Home Page > Digital libraries > Siena 2009

International Congress

Evolution: Intersecting Natural and Social Sciences

Organized by:
Santa Chiara Graduate School
Pro.M Chair in Bioeconomics of the University of Siena

10-13 December 2009, Siena, Italy

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Presentation

The Congress will be held on 10-13 December 2009, and will focus on three major themes at the intersection between organic evolution and social sciences:

•  bioeconomics and evolutionary mechanisms in social and natural sciences

•  behavioural evolution and comparative studies of animal societies

•  human nature and human culture: crossroads of evolution

In the context of Darwin bicentenary celebration, we wish to approach his groundbreaking works trying to investigate the relationship between natural evolution and human social systems, and their possible implications for society. Both methodological and data driven presentations are welcome. The congress will include multiple sessions, invited lectures by leading researchers in each field and oral presentations by participants.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------^^^

Call for papers

The congress will include oral presentations only. The congress' language will be English.

Abstracts can be submitted through our on line registration system by 30 June 2009.

Following a preliminary acceptance of the Abstract by the Scientific Committee, the Presenting Author must register for the Congress before a formal acceptance of their presentation is issued.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------^^^

Invited speakers

Edoardo Boncinelli

University Vita-Salute and Santa Chiara Graduate School

Professor of Biology and Genetics at the University Vita-Salute, Milan . After initial studies in physics, E.B. developed an interest for genetics and developmental biology. His studies, following the early recognition of the importance of regulatory genes in vertebrates as well as Drosophila, focus on the characterization of the Hox gene family and his role in the definition of major body axes during development and the formation of the brain and cerebral cortex. He is also a prolific author of books that range from scientific divulgation, the study of mind and higher mental function, to current themes in science and society.

Samuel Bowles

University of Siena and Santa Fe Institute

Research Porfessor at the Santa Fe Institute, S.B. studies how cultural evolution have challenged the conventional economic assumption that people are motivated entirely by self-interest. His studies have included the mathematical modelling, agent-based computer simlation and behavioral experiments in 15 hunter-gather and other small-scale societies. S.B.'s current research also includes both theoretical and empirical studies of the role of incomplete contracts in labor and financial markets in explaining income inequality. In his major work A cooperative species: Human reciprocity and evolution, co-authored by Hebert Gintis, he seeks to explain why humans, unlike other animals, engage in extensive forms of cooperation among large numbers of unrelated individuals.

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

Stanford University

Genticist, anthropologist, L.L.C-S. pioneered the application of human genetics and molecular markers to the study of human migrations. He started complementing early archaeological evidence for neolithic cultures and migrations with data from the distribution of blood groups and other molecular markers to develop an initial organic view of the peopling of the Earth and the formation of modern mixed societies. He also included in his research program observations from linguistics and historical data on marriages from in Church records. As a leading opinion maker in the field, he argued against the misuse of the concept of race in human, as not supported by genetics. He opened to the new field of cultural anthropology, using models from population genetics to investigate the transmission of culturally transmitted units . Author of The History and Geography of Human Genes and Geni, Popoli e Lingue.

Marcus W. Feldman
Stanford University

Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford, MWF studies the evolution of complex genetic systems that can undergo both natural selection and recombination, the evolution of learning, the interaction of biological and cultural evolution such as the spread of food plant domestication across Europe and the transmission of learned behaviors in contemporary groups. Progress in these areas is yielding insight into problems ranging from the origin and control of genetic systems to the medical control of diseases. Furthermore, MWF focussed on the mathematical and statistical analysis of molecular evolution, particularly microsatellite polymorphism.

Michael T. Ghiselin

California Academy of Sciences and Santa Chiara Chair in Bioeconomics, University of Siena

Biologist, philosopher, historian, M.T.G. began his professional career as a comparative anatomist, studying reproductive systems and phylogeny of opistobranch gastropods. His interests in turn led him into in the fundamental principles of systematics and the history and philosophy of biology, focussing on the basic units in biology and their role in evolutionary thinking. Impressed early by the contributions of Darwin , he started to develop a theory explaining the kind of sex changes that occur in some coral reef fishes and other organisms, leading to the development of the so-called sex-allocation theory . Lately he has done much work in an attempt to synthesize the two disciplines of biology and economics, as two aspects on the same branch of knowledge.

Telmo Pievani
University Milan Bicocca

Researcher in the field of Philosophy of Biology and Theory of Evolution, after doctoral researches in the USA with Niles Eldredge, T.P. is now Associate Professor in Philosophy of Science at the University of Milan Bicocca. He is author of successful books such as Homo sapiens and Other Catastrophes, Introduction to Philosophy of Biology and The Theory of Evolution. He is the Scientific Coordinator of the Genoa Science Festival and co-Director of the Rome Festival of Sciences. He is Director of the web-site Pikaia and member of the editorial board of International journals. Involved in several International research projects about the theory of evolution, he edited the Italian editions of Stephen J. Gould, Sean Carroll, Richard Dawkins, Niles Eldredge, Stuart Kauffman, Ian Tattersall, Susan Oyama, Kim Sterelny, Edward O. Wilson's and Charles Darwin.

..more to be defined.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------^^^

Scientific Committee

Samuel Bowles, Santa Fe Institute and University of Siena

Francesco Frati, University of Siena

Michael Ghiselin, California Academy of Science and Santa Chiara Chair in Bioeconomics

Janet Landa, York University

Ugo Pagano, University of Siena

Robert Rowthorn, University of Cambridge and Santa Chiara Chair in Bioeconomics

Lucia Sarti, University of Siena

Organizing Committee

Giovanni Forconi, Santa Chiara Graduate School

Francesca Mattioli, Santa Chiara Graduate School

Francesco Nardi, University of Siena

Chiara Roscino, Santa Chiara Graduate School

Official web site

Please refer to the Congress' official web site for updates and further details.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------^^^