Tag Archives: Institute for Science Society and Policy

The decade that was (2010-19) and the decade to come (2020-29): Science culture in Canada (5 of 5)

At long last, the end is in sight! This last part is mostly a collection of items that don’t fit elsewhere or could have fit elsewhere but that particular part was already overstuffed.

Podcasting science for the people

March 2009 was the birth date for a podcast, then called Skeptically Speaking and now known as Science for the People (Wikipedia entry). Here’s more from the Science for the People About webpage,

Science for the People is a long-format interview podcast that explores the connections between science, popular culture, history, and public policy, to help listeners understand the evidence and arguments behind what’s in the news and on the shelves.

Every week, our hosts sit down with science researchers, writers, authors, journalists, and experts to discuss science from the past, the science that affects our lives today, and how science might change our future.

THE TEAM

Rachelle Saunders: Producer & Host

I love to learn new things, and say the word “fascinating” way too much. I like to talk about intersections and how science and critical thinking intersect with everyday life, politics, history, and culture. By day I’m a web developer, and I definitely listen to way too many podcasts.

….

H/t to GeekWrapped’s 20 Best Science Podcasts.

Science: human contexts and cosmopolitanism

situating science: Science in Human Contexts was a seven-year project ending in 2014 and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Here’s more from their Project Summary webpage,

Created in 2007 with the generous funding of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Strategic Knowledge Cluster grant, Situating Science is a seven-year project promoting communication and collaboration among humanists and social scientists that are engaged in the study of science and technology.

You can find out more about Situating Science’s final days in my August 16, 2013 posting where I included a lot of information about one of their last events titled, “Science and Society 2013 Symposium; Emerging Agendas for Citizens and the Sciences.”

The “think-tank” will dovetail nicely with a special symposium in Ottawa on Science and Society Oct. 21-23. For this symposium, the Cluster is partnering with the Institute for Science, Society and Policy to bring together scholars from various disciplines, public servants and policy workers to discuss key issues at the intersection of science and society. [emphasis mine]  The discussions will be compiled in a document to be shared with stakeholders and the wider public.

The team will continue to seek support and partnerships for projects within the scope of its objectives. Among our top priorities are a partnership to explore sciences, technologies and their publics as well as new partnerships to build upon exchanges between scholars and institutions in India, Singapore and Canada.

The Situating Science folks did attempt to carry on the organization’s work by rebranding the organization to call it the Canadian Consortium for Situating Science and Technology (CCSST). It seems to have been a short-lived volunteer effort.

Meanwhile, the special symposium held in October 2013 appears to have been the springboard for another SSHRC funded multi-year initiative, this time focused on science collaborations between Canada, India, and Singapore, Cosmopolitanism and the Local in Science and Nature from 2014 – 2017. Despite their sunset year having been in 2017, their homepage boasts news about a 2020 Congress and their Twitter feed is still active. Harking back, here’s what the project was designed to do, from the About Us page,

Welcome to our three year project that will establish a research network on “Cosmopolitanism” in science. It closely examines the actual types of negotiations that go into the making of science and its culture within an increasingly globalized landscape. This partnership is both about “cosmopolitanism and the local” and is, at the same time, cosmopolitan and local.

Anyone who reads this blog with any frequency will know that I often comment on the fact that when organizations such as the Council of Canadian Academies bring in experts from other parts of the world, they are almost always from the US or Europe. So, I was delighted to discover the Cosmopolitanism project and featured it in a February 19, 2015 posting.

Here’s more from Cosmopolitanism’s About Us page

Specifically, the project will:

  1. Expose a hitherto largely Eurocentric scholarly community in Canada to widening international perspectives and methods,
  2. Build on past successes at border-crossings and exchanges between the participants,
  3. Facilitate a much needed nation-wide organization and exchange amongst Indian and South East Asian scholars, in concert with their Canadian counterparts, by integrating into an international network,
  4. Open up new perspectives on the genesis and place of globalized science, and thereby
  5. Offer alternative ways to conceptualize and engage globalization itself, and especially the globalization of knowledge and science.
  6. Bring the managerial team together for joint discussion, research exchange, leveraging and planning – all in the aid of laying the grounds of a sustainable partnership

Eco Art (also known as ecological art or environmental art)

I’m of two minds as to whether I should have tried to stuff this into the art/sci subsection in part 2. On balance, I decided that this merited its own section and that part 2 was already overstuffed.

Let’s start in Newfoundland and Labrador with Marlene Creates (pronounced Kreets), here’s more about her from her website’s bio webpage,

Marlene Creates (pronounced “Kreets”) is an environmental artist and poet who works with photography, video, scientific and vernacular knowledge, walking and collaborative site-specific performance in the six-acre patch of boreal forest in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, where she lives.

For almost 40 years her work has been an exploration of the relationship between human experience, memory, language and the land, and the impact they have on each other. …

Currently her work is focused on the six acres of boreal forest where she lives in a ‘relational aesthetic’ to the land. This oeuvre includes Water Flowing to the Sea Captured at the Speed of Light, Blast Hole Pond River, Newfoundland 2002–2003, and several ongoing projects:

Marlene Creates received a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for “Lifetime Artistic Achievement” in 2019. …

As mentioned in her bio, Creates has a ‘forest’ project. The Boreal Poetry Garden,
Portugal Cove, Newfoundland 2005– (ongoing)
. If you are interested in exploring it, she has created a virtual walk here. Just click on one of the index items on the right side of the screen to activate a video.

An October 1, 2018 article by Yasmin Nurming-Por for Canadian Art magazine features 10 artists who focus on environmental and/or land art themes,

As part of her 2016 master’s thesis exhibition, Fredericton [New Brunswick] artist Gillian Dykeman presented the video Dispatches from the Feminist Utopian Future within a larger installation that imagined various canonical earthworks from the perspective of the future. It’s a project that addresses the inherent sense of timelessness in these massive interventions on the natural landscape from the perspective of contemporary land politics. … she proposes a kind of interaction with the invasive and often colonial gestures of modernist Land art, one that imagines a different future for these earthworks, where they are treated as alien in a landscape and as beacons from a feminist future.

A video trailer featuring “DISPATCHES FROM THE FEMINIST UTOPIAN FUTURE” (from Dykeman’s website archive page featuring the show,

If you have the time, I recommend reading the article in its entirety.

Oddly, I did not expect Vancouver to have such an active eco arts focus. The City of Vancouver Parks Board maintains an Environmental Art webpage on its site listing a number of current and past projects.

I cannot find the date for when this Parks Board initiative started but I did find a document produced prior to a Spring 2006 Arts & Ecology think tank held in Vancouver under the auspices of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, the Vancouver Foundation, and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (London UK).

In all likelihood, Vancouver Park Board’s Environmental Art webpage was produced after 2006.

I imagine the document and the think tank session helped to anchor any then current eco art projects and encouraged more projects.

