I talk with biologist Brandon Ogbunu about mathematical and conceptual tools for thinking about the complexities of evolution.
Nov 10
335 | Andrew Jaffe on Models, Probability, and the Universe
<p>Science has an incredibly impressive track record of uncovering nonintuitive ideas about the universe that turn out to be surprisingly accurate. It can be tempting to think of scientific discoveries as being carefully constructed atop a rock-solid foundation. In reality, scien ... Show More
1h 17m
Nov 3
334 | Daniel Whiteson on the Physics of and by Aliens
<p>The universe as revealed by physics is objective: it's out there, existing and behaving in ways that are completely independent of human thought. But the process by which we learn about the universe, and the language with which we talk about it, is extremely human-dependent. D ... Show More
1h 14m
Sep 18
The link between evolution and language | Richard Dawkins
<p>Languages drift, adapt and evolve much like living species. In this wide-ranging conversation, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and linguist John McWhorter trace the parallels between biology and speech, from random mutations to cultural selection. They show how both gen ... Show More
22m 45s
Aug 2024
Alan C. Love, "Evolution and Development: Conceptual Issues" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
It was an astounding discovery in the early 1980's that the same genetic sequence, the homeobox, controlled the development of basic body plans across the animal kingdom, whether the result was a flatworm, an octopus, a mouse, or a human. This discovery of the conservation of a k ... Show More
1h 3m
Sep 18
The link between evolution and language | Richard Dawkins
<p>Languages drift, adapt and evolve much like living species. In this wide-ranging conversation, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and linguist John McWhorter trace the parallels between biology and speech, from random mutations to cultural selection. They show how both gen ... Show More
22m 45s
Aug 2016
The World is Your Petri Dish with Bruce Lipton
Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized leader in new biology. His pioneering research on cloned stem cells presaged the revolutionary field of epigenetics, the new science of how environment and perception control genes. Bruce served on the faculty of the Univer ... Show More
1h 12m
Jun 2025
#960 - Dr Jerry Coyne - The Spiciest Ideas Of Evolutionary Biology
Dr Jerry Coyne is an evolutionary biologist, professor at the University of Chicago, and an author. Has ideology hijacked academia? In fields like evolutionary biology, the data should speak for itself, but what happens when scientific findings clash with cultural taboos? How do ... Show More
1h 21m
Jul 2024
The Science and Ethics of CRISPR and CRISPR-Inspired Gene Editing | Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P.
This lecture was given on November 12th, 2023, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
About the Speaker: Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, OP, received his PhD in Biology from MIT and his S.Th.D. ... Show More
1 h
Nov 2024
Harvey Whitehouse, "Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World" (Harvard UP, 2024)
Each of us is endowed with an inheritance--a set of evolved biases and cultural tools that shape every facet of our behavior. For countless generations, this inheritance has taken us to ever greater heights: driving the rise of more sophisticated technologies, more organized reli ... Show More
44m 17s