Podcast appearances and mentions of Robert T Pennock

Science is often imagined as limited to the "facts" and deliberately set apart from "values". But the pursuit of objective reality requires its own set of values, norms, and ideal character of the individual scientist. I explore this fascinating topic with Professor Robert T. Pennock, University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University and co-director of BEACON, a NSF-funded center for the study of evolution in action.  Robert's book: An Instinct for Truth: Curiosity and the Moral Character of Science --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook

An exploration of the scientific mindset — such character virtues as curiosity, veracity, attentiveness, and humility to evidence — and its importance for science, democracy, and human flourishing. Exemplary scientists have a characteristic way of viewing the world and their work: their mindset and methods all aim at discovering truths about nature. In An Instinct for Truth, Robert Pennock explores this scientific mindset and argues that what Charles Darwin called “an instinct for truth, knowledge, and discovery” has a tacit moral structure — that it is important not only for scientific excellence and integrity but also for democracy and human flourishing. In an era of “post-truth,” the scientific drive to discover empirical truths has a special value. Taking a virtue-theoretic perspective, Pennock explores curiosity, veracity, skepticism, humility to evidence, and other scientific virtues and vices. Shermer and Pennock discuss: the nature of science why Intelligent Design creationists are not doing bad science — they’re not doing science at all what to do with anomalies not explained by the current paradigm the role of outsiders in science what scientific training does to develop the virtues of science how authority is different from expertise when experts pronounce on ideas outside their field fraud in science and why it happens why scientists are skeptical of UFOs, ESP, bigfoot, and the like falsification of a scientific hypothesis vs. positive evidence in support of a scientific hypothesis the naturalistic fallacy and the Is-Ought problem, and the ethics of autonomous vehicles and the trolley problem. Robert T. Pennock is University Distinguished Professor of History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science at Michigan State University in the Lyman Briggs College and the Departments of Philosophy and Computer Science and Engineering. He is the author of Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism. Listen to Science Salon via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play Music, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.

Robert T. Pennock - Professor of Philosophy of Science and Computer Science & Engineering, Michigan State University

Robert T. Pennock, the scientist, philosopher and author of "Tower of Babel, The Evidence Against the New Creationism" speaks on the controversial movement to include intelligent design creationism in the curricula of public schools. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 12066]

Robert T. Pennock, the scientist, philosopher and author of "Tower of Babel, The Evidence Against the New Creationism" speaks on the controversial movement to include intelligent design creationism in the curricula of public schools. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 12066]

Robert T. Pennock, the scientist, philosopher and author of "Tower of Babel, The Evidence Against the New Creationism" speaks on the controversial movement to include intelligent design creationism in the curricula of public schools. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 12066]