Lexington:Talk Shows

LexMedia 2013 Talk Shows

E.O. Wilson

Video (Mar 17; 57 min.)

The celebrated sociobiologist, author and Lexington resident E. O. Wilson talks about his life and his his work. Some of the topics he discussed are:

• How humans compare to ants, and about breaking the Pheromone code that ants use to communicate with each other
• The protests in Harvard Square against his theory of sociobiology, calling for him to be removed from the faculty of Harvard University.
• His work on biodiversity, island biogeography and on setting up an online Encyclopedia of Life, developed with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, where one can find "at a keystroke" any species found on Earth. There are 2,000,000 species mapped in the Encyclopedia, with about 5,000,000 remaining species to go.
• His first book written for a larger audience, On Human Nature, ISBN 978-0674016385, written to respond to his critics, talking about the three main misconceptions about human nature: the Blank Slate, which claims that the mind is perfectly malleable and anything can be learned, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine, which holds that we'll never be able to locate free will in the mechanisms of the brain.

E. O. Wilson's most recent book is called Letters to a young scientist, ISBN 978-0871403773.

Jay Kaufman's Open House: Citizens United Decision

Video (Jan 17; 84 min.)

State Representative Jay Kaufman's Open House, with guests Jeff Clements and Wendy Kaminer.

• Kaufman's blog: Kaufman’s “Open House” examines the Citizens United decision, by Team Kaufman (Jan 14, 2013)