Upstate New York in the mid-19th century was a cauldron bubbling with the lure of fast fortunes, religious zealotry, and battles for civil liberties. This fervor centered on the Erie Canal, which successfully supported scores of villages brimming with opportunity. One village, Fayetteville, NY, was home to two future American leaders – Matilda Joslyn Gage and Grover Cleveland. Gage was […]
Reading the Rock Record: Understanding Our Future
It’s difficult to understand how one or two degrees of global temperature rise can even be observed, much less have any impact on climate and ecosystems. It’s especially difficult to accept as we struggle through another cold and snowy winter. The effects of global warming are hardly noticeable on the timescale of a person’s life. However, on a geologic time […]
A.I. and Our Future
Historian Yuval Noah Harari is a Big Thinker. His 2024 blockbuster book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI, concerns how Artificial Intelligence will shape our future. An AI “app” is a computer program trained on a vast amount of information (from the internet), learning to see patterns, for use in carrying out tasks. […]
The Social Psychology of Group Delusions
How do people become entangled in conspiracy theories and other shared delusions? This question has long been the province of novelists, but recently psychologists and social scientists have applied the tools of their disciplines to shed light on this vexing question. This talk will survey their findings so far about the psychological and social factors that lead people to embrace […]
Misinformation, Conspiracy Theories and Extremism in an Age of Political Mega-Identities
Misinformation is nothing new. For as long as humans have communicated, they also manipulated information and deceived others to gain power. Nevertheless, scholars, journalists and pundits have expressed a concern about humanity entering a new “Post-Truth” era, one driven by the collapse of truth and political turmoil. In this talk, Dr. Ophir argues that humans have never been motivated by […]
Losing the Dark – The Importance of Dark Skies to Astronomy, Nature, and Us
Finding truly dark skies has gotten harder and harder as humanity has become more urban. This not only makes it difficult for astronomers to see faint night sky objects, it has an effect on wildlife who also take their cues from the stars. Join Dr. Mindy Townsend, astronomer with the Dudley Observatory at Siena as she discusses the unintended consequences […]
Live To See The Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty
Kensington, Philadelphia, is distinguished only by its poverty. It is home to Ryan, Giancarlos and Emmanuel, three Puerto Rican children who live among the most marginalized families in the United States. This is the story of their coming-of-age, which is beset by violence–the violence of homelessness, hunger, incarceration, stray bullets, sexual and physical assault, the hypermasculine logic of the streets, […]
The Well-Connected Animal: Social Networks and the Wondrous Complexity of Animal Societies
It’s all about who you know. Whether vampire bats sharing blood meals for survival, macaque monkeys forming grooming pacts after a deadly hurricane, marmots warning others of danger lurking in the mist, or long-tailed manakins singing and dancing their little hearts out—it pays to be well connected. Dr. Lee Alan Dugatkin is a Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the […]
National Preparedness Month: Emergency Preparedness
Since its inception in 2004, National Preparedness Month is observed in the U.S. during the month of September. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) encourages everyone to take steps to prepare for emergencies in their homes and in their communities. This meeting will discuss the potential emergencies and natural disasters the Capital District may experience and how to prepare you […]
Morality De-Mystified
To many people, morality seems unnatural, unscientific, and possibly mysterious or supernatural, or subjective and arbitrary. I will argue that there are objective moral facts which are entirely natural, based on scientific concepts like instrumental valuation, recursive thought, and universalizability. We can then both explain why there are so many moral valuations we share in common, and understand we are […]