February brings travel and talks

February is going to be a busy month for me. Sunday I leave for Oklahoma where I will be giving the lead-off public lecture for their Darwin 2009 Celebration. I will be speaking on the 12th at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History on the topic of “Was There A Darwinian Revolution?” Any Sooner readers should feel free to come along and introduce themselves.

While in Norman, I’ll also be teaching a four-day intensive course on Darwin for the Oklahoma Scholar-Leadership Enrichment Program, the syllabus for which is here. While there will be some lectures, the meat and potatoes of the course will be seminar discussions of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Paley’s Natural Theology, and Darwin’s two major works - Origin and Descent. I’ll also be lecturing in a mate’s class on the topic of professionalization in Victorian science. It will be a busy week.

No sooner that I get back, that I am giving the Darwinian Revolution lecture at a meeting of ASU Sigma Xi (20th) and later that evening addressing the issue of whether evolution and faith can be reconciled at the Arizona Science Museum (starts 5:30 pm).

Thankfully, the teachers workshop I mentioned previously has been shifted to a future date (probably in the Fall). If you are an Arizona middle or high school teacher interested in attending, please feel fee to contact me for further information.

Busy month.