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PERITIA Public Lectures: Technology and Democracy. Cognitive Pressure Points and Solutions

October 19, 2021 @ 7:00 pm - 8:20 pm +04

PERITIA Public Lectures September - December 2021

About the Event:

Truth and trust are becoming contentious topics for science and democracy. Conspiracy theories disrupt political elections, disinformation campaigns target scientific consensus around climate change and vaccines, and anti-elite populism overshadows public debates. In the midst of a pandemic, citizens find themselves asking quintessential philosophical questions: what truth is, who we can trust, or how we should trust.

The PERITIA Lectures: Trust in an Age of Disinformation delve into these phenomena to explore the concept of trust and truth in light of current events. Prominent philosophers and academics from Europe and the United States come together to present their latest research on trust in science, disinformation, vaccine hesitancy, conspiracy theories, trustworthy science, truth and democracy, and trust and cognitive science.

Hosted by the UCD Centre for Ethics in Public Life and the American University of Armenia, the lectures are open to all upon registration via Zoom and moderated by science communicator Shane Bergin. The second part of this online series runs every second Tuesday, from September to November 2021.

About the Speaker:

Stephan Lewandowsky is a cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol. He was an Australian Professorial Fellow from 2007 to 2012, and was awarded a Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council in 2011. He held a Revesz Visiting Professorship at the University of Amsterdam in 2012, and received a Wolfson Research Merit Fellowship from the Royal Society upon moving to the UK in 2013. He was appointed a Fellow of the Academy of Social Science (UK) and a Fellow of the Association of Psychological Science in 2017. In 2016, he was appointed a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry for his commitment to science, rational inquiry, and public education. In 2019, he received a Humboldt Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation in Germany.

His research examines people’s memory, decision-making, and knowledge structures, with a particular emphasis on how people update their memories if the information they believe turns out to be false. This has led him to examine the persistence of misinformation and the spread of “fake news” in society, including conspiracy theories. He is particularly interested in the variables that determine whether or not people accept scientific evidence, for example surrounding vaccinations or climate science.

He has published more than 220 scholarly articles, chapters, and books, including numerous papers on how people respond to corrections of misinformation and what variables determine people’s acceptance of scientific findings. His research is currently funded by the European Research Council, the EU’s Horizon 2020 program, and the Volkswagen Foundation.

Professor Lewandowsky also frequently appears in print and broadcast media and has contributed nearly 90 opinion pieces to the global media on issues related to his research.

Language: English and Armenian simultaneous translation available

Registration for the PERITIA Lectures can be made here.

Details

Date:
October 19, 2021
Time:
7:00 pm - 8:20 pm +04
Event Categories:
,

Organizer

AUA Acopian Center for the Environment
Phone
+37460 61 25 20
Email
ace@aua.am
View Organizer Website

Venue

Zoom webinar