I have a friend who is a graduate student in evolutionary biology at an elite university...and she told me that when she went to a seminar on adaptive landscapes...everyone was making hand movements and gesturing wildly. She pantomimed it out for me, it was pretty funny.
Which of course doesn't devalue adaptive landscape thinking...
oh, i don't doubt that the landscape is more complicated than mt. fuji...alas....
At least they stayed awake. Most departmental seminar speakers can put half the room to sleep.
Elite university, let me guess -- the University of Oregon?
no, it is in cambridge :) mass.