What's On at the Library

Tomorrow night at Danforth/Coxwell branch (1675 Danforth Ave.) we launch an exciting new series of science talks, Exploring Evolution, organized in partnership with the University of Toronto. This is a unique opportunity to engage with some of U of T's top scientists as they discuss some of their remarkable global explorations.

Chasing Electric Fish in the Amazon is the first talk, presented by Dr. Nathan Lovejoy, Professor of Biological Sciences, U fo T Scarborough. The Lovejoy Lab conducts evolutionary genetic research, but field work is integral to the lab's work as Nathan Lovejoy and his colleagues undertake collection and study expeditions to sites
around the world, documenting and cataloguing biodiversity.

With dramatic and beautiful photographs Nathan Lovejoy will transport the audience to the Amazon as he brings the science of evolution to life.

The library's collections include many titles on evolution. The easiest way to a list of such titles is to simply enter "evolution" in the search box. You can find books by and about Charles Darwin in the same way. Click on the link to find the many editions of The Origin of Species including some very old ones kept in the Special Collections Department at Toronto Reference Library.

One of the most accessible and brilliant writers on evolution and Darwinism is the late Stephen Jay Gould, whose column in Natural History, "This View of Life," delighted and entertained millions of readers from 1974 until 2001. Gould was of course well-known as a champion of the scientific theory and fact of evolution against the assaults of creationism. Many of his essays were collected into best-selling books such as The Panda's Thumb and Dinosaur in a Haystack.

Exploring Evolution continues on November 15 at Palmerston with The Evolution of Cooperation: Ant-Plant Associations in Peru by Megan Frederickson.