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Monthly Program – October 2020
October 5, 2020 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
In 2014, developers and their lawyers filed a lawsuit to remove the coastal California Gnatcatcher from the Endangered Species List in a move to open thousands of acres to development in Southern California. The case was based on a flawed study that combined scientific errors with a hidden conflict of interest. In his talk, Dr. John McCormack, a Biology professor at Occidental College, will discuss the scientific kerfuffle that ensued and expose the hidden benefactors behind the flawed science. Counter-intuitively, the ordeal demonstrates that science, as a process that gets us ever-closing to the truth, works, but only when it is given the time to self-correct.
Dr. McCormack is Director and Curator of the Moore Laboratory of Zoology, a renowned bird and mammal collection at Occidental College. He studies how evolution causes birds to diversify on the landscape. His work has appeared in Science, Nature, The Auk and other leading journals.
This will be an online meeting by way of Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/6155249106