Every February, UNI Freethinkers & Inquirers hosts Darwin Week, our flagship annual event celebrating scientific inquiry, evolutionary biology, and the power of critical thinking. Timed to coincide with Darwin Day—the birthday of Charles Darwin on February 12th—this week-long speaker series brings together students, faculty, and community members for thoughtful discussions on evolution, skepticism, philosophy of religion, science communication, and the intersection of reason with everyday life.
Darwin Week represents the best of what UNIFI stands for: intellectual curiosity, evidence-based thinking, and the willingness to ask difficult questions. Whether you're a biology major, a philosophy enthusiast, or simply someone who values rigorous inquiry, Darwin Week offers something for everyone who wants to engage with ideas that matter.
What Darwin Week Looks Like
Darwin Week isn't a single lecture—it's a full week of programming designed to create multiple opportunities for engagement. Throughout the week, we host a series of talks in the University Room at Maucker Union, featuring both UNI professors and distinguished outside speakers who bring expertise from across the country.
The format typically includes multiple presentations throughout each day, allowing attendees to drop in between classes or make an afternoon of it. Our daytime sessions often feature faculty members from biology, philosophy, anthropology, and related disciplines sharing their research and perspectives on evolutionary science, critical thinking, and scientific methodology. These talks tend to be accessible to general audiences while still offering substantive content for those with deeper background knowledge.
Each evening during Darwin Week, we present a keynote speaker who delivers a longer, more comprehensive presentation on a major topic. Past keynote presentations have explored everything from the mechanisms of natural selection to the ethics of belief, from science communication in a post-truth era to the role of skepticism in public discourse. These evening events draw our largest crowds and often spark the most vibrant Q&A sessions.
Topics We Cover
While evolutionary biology remains central to Darwin Week—it's right there in the name, after all—the event has always embraced a broader scope that reflects the full range of freethought inquiry. Evolution serves as our anchor point, but the conversations extend outward to touch on all the ways that scientific thinking intersects with how we understand the world.
Past Darwin Week programming has included talks on:
- Evolutionary biology, from molecular genetics to population dynamics
- The history and philosophy of science
- Skeptical inquiry and critical thinking methods
- Philosophy of religion and secular ethics
- Science communication and public understanding of research
- The intersection of science and public policy
- Cognitive biases and how we know what we know
What ties these diverse topics together is a commitment to evidence-based reasoning and intellectual honesty. Our speakers represent serious scholarship and thoughtful engagement, whether they're explaining the latest research in evolutionary psychology or examining the ethical implications of scientific advancement.
The Spirit of Darwin Week
Darwin Week exists because we believe that universities should be places where difficult ideas are explored openly and where students are encouraged to think critically about everything, including their own assumptions. We're not interested in telling people what to think—we're interested in modeling how to think clearly, ask good questions, and follow evidence wherever it leads.
The atmosphere during Darwin Week reflects this spirit. Our events are intellectually serious but not stuffy. We encourage questions, even challenging ones. We welcome disagreement, provided it's respectful and substantive. Some of our best Darwin Week moments have come during Q&A sessions when someone raised a genuinely difficult objection or asked a question that pushed the speaker to think harder about their own position.
This is also a celebration. Darwin Week is our opportunity to come together as a community of skeptics, freethinkers, and scientifically-minded students to affirm that reason and inquiry matter. In a world that often seems hostile to evidence and expertise, there's something powerful about gathering with others who share your commitment to intellectual honesty.
Who Should Attend
Everyone. Seriously.
You don't need to be a UNIFI member to attend Darwin Week events—they're open to the entire campus community and beyond. You don't need a science background, though you'll find plenty of content that challenges and engages even those with advanced knowledge. You don't need to identify as an atheist or skeptic, though many of our attendees do.
What you do need is curiosity and a willingness to engage with ideas thoughtfully. If you've ever wondered how evolution actually works, questioned where morality comes from, pondered what distinguishes science from pseudoscience, or simply wanted to hear smart people discuss important ideas, Darwin Week is for you.
Our talks are designed to be accessible while remaining substantive. Speakers know they're addressing a mixed audience and work to explain concepts clearly without dumbing them down. And if something isn't clear, ask—that's what the Q&A is for.
A UNI Tradition
Darwin Week has become one of UNIFI's defining contributions to intellectual life at UNI. Year after year, it brings high-quality programming to campus, exposes students to leading thinkers, and creates space for conversations that might not happen otherwise. For many students, Darwin Week provides their first exposure to organized skepticism, science communication, or serious philosophical inquiry into questions about knowledge and belief.
We're proud of this tradition, and we work hard each year to make Darwin Week worth your time. The planning starts months in advance, as we identify speakers, coordinate schedules, secure venues, and promote the events across campus. It's our biggest undertaking as an organization, and it represents our commitment to making UNI a place where reason and inquiry flourish.
Whether you attend one talk or all of them, whether you're a freshman exploring new ideas or a senior deepening existing interests, we hope you'll join us for Darwin Week. Bring your questions, bring your skepticism, and bring your curiosity. That's what this week is all about.