Restructuring an Interdisciplinary Dialogue

Almost exactly fifty years before the Notre Dame conference, the world’s largest centenary commemoration of Darwin’s legacy was held at nearby University of Chicago. This event, organized by a committee spearheaded by University of Chicago anthropologist Sol Tax, drew nearly 2,500 registrants. In attendance were the primary leaders of evolutionary biology, paleontology, anthropology, and genetics, with a representation of sociologists, philosophers, and theologians (Smocovitis 1999). Two hundred and fifty delegates from universities and professional societies representing fourteen countries added an unusually high level of general academic prestige to the event as well. Although other conferences were held in 1959, coordinated by an international super-committee formed in the mid-fifties—the Darwin Anniversary Committee—none equaled the University of Chi cago symposium either in scope or in the assemblage of intellectual accomplishment. Accompanied by civic events, a grand procession to Rockefeller Chapel, and even an operetta written for the occasion, the Chicago celebration is an archetypal example of how scientific commemorations create, as well as celebrate, a major scientific consensus,