On Monday, February 19th at 7:30 our science series will begin. I am super excited about Bill's science hour. Topics:
WHAT SCIENCE REALLY IS
Week 1. Reality, Knowledge, and Meaning.
Week 2. Science and Common Sense
Week 3. Canards and Conspiracies.
Week 4. Logical Fallacies and Pseudoscience.
Week 5. Flavors of Science.
Week 6. Regulatory Science and Toxicology.
Week 7. When and Why should we believe Science?
Week 1: Reality, Knowledge, and Meaning. I will begin with the arguments of philosophers that “Reality” is an artificial construct of the human mind, misinformed and distorted by our human senses and intellect. A famous example is Socrates’ statement that “I am the wisest man in Athens because I know one thing. And that is that I know nothing.” His point was that we actually know nothing about the “real world” except for whatever meaning, which is useful to ourselves, that we have constructed out of our own random, individual experiences. These ideas will be illustrated with examples from Art History. The deduction from this view of Reality is that self-deception is an innate, inescapable, and very powerful, human quality.
These beliefs about Reality lead to two questions:
1. Is there an objective Reality independent of the misperceptions and distortions innate to all humans?
2. If there is an objective reality, rather than merely beliefs, how can we know that we have knowledge of it? How do we justify beliefs, such that they become knowledge of reality?
Modern philosophers have proposed three methods (Foundationalism, Coherentism, Reliabilism) for justifying the reality of our beliefs - such that we have knowledge of them as truths rather than self-deception. I will preview a later assertion that Science can be justified according to all three of these methods, and conversely that Pseudoscience can be invalidated by all of them.
Finally, we will compare and contrast how the great “Systems of Knowing” – Art, Religion, Science, and Philosophy – assign meaning to human experience.
TIME:
1 hour if Barnes does all the talking.
1.5 hours if there are questions of Barnes.
2 hours if the audience argues with Barnes.
3 hours if (hopefully) the audience argues with each other.
About the Presenter.
William Barnes attended Marietta College, and then served 2.5 years in the Army as a radar mechanic at a Nike-Hercules battery, defending Philadelphia from Russian bombers. He then attended graduate school at UMASS Amherst graduating with a PhD in Botany (Genetics). During this time he studied in Swansea, Wales for thirteen months. He then did a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Vancouver BC. He was an Associate Scientist in Genetic Toxicology and Environmental Carcinogenesis at the Naylor Dana Institute for Disease Prevention for three years. He taught Genetics, Molecular Biology, and Bioinformatics at Clarion University of Pennsylvania for thirty years.
Sign up here: www.cognitivestudios.org, max 14 attendees.
We also have an exiting 8-week visual design class starting soon. We'll be starting with deconstructing the idea of what jewelry really is, symbolism, meaning, and design. The class will culminate in a sculptural piece made out of a surprise material!
Oct 18, 2024, 5 to 5 PM
St. Ambrose Chicken Pot Pie DinnerOct 20, 2024, 5 to 7 PM
Neon Wave X Chug Water Group RunOct 24, 2024, 6 to 7 PM