Torino Conference
It is no secret that all great evolutionary transitions are questions that are more or less unanswered at this point. What is exciting now is the origin of the genetic code and the human aptitude for language. Both phenomena imply a radical innovation in storing and transmitting information. Many consider the origin of language one of the hardest nuts to crack. It is a process that involves three temporal scales: individual learning, the spread of language in a population and the genetic evolution of learning mechanisms. None of them is independent of the other two. On the other hand, the language used at the time by the other individuals of the same species also influenced biological fitness; in other words, natural selection depended on frequency, just as in evolutionary game theory, one of the important contributions made by Maynard Smith to science.
The school is aimed to bring together leaders from different disciplines with students that wish to place their careers at the boundary between the various domains. As in the previous similar schools, the hope is to initiate as a result of the courses, projects that realize a genuine synthesis of theoretical and empirical concepts from different domains without violating, but rather emphasizing the crucial features specific to each domain.
Here are some pictures from this wonderful event, organized by Eors Szathmary.
Oswald (by Eduardo Izquierdo-Torres)
The snow eaters (by Eduardo Izquierdo-Torres)
Professor Peter Hammerstein (or The Evolutionary Game Theorist)
View from my bedroom window in Vila Gualino, Turin, Italy.
A question about my lecture on chemical evolution by natural selection.
The answer.
People listening to the lecture.