29 Sep 2009:
Mark Anderson
One of the curious things I noticed about Anderson is that he had a really, really long introduction with lots and lots of accomplishments he claimed. Right off the bat, this left me with a bad taste in my mouth; I tend to believe that people who rely on credentials don't have a lot to offer - perhaps a failing of mine.
He believed in some but not all progressive causes, specifically, yes to global warming and national health care; no to peak oil. He made the case that a lot of what might be called cultural collapse is due to a lack of national health care.
The format may have limited him, but Anderson didn't offer much proof for many of the assertions he made (Australia is a hot country, China is hot but more risky than most think, Boeing is completely screwed, etc.). There was a projector running, but Anderson didn't really use slides - a few graphs sprinkled into the talk would have significantly boosted his credibility in my eyes.
Anderson gave a short talk about the state of the US economy - a good chunk of which followed predictable progressive narratives. The places he departed seemed less intelligible to me.
01 Oct 2009:
Michael J Sandel
The intro to the talk was mostly fluff bragging - Sandel has a TV show, etc.
The actual talk was quite good. There was a very brief introduction to some basic concepts from Aristotle to prime the audience and then we dove into contemporary politics.
After a slow start, people were practically champing at the bit to offer their opinions of current events. Sandel did a very nice job of continually tying each event back to larger philosophical questions, demonstrating that behind almost every substantive question there are larger questions lurking in the background.
One particularly interesting part of the talk was when Sandel brought up gay marriage. He asked for volunteers to oppose recognizing gay marriage from an admittedly thin group of people who raised their hands in opposition. Every single person who "opposed" gay marriage didn't actually oppose it, they generally just opposed the state being involved in the institution of marriage at all. Nevertheless, every person who stood up to oppose gay marriage prefaced their comment with something to the effect of "I know I'm setting myself up to be a target".
I got to ask a question of Sandel - lightly paraphrasing, I asked him, "In all cases I know of marriage originates from within a deontological ethical framework. Why do you feel confident using consequentialist techniques to analyze it?" Sandel basically punted on my question, perhaps rightly, instead saying that the best way to do philosophy is to constantly connect it to real world concerns instead of starting in abstractions and moving towards the real world gradually.
Although I think he handled the question well as a speaker, and perhaps even appropriately, I certainly felt a bit of disappointment; I consider this question to be one of the most important and fundamental questions that society faces today.
08 Oct 2009:
Richard Dawkins
There was an extremely excessively long introduction, which had nothing much to do with Dawkins himself, but basically pimped all of the various organizations affiliated with the event - probably 6 or 7 in total. It took somewhere on the order of 20 minutes to get through the whole thing, which was pretty silly.
The actual talk consisted largely of Dawkins reading extensively from his new book
the Greatest Show on Earth and then answering questions.
Dawkins starts out reading part of the introduction of the book which claims that the book isn't an attack on religion but merely an attempt to conclusively prove evolution. In his next breath, he manages to put that notion to rest, citing various statistics about creationists. To my eyes, it would have made his book more professional and less combative if he has left those bits out and focused on the proof, but he has been in the fight long enough it is sometime difficult to give up comfortable enemies.
Dawkins fielded questions pretty well. He seemed relatively realistic about the possibility of convincing various sorts of religious people (although, to my mind, not realistic enough). Towards the end he was asked to give an elevator pitch to convince someone of evolution. I don't think he seemed to understand the concept.
By far the most interesting part of the talk was the very end. Someone asked the question, "Do you celebrate Christmas, and if not, what do you do?"
Dawkins' answer seemed quite normal and sensible - he said he is a "Cultural Christian" (after noting the curiosity that atheist Jews call themselves Jews and atheist Christians call themselves atheists), and that while he wouldn't particularly go out of his way to celebrate Christmas, that he does indeed celebrate and that it is a pleasant thing to do with friends and family. Lastly, he made a comment to the effect that he is glad that he lives in a society that is culturally Christian and that it is much better than the alternative, particularly compared to some places that are being invaded like France - clearly implying Islam.
Walking through the crowd on the way home there was quite a bit of chatter about that last bit - if he doesn't watch himself, Dawkins will end up like
James Watson.
Interestingly enough, in his talk, Dawkins mentions that the US in the 18th century was significantly less progressive than it is today. I'm surprised he hasn't extrapolated forward. For his sake, I hope Dawkins isn't depending on his eminence to save him.
