2024 Programme
Event #11
Saturday 31 August, 12.15 pm
Matteotti square1 - euro 4.50
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Telmo Pievani
An adventure in the great library of evolution
Why do we have to be grateful for our presence on Earth, both as a species and as individuals? For two evolutionary reasons. The first is that things could have turned out very differently: we were not meant to be here and it is a gift that we are. The second is that the realm of possibilities is far larger than reality. What has been achieved so far is just a small subset of what could be. Demonstrating this was challenging, but a brilliant scientist, Frances Arnold, succeeded in doing so. One day in Madrid in 1976, she read The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges and had a revelation: to search in the library of possibilities not for books, but for proteins. After decades of personal hardships and having struggled to defend her idea, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018.
Telmo Pievani is Professor of Philosophy of Biological Sciences at the University of Padua, where he also teaches Bioethics and Naturalistic Disclosure. He collaborates with Corriere della Sera, Le Scienze, Micromega and L'Indice dei Libri del Mese. He is the author of numerous publications, including: “La vita inaspettata” (2011), “Imperfezione” (2019), “Serendipità” (2021), “Il giro del mondo nell'Antropocene” (with M. Varotto and maps by F. Ferrarese, 2022) for Cortina; “La terra dopo di noi” (with F. Lanting, Contrasto, 2019); “DNA” (Mondadori, 2020); “E avvertirono il cielo. La nascita della cultura” (with C. Simi, Jaca Book, 2020); “Viaggio nell'Italia dell'Antropocene” (with M. Varotto, Aboca Edizioni, 2021); “La natura è più grande di noi” (Solferino, 2022). His latest book “Tutti i mondi possibili” (Cortina) will be published at the end of August.
ph. credits: Gerardo Ozuna
Event #43extraFestival
Minotauro Institute, with Loredana Cirillo and Filippo Rosa
Thank you! What we have never told our children and students
