Café Scientifique is a place where, for the price of a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, anyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology.
Meetings take place in cafes, bars, restaurants or even theatres, but always outside a traditional academic context.
The first Cafés Scientifique in the UK were held in Leeds in 1998. From there, cafes gradually spread across the country. Currently, some 70 cafés meet regularly to hear scientists or writers talk about their work and discuss it with diverse audiences.
Café Scientifique is a forum for debating science issues, not a shop window for science. We are committed to promoting public engagement with science and to making science accountable.
Our monthly meetings take place on the first Monday of the month at 7pm.
If you wish to be informed about future events, then please email one of the organisers and we will happily add you to our email list.
Meet the Organisers
Nature’s Genius: Evolution’s Lessons for a Changing Planet
Nature’s Genius: Evolution’s Lessons for a Changing Planet.
Speaker: David Farrier
7pm Monday 5th May 2025
Waterstones Glasgow, Sauchiehall St, Glasgow G2 3EW
Animals, plants and insects are rising to the challenges in our rapidly transforming environment - and are still adapting. In Nature’s Genius, David examines their examples to explore the ways in which we too can adapt as humans and stop the destruction we’re causing to the planet. David takes us on a profound journey into this ever-changing natural world. He re-thinks the ways in which we could design sustainable cities through studying animals’ adjustments to urban landscapes. Teaches us about bacterial evolution and how it can solve our waste problem. He considers synthetic biology and how it could rescue animals from the brink of extinction. Plus, presenting how thinking in the same timescales of the natural world could help us choose a better future.
David Farrier is Professor of Literature and the Environment at the University of Edinburgh. David’s first book, Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils, looked at the marks we are leaving on the planet and how these might appear in the fossil record in the deep future. It was named by both The Times and Telegraph as a book of the year, earned praise from Robert Macfarlane and Margaret Atwood, and has been translated into ten other languages. He has had pieces published in the Atlantic, BBC Future, Emergence, Prospect, Daily Telegraph, Orion and Washington Post. He has spoken at numerous online events, has given an invited lecture at the Royal Geographical Society, and has appeared on radio and podcasts such as BBC Free Thinking and Little Atoms.
Note that to give our hosts some idea of how many people with be attending, they would appreciate it if you would fill in this online form https://www.waterstones.com/events/cafe-scientifique-david-farrier-discusses-natures-genius/glasgow-sauchiehall-street
