2012 Program
Event #34
Telmo Pievani
When the human mind was born. How we became Homo sapiens
Approximately 30,000 years ago, the species Homo sapiens began to display unusual behaviors such as ritual burials, wonderful cave paintings, musical instruments, ornaments. What happened in our way of thinking at that time? The modern human mind was born, capable of processing abstract concepts and of imagining different worlds. It was a brand new way to relate to the environment, with no equivalents on the other four human types that lived until recent times. Yet man had been born in Africa 200,000 years ago. This dual birth—first anatomical, then cognitive—continues to baffle scientists and is not yet fully understood. The story of how we became “global sapiens” is a fascinating adventure that we can describe at last tank to the surprising discoveries or recent years.
Telmo Pievani, science philosopher and evolutionist, essayist and communicator, holds Italy’s first chair in Philosophy of biological sciences at the Department of Biology of the University of Padua. He is president of the Italian Society of Evolutionist Biology, member of the Italian Department of Anthropology and a contributor writer for Corriere della Sera, Le Scienze, Micromega e L’Indice dei Libri del Mese. He is author of several books including Introduzione a Darwin (2012) ,Laterza; La fine del mondo (2012) , il Mulino; Evoluti e abbandonati (2014) and Libertà di migrare (con V. Calzolaio, 2016), Einaudi; Come saremo (con L. De Biase, 2016) for Codice; La vita inaspettata (2011) and Imperfezione (2019), Cortina. By the end of August his new book La terra dopo di noi (with Frans Lanting) will be published by Contrasto.
Event #3
Anna Salvo
Sorrow is like a telescope that helps us look into the distance: creatività and suffering
Event #4
Andrea Moro
I speak, therefore I am Like the starry sky: visions of language across the centuries
Event #28
Mauro Agnoletti, Ilaria Borletti Buitoni
Culture, environment, landscape. For a possible, sustainable future
