Although many aspects of life's origin and defining properties remain unresolved, we have made substantial progress in elucidating several of its fundamental attributes, including its wonderful diversity. In this talk, I highlight some of these attributes, beginning with the recognition that all organisms arise from pre-existing organisms in an unbroken historical continuum and, as Darwin emphasized, ultimately trace back to one common ancestor. This perspective suggests that the remarkable diversity of living forms, in all their complexity and novelty, constitutes transformations of a single underlying phenomenon: variations on a shared theme governed by general processes and constraints. I will explore these general processes showing how biological diversity emerged, is maintained, and may collapse, as well as the fundamental processes shaping its temporal dynamics. The scientific and philosophical comprehension of life—and the ethical implications that follow from such understanding—is of profound importance, arguably more so now than at any previous moment in human history.
A lecture by Pablo A. Marquet (Fellow Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin/ Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile/ The Santa Fe Institute)
Welcoming remarks by Christoph Markschies (President of the Academy)
Introduction by Dieter Ebert (Permanent Fellow em. Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin)
THE LECTURE SERIES
The Ernst Mayr Lecture is a lecture series in the field of the life sciences sponsored by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin . The biennial lecture aims to communicate the development of biological thinking by leading scientists from various disciplines to a wider audience. The series thus refers to one of the main works of the ornithologist and evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (1904-2005) entitled „The Growth of Biological Thought“ and was inaugurated by himself in autumn 1997.