What happens when two evolutionary biologists, David Haig (Harvard University ) and Günter Wagner (Yale University ), talk with philosopher Andrej Drapal about progress and conservatism?

We invite you to Cankarjev Dom, Alma Karlin Hall, on June 28, 2023 at 7:30 pm.

Is it possible to repeat the time when scientists, naturalists and humanists sat around the table and could tell each other something interesting and useful, not only for themselves, but for everyone who was at least a little interested in what was happening around them?
Professor David Haig recently published a book From Darwin to Derrida. Derrida’s concept of difference creating difference served as his rationale for a groundbreaking understanding of genetics and evolution. David Haig connects science with philosophy.
Günter Wagner addresses the question of what evolutionary novelty is. His thesis is that novelty is the perfect complement to what is the same, the evolutionary homologue.
The laws of evolution, as understood by biologists, can only be universal laws of evolution if they apply to all living things and thus also to all human beings. At the same time, we are asked the following questions:
– Do other laws apply in the evolution of societies, languages, economies?
– Is progress one thing in science, but something else in human society?
– Is conservative synonymous with backwardness?
As always, there are more questions than answers.

The conversation will be conducted in English.
A Slovenian summary of the conversation will be available.
Admission to the hall is free from Gregorčičeva Street.

Prof. David A. Haig is George Putnam, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and author of numerous scholarly works and books, including From Darwin to Derrida, Selfish Genes, Social Selves and the Meanings of Life (MIT Press 2020).

Prof. Günter Wagner is Alison Richard Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University and author of numerous scientific papers and the book Homology, Genes and Evolutionary Innovation (Princeton University Press, 2014).

Andrej Drapal is a consultant, publicist, student, and author of Homonism: One Rule for Life as Philosophy of Conservatism (Scholars’ Press, 2022).