The document (MAPPING THE TERRAIN OF CONTEMPORARY ECOART PRACTICE AND COLLABORATION) while almost 14 years old offers a fascinating overview of what was happening internationally and in Canada.

While its early days were in 2008, EartHand Gleaners (Vancouver-based) wasn’t formally founded as an arts non-for-profit organization until 2013. You can find out more about them and their projects here.

Eco Art has been around for decades according to the eco art think tank document but it does seemed to have gained momentum here in Canada over the last decade.

Photography and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

Exploring the jack pine tight knit family tree. Credit: Dana Harris Brock University (2018)

Pictured are developing phloem, cambial, and xylem cells (blue), and mature xylem cells (red), in the outermost portion of a jack pine tree. This research aims to identify the influences of climate on the cellular development of the species at its northern limit in Yellowknife, NT. The differences in these cell formations is what creates the annual tree ring boundary.

Science Exposed is a photography contest for scientists which has been run since 2016 (assuming the Past Winners archive is a good indicator for the programme’s starting year).

The 2020 competition recently closed but public voting should start soon. It’s nice to see that NSERC is now making efforts to engage members of the general public rather than focusing its efforts solely on children. The UK’s ASPIRES project seems to support the idea that adults need to be more fully engaged with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) efforts as it found that children’s attitudes toward science are strongly influenced by their parents’ and relatives’ attitudes.(See my January 31, 2012 posting.)

Ingenious, the book and Ingenium, the science museums

To celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017, then Governor General David Johnston and Tom Jenkins (Chair of the board for Open Text and former Chair of the federal committee overseeing the ‘Review of Federal Support to R&’D [see my October 21, 2011 posting about the resulting report]) wrote a boo about Canada’s inventors and inventions.

Johnston and Jenkins jaunted around the country launching their book (I have more about their June 1, 2017 Vancouver visit in a May 30, 2017 posting; scroll down about 60% of the way]).

The book’s full title, “Ingenious: How Canadian Innovators Made the World Smarter, Smaller, Kinder, Safer, Healthier, Wealthier and Happier ” outlines their thesis neatly.

Not all that long after the book was launched, there was a name change (thankfully) for the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation (CSTMC). It is now known as Ingenium (covered in my August 10, 2017 posting).

The reason that name change was such a relief (for those who don’t know) is that the corporation included three national science museums: Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, and (wait for it) Canada Science and Technology Museum. On the list of confusing names, this ranks very high for me. Again, I give thanks for the change from CSTMC to Ingenium, leaving the name for the museum alone.

2017 was also the year that the newly refurbished Canada Science and Technology Museum was reopened after more than three years (see my June 23, 2017 posting about the November 2017 reopening and my June 12, 2015 posting for more information about the situation that led to the closure).

A Saskatchewan lab, Convergence, Order of Canada, Year of Science, Animated Mathematics, a graphic novel, and new media

Since this section is jampacked, I’m using subheads.

Saskatchewan

Dr. Brian Eames hosts an artist-in-residence, Jean-Sebastien (JS) Gauthier at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine Eames Lab. A February 16, 2018 posting here featured their first collaboration together. It covered evolutionary biology, the synchrotron (Canadian Light Source [CLS]) in Saskatoon, and the ‘ins and outs’ of a collaboration between a scientist an artist. Presumably the art-in-residence position indicates that first collaboration went very well.

In January 2020, Brian kindly gave me an update on their current projects. Jean-Sebastin successfully coded an interactive piece for an exhibit at the 2019 Nuit Blanche Saskatoon event using Connect (Xbox). More recently, he got a VR [virtual reality] helmet for an upcoming project or two.

After much clicking on the Nuit Blanche Saskatoon 2019 interactive map, I found this,

Our Glass is a work of interactive SciArt co-created by artist JS Gauthier and biologist Dr Brian F. Eames. It uses cutting-edge 3D microscopic images produced for artistic purposes at the Canadian Light Source, Canada’s only synchrotron facility. Our Glass engages viewers of all ages to peer within an hourglass showing how embryonic development compares among animals with whom we share a close genetic heritage.

Eames also mentioned they were hoping to hold an international SciArt Symposium at the University of Saskatchewan in 2021.

Convergence

Dr. Cristian Zaelzer-Perez, an instructor at Concordia University (Montreal; read this November 20, 2019 Concordia news release by Kelsey Rolfe for more about his work and awards), in 2016 founded the Convergence Initiative, a not-for-profit organization that encourages interdisciplinary neuroscience and art collaborations.

Cat Lau’s December 23, 2019 posting for the Science Borealis blog provides insight into Zaelzer-Perez’s relationship to science and art,

Cristian: I have had a relationship with art and science ever since I have had memory. As a child, I loved to do classifications, from grouping different flowers to collecting leaves by their shapes. At the same time, I really loved to draw them and for me, both things never looked different; they (art and science) have always worked together.

I started as a graphic designer, but the pursuit to learn about nature was never dead. At some point, I knew I wanted to go back to school to do research, to explore and learn new things. I started studying medical technologies, then molecular biology and then jumped into a PhD. At that point, my life as a graphic designer slipped down, because of the focus you have to give to the discipline. It seemed like every time I tried to dedicate myself to one thing, I would find myself doing the other thing a couple years later.

I came to Montreal to do my post-doc, but I had trouble publishing, which became problematic in getting a career. I was still loving what I was doing, but not seeing a future in that. Once again, art came back into my life and at the same time I saw that science was becoming really hard to understand and scientists were not doing much to bridge the gap.

The Convergence Initiative has an impressive array of programmes. Do check it out.

Order of Canada and ‘The Science Lady’

For a writer of children’s science books, an appointment to the Order of Canada is a singular honour. I cannot recall a children’s science book writer previous to Shar Levine being appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada. Known as ‘The Science Lady‘, Levine was appointed in 2016. Here’s more from her Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,

Shar Levine (born 1953) is an award-winning, best selling Canadian children’s author, and designer.

Shar has written over 70 books and book/kits, primarily on hands-on science for children. For her work in Science literacy and Science promotion, Shar has been appointed to the 2016 Order of Canada. In 2015, she was recognized by the University of Alberta and received their Alumni Honour Award. Levine, and her co-author, Leslie Johnstone, were co-recipients of the Eve Savory Award for Science Communication from the BC Innovation Council (2006) and their book, Backyard Science, was a finalist for the Subaru Award, (hands on activity) from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science Books and Films (2005). The Ultimate Guide to Your Microscope was a finalist-2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books and Films Prize Hands -On Science/Activity Books.

To get a sense of what an appointment to the Order of Canada means, here’s a description from the government of Canada website,

The Order of Canada is how our country honours people who make extraordinary contributions to the nation.

Since its creation in 1967—Canada’s centennial year—more than 7 000 people from all sectors of society have been invested into the Order. The contributions of these trailblazers are varied, yet they have all enriched the lives of others and made a difference to this country. Their grit and passion inspire us, teach us and show us the way forward. They exemplify the Order’s motto: DESIDERANTES MELIOREM PATRIAM (“They desire a better country”).

