** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at new.livestream.com/lindahall ** 15th Annual Paul D. Bartlett, Sr. Lecture April 6, 2017, in the Main Reading Room of the Linda Hall Library The lecture: Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was a Victorian tour de force: a remarkable synthesis of natural history observations and simple experimental results. Perhaps, though, the most impressive thing about the theory is the way in which it has survived more than 150 years of remarkable progress in biology. It has proved a truly resilient idea. That is not to say, however, that the theory has not undergone modifications as our biological knowledge has expanded in directions that would have been inconceivable to Darwin. This talk reviews the essence of Darwin’s ideas while taking excursions into some of the most exciting post-Darwin discoveries. In particular, the focus will be on human evolution, an area in which our knowledge has recently expanded massively with fossil discoveries and the application of modern genetics to both ourselves and, remarkably, to our extinct relatives, the Neanderthals. The speaker: Andrew Berry is an Assistant Head Tutor in Integrative Biology and Lecturer on Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. His research interests include genetic and statistical approaches to detecting adaptive evolution (instances of positive natural selection) in genomes. He is especially fascinated by islands because they are so often home to remarkable evolutionary innovations. Professor Berry is also a historian of science with research interests in Alfred Russel Wallace and in the role of natural history in the development of evolutionary thinking. He has an undergraduate degree in zoology from Oxford University and a PhD in genetics from Princeton University. Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.

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