Clemson to host Darwin Week lecture

Published: February 4, 2013

By Laura Hicks

CLEMSON — Jerry A. Coyne of the University of Chicago will give a lecture titled “Why Evolution is True” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5, in Tillman Hall Auditorium as part of Darwin Week at Clemson University. 

The presentation will summarize Coyne’s explanation of the evidence in support of evolution as a fundamental principle in the life sciences as articulated in his recent book by the same name. Coyne’s presentation is free and open to the general public. 

Coyne is a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago. He received a bachelor of science in biology from the College of William and Mary and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Harvard University. He has held faculty positions at the University of Maryland and the University of Chicago.

Coyne's work is focused on understanding the origin of species, the evolutionary process of diversification within lineages. He uses a variety of genetic analyses to locate and identify the genes that produce reproductive barriers between distinct species of the fruit fly Drosophila. Through finding patterns in the location and action of such genes, he hopes to work out the evolutionary processes that originally produced genetic change and to determine whether different pairs of species may show similar genetic patterns, implying similar routes to speciation.

Coyne has written more than 110 refereed scientific papers, as well as 80 other articles, book reviews and columns. He has also written two books: “Speciation," co-authored with H. Allen Orr, and “Why Evolution is True.”

Coyne’s presentation is sponsored by the department of biological sciences; the department of philosophy and religion; the Calhoun Honors College; the Rutland Institute for Ethics; the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences; the Biological Sciences Graduate Student Association; and SCLIFE.

For more information about Darwin Week events at Clemson, go to http://people.clemson.edu/~mchildr/Darwin2013/.

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