Okanagan – What We Are Really and the NeoDarwinian Renaissance

Dinner at 5:30pm. Presentation starts at 7pm.

Local naturalist, Jorma Jykkanen (BSc Zoology, PDP), will be giving us a whirlwind tour from the science of the Big Bang, through the origins of life, and history of evolution to the present day. He recommends the following site for background on evolution: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Jorma says he began his naturalist life as a boy in grade 6 studying stuffed birds behind a glass case at Rockwood Schooll, Winnipeg. He went on into falconry and later went to university to study nature. He is a UBC trained Zoologist having studied evolution, comparative anatomy of the vertebrates and entomology under Dr. Scudder at UBC. He also obtained a PDP from SFU with a focus in Environmental Education. Since then, he has had various consulting and occasional teaching jobs, and also worked as a salmon hatchery manager for a while. He did considerable consulting on pesticide toxicology over the years and was the co-discoverer of suspected carcinogen 1,4-dioxane in Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicide Vision. He retired in Kelowna and has been active with the Central Okanagan Naturalists as an executive.