The Science Network (TSN) is a non-profit virtual forum dedicated to science and its impact on society. It was initially conceived in 2003 by Roger Bingham and Terry Sejnowski as a cable science TV network modeled on C-SPAN. TSN later became a global digital platform hosting videos of lectures from scientific meetings and long form one-on-one conversations with prominent scientists and communicators of science, including Neil deGrasse Tyson, V.S. Ramachandran,

Helen S. Mayberg Helen S. Mayberg was born in 1956 in California. She is an American neurologist. Mayberg is known in particular for her work delineating abnormal brain function in patients with major depression using functional neuroimaging. This work led to t ...

, and

Barbara Landau Dr. Barbara Landau is the Dick and Lydia Todd Professor in the Department of Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University. Landau specializes in language learning, spatial representation and relationships between these foundational systems of hu ...

. TSN has also sponsored and co-sponsored scientific forums, such as ''Stem cells: science, ethics and politics at the crossroads'', held at the Salk Institute in 2004 and the ''Beyond Belief'' conference series.

''Beyond Belief'' conference series

TSN's signature series ''Beyond Belief'' was conceived to bring together a community of scientists, philosophers, scholars from the humanities, and social commentators. Speakers at these meetings have included Steven Weinberg,

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...

, Sam Harris, Harry Kroto, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Stuart Kauffman. So far, the following three ''Beyond Belief'' conferences were organized:

2006: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival

'' Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival'', the first of The Science Network's annual Beyond Belief symposia, held from November 5 to November 7, 2006, was described by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', as "a free-for-all on science and religion," which seemed at times like "the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told." According to participant

Melvin Konner __NOTOC__ Melvin Joel Konner (born 1946) is an American anthropologist who is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology and of Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology at Emory University. He studied at Brooklyn College, CUNY (1966), where ...

, however, the event came to resemble a "den of vipers” debating the issue, "Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?”''A Free-for-All on Science and Religion," George Johnson, New York Times, Section F, Page 1, November 21, 2006
/ref>

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...

summed up the topics to be discussed as a list of three questions: * Can

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

help us create a new rational narrative as poetic and powerful as those that have traditionally sustained societies? * Can we treat

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

as a natural phenomenon? * Can we be good without God? And if not God, then what? Speakers included physicists Steven Weinberg,

Lawrence Krauss Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who previously taught at Arizona State University, Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project, now cal ...

, Philosopher/author Sam Harris, biologist

Joan Roughgarden Joan Roughgarden (born Jonathan David Roughgarden, 13 March 1946) is an American ecologist and evolutionary biologist. She has engaged in theory and observation of coevolution and competition in ''Anolis'' lizards of the Caribbean, and recruitmen ...

, Michael Shermer of

Skeptic Magazine ''Skeptic'', colloquially known as ''Skeptic magazine'', is a quarterly science education and science advocacy magazine published internationally by The Skeptics Society, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting scientific skepticism and re ...

, anthropologist

Scott Atran Scott Atran (born February 6, 1952) is an American-French cultural anthropologist who is Emeritus Director of Research in Anthropology at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in Paris, Research Professor at the University of Michigan, ...

and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

2007: Enlightenment 2.0

''Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0'' was the second annual symposium and was held from 31 October to 2 November 2007 at the Frederic de Hoffmann Auditorium of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The conference was released on a five-disc DVD series in 2007.

2008: Candles in the Dark

''Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark'' was the third annual Beyond Belief symposium. This event was organized by The Science Network and held from 3 October to 6 October 2008 in San Diego, CA.

References

External links

* * ''Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival'' DVD Release on

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Science Network Science in society