Who would like to meet for brunch, say, elevenish in Pasadena prior to the Skeptics Society lecture (details below)?
Sunday, November 16, 1:00pm (NOTE EARLIER TIME)
The Future: Science Fact and Science Fiction
Dr. David Brin
The new millennium has people pondering the future as never before. We already devote much of our economy to all kinds of forecasting, from weather reports and stock analyses to financial and strategic planning, from sports handicapping to urban design, from political prophets to those charlatans on psychic hotlines. Which variety of seer you listen to can often be a matter of style. Some prefer horoscopes, while others like to hear consultants in Armani suits. There are good reasons for concern, ranging all the way from terrorism to economic uncertainty in a technology-driven world. For example, what if tomorrow's chemists shrink their labs the same way cyberneticists transformed computers? Will teenagers with a desktop MolecuMac be able to synthesize any substance, at will? Do methods like scenario-building and science fiction help us to explore the future in a useful fashion?
Today we routinely use words like "robot" and "genetic engineering" that were limited to the pages of science fiction novels just a decade ago. But even more important than the things we predict accurately are the events that are prevented by good science fiction. One of the most powerful novels of all time, published 50 years ago, foresaw a dark future that never came to pass. That we escaped the destiny portrayed in George Orwell's 1984, may be owed in part to the way his chilling tale affected millions, who then girded themselves to fight "Big Brother" to their last breath. Well-informed imagination can be like the stick that a wary traveler pokes into the ground ahead of him, to see where snakes and quicksand may lie. In this lecture Dr. Brin explores a range of possible changes and challenges that we may face in the near future... and some plausible visions of the territory just beyond.
Dr. Brin is a scientist and author of both works of nonfiction and science fiction. His latest nonfiction book is The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? His novels have been New York Times bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula, and other awards. His 1989 ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare, and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. His 15 novels have been translated into more than 20 languages. Brin's scientific papers cover a wide range of topics from astronautics, astronomy, and optics to alternative dispute resolution and the role of neoteny in human evolution. Brin has completed two major science fiction trilogies with Heaven's Reach and Foundation's Triumph, the latter bringing to a grand finale Isaac Asimov's famed Foundation Universe.
Book signing to follow lecture
Sunday, November 16, 1:00pm (NOTE EARLIER TIME)
The Future: Science Fact and Science Fiction
Dr. David Brin
The new millennium has people pondering the future as never before. We already devote much of our economy to all kinds of forecasting, from weather reports and stock analyses to financial and strategic planning, from sports handicapping to urban design, from political prophets to those charlatans on psychic hotlines. Which variety of seer you listen to can often be a matter of style. Some prefer horoscopes, while others like to hear consultants in Armani suits. There are good reasons for concern, ranging all the way from terrorism to economic uncertainty in a technology-driven world. For example, what if tomorrow's chemists shrink their labs the same way cyberneticists transformed computers? Will teenagers with a desktop MolecuMac be able to synthesize any substance, at will? Do methods like scenario-building and science fiction help us to explore the future in a useful fashion?
Today we routinely use words like "robot" and "genetic engineering" that were limited to the pages of science fiction novels just a decade ago. But even more important than the things we predict accurately are the events that are prevented by good science fiction. One of the most powerful novels of all time, published 50 years ago, foresaw a dark future that never came to pass. That we escaped the destiny portrayed in George Orwell's 1984, may be owed in part to the way his chilling tale affected millions, who then girded themselves to fight "Big Brother" to their last breath. Well-informed imagination can be like the stick that a wary traveler pokes into the ground ahead of him, to see where snakes and quicksand may lie. In this lecture Dr. Brin explores a range of possible changes and challenges that we may face in the near future... and some plausible visions of the territory just beyond.
Dr. Brin is a scientist and author of both works of nonfiction and science fiction. His latest nonfiction book is The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? His novels have been New York Times bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula, and other awards. His 1989 ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare, and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. His 15 novels have been translated into more than 20 languages. Brin's scientific papers cover a wide range of topics from astronautics, astronomy, and optics to alternative dispute resolution and the role of neoteny in human evolution. Brin has completed two major science fiction trilogies with Heaven's Reach and Foundation's Triumph, the latter bringing to a grand finale Isaac Asimov's famed Foundation Universe.
Book signing to follow lecture
