Mar 8 The Lingering Death of Superstition

Saturday, March 8, 2 - 4 pm (Flyer)
Public & Free

Robert L. Park, Ph.D.
Former University of Maryland Physics Department Chair

National Science Foundation, Room 110
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA

Map


At this event, Professor Park will receive the 2008 NCAS Philip J. Klass Award for his outstanding contributions in promoting critical thinking and scientific understanding.

There was a total eclipse of the Sun on May 28, 585 B.C. What distinguished this particular occultation of the Sun by the Moon was that it had been predicted. The discovery of "The Law of Cause and Effect" by Thales of Melitus is often taken as the birth of science. It should also have marked the death of superstition. Why it did not is the subject of this talk.

Robert L. Park is a professor of physics and former chair of the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland. He divides his time between the University and the Washington, DC office of the American Physical Society, which he opened in 1982.

Author of more than a hundred technical papers on the structure and properties of single-crystal surfaces, Professor Park now devotes himself to helping the public distinguish genuine scientific advances from foolish and fraudulent claims. A frequent guest on news programs, he posts "What's New, "a provocative and widely-read weekly column on the internet (www.bobpark.org), and is the author of Voodoo Science: the Road from Foolishness to Fraud.

NSF is one block south of the Ballston-Marymount University metro stop on the Orange Line. For most drivers, Route 66 to Fairfax Dr. to Stuart Dr is the easiest route. Enter NSF from the corner of 9th St. N and N Stuart Streets. Room 110 is on the left before the entry guard -- you do not need to go through NSF security. Parking is available in the Ballston Common mall, in the NSF building, and at other area parking lots and garages. Metered parking is also available on the surrounding streets. (NSF Visitor Info)

Feb 9 Postmodernism vs. Science vs. Fundamentalism

Saturday, February 9, 2 - 4 pm
Public & FREE

Stephen Brush, D. Phil.

National Science Foundation, Room 110
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA

map

flyer




Was Thomas Kuhn a social constructionist? Who won the Science Wars, and was the victory the result of a "Trojan Horse" trick? (Think: Stephen Colbert with a Ph.D. in physics.)

In the last quarter of the 20th century, two movements attacked science. Postmodernism, fashionable in academic humanities departments, inspired the doctrine of "social construction of scientific knowledge" (hereafter "social con"), advocated by some sociologists and historians of science. The recrudescence of religious fundamentalism supported the revival of creationism, which opposed and tried to expel from public schools the widely-accepted scientific theories of biological evolution, plate tectonics, and Big Bang cosmology. Science, still a bastion of objectivity in understanding the world, had to fend off attacks from both the left (postmodernism) and the right (fundamentalism).

The question of whether scientists can discover true facts about the world that are independent of their own social environment, or whether all their knowledge is socially constructed, was the cause of the "Science Wars" of the 1990s.

Scientists, who strongly rejected social con, did not notice that at least two widely-accepted scientific facts were indeed socially constructed, as can easily be shown by looking at their history. Moreover, there is some similarity between social con and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, at least if you know something about baseball.

Stephen Brush is a professor (emeritus) of the History of Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. He was originally educated as a theoretical physicist and did research on topics such as the solidification of an electron gas ("plasma") at low temperatures and high densities. He contributed to the Harvard Project Physics Course for high schools, using the historical approach. He came to the University of Maryland in 1968 to initiate a program in history of science. His current research is a study of reasons why scientists in different fields accept (or reject) new theories.

NSF is one block south of Ballston-Marymount University metro stop Orange Line. For most drivers, Route 66 to Fairfax Dr. to Stuart Dr is the easiest route. Enter NSF from the corner of 9th N and N Stuart Streets. Room 110 is on the left before the entry guard -- you will not need to go through NSF security. Parking is available in the Ballston Common mall, in the NSF building, and at other area parking lots and garages. Metered parking is also available on the surrounding streets. NSF Visitor Information

Jan 12 Michael Shermer - The Mind of the Market

Saturday, January 12, 2 - 4 pm

Michael Shermer, Ph.D.
Discusses and signs
"The Mind of the Market" (Flyer)
Available for purchase at the event

National Science Foundation, Room 110
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA (map)

Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy. Employing research from complexity theory, Shermer shows how evolution and economics are both examples of a larger and still somewhat mysterious phenomenon of emergence, where one plus one equals three.

