Niles Eldredge en Exactas - UBA

Ciclo de Conferencias Año Darwin Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales
Jueves 15 de Octubre, 12.30 hs., Aula 5 Pabellón II.

"Darwin, Discovering the Tree of Life" por Niles Eldredge

Curator, Division of Paleontology
The American Museum of Natural History

Breve perfil del expositor
Niles Eldredge
Curator, Division of Paleontology The American Museum of Natural History

Research Interests: Niles Eldredge has been a paleontologist on the curatorial staff of the American Museum of Natural History since 1969. His specialty is the evolution of trilobites-a group of extinct arthropods that lived between 535 and 245 million years ago. Eldredge's main professional passion is evolution. Throughout his career, he has used repeated patterns in the history of life to refine ideas on how the evolutionary process actually works. The theory of "punctuated equilibria," developed with Stephen Jay Gould in 1972, was an early milestone. Eldredge went on to develop a hierarchical vision of evolutionary and ecological systems, and in his book The Pattern of Evolution (1999) he unfolds a comprehensive theory (the "sloshing bucket") that specifies in detail how environmental change governs the evolutionary process. Concerned with the rapid destruction of many of the world's habitats and species, Eldredge was Curator-in-Chief of the American Museum's Hall of Biodiversity (May, 1998), and has written several books on the subject-most recently (1998) Life in the Balance. He has also combated the creationist movement through lectures, articles and books-including The Triumph of Evolution... And The Failure of Creationism (2000).An amateur jazz trumpeter and avid collector of 19th century cornets, Eldredge has turned his evolutionary approach to cornet history-and to the comparison of patterns and processes of material cultural and biological evolution. A critic of gene-centered theories of evolution, Eldredge's Why We Do It (2004) presents an alternative account to the gene-based notions of "evolutionary psychology" to explain why human beings behave as they do.Eldredge is the Curator responsible for the content of the major exhibition Darwin, which opened at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on November 19, 2005. The exhibition travels to Boston, Toronto and Chicago before going to the Natural History Museum in London in time to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth in 2009. His book Darwin. Discovering the Tree of Life (2005) accompanies the exhibition.

EDUCATION: A.B., Columbia College, New York, June, 1965 (Summa Cum Laude); Ph.D. (Geology), Columbia University, October 1969.

EMPLOYMENT: Assistant Curator, Department of Invertebrate Paleontology, The American Museum of Natural History, 1969-1974; Associate Curator, Department of Invertebrates, 1974-1979; Curator, l979-; Chairman, 1984-1991; Adjunct Professor of Biology, City University of New York, 1972-; Adjunct Assistant (1969-1974) and Associate (1974-1981) Professor, Department of Geology, Columbia University.

AFFILIATIONS: Trustee, Biodiversity Foundation for Africa; Member: Paleontological Society, Palaeontological Association, Society for the Study of Evolution, Society of Systematic Zoology, AAAS.

SOCIETY OFFICES: Coeditor, Systematic Zoology, 1973-1976; Councilor, Paleontological Society, 1977-1979.