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May 2014

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Gives Talk0 Comments

Appiah, philosopher and cultural theorist, asks the question “Is religion good or bad?” He begins by challenging his audience to consider whether religion is even a thing at all.

What I want you to think about next time somebody wants to make some vast generalization about religion is that maybe there isn’t such a thing as a religion, such a thing as religion, and that therefore what they say cannot possibly be true.

Kwame Anthony Appiah: Is religion good or bad? (This is a trick question)

Ruth Chang

Gives Talk0 Comments

Chang, a philosopher, challenges the way we look at and make hard decisions in our lives. She outlines a way to take a new perspective so that we can view these difficult decisions in a more pleasing light.

Far from being sources of agony and dread, hard choices are precious opportunities for us to celebrate what is special about the human condition, that the reasons that govern our choices as correct or incorrect sometimes run out, and it is here, in the space of hard choices, that we have the power to create reasons for ourselves to become the distinctive people that we are. And that’s why hard choices are not a curse but a godsend.

How to make hard choices | Ruth Chang

Naomi Oreskes

Gives Talk0 Comments

Oreskes, a historian of science, presents a talk on why it is that we should trust scientists. She presents the question of Faith vs. Science and then outlines three main problems that can be found in the world of scientific inquiry and how these issues can and should be addressed.

But it shouldn’t be blind trust any more than we would have blind trust in anything. Our trust in science, like science itself, should be based on evidence, and that means that scientists have to become better communicators. They have to explain to us not just what they know but how they know it, and it means that we have to become better listeners.

Naomi Oreskes: Why we should trust scientists

17 May, 2014

Ge Wang

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Wang, founding director of the Standard Laptop Orchestra and the Standard Mobile Phone Orchestra, shows an example of how computers and programming languages can be used to create music. With his program he is able to take household materials and turn them into instruments that musicians can then make music with.

Ge Wang: The DIY orchestra of the future