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ORVALLIS - A symposium on "The Evidence for Evolution" will be held at Oregon State University on Friday, Nov. 3, bringing to the university several leading researchers from across the nation.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the LaSells Stewart Center on the OSU campus. It is sponsored by the OSU College of Science through the Thomas T. Sugihara Young Faculty Award, and the Dr. Bonnie C. Templeton Fund in the OSU Department of Botany and Plant Pathology.

"Although thousands of scientific investigations have presented results consistent with the theory of organismal evolution, clearly these findings are not well-known to the general public," said Aaron Liston, director of the OSU Herbarium. "This symposium will highlight exemplary studies of evolution presented by three distinguished plant scientists."

The speakers include:

• Andrew Brower, assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at OSU, speaking on "The Natural System: Evidence and Explanation."

   

• Bruce Baldwin, associate professor at the University of California at Berkeley, speaking on "Evidence for the Origin and Evolutionary Radiation of the Hawaiian Silversword Alliance," which is a group of plants that show a remarkable pattern of evolutionary radiation that some consider the botanical equivalent of the finches on Galapagos Island described by Charles Darwin.

   

• Loren Rieseberg, professor at Indiana University and a pioneer in the use of molecular genetic approaches to understanding how new plant species evolve, speaking on "Re-creating Species in the Lab and Greenhouse."

   

• John Bishop, assistant professor at Washington State University in Vancouver and an expert on the co-evolutionary relationships between plants and their pathogens, speaking on "The Molecular Evolution of Chitinases and How Plants Attack Pathogens."