The symposium explores the future of evolution as a theory and a process and the potential of recent research to transform our lives. With some of the world’s leading scientists, the symposium will explore how our evolutionary inheritance affects our emotions, values, and mental makeup; how the interaction between genes and environment influences our health; and how research into the origins of life is providing new knowledge and tools to “engineer” evolutionary processes to the point of enhancing existing life forms and possibly creating new ones. This symposium anticipates the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin on February 12, 2009 and the 150th anniversary in 2009 of the publication of the first edition of On the Origin of Species.