PZ MYERS: "The Magic Word is Beauty"

The conclusion of PZ's keynote address to the 2008 "Integrating Evolution, Development, & Genomics" conference at UC Berkeley. The audio is uncompressed, so you may need to turn your speakers up.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• PZ
• Myers
• IEDG
• 2008
• evolution
• education

[zygrottwanger]

Gotta make science sexy, it's a sad faact. It's one reason Mythbusters is getting such high acclaim from the science community. They're doing exactly that.

[ctvwr]

@sam51092

that isn't a pun

[jfvoll]

He's a liberal dick

[prschuster]

And there you have it... Science can inform technology because of its role in utility, and science can inform art because of the beauty of its theories.

[LeopardFrogPilboxhat]

He is so right. I'd say though that if possible hit the public both with the utility and the beauty of it

[watchzeitgeist]

'elegant story' doesn't imply 'elegant fiction'.

a things importance is subjective. where as someone might deem advances in technology important, someone else might view them as detrimental.

"importance" is a canopy term for values like beauty, security, social efficiency, convenience etc all of which one might argue are subjective... technological growth is not the only way in which we measure value.

[FuzzyDuck]

Such elegant words. Thank you, PZ.

[Wwallace67]

LOL, beauty. Elegant story. How does this differ from a good novel?

At least a plumber keeps your toilet from leaking.

[2bsirius]

Exactly! It is so difficult to write about issues in science without trying to bang people over the head with pointless data...To intrigue them, to engage them and to even fascinate them - That is an art. On the other hand, to claim beauty where there is none just makes the writer look like a hype artist. So we need to be careful not to over use the adjective beauty if it doesn't really apply.