Understanding Human Variation: Then and Now

Date: 

Thursday, December 8, 2016, 6:00pm

Location: 

Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge

Free Public Lecture

Maryellen Ruvolo, Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology; Affiliate Member of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Associate Member of the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University

The current scientific view of human origins and genetic variation holds that all humans belong to a single species. Revolutionary genetic research tools have revealed that human genetic diversity is low relative to other species, that human populations have only recently diverged from one other, and that the small degree of genetic differentiation among living human populations is linked primarily to adaptations to differing environments. Maryellen Ruvolo will discuss how this consensus on human evolutionary biology contrasts sharply with beliefs held in the previous century.

Race, Representation, and Museums Lecture Series

Presented in collaboration with the Departments of Anthropology and Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University.

Free parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.