Skeptic: Promoting Science and Critical Thinking

Donald R. Prothero’s science books combine straightforward research with first-person narratives of discovery, injecting warmth and familiarity into a profession that desperately needs a more appealing approach to nonspecialists. Bringing his trademark style to an increasingly relevant subject of concern, Prothero links the climate changes that have occurred over the past 200 million years to their effects on plants and animals, especially contrasting the extinctions that ended the Cretaceous period, which wiped out the dinosaurs, with those of the later Eocene and Oligocene epochs. Prothero begins with the “greenhouse of the dinosaurs,” the global-warming episode that dominated the Age of Dinosaurs and the early Age of Mammals, and concludes with observations about Nisqually Glacier and other locations that prove global warming is happening much quicker than previously predicted, irrevocably changing the balance of the earth’s thermostat.

Dr. Prothero is a professor of geology and paleontology at Occidental College and the author of the wildly successful bestseller Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters.

How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking
has Undermined America

In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal 19th-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to “prosper” you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of “positive psychology” and the “science of happiness.” Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes — like mortgage defaults — contributed directly to the current economic crisis. With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America’s penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the bestselling author of sixteen previous books, including the bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch.

The topic of this lectured was changed to:

H1N1 — The Evolution of a Deadly Virus
What Diseases Tell Us About Evolution

Carl Zimmer, an award-winning science writer for the New York Times, Discover magazine, Scientific American, and others takes readers on a frightening tour of the H1N1 flu virus, how it evolved, and what deadly diseases tell us about how evolution works. Reviewing the history of influenza going back over a century, including a complete analysis of the 1918 influenza outbreak that killed tens of millions of people around the world, Zimmer includes remarkable graphics demonstrating exactly what happens from the moment a virus enters a body to the death of its human host. Along the way Zimmer reveals how vital evolution is to all branches of modern biology — from the fight against deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the analysis of the human genome.

Carl Zimmer is the author of seven books, including Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea and Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life.

NOTE SPECIAL DAY/TIME FOR THIS LECTURE: Monday, October 26 at 7:00pm

According to Stewart Brand, a lifelong environmentalist (and creator of the Whole Earth Catalog) who sees everything in terms of solvable design problems, three profound transformations are under way on Earth right now. Climate change is real and is pushing us toward managing the planet as a whole. Urbanization — half the world’s population now lives in cities, and 80% will by midcentury — is altering humanity’s land impact and wealth. And biotechnology is becoming the world’s dominant engineering tool. In light of these changes, Brand suggests that environmentalists are going to have to reverse some long held opinions and embrace tools that they have traditionally distrusted. Only a radical rethinking of traditional green pieties will allow us to forestall the cataclysmic deterioration of the earth’s resources. Whole Earth Discipline shatters a number of myths and presents counterintuitive observations on why cities are actually greener than countryside, how nuclear power is the future of energy, and why genetic engineering is the key to crop and land management. With a combination of scientific rigor and passionate advocacy, Brand shows us exactly where the sources of our dilemmas lie and offers a bold and inventive set of policies and solutions for creating a more sustainable society.

What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love,
and the Meaning of Life

Leading child psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik examines children’s imaginations, their consciousness, and their ideas about love and morality, and finds that the way they play, pretend, and explore are actually part of the most profound and fundamental aspects of human nature. It is through play and imagination that children solve problems of morality, learn about the world around them, and create bonds with other people.

Dr. Gopnik, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of The Scientist in the Crib.