Deceit, lying, and falsehoods lie at the very heart of our cultural heritage. Even the founding myth of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the story of Adam and Eve, revolves around a lie. Our seemingly insatiable appetite for stories of deception spans the extremes of culture from King Lear to Little Red Riding Hood. These tales of deception are so enthralling because they speak to something fundamental in the human condition. The ever-present possibility of deceit is a crucial dimension of all human relationships. (more…)
Can there be freedom and free will in a deterministic world? Renowned philosopher and public intellectual, Dr. Dennett, drawing on evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics and philosophy, demonstrates that free will exists in a deterministic world for humans only, and that this gives us morality, meaning, and moral culpability. Weaving a richly detailed narrative, Dennett explains in a series of strikingly original arguments that far from being an enemy of traditional explorations of freedom, morality, and meaning, the evolutionary perspective can be an indispensable ally. In Freedom Evolves, Dennett seeks to place ethics on the foundation it deserves: a realistic, naturalistic, potentially unified vision of our place in nature.
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IN THIS SKEPTICS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES talk at Caltech from 1999, three science biographers take an illuminating look back over the life and legacy of one of the 20th Century’s most celebrated astronomers.
First, Michael Shermer analyzes Carl Sagan’s career to test common claims (such as the idea that Sagan’s popularizing interfered with his scientific research). Shermer reveals the true nature of the so-called “Sagan Effect.”
Then, William Poundstone (author of Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos) provides an entertaining look at Sagan’s lesser known interests — especially his marijuana use (and the media fascination with that revelation).
Keay Davidson (author of Carl Sagan: A Life) rounds out the event with a discussion of Sagan’s ideas about exobiology and nuclear proliferation.
This is a classic lecture on skepticism given by James Randi on March 22, 1992 at the inaugural session of the Distinguished Science Lecture Series hosted by Michael Shermer and presented by The Skeptics Society in California (1992–2015). James Randi presents an amazing first-hand analysis of astonishing claims encountered in his European visit. New-found freedoms stimulate rampant pseudoscientific practices in eastern bloc nations. With wit and wonderfully illustrative examples, Randi teaches us several lessons on the scientific investigation of unusual claims. This lecture transcript appeared in Skeptic magazine 1.1 (1992).
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