Closer to Truth
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Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future is a continuing television series on American public television / PBS, created, produced, and hosted by Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn. The show is sponsored by the Kuhn Foundation.
The purpose of the series is to bring together leading scientists, scholars, and artists to discuss new developments and discoveries, and the fundamental issues of our times, particularly the meaning and implications of state-of-the-art science. Topics for the show are clustered in five main categories: brain & mind; biology & medicine; cosmos & universe; science, philosophy & religion; and science & our world. The series is broadcast nationally in the U.S., including multiple stations in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, and San Francisco, and internationally, including Canada, China, Israel and South Korea. It seeks to make state-of-the-art ideas accessible, intriguing and absorbing to intelligent audiences.
A new season of Closer To Truth, estimated to present approximately 80 shows, is in production. The theme, energized by critical thinking, is cosmology / fundamental physics, the philosophy of cosmology, the nature of consciousness, the philosophy of religion, philosophical theology, and the relationship between science and religion. Featured are leading scientists and philosophers.
The Closer To Truth Season I & II website is hosted at Caltech and Season III website is hosted as PBS.
Contents |
[edit] Episodes
Episodes are listed below by season, episode number, and title.
[edit] Season One
- 101: "What are the Grand Questions of Science?"
- 102: "Will the Internet Change Humanity?"
- 103: "What’s Creativity and Who’s Creative?"
- 104: "New Communities for the New Millennium"
- 105: "How Did This Universe Begin?"
- 106: "Can We See the Near Future — Year 2025?"
- 107: "What is Consciousness?"
- 108: "Can You Really Extend Your Life?"
- 109: "Can ESP Affect Your Life?"
- 110: "Whatever Happened to Ethics and Civility?"
- 111: "How Does Technology Transform Thinking?"
- 112: "Strange Physics of the Mind?"
- 113: "Can Science Seek the Soul?"
- 114: "Does Sex Have a Future?"
[edit] Season Two
- 201: "Can We Imagine the Far Future—Year 3000?"
- 202: "How Do Breakthroughs Change Science?"
- 203: "How Does Creativity Work at Work?"
- 204: "Do Brains Make Minds?"
- 205: "Will Gene Therapy Change the Human Race?"
- 206: "Why are Music and Art So Exhilarating?"
- 207: "Why is Quantum Physics So Beautiful?"
- 208: "How Did We Think in the Last Millennium?"
- 209: "Who Needs Sex Therapy?"
- 210: "Can Technology Transform Society?"
- 211: "Can You Learn to Be Creative?"
- 212: "What is Parapsychology?"
- 213: "When Will This Universe End?"
- 214: "Will Intelligence Fill This Universe?"
[edit] Season Three
- 301: "Is Science Fiction Science?"
- 302: "Can We Believe in Both Science and Religion?"
- 303: "How Does the Autistic Brain Work?"
- 304: "How Weird is the Cosmos?"
- 305: "Microbes — Friend or Foe?"
- 306: "How Does Order Arise in the Universe?"
- 307: "Why is Music So Significant?"
- 308: "Will Computers Take a Quantum Leap?"
- 309: "Does Psychiatry Have a Split Personality?"
- 310: "How Does Basic Science Defend America?"
- 311: "Who Gets to Validate Alternative Medicine?"
- 312: "Is Consciousness Definable?"
- 313: "Is the Universe Full of Life?"
- 314: "Can Religion Withstand Technology?"
- 315: "Testing New Drugs: Are People Guinea Pigs?"
