UA ALLELE Lecture Series Looks at Human Origins in Africa

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. Christopher diCarlo, an advisory fellow with the Center for Inquiry Canada, will present his lecture, “We Are All African: Can Scientific Proof of Our Commonality Save Us?” Feb. 24 at 7:30 p.m. in the Biology Building auditorium on The University of Alabama campus.

He is a past visiting research scholar at Harvard University in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences: department of anthropology and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

While there, he conducted research for two books he is writing: “The Comparative Brain: The Evolution of Human Reasoning” and “The Evolution of Religion: Why Many Need to Believe in Deities, Demons, and the Unseen.”

His presentation is the fourth in the 2010-2011 Alabama Lectures on Life’s Evolution, known as ALLELE. The lecture series, now in its fifth year, is supported by UA’s College of Arts and Sciences and the departments of anthropology, biological sciences, geological sciences, philosophy and psychology.

The lectures are designed for a non-technical audience and are free and open to the public.

“That every person on this planet, today, has ancestry leading back to Africa is not only an important inference of Darwin’s legacy to humankind, it is a responsible declaration of honesty, equality and humility,” diCarlo said. “It is in such an understanding of ourselves that our hope for the future lies.”

He has been invited to speak at numerous national and international conferences and written many scholarly papers ranging from bioethics to cognitive evolution. In 2008 he was awarded TVO’s Big Ideas Best Lecturer in Ontario Award and was honored with the Canadian Humanist of the Year Award from the Humanist Association of Canada.

For more information on the lecture series, click here.

The ALLELE lecture series is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.