From the Science Cafe Orlando folks:
Though Florida Citizens for Science aims at promoting all sciences, it’s generally only evolution that has found a lot of friction in Florida, and so I hope you won’t mind me offering a breath of fresh air on our “favorite” topic. Instead of the tired jabber-fest with/against IDiots about the very existence of evolution, we will hear from and talk with a researcher who relies on evolutionary theory to do her work. Though it touches a hot topic, this event is academic, apolitical, and most of all, fun.
“Evolutionary Antecedents of Obesity”
2 July, 2008 – 23:33 — chadmiller Presenter: Lieberman, Leslie Sue
When: Wednesday, 6 August 2008 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where:
Stardust Video and Coffee
1842 E Winter Park Rd.
Orlando, United States
32803
Evolutionary medicine provides insights into why we are experiencing a global pandemic of obesity, and what we might do about it.
The presenter, Leslie Sue Lieberman, Ph.D., is a Professor of Anthropology and the founding Director of the Women’s Research Center at the University of Central Florida. She is a biomedical anthropologist with research specializations in type-2 diabetes, nutrition, and obesity. She has co-authored or edited 11 books, and published over 70 journal articles and book chapters. Her research has been supported by NIH, NSF, HRSA, NIMH, and others.
This should be interesting, especially in regard to research on former hunter-gatherer groups like the Papago-Pima of the American Southwest.
So far as I know, they have the highest incidence of diabetes in the world, and it’s due to their evolutionary heritage in a feast-or-famine past that now confronts the “fast-food” future.