Future Events
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2008
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The Complexity and Change Network in association with
The Great Debate and Newcastle Philosophy Society
present
Progress of the Human Mind: From Enlightenment to Postmodernism
9am – 4.30pm, Saturday, 27th September 2008
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
The thinkers of the Enlightenment celebrated a notion of progress
that embraced the methods of the Scientific Revolution and aspired
to improve the human condition through social advance combined with
scientific discovery. Yet by the beginning of the new millennium
the notion of progress had become associated primarily with technological
change and the worst excesses of its application in the course of the
twentieth century. What are the implications of this today and for the future?
This one day workshop will examine the changing nature of society’s
understanding of the meaning of ‘progress’ and how it relates to the
way that humanity is perceived today. Thinkers discussed will include
Condorcet, Kant, Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte and Michel Foucault.
Introduced by Caspar Hewett and
David Large. Open to all.
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BOOKING ESSENTIAL
£10 waged / FREE unwaged
(lunch and refreshments provided)
To book email:
carol.bennett @unn.ac.uk
or send a cheque made payable to 'Northumbria University' to
Carol Bennett
Assistant Administrator
Research, Enterprise and Resources
School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences
Northumbria University
Room D001, Ellison Building, Northumberland Road
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST
Tel: +44-191-227-3603
Fax: +44-191-227-3598
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Come along, hear the arguments and have your say
The Great Energy Debate 2008
in association with
North East Forum for Climate Change Research (NEFCC)
7.30pm, Tuesday, 7th October 2008
Lecture Theatre CCE1-401 (TLT)
Newcastle Business School
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
Featuring:
Jim Skea,
Research Director, UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC)
Dermot
Roddy, Sir Joseph Swan Institute for Energy Research
Kate
Theobald, Sustainable Cities Research Institute
Chair:
Prof
Lynn Dobbs, Dean, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Northumbria University
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In the context of both mounting anxiety over climate change and predictions that
the worldwide peak of hydrocarbon production will occur before 2021, the
North East is striving to become a global leader in the shift to a low-carbon energy
economy. Such transitions typically span decades - energy infrastructure takes years
to develop and new energy technologies are likely to take time to mature.
So, what are the prospects of seeing a widespread transition to a sustainable energy
economy? What are the barriers? What will be the main drivers of change?
How might the UK’s energy mix evolve over the next 40 years?
And what of demand management? What obligations do we have as citizen-consumers?
Come along, hear the arguments and have your say
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Selfish Genes, Sex, and Sanity
7 – 8.30pm, Tuesday, 14th October 2008
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
What are the connections between mental illness and genetics?
Mental illnesses like autism and schizophrenia appear to have many
different causes, some environmental and some seemingly genetic. In
this talk Christopher Badcock outlines
a new theory that seeks to
explain many of the facts in relation to conflict between genes
expressed from each parent's copy: so-called genomic imprinting. Not
only does this reveal the strange genetics involved in these illnesses
and the way environmental factors can mimic them, the new theory also
casts a revealing new light on what we take to be normality and has
far-reaching implications for our understanding of human nature.
Speaker:
Christopher Badcock, LSE
Come along, hear the arguments and have your say
This event is FREE
but BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL
Contact:
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Information-processing in Robotics, Biology and Philosophy:
Unnoticed Connections
7 – 8.30pm, Tuesday, 21st October 2008
Lecture Theatre CCE1 002
Newcastle Business School
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
What can biologists, roboticists and philosophers learn from one another?
What can computer science tell us about what biological systems do and how they
do it? Is it possible to replicate or model those chemical information-processing
functions in digital electronic computing systems? What are the implications of
recent developments in computer science and software engineering in understanding
the nature of causality?
Aaron Sloman, author of Computer
Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy, Science and Models of Mind delves
into the world of connections between ideas developed in computer science, biology
and philosophy, providing new insights into some fundamental questions about the
nature of consciousness and free will.
Come along, hear the arguments and have your say
Speaker:
Aaron Sloman,
University of Birmingham
Click here for full details
This event is FREE
but BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL
Contact:
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Agents of Change? Darwinian Thought and Theories of Human Nature Revisited
9am – 4pm, Saturday, 25th October 2008
Newcastle Business School
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
Darwinism or Darwinitis?
