Debates

The London Evolutionary Research Network Invites you to its next Debate: ‘The future of Plant Science’  21st Feb 2019 6:00 p.m. Whether you want a Career in Business or Science – This is the event to attend to help you decide and more!In collaboration with the Linnean Society, the worlds oldest extant biological society we bring you a talk that […]

Dear All, The London Evolutionary Research Network warmly invites you to join us for a debate on Evolutionary Psychiatry entitled: Can Evolution explain bad feelings? Are you prepared to understand where your deepest thoughts come from: good or bad they may have a use in the battle of the survival of the fittest? This is a

LERN DEBATE 2018 – Synthetic biology Recent technological advances are allowing scientists to redesign organisms or even build new life forms from scratch. This new developing area of research steps beyond traditional Genetic Modification (GM), to combine science and engineering in what is known as Synthetic Biology. Technologies such as CRISPR-Cas are already allowing us

LERN DEBATE 2017 – BIG DATA The reduction in price of processing capacity and data storage is allowing us to generate datasets of unmatched size and complexity. This is especially true for the evolutionary sciences, where ever-increasing datasets are fuelled by the improvement of image analysis and sequencing technologies. We now face the challenge of finding

Thursday 7th April 2016 at the Linnean Society in Piccadilly. The annual debate organised in association with London Evolutionary Research Network (LERN) and the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association (EHBEA). More than 150 years has passed since the publication of On the Origin of Species. Nevertheless, only recently has Darwin’s dangerous idea started to be applied

DEBATE – Darwin’s ark: Choosing the Species to Save From Extinction The annual LERN\Linnean Society debate- Thursday, the 19th of November, at the Linnean Society 5pm. You can find more information on this event on the Linnean Society website. A panel of people working in conservation science an conservation policy will discuss if conservation work should be prioritising some

This year LERN joined hands with the Linnean Society to bring you an exciting evening at the Burlington House on Thursday 20th of November 2014. This event will honour environmental pioneer Rachel Carson, who sadly passed away 50 years ago. As such, the evening will be a panel discussion on the challenges of expanding agricultural productivity

“This house believes that the distinction between proximate and ultimate causes hinders a complete understanding of evolutionary processes.” The topic will consider Ernst Mayr’s distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations of behaviour, which has been hugely influential in evolutionary theory. Are recent criticisms of this dichotomy invalid or does the direction of future research lie

Are Humans Unique? The question of human uniqueness affects us all — from how we understand ourselves as a species to how we behave towards fellow humans and other animals. We at the London Evolutionary Research Network think this is a fascinating topic, and we are pleased to announce our forthcoming debate. Four eminent speakers

Resuscitating Lamarck: Do we need a new evolutionary theory? The issue of epigenetics has sparked some discussion about the mechanisms by which evolutionary change arises. Some scientists believe that epigenesis has been an important factor in evolution, and propose a reformulation of the evolutionary theory as we know it, while others do not see epigenesis