public

2:00pm – 5:00pm

  • Jim Endersby: "Sympathetic Science: Charles Darwin, Joseph Hooker, and the Passions of Victorian Naturalists"
  • Janet Browne: "The Natural Economy of Households: Darwin's Finances and Natural Selection"

For more information please contact Nicole DeRise at nicole.derise@nyu.edu or 212.992.7766.