SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 6 - 8 may 2009

Symposium: Evolution of the universe, the planets, life and thought

Friday, 8 May 2009

Dr Olivia Judson
Imperial College, UK

Olivia Judson is an evolutionary biologist and award-winning writer. Her first book, Dr Tatiana's sex advice to all creation: The definitive guide to the evolutionary biology of sex, has been translated into more than 15 languages and was also adapted for television. She is also the author of The Wild Side, a weekly online column in The New York Times (though she is presently taking a sabbatical from it to work on a second book). She is a research fellow at Imperial College London.

Glad to have evolved

What does evolution mean? In a talk that celebrates the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, I will reflect on how an evolutionary outlook changes the way we see the planet and ourselves. For the planet has been sculpted by life: organisms have altered the atmosphere, the seas, the rocks. And humans, too, have been moulded and evolved by other living beings, from the bacteria in our guts to the animals and plants that we have tamed.