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201 Harrogate Road
Chapel Allerton
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Science + Politics x Denmark = Chaos. What happened in Copenhagen ?
Monday, 01 March 2010, 08:00 PM
Dr. Simon Lewis
Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change states that its goal is to ‘prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’. Understanding how human actions change the climate system, and the impacts of these changes on people and their life-support systems is a role for science, whereas deciding what is dangerous (to whom?), and how to avoid it (at what cost?), is within the realm of politics. This logical mix of science and politics had led to much confusion. The 15th UN meeting on climate change was no exception, despite unprecedented media scrutiny.
Dr Simon Lewis is a Royal Society research fellow at the Earth & Biosphere Institute, University of Leeds , and an expert in the role of tropical forests in the changing Earth system. He was in Copenhagen advising a central African government and took time out of doing science to get involved in the negotiations. He will give a brief summary of how we got to Copenhagen via the IPCC and CRU email hack and what the outcome of the UN talks might mean.
This talk was suggested by Dominic Rayner, so he will chair the meeting and there will be short presentation by Phil Exell, who manages our website, which has been upgraded.
Alice’s Secrets in Wonderland
Monday, 15 February 2010, 08:00 PM
Melanie Bayley
What would Lewis Carroll’s ‘ Alice ’s Adventures in Wonderland’ be without he Cheshire Cat, the trial, the Duchess’s baby or The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party? These famous characters are missing from the original story the author told Alice Liddell and her 2 sisters during a boat trip near Oxford . What inspired these later additions?
‘Lewis Carroll’ was Charles Dodgson, a stubbornly conservative mathematician at Oxford . He valued Euclid’s ‘Elements’ as the epitome of mathematical thinking, starting with a few axioms and building complex arguments through simple, logical steps in geometry and trigonometry. But the 19th century was a turbulent time for mathematics with new concepts like imaginary numbers, symbolic logic, projective geometry and quaternions. For Dodgson this was all ‘semi-colloquial’ and therefore parodied in Alice – hence the Cheshire Cat, the Duchess’s baby and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party – each one a critique of the new mathematics. This is a new analysis of Alice , originated by Melanie Bayley a PhD student from Oxford.
katiebrown >> Respond
Who needs science communication?
Monday, 05 October 2009, 08:00 PM
Graeme Gooday , Professor of History of Science & Technology at the University of Leeds
There is a lot of science communication about nowadays, and it is increasingly taught by universities too. But who is it really for, and what is it meant to achieve? Does the public really "need" to know more about science? Or is it more that scientists need it to ensure that their research can still flourish in an increasingly challenging socio-economic climate? Insofar as the public does need to know more about science, does it actually get the kind of science communication it deserves? Is it ever legitimate, for example, to present new scientific projects as essential to preserve humankind from apocalypse, or as destined to free us from bodily infirmity? This talk will explore these questions, and suggest that maybe we've been here before...
ashelt >> Respond
PaulV >> Respond
Science + Politics x Denmark = Chaos. What happened in Copenhagen ?
Monday, 01 March 2010, 08:00 PM
Dr. Simon Lewis
Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change states that its goal is to ‘prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’. Understanding how human actions change the climate system, and the impacts of these changes on people and their life-support systems is a role for science, whereas deciding what is dangerous (to whom?), and how to avoid it (at what cost?), is within the realm of politics. This logical mix of science and politics had led to much confusion. The 15th UN meeting on climate change was no exception, despite unprecedented media scrutiny.
Dr Simon Lewis is a Royal Society research fellow at the Earth & Biosphere Institute, University of Leeds , and an expert in the role of tropical forests in the changing Earth system. He was in Copenhagen advising a central African government and took time out of doing science to get involved in the negotiations. He will give a brief summary of how we got to Copenhagen via the IPCC and CRU email hack and what the outcome of the UN talks might mean.
This talk was suggested by Dominic Rayner, so he will chair the meeting and there will be short presentation by Phil Exell, who manages our website, which has been upgraded.
Harrison >> Respond