Event
Advancing Science - Rush Holt
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.
Lobby, Physical Sciences Complex
Anne Suplee
301 405 5944
asuplee@umd.edu
http://umdphysics.umd.edu/events/physicscolloquia.html#advancing-science
Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), will give the Physics colloquium, "Advancing Science." Dr. Holt was assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and a member of the United State Congress before accepting the AAAS position.
Refreshments will be served at 3:30 p.m.
Among the various ways of thinking and knowing about the universe and ourselves, science is special. Asking questions that can be answered empirically and engaging in open communication so that others can collectively review and verify possible answers lead to the most reliable knowledge—a knowledge that is powerfully applicable in daily life. Science is, as physician and essayist Lewis Thomas wrote, the “shrewdest maneuver” for discovering the world. This grand and clever enterprise, while surely not removing all worldly woes, brings beauty, wonderfully fulfilling intellectual pleasure, and cultural enrichment. It can lead to improved human interaction, more constructive commerce, and a better quality of life. Science helps bring what is a deep human need—a sense of progress. That progress is not assured, however. To thrive, science needs the support of the society it serves, and that support must be cultivated.
