Going forward, the Natural Cosmology group will be meeting on the first Wednesday of each month. Our first meeting of the New Year will be at 7PM on Wednesday, January 2, room 202.
This month we’ll start with a Science or Fiction quiz. You’ll get to determine real science from three articles: two Science and one fake.
We’ll continue discussing the collection of NYT stories on unanswered science questions (we only “answered” about half of them).
The Times also had a series on technology. “From Gene Editing To A.I., How Will Technology Transform Humanity? Five Big Thinkers — Regina Barzilay, George Church, Jennifer Egan, Catherine Mohr And Siddhartha Mukherjee — Puzzle Over The Future Of The Future.”
A couple other articles worth your attention and maybe our discussion next time:
Three from Aeon:
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“At once tiny and huge: What is this feeling we call ‘sublime’?”
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A disturbing summary of “The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology”
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And, “Wired that way: genes do shape behaviors but it’s complicated,”
And one essay by Andrew Sullivan on “America’s New Religions,” This is an interesting take on changing religions of the young and on the left and right, and how they interact with their respective political attitudes. We may not always agree with Sullivan about religion, but he makes very reasoned arguments with good insights about the culture along the way.
We hope to see you on Wednesday.
