Allan Wilson Centre Lecture Series 2013
![Renowned ecologist Paul Ehrlich is Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University and president of Stanford’s Centre for Conservation Biology.]()
Renowned ecologist Paul Ehrlich is Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University and president of Stanford’s Centre for Conservation Biology.
© 2013 Paul Ehrlich
The second of the 2013 Allan Wilson Centre Lecture Series brings us face to face with the imminent threat of a collapse of civilization. We will look at how a combination of cultural and genetic evolution has taken us to the brink. Can we evolve our way out of it?
Professor Ehrlich will discuss the on-going legacy of Allan Wilson in establishing humanity’s place in the natural world, and in the growing importance of understanding cultural evolution in influencing how Homo sapiens is changing that world and its own life-support systems.
He will explain how the two kinds of evolution have interacted to create the human predicament – the imminent threat of a collapse of civilization. He will then discuss the evolutionary steps necessary to avoid that dénouement.