Drexel University is hosting a conference on Global Challenges: Water. This is an all day event held in Behrakis Hall Grand Hall, Creese Student Center, 32nd and Chestnut Street. The event’s description says:

Water is the source of life. Without clean water people get sick, children miss school, and the cycle of poverty is perpetuated. Millions die prematurely from water-related diseases. As water scarcity becomes more acute, the global water crisis could lead to violent conflicts. The complexity and gravity of this issue makes it a major challenge facing humanity. Let us take a look at this serious challenge from all perspectives – social, economic, scientific, political as well as cultural.

The DFS encourages its members attend this event. Understanding the social, political, and scientific challenges that humanity faces in the world today is essential for being an informed citizen and intelligently addressing our biggest issues. If you wish to attend, you must register here before attending the event.

Thanks if you came out to the meeting tonight. We had a pretty good turnout. At the meeting we watching Dan Dennett’s TED talk, highlighting Rick Warren’s previous TED talk, and his book Breaking the Spell. Dennett believes that everyone should be taught facts about the world’s religions, and everyone at the meeting seemed to agree that this is a laudable though logistically problematic goal. Watch his discussion, and let us know what you think.

James Randi, world-famous magician, skeptic, and debunker of paranormal claims. He has offered a $1,000,000 challenge since 1964 (started at $1,000) for a person that can provide proof of a paranormal claim. So far, out of over 1,000 applicants, no one has ever succeeded in providing proof for their paranormal claim.

If you missed our first meeting of the term, here’s the video we watched (just barely, thanks to all three Dragonfly networks sucking as usual). Kary Mullis, Nobel Prize-winning biochemist discusses the crucial role of experimentation in science. Read on for some excerpts from our discussion, and an interesting follow-up video by physicist David Deutsch.

Discussion takeaways:

• This video dates itself a bit (2002), as Mullis’ closing comments related to global warming are a misinterpretation (see the comments on the video page). This in itself is a good reflection of the fact that even the brightest scientists with extensive observational evidence still may not draw the correct conclusions.
• Science is not always the noble pursuit of knowledge we are brought up to believe. It is not impervious to bias, not insulated from the real world of economic and political motivations. Even within academic circles, science is sometimes taught dogmatically, with much reverence for its methods and forefathers, with a sense of faith that some might describe as religious.
• There seems to be a higher barrier to entry to science today than in days of yore, as higher levels of math and theoretical understanding are required — there is so much that has been discovered, particularly explaining the things that we can see and deal with day-to-day, that science has largely moved into the realm of the unseen.
• Scientists are also generally a fairly elite bunch by nature. The language alone separates them and their findings from the average person. Specialized language is necessary to communicate scientific concepts, so how can we “dumb it down” to accurately enlighten the masses? The media and the internet have helped spread and even democratize information, but do we lose necessary nuance and context? Is it too easy for us to filter and zone in on only sources that agree with our preconceptions?

Apologies if I missed anyone’s insightful points here (or injected my own biases Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments! And here’s the video I mentioned about observation not necessarily being enough grounds for a good theory.