Key note speech by Raymond Tallis
author The Hand: A Philosophical Enquiry into Human Being
The Great Human Nature Debate
For centuries philosophers and scientists have been trying to define what
constitutes human nature, yet this area of knowledge remains highly contested.
Some think that agency, the capacity to make choices and moral judgements, and to
act on them, lies at the heart of being human. For others it is our consciousness of our
selves that is the defining factor. Others still claim that free will, agency and
consciousness are illusions that are accidents of brain function. So, is
there a universal human nature? If so, what do we all have in common? What makes us
different from animals? Do the defining factors even exist?
Speakers:
Rita Carter, author Mapping the Mind,
Conciousness
John Dupré,
author Human Nature and the Limits of Science
Thomas Pink,
author The Psychology of Freedom, Free Will: A Very Short Introduction
Prof. Sue Scott, University of Keele
What can science tell us about human nature?
Modern developments in areas such as neuroscience, artificial intelligence
and evolutionary psychology have resulted in new ways of thinking about human
nature. Can we explain the mind and consciousness in terms of brain function?
Can we understand modern human behaviour in terms of our evolutionary heritage?
Is science even the right place to start if we want to understand human nature?
Speakers:
Igor Aleksander,
author How to Build a Mind
Kenan Malik, author Man, Beast and Zombie
Daniel Nettle,
author Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are,
Happiness: The Science behind your Smile
Colin Talbot, author The Paradoxical Primate
Come along, hear the arguments and have your say
Click here for full details
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BOOKING ESSENTIAL
£10 waged / FREE unwaged
(lunch and refreshments provided)
To book email:
or send a cheque made payable to 'The Great Debate' to
The Great Debate Bookings
17 Cardigan Terrace
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE6 5NU
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Flush it!
A film première hosted by
WORLDwrite and The Great Debate
Royal College of Art, London
2nd November 2008
Flush it! is a documentary aiming to put aspirations for
Western levels of water provision and sanitation on the map for
developing countries. The film interweaves concerns about local
water shortages, global water scarcity and toilet history with
aspirations for grand projects and excellent loos. Eritrean refugee
Tiba is at the centre of the film. Pontificating from her own bath
full of bubbles Tiba considers everything from depleted aquifers to
desalination to Livingstone’s plea not to flush. Tiba’s wet dream
informs us pit latrines stink, while experts help flush the crap and
remind us that water can never run out.
The documentary includes witness testimony from Dr Caspar Hewett,
researcher in water resources; James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting
and Innovation at De Montfort University; Angela Lee, Exhibition Curator,
Gladstone Toilet Museum; Terry Woolliscroft, Customer Manager, Twyford
Bathrooms; James Heartfield, writer and lecturer; Robin Oakley, Senior
Climate Campaigner, Greenpeace UK; Tony Rachwal, Thames Water Research
& Development Director
The film’s première will be followed by a question and answer session
with
Dr Caspar Hewett, Chair of The Great Debate and
Viv Regan, the film’s producer.
Click
here for full details / tickets for Battle of Ideas 2008
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sustainable consumption debate
in association with
North East Forum for Climate Change Research (NEFCC)
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
Date to be announced
Speakers:
Tim
Jackson, University of Surrey
Simin
Davoudi, Institute for Research on Environment and Sustainability
Since the 1970s, when environmentalism first emerged as a distinct school
of thought, the environmental impacts of our daily consumption have become
increasingly politicised. First, the politics of consumption, were driven
by moral appeals for critical and ‘correct’ consumption
behaviour. In the 1980s, the focus was primarily on limiting consumption levels
as opposed to finding alternatives to inefficient systems of production and
consumption, revealing a reluctance to intervene. Crucially, our
understanding of consumption was, and in many ways still is, framed by
notions of consumer sovereignty. Citizen-consumers are seen as rational
actors who cannot be held responsible for issues arising from
the ‘treadmill of production’. As a result, they are often considered
beyond the reach of most policy instruments. However,
as 'citizen-consumers' we are active agents in the reproduction of the basic institutions
that govern our daily lives, and therefore
play a part in sustaining harmful practices and processes. So, to what extent
should government intervene in our daily lives? What of our own moral obligation?
Could a new politics of consumption reconcile these forces?
Come along, hear the arguments and have your say
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Dr Caspar Hewett is
Director and Chair of The Great Debate
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ESRC Festival of Social Science
The Great Land Use Debate
7 - 14 March 2008
The following on line debate may be of interest to vistors to The Great Debate
web site: RELU Great Land Use Debate
What is our rural land for and what do we expect from it?