Along the way, Shermer answers such provocative questions as, Do our tribal roots mean that we will always be a sucker for brands? How is the biochemical joy of sex similar to the rewards of business cooperation? How can nations increase trust within their borders? Finally, Shermer considers the consequences of globalization and what will happen if nations allow free trade across their borders.

Throughout his entertaining and surprising new book, The Mind of the Market, Shermer considers the morality of markets in a discussion of what he calls virtue economics. Although we are selfish and altruistic, cooperative and competitive, peaceful and bellicose, in the main the balance is heavily on the side of good over evil. For every random act of violence that makes the evening news, there are 10,000 nonrandom acts of kindness that go unrecorded every day. Markets are moral and modern economies are founded on our virtuous nature. The Enron model of business is the exception and the Google motto of “Don’t Be Evil” is the rule.

NSF is one block south of Ballston-Marymount University metro stop Orange Line. For most drivers, Route 66 to Fairfax Dr. to Stuart Dr is the easiest route. Enter NSF from the corner of 9th and Stuart Streets. Room 110 is on the left before the entry guard -- you do not need to go through NSF security. Parking is available in the Ballston Common mall, in the NSF building, and at other area parking lots and garages. Metered parking is also available on the surrounding streets.

Examining the Culture of Free Energy Claimants

Saturday, December 8, 2 - 4 pm
Eric Krieg, Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking (PhACT)
National Science Foundation, Room 110 (note new location)
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA (map)
One block south of Ballston-Marymount University metro stop Orange Line. For most drivers, Route 66 to Fairfax Dr. to N. Stuart St. is the easiest route. Enter NSF from the corner of N. Stuart Street and 9th St. N. Room 110 is on the left before the entry guard -- you do not need to go through NSF security. Parking is available in the Ballston Common mall, in the NSF building, and at other area parking lots and garages. Metered parking is also available on the surrounding streets.

From Noah’s Ark to the Ark of the Covenant and Beyond: Junk Science, Amateur Enthusiasts, and Irresponsible Documentary Filmmakers

Saturday, November 10, 2 - 4 pm (Flyer)
Eric Cline, Ph.D.
National Science Foundation, Room 110 (note new location)
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA (map)
One block south of Ballston-Marymount University metro stop on Orange Line. Enter NSF from the corner of N. Stuart Street and 9th St. N. Room 110 is on the left. Parking is available in the Ballston Common mall, in the NSF building, and at other area parking lots and garages. Metered parking is also available on the surrounding streets. NSF visitor directions and information

The amount of pseudo-scientific nonsense that has been published on so-called “mysteries” of the Bible is appalling. The vast majority of this work has not been produced by professional scholars but by amateur enthusiasts. These enthusiasts--most of whom are self-trained and self-employed, and some of whom publish only, or primarily, on the Internet--all work outside of academia. As such, they are not held to the same standards of rigor, peer review, and scrutiny as professional scholars employed by colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning. Indeed, the work of such enthusiasts frequently meets the criteria of “junk science,” especially when it “advocates a cause, pays little attention to the investigative process, ignores contrary evidence, and advertises a high moral purpose.” In his talk, Dr. Cline will present, and debunk, examples of such junk science--especially as it pertains to topics such as the possible locations of the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Ten Lost Tribes--and issue a call to arms for professional archaeologists, ancient historians, and biblical scholars to take back their fields from the amateur enthusiasts, pseudo-scientists, and irresponsible documentary filmmakers who have had, for the most part, free reign to do what they wish, without any regard to scientific method or an unbiased investigation for the truth.

DR. ERIC H. CLINE is Associate Professor of Classics and of Anthropology (Ancient History and Archaeology) and Chair of the Department of Classical and Semitic Languages and Literatures at The George Washington University, where he has won both national and local teaching awards. A former Fulbright scholar and award-winning teacher and author with degrees from Dartmouth, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania, he is Associate Director (USA) of the ongoing excavations at Megiddo (biblical Armageddon) in Israel as well as Co-Director of the ongoing excavations at Tel Kabri, also located in Israel. An award-winning author, he is perhaps best known for his books The Battles of Armageddon: Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age (2000) and Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel (2004). He has just published a new book entitled From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible (National Geographic Society, June 2007).