10:30 Welcome & Introduction

10:35 Marcus du Sautoy, ‘Mathematics: The Bridge Between the Two Cultures’.
C. P. Snow’s great friend the mathematician G. H. Hardy described mathematics as a creative art as much as a useful science. In this talk I will explore how mathematics is a language that underpins both cultures.

Marcus du Sautoy is Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. He has research interests in prime numbers and symmetry and is the author of many publications, including Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician’s Journey Through Symmetry (2008). In 2008 he wrote and presented The Story of Maths for BBC TV

11:05 Anthony Grayling - Title TBC
Anthony Grayling is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written and edited many books on philosophy and other subjects; among his most recent are a biography of William Hazlitt and a collection of essays. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and writer for newspapers, including a writing a regular column for the New Scientist.

11:35 Coffee

12:05 Gillian Beer ‘Cultures of Extinction: Darwin and the Present’.
We currently view extinction with dismay and even horror and are encouraged to do so by specialist commentators and popular media alike. Darwin saw extinction as ordinary and as necessary to evolutionary change. What was the importance of extinction in Darwin’s theory? Why have our attitudes to it changed? Can this example help us to understand ways in which scientific, social and bodily cultures combine to shift meaning?

Gillian Beer was King Edward VII Professor at the University of Cambridge. Among her books are Darwin’s Plots and Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter. A third edition of ‘Darwin’s Plots’ with new material is appearing at the end of March 2009.

12:35 Roundtable 1

13:30 Lunch

14:30 Introduction
14:35 Jonathan Miller in conversation.
Jonathan Miller is a neurologist, writer, television presenter, photographer, curator and director of many plays and operas. In 2004, he presented Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief for BBC TV. He will talk with Colin MacCabe about the relationships between his artistic and scientific lives.

15:05 Ben Goldacre - The Humanities and the Public Misunderstanding of Science
In the time of Snow, science was only marginalised and ignored. Now we must contend with a vast army of humanities graduates in the media, who feel entitled to pass comment on matters about which they know nothing. With great authority and enormous influence, they promote the public’s misunderstanding of evidence: their self-indulgence comes at a very great cost.

Ben Goldacre is a writer, broadcaster, and medical doctor who has written the weekly Bad Science column in the Guardian since 2003. He appears regularly on Radio 4 and TV, and has written for the Guardian, Time Out, New Statesman, and the British Medical Journal as well as various book chapters. His book Bad Science appeared from Fourth Estate in 2008.

15:35 Tea

16:05 Alan Sokal, ‘What Is Science And Why Should We Care?’
I shall discuss what I see as the importance for society of a “scientific worldview” — a concept that goes far beyond the specific disciplines that we usually think of as “science”. I shall argue that clear thinking, combined with a respect for evidence — especially inconvenient and unwanted evidence, evidence that challenges our preconceptions — are of the utmost importance to the survival of the human race in the twenty-first century.

Alan Sokal is a Professor of Physics at New York University and Professor of Mathematics at University College London. His main research interests are in statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. He is co-author with Jean Bricmont of “Intellectual Impostures” (Profile Books, 1998). His most recent book is “Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture” (Oxford University Press, 2008).

16:35 Roundtable 2

17:30 End