Big Picture Science for Sept. 27th, 2021 - AI: Where Does it End?

Big Picture Science - AI: Where Does it End?

The benefits of artificial intelligence are manifest and manifold, but can we recognize the drawbacks … and avoid them in time?

In this episode, recorded before a live audience at the Seattle meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, we discuss who is making the ethical decisions about how we use this powerful technology, and a proposal to create a Hippocratic Oath for AI researchers.

Guests:

• Oren Etzioni - CEO of The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence
• Mark Hill - Professor of computer sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and chair of the Computing Community Consortium

This repeat podcast originally aired on February 24, 2020

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/ai-where-does-it-end

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Big Picture Science for Sept. 20th, 2021 - Skeptic Check: Science Denial

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Science Denial

(REPEAT) Climate change isn’t happening. Vaccines make you sick.  When it comes to threats to public or environmental health, a surprisingly large fraction of the population still denies the consensus of scientific evidence. But it’s not the first time – many people long resisted the evidentiary link between HIV and AIDS and smoking with lung cancer.

There’s a sense that science denialism is on the rise. It prompted a gathering of scientists and historians in New York City to discuss the problem, which included a debate on the usefulness of the word “denial” itself. Big Picture Science was there. We report from the Science Denial symposium held jointly by the New York Academy of Sciences and Rutgers Global Health Institute.

Find out why so many people dig in their heels and distrust scientific findings. Plus, the techniques wielded by special interest groups to dispute some inconvenient truths. We also hear how simply stating more facts may be the wrong approach to combating scientific resistance.

Guests:

• Melanie Brickman Borchard - Director of Life Sciences Conferences at New York Academy of Sciences
• Nancy Tomes - professor of history at Stony Brook University
• Allan Brandt - professor of history of science and medicine at Harvard University. Author of “The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America”
• Sheila Jasanoff - Director of Program on Science, Technology and Society and professor of environment, science and technology at Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
• Michael Dahlstrom - Associate Director of Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, and associate professor at Iowa State University
• Matthew Nisbet - professor of communication and public policy at Northeastern University
• Arthur (Art) Caplan - professor and founding head of medical ethics at NYU School of Medicine

This repeat podcast originally aired on November 12, 2018

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-science-denial

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Big Picture Science for Sept. 13th, 2021 - Animals Being Jerks

Big Picture Science - Animals Being Jerks

They’re cute and cuddly. But they can also be obnoxious.

Science writer Mary Roach has numerous tales about how our animal friends don’t always bow to their human overlords and behave the way we’d want. The resulting encounters, such as when gulls disrupt the Vatican’s Easter mass, make for amusing stories. But others, such as wolves threatening farmers’ livestock, can be tragic.

We hear what happens at the messy crossroads of human and wildlife encounters.

Guest:

• Mary Roach – Author of bestselling nonfiction books, most recently “Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law.”

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/animals-being-jerks

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Big Picture Science for Sept. 6th, 2021 - De-Permafrosting

Big Picture Science - De-Permafrosting

Above the Arctic Circle, much of the land is underlaid by permafrost. But climate change is causing it to thaw. This is not good news for the planet.

As the carbon rich ground warms, microbes start to feast… releasing greenhouse gases that will warm the Earth even more.

Another possible downside was envisioned by a science-fiction author. Could ancient pathogens–released from the permafrost’s icy grip–cause new pandemics? We investigate what happens when the far north defrosts.

Guests:

• Jacquelyn Gill – Associate professor of paleoecology at the University of Maine.
• Jim Shepard – Novelist and short story writer, and teacher of English at Williams College, and author of “Phase Six.”
• Scott Saleska – Global change ecologist, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, and co-founder of IsoGenie.

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/de-permafrosting

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.