Alien Autopsy

If you haven't yet heard, a Colorado man has held a press conference to reveal footage of an alien caught on tape in 2003.

From the looks of it, the video is a typical grainy, inconclusive Bigfoot-style shot that will convince believers and fail to impress skeptics. (And haven't the little green men heard of the Prime Directive?)

But what if it was convincing? It would probably alter NASA's space program. Groups would try to figure out a way to kill it, or weaponize it. Biologists would have a field day.

If suddenly presented with solid, convincing evidence of extra-terrestrial life, how do you think life on Earth would change (if at all)? What about your personal worldview?

How to think about science

As graduate students, we spend a lot of time thinking about science. But we tend to concentrate on the "how-to", the minutiae of daily experiments. Rarely do we concern ourself with the "why". Once in a while experiments work, and we're confronted with something unexpected and we begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together to form a coherent model of reality. This part is what most people would identify as the core of the scientific process. Yet we spend surprisingly little time thinking about epistemology. Do our model reflect reality, or do we impose our biased mental framework onto natural phenomena. What does it mean to do science, is it about the experiments or the theory? Recently I've stumbled upon a series of podcast exploring these types of questions with interviews of prominent figures in ethics, philosophy, history and science which examine science in a social and philosophical perspective. I highly recommend this CBC podcast (Ideas) and particularly this series of interviews "how to think about science". You may not agree with all that is said, but it will make you reconsider many aspects of science which we take for granted.... Here is the roster:

Episode 1 - November 14 - Simon Schaffer
Episode 2 - November 21 - Lorraine Daston
Episode 3 - November 28 - Margaret Lock
Episode 4 - December 5 - Ian Hacking and Andrew Pickering
Episode 5 - December 12 - Ulrich Beck and Bruno Latour
Episode 6 - January 2 - James Lovelock
Episode 7 - January 9 - Arthur Zajonc
Episode 8 - January 16 - Wendell Berry
Episode 9 - January 23 - Rupert Sheldrake
Episode 10 - January 30 - Brian Wynne

"Viruses" Rule the World: Dan Dennett on Memes, Consciousness and Religion

This mind-bending lecture from Tufts University philosopher/cognitive scientist Dan Dennett is a must-listen if you haven't already. Kicking it off with the genetic analogy of parasite-driven ant suicide, Dennett picks up where Dawkins left off with The Selfish Gene, expanding on the meme ("idea-gene") concept to demonstrate how Darwinian principles can help us to understand the spread and impact of culture and ideas. In particular, he uses this approach to ask why many people are willing to sacrifice their own life for certain ideas. This leads to a discussion of the religion virus, and it's interesting that he takes quite a different position on the issue than the extremist one currently favored by Dawkins himself. Also manages to get in some important points on the illusion of human consciousness. It's 20 minutes well worth it, I promise you. See his other TED talks for more detailed treatments of religion and consciousness.

PS - You don't have to take my word for it - look at that classic beard and decide for yourself whether the man isn't a wizard-scholar of the highest order...