Illness prompts cancellation of WSU’s scheduled lecture

Washington State University’s March 23 Philip C. Holland lecture has been canceled and, if possible, will be rescheduled at a later date.

Organizers of the annual lecture said the cancellation was due to the illness of this year’s scheduled speaker, L.L. Cavalli-Sforza, M.D., known as the father of “genetic geography and history” and considered the world’s leading expert on human population genetics.

Cavalli-Sforza had been scheduled to speak on the topic of “Genes, Culture and Human Evolution: A Synthesis,” a presentation that was to focus on the culmination of his research and thinking on the relative force and interactions of genes and culture in the human evolutionary process.

The Philip C. Holland lecture is funded through an endowment established by Ernest O. Holland, university president from 1916-1944. Holland was WSU’s fifth president. The lecture is named after his father, a physician in Indiana.