When the topic of evolution comes up it is often to discuss the debate, to choose sides, and to balance the arguments, but is it time to quit debating evolution? By affording anti-evolutionists equal time we risk spending all our time debating evolution and missing the real debates within evolution. These debates, full of exciting controversy and disagreement, are obfuscated when the focus is on the wrong discussion. The speaker will start with a brief look at the amazing diversity and beauty of nature, then the weight of the evidence in favour of our current understanding of evolution by natural selection, and then he will delve into the interesting but entirely understandable debates within evolutionary science.
Speaker: Dr. Dan Johnson
Dan Johnson studied at the University of Minnesota (started in Anthropology), University of Saskatchewan (biology and geography), and University of British Columbia (graduate degrees, Institute of Animal Resource Ecology, and Department of Plant Science). He is currently a Professor of Environmental Science at U of L where he teaches biogeography, impacts of climate, sustainable development, environmental science for First Nations Transition Program, and data analysis.
Dan was part of the AIBS Presidents’ Summit in Washington, DC, 1999, which established the teaching of evolution as one of the key objectives of biological scientific societies (at the time, he was President of the Entomological Society of Canada). Dan wrote one of the first position statements by a scientific society on the teaching of evolution, and argued the case through to a successful vote and ratification. He also served on species-at-risk recovery teams in Canada, developed biocontrol agents for sustainable agriculture, and has conducted environmental research in Africa, North America and Asia. Dan is also a member of the Alberta Environmental Appeals Board.