The third annual Darwin Day Colloquium features eight panels, a keynote speaker, art exhibits and a cake-decorating contest. Anyone can attend the conference, which takes place Thursday from noon to 5 p.m. on the first floor of Smith Hall.
The Evolutionary Studies Club, known as the EvoS Club, has partnered with a variety of student organizations including the Philosophy Club, the Secular Student Alliance, The Journal of Science and Health at The University of Alabama and the Anthropology Club to facilitate the event.
“This year is different because we’re kind of building up into next year,” said Taylor Burbach, president of the EvoS Club and a senior majoring in anthropology. “It’s going to be the Southeastern Evolutionary Perspective Society. It’s going to be the first year that what we’ve started here is going to become that, so we’re trying to build up into kind of a bigger more nationally known [event].”
Kilian Garvey, an evolutionary psychologist from The University of Louisiana at Monroe, will give the keynote address about the way human beliefs have evolved and the role those beliefs have played in survival. Other speeches will focus on evolutionary medicine, the philosophy of evolution and more.
Burbach said this year focuses more on creative expressions of evolution. The group challenged K-12 schools to make music videos incorporating evolutionary themes and anyone interested can enter the cake contest.
“Last year, the guy that won, he did two very small cakes,” Burbach said. “But he did a regular one and a vegan one. He did the phylogeny, like sort of the evolutionary tree that everyone sees in their biology textbooks.”
After the contest, Burbach said people can eat the cakes. In addition, several displays will showcase evolution, including model skulls of different hominids. Jessica Reynolds, a UAB alumna who studied biology and visual arts, will exhibit her graphite drawings of the evolution of a frog.
“[Art]’s something we not only use as an expression, but it also conveys information,” said Danny Mendez, secretary and treasurer of the EvoS Club and a sophomore majoring in management information systems. “I think that’s really important to actually learn. It’s putting it in a way that you’re paying attention and can actually retain that information.”
The EvoS Club is part of the College of Arts and Sciences Evolutionary Studies Program that offers a minor in evolutionary studies. Christopher Lynn directs the program, and the minor involves a variety of classes in the departments of anthropology, geology, history, philosophy and psychology.
“You don’t think in Alabama Evolutionary Studies is a big thing,” Mendez said. “But I mean, as Dr. Lynn always says, we’re one of four, I think, universities that offer the minor and also one of the only flagship schools that does that.”
In addition to Darwin Day, the group helps teach anthropology classes at Arcadia Elementary School and works with the Human Behavioral Ecology Research Group.
To find out more about Darwin Day and the Evolutionary Studies Program, visit evolutionarystudies.as.ua.edu.