Year of Science in British Columbia

In the Fall of 2010, the British Columbia provincial government announced a Year of Science (coinciding with the school year) . Originally, it was supposed to be a provincial government-wide initiative but the idea percolated through any number of processes and emerged as a year dedicated to science education for youth (according to the idea’s originator, Moira Stilwell who was then a Member of the Legislative Assembly [MLA]’ I spoke with her sometime in 2010 or 2011).

As the ‘year’ drew to a close, there was a finale ($1.1M in funding), which was featured here in a July 6, 2011 posting.

The larger portion of the money ($1M) was awarded to Science World while $100,000 ($0.1 M) was given to the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences To my knowledge there have been no followup announcements about how the money was used.

Animation and mathematics

In Toronto, mathematician Dr. Karan Singh enjoyed a flurry of interest due to his association with animator Chris Landreth and their Academy Award (Oscar) Winning 2004 animated film, Ryan. They have continued to work together as members of the Dynamic Graphics Project (DGP) Lab at the University of Toronto. Theirs is not the only Oscar winning work to emerge from one or more of the members of the lab. Jos Stam, DGP graduate and adjunct professor won his third in 2019.

A graphic novel and medical promise

An academic at Simon Fraser University since 2015, Coleman Nye worked with three other women to produce a graphic novel about medical dilemmas in a genre described as’ ethno-fiction’.

Lissa: A Story about Medical Promise, Friendship, and Revolution (2017) by Sherine Hamdy and Coleman Nye, two anthropologists and Art by Sarula Bao and Caroline Brewer, two artists.

Here’s a description of the book from the University of Toronto Press website,

As young girls in Cairo, Anna and Layla strike up an unlikely friendship that crosses class, cultural, and religious divides. Years later, Anna learns that she may carry the hereditary cancer gene responsible for her mother’s death. Meanwhile, Layla’s family is faced with a difficult decision about kidney transplantation. Their friendship is put to the test when these medical crises reveal stark differences in their perspectives…until revolutionary unrest in Egypt changes their lives forever.

The first book in a new series [ethnoGRAPIC; a series of graphic novels from the University of Toronto Press], Lissa brings anthropological research to life in comic form, combining scholarly insights and accessible, visually-rich storytelling to foster greater understanding of global politics, inequalities, and solidarity.

I hope to write more about this graphic novel in a future posting.

New Media

I don’t know if this could be described as a movement yet but it’s certainly an interesting minor development. Two new media centres have hosted, in the last four years, art/sci projects and/or workshops. It’s unexpected given this definition from the Wikipedia entry for New Media (Note: Links have been removed),

New media are forms of media that are computational and rely on computers for redistribution. Some examples of new media are computer animations, computer games, human-computer interfaces, interactive computer installations, websites, and virtual worlds.[1][2]

In Manitoba, the Video Pool Media Arts Centre hosted a February 2016 workshop Biology as a New Art Medium: Workshop with Marta De Menezes. De Menezes, an artist from Portugal, gave workshops and talks in both Winnipeg (Manitoba) and Toronto (Ontario). Here’s a description for the one in Winnipeg,

This workshop aims to explore the multiple possibilities of artistic approaches that can be developed in relation to Art and Microbiology in a DIY situation. A special emphasis will be placed on the development of collaborative art and microbiology projects where the artist has to learn some biological research skills in order to create the artwork. The course will consist of a series of intense experimental sessions that will give raise to discussions on the artistic, aesthetic and ethical issues raised by the art and the science involved. Handling these materials and organisms will provoke a reflection on the theoretical issues involved and the course will provide background information on the current diversity of artistic discourses centred on biological sciences, as well a forum for debate.

VIVO Media Arts Centre in Vancouver hosted the Invasive Systems in 2019. From the exhibition page,

Picture this – a world where AI invades human creativity, bacteria invade our brains, and invisible technological signals penetrate all natural environments. Where invasive species from plants to humans transform spaces where they don’t belong, technology infiltrates every aspect of our daily lives, and the waste of human inventions ravages our natural environments.

This weekend festival includes an art-science exhibition [emphasis mine], a hands-on workshop (Sat, separate registration required), and guided discussions and tours by the curator (Sat/Sun). It will showcase collaborative works by three artist/scientist pairs, and independent works by six artists. Opening reception will be on Friday, November 8 starting at 7pm; curator’s remarks and performance by Edzi’u at 7:30pm and 9pm. 

New Westminster’s (British Columbia) New Media Gallery recently hosted an exhibition, ‘winds‘ from June 20 – September 29, 2019 that could be described as an art/sci exhibition,

Landscape and weather have long shared an intimate connection with the arts.  Each of the works here is a landscape: captured, interpreted and presented through a range of technologies. The four artists in this exhibition have taken, as their material process, the movement of wind through physical space & time. They explore how our perception and understanding of landscape can be interpreted through technology. 

These works have been created by what might be understood as a sort of scientific method or process that involves collecting data, acute observation, controlled experiments and the incorporation of measurements and technologies that control or collect motion, pressure, sound, pattern and the like. …

Council of Canadian Academies, Publishing, and Open Access

Established in 2005, the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) (Wikipedia entry) is tasked by various departments and agencies to answer their queries about science issues that could affect the populace and/or the government. In 2014, the CCA published a report titled, Science Culture: Where Canada Stands. It was in response to the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation (now called Ingenium), Industry Canada, and Natural Resources Canada and their joint request that the CCA conduct an in-depth, independent assessment to investigate the state of Canada’s science culture.

I gave a pretty extensive analysis of the report, which I delivered in four parts: Part 1, Part 2 (a), Part 2 (b), and Part 3. In brief, the term ‘science culture’ seems to be specifically, i.e., it’s not used elsewhere in the world (that we know of), Canadian. We have lots to be proud of. I was a little disappointed by the lack of culture (arts) producers on the expert panel and, as usual, I bemoaned the fact that the international community included as reviewers, members of the panel, and as points for comparison were drawn from the usual suspects (US, UK, or somewhere in northern Europe).

Science publishing in Canada took a bit of a turn in 2010, when the country’s largest science publisher, NRC (National Research Council) Research Publisher was cut loose from the government and spun out into the private, *not-for-profit publisher*, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP). From the CSP Wikipedia entry,

Since 2010, Canadian Science Publishing has acquired five new journals:

Since 2010, Canadian Science Publishing has also launched four new journals

Canadian Science Publishing offers researchers options to make their published papers freely available (open access) in their standard journals and in their open access journal, (from the CSP Wikipedia entry)

Arctic Science aims to provide a collaborative approach to Arctic research for a diverse group of users including government, policy makers, the general public, and researchers across all scientific fields

FACETS is Canada’s first open access multidisciplinary science journal, aiming to advance science by publishing research that the multi-faceted global community of research. FACETS is the official journal of the Royal Society of Canada’s Academy of Science.

