Important note: RSVPs FOR THIS EVENT ARE NOW CLOSED, AS THE ROOM IS NOW FULL.

On the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday, come hear prominent paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall give a public lecture about Darwin and his impact on what we know about human evolution. Tattersall, curator in the anthropology department at the American Museum of Natural History, will then sit down for a conversation with Massimo Pigliucci, Chair of the Philosophy Department at City University of New York (CUNY) at Lehman College. A question-and-answer session with the audience will follow.

This event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the New York City Skeptics, Center for Inquiry in New York City, and the student group Free Inquiry and Secular Humanism at CUNY-Hunter College.

About Ian Tattersall. Born in England and raised in East Africa, Tattersall has carried out fieldwork in countries as diverse as Madagascar, Vietnam, Surinam, Yemen, and Mauritius. Trained in archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge, and in geology and vertebrate paleontology at Yale, Tattersall has concentrated his research over the past quarter-century in two main areas, in both of which he is an acknowledged leader: the analysis of the human fossil record, and the study of the ecology and systematics of the lemurs of Madagascar. Tattersall has several books to his credit, as well as several articles in Scientific American and the co-editorship of the Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory. He lectures widely, and, as curator, has also been responsible for several major exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History. In addition, Tattersall is adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, and at the PhD Program in Anthropology at CUNY.

About Massimo Pigliucci. Before going to Lehman, Pigliucci was professor of Ecology and Evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His research is concerned with philosophy of science, the relationship between science and philosophy, and the relationship between science and religion. He has published over a hundred technical papers and several books; he has columns in the magazines Philosophy Now and Skeptical Inquirer, and pens the "Rationally Speaking" blog. His upcoming book will be released in the spring, and is entitled Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science From Bunk.