"Agricultural Innovation: How to Turn Artisanal Farming into a Capital-Intensive Industry"
The Department of Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences (PSIS) is pleased to be hosting Dr. Richard Lewontin for this special seminar. Many of you will know Dick as the preeminent population geneticist and evolutionary biologist. He revolutionized theoretical population genetics while still a grad student with Th. Dobzhansky and he ostensibly invented allozyme/isoenzyme electrophoresis in the 1960s with Jack Hubby. This ushered in the era of molecular evolutionary genetics and stimulated controversy over the exact nature and extent of adaptation in natural populations with his Harvard colleague Stephen J. Gould (“Spandrels of San Marco”) and elsewhere with Steven Rose and Leon Kamin (“Not in our Genes”).
Throughout his career, Dick has provided commentary and critique on society and science. In his upcoming visit to PSIS, he will be talking about political and economic ramifications of agricultural research (for a preview, look to his 2007 book written with Dick Levins, “Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health”).
