The West Midlands branch committee is very pleased to have Katrina van Grouw deliver the 2021 Darwin Festival talk on Unnatural Selection.

Katrina holds degrees in fine art and natural history illustration and is a former curator of ornithological collections at a major national museum. She is a self-taught scientist with a passion for evolutionary biology and its history. Katrina is the author and illustrator of The Unfeathered Bird and Unnatural Selection.

When Charles Darwin contemplated how best to introduce his controversial new theory of evolution to the general public, he chose to compare it with the selective breeding of domesticated animals. In her book, Unnatural Selection, marking the 150th anniversary year of Darwin's great work on domesticated animals Variation under Domestication, Katrina explains why this analogy was more appropriate than even Darwin had realised. Artificial selection is, in fact, more than just an analogy for natural selection - it's the perfect example of evolution in action.

For specific event queries, please contact the event organiser, Dr Sue Howarth at howarthsg@yahoo.co.uk

West Midlands Branch