[Galileo] Wednesday Sept 9th 6.30 - Paul Griffiths on 'KONRAD LORENZ AND THE RISE OF SOCIOBIOLOGY'

[Paul Griffiths]

Sydney Ideas Public Lecture Series: Key Thinkers 

 

The University of Sydney hosts a series of free evening lectures on the
key thinkers who have shaped our society's institutions and beliefs.
University of Sydney academics, from a range of disciplines, will share
their specialised knowledge in a 45-minute lecture on an exceptional
thinker who has informed their research and teaching. All are welcome to
attend this free lecture series-and no booking or registration is
required.

 

The next lecture in the series is by Professor Paul Griffiths on
biologist Konrad Lorenz.

 

9 September
KONRAD LORENZ AND THE RISE OF SOCIOBIOLOGY
Professor Paul Griffiths, Professorial Research Fellow, Sydney Centre
for the Foundations of Science

The Nobel prize-winning Austrian biologist Konrad Lorenz initiated the
modern, Darwinian science of animal behaviour. In the 1960s Lorenz's
popular writings on Darwinism and human affairs, and particularly his
1966 book, On Aggression, had the same high public profile that Richard
Dawkins' books have today. Modern sociobiology, behavioural ecology and
evolutionary psychology are all descended, both intellectually and often
sociologically, from Lorenz and his collaborators. This lecture will
explain why Lorenz's work, and that of his Dutch collaborator Niko
Tinbergen, represented a radical break with earlier Darwinian accounts
of the mind, examine the young Lorenz's involvement with Nazism and
explain his hostility to the emergence of sociobiology in the 1970s.

Location: Lecture Theatre 101, New Law School
Cost: Free
Contact: Information Centre, phone 02  9351 3100, email
infocentre at mail.usyd.edu.au <mailto:infocentre at mail.usyd.edu.au> 
More information:
www.usyd.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/thoughts_thinkers
<http://www.usyd.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/thoughts_thinkers> 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/galileo/attachments/20090907/786034d5/attachment.html