Departmental News

Posted:  Sep 14, 2015 - 09:00am

LECTURE ANNOUNCEMENT: 8 PM THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 17

The Departments of Anthropology, Biology and Psychology announce an exciting event next week: A lecture by Dr. Alice Dreger.  Dreger’s most recent, highly acclaimed book is Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science (Penguin, 2015), which argues that the pursuit of evidence is the most important ethical imperative of our time. Funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship, the book has been praised in multiple high-profile reviews, including in The New Yorker, Nature, and Salon. It was named an “Editor’s Choice” by The New York Times Book Review, where Dreger was labeled “a sharp, disruptive scholar.” The Chronicle of Higher Education has called her a “star scholar” and describes her writing as “reliably funny and passionate and vulnerable.”

 The lecture is next Thursday, Sept. 17, at 8 PM in the Anthropology Building, Room 163. Attendance is open to all. Please come. Alice is an outstanding speaker. The talk promises to be very engaging.

 Details, then:

Speaker:   Alice Dreger

Title:        GALILEO’S MIDDLE FINGER: Why Social Progress Depends on Protection of Academic Freedom

Time:       8:00 PM Thursday, September 17

Place:      Anthropology Building, Room 163

Please see below for additional information about Dr. Dreger. See the attached flyer for information on her book, which has the same primary title as her lecture (including wonderful quotes by people who praise the book).

Hosts: Jane Lancaster, Distinguished Professor, Department of Anthropology, Randy Thornhill, Distinguished Professor, Department of Biology, and Steve Gangestad, Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology 

About the speaker. Alice Dreger (PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana U) is an historian of medicine and science, a sex researcher, a mainstream writer, and an (im)patient advocate. In August, 2015, she resigned a part-time full professorship at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine following her dean’s censorship of her published work out of a hospital-related “branding” concern. She has for many years embodied the idea of “the public intellectual,” simultaneously publishing widely-cited major original work in scholarly journals and high-visibility essays in the mainstream press. Dreger’s most recent book is Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science (Penguin, 2015), which argues that the pursuit of evidence is the most important ethical imperative of our time. Funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship, the book has been praised in multiple high-profile reviews, including in The New Yorker, Nature, and Salon. It was named an “Editor’s Choice” by The New York Times Book Review, where Dreger was labeled “a sharp, disruptive scholar.” The Chronicle of Higher Education has called her a “star scholar” and describes her writing as “reliably funny and passionate and vulnerable.”

This weekend, Dr. Dreger will be giving the Holden Memorial Address for Distinguished Scientific Journalism at the annual meeting of the International Society for Intelligence Research, held in downtown Albuquerque.

Paid Parking Available on Las Lomas north of the Anthropology Building and its Permit Parking lot.