Annual Education Lecture 2009
Print versionProfessor Steve Jones
Professor Steve Jones, University College London, delivered the Department of Education & Professional Studies 2009 Annual Education Lecture on Thursday 4 June 2009. An audience of over 200 people, including staff, students, academics from other institutions, and colleagues in science-education related professions gathered in the Great Hall to hear the Professor of Genetics and award winning author. Head of Department, Professor Chris Winch, introduced him.
Professor Jones spoke of the primacy of evolution in science teaching. Evolution, he demonstrated through reference to manufacture, language and genetics is not a scientific controversy but fact. During his fascinating and lively discussion, Professor Jones, a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, explained that we share fifty percent of our DNA with bananas, that natural selection has been weakened through communication and that, without intervention, the world population should be similar to that of Glasgow. In closing the Annual Education Lecture, Professor Jones asserted that genetics answers all the questions about the human condition, except, perhaps, for the most interesting ones.
Dr Chris Harrison, PGCE Science Director, offered the vote of thanks. Dr Harrison said that many of the department’s PGCE Science students faced the question of how to teach evolution on their placements in secondary schools and topic was a perennial one for science educators. After the lecture, a drinks reception in the Strand building offered guests the opportunity for informal discussion with Professor Jones and guests.
Steve Jones is Professor of Genetics and Head of the Biology Department at University College London. He has given many lectures and frequently speaks at schools and schools conferences and is UCL’s representative on the recently-established London Regional Science Centre, which aims to provide in-career training to science teachers.
Professor Jones spoke of the primacy of evolution in science teaching. Evolution, he demonstrated through reference to manufacture, language and genetics is not a scientific controversy but fact. During his fascinating and lively discussion, Professor Jones, a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, explained that we share fifty percent of our DNA with bananas, that natural selection has been weakened through communication and that, without intervention, the world population should be similar to that of Glasgow. In closing the Annual Education Lecture, Professor Jones asserted that genetics answers all the questions about the human condition, except, perhaps, for the most interesting ones.
Dr Chris Harrison, PGCE Science Director, offered the vote of thanks. Dr Harrison said that many of the department’s PGCE Science students faced the question of how to teach evolution on their placements in secondary schools and topic was a perennial one for science educators. After the lecture, a drinks reception in the Strand building offered guests the opportunity for informal discussion with Professor Jones and guests.
Steve Jones is Professor of Genetics and Head of the Biology Department at University College London. He has given many lectures and frequently speaks at schools and schools conferences and is UCL’s representative on the recently-established London Regional Science Centre, which aims to provide in-career training to science teachers.
