Autumn 2011
- The perfect storm: Can disaster reduction occur in the face of climate change and population growth?
- Voicing Slavery: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Mary Prince
- Osteoporosis: Bouncing babies to crumbling wrinklies - the need to own our bones
- What has the King’s Speech done to improve public awareness about stuttering?
- Photons, spacecraft, atomic clocks and Einstein – fundamental physics in the space environment
- London: the divorce capital of the world. ‘Big money’ divorce cases: fairness, gender and judicial discretion
- When technology design provokes errors
- Prometheus and I: building new body parts from stem cells
- Against nature? Homosexuality and evolution
- Child development in developing countries
- Did Democracy Cause the American Civil War?
- The highs and lows of our nearest star, the Sun
- From pathogen to ally: engineering viruses to treat disease
- Designing for students
- The price of the pouch: the evolutionary ramifications of mammalian reproductive strategies
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Against nature? Homosexuality and evolution
18 November 2011
Thursday 17 November 2011
Professor Volker Sommer (UCL Anthropology)
Same-sex sexual behaviour is often condemned on the grounds that it is "against nature". Indeed, biology tells us that selection favours those who leave more offspring. But then, homosexual behaviour is widespread - not only amongst humans, but other animals alike, be they flamingos, gorillas, dolphins or bisons. Doesn't this constitute a paradox for Darwinian Theory? And is there a connection between what goes on in nature and what is morally desirable? This talk addresses these controversial topics.
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