Science is the most effective way humanity has invented to discover how the universe works. And yet it is much abused and vilified, largely by people who either dismiss it in favor of some fuzzy mystical notion or by those who wish to abuse it to advance their own political or social agenda. It is very important for our personal lives and for the benefit of our open society to be able to tell science from bunk, to see why alleged scientific “controversies” (evolution, global warming, HIV-AIDS connection, vaccines and autism link) are indeed, as philosopher Jeremy Bentham famously put it, nonsense on stilts.
Professor Massimo Pigliucci is a philosopher at the City University of New York. Formerly he was a professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University. He has written several books, the latest beeing "Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk" (University of Chicago Press, 2010). Massimo Pigliucci maintains a blog and podcast named Rationally Speaking.
Join Massimo Pigliucci at the Pub ('Skeptics in the Pub' - Skeptikere på puben) after the lecture.