Coming on February 6th 2016

Doors open at 12:30PM in the UU Clearwater Octagon.
E
ach will give a lecture on their topic, followed by a panel discussion, with questions from the audience.Afterwards there will be a reception, with light refreshments, during which attendees can interact with the speakers and each other. More details at the Ticket site below.

Tickets to this stellar event are now available from the site, Brown Paper Ticket.

Tickets can be had by clicking...

Here

 

 



Precursors of Humanity ...along the trail of human origins
If you think that you live in a world of interconnectedness, where all things share a common universe of past, present, and future, and that the material basis of life and its evolution allow us to know ever more intimately who we are and why we are here, then you will want to hear this discussion.
Our speakers are preeminent in their fields and they will make the essential link between we humans and our fellow creatures from both the animal and insect worlds whose behavior anticipated and shaped our own. In ways sometimes shocking and surprising they are more like us than you might imagine. Even more surprising is the well integrated success they have had in adapting to their environment. While many things we have done by way of our cultures have posed great impediments to our continued existance, the bonobos and the ants have demonstrated that moderate flexability in social behavior has tremendous advantages. Join us - Learn more!

Dr. Deby Cassill - USF's Department of Environmental Science & Policy is unquestionably enriched with Dr. Cassill’s scientific wisdom. Aside from holding a doctorate in biology and boasting more than a decade’s worth of experience, the professor has done extensive research on fire ants and ant behavior, written a myriad of scholarly papers as a result, received almost $25,000 in grants for various research projects, won a handful of distinguished awards, and appeared in numerous noteworthy science publications. Despite her star status in the world of science, Dr. Cassill is a down-to-earth, energetic and engaging professor. As clichéd as it sounds, she really does make learning fun — she has a natural ability to translate ideas and information without losing her students’ attention, and a genuine enthusiasm for what she’s doing

Dr. Cassill received her PhD in biology from the Florida State University. On the campus of USF St. Petersburg, Dr. Cassill is affectionately known as the “ant whisperer.” In her quest to understand social behavior, Dr. Cassill uses ants as surrogates for humans. She studies the survival strategies of ants encountering a variety of adverse conditions.This has undergirded the proposition that social values play an important and expanding role in shaping the basis of animal and human behavior.

Dr. Frans de Waal received his Ph.D. in Biology and Zoology from Utrecht University, the Netherlands, in 1977. He completed his postdoctoral study of chimpanzees while associated with Utrecht University, in 1981, and moved the same year to the USA. He has been a National Academy of Sciences member since 2004, and a Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences member since 1993.

Time featured him in 2007 as one of the World's One Hundred Most Influential People. He is also the Director of Living Links at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center.

He is the author of many books and articles the latest of which is:

The Bonobo and the Atheist,
In Search of Humanism among the Primates Amazon order

Darwin Day resolution now before congress! Read more here.

 

 

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