How to Tame a Fox
And Build a Dog
By
Lee Alan Dugatkin
Thursday January 25, 2018 5:30 PM
Meet and Greet at 5
The University of New Mexico Conference Center, Auditorium
1634 University Blvd. NE
Free and Open to the Public
Pizza with the speaker will follow the lecture
Book Signing
Dr. Lee Dugatkin is an evolutionary biologist and a historian of science in the Department of Biology, University of Louisville . He is the author of nine books and more than 150 papers. He has lectured on his books and research in at more than 100 universities around the world. The New York Times Book Review called Dr. Dugatkin's newest book, How to Tame a Fox and Build a Dog, a "Sparking new book...Part science, part Russian fairy tale and part spy thriller... It may serve - particularly now - as a parable of the lessons that emerge from unfettered science, if we have the courage to let it unfold.” The book has just been awarded 2018 AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books
Abstract:For the last six decades a dedicated team of researchers in Siberia has been domesticating silver foxes to replay the evolution of the dog in real time. Lyudmila Trut has been lead scientist on this work since 1959, and, together with Lee Dugatkin, she tells the inside story of the science, politics, adventure and love behind it all. Inside this tale of path-breaking science in the midst of the often brutal -35° winters of Siberia is hidden a remarkable collaboration between an older, freethinking scientific genius and a trusting, but gutsy young woman. Together these two risked not just their careers, but to an extent their lives, to make scientific history.