Should farmers be diversifying into energy crops or concentrating on feeding
the nation? And is it reasonable to expect them to be competitive food businesses
as well as managers and guardians of wildlife and landscapes? When floods overwhelm
urban areas should that just be a problem for the individuals and businesses affected?
Or should country dwellers be prepared to sacrifice rural land for flood storage?
Everyone seems to want something different, but can rural land fulfil all of
these expectations? What is our long term vision for land use in the UK and do
we need an extension of the planning system from town into countryside in order
to realise it?
The UK research councils’ Rural Economy and Land Use Programme is inviting you
to contribute to a unique on-line debate during National Science and Engineering
Week/Festival of Social Science 2008. The Programme’s land use policy analysts
will be posing some key questions and drawing in opinion from a wide range of
contributors. Visit the RELU website
between 7th and 14th March 2008 to have your say.
Dr Caspar Hewett is
Director and Chair of The Great Debate
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The Great Debate continues to support acclaimed debating competition for sixth formers
The Great Debate hopes to involve more students in the region in public debate
through its support of the Institute of
Ideas' and Pfizer's Debating Matters
Competition.
Now in its third year as a national competition, the North East regional final
will take place at Newcastle University on Monday 28 April 2008. Schools participating
in the reginonal final are
Durham Johnstone Comprehensive School (Durham), Ryton Comprehensive School (Ryton),
St. Mary's Sixth Form College (Newcastle) and Whickham School (Whickham).
Debating Matters demands more than rhetoric or rant from the sixth form students
who take part. Young people are encouraged to research issues thoroughly and become
more confident and sophisticated in articulating their views by standing up to a
probing intellectual examination. This is all part of the competition's philosophy
of privileging reasoned participation over rhetorical posturing.
Debate topics engage with contentious contemporary issues and uniquely involve a
critical examination of debater's arguments by celebrity judges drawn from the fields
of academia, the media and business.
The debate motions for the North East regional final this year are:
“Premiership footballers deserve all the rewards they get,”
“Happiness should be a key goal of government policy,”
“Nuclear power is the best alternative to fossil fuels” and
“Complimentary and alternative medicines should not be provided on the NHS”
Click here
for further details about the competition
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PEALS events
Institute of Human Genetics Lecture Theatre,
Centre for Life, Newcastle upon Tyne
RESEARCH SEMINARS
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Café Scientifique
Urban Café, Dance City, Temple Street, Newcastle, NE1 4BR
Click Here
for complete listings
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Mon 15 Sep, 7pm
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Paul Bernal:
Giving Away Our Lives: Internet 2.0
Drawing on his LSE research at the interface of law, computing and sociology,
Paul Bernal will discuss how the new internet economy uses the personal
information we unknowingly provide to allow businesses to shape and control
both our online and offline lives
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Mon 20 Oct, 7pm
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Charles Fernyhough:
How Studying Children’s Minds Leads to Big Ideas
For Charles Fernyhough, author and psychologist at Durham University, the birth
of his daughter Athena was an opportunity to re-evaluate much of what he had learned
as a lecturer and researcher in developmental psychology. The Baby in the Mirror,
his account of how children develop in their first three years of life, is written
with a father’s tenderness and a novelist’s empathy and style.
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Mon 17 Nov, 7pm
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Ruth Gregory, Durham University:
The Physics of Star Trek: Can Anti-Matter Power the Enterprise?
There is something about anti-matter that always seems to be the stuff of science
fiction, but anti-matter is very much scientific fact. Professor Ruth Gregory will
discuss what it is, how it was dreamed up, and what use we can put it to today.
There may also be time for a good natured critique of the Enterprise’s warp drive.
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Café Philosophique
Urban Café, Dance City, Temple Street, Newcastle, NE1 4BR
Click Here for complete listings
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Mon 15 Dec, 7pm
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Stuart Sim:
A Manifesto for Silence: Confronting the Politics and Culture of Noise
Noise pollution is now recognised as a major social problem. There is what
Aldous Huxley called an assault against silence taking place in our world.
Yet silence has played a crucial role in human history in key areas of activity
such as religion and the arts. Stuart Sim, Professor of Critical Theory, University
of Sunderland, will assert that it is being under threat from an increasingly
noisy culture that impoverishes us. Why silence matters and where it matters will
be considered, including its sociological, physiological, psychological, and
metaphysical aspects.
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Café Politique
Urban Café, Dance City, Temple Street, Newcastle, NE1 4BR
Click Here
for complete listings
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Mon 1 Dec, 7pm
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Andrew Geddes:
Fortress Britain: Is Immigration Working?
Inward migration is often touted as the solution to Europe’s skills shortage and
growing pensions deficit. Does immigration create a social burden or inject
desperately needed youth and dynamism into Europe’s ageing societies and sluggish
economic growth?
Five years on from the Morecambe Bay tragedy, Professor Andrew Geddes, University
of Sheffield, will argue that immigration frenzies in the media and politics are
largely missing the point and explore what he feels are more relevant questions
on how to effectively manage migration, past, present and future.
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Insights
Lectures for the public at
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Click Here
for complete listings
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Lectures at Life
Life Science Centre, Times Square, Newcastle upon Tyne
For further details call the information line on 0191 243 8292
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Thurs 6 Sept, 6pm
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Prof. Paul Davies: Aliens Under Our Noses
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Sun 21 October, 6pm
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In Conversation with Dr. James Watson Tickets £5
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2009
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PEALS events
Institute of Human Genetics Lecture Theatre, Centre for Life,
Newcastle upon Tyne
RESEARCH SEMINARS
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Day, date, time
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Speaker, affiliation
Event Title
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Café Scientifique
Click Here
for complete listings
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Mon 19 Jan, 7pm
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Julia Newton:
Standing Up for Fatigue: The Biological Basis of CFS/ME
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME) affects approximately two per cent of the UK population, impacts on quality of life and affects a sufferer’s ability to work and live their life. Despite this, there is no diagnostic test for CFS/ME and no effective biological treatment. Julia Newton, Newcastle University, researches the autonomic nervous system, which controls subconscious activities that occur in the human body, such as respiration, bladder and bowel function, and also maintains heart rate and blood pressure. Autonomic dysfunction and particularly low blood pressure, hypotension, are a frequent finding in people with the symptom of fatigue.
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Mon 16 Feb, 7pm
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Gary Fildess: Heavens Above: From Northumberland to the Red Planet
Gary Fildess, Chief Astronomer at the new Kielder Observatory, will introduce the project and explain the importance of amateur astronomy, while Pete Edwards from the Ogden Centre, Durham University, will describe the latest results from the Phoenix mission, explaining why there is so much interest in Mars and how this might help answer the question ‘Are we alone in the universe?’.
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Mon 16 March, 7pm
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Alison Murdoch:
Is There a Right to IVF? The Ethics and Politics of Infertility
One in seven couples have difficulty conceiving, and approximately one per cent of all births involve assisted conception. With the rationing of NHS treatment, going private is the only option for many. Professor Alison Murdoch is Head of the Newcastle Fertility Centre@Life, a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and a former president of the British Fertility Society. She will explore the social and clinical complexities of assisted conception.
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Mon 15 June, 7pm
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Professor Wyn Bowen:
Non Proliferation and Nuclear Renaissance
Nuclear energy is often offered as a partial solution to energy and climate security concerns. But the global spread of nuclear capabilities may undermine non-proliferation challenges if technologies and materials are diverted to military use. Professor Wyn Bowen is Professor of Non-Proliferation and International Security in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. He has worked as a consultant to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and served as a weapons inspector on several missile teams in Iraq with the UN Special Commission during the late 1990s. Wyn also served as a Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee inquiries into the Iraq war and weapons of mass destruction.
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Mon 6 July, 7pm
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Gavin Pretor-Pinney: Waves
Waves seem to be everywhere, from ocean breakers pounding the shore, to the
tiny, musical pressure fluctuations produced by a string ensemble, from
reverberations of an earthquake
circumnavigating the globe, to the electromagnetic rays emanating from a lamp,
from brainwaves to Mexican waves, gravitational waves to
royal waves. In fact, at a subatomic scale, anything and everything seems to
behave as a wave. Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Cloud Spotter and Idler and absinthe
importer, asks what exactly are waves and why are they so universal?
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Café Philosophique
Click Here for complete listings
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Insights
Lectures for the public at
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Click Here
for complete listings
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Lectures at Life
Life Science Centre, Times Square, Newcastle upon Tyne
For further details call the information line on 0191 243 8292
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