Rachel Armstrong, Steve Fuller, Susan Greenfield. Bryan Appleyard chairs.
Science is perhaps the defining triumph of the modern world. Yet it is increasingly under attack both from those who fear its consequences and those who question its claims to unique authority. Is there any real alternative or are we just seeing the return of myth and superstition?
TED fellow and polymath Rachel Armstrong, sociologist Steve Fuller, and neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield question the limits of science."
I've no idea of the extent to which alchemy will be discussed during this session - the word pops up all over the place these days, but I thought I would list it for the record.
Fuller is the man who has made a laughing stock of himself, and by extension, sociology, by taking the side of intelligent design creationism against evolutionary biology. His argument, as far as us mere mortals could understand it, was that alternative theories (cough cough) like ID needed space to be taught to people so that they had a chance at life. Meanwhile, actual real scientists doing real work demand unfortunate things like evidence and predictions which the theory makes.
Greenfield has also tended towards the sensational in recent years.
How do they choose these people?
It would though be interesting if they discussed alchemy, since its marginalisation by modern science demonstrates the difference between ID creationism and real science quite nicely.
