On April 17, world-renowned paleoanthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey spoke in Dana Auditorium.Leakey discussed many topics including global warming, Africa, evolution and his own work efforts.

Leakey’s parents were archeologists. In the interview, he explained how he came to follow their footsteps after a long period of resistance.

“My mother and father were relatively short on money for their research, and they use to spend long periods of time in very desolate areas looking for fossils,” said Leakey. “They left us in the sun while they scraped away for six or seven hours . I decided that this was stupid.”

Leakey dropped out of high school and took two years to decide that he did in fact want to help his parents as well as “get his foot in the door” by working with them.

“I was able to work a site that nobody had worked before, which turned out purely by chance to be one of the most important sites to ever be discovered,” said Leakey. “Because I was very young and unqualified but made important discoveries, the important discoveries made me important.”

Leakey also discussed global warming.

“It’s not an issue; it’s the issue. It is going to hit us very hard,” said Leakey. “Many of the opportunities for survival in a very rudimentary way are going to be gone.”

Evolution came up in the interview as well. Leakey explained that anyone can see evolution if they are exposed to fossils.

“The best thing to do is lay out or talk about the fossil record without using the ‘E’ word,” said Leakey. “If you lay out all the fossils from modern time to 6 or 7 million years ago and have an untrained eye look at them, they could notice a change. These are not theories. These are facts. The theories are what caused the change.”

From there Leakey went on to discuss his trouble understanding the heated debate about evolution.

“We find it very hard to live and let live. We find it hard to say, ‘Well you have your beliefs. I have my beliefs.’ Our beliefs are not what’re important. What’s important is living together,” said Leakey. “I don’t know how two religions that both preach love, both preach compassion, both preach peace have such trouble getting along with each other.”

Leakey’s idea to end elephant poaching in Kenya also came up. As a means of protesting, Leakey oversaw the burning of 12 tons of ivory. Leakey admitted that a French supermodel that was morally opposed to leather clothing inspired him. The model burned a pile of leather jackets on the streets of Paris in order to raise awareness about the matter.

“Different things impress different people, I suppose, but I was sort of switched on over it,” he said.

During the audience’s question-and-answer session, one student asked if Leakey’s studies of the past made him worry about the future.

“I am very worried about the future, and I think it’s because we are increasingly putting more and more stupid people into running our governments,” answered Leakey. “The intellectual capacity of the people we elect is going downhill.”

Leakey’s talk ended with applause and autographs. Several students were impressed by the presentation.

“I found him very fascinating and also very funny,” said junior Tristan Winkler. “It was a great experience listening to Richard Leakey, and now I want to learn more about him.”

Junior Chelsea Simpson also enjoyed the discussion.

“I went into Dana thinking that this would be another scholarly talk,” said Simpson. “Once he took a stab at American media, I could tell that Dr. Leakey was a very witty and intriguing individual.