The Altenberg Workshops in Theoretical Biology are expert meetings focused on a key issue of biological theory, hosted by the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research

Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research

The Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research is an international center for advanced studies in theoretical biology. It supports the articulation, analysis, and integration of biological theories and the exploration of their wider scientific and cultural significance...

 (KLI) since 1996. The workshops are organized by leading experts in their field, who invite a group of international top level scientists as participants for a 3 day working meeting in the Lorenz

Konrad Lorenz

Konrad Zacharias Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch...

 Mansion at Altenberg near Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. By this procedure the KLI intends to generate new conceptual advances and research initiatives in the biosciences, which, due to their explicit interdisciplinary nature, are attractive to a wide variety of scientists from practically all fields of biology and the neighboring disciplines.

Workshops and their topics

• Origins of EvoDevo - A tribute to Pere Alberch. Organized by Gerd B. Müller
  Gerd Müller (theoretical biologist)
  Gerd B. Müller is professor at the University of Vienna where he heads the Department of Theoretical Biology and is speaker of the Center for Organismal Systems Biology. His research interests focus on evolutionary innovation, evo-devo theory, and the extension of the Evolutionary Synthesis...
  
   and Diego Rasskin-Gutman. September 2008

• Measuring Biology - Quantitative Methods: Past and Future. Organized by Fred L. Bookstein and Katrin Schäfer. September 2008

• Toward an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Organized by Massimo Pigliucci
  Massimo Pigliucci
  Massimo Pigliucci is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College. He is also the editor in chief for the journal . He is known as an outspoken critic of creationism and advocate of science education.-Biography:...
  
   and Gerd B. Müller
  Gerd Müller (theoretical biologist)
  Gerd B. Müller is professor at the University of Vienna where he heads the Department of Theoretical Biology and is speaker of the Center for Organismal Systems Biology. His research interests focus on evolutionary innovation, evo-devo theory, and the extension of the Evolutionary Synthesis...
  
  . July 2008

• Innovation in Cultural Systems - Contributions from Evolutionary Anthropology. Organized by Michael J. O´Brien and Stephen J. Shennan. September 2007

• The Major Transitions Revisited. Organized by Brett Calcott and Kim Sterelny
  Kim Sterelny
  Kim Sterelny is an Australian philosopher and professor of philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington. He is the winner of several international prizes in the philosophy of science, and editor of Biology and Philosophy...
  
  . July 2007

• Comparative Philosophy of Technical Artifacts and Biological Organisms. Organized by Ulrich Krohs and Peter Kroes. September 2006

• The New Cognitive Sciences - Bringing Evolution and Development to Bear on Mind and Brain. Organized by Lynn Nadel, Mary Peterson, and Luca Tommasi. June 2006

• Arriving at a Theoretical Biology - The Waddington Centennial. Organized by Manfred Laubichler and Brian K. Hall. September 2005

• The Evolution of Communicative Creativity - From Fixed Signals to Contextual Flexibility. Organized by D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel. July 2005

• Analog Communication - Evolution, Brain Mechanisms, Dynamics, Simulation. Organized by Karl Grammer and Astrid Juette. September 2004

• Modeling Biology - Structures, Behavior, Evolution. Organized by Luciano da Fontoura Costa and Gerd B. Müller
  Gerd Müller (theoretical biologist)
  Gerd B. Müller is professor at the University of Vienna where he heads the Department of Theoretical Biology and is speaker of the Center for Organismal Systems Biology. His research interests focus on evolutionary innovation, evo-devo theory, and the extension of the Evolutionary Synthesis...
  
  . July 2004

• Viennese Roots of Theoretical Biology - The Vivarium Centenary. Organized by Manfred Laubichler, Gerd B. Müller
  Gerd Müller (theoretical biologist)
  Gerd B. Müller is professor at the University of Vienna where he heads the Department of Theoretical Biology and is speaker of the Center for Organismal Systems Biology. His research interests focus on evolutionary innovation, evo-devo theory, and the extension of the Evolutionary Synthesis...
  
  , and Werner Callebaut. September 2002

• Biological Information Beyond Metaphor. Organized by Werner Callebaut and Sahotra Sarkar
  Sahotra Sarkar
  Sahotra Sarkar is a philosophy professor and integrative biologist at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a noted critic of creationism and intelligent design. Sarkar is originally from India. He is the author of several books and articles about philosophy and science...
  
  . July 2002

• Evolution of Communication Systems. Organized by D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel. October 2001

• Environment, Development, and Evolution. Organized by Brian Hall, Roy Pearson, and Gerd B. Müller
  Gerd Müller (theoretical biologist)
  Gerd B. Müller is professor at the University of Vienna where he heads the Department of Theoretical Biology and is speaker of the Center for Organismal Systems Biology. His research interests focus on evolutionary innovation, evo-devo theory, and the extension of the Evolutionary Synthesis...
  
  . July 2001

• Modularity - Understanding the Development and Evolution of Complex Natural Systems. Organized by Werner Callebaut and Diego Rasskin-Guttman. October 2000

• Origins of Organismal Form - Beyond the Gene Paradigm Organized by Gerd B. Müller
  Gerd Müller (theoretical biologist)
  Gerd B. Müller is professor at the University of Vienna where he heads the Department of Theoretical Biology and is speaker of the Center for Organismal Systems Biology. His research interests focus on evolutionary innovation, evo-devo theory, and the extension of the Evolutionary Synthesis...
  
   and Stuart Newman
  Stuart Newman
  Stuart Alan Newman is a professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College in Valhalla, NY, United States. His research centers around three program areas: cellular and molecular mechanisms of vertebrate limb development, physical mechanisms of morphogenesis, and mechanisms of...
  
  . October 1999

• Evolution of Cognition. Organized by Cecilia Heyes, Ludwig Huber, and Adolf Heschl. August 1998

• Evolutionary Naturalism - Bioepistemology and the Challenge of Development and Sociality. Organized by Werner Callebaut and Karola Stotz. June 1997

• The Emergence and Evolution of Organization. Organized by Walter Fontana, Gerd B. Müller
  Gerd Müller (theoretical biologist)
  Gerd B. Müller is professor at the University of Vienna where he heads the Department of Theoretical Biology and is speaker of the Center for Organismal Systems Biology. His research interests focus on evolutionary innovation, evo-devo theory, and the extension of the Evolutionary Synthesis...
  
  and Günter Wagner. September 1996

External links

• Altenberg Workshops in Theoretical Biology

• Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology