2007-08 Distinguished Speaker Series
Challenge Your Mind. Infuse Your Soul.The Collin College Distinguished Speaker Series invites distinguished and noted individuals from across the country to engage in a year-long, college-wide conversation addressing current research and topics of interest. The conversations serve to broaden perspectives, unlock new intellectual doors, and deepen our collective knowledge bank - they may even challenge deeply drawn boundaries and long-held beliefs. Representing a variety of academic disciplines including writers, artists, scientists, technology experts and others, this group shares their expertise and perspective with students, faculty and the larger Collin College community. A significant feature of the series is the opportunity it affords the audience to interact with a speaker on the topic under discussion. Bibliographical Resources
Current Series Calendar
September 2007 - Dr. Trevor PinchNovember 2007 - Dr. Diane Ackerman
March 2008 - Dr. Joan Fujimura
April 2008 - Dr. Michael Shermer Collin’s second series of public lectures, framed under the theme of "Knowledge," is scheduled throughout the 2007-2008 academic year. Sub-themes further direct the conversation including "The Sociology of Knowledge," "Ways of Knowing," "Production of Knowledge," and "Pseudo-knowledge."
Trevor Pinch, PhD: "Sociology of Knowledge"
Presentation: "Understanding the Golem of Science and Technology: The Social Roots of Knowledge." Science and Technology often seem either all good or all bad. For some science and technology are crusading knights who push aside ignorance and superstition. For others it is science and technology who are the enemy; our gentle planet, our feeling for the just, the poetic, the religious, and the beautiful are assailed by a scientific and technological bureaucracy driven by the profit motive. Both these ideas of science and technology are wrong. The personality of science is neither that of a chivalrous knight nor that of a pitiless juggernaut. Science is a golem – a powerful creature of Jewish mythology. Understanding the golem of science and technology and the roots of science and technology in human and social culture are the keys towards developing a realistic view of what our science and technological cultures can achieve and how we as citizens can live with them. Dr. Pinch will outline the golem metaphor as a way to understand science and technology and draw upon insights from the recent social studies of science. Biography: Trevor Pinch is Professor of Sociology and Professor and Chair of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. He holds degrees in Physics and Sociology. He has published fourteen books and numerous articles on aspects of the sociology of science and technology. His studies have included quantum physics, solar neutrinos, parapsychology, health economics, the bicycle, the car, and the electronic music synthesizer. His most recent books are How Users Matter (edited with Nelly Oudshoorn, MIT Press, 2003), Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer (with Frank Trocco, Harvard University Press, 2002) and Dr Golem: How To Think About Medicine (with Harry Collins, Chicago University Press, 2005). Analog Days was the winner of the 2003 silver award for popular culture “Book of the Year” of Foreword Magazine. The Golem: What You Should Know About Science (with Harry Collins, Cambridge: Canto 1998 2nd edition) was winner of the Robert Merton prize of the American Sociological Association. He is currently researching the online music community ACIDplanet.com. Suggested Pre-Reading: Introduction, Conclusion, Chapter 3 from The Golem: What You Should Know About Science. Links:
Excerpt from Dr. Golem: How to Think about Medicine
Dr. Pinch's Bibliography
Sept. 25, 2007
7:00pm - Public Lecture, SCC Conference Center
Sept. 26, 2007
10:00-10:50am - A Conversation with Trevor Pinch (limited seating)
11:30am-12:30pm - Faculty Reception
Presentation: "Understanding the Golem of Science and Technology: The Social Roots of Knowledge." Science and Technology often seem either all good or all bad. For some science and technology are crusading knights who push aside ignorance and superstition. For others it is science and technology who are the enemy; our gentle planet, our feeling for the just, the poetic, the religious, and the beautiful are assailed by a scientific and technological bureaucracy driven by the profit motive. Both these ideas of science and technology are wrong. The personality of science is neither that of a chivalrous knight nor that of a pitiless juggernaut. Science is a golem – a powerful creature of Jewish mythology. Understanding the golem of science and technology and the roots of science and technology in human and social culture are the keys towards developing a realistic view of what our science and technological cultures can achieve and how we as citizens can live with them. Dr. Pinch will outline the golem metaphor as a way to understand science and technology and draw upon insights from the recent social studies of science. Biography: Trevor Pinch is Professor of Sociology and Professor and Chair of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. He holds degrees in Physics and Sociology. He has published fourteen books and numerous articles on aspects of the sociology of science and technology. His studies have included quantum physics, solar neutrinos, parapsychology, health economics, the bicycle, the car, and the electronic music synthesizer. His most recent books are How Users Matter (edited with Nelly Oudshoorn, MIT Press, 2003), Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer (with Frank Trocco, Harvard University Press, 2002) and Dr Golem: How To Think About Medicine (with Harry Collins, Chicago University Press, 2005). Analog Days was the winner of the 2003 silver award for popular culture “Book of the Year” of Foreword Magazine. The Golem: What You Should Know About Science (with Harry Collins, Cambridge: Canto 1998 2nd edition) was winner of the Robert Merton prize of the American Sociological Association. He is currently researching the online music community ACIDplanet.com. Suggested Pre-Reading: Introduction, Conclusion, Chapter 3 from The Golem: What You Should Know About Science. Links:
Excerpt from Dr. Golem: How to Think about Medicine
Dr. Pinch's Bibliography
Diane Ackerman, PhD: "Ways of Knowing"
Presentation: "Creative Intelligence, or What a Poem Knows."
Art not only reflects the heart and soul of a people, it has an intelligence all its own. There is nothing like art to throw light into the dark corners of existence, or make life's runaway locomotive slow down for a moment so that it can be enjoyed. Science and technology may explain much of our world, but art also offers important truths - ones based on intuition, a keen eye, craftsmanship, and the tumultuous experiences of the artist. Ackerman will explore the act of artistic creation in general, the pyschology of artists, how artists problem-solve to create a work of art, and what truths only art can teach us about the world. Biography: Diane Ackerman has an M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Her works of nonfiction include, most recently, The Zookeeper's Wife, a work of narrative nonfiction set during WWII; An Alchemy of Mind, a poetics of the brain based on the latest neuroscience; Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden; and Deep Play, which considers play, creativity, and our need for transcendence. Her poetry has been published in leading literary journals, and in books including Origami Bridges: Poems of Psychoanalysis and Fire; I Praise My Destroyer; and Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems. Ms. Ackerman has received many prizes and awards, including a D. Litt. from Kenyon College, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the John Burroughs Nature Award, and the Lavan Poetry Prize, as well as being honored as a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library. She also has the rare distinction of having a molecule named after her - dianeackerone. She has taught at a variety of universities, including Columbia, the University of Richmond, and Cornell, where she taught a course on creativity in the Arts and Sciences. Her essays about nature and human nature have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, National Geographic, and other journals. She hosted a five-hour PBS television series inspired by her book A Natural History of the Senses. Links:
Diane Ackerman's web site
November 6, 2007
7:00pm - Public Lecture, SCC Conference Center
November 7, 2007
9:00-10:00am - Faculty Reception
10:00-10:50am - A Conversation with Diane Ackerman (limited seating)
Presentation: "Creative Intelligence, or What a Poem Knows."
Art not only reflects the heart and soul of a people, it has an intelligence all its own. There is nothing like art to throw light into the dark corners of existence, or make life's runaway locomotive slow down for a moment so that it can be enjoyed. Science and technology may explain much of our world, but art also offers important truths - ones based on intuition, a keen eye, craftsmanship, and the tumultuous experiences of the artist. Ackerman will explore the act of artistic creation in general, the pyschology of artists, how artists problem-solve to create a work of art, and what truths only art can teach us about the world. Biography: Diane Ackerman has an M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Her works of nonfiction include, most recently, The Zookeeper's Wife, a work of narrative nonfiction set during WWII; An Alchemy of Mind, a poetics of the brain based on the latest neuroscience; Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden; and Deep Play, which considers play, creativity, and our need for transcendence. Her poetry has been published in leading literary journals, and in books including Origami Bridges: Poems of Psychoanalysis and Fire; I Praise My Destroyer; and Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems. Ms. Ackerman has received many prizes and awards, including a D. Litt. from Kenyon College, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the John Burroughs Nature Award, and the Lavan Poetry Prize, as well as being honored as a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library. She also has the rare distinction of having a molecule named after her - dianeackerone. She has taught at a variety of universities, including Columbia, the University of Richmond, and Cornell, where she taught a course on creativity in the Arts and Sciences. Her essays about nature and human nature have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, National Geographic, and other journals. She hosted a five-hour PBS television series inspired by her book A Natural History of the Senses. Links:
Diane Ackerman's web site
Joan Fujimura, PhD: “Knowledge Production”
Presentation: "Epistemology in Action: Knowledge Production in Context"
This talk focuses on the practical production of knowledge. What are the real world contingencies that scientists face as they attempt to produce knowledge, to weave some sense from the tangle of information and the perceived disorder on the frontline of research? How is knowledge constructed and re-constructed? How do scientific research practices and products interact with other realms of social life? How is knowledge produced, under what conditions, through which processes and actors, in which contexts? Like all human enterprises, scientific research has appeared in different forms in different sites in different time periods. These differences epitomize the fact that scientific knowledge is produced by humans who work within particular contexts. In this talk, I focus on two examples that help us to observe these interactions. The first is a study of oncogene research as it arose within a particular time in American research culture. I discuss how theories, material