Natural Security (A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World) May 31, 2008

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Google Tech Talks
May, 29 2008

ABSTRACT

Arms races among invertebrates, intelligence gathering by the
immune system and alarm calls by marmots are but a few of nature's
security strategies that have been tested and modified over billions of
years. This provocative book applies lessons from nature to our own
toughest security problems—from global terrorism to the rise of infectious
disease to natural disasters.
Written by a truly multidis-
ciplinary group including
paleobiologists, anthropologists,
psychologists, ecologists, and
national security experts, it
considers how models and
ideas from evolutionary
biology can improve national
security strategies ranging
from risk assessment, security
analysis, and public policy to
long-term strategic goals.

Speaker: Terence Taylor
Terence Taylor is the Director of the ICLS and the Chairman of its Board of Directors. He has held leadership positions at The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the United Kingdom 's Ministry of Defense and the United Nations. Mr Taylor established the US office of the IISS and served as its first President and Executive Director for 5 years. He was a career officer in the British army with experience in many parts of the world including UN peacekeeping and counter-terrorist operations. He is an expert in international security policy, with a special emphasis in risk assessment and non-proliferation.

Mr. Taylor served as the co-director of the project entitled "Safeguarding the Advances and Managing the Risks: the Future of the Life Sciences" during his time at IISS -- US. This effort, over the period of three years, led to the emergence of the International Council for the Life Sciences as an independent organization to help develop and promote global biosafety and biosecurity standards. He serves on the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Forum on Microbial Threats and is an adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Mr. Taylor was also a member of the National Research Council Steering Committee on Genomic Databases for Bioterrorism Threat Agents and served as Chairman of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Risk Analysis of the World Federation of Scientists.

Terence Taylor is a regular contributor to a variety of publications including The Washington Quarterly, International Herald Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal, in addition to authoring numerous book chapters on humanitarian law and biological weapons. He frequently conducts television and radio interviews on the major national and international broadcasting networks including CNN, BBC, and NPR. In October 2006, Mr. Taylor was appointed to the five-member special advisory group for the UN Secretary-General's initiative on biotechnology.

Speaker: Rafe Sagarin
Rafe Sagarin is Associate Director for Ocean and Coastal Policy at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University . Rafe is a marine ecologist who has studied responses of marine communities and wetlands to climate change, illegal fishing, pollution and other human impacts. He received his doctorate from the University of California, Santa Barbara where he studied the large scale distribution of marine organisms on the Pacific coast of North America. He has served as a Geological Society of America Congressional Science Fellow in the office of U.S. Representative Hilda Solis. He has also convened a working group and is publishing a volume on using biological evolution as a guide for improving societal security systems.

Rafe has taught ecology and global change science and policy at California State University Monterey Bay and at University of California , Los Angeles . His research has appeared in Science, Nature, Ecological Monographs, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Foreign Policy and other leading journals.