Anthropocene Coasts aims to understand and predict the effects of human activity, including climate change, on coastal regions.

In addition, Canadian Science Publishing strives to make their content accessible through the CSP blog that includes plain language summaries of featured research. The open-access journal FACETS similarly publishes plain language summaries.

*comment removed*

CSP announced (on Twitter) a new annual contest in 2016,

Canadian Science Publishing@cdnsciencepub

New CONTEST! Announcing Visualizing Science! Share your science images & win great prizes! Full details on the blog http://cdnsciencepub.com/blog/2016-csp-image-contest-visualizing-science.aspx1:45 PM · Sep 19, 2016·TweetDeck

The 2016 blog posting is no longer accessible. Oddly for a contest of this type, I can’t find an image archive for previous contests. Regardless, a 2020 competition has been announced for Summer 2020. There are some details on the VISUALIZING SCIENCE 2020 webpage but some are missing, e.g., no opening date, no deadline. They are encouraging you to sign up for notices.

Back to open access, in a January 22, 2016 posting I featured news about Montreal Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute [MNI] in Québec, Canada) and its then new policy giving researchers world wide access to its research and made a pledge that it would not seek patents for its work.

Fish, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Prince Edward Island

AquAdvantage’s genetically modified salmon was approved for consumption in Canada according to my May 20, 2016 posting. The salmon are produced/farmed by a US company (AquaBounty) but the the work of genetically modifying Atlantic salmon with genetic material from the Chinook (a Pacific ocean salmon) was mostly undertaken at Memorial University in Newfoundland & Labrador.

The process by which work done in Newfoundland & Labrador becomes the property of a US company is one that’s well known here in Canada. The preliminary work and technology is developed here and then purchased by a US company, which files patents, markets, and profits from it. Interestingly, the fish farms for the AquAdvantage salmon are mostly (two out of three) located on Prince Edward Island.

Intriguingly, 4.5 tonnes of the modified fish were sold for consumption in Canada without consumers being informed (see my Sept. 13, 2017 posting, scroll down about 45% of the way).

It’s not all sunshine and roses where science culture in Canada is concerned. Incidents where Canadians are not informed let alone consulted about major changes in the food supply and other areas are not unusual. Too many times, scientists, politicians, and government policy experts want to spread news about science without any response from the recipients who are in effect viewed as a ‘tabula rasa’ or a blank page.

Tying it all up

This series has been my best attempt to document in some fashion or another the extraordinary range of science culture in Canada from roughly 2010-19. Thank you! This series represents a huge amount of work and effort to develop science culture in Canada and I am deeply thankful that people give so much to this effort.

I have inevitably missed people and organizations and events. For that I am very sorry. (There is an addendum to the series as it’s been hard to stop but I don’t expect to add anything or anyone more.)

I want to mention but can’t expand upon,the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, which was established in the 2017 federal budget (see a March 31, 2017 posting about the Vector Institute and Canada’s artificial intelligence sector).

Science Borealis, the Canadian science blog aggregator, owes its existence to Canadian Science Publishing for the support (programming and financial) needed to establish itself and, I believe, that support is still ongoing. I think thanks are also due to Jenny Ryan who was working for CSP and championed the initiative. Jenny now works for Canadian Blood Services. Interestingly, that agency added a new programme, a ‘Lay Science Writing Competition’ in 2018. It’s offered n partnership with two other groups, the Centre for Blood Research at the University of British Columbia and Science Borealis

While the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada does not fit into my time frame as it lists as its founding date December 1, 1868 (18 months after confederation), the organization did celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2018.

Vancouver’s Electric Company often produces theatrical experiences that cover science topics such as the one featured in my June 7, 2013 posting, You are very star—an immersive transmedia experience.

Let’s Talk Science (Wikipedia entry) has been heavily involved with offering STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programming both as part of curricular and extra-curricular across Canada since 1993.

This organization predates confederation having been founded in 1849 by Sir Sandford Fleming and Kivas Tully in Toronto. for surveyors, civil engineers, and architects. It is the Royal Canadian Institute of Science (Wikipedia entry)_. With almost no interruption, they have been delivering a regular series of lectures on the University of Toronto campus since 1913.

The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is a more recent beast. In 1999 Mike Lazirides, founder of Research In Motion (now known as Blackberry Limited), acted as both founder and major benefactor for this institute in Waterloo, Ontario. They offer a substantive and imaginative outreach programmes such as Arts and Culture: “Event Horizons is a series of unique and extraordinary events that aim to stimulate and enthral. It is a showcase of innovative work of the highest international standard, an emotional, intellectual, and creative experience. And perhaps most importantly, it is a social space, where ideas collide and curious minds meet.”

While gene-editing hasn’t seemed to be top-of-mind for anyone other than those in the art/sci community that may change. My April 26, 2019 posting focused on what appears to be a campaign to reverse Canada’s criminal ban on human gene-editing of inheritable cells (germline). With less potential for controversy, there is a discussion about somatic gene therapies and engineered cell therapies. A report from the Council of Canadian is due in the Fall of 2020. (The therapies being discussed do not involve germline editing.)

French language science media and podcasting

Agence Science-Presse is unique as it is the only press agency in Canada devoted to science news. Founded in 1978, it has been active in print, radio, television, online blogs, and podcasts (Baladodiffusion). You can find their Twitter feed here.

I recently stumbled across ‘un balados’ (podcast), titled, 20%. Started in January 2019 by the magazine, Québec Science, the podcast is devoted to women in science and technology. 20%, the podcast’s name, is the statistic representing the number of women in those fields. “Dans les domaines de la science et de la technologie, les femmes ne forment que 20% de la main-d’oeuvre.” (from the podcast webpage) The podcast is a co-production between “Québec Science [founded in 1962] et l’Acfas [formerly, l’Association Canadienne-Française pour l’Avancement des Sciences, now, Association francophone pour le savoir], en collaboration avec la Commission canadienne pour l’UNESCO, L’Oréal Canada et la radio Choq.ca.” (also from the podcast webpage)

Does it mean anything?

There have been many developments since I started writing this series in late December 2019. In January 2020, Iran shot down one of its own planes. That error killed some 176 people , many of them (136 Canadians and students) bound for Canada. The number of people who were involved in the sciences, technology, and medicine was striking.

It was a shocking loss and will reverberate for quite some time. There is a memorial posting here (January 13, 2020), which includes links to another memorial posting and an essay.

As I write this we are dealing with a pandemic, COVID-19, which has us all practicing physical and social distancing. Congregations of large numbers are expressly forbidden. All of this is being done in a bid to lessen the passage of the virus, SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19.

In the short term at least, it seems that much of what I’ve described in these five parts (and the addendum) will undergo significant changes or simply fade away.

As for the long term, with this last 10 years having hosted the most lively science culture scene I can ever recall, I’m hopeful that science culture in Canada will do more than survive but thrive.

