Saturday, March 07, 2009

Richard Dawkins - Origins symposium


You know you are a nerd when you get as stoked about seeing Richard Dawkins and Craig Venter speak in person as you would a movie star or rock star. I just got tickets for the afternoon session of the Origins symposium at Arizona State University next month. The session that I'm seeing:

Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion, Blind Watchmaker, etc.)
Craig Venter (instrumental in mapping of human genome)
Lawrence Krauss

Noble Panel, moderated by Ira Flatow (from NPR):
Baruch Blumberg
Walter Gilbert
Sheldon Glashow
David Gross
John Mather
Frank Wilczek

The whole day is awesome with about a dozen authors I've read including Steven Pinker (I have his books The Language Instinct and the Blank Slate ...) and Brian Greene (Fabric of the Cosmos ...) in the morning. And in another session in the evening, which I couldn't get tickets for, Christopher Hitchens, Stephen Hawking and others. That one would have been sweet.




I'm a scientist groupie. How sad is that?

BTW, Wunelle, posted a link to a great hour show with the Four Horseman of atheism, as it were: Dawkins, Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. Check it out.

Atheism's Four Horseman


4 comments:

CyberKitten said...

I am *so* jealous!

I look forward to your review of the day.

Anonymous said...

"I'm a scientist groupie. How sad is that?"

could be way worse. Like being a "Cooking Channel Chef" groupie. Or a "60's Pop Band" groupie (don't let me hear you are stalking Jon Sebastian or Mark Lindsey!)

Peggy said...

I confess I'm also a scientist groupie! My friends are incredulous that I actually PAID money to spend 12 hours listening to this.. My bright spot?? At the end of the afternoon session, when it was wrapping up..I sense a large man standing next to me in the nosebleed section. I was Neil deGrasse Tyson! My heart was pounding so fast! I was able to utter a "hello" and "big fan" before realizing I was being a groupie...

science groupies, UNITE!

dbackdad said...

Welcome Peggy. That's fantastic! I saw that Tyson was listed on the flyer for the conference but I didn't see him listed on any of the presentations. He's great and I always enjoy his shows and when he's on Colbert. Very funny.