Darwin’s Day: Evolution and the evidence for it gets an airing

Just in time for Charles Darwin’s 197th birthday, an eminent group of UW–Madison faculty have joined forces to make the case for the iconographic scientist and what they consider to be biology’s prevailing central idea: the theory of evolution. The evidence will be presented at Darwin Day, a daylong public symposium on Saturday, Feb. 11 (the day before Darwin’s 197th birthday), on the UW–Madison campus.

“When we teach evolution, we don’t typically teach the evidence for evolution,” explains David Baum, a UW–Madison botany professor and an organizer of the event.

A physicist teaching an introductory physics class, he explains, won’t spend much or any time with students poring over the evidence for atomic theory. They just teach it. It’s taken for granted. The same, he says, is true for many biology lessons dealing with evolution.

“In the case of evolution, we have to do a better job of showing why we accept it and why the evidence is so overwhelming,” says Baum. “We can bring a lot more meat to the argument.”

The Darwin Day symposium, which is free and open to the public, will be held from 9:15 a.m.-4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 11, in Room B10 Ingraham Hall. Featured speakers and topics include:

• Geologist Dana Geary, who will speak on the fossil record.
• Botanist Kenneth Sytsma, who will speak on biogeography and classification.
• Molecular biologist Sean Carroll, who will speak on development in animals.
• Horticulture professor Irwin Goldman, who will discuss artificial selection.
• Zoology professor Carol Lee, who will weigh in on instances of rapid natural selection.
• Botanist Tom Givnish, who will talk about adaptive radiation and island evolution.
• Philosophy professor Elliot Sober, who will talk about argument by design.

The overarching purpose of the event, says Baum, is to share the evidence accumulated by Darwin himself, and the mass of evidence that has been gathered by scientists in the intervening 150 years since the theory was first published.

Baum says the event, which has existed at UW-Whitewater for a number of years already, is likely to become an annual affair at UW–Madison.

“We’re not trying to convert anybody. We just want to show more of the evidentiary basis that justifies the position and present some interesting biology en route,” he adds.