We are excited to have Harvard Professor Andrew Berry speaking at our Annual Dinner on the topic of Evolutionary Biology. Moving in a different direction from our past program fare, we will hear about "Replaying the Tape of Life: How Predictable is Evolution?" Born in London, Andrew Berry has a degree in zoology from Oxford University and a PhD in evolutionary genetics from Princeton University. He was a Harvard Junior Fellow and is currently a Harvard lecturer on Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Combining the techniques of field biology with those of molecular biology, his work has been a search for evidence at the DNA level of Darwinian natural selection.
Professor Berry will explore with us how life originated on Earth around 3.9 billion years ago, initiating the evolutionary process that would ultimately, only a few hundred thousand years ago, yield our own species. How deterministic is that process: if , in Stephen Jay Gould's thought experiment, we were to "replay the tape of life" over those 3.9 billion years, would human beings have evolved, or something completely different?
Please join us at Salem's historic Hawthorne Hotel for this opportunity to learn from one of Harvard's most dynamic Professors. The dinner is our Club's premier annual social event, an opportunity to get together with long-time friends and to make new ones. We will be welcoming North Shore members of the entering Harvard College Class of 2022. The evening will begin with hors d'oeuvres at 5:30 pm, followed shortly by a buffet dinner. Our program will begin as close to 6:30 as we can, with Professor Berry's talk and Q&A at 7:15.