Evolution and Historical Explanation: Contingency, Convergence, and Teleology

(Note: this conference follows the 2014 IRC Conference on Special Divine
Action, 13-16 July)

As part of the “Science, Progress and History” project, funded by the
Templeton World Charity Foundation, the Centre for the History of European
Discourses, University of Queensland (CHED), and the Ian Ramsey Centre
(IRC), Oxford, will be convening a joint conference at St Anne's College,
Oxford, 17-19 July 2014 on the theme of Evolution and Historical
Explanation: Contingency, Convergence, and Teleology.

PLENARY SPEAKERS

– Simon Conway Morris (Cambridge)
– John Beatty (University of British Columbia)
– Allan Megill (University of Virginia)
– Betül Kacar (Georgia Tech)
– Michael Ruse (Florida State University)

This is an interdisciplinary conference that seeks to bring together
scholars from a wide range of disciplines in both the humanities and the
sciences. We are interested to explore questions at the interface of
history and the natural sciences, particularly by focusing on laws,
patterns and narrative structures in human history, evolutionary history,
and cosmology.

The conference will begin at 4pm on Thursday 17 July (registration from
2pm) and finish with dinner on Saturday 19 July. Registration for this
conference is online via the Oxford University online store - CHED/IRC
conference.