[edit] Season One and Two Participants
Paul Abramson (human sexuality; forensic sexuality; psychology, UCLA; author)
French Anderson (gene therapy; Director, Gene Therapy Lab, USC; “Father of Gene Therapy”)
Francisco Ayala (evolutionary biology / genetics, philosophy, Un Calif at Irvine; past pres., AAAS)
Gregory Benford (plasma physics, Un Calif at Irvine; NASA; author and sci-fi novelist)
Barry Beyerstein (neuropsychology, Simon Fraser Un; CSICOP; The Skeptical Inquirer magazine)
Edward de Bono (creativity pioneer and teacher; author)
Todd Boyd (Cultural Studies; Film; African-American Studies; USC; author)
Warren Brown (psychology, neuropsychology, science & soul, Fuller Theological Seminary)
Charles Buchanan (physics, interdisciplinary teaching, UCLA)
Vern Bullough (sexual history; medical history; author)
Stephen J. Cannell (television producer and writer; studio head; novelist)
Dave Chalmers (consciousness, philosophy; Un of Arizona; author)
Bruce Chapman (founder/pres, Discovery Institute; former director, US Census Bureau; U.S. Ambassador)
Patricia S. Churchland (neuroscience, philosophy of mind; Un of Calif at San Diego; author)
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (creativity, psychology, Un of Chicago; Claremont Grad School; author)
Arthur S. De Vany (economics, athletics, fitness; Un Calif at Irvine; author)
Edward Feigenbaum (expert systems, computer science; co-director, Knowledge Systems Lab, Stanford)
Timothy Ferris (author; astronomy / cosmology; commentator) Wendy Freedman (cosmology; Carnegie Observatories, Hubble Space Telescope)
Robert Freeman (music / culture; Dean UT Austin Fine Arts; former president, Eastman School of Music)
Francis Fukuyama (social / political thinker & critic; public policy, George Mason Un; author)
Rochel Gelman (psychology, cognitive development, child psychology; UCLA)
George Geis (technology / digital economy, UCLA; author)
Barbara Marx Hubbard (futurist, social architect; founder, Center Conscious Evolution, author)
Rhoda Janzen (Poet Laureate, California; english, UCLA)
Saru Jayaraman (founder, WYSE: Women and Youth Supporting Each Other; award-winning student)
John Kao (creativity; entrepreneur; psychiatrist; author)
Steve Koonin (theoretical and computational physics; vice president and provost, Caltech)
Bart Kosko (fuzzy logic, electrical engineering, USC; author and novelist)
George Kozmetsky (co-founder, Teledyne; founder, IC2 Institute, Un Texas; hi-tech incubators)
Ray Kurzweil (inventor, computer scientist, entrepreneur, business executive; author)
Leon Lederman (Nobel Laureate in physics; former Director, Fermi National Lab; science education)
Andrei Linde (cosmology, physics, Stanford; author)
John McWhorter (linguistics, sociolinguistics; African-American Studies, Berkeley; social commentator)
Marvin Minsky (artificial intelligence, MIT; co-founder, MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab; author)
Graham T.T. Molitor (future studies; vice pres., World Future Society; author)
Richard Mouw (theology, philosophy, ethics; pres.. Fuller Theological Seminary; author))
Nancey Murphy (science & religion; Fuller Theological Seminary, Berkeley, author)
Bruce Murray (planetary science & geology, Caltech; pres., Planetary Society; former director, JPL)
Sherwin Nuland (surgeon, medical historian, ethics, Yale; author)
Cliff & Joyce Penner (sex therapy, sexuality; authors)
Dean Radin (parapsychology, experimental psychology; author)
Marilyn Schlitz (anthropology, parapsychology; director of research, Institute of Noetic Sciences)
John Searle (philosophy of mind, philosophy; Berkeley; author)
Todd Siler (artist, "artscience," creativity, teaching creativity, author)
Brian Skyrms (philosophy, Un of Calif at Irvine; author)
Greg Stock (medicine, technology and society, biophysics, UCLA; author)
Charles Tart (parapsychology, transpersonal psychology; author)
Frank Tipler (cosmology, mathematics, Tulane; author)
Alan Tobin (neuroscience, director, Brain Research Institute, UCLA)
James Trefil (physics, George Mason Un; commentator; author)
Neil deGrasse Tyson (astrophysics, Princeton; Director, Hayden Planetarium; author)
Roy Walford (longevity, pathology, UCLA; Biosphere; author)
Fred Alan Wolf (quantum physics, new age physics, consciousness; author)
[edit] Season Three Participants
Nancy Andreasen, Prof, Psychiatry, Univ. of Iowa; editor-in-chief, American Journal of Psychiatry.