For anyone who missed them:

Part 1 covers science communication, science media (mainstream and others such as blogging) and arts as exemplified by music and dance: The decade that was (2010-19) and the decade to come (2020-29): Science culture in Canada (1 of 5).

Part 2 covers art/science (or art/sci or sciart) efforts, science festivals both national and local, international art and technology conferences held in Canada, and various bar/pub/café events: The decade that was (2010-19) and the decade to come (2020-29): Science culture in Canada (2 of 5).

Part 3 covers comedy, do-it-yourself (DIY) biology, chief science advisor, science policy, mathematicians, and more: The decade that was (2010-19) and the decade to come (2020-29): Science culture in Canada (3 of 5)

Part 4 covers citizen science, birds, climate change, indigenous knowledge (science), and the IISD Experimental Lakes Area: The decade that was (2010-19) and the decade to come (2020-29): Science culture in Canada (4 of 5)

*”for-profit publisher, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP)” corrected to “not-for-profit publisher, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP)” and this comment “Not bad for a for-profit business, eh?” removed on April 29, 2020 as per Twitter comments,

Canadian Science Publishing @cdnsciencepub

Hi Maryse, thank you for alerting us to your blog. To clarify, Canadian Science Publishing is a not-for-profit publisher. Thank you as well for sharing our image contest. We’ve updated the contest page to indicate that the contest opens July 2020!

10:01am · 29 Apr 2020 · Twitter Web App

Emerging technology and the law

I have three news bits about legal issues that are arising as a consequence of emerging technologies.

Deep neural networks, art, and copyright

Caption: The rise of automated art opens new creative avenues, coupled with new problems for copyright protection. Credit: Provided by: Alexander Mordvintsev, Christopher Olah and Mike Tyka

Presumably this artwork is a demonstration of automated art although they never really do explain how in the news item/news release. An April 26, 2017 news item on ScienceDaily announces research into copyright and the latest in using neural networks to create art,

In 1968, sociologist Jean Baudrillard wrote on automatism that “contained within it is the dream of a dominated world […] that serves an inert and dreamy humanity.”

With the growing popularity of Deep Neural Networks (DNN’s), this dream is fast becoming a reality.

Dr. Jean-Marc Deltorn, researcher at the Centre d’études internationales de la propriété intellectuelle in Strasbourg, argues that we must remain a responsive and responsible force in this process of automation — not inert dominators. As he demonstrates in a recent Frontiers in Digital Humanities paper, the dream of automation demands a careful study of the legal problems linked to copyright.

An April 26, 2017 Frontiers (publishing) news release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, describes the research in more detail,

For more than half a century, artists have looked to computational processes as a way of expanding their vision. DNN’s are the culmination of this cross-pollination: by learning to identify a complex number of patterns, they can generate new creations.

These systems are made up of complex algorithms modeled on the transmission of signals between neurons in the brain.

DNN creations rely in equal measure on human inputs and the non-human algorithmic networks that process them.

Inputs are fed into the system, which is layered. Each layer provides an opportunity for a more refined knowledge of the inputs (shape, color, lines). Neural networks compare actual outputs to expected ones, and correct the predictive error through repetition and optimization. They train their own pattern recognition, thereby optimizing their learning curve and producing increasingly accurate outputs.

The deeper the layers are, the higher the level of abstraction. The highest layers are able to identify the contents of a given input with reasonable accuracy, after extended periods of training.

Creation thus becomes increasingly automated through what Deltorn calls “the arcane traceries of deep architecture”. The results are sufficiently abstracted from their sources to produce original creations that have been exhibited in galleries, sold at auction and performed at concerts.

The originality of DNN’s is a combined product of technological automation on one hand, human inputs and decisions on the other.

DNN’s are gaining popularity. Various platforms (such as DeepDream) now allow internet users to generate their very own new creations . This popularization of the automation process calls for a comprehensive legal framework that ensures a creator’s economic and moral rights with regards to his work – copyright protection.

Form, originality and attribution are the three requirements for copyright. And while DNN creations satisfy the first of these three, the claim to originality and attribution will depend largely on a given country legislation and on the traceability of the human creator.

Legislation usually sets a low threshold to originality. As DNN creations could in theory be able to create an endless number of riffs on source materials, the uncurbed creation of original works could inflate the existing number of copyright protections.

Additionally, a small number of national copyright laws confers attribution to what UK legislation defines loosely as “the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken.” In the case of DNN’s, this could mean anybody from the programmer to the user of a DNN interface.

Combined with an overly supple take on originality, this view on attribution would further increase the number of copyrightable works.

The risk, in both cases, is that artists will be less willing to publish their own works, for fear of infringement of DNN copyright protections.

In order to promote creativity – one seminal aim of copyright protection – the issue must be limited to creations that manifest a personal voice “and not just the electric glint of a computational engine,” to quote Deltorn. A delicate act of discernment.

DNN’s promise new avenues of creative expression for artists – with potential caveats. Copyright protection – a “catalyst to creativity” – must be contained. Many of us gently bask in the glow of an increasingly automated form of technology. But if we want to safeguard the ineffable quality that defines much art, it might be a good idea to hone in more closely on the differences between the electric and the creative spark.

This research is and be will part of a broader Frontiers Research Topic collection of articles on Deep Learning and Digital Humanities.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Deep Creations: Intellectual Property and the Automata by Jean-Marc Deltorn. Front. Digit. Humanit., 01 February 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fdigh.2017.00003

This paper is open access.

Conference on governance of emerging technologies

I received an April 17, 2017 notice via email about this upcoming conference. Here’s more from the Fifth Annual Conference on Governance of Emerging Technologies: Law, Policy and Ethics webpage,

The Fifth Annual Conference on Governance of Emerging Technologies:

Law, Policy and Ethics held at the new

Beus Center for Law & Society in Phoenix, AZ

May 17-19, 2017!

Call for Abstracts – Now Closed

The conference will consist of plenary and session presentations and discussions on regulatory, governance, legal, policy, social and ethical aspects of emerging technologies, including (but not limited to) nanotechnology, synthetic biology, gene editing, biotechnology, genomics, personalized medicine, human enhancement technologies, telecommunications, information technologies, surveillance technologies, geoengineering, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and robotics. The conference is premised on the belief that there is much to be learned and shared from and across the governance experience and proposals for these various emerging technologies.

Keynote Speakers:

Gillian HadfieldRichard L. and Antoinette Schamoi Kirtland Professor of Law and Professor of Economics USC [University of Southern California] Gould School of Law

Shobita Parthasarathy, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Women’s Studies, Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program University of Michigan

Stuart Russell, Professor at [University of California] Berkeley, is a computer scientist known for his contributions to artificial intelligence

Craig Shank, Vice President for Corporate Standards Group in Microsoft’s Corporate, External and Legal Affairs (CELA)

Plenary Panels:

Innovation – Responsible and/or Permissionless

Ellen-Marie Forsberg, Senior Researcher/Research Manager at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences

Adam Thierer, Senior Research Fellow with the Technology Policy Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Wendell Wallach, Consultant, ethicist, and scholar at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics

 Gene Drives, Trade and International Regulations

Greg Kaebnick, Director, Editorial Department; Editor, Hastings Center Report; Research Scholar, Hastings Center

Jennifer Kuzma, Goodnight-North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation Distinguished Professor in Social Sciences in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) and co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society (GES) Center at North Carolina State University

Andrew Maynard, Senior Sustainability Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability Director, Risk Innovation Lab, School for the Future of Innovation in Society Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University

Gary Marchant, Regents’ Professor of Law, Professor of Law Faculty Director and Faculty Fellow, Center for Law, Science & Innovation, Arizona State University

Marc Saner, Inaugural Director of the Institute for Science, Society and Policy, and Associate Professor, University of Ottawa Department of Geography

Big Data

Anupam Chander, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law and Director, California International Law Center, UC Davis School of Law

Pilar Ossorio, Professor of Law and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin, School of Law and School of Medicine and Public Health; Morgridge Institute for Research, Ethics Scholar-in-Residence

George Poste, Chief Scientist, Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative (CASI) (http://www.casi.asu.edu/), Regents’ Professor and Del E. Webb Chair in Health Innovation, Arizona State University

Emily Shuckburgh, climate scientist and deputy head of the Polar Oceans Team at the British Antarctic Survey, University of Cambridge

 Responsible Development of AI

Spring Berman, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University

John Havens, The IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems

Subbarao Kambhampati, Senior Sustainability Scientist, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, Professor, School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University

Wendell Wallach, Consultant, Ethicist, and Scholar at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics

Existential and Catastrophic Ricks [sic]

Tony Barrett, Co-Founder and Director of Research of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute

Haydn Belfield,  Academic Project Administrator, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge

Margaret E. Kosal Associate Director, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology

Catherine Rhodes,  Academic Project Manager, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at CSER, University of Cambridge

These were the panels that are of interest to me; there are others on the homepage.

Here’s some information from the Conference registration webpage,

Early Bird Registration – $50 off until May 1! Enter discount code: earlybirdGETs50

New: Group Discount – Register 2+ attendees together and receive an additional 20% off for all group members!

Click Here to Register!

Conference registration fees are as follows:

  • General (non-CLE) Registration: $150.00
  • CLE Registration: $350.00
  • *Current Student / ASU Law Alumni Registration: $50.00
  • ^Cybsersecurity sessions only (May 19): $100 CLE / $50 General / Free for students (registration info coming soon)

There you have it.

Neuro-techno future laws

I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first exploration of potential legal issues arising from research into neuroscience although it’s the first one I’ve stumbled across. From an April 25, 2017 news item on phys.org,

New human rights laws to prepare for advances in neurotechnology that put the ‘freedom of the mind’ at risk have been proposed today in the open access journal Life Sciences, Society and Policy.

The authors of the study suggest four new human rights laws could emerge in the near future to protect against exploitation and loss of privacy. The four laws are: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity and the right to psychological continuity.

An April 25, 2017 Biomed Central news release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, describes the work in more detail,

Marcello Ienca, lead author and PhD student at the Institute for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Basel, said: “The mind is considered to be the last refuge of personal freedom and self-determination, but advances in neural engineering, brain imaging and neurotechnology put the freedom of the mind at risk. Our proposed laws would give people the right to refuse coercive and invasive neurotechnology, protect the privacy of data collected by neurotechnology, and protect the physical and psychological aspects of the mind from damage by the misuse of neurotechnology.”

Advances in neurotechnology, such as sophisticated brain imaging and the development of brain-computer interfaces, have led to these technologies moving away from a clinical setting and into the consumer domain. While these advances may be beneficial for individuals and society, there is a risk that the technology could be misused and create unprecedented threats to personal freedom.

Professor Roberto Andorno, co-author of the research, explained: “Brain imaging technology has already reached a point where there is discussion over its legitimacy in criminal court, for example as a tool for assessing criminal responsibility or even the risk of reoffending. Consumer companies are using brain imaging for ‘neuromarketing’, to understand consumer behaviour and elicit desired responses from customers. There are also tools such as ‘brain decoders’ which can turn brain imaging data into images, text or sound. All of these could pose a threat to personal freedom which we sought to address with the development of four new human rights laws.”

The authors explain that as neurotechnology improves and becomes commonplace, there is a risk that the technology could be hacked, allowing a third-party to ‘eavesdrop’ on someone’s mind. In the future, a brain-computer interface used to control consumer technology could put the user at risk of physical and psychological damage caused by a third-party attack on the technology. There are also ethical and legal concerns over the protection of data generated by these devices that need to be considered.

International human rights laws make no specific mention to neuroscience, although advances in biomedicine have become intertwined with laws, such as those concerning human genetic data. Similar to the historical trajectory of the genetic revolution, the authors state that the on-going neurorevolution will force a reconceptualization of human rights laws and even the creation of new ones.

Marcello Ienca added: “Science-fiction can teach us a lot about the potential threat of technology. Neurotechnology featured in famous stories has in some cases already become a reality, while others are inching ever closer, or exist as military and commercial prototypes. We need to be prepared to deal with the impact these technologies will have on our personal freedom.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology by Marcello Ienca and Roberto Andorno. Life Sciences, Society and Policy201713:5 DOI: 10.1186/s40504-017-0050-1 Published: 26 April 2017

©  The Author(s). 2017

This paper is open access.

Nanotechnology Policy and Regulation in Canada, Australia, the European Union, the UK, and the US: a timeline for us all

The Timeline: Nanotechnology Policy and Regulation in Canada, Australia, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States (PDF; h/t July 10, 2014 news item on Nanowerk) issued by the University of Ottawa’s Institute for Science, Society and Policy (ISSP) takes as its starting point the invention of the field emission microscope in 1936 by Erwin Wilhelm Müller.

This fascinating 40 pp document seems comprehensive to me. While the title suggests otherwise, there are a few mentions of events involving Asian countries and they also include the Berkeley bylaw governing nanotechnology manufacture in the city. From the Timeline, p. 16 (Note: The formatting has been changed significantly),

The City of Berkeley (US)
December 2006

The Berkeley Municipal Code is amended to introduce new measures regarding manufactured nanomaterial health and safety

These amendments require facilities that manufacture or use nanomaterials to disclose in writing which nanomaterials are being used as well as the current toxicology of the materials reported (to the extent known) and to further describe how the facility will safely handle, monitor, contain, dispose, track inventory, prevent releases and mitigate such materials.

Berkeley is currently the only municipal government in the United States to regulate nanotechnology

While searching a month ago (June 2014), I was having difficulty finding information online about the Berkeley bylaw, so this was a delightful surprise.

There is (arguably) an omission and that is the Yale Law School Cultural Cognition Project. The Yale researchers have done some influential work about emerging technologies, including a special nanotechnology project devised in the aftermath of the Berkeley bylaw. Their focus then and now has been on public perceptions and attitudes as they affect policy.

