Humanists4Science: The Atheist's Guide to Reality by Prof. Alex Rosenberg, Conway Hall, London

Friday, 20 January 2012

The Atheist's Guide to Reality by Prof. Alex Rosenberg, Conway Hall, London

Organisers: WW Norton & Chris Street for AtheismUK, Humanists4Science & HASSNERS.

Date & Time: Saturday 25th February 2012, 2-3.00 pm.

Prof. Alex Rosenberg (wiki) is chair of the Philosophy department at Duke University and co-director of Duke Center for Philosophy of Biology. Alex has written 12 books about the philosophy of biology and economics. He describes himself as a 'Naturalist'.
Alex Rosenberg is visiting the UK to talk about his new book 'The Atheist's Guide to Reality - Enjoying Life without Illusions', published by WW Norton.
'takes the sin of scientism as the ultimate virtue. Alex Rosenberg has sheared the nature of things down to the bedrock, and exposed our common vanity'. EO Wilson

'presents a brave and compelling treatise on why you should accept the universe for what it is, rather than what you would wish it to be. The Atheists Guide to Reality, like the best scholarship and science, removes you from your comfort zone and that is the only way to gain new and better perspectives on our place in the cosmos' Lawrence Krauss

'Rosenberg's philosophical temperament is a dead ringer for David Hume's, and his wit isn't far behind either'. Rebecca Goldstein
'This eccentric, funny treatise on "scientism,"...takes a perverse delight in "nice nihilism." Rosenberg doesn't believe in free will, morality, or secular humanism ...this dismemberment of mainstream worldviews abounds with clever barbs and dry one-liners.' Village Voice

We can't avoid the persistent questions about the meaning of life-and the nature of reality. Philosopher Alex Rosenberg maintains that science is the only thing that can really answer them all of them. His bracing and ultimately upbeat book takes physics seriously as the complete description of reality and accepts all its consequences. He shows how physics makes Darwinian natural selection the only way life can emerge, and how that deprives nature of purpose, and human action of meaning, while it exposes conscious illusions such as free will and the self. The science that makes us nonbelievers provides the insight into the real difference between right and wrong, the nature of the mind, even the direction of human history. The Atheist's Guide to Reality draws powerful implications for the ethical and political issues that roil contemporary life. The result is nice nihilism, a surprisingly sanguine perspective atheists can happily embrace.
Read Alex Rothenberg talking about The Atheists Guide to Reality' at Indyweek.com

The publishers WW Norton have booked a room in Conway Hall in Central London (2 minute walk from Holborn Tube station).

1 comment:

unattributed said...: Alex Rosenberg gives an accessible 'teaser' of 'The Atheist's Guide To Reality' in an interview here:

http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=4209; 10 February 2012 at 10:45

About Humanists4Science (Hum4Sci)

Humanists4Science (H4S) Mission "To promote, within the humanist community, the application of the scientific method to issues of concern to broader society."

H4S Vision "A world in which important decisions are made by applying the scientific method to evidence rather than according to superstition."

H4S is for humanists with an active interest in science. We believe that science is a fundamental part of humanism but also that it should be directed to humane and ethical ends. Science is, in our view, more a method than a body of facts.

H4S take a naturalistic view and believe, like 62% of the UK population, that science, the scientific method & other evidence provides the best way to understand the universe.

H4S are a Special Interest Group of the British Humanist Association (BHA).

Since 2008 H4S members have discussed many Humanist-Science topics in our Yahoo Group.

Prof. Jim Al-Khalili - 11TH BHA President - On Scientific Method

'I have a rational unshakeable conviction that our universe is understandable, that mysteries are only mysteries because we have yet to figure out, the almost always logical answers. For me there is simply no room, no need, for a supernatural divine being to fill in the gaps in our understanding. We’ll get there, we’ll fill in those gaps with objective scientific truths: [with] answers that aren't subjective, because of cultural or historical whims or personal biases, but because of empirically testable and reproducible truths. We may not get the full picture, we may never get the full picture, but science allows us to get ever closer.’ Jim Al-Khalili, BHA AGM 2013

"A lot of people say science is just one way of looking at the world, at reality, and poets and musicians and, of course, people of faith, have said there are other ways. I don't buy that. For me there is an objective reality that is there and real. For a theoretical physicist who's trained in thinking about quantum mechanics, which involves the idea that by observing something you alter its nature, you have to have some sort of working definitions of reality"
Jim Al-Khalili in New Humanist magazine Mar Apr 2013

Lord Taverne

Science depends on reason and regard for evidence. For me, the scientific approach lies at the heart of humanism as well as atheism. We all accept that science has made us healthier and wealthier. What has been seldom acknowledged or realised is that since the Enlightenment, which it helped to bring about, science has played an essential part in making us more civilised.

Science is the enemy of autocracy because it replaces claims to truth based on authority with those based on evidence and because it depends on the criticism of established ideas. Scientific knowledge is the enemy of dogma and ideologies and makes us more tolerant because it is tentative and provisional and does not deal in certainties. It is the most effective way of learning about the physical world and therefore erodes superstition, ignorance and prejudice, which have been causes of the denial of human rights throughout history. Science is also the enemy of narrow nationalism and tribalism and, like the arts, is one of the activities in this world that is not motivated by greed.

What can compare, for example, with the recent achievement of the Large Hadron Collider, a venture of collaboration by 10,000 scientists and engineers from 113 countries, free from bureaucratic and political interference? Those people put aside all national, political, religious and cultural differences in pursuit of truth and for the one purpose of exploring and understanding the natural world.

Without the contribution of science, which is, in my view, the rock on which atheism and humanism are built, we would be less inclined to be critical, tolerant and understanding and more prone to prejudice, bigotry and tribalism. We would be a less civilised society.

Lord Taverne, 25th July 2013, House of Lords debate on contribution of Humanism and Atheism

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Friday, 20 January 2012

The Atheist's Guide to Reality by Prof. Alex Rosenberg, Conway Hall, London

1 comment: