Host Organization

UF Whitney Laboratory

Description

The Evenings at Whitney Lecture Series presents “Bones, stones, and DNA: A Nature editor’s-eye view of human evolution” with Luíseach Nic Eoin, Ph.D., Senior Editor at Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Human evolution is a complex and fast-moving topic that’s key to understanding who we are and where we come from. The past decade and a half have seen something of a molecular revolution in archaeology and palaeoanthropology which means we know more than ever about the complexities of the human family tree, but classic techniques of stone tool and fossil bone analysis remain key to discovery and interpretation. She’ll talk about who’s who, who’s where, who’s when, what we know, what we don’t know, and what we’d like to know.

But why is an editor—rather than a practicing research scientist—here to talk to you about human evolution? Luíseach will spend the first part of this talk explaining what exactly the job entails as an editor for arguably the most prestigious group of science journals in the world, discussing the pros and cons of scientific ‘gatekeeping’, sharing some exciting and some frankly odd discoveries from her inbox, and making a case that this perennially fascinating field where both stakes and tensions run high needs a bird’s eye view to make sense of it.

Location