Given how many public perception projects there have been and the timeline’s specific focus on regulation and policy, it’s understandable that not many have been included in the timeline.

Still, I was curious to see if the 2012 nanosunscreen debacle in Australia would be included in the timeline. It was not and, given that this incident didn’t directly involve policy or regulation, it’s understandable. Still, I would like to suggest its inclusion in future iterations. (For the curious, my Feb. 9, 2012 posting titled: Unintended consequences: Australians not using sunscreens to avoid nanoparticles? offers a summary and links to this story about an Australian government survey and some unexpected and dismaying results.)

The timeline appears to have a publication date of April 2014 and was compiled by Alin Charrière and Beth Dunning. It is a ‘living’ document so it will be updated in the future. If you have any comments, issp@uottawa.ca. (I will be sending mine soon.)

It is one of a series which includes two other technologies, Synthetic biology and Bioenergy, at this point (July 10, 2014). You can go here for more about the ISSP.

Finally, bravo and bravo to Charrière and Dunning for a job well done.

Situating Science and the future

The end is in sight (2014) for Canada’s Situating Science; Science in Human Contexts network or rather,  the organization’s funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) will be exhausted sometime soon. According to their Fall 2013 newsletter, they are making plans for the future,

I. SUSTAINING THE NETWORK AND ACTIVITIES BEYOND 2014
While this year is the last for the Situating Science SSHRC Strategic Knowledge Cluster, it is an opportunity to celebrate and build upon our successes. As part of our plans, we will follow up on last year’s “think-tank” and management meetings to set out concrete plans for sustaining the network and activities of Cluster scholars beyond its 7 years. A number of Cluster partners and stakeholders will meet during a second “think-tank” to discuss best strategies for moving forward.

The “think-tank” will dovetail nicely with a special symposium in Ottawa on Science and Society Oct. 21-23. For this symposium, the Cluster is partnering with the Institute for Science, Society and Policy to bring together scholars from various disciplines, public servants and policy workers to discuss key issues at the intersection of science and society. [emphasis mine]  The discussions will be compiled in a document to be shared with stakeholders and the wider public.

The team will continue to seek support and partnerships for projects within the scope of its objectives. Among our top priorities are a partnership to explore sciences, technologies and their publics as well as new partnerships to build upon exchanges between scholars and institutions in India, Singapore and Canada.

There’s not much information about the Science & Society symposium (mentioned in the excerpt from the newsletter)  being held Oct. 21-23, 2013 in Ottawa other than this, from the About page (the text seems as if it was lifted out of a grant proposal),

Science and Society 2013 Symposium
Emerging Agendas for Citizens and the Sciences
From the evening of Mon. Oct. 21 through Wed. Oct. 23, 2013
University of Ottawa
scienceandsociety2013@gmail.com

What?

The Mission of the symposium is to create an open forum, in the Nation’s capital, to understand and address the key issues at the interface of science, technology, society and policy. The event will display the importance of connecting disparate themes and will bring together groups not usually in contact to discuss subjects of common interest and brainstorm solutions to common challenges. It will demonstrate that collaboration among academics, students, policy makers, stakeholders and the public at large can lead to new insights, new perspectives, and a deeper understanding of the social implications of science and technology.  It will also make the discussion of science more prominent in the national dialogue.

The symposium will be a major event in Ottawa during National Science and Technology Week. It is a collaboration between the Situating Science Strategic Knowledge Cluster and Institute for Science, Society and Policy (ISSP).

Fostering dialogue between scholars, students, public servants and the general public will not only shed new light on the common challenges and opportunities facing these groups but will also point the way towards novel solutions and courses of action.

The uniqueness of the symposium consists in its aim to provide recommendations on how to envision and improve the science-society interface.  As part of their involvement in the event, all speakers and participants will be asked to address the following question:

How can we understand and improve the interplay between science and society, and improve science policies for the future?

On the basis of the debate and answers, a results document will be created in which the potentially diverging views of different groups will be analyzed and distributed among media and key decision makers.

Science and Society 2013 aims to connect different communities and uncover common goals, competing concerns and the possibility of joint strategies. It will involve and reach out to practitioners from various sectors, academics of diverse disciplines and an increasingly interested public.  At its broadest level it will explore the relationships between public policy, scientific research and the study of science itself – including but limited to how these inform one another.

The symposium will have an academic component during much of the day; and a public component designed for a truly broad audience and potentially involving additional collaborators.

How?

The proposed Session Themes include:
Science and Democracy; Value-Laden Science; International Lessons in Science Policy; Citizen Science; Technology and Media; Responsible Innovation and the Future of Technology; Art, Science and Technology; Open Science; Government Science; Education and the Culture of Science; and Innovation and Society.

The event will produce the following outcomes:

  • New media and political interest, in particular with respect to key issues (e.g. muzzling scientists, evidence-based decision making, the importance of public science);
  • A results document, published by the ISSP, summarizing key insights regarding science and society for distribution among media and key decision makers;
  • New thinking and debate among scholars, policymakers, scientists, students and the public;
  • New networks;
  • Dissemination of conference content in print and/or www formats and/or video/podcast/live streaming;
  • Student training and engagement.

Why?

Science and technology shape our world. They present great promise but they are also the source of much controversy and social anxiety. Like never before, there is a need for broad and informed discussion of science and technology and their place in our society.

Yet the communities that engage in, benefit from, and seek to understand science and technology are often disconnected.  Their shared interests are often misunderstood, and their common goals overlooked.  This disconnect not only impoverishes our grasp of science and technology and their social implications but can also have negative consequences for the public good, particularly at a time when Canadian science faces such profound challenges.

Who?

The partners and co-organizers of the event are the Situating Science SSHRC Strategic Knowledge Cluster and the University of Ottawa Institute for Science, Society and Policy.

The Organizing Committee consists of:

  • Marc Saner, Director, Institute for Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa
  • Jeremy Geelen, Project and Public Affairs Manager, Institute for Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa
  • Dara Marcus, Student Event Organizer, Institute for Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa
  • Gordon McOuat, Director, Situating Science Strategic Knowledge Cluster, University of King’s College
  • Emily Tector, Project Coordinator, Situating Science Strategic Knowledge Cluster, University of King’s College.

Each partner has a proven track record of organizing events on science and society.
Situating Science, through the various conferences, symposium and public events it has supported across Canada with its many partners from different disciplines and sectors, has explored the social and cultural significance of science and technology.  And the ISSP has held and supported several events in Ottawa dealing with cutting-edge technologies and their social and political implications.

Both partners have brought diverse groups together before.  Each has its own networks, resources and strengths that align with select themes and audiences of the symposium.  The successful combination of these capacities will make Science and Society 2013 a multi-sectorial, multi-disciplinary event that addresses issues of concern to all Canadians.

The following organizations are current supporters:

The organizers expect approximately 60 participants at the event during the day, with a much larger audience at the public sessions.