technologies, and practices are co-constructed, incorporated, and refashioned through never-ending processes of negotiation. The second is a study of recent genome wide association studies. I use this latter study to help illustrate the ways in which scientific research cannot avoid dealing with socio-cultural contexts, in this case, the concepts of race and ethnicity which have meanings that come into play in the production and interpretation of genetic research on diseases. Biography: Joan H. Fujimura is Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she was founding Director of the Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies. Before going to Madison, she was the Henry R. Luce Professor for Biotechnology and Society at Stanford University and Assistant Professor in Sociology at Harvard University. She has been a member in the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and an Abe Fellow at the University of Tokyo, Japan. Fujimura has written on developments in genetics, molecular biology, biotechnology, biomedicine, and HIV-AIDS research. Her recent publications include “Postgenomic Futures: Translations Across The Machine-Nature Border in Systems Biology,” New Genetics and Society, vol. 24, no. 3 (August 2005), pp. 195-225, and “Sex Genes: A Critical Socio-Material Approach to the Politics and Molecular Genetics of Sex Determination,” Signs, vol. 32, 1 (Autumn 2006): 49-82. She is author of Crafting Science: A Socio-History of the Quest for the Genetics of Cancer (Harvard University Press, 1996) and co-editor of The Rights Tools for the Job: At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences (Princeton University Press, 1992). Fujimura is currently finishing a book on bioinformatics, genomics, and transnational bioscience in Japan and the United States and an edited special issue on race, genetics, and medicine for Social Studies of Science (2008). Her new/current projects include: research on interdisciplinarity in the newly developing systems biology programs of research; research on the conceptualization of “population” in the collection and analysis of the data in human genetics studies around disease and evolution especially as they impact human categories of race; analysis of Japanese science within the context of postcolonial studies of science; and a study of the development of fields analyses in science studies and in sociology. Links:
Book Review of Crafting Science: A Sociohistory of the Quest for the Genetics of Cancer
March 4, 2008
7:00pm - Public Lecture, SCC Conference Center
March 5, 2008
10-10:50am - A Conversation with Joan Fujimura (limited seating)
11:30am-12:30pm - Faculty Reception
Presentation: "Epistemology in Action: Knowledge Production in Context"
This talk focuses on the practical production of knowledge. What are the real world contingencies that scientists face as they attempt to produce knowledge, to weave some sense from the tangle of information and the perceived disorder on the frontline of research? How is knowledge constructed and re-constructed? How do scientific research practices and products interact with other realms of social life? How is knowledge produced, under what conditions, through which processes and actors, in which contexts? Like all human enterprises, scientific research has appeared in different forms in different sites in different time periods. These differences epitomize the fact that scientific knowledge is produced by humans who work within particular contexts. In this talk, I focus on two examples that help us to observe these interactions. The first is a study of oncogene research as it arose within a particular time in American research culture. I discuss how theories, material technologies, and practices are co-constructed, incorporated, and refashioned through never-ending processes of negotiation. The second is a study of recent genome wide association studies. I use this latter study to help illustrate the ways in which scientific research cannot avoid dealing with socio-cultural contexts, in this case, the concepts of race and ethnicity which have meanings that come into play in the production and interpretation of genetic research on diseases. Biography: Joan H. Fujimura is Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she was founding Director of the Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies. Before going to Madison, she was the Henry R. Luce Professor for Biotechnology and Society at Stanford University and Assistant Professor in Sociology at Harvard University. She has been a member in the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and an Abe Fellow at the University of Tokyo, Japan. Fujimura has written on developments in genetics, molecular biology, biotechnology, biomedicine, and HIV-AIDS research. Her recent publications include “Postgenomic Futures: Translations Across The Machine-Nature Border in Systems Biology,” New Genetics and Society, vol. 24, no. 3 (August 2005), pp. 195-225, and “Sex Genes: A Critical Socio-Material Approach to the Politics and Molecular Genetics of Sex Determination,” Signs, vol. 32, 1 (Autumn 2006): 49-82. She is author of Crafting Science: A Socio-History of the Quest for the Genetics of Cancer (Harvard University Press, 1996) and co-editor of The Rights Tools for the Job: At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences (Princeton University Press, 1992). Fujimura is currently finishing a book on bioinformatics, genomics, and transnational bioscience in Japan and the United States and an edited special issue on race, genetics, and medicine for Social Studies of Science (2008). Her new/current projects include: research on interdisciplinarity in the newly developing systems biology programs of research; research on the conceptualization of “population” in the collection and analysis of the data in human genetics studies around disease and evolution especially as they impact human categories of race; analysis of Japanese science within the context of postcolonial studies of science; and a study of the development of fields analyses in science studies and in sociology. Links:
