Niall Shanks, the Curtis D. Gridley Professor in the History and Philosophy of Science at Wichita State University, will speak at Southwestern College on Monday, March 22, at 7 p.m. in the Beech Science Center room 104.  There is no admission charge.
           
Shanks, a native of Chester, England, was educated at Rossall School, and later at the University of Leeds and the University of Liverpool. He left England for Canada in 1981 and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Alberta, Canada, in 1987. Shanks then moved to the United States. For a number of years he was a member of the department of Philosophy at East Tennessee State University, where he also held positions in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
           
Shanks served a term as president (2008-9) of the Southwest and Rocky Mountain Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is currently vice president of Americans for Medical Advancement and an honorary board member of Internet Infidels. In 1993 he served a term as president of the Tennessee Philosophical Association
           
His early research interests were focused on issues in the philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics. The recent focus of his research has been on the implications of evolutionary biology for biomedical research. Shanks is also interested in the history of medicine and the role played by medicine in the scientific revolutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
           
Shanks is the second of four lecturers to come to Southwestern to speak on the topic of creation and evolution this semester.  Other scientists coming to Southwestern to speak include Henry “Fritz” Schaefer III on April 8 and Keith B. Miller on April 19.  Jay Labov spoke on March 9.
           
For more information, contact Charles Osen at (620) 229-6295.