International Meeting on

STEPHEN J. GOULD’S LEGACY: NATURE, HISTORY, SOCIETY

10^th – 12^th May 2012

Organized by ISTITUTO VENETO DI SCIENZE, LETTERE ED ARTI

in collaboration with UNIVERSITÀ CA’ FOSCARI, VENEZIA

May 2012 will be the tenth anniversary of Stephen Jay Gould’s death. Palaeontologist at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, eminent evolutionary biologist, science writer, science historian and opinion maker, Gould gave us an extended and revised version of the theory of evolution, his “Darwinian pluralism”, which is today an excellent frame for understanding the scientific advancements in many evolutionary fields. His anticipating intuitions about the conjunction of evolution and development, the role of ecological and biogeographical factors in speciation, the need for a multi-level interpretation of the units of selection, the interplay between functional pressures and internal constraints in processes like exaptation, are fruitful current lines of experimental research today. Even his pungent and sometimes very radical controversies against the progressive representations of evolution (especially human evolution), the pan-selectionist and gene-centered view of natural history, or the adaptationist “just-so-stories”, have left their mark in contemporary biology. Gould’s histories of nature were explorations in the nature of history, with wider cultural and philosophical implications, like his crucial concept of contingency. In the wonderful location of “Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti” in Venice, the town of Gould’s “spandrels of San Marco”, an International panel of scientists and philosophers – including Gould’s closest friends and colleagues like Niles Eldredge, Elisabeth Vrba, Elisabeth Lloyd and (in video) Richard Lewontin – will discuss his evolutionary and anthropological legacy, his idea of science as a complex rational enterprise, evolving itself and immersed in human society, his proposal for a methodology in historical sciences, and his unmistakable style of writing and argumentation, overcoming the boundaries between science, literature and art. In Gould scientific research and communication of science were two fields of inquiry strictly related by the idea that science is a high expression of human curiosity and culture.

Organizing Committee:

Gian Antonio Danieli, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti; Università degli studi di Padova.

Elena Gagliasso, Università di Roma La Sapienza.

Alessandro Minelli, Università degli studi di Padova; Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti.

Telmo Pievani, Università degli studi di Milano Bicocca; Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti.

Maria Turchetto, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia.

Chairmen:

Bernardino Fantini, Université de Genève

Marco Ferraguti, Università degli studi di Milano

Elena Gagliasso, Università di Roma La Sapienza

Giorgio Manzi, Sapienza Università di Roma

Alessandro Minelli, Università degli studi di Padova; Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti.

Telmo Pievani, Università degli studi di Milano Bicocca; Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti

Maria Turchetto, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia

Invited speakers:

Guido Barbujani, Università degli studi di Ferrara

Marcello Buiatti, Università degli studi di Firenze

Andrea Cavazzini, Université de Liège

Paul Ekman, University of California, San Francisco

Niles Eldredge, American Museum of Natural History, New York

T. Ryan Gregory, University of Guelph

Alberto Gualandi, Università degli studi di Bologna

Richard C. Lewontin, Harvard University

Elisabeth Lloyd, Indiana University

Giuseppe Longo, CNRS Parigi

Gerd Müller, Konrad Lorenz Institute, Vienna; Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti

Marco Pappalardo, McGill University, Montreal

Klaus Scherer, Université de Genève

Ian Tattersall, American Museum of Natural History, New York

Elisabeth S. Vrba, Yale University

Round table on communication of science

Invited participants:

Angelo Aquaro, «La Repubblica»

Brunella Danesi, Associazione Nazionale degli Insegnanti di Scienze Naturali

Pietro Greco, International School for Advanced Studies of Trieste

Gianna Milano, International School for Advanced Studies of Trieste, (Chairman)

Giorgio Narducci, Circolo Gould, Roma

Andrea Rinaldo, Università degli studi di Padova; Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti

Round table on translation into italian of Ontogeny and Phylogeny

Invited participants:

Andrea Cavazzini, Université de Liège

Silvia Di Cesare, Normale Supérieure de Paris

Marco Pappalardo, McGill University, Montreal

Giorgio Panini, Università degli studi di Bologna, (Chairman)

Federica Turriziani Colonna, Università di Roma La Sapienza; Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan

Informazioni