7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at the Holland Performing Arts Center

Donald C. Johanson is a professor and the Founding Director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. Best known as the “Discoverer of Lucy,” Dr. Johanson has dedicated his professional career to excavating, understanding and explaining the fossil finds that explain human evolution. The long, complex – and still unfolding – story of human origins sheds light on who we are as a species today. He believes that, "We are an unprecedented and totally unanticipated species, and hopefully an awareness of the deep biological roots we share with one another and the rest of nature will point us in the direction of our best dreams rather than our worst nightmares."

The world-renowned paleoanthropologist has conducted field and laboratory research for the past 30 years. His field research in Africa and the Middle East has taken him to Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Tanzania and Ethiopia, where in 1974,just months after receiving his PhD from the University of Chicago, he discovered the 3.18 million year old hominid skeleton popularly known as "Lucy." In 1978, he shocked the scientific community with an assertion that the remains were not human – Homo sapiens – but belonged to another distinct species, which he named Australopithecus afarensis. Very recently, a report by Johanson and others was published in the journal Science showing that A. afarensis had a foot evolved to support a modern-human style of locomotion.

Dr. Johanson helps increase the understanding of human origins through his lecturing, writing and teaching. He has written the widely read "Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind" (with M. Edey, 1991) and numerous scientific and popular articles. His latest book is "Lucy's Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins" (with K. Wong, 2009). He has coauthored other books, including: Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution (with M. Edey, 1989), Lucy's Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor (with J. Shreeve, 1989)), Journey From the Dawn: Life With the World's First Family (with K. O'Farrell, 1990), Ancestors: In Search of Human Origins (with L. Johanson, B. Edgar, 1994) and From Lucy to Language (with B. Edgar, 1996)

Since 1980, Johanson has participated in the production of several documentary series. He appeared as the on-screen host of a 13-part series for Nature in 1982. In 1994, he narrated “Ancestors: In Search of Human Origins,” a companion NOVA television series seen by more than 100 million people worldwide.

He is an Honorary Board Member of the Explorers Club, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a member of many other professional organizations and recipient of several international prizes and awards. In 1975, Dr. Johanson was appointed curator of physical anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and, beginning in 1976, developed a laboratory of physical anthropology that attracted scholars from all over the world.

Dr. Johanson received his Ph.D. in Physical Anthropology at the University of Chicago and attended the University of Illinois – Champaign-Urbana as an undergraduate. As a Professor of Anthropology, his career took him from Case Western University to Kent State to Stanford to Arizona State University.

The Holland Lecture Series seeks to bring timely and important views and ideas to the community. The views represented are the sole responsibility of the guest speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views of the First Unitarian Church of Omaha.

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Announcing the 12th Speaker in the series: Susan Jacoby

7:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at the Holland Performing Arts Center

Locally: 402.345.0606 - Toll-free: 866.434.8587 - TTY: 402.341.1811 
Monday-Friday: 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. Saturdays: Noon-5 p.m. 
Each caller may request up to six free tickets to the lecture and for the reception that follows.

Ms. Jacoby is an American author, most recently of the New York Times best seller, The Age of American Unreasonabout American anti-intellectualism.

Should we be concerned that 25% of high-school biology teachers believe human beings and dinosaurs shared the earth?  That more than 1/3 of Americans can't name a single First Amendment right?  Or that a Roper poll found only 23% of college educated Americans between 18 & 25 could find Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Israel on a map even when the map clearly identified the countries as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Israel? "Cultural conservationist" (but by no means a cultural conservative), Susan Jacoby thinks we should. 

She will talk about a mutant strain of public ignorance, anti-rationalism, and anti-intellectualism that has developed over the past four decades and now threatens the future of American democracy.  She argues that anti-rational government is not the product of a Machiavellian plot by “Washington” but is the inevitable result of “an overarching crisis of memory and knowledge” that has left many ordinary citizens and their elected representatives without the intellectual tools needed for sound public decision-making. Her question is not why politicians have lied to the public, but why the public was so receptive and so passive when it heard the lies.

Jacoby graduated from Michigan State University in 1965. She lives in New York City and is director of the New York branch of the Center for Inquiry. Jacoby, who began her career as a reporter for The Washington Post, has been a contributor to a wide variety of national publications, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, The Nation, Glamour, and the AARP Bulletin and AARP Magazine. She is currently a panelist for "On Faith," a Washington Post-Newsweek blog on religion. As a young reporter she lived for two years in the USSR. Her book Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism was named a notable book of 2004 by The Washington Post and The New York Times. It was also named an Outstanding International Book of the Year by the Times Literary Supplement (London) and The Guardian. Her book Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge (1984) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. 

Photo: TimesOnline

7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at a new venue
Holland Performing Arts Center
Reservations are required

Thanks to everyone who attended Dr. Dawkins' talk on March 11, 2009. You will find a video of his talk (compiled from all three venues where he spoke) on his web site.

Our next Holland Lecture will feature educator and award-winning author Richard Dawkins. The famed evolutionary biologist and well-known critic of religious tenets is the 9th, and perhaps most controversial, Holland Lecture speaker.

The talk, entitled "The Purpose of Purpose", will explore human's obsessions with purpose and our need answer the question "What is it all for?".

Although the lecture is free, reservations and tickets are needed for admission. This event is sold out. No additional tickets are available. The talk will be presented at the Holland Performing Arts Center, 13^th and Douglas Streets. 

Professor Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist with a strong interest in science education. His career spans four decades, first teaching at the University of California at Berkeley to his latest post as the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.

In between, he has written nine books, some of them best sellers. His first, The Selfish Gene (1976), reached a wide, popular audience. In it, Dawkins ties genetics and DNA to natural selection, a scientific theory first proposed by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book The Origin of Species. Darwinian evolution by way of natural selection works through genes that guide biological processes to create complex beings, like humans.

Dawkins is passionate about evolution as a way of explaining life on Earth and presents it as not a cold mechanism but as a "beautiful orchestration of DNA." He believes there is no grand plan, no overall design by a master, and therefore, is an outspoken critic of intelligent design and its teaching, especially in schools.

His latest book, The God Delusion (2006), addresses atheism, religious dogma and the idea of intelligent design. This book, and Dawkins' subsequent lectures, on these topic have been controversial especially within some religious communities, including Unitarian Universalists.

The Holland Lecture Series seeks to bring timely and important views and ideas to the community. The views represented are the sole responsibility of the guest speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views of the First Unitarian Church of Omaha.

For more information about:

Richard Dawkins and his work

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science

Former Middle East Envoy

Topic: Statecraft: And How to Restore

Ambassador Ross is The Washington Institute's counselor and Ziegler distinguished fellow. For more than twelve years, he played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process and dealing directly with the parties in negotiations. A highly skilled diplomat, Ambassador Ross was U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He was instrumental in assisting Israelis and Palestinians to reach the 1995 Interim Agreement; he also successfully brokered the 1997 Hebron Accord, facilitated the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty, and intensively worked to bring Israel and Syria together.

A scholar and diplomat with more than two decades of experience in Soviet and Middle East policy, Ambassador Ross worked closely with Secretaries of State James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright. Prior to his service as specialMiddle East coordinator under President Clinton, Ambassador Ross served as director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff in the first Bush administration. In that capacity, he played a prominent role in U.S. policy toward the former Soviet Union, the unification of Germany and its integration into NATO, arms control negotiations, and the 1991 Gulf War coalition.

The New York Times called his new book, Statecraft, And How to Restore America's Standing in the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2007), "important and illuminating."