2014 Patrusky Lecture: The human evolutionary journey
- Time:
- Sunday, October 19th, 2:15 pm to 3:15 pm
- Location:
- Bellows ABCD, Hilton Columbus Downtown
- Speaker(s):
- Donald C. JohansonVirginia M. Ullman Chair in Human Origins; professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change; founding director, Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University
As the storehouse of hominid fossils and information about the human genome continues to grow, our evolutionary journey appears to be more complicated than anticipated. Reaching back to 6 million years ago, fossil hominid finds have prompted significant redrawing of the human family tree. 2014 Patrusky Lecturer Donald Johanson and others have painted a picture of human origins with broad brushstrokes revealing who our ancestors were, where they lived, how they survived and what they contributed to modern Homo sapiens. Forty years after his discovery of the fossil hominid Lucy prompted a redrawing of the human family tree, Johanson says three pillars of humanity make us who we are today: a unique communication system based on symbolic language, an unprecedented level of cooperation, and a capacity for cumulative culture. “The powerful interaction between biology and culture,” he says, “makes us the most creative, but at the same time the most destructive, species on Planet Earth.”
For supplemental information about this New Horizons in Science briefing, see the CASW website
