December 2015
Difficult Decisions: The Complexities of Choice in the Real World
Speakers: Alessandra Casella, PhD, Professor of Economics, Columbia University L. A. Paul, PhD, Professor of Philosophy, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Michael Platt, PhD, James S. Riepe University Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Neuroscience and Marketing, University of Pennsylvania Moderator: David Barack, PhD, Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience, Columbia University In the Odyssey, Agamemnon faces the classic tragic choice: he must decide whether or not to sacrifice his daughter to the goddess Artemis so that she will…
Find out more »Henry Cowles – How the Other Half Thinks: Human Science in the Gilded Age – NY HoS Series
Speaker: Henry Cowles, Assistant Professor of the History of Medicine and of History, Yale University How do I know what you think—or that you think at all? This is the so-called “problem of other minds,” a philosophical puzzle that gained new meaning in the Gilded Age. Under the star of evolution, American practitioners of the human sciences probed a range of “other minds” for common elements. These human scientists came to agree that, across gaps of age, gender, race, class,…
Find out more »January 2016
Setting Out on the Long Path of Renewal: Reflections on Pope Francis’s Encyclical
Reflections on Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si' (On Care for Our Common Home) with Sean Cardinal O’MALLEY, Archbishop of Boston; Jeffrey SACHS, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University; and Rebecca VITZ (moderator), Instructor in Spanish Studies, Villanova University. This event is organized in collaboration with the Research Cluster on Science and Subjectivity in the Center for Science and Society at Columbia University. To download the invitation, click here: Setting Out on the Long Path of Renewal “What kind of world do we want to leave…
Find out more »Marek Banczyk – Neuropolis Hypothesis: Outlining The Neural Model Of The World City Network
Neuropolis Hypothesis: Outlining The Neural Model Of The World City Network As An Interdisciplinary Foundation Of The New City-Centric Economics For The Global Era Two decades of research on world cites carried by international scholars organized around Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) provide robust evidence on the sharp rise of importance of cities as such and more importantly of the network mechanism behind them. The so called interlocking world city network (Taylor, 2004, 2011) has been dynamically researched over the…
Find out more »Marga Vicedo – Niko Tinbergen’s Research on Childhood Autism: Interpreting Gestures from Gulls to Children – NY HoS Series
In 1973 Niko Tinbergen shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his studies on animal behavior. In his acceptance speech, however, Tinbergen talked about childhood autism. Extrapolating from his studies of approach-withdrawal conflict in herring gulls, Tinbergen argued that autistic children are victims of environmental stress caused mainly by a mother’s failure to bond with her child and to protect her child from conflicting situations. In this talk I situate Tinbergen’s work on autism within the history of…
Find out more »Ann Blair – Credit, Thanks and Blame in the Works of Conrad Gessner
In this illustrated lecture, Harvard historian Ann Blair discusses the work of Zürich physician Conrad Gessner, who published prolifically in a wide range of areas and genres, from bibliography and philology to natural history and medicine. Blair analyzes Gessner's many prefaces and dedications to show how he used the medium of print to distribute credit, thanks, and blame in unusually public ways. He sought to enhance his ability to gather information and to elicit contributions of manuscripts, images, and help…
Find out more »February 2016
Daniel Wojtkiewicz – The Production of Medical Diagnosis in Autism: Genetic Tests in Clinical Practice
Speaker: Daniel Wojtkiewicz, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, Columbia University The Science, Technology, and Knowledge (SKAT) workshop is a forum for the seminar-style presentation and discussion of graduate student work in the sociology of expertise, the sociology of professions, actor-network approaches, medical sociology, science studies, etc. The workshop is hosted by Columbia Sociology but welcomes graduate students from all institutions and disciplines.
Find out more »Asghar Zaidi – Challenges and Opportunities for a Global Index on Active Aging: Lessons from the EU’s Active Ageing Index
This seminar will present key findings of the Active Ageing Index (AAI) and make the case how it can be developed further to become a global measure of older people’s active and healthy aging, and wellbeing. The AAI was born out of the need for a high-quality and independent evidence base to show how experiences of aging at the individual level can be enriched with higher levels of public policy to improve labor market engagement and health, and to reduce dependency. A project…
Find out more »SEAS Colloquium in Climate Science (SCiCS)
SEAS Colloquium in Climate Science (SCiCS) Thursday, February 4, 2016 Room 214 Mudd V. Balaji, Princeton/GFDL "Why do climate models differ?" Abstract: In this talk, I will cover sources of diversity in climate models. We will look at the process of model development at different institutions and show how many factors: including history and culture, scientific priorities, community of users, developers and "customers", and computational constraints, play a role in defining a climate model. We will explore how this may…
Find out more »The Possibility of Change Throughout All Life Stages
In collaboration with the Columbia Population Research Center, The Center for Justice at Columbia is pleased to invite you to “The possibility of change throughout all life stages” an open discussion regarding the role of academic research in supporting legislative reform in the criminal justice system, particularly as it relates to people's ability to change regardless of life stage.
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