What Darwin Didn’t Know
Hopi Hoekstra is an internationally renowned biologist and the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University. She has made major strides in developing an approach that connects evolution in the wild to mechanisms at the molecular level. When Darwin articulated his theory of evolution by natural selection in 1859, he was missing a key piece: While he recognized that offspring resembled their parents, he didn’t know how this information was transmitted through generations. In the years since, not only has DNA been discovered as the carrier of genetic information, but we can link genes to the traits they encode and also find evidence for evolution at a once unimaginable level: in DNA, genes and genomes. Hoekstra will describe her work studying evolution in action, linking genes to traits and ultimately to survival.
This Provost’s Lecture, co-sponsored by the Department of Ecology and Evolution, will be held on Friday, February 9, at 7:30 pm, in the Earth & Space Sciences Building, Lecture Theater 001.
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