Scientia talk to focus on conservative conservationists

Rice’s
David Queller will present the final lecture in the 2000-2001
Scientia Colloquia April 17.

The talk, titled
“The Invisible Elbow: Conservation of Conservatives,”
is scheduled for 4 p.m. in the Kyle Morrow Room of Fondren
Library. The event will include a panel whose members will
discuss Queller’s lecture. A wine-and-cheese reception
will follow.

In the abstract
for the talk, Queller, professor of ecology and evolutionary
biology, writes, “Environmentalism is strongly associated
with the political left, but I will argue that it is really
rooted in a conservative view toward uncertainty.”

Queller went
on to write in his abstract that “grounds for conservative
concern remain because of increased population and especially
because globalization removes local trial-and-error, making
us guinea pigs in an unreplicated experiment. Environmentalists
stand to gain from conservative insights about local testing,
about the difficulties of central control and about using
incentives to channel selfish behavior.”

Queller has
been at Rice since 1984, following a NATO postdoctoral fellowship
at the University of Sussex. He has received a Young Investigator
Award from the American Society of Naturalists and has held
a Guggenheim Fellowship.

The theme for
this year’s Scientia Colloquia is “Taking Chances:
Risk and Randomness in Science and Society.” Scientia
is an institute of Rice faculty founded in 1981 by the mathematician
and historian of science Salomon Bochner.