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Evolution by cooperation. The work of Lynn Margulis (1938?2011)

Life and Matter Sciences International Symposium November 12-13, 2012 Madrid

General information

Venue: Salón de Actos Fundación Ramón Areces c/ Vitruvio, 5. 28006 Madrid

  • Throughout the Symposium there will be simultaneous translation

Organized by:

Fundación Ramón Areces

In cooperation with:

Institut d'Estudis Catalans, Barcelona. Spain

Coordinator/s:

Ricardo Guerrero Universidad de Barcelona. Institut d'Estudis Catalans. Barcelona. Spain

  • Description
  • Programme

Since Darwin's times, evolution has been considered to be a race in which species competed to keep their places, what now is known as the Red Queen Effect (from the Red Queen's race in Lewis Carroll's book). According to this principle, cheating and fiddling would be not just allowed, but advised to achieve a better result. Darwin was puzzled by altruistic behaviours, which apparently contradicted his theory of evolution by the survival of the fittest. However, the American biologist Lynn Margulis (1938-2011) saw evolution as a race in which the organisms that reached further were not those competing with each other and cheating, but those that cooperated to reach the same goal. She showed the kind face of evolution, that of a world that has progressed thanks to cooperation and altruism.

From 1983 onwards, Lynn Margulis would travel to Spain to lecture and do research with Spanish colleagues. Her innovative work and ideas were recognized with four honorary doctorates from Spanish universities. She participated in three international symposia organized by Fundación Ramón Areces: "New Frontiers in Microbial Ecology" (Barcelona, 2001), "Microbiology Societies of Spain, Portugal and Latin America" (Madrid, 2003), and "The Microbes Contribution to Biology" (Barcelona, 2006). The latter was organized with the collaboration of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, which had welcomed Lynn Margulis on many occasions.

Lynn Margulis died on 22 November 2011. This symposium will honour her, on the first anniversary of her death, by presenting state of the art research in various fields related to her work. She had a panoptic vision of science and was involved in projects that linked microbiology to other fields, her ideas ranging from the study of the origin and early evolution of life, the life in extreme environments, symbiotic relationships, and the search for extraterrestrial life, to environmental issues and the dissemination of science to the general public.

Monday, 12

9:30

Document delivery

9:45

Welcoming remarks

Raimundo Pérez-Hernández y Torra
Director, Fundación Ramón Areces. Spain.

Federico Mayor Zaragoza
Chairman, Scientific Council.
Fundación Ramón Areces. Spain.

Ricardo Guerrero
Coordinator of the Symposium.

First session

10:00

Inaugural lecture: The moral evolution of Mankind

Salvador Giner
Presidente del Institut d'Estudos Catalans. Barcelona. Spain.

10:40

The Anthropocene

Raymond S. Bradley
Director of UMass Climate System Research Center. University of Massachusetts, Amherst. USA.

11:20

Break

11:50

The future of Mankind

Sir Crispin Tickell
Former British Ambassador to the United Nations. Oxford. United Kingdom. 

12:30

Microbiology for the 21st century

Rita R. Colwell
University of Maryland. College Park, Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Baltimore. USA.

13:10

Cooperate to compete

Regina Revilla
Merck, Sharp & Dohme de España, S.A.
President, Asociación Española de Bioempresas (ASEBIO). Spain.

14:00

End of Session

Second session

16:00

Evolution and symbiosis

Antonio Lazcano
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Mexico.

16:40

Chromosomes of Protists: the crucible of evolution

Marie-Odile Gobillard
Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls-CNRS. Banyuls-sur-Mer. France.

17:20

Break

18:00

Life in extreme Earth, and beyond

Ricardo Amils
Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC/INTA). Torrejón de Ardoz. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Spain.

19:00

End of Session

Tuesday, 13

Third session

9:30

Small is beautiful. Keeping the spirit of Academia

Steve Goodwin
Dean, College of Natural Sciences. University of Massachusetts, Amherst. USA.

10:10

Natural History museums: producing, preserving and disseminating science

Anna Omedes
Director, Museo de Historia Natural de Barcelona. Spain.

10:50

The public understanding of science: the Möbius strip of knowledge

Mercè Piqueras
Former president, Associació Catalana de Comunicació Científica. Barcelona. Spain.

11:30

Break

12:00

The HistCite collection of the work of Lynn Margulis. A perspective

Alexander I. Pudovkin
Institute of Marine Biology. Russian Academy of Sciences. Vladivostok. Russia.

In representation of: Eugene Gardfield
Founder of the Institute for Scientific Information. Philadelphia. USA.

12:40

Cellular symbiosis and metabolic evolution

Juli Peretó
Instituto Cavanilles de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva. Universidad de Valencia. Spain.

13:20

Symbiotic planet: from the Cosmos to microcosmos

Ricardo Guerrero

14:00

Farewell. Two short documentaries
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