Darwin 200

Events

All seminars mentioned below are FREE unless otherwise stated. For further information on the following items please call: AGEI: 021 683 5814 or HIPPO Communications: 021 557 0246

12 February - The Bicentenary of Darwin’s birth

Charles Darwin: Fact & Fiction, Realities & Myths

Venue: Menzies 9, Menzies Building, Engineering Mall, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town.

10:00 Darwin’s Marginalia – Visiting the Mind of the Great English Naturalist by Mario di Gregorio, University of L'Aquila

11:30 Darwin and Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope by Brian Warner, Department of Astronomy, University of Cape Town

14:00 Charles Darwin: The Man & the Myths by Peter Bowler Queen’s University of Belfast

Co chaired by Wilmot James & Raj Ramesar

18:00 The City of Cape Town will install a new plaque marking the Sea Point contact.

23-25 March - Humanising Darwin: Scientist, Father and Family man

Venue: The Whale Well, Iziko South African Museum, Queen Victoria Street; Cape Town

Time: 17.30 for 18.00 daily

March 23: Darwin in Cape Town: the Beagle voyage and beyond by Dr Janet Browne, Aramont Professor in the History of Science, Harvard University

March 24: Darwin at Downe - Science at Home by Dr Randal Keynes, Down House

March 25: Conversations with Darwin: Janet Browne & Randal Keynes converse with John Parkington, University of Cape Town, Francis Thackeray Institute for Human Evolution WITS & Raj Ramesar, University of Cape Town, about what would surprise and what not surprise Darwin about modern biology today.

Chaired by Michael Cherry, University of Stellenbosch.

3 June: Darwin’s Contribution to Geology’ by John Rogers, University of CapeTown.

17:30 for 18:00 at New Learning Centre, Anatomy Building, University of Cape Town, Anzio Road, Observatory, Cape Town

July 23: Swine flu - the 2009 pandemic: a paradigm of biological evolution in action by Barry Schoub

17.30 for 18.00: New Learning Centre, Anatomy Building, Health Sciences Campus, University of Cape Town, Anzio Road, Observatory

2 September: Charles Darwin, Human Difference & the Story of Caster Semenya by Wilmot James

17.30 for 18.00: New Learning Centre, Anatomy Building, University of Cape Town, Anzio Road, Observatory, Cape Town

23 November:   Launch of Darwin Exhibition at Iziko South African Museum

17h30 for 18h00: Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town; Prof Chris Stringer will give the opening address.

24 November: Nelson Mandela Science Lecture sanctioned by the Nelson Mandela Foundation

Debating with Darwin: Africa & Human Origins by Professor Chris Stringer FRS, Research Leader in Human Origins and Director of AHOB, Dept of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, London.

12:30 for 13:00 at the GH1 Hall, University of the Western Cape

Additional events:

July: The Darwin Trail Map will be published tracing the places in Cape Town and surrounds that were visited by Charles Darwin when he visited in 1836. Installation of plaques in Simons Town, Paarl, Franschoek, Houw Hoek and Sir Lowry’s Pass.The plaques will form the basis of the Darwin Trail.

November: Darwin and the Origin of Species - A Cape Perspective Exhibition

22 November 2009 to April 2010

Venue: Iziko South African Museum

Celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book “The Origin of Species”and to reclaim Charles Darwin as part of the Cape’s Heritage

Current Partners

• City of Cape Town
• Cape Nature Department of Education
• Learning Cape
• Iziko Museums
• MTN Science Centre
• Sci Fest
• British Council
• Royal Netherlands Embassy
• Down House, Kent
• Division of Human Genetics, University of Cape Town
• Africa Genome Education Institute