The Mont Pelerin Society Special Meeting June 22 to 29, 2013

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Agregar a calendario 2013-06-22 09:00:00 2013-06-29 18:00:00 The Mont Pelerin Society Special Meeting June 22 to 29, 2013 What? This Mont Pelerin Society Special Meeting has the objective to link the concept of evolution to freedom, reinforce the debate that opposes classical liberal society and statism using biology and anthropology as theoretical foundations, and to understand cultural evolution of open societies as a mean to escape from the tribal order. The Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), from Ecuador, will host this world summit on its Galapagos campus (GAIAS) located on the island of San Cristóbal. Why? Friedrich Hayek asserted that: "cultural evolution is not the result of human reason consciously building institutions, but of a process in which culture and reason developed concurrently…". The co-evolution of human preferences and institutions poses serious problems to anyone who promotes policies that supposedly will alter only one of the two. It is the old problem of culture versus institutions. Freedom, property rights, rule of law, how is it that all these elements evolved to promote peace and prosperity? Why some are more prominent only in some societies while in others they are almost inexistent? During this world summit, scholars with training in the natural and social sciences will gather to discuss the evolution of and the current challenges to freedom. Galapagos provides a unique environment for this; it inspired Charles Darwin, more than one hundred fifty years ago, to make his groundbreaking contributions to the biological sciences.   Galapagos Science Center USFQ no-reply@usfq.edu.ec America/Guayaquil public
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What?

This Mont Pelerin Society Special Meeting has the objective to link the concept of evolution to freedom, reinforce the debate that opposes classical liberal society and statism using biology and anthropology as theoretical foundations, and to understand cultural evolution of open societies as a mean to escape from the tribal order.

The Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), from Ecuador, will host this world summit on its Galapagos campus (GAIAS) located on the island of San Cristóbal.

Why?

Friedrich Hayek asserted that: "cultural evolution is not the result of human reason consciously building institutions, but of a process in which culture and reason developed concurrently…". The co-evolution of human preferences and institutions poses serious problems to anyone who promotes policies that supposedly will alter only one of the two. It is the old problem of culture versus institutions. Freedom, property rights, rule of law, how is it that all these elements evolved to promote peace and prosperity? Why some are more prominent only in some societies while in others they are almost inexistent? During this world summit, scholars with training in the natural and social sciences will gather to discuss the evolution of and the current challenges to freedom. Galapagos provides a unique environment for this; it inspired Charles Darwin, more than one hundred fifty years ago, to make his groundbreaking contributions to the biological sciences.

 

Speakers

Larry Arnhart


Maurice Bloch

Professor Bloch is a British anthropologist. He did his undergraduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and his graduate studies at CambridgeUniversity. He holds academic positions at the LSE and the Collège of France. Bloch's field of research deals with religion, kinship, economics, politics and language. His research has been much influenced by French Marxist ideas. His field investigations have been carried out in Madagascar. He has written more than a hundred articles and books such as: Marxism and Anthropology: The History of a Relationship, Oxford and Anthropology and the Cognitive Challenge, Cambridge.


Robert Boyd

Robert Boyd is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). He studied undergraduate physics at the University of California at San Diego and received a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California at Davis. His research is focused on the evolutionary psychology of the mechanisms that give rise to and shape human culture, and how these mechanisms interact with population dynamic processes to shape cultural variation. His articles have been published on the Proceedings of the RoyalSociety, Nature, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA),Ethology and Sociobiology and his books by Oxford University Press and the MIT Press. He is the co-author of the book with Peter Richerson of The Origin and Evolution of Cultures, and also with J. Henrich of the article "Gene-culture coevolution in the age of genomics," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 107


Pascal Boyer

Pascal Boyer received a Doctorat d'Ethnologie from Universite de Paris-Nanterre. He previously worked at he University of Cambridge (UK), and at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France. He is currently the Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis. One of his areas of research is Evolution and Culture that aims at describing neuro-cognitive systems that are part of the normal make-up of human minds as a result of evolution by natural selection and support the acquisition of cultural knowledge. He has published several books such as: Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, Basic Books. His article "Pragmatic and idiosyncratic acts in human everyday routines: The counterpart of compulsive rituals,"


