Dame Gillian Beer, Darwin's universal impact, Mon 6 July

Darwin was a famously attentive observer, responding to movement, gesture, and the invisible thrust of desires in an array of life forms from oysters and climbing plants to human beings of many cultures. This talk will draw on materials from the whole course of Darwins life and writing. It will demonstrate how speculation in his early private notebooks fuels his much later arguments and it will investigate how Darwin explores the awkward fit between expression and emotions. Being human, in his understanding, implies the effort to recognize, and perhaps to enter, other forms of consciousness. Language, as a particularly human tool, is itself caught up in the evolutionary process half-art and half-instinct, as he observed. How does it help and hamper the investigation of different species? And what can be learnt about being human by mimicry and empathy with other sentient beings? These are questions that stretch Darwins capacities and whose challenges he meets. The talk will investigate the degree to which his arguments still trouble our understanding.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Cambridge University
• Darwin Festival
• 2009
• Charles Darwin
• Universal
• Impact
• Dame Gillian Beer
• Evolution
• Human
• Expression
• Emotion
• Consciousness
• Language
• Species
• Investigation
• Science

[zygaema]

@assym2006 la sementera de Michurin jajajajaja

[assym2006]

@Mr88playmaker

what utter crap

[gamesbok]

@Mr88playmaker Which god?

[Mr88playmaker]

DNA code is empirical proof that biological life forms are a creative product of information and language. i.e.: Nous / Logos (Einstein called this: "The MIND of GOD").

Darwin had it all wrong and now atheists need a new theory for origins.

"Which came first, matter or knowledge?" DNA answers: KNOWLEDGE (period).

[RhondaH]

Nicely presented material. Very enjoyable and informative.