Darwin Day—An Evolutionary Perspective On Economics and Environmental Policy

Continuing the tradition of honoring Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory, the University will celebrate Darwin Day 2011 with a lecture about the history of the cross-fertilization of ideas in economics and biology. The event will be held Thursday, Feb., 17, at 7 p.m. in the Power Center Ballroom.

Dr. John Gowdy, the Rittenhouse Teaching Professor of Humanities and Social Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, will present the event’s keynote lecture.

Gowdy is collaborating with Dr. David Sloan Wilson, a noted evolutionary biologist, in the creation of the Evolution Institute, an academic space where people can learn how the insights of evolutionary biology can help solve practical problems. Gowdy is an economist and seeks to apply evolutionary theory to develop economic models that are more realistic than current ones that often assume humans act as purely rational agents, which they are only sometimes.

“Economists rely on models of human behavior to predict the behavior of economies and make policy suggestions,” said Dr. David Lampe, associate professor of biology and the organizer of Darwin Day. “Current models could be vastly improved if they incorporated the insights of evolutionary biology, which documents how real humans behave in light of their evolutionary history. Anybody paying attention to the American economy over the last few years will realize just how much we need better models.”

This event is free and open to the public. Organized by the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, this year’s Darwin Day is co-sponsored by the Palumbo•Donahue School of Business.

“The School of Business is proud to cosponsor Darwin Day this year with the Bayer School,” said Dr. Alan Miciak, dean of the Palumbo•Donohue School of Business. “We are interested in hearing Dr. Gowdy’s reexamination of the connection between economics and evolution. His discussion of the behavioral revolution in economic theory, citing examples from climate change economics, will surely create a thought-provoking lecture.”

This is the ninth year that the biology department of the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences has organized a Darwin Day celebration at Duquesne.