Date
Start Date : February 24, 4:00 pm
End Date :

Location

Second Floor Common Room,
The Heyman Center for the Humanities



Event Organizer

Event Sponsor

Event Co-Sponsor(s)

On February 24, 2012, please join ICLS for a discussion with noted evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist Robert Trivers (Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences, Rutgers University).

Professor Trivers graduated from Harvard in 1965 with a degree in history and earned a doctorate in biology from Harvard in 1972. He quickly gained an international reputation for applying Darwin’s theories in dramatic new ways and is now one of the most influential evolutionary theorists alive today. His books include Genes in Conflict: The Biology of Selfish Genetic Elements (with Austin Burt), Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert Trivers, and Social Evolution. Trivers’s theories have inspired innovative research in animal behavior, genetics, anthropology, psychology, and other fields. “I consider Trivers one of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought,” says acclaimed language theorist Steven Pinker. “It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that he has provided a scientific explanation for the human condition: the intricately complicated and endlessly fascinating relationships that bind us to one another.”

In 2007, the Royal Swedish Academy awarded Robert Trivers the Crafoord Prize in Biosciences for “his fundamental analysis of social evolution, conflict and cooperation.”

Professor Trivers will discuss his book The Folly of Fools (Basic Books, 2011) as part of the ICLS Rethinking the Human Sciences workshop series, which is being sponsored by the Heyman Center for the Humanities.

Listen to the audio of this presentation on iTunesU.

About The Folly of Fools:

From viruses mimicking host behavior to humans misremembering (sometimes intentionally) the details of a quarrel, science has proven that the deceptive one can always outwit the masses. But to undertake this deception risks peril. Trivers has written an ambitious investigation into the evolutionary logic of lying and the costs of leaving it unchecked.

 The Heyman Center for the Humanities, Room B-101
74 Morningside Drive
New York, NY, 10027
  (212) 854-4541
  (212) 854-3099