Libertarian Gives Smithsonian Millions for Evolution

Today, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has announced a $30 million privately funded initiative on human evolution that will sponsor a permanent museum exhibit, educational programs, and research. The bulk of the money—$20.7 million—is going to the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, scheduled to open in March 2010. Another $5 million went to an endowed research chair. Much of the rest will help fund education and outreach programs.

The new 1394-square-meter hall (see artist’s conception) at the museum will focus on major milestones over our 6-million-year history—from when our ancestors first started walking upright through the development of language and symbols and beyond. “We want people to understand that it didn’t happen all at once,” says Smithsonian paleoanthropologist Richard Potts.

The displays will include replicas of 76 fossil skulls representing the human family tree as well as life-size reconstructions of faces of early human species. They will also show how climate change and other aspects of the environment affected our evolution. A Web site will provide online access to the exhibit as well as to a network of educators and researchers who are developing educational materials on human origins for teachers. In addition, teacher training workshops, special symposia, and summer institutes are planned as part of the initiative.

Billionaire Koch is a noted libertarian activist and philanthropist from Kansas who has supported research at MIT, research on prairie grasses, and the Americans for Prosperity organization, which has fought the USA PATRIOT Act and the Democrats' health care reform plans.

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/10/libertarian-giv.html

Libertarian Gives Smithsonian Millions for Evolution

Libertarian Gives Smithsonian Millions for Evolution

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