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May 14, 2024
Steven Pinker: Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
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May 14, 2024
Steven Pinker: Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
In the midst of humanity’s remarkable scientific progress, we find ourselves grappling with an alarming surge of misinformation, pseudo-science, and conspiracy theories. However, attributing this solely to human irrationality seems inadequate given our capacity for discovery and rational thought.
Psychologist Steven Pinker proposes that our cognitive processes, evolved for simpler contexts, often fail to utilize the sophisticated tools of reasoning available to us. Despite our advancements, we frequently overlook logic, critical thinking, and probability, hindering our ability to navigate complex modern challenges effectively. Moreover, individual pursuits of self-interest and group cohesion can collectively foster societal irrationality, underscoring the importance of fostering norms that prioritize objectivity and truth.
Rationality, Pinker argues, is indispensable — it guides our personal choices, shapes public discourse, and serves as a catalyst for social justice and moral progress.
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He specializes in visual cognition and developmental linguistics, and his experimental topics include mental imagery, shape recognition, visual attention, regularity and irregularity in language, the neural basis of words and grammar, and childhood language development.
Presented by University of Washington Office of Public Lectures. If you have questions about the event, please contact lectures@uw.edu or call (206) 543-5900.
Steven Pinker: Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
Book talk: Zoë Schlanger with Brooke Jarvis
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May 14, 2024
Sponsored by Town Hall Seattle
Did you know that plants can hear sounds? And have a social life? Science writer Zoë Schlanger shares even more remarkable plant talents in her latest book, The Light Eaters, illustrating the tremendous biological creativity it takes to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. They communicate. They recognize their own kin. Schlanger immerses into the world of being a plant, into its drama and complexity.
Scientists have learned that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life, Schlanger argues, if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing, and make its way toward it?
Our understanding and definition of a plant is rapidly changing. So then what do we owe these life forms once we come to comprehend their rich and varied abilities? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, Schlanger challenges us to rethink the role of plants—and our own place—in the natural world.
Zoë Schlanger is a staff writer at the Atlantic, where she covers climate change. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Time, Newsweek, The Nation, Quartz, and on NPR among other major outlets, and in the 2022 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. A recipient of a 2017 National Association of Science Writers’ reporting award, she is often a guest speaker in schools and universities.
Brooke Jarvis is an award-winning journalist who writes for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and elsewhere.
Please note: NSWA provides these event details as a courtesy to science-related organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest. Please confirm event details with the sponsoring organization before attending.