Leda Cosmides

Leda Cosmides received an A.B. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Harvard University. She is currently Professor of Psychology at the University of California atSanta Barbara. Her work has pioneered the field of evolutionary psychology, and has been published in top journals such as: the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Proceedings of the Royal Society, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and Cognition. Her book The Adapted Mind:Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, Oxford University Press co-edited with James Tooby and Jerome Barkow, defends the psychological foundations of culture and criticizes the Standard Social Science Model. Her article "Cross-cultural evidence of cognitive adaptations for social exchange among the Shiwiar of Ecuadorian Amazonia," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(USA)


Robin Dunbar

Robin Dunbar is a Fellow of the British Academy and holds a B.A. and a Ph.D in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Oxford and Bristol, respectively. He is a Professor of Evolutionary Psychology and the head of the Social Neuroscience Group in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. His research led him to discover a measure of the cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships, roughly of 150, which is also known as the Dunbar's number. He was co-director of the British Academy Centenary Research Project "From Lucy to Language: The Archaeology of the Social Brain." His article "The social brain: Mind, language, and society in evolutionary perspective," Annual Review of Anthropology Vol. 32


Joaquin Fuster


Gerald Gaus


Stuart Kauffman

Stuart Kauffman graduated from Dartmouth College, B.A. in Philosophy, and Oxford University, B.A. in Philosophy, Psychology and Physiology. He received his M.D. from the University of California at San Francisco in 1968. Kauffman is an emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, and a seminal member and anexternal professor of the Santa Fe Institute. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Mathematics at the University of Vermont. Kauffman is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection. He has published more than a hundred articles on high impact journals. Two of his books are: At home in the universe: The search for laws of self-organization and complexity, Oxford University Press; and Reinventing the sacred: A new view of science, reason, and religion, Basic Books.


John Kay

John Kay is one of Britain's leading economists. His interests focus on the relationships between economics and business. His career has spanned academic work and think tanks, company directorships, consultancies and investments companies. Prof. Kay received his degree from Oxford University and currently is teaching at the London Business School. He contributes with a weekly column to the Financial Times. He is the founding Director of the Said Business School at Oxford University. One of his most recent book is Obliquity: How our goals are best pursued indirectly.


David Kohn

David Kohn is Oxnam Professor of Science and Society, Emeritus, at Drew University, and general editor of the DarwinDigital Library of Evolution. He was formerly an editor with the Darwin Correspondence Project, and was co-editor of Charles Darwin's Notebooks: 1836–1842. One of his articles "What Henslow taught Darwin" was published in Naturein August, 2005. He also edited the book titled The Darwinian Heritage, Princeton University Press in 1988.


Deepak Lal


James Le Fanu

James Le Fanu is a Doctor, columnist, social commentator and historian of science and medicine. He studied the humanities at Ampleforth College then switched to medicine, graduating fromCambridge University and the Royal London Hospital. For the past twenty years he has combined medical practice with writing a twice weekly column for theSunday and Daily Telegraph as well as contributing reviews and articles to The Times, Spectator, The British and Medical Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. His most recent book Why Us?: How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves, investigates the paradox where the major developments in genetics and neuroscience of the past two decades have revealed the limits of a scientific account of the form and attributes of the living world and the exceptionality of the human mind.


Kenneth Minogue

Kenneth Minogue is an Australian political theorist who is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Honorary Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a former President of the Mont Pelerín Society. His books deal with topics such as: nationalism, Mmarxism, European Union and feminism between others. He has been a columnist for The Times and The Times Higher Education Supplement His latest book is entitled "The servile mind: how democracy erodes the moral life", Encounter Books.


Charles Murray


Diego Quiroga

Diego obtained his PhD degree in Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Currently, he is Vice-president of Research in the San Francisco de Quito University and Co-director of the Galapagos Academic Institute of Arts and Sciences (GAIAS). Diego has done research on topics that range from Biodiversity vulnerability to religion and traditional medicine.


David Rose

Professor Rose teaches Economics at the University of Missouri-St. Louis where he has also served as the DepartmentChair. He received his PhD from the University of Virginia. His primary areas of research are behavioral economics, organization theory, and political economy. He has published scholarly articles in a wide range of areas. He most recent published book is The Moral Foundation of Economic Behavior, Oxford, and currently he is working on his next book titled Why Culture Matters Most, forthcoming 2014. He frequently contributes to policy debates through radio and television interviews as well as in Op-Eds.