David Baltimore, Past President & Professor of Biology, Caltech; Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine.
Jeanne Bamberger, Professor of Music and Urban Education, MIT; pianist.
Roger Blandford Prof. of Theoretical Astrophysics, Caltech (black holes, gravitation, high-energy bursts).
Joseph Bogen, Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery, USC; consultant (split brain), Caltech
David Brin, Author, science fiction; The Transparent Society; space science Ph.D.
Leslie Brothers, Psychiatrist, neuroscientist; author
Octavia Butler, Author (Nebula award); MacArthur Fellow.
Alexander Capron, University Professor of Law, USC; Director, Pacific Center for Health Policy & Ethics.
Hyla Cass, Psychiatrist; Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine; alt medicine.
Eric Courchesne, Professor of Neuroscience, University of California at San Diego
Michael Crichton, Author, Producer; MD.
Agnes Day, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, , Howard University.
David DiVincenzo, Senior Scientist, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, IBM Corporation
Llewellyn “Doc” Dougherty, Director of Technology, Raytheon Electronic Systems
Robert Epstein, Editor, Psychology Today; University Research Professor, Alliant International University.
Paul Ewald, Professor of Evolutionary Biology, University of Louisville.
Robert Freeman, Dean, College of Fine Arts, Univ. Texas Austin; past director, Eastman School of Music.
Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Laureate Physics; Santa Fe Institute. Emeritus Professor of Physics, Caltech.
David Goodstein, Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, Caltech
Alan Guth, Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; discoverer, inflation theory.
Stuart Hameroff, Prof/, Anesthesiology; Assoc Dir., Center for Consciousness Studies; Univ of Arizona,
David Herrelko, Brigadier General (retired); Wright-Patterson Air Force Base;
Alice Huang, Associate in Biology, Caltech; former Dean for Science, New York University.
Muzaffar Iqbal, President, Center for Islam and Science;; editor Kalam newsletter on Islam and Science.
William Jarvis, Professor, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Loma Linda Univ.
Chistof Koch, Prof. Cognitive & Behavioral Biology; Exec., Computation and Neural Systems, Caltech.
Steven Koonin, Professor of Theoretical Physics, Caltech; Senior Scientist, British Petroleum
Andrea Kovacs, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Pathology; Director HIV Family Clinic, USC.
Shri Kulkarni, Prof. of Astronomy and Planetary Science, Caltech; leader in search for extra-solar planets.
Daniel Labriola, Founder, Northwest Natural Health Specialty Care Clinic; naturopathic physician.
Peter Loewenberg, Dean, Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute; Professor of History, UCLA.
Seth Lloyd, professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Donald Miller, Professor of Religion and Executive Director, Center for Religion and Civic Culture, USC.
Tito Mukapadhyay, Gifted, autistic adolescent; author, Beyond the Silence
Nancey Murphy, Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary.
Bruce Murray, Prof. Emeritus, Planetary Science and Geology, Emeritus, Caltech; former director, JPL.
Wallace Sampson, editor, Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine; prof. of medicine (retired), Stanford.
Erin Schuman, Executive Officer for Neurobiology, Associate Professor of Biology, Caltech
Michael Shermer, Founder, Skeptics Society; Publisher, Skeptics; Columnist, Scientific American.
Terrance Sejnowski, Prof., Salk Institute for Biological Studies; co-author, The Computational Brain.
Lucy Shapiro, Professor of Developmental Biology and Genetics; Stanford University School of Medicine.
Robert Temple, Chair, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Mark Jude Tramo, Director, The Institute for Music and Brain Science, Massachusetts General Hospital.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director, Hayden Planetarium; Department of Astrophysics, Princeton University.
Birgitta Whaley, Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of California (Berkeley).
[edit] External links
- Original Closer to Truth website for the first two seasons, Seasons I & II
- PBS-hosted website for Closer To Truth Season III
- Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future. 2007. Praeger.
