UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Nina Jablonski, Atherton Professor and Evan Pugh University Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Penn State, will deliver a lecture titled “The Skin in the Game of Evolution: How Human Skin Illustrates Darwinian Evolution and Much More” as part of this year’s annual Darwin Day celebration.
Jablonski’s presentation, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 3 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 14, in Room 114 Welch Building on the University Park campus. A light reception will immediately follow the lecture in Welch Building’s Chaiken Family Atrium.
Jablonski is a biological anthropologist, paleobiologist and world-renowned expert on the topic of human skin and skin color. Drawing upon the rich and diverse evidence — from paleontology, physiology, climatology, genetics, microbiology and other fields — that has shaped current understanding of the evolution of human skin, Jablonski’s Darwin Day Lecture will explore how the preeminence of vision and language in humans paved the way for our ability to rapidly assess skin traits and then transmit impressions and value judgements of skin color and other traits to others — often with disastrous results. Learning the basics of skin evolution instills valuable information about Darwinian evolution and a deep appreciation of the beauty of human diversity.
Darwin Day is an international celebration held each year near Charles Darwin’s birthday (Feb. 12, 1809) to recognize his contributions to science and to promote science in general. This year’s Penn State celebration is co-sponsored by the Center for Human Evolution and Diversity in the College of the Liberal Arts and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.