Robert Sirico

Robert Sirico is an american Roman Catholic priest and the founder of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. He is a member of the Mont Pelerín Society, and of the American Academy of Religion. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, National Review, National Catholic Register, and the Journal of Markets and Morality. He has also written several books such as: The Entrepreneurial Vocation, and Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy


John Tooby

Professor Tooby received his Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from Harvard University and is currently Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Santa Barbara (USCB). He pioneered with Leda Cosmides the field of evolutionary psychology. He co-directs the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at UCSB. There he and hiscollaborators have been integrating cognitive science, cultural anthropology, evolutionary biology, paleoanthropology, and hunter-gatherer studies. One of his latest articles is "Cognitive adaptations for n-person exchange: The evolutionary roots of organizational behavior." Managerial and Decision Economics, 27, 103-129.


Peter Whybrow

Peter Whybrow is Director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also the Judson Braun Distinguished Professor and Executive Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine and CEO of the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital. His research is focused on the understanding of the metabolic role of thyroid hormones in the adult brain, and the pathophysiology and clonal treatment of mood disorder. His latest book is American Mania: When More is Not Enough, W.W. Norton.


Richard Wrangham

Richard Wrangham is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University, where he is the Director of Graduate Studies of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. He is also the co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, a long-term study of the Kanyawara chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda. His current research focuses on the role of cooking has played in human evolution. He is also interested in primate behavior and ecology, andevolutionary human ecology. He is co-author of the book, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, Mariner Books.

Speaker Presentations

Robert Boyd

How culture transformed human evolution


Peter Whybrow

The entrepeneur


Robert Sirico

Hayekian Social Theory and Religious Faith


Richard Wrangham

Why evolution Matters for war


James Le Fanu

The New Biology and Medicine or the Disappoints of the Double Helix


David Rose

Evolving around the Empathy problem


Charles Murray

The rediscovery of Human Nature and Human Diversity


Deepak Lal

War and Peace


Kenneth Minogue

Does the Idea of "Self Interest" explain the Character of Modern Free Societies?


Gerald Gaus

The evolution, evaluation and reform of social morality: A Hayekean Analysis


Nicolas Barnaud and Pascal Boyer

Explaining Moral Religions


Maurice Bloch

Why Religion is Nothing Special but is Central


Leda Cosmides and John Tooby

Evolutionary Psychology, Moral Heuristics and the Law


Joaquin Fuster

The Neurology of Liberty


Larry Arnhart

The Evolution of Darwinian Liberalism

Register

Register online now and be part of this special meeting. Remember that early bird registration deadline is January 31st, 2013.

IMPORTANT CREDIT CARD INFORMATION: Ecuadorian Banks normally request documents such as copy of the passport, copy of the credit card in order to be able to process payments from overseas. We apologize in advance for the inconvenience and we kindly request your help if the travel agent request such documents.

1.- We are aware that, sometimes, the confirmation email that all registered attendants receive upon completion of the registration form has ended up in the junk email folder. Should you not receive a confirmation email immediately, please double check your junk email folder or write to galapagos@usfq.edu.ec.

2.- Non MPS members must be nominated by a MPS member in order to be able to attend the meeting. MPS members partners do not need to be nominated as long as they attend the meeting with their partner.

Additional Contact

General information:


Giuseppe Marzano, PhD

E-mail: gmarzano@usfq.edu.ec

Pedro Romero, PhD
E-mail: promero@usfq.edu.ec


Registration:
 

Patricia Sierra

E-mail: galapagos@usfq.edu.ec


Program Committee:
 

Angelo Petroni
Carl-Johan Westholm
Charles Murray
Deepak Lal
Ed Feulner
Giancarlo Ibargüen
Giuseppe Marzano
Greg Lindsay
Ken Minogue
Leonard Liggio
Mike Pennington
Peter Whybrow


Organizing Committee:
 

Carlos Montufar
Pablo Lucio-Paredes
Pedro Romero
Paula Cordova
Patricia Sierra
Daniel Cordova
Ed Feulner
Giancarlo Ibargüen


Production & Image:


Hospitality:
Ana Teresa Perez

Media:
Diego Cisneros

Website:
Arturo Valdivieso

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