(2008) How Would Darwin Vote? (WISH TALK): Geoff Costeloe

Name: Geoff Costeloe

Talk Title: “How would Darwin vote?”

Notes: Faculty of Science, Integrated Science, Double Major in Integrated Sciences and Political Science, 4th year. Science Senator, UBC Science Undergraduate Society

Topic: “For all my time in Biology classes, studying evolution and natural selection, rarely were the theories presented by Darwin ever used to look at things other than biological systems. Likewise, biological systems were rarely looked at as models for political theory. I’ve always had a habit of doing this in my Poli-Sci classes to help me understand information. Therefore, I’m big on the idea of trying to bring science students into politics and vice versa. We should try to engage students about the topics that are facing our world and foster the debate between Arts students and Science students.”

Wish: (sign up on the facebook group)
‘IF’ stands for Integrated Forum. It is the means through which my wish will hopefully be achieved. It is primarily a website based initiative that tries to accomplish two main goals:

1. To be a resource that provides links to basic information about topics in science, and politics. The basics of DNA, science of global warming, how the Canadian government functions etc.

2. To be a place of communication between disciplines where students can engage one another and discuss issues from all sides of academia.

I realize that the concept of the site is similar to that of the Terry webpage but there are some distinct differences between the two. The hope is that IF can be implemented into several courses around campus. This will both work as an advertisement to students about the resources available on the site. Classrooms will hopefully then move to become increasingly interdisciplinary and produce results that are better for our school and our society.

The semester end conclusion of IF would be a conference inviting students who have actively participated in the site and discussions on campus. Invitations would also be sent out to UBC professors and researchers, local politicians and hopeful one ‘celebrity’ invitee. A test run in March or April of 2009 and a full event in 2010 as it will likely take some time to get the site set up and classes/faculties onboard.

The hope is to increase communication between the faculties, and an interactive approach will best achieve this.