You are invited to an engaging Public Talk: Celebrating Darwin’s Legacy in Cape Town on Wednesday, 23 April 2025 at the Cape Town Science Centre. Join us for an insightful evening featuring two esteemed speakers:
Professor Mike Bruton – The Significance of Charles Darwin’s Visit to the Cape
Mike will highlight the most important events in Charles Darwin’s colourful career and emphasize the significance of his 19-day visit to the Cape in the context of the five-year round-the-world voyage of HMS Beagle. In particular, he will highlight the significant impact that his discussions in the Cape with the polymath Sir John Herschel had on the development of his Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Be ready for some surprises!
Professor George Branch – Charles Darwin: Expanding His Ideas with Modern Science
After outlining Charles Darwin’s theory as background, I will focus on modern advances that reshape his concepts. They include: (1) How co-operation among species has led to new kinds of life; (2) How we need to incorporate the evolutionary effects of viruses; (3) How ‘master-switch’ genes control embryology and generate new forms of life; and (4) How the environment can alter the expression of genes. Darwin would have loved these ideas, which expand but do not contradict his central concepts.
Event Details:
Date: Wednesday 23 April 2025
Time: 18:00 for 18:30
Venue: Cape Town Science Centre, 370B Main Road, Observatory, Cape Town
Cost: R20
Light refreshments will be served.
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More information on our speakers:
Professor Mike Bruton was the original founder of the Cape Town Science Centre (as the MTN ScienCentre) and is an internationally acclaimed informal science educator. He is the overall organizer of the Darwin celebratory events that are being held in Cape Town in April 2025 and the Darwin Bust Fund that has raised funds to mount a bronze bust of a young Darwin on Simon’s Town Jetty He has been a fan of Darwin ever since his student days but feels that insufficient recognition has been given to the importance of his visit to the Cape of Good Hope in mid-1836.
Professor George Branch is an Emiritus Professor at the University of Cape Town and a world authority on marine life. He has a particular interest in the impact of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and how this revolutionary idea has been developed since Darwin died. Branch is a one-time choral singer, photographer, scuba-diver, tennis player of ill repute and beach bum par excellence. He and his wife Margo form a team, and wrote the award-winning books ‘Two Oceans’, and ‘Living Shores of southern Africa’ to communicate the excitement of marine science. George has been awarded the Gold Medal of the Zoological Society, the Gilchrist Gold Medal, the International Temperate Reef Lifetime Award, Fellowships of the Royal Society of SA and of UCT and a Distinguished Teachers Award at UCT.
