The department of biological sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences will host Hopi Hoekstra of Harvard University as the second speaker in its ALLELE series tonight.
The event will be at 7:30 p.m. in the Biology building auditorium. It is free and open to the public.
The series is titled the Alabama Lectures on Life’s Evolution and is designed to educate Alabama residents in the evolutionary science field, said Leslie Rissler, an associate professor in the department of biological sciences.
“We’re trying to do our part and try to tell the public that evolution is a fact, and it’s a theory, and it’s not controversial,” Rissler said.
The Evolution Working Group at the University of Alabama, which consists of faculty in the biology, philosophy, psychology, geology and anthropology, has recruited scientists in these fields to speak in the 2010-11 series.
Hoekstra is the John Loeb associate professor of biology in the department of organismic and evolutionary biology and the curator of mammals at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard.
In her lecture, “From Darwin to DNA: How Organisms Adapt to their Environment,” Hoekstra will explain the importance of the theory of evolution in her research on coat color of beach mice through genetic analyses.
Recent DNA sequencing technologies have allowed scientists to prove the evolution theory Charles Darwin proposed in the 19th century, Rissler said.
“In my lecture, I will present one of the most complete studies of adaptive change in nature — the evolution of camouflaging coloration in mice inhabiting the coastal dunes of Alabama and Florida,” Hoekstra said in a press release.
Alabama is the only state that requires a disclaimer for the evolution theory in textbooks.
In 2009, the National Center for Science Education ranked Alabama 50th — the worst state in the nation when it comes to quality of its science education, Rissler said.
“We want to show people how exciting and rich the evolutionary science fields really are,” she said.
The ALLELE lecture series is geared toward students, faculty, Tuscaloosa and Alabama residents and is considered a community outreach service, Rissler said.