Book Review of Crafting Science: A Sociohistory of the Quest for the Genetics of Cancer
Michael Shermer, PhD: "Pseudoknowledge"
Presentation: "Why People Believe Weird Things"
Ever wonder why people believe in UFO abductions, mind-reading, reincarnation, urban legends, not to mention "scientific creationism" and the pernicious myth that the Holocaust never happened? Dr. Michael Shermer, the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, is a genuine ghost-buster, a relentless crusader against superstition and pseudoscience. Based on his bestselling book, Why People Believe Weird Things is filled with humor, insight, and personal anecdotes - a highly entertaining wake-up call that has proved a hit on college campuses. Biography: Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine and the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society. He is an author, speaker, and producer, as well as a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Scientific American, and the host of the Skeptics Distinguished Lecture Series at Caltech. He is also the co-host and producer of the Fox Family television series Exploring the Unknown, and serves as the science correspondent for KPCC radio, an NPR affiliate for Southern California. Dr. Shermer's books include Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown, Why People Believe Weird Things, Denying History, The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Share Care, and Follow the Golden Rule; and How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God. Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate School. He worked as a college professor for 20 years (1979–1998), teaching psychology, evolution, and the history of science at Occidental College, California State University Los Angeles, and Glendale College. Since his creation of the Skeptics Society, Skeptic magazine, and the Skeptics Distinguished Lecture Series at Caltech, he has appeared on such shows as 20/20, Dateline, Donahue, Oprah, and others as a skeptic of weird and extraordinary claims. Dr. Shermer has also appeared in documentaries aired on A & E, Discovery, PBS, The History Channel, The Science Channel, and The Learning Channel. Links:
Skeptic magazine's web site
April 15, 2008
7:00pm - Public Lecture, SCC Conference Center
April 16, 2008
10:00-10:50am - A Conversation with Michael Shermer (limited seating)
11:30am-12:30pm - Faculty Reception
Presentation: "Why People Believe Weird Things"
Ever wonder why people believe in UFO abductions, mind-reading, reincarnation, urban legends, not to mention "scientific creationism" and the pernicious myth that the Holocaust never happened? Dr. Michael Shermer, the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, is a genuine ghost-buster, a relentless crusader against superstition and pseudoscience. Based on his bestselling book, Why People Believe Weird Things is filled with humor, insight, and personal anecdotes - a highly entertaining wake-up call that has proved a hit on college campuses. Biography: Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine and the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society. He is an author, speaker, and producer, as well as a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Scientific American, and the host of the Skeptics Distinguished Lecture Series at Caltech. He is also the co-host and producer of the Fox Family television series Exploring the Unknown, and serves as the science correspondent for KPCC radio, an NPR affiliate for Southern California. Dr. Shermer's books include Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown, Why People Believe Weird Things, Denying History, The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Share Care, and Follow the Golden Rule; and How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God. Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate School. He worked as a college professor for 20 years (1979–1998), teaching psychology, evolution, and the history of science at Occidental College, California State University Los Angeles, and Glendale College. Since his creation of the Skeptics Society, Skeptic magazine, and the Skeptics Distinguished Lecture Series at Caltech, he has appeared on such shows as 20/20, Dateline, Donahue, Oprah, and others as a skeptic of weird and extraordinary claims. Dr. Shermer has also appeared in documentaries aired on A & E, Discovery, PBS, The History Channel, The Science Channel, and The Learning Channel. Links:
Skeptic magazine's web site
2007-2008 Distinguished Speaker Series Planning Committee
Lead Faculty
David Cullen, Larry Stern, Gerry Sullivan
Members
Daphne Babcock, Levi Bryant, Donna Cain, Brenda Carter, Tracey Elliott, Pam Gaiter, Lynda Gates, Gary Hodge, Regina Hughes, Brenda Kihl, Bridgette Kirkpatrick, Michael McConachie, Cameron Neal, Nelson Rich, Tom Rodgers, Sherry Schumann, Collin Thomas, Jay Wayne, Jessica Weisel