[SydPhil] Invitation to 'The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet' at the University of Sydney, 18 June 2013

Wed May 15 14:28:59 AEST 2013

thanks, I have registered! I take it we are going for dinner with him that
night?

Thanks also for the BBS article announcement.

xxxx

P.S. John Forge won't come to book launch but has ordered the book on
amazon.

On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Paul Griffiths <
paul.griffiths at sydney.edu.au> wrote:

>
>
>    Having trouble viewing this email? View an online version<http://wordvine.sydney.edu.au/files/59/2425>          WE
> INVITE
> YOU TO   *A SYDNEY IDEAS*
> LECTURE       [image: The University of Sydney]                 THE GAIA
> HYPOTHESIS: SCIENCE ON A PAGAN PLANET
>
> *Professor Michael Ruse, Director of the Program in the History and
> Philosophy of Science at Florida State University
>
> Co-presented with the Sydney Centre for the Foundation of Science
>
>  <http://sydney.edu.au/foundations_of_science/>*In 1965, the English
> scientist James Lovelock had an epiphany. Planet Earth is an organism.
> Labeling it the "Gaia hypothesis" -- a name he got from his close friend
> the novelist and future Nobel Laureate, William Golding -- Lovelock
> published this idea in the early 1970s, in articles co-authored by the
> American biologist Lynn Margulis. They had reason to expect at least a
> respectful hearing. Lovelock had just been made a Fellow of the Royal
> Society and Margulis was on her way to membership in the National Academy
> of Sciences. Yet, the reception by the scientific community was scathing.
> Richard Dawkins, typically, was critical to the point of cruelty, but
> others were not much better. Paradoxically, however, the general public
> (especially the Californian New Agers) loved the Gaia hypothesis, and took
> it up with enthusiasm -- an enthusiasm still high today. Digging into the
> past, going back to Plato, this is a talk that tries to explain the
> different reactions, and through this to discover something general about
> the nature of science and scientists. It includes a wonderful set of
> characters, including the Naturphilosoph Friedrich Schelling, the Austrian
> seer Rudolf Steiner, the crusading Rachel Carson, and above all the
> irrepressible Pagan primate of the Church of All Worlds, the polyamory
> practicing, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart.
>
> *Michael Ruse* is the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy and
> the Director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science at
> Florida State University. He is the author or editor of over fifty books,
> including *The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw*(1979),
> *Can a Darwinian be a Christian?* (2001), *and The Evolution-Creation
> Dispute* (2005). For Oxford he is now writing * Atheism: Everything One
> Needs to Know. *He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a sometime
> Gifford Lecturer, and the founding editor of the journal *Biology and
> Philosophy*.
>
> *Professor Michael Ruse is in Australia as a guest of the 2013 Australian
> Philosophy of Religion conference (APRA 2013).<http://www.apra.org.au/the-apra-conference/>
> *
>
> TUESDAY 18 JUNE
> 6 to 7.30pm
> Law School Foyer,
> New Law School, Eastern Avenue,
> The University of Sydney
> Click here <http://sydney.edu.au/law/about/campus.shtml> for venue
> information
>
>
> RSVP
> Free event with registration requested. Click here<http://whatson.sydney.edu.au/events/published/professor-michael-ruse>to register online now.
>
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-- 
Karola Stotz
Australian Research Fellow
Philosophy Department
University of Sydney

New book *Genetics and Philosophy <http://www.cambridge.org/9780521173902> *now
available:

[image: Jacket.gif]
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