[TODAY 7:30pm EST] The Existence of Nothing: A Debate [Live Stream]

[pocaracas]

The Existence of Nothing: A Debate [Live Stream]

Watch six distinguished thinkers grapple with nothingness in the 2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, March 20, 7:30 - 9:30 P.M. EDT:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...thing-live

Join Hayden Planetarium Director Neil deGrasse Tyson as he moderates the world's leading voices in this great scientific debate, live from the LeFrak Theater of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

J. Richard Gott: Professor of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, author of Sizing Up the Universe: The Cosmos in Perspective

Jim Holt: Science journalist, author of Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story

Lawrence Krauss: Professor of Physics, Arizona State University, author of A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing

Charles Seife: Professor of Journalism, New York University, author of Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

Eva Silverstein: Professor of Physics, Stanford University, co-editor of Strings, Branes and Gravity

[Creed of Heresy]

.Watchin' it now.

[Angrboda]

I missed it. I was schlepping around town.

[Creed of Heresy]

It was pretty good. Naturally there was a theist of some kind in the audience who, of course, had to keep sticking his hand up to warble off some stupid religious claims during the question answering part at the end of the debate. Man you reeeaaaally start to notice how utterly lacking in wonder or awe religion really is when claims and questions about it immediately follow a discussion about astrophysics and the concept of Nothing. I can't remember which but one of them put it best: "Some scientists still to this day are inevitably pulled into asking 'why.' This is an error in thinking; 'why' is an irrelevant question. 'How' is much more important, and can actually be answered, whereas 'why' is just a dead-end, that or it goes in circles. Either way, 'why' goes nowhere."