Thursday 15 April 2010

Misunderstandings of Science

Our April meeting proved popular, with 20 people in attendance, despite the competition of the big political debate on television. Or is it that everyone is disillusioned with politicians?

Alexander Hellemans presented a wide-ranging talk on science, using a projector and screen, tracing the origins of science back to Thales in ancient Greece, and discussed how science differs from belief systems, and from technology, with illustrations from a variety of subjects including climate change and the large hadron collider. The subsequent discussion involving the audience was quite lively, touching on James Lovelock's Gaia theory, and the inevitable evolution versus creationism argument (which we will be returning to in June). And too much else to report in detail here. Thanks are due to Dean Morrison for technical assistance with the projector, and to everyone who participated in the debate.

1 comment:

  1. Graham Martin-Royle16 April 2010 at 20:17

    Sounds like a good meeting. Pity I had to miss it cos of work.

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