This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions
Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.
Our human mind has evolved from an ape mind over the past six million years. How have our brains and genes changed to bring this about? We are very similar to apes in some ways, in which scientists previously thought humans stood out, but quite different in other ways, such as our attention to and capacity for learning from other people.
In this talk, our featured speaker, Dr. Mark Reimers, will present genetic, anatomical, and behavioral evidence bearing on the changes to the brain that supported the emergence of the human mind and its capacity for culture.
Dr. Mark Reimers works as a computational neuroscientist: studying brain function by applying statistical methods to look for patterns in large-scale and high-resolution recordings of brain activity and behavior. He applies these methods to understand normal brain function in memory and to shed light on mental illness.
Dr. Reimers has worked at the US National Institutes of Health, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics in Richmond, and now does research and teaches at Michigan State University. His broader aim is to ground our understanding of feeling and thought in the facts of biology.
Dr. Reimers was the leader of the Richmond Humanists in Virginia for five years, and now leads the UU Forum in Lansing, and speaks frequently at humanist and science outreach events in Michigan.
Please RSVP on meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksydccbfc/
Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!
This meeting has been recorded: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NwoDjSXzYevW2SwoAqmivJurUDVShcTe/view?usp=sharing