Getting back to the Situating Science Fall 2013 newsletter, there will be a number of workshops and events across the country this fall,

ATLANTIC:
Can We Sustain the Plant, and Democracy too?
Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University
Oct. 3, 2013 7pm
Ondaatje Hall, Marion McCain Building, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS

Isaac Newton’s General Scholium to the Principia: Science, Religion and Metaphysics Tercentenary Workshop
October 24-26, 2013
University of King’s College, Halifax, NS

MONTREAL:

Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association Conference
UQAM, Montreal, Qc.
November 1-3, 2013

Fall Lecture Series at UQAM
All held at 12:30pm in Local N-8150, Pavillon Paul-Gérin-Lajoie, UQAM, Montreal, Qc.

Schedule:
Expérience et expérimentalisme chez John Dewey
Joëlle Zask, maître de conférences en philosophie, Université de Provence
September 11, 2013

Une fuite de phosgène à l’usine Tolochimie en 1973. Réflexions sur ce que contenir veut dire en matière de pollution atmosphérique ?
Florian Charvolin, Centre Max Weber et Université Jean Monnet
September 13, 2013

In the Kingdom of Solovia: The Rise of Growth Economics at MIT, 1956-1970
Mauro Boianovsky, Département d’économie, Universidade de Brasília
et Kevin Hoover (conférencier), Département d’économie et de philosophie, Duke University.
Coorganisée avec le Département  de sciences économiques de l’UQAM
December 6, 2013

Thomas Jefferson, Count Buffon, and a Giant Moose: When Natural History and History Collide?
Lee Dugatkin, Department of Biology, University of Louisville.
Coorganisée avec la Faculté de sciences de l’UQAM
December 13, 2013

Fall Lecture Series at McGill
Full details to be posted shortly.

Highlights:
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Director, Max-Plank Institute for the History of Science.
In partnership with the department of Social Studies of Medicine.

Steven Shapin, Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University.
In conjunction with McGill’s Mossman Lecture.

Liquid Intelligence and the Aesthetics of Fluidity Workshop
October 25-26, 2013
McCord Museum, McGill University, Montreal, Qc.

ONTARIO:

Reading Artifacts Summer Institute
August 19-23, 2013
Canadian Science and Technology Museum, Ottawa, Ont.

Science and Society Symposium
Oct. 21-23, 2013
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ont.

Technoscience Salon on Critical Itineraries
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.

Preliminary Schedule:
Celia Lowe, Anthropology, University of Washington
September 26, 2013

Kavita Philip, Women’s Studies, UC Irvine
November 8, 2013

Others confirmed:
Fa-Ti Fan, History, Binghamton University

Stacey Langwick, Anthropology, Cornell University

Alondra Nelson, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Columbia University

SASKATCHEWAN:

Connections and Communities in Health and Medicine Conference
Manitoba-Northwest Ontario-Minnesota-Saskatchewan (MOMS) & Society for the Social History of Medicine Postgraduate (SSHM) / Early Career History of Medicine (ECHM) Conference
September 12-14, 2013
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

ALBERTA:
More than Natural Selection: A Lecture Series on Alfred Russell Wallace
October 2-30, 2013 Wednesdays at 3:30pm
Tory Building 2-58, University of Alberta

Kathleen Lowrey, Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta
October 2, 2013

Robert Smith, Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta
October 9, 2013

Andrew Berry, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
October 16, 2013

Martin Fichman, Department of Humanities, York University
October 23, 2013

Christine Ferguson, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow
October 30, 2013

UBC [University of British Columbia]:
Details will become available online shortly.

IN THE WORKS:
Keep abreast of all the latest developments of events and activities online via our website and social media.

Planning for a national lecture series for late winter/early spring is underway. The focus of this series will be on the timely issue of science and evidence. The Cluster is also in the process of planning a special Cluster Summer Institute for next summer.

I have some news about the University of British Columbia and a Science and Technology Studies event for Fall 2013. Bruno Latour will be in Vancouver giving both lectures and seminars. There’s a lecture for which there are absolutely no tickets (but there will be a standby line)  on Monday, Sept. 23, 2013, from the Peter Wall Downtown Lecture Series event page (Note: Since this is an ‘event’ page, once the Bruno Latour lecture has been delivered, they will likely list the next lecture in their series on the page),

War and Peace in an Age of Ecological Conflict

The Vogue Theatre — Monday, September 23, 2013, at 7:30 pm

Tickets are now sold out. A standby line will be available the night of the event.

Dr. Bruno Latour is professor at Sciences Po Paris. Trained in philosophy, he has been instrumental in the development of an anthropology of science and technology. This field has had a direct impact on the philosophy of ecology and on an alternative definition of modernity. He has taught for many years in North American universities. Most of his books have been published with Harvard University Press. The most recently published is An Inquiry into Modes of Existence ‐ An Anthropology of the Moderns. All references and most articles may be found on www.bruno‐latour.fr. Bruno Latour gave the six Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion for 2013, under the title Facing Gaia, Six Lectures on the Political Theology of Nature, and was awarded the prestigious Holberg Prize for 2013 http://www.holbergprisen.no/en.

While politics has always been linked to geography, the Earth itself has largely been seen as playing a backstage role, the mere window-dressing for human intention and interest. With the advent of the epoch known as the ‘Anthropocene’, the Earth is no longer in the background, but very much in the foreground, in constant rivalry with human intentionality. In the meantime, human action has taken on a dimension that matches that of nature itself, and consequently the definition of geo‐politics has been transformed. Appeals to nature, therefore, do not seem to have the same pacifying and unifying effect that they did in earlier ecological movements. By drawing on anthropological and philosophical literature, this lecture will discuss this new geopolitical framework and show how the extension of politics into nature must modify our views on war and peace in the future.

About the Venue

Designed as a dual-purpose theatre to showcase both live performances and movies, the Vogue has been a preferred venue for performers, filmmakers, and audiences alike since 1941 and is prominent landmark of Vancouver’s theatre district.

The Vogue Theatre is located at:
918 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 1L2

Parking
The closest pay parking available is behind the theatre on the 900 block of Seymour St.

Accessibility
Wheelchair spaces are located to the right of the center aisle, on the orchestra level (row 19).

Other opportunities to see Bruno Latour in Vancouver include, from a July 10, 2013 posting on the UBC Geographer blog,

Sept 25 [2013]: STS seminar

BRUNO LATOUR, Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris
An Inquiry into Modes of Existence
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Location: TBA 10am-12pm
DAY’S SCHEDULE IN DETAIL
10-12pm Discussion with Bruno about An Inquiry into Modes of Existence (Harvard UP, 2013)
5:30pm Debate with Philippe Descola at MOA [Museum of Anthropology]
“Approaches to the Anthropocene”
Contact neil.safier@ubc.ca  if you have any questions about Bruno Latour’s visit to UBC

I offer one hint about contacting Neil Safier, he was not responsive when I sent a query earlier this summer (2013) about another public workshop  (Simon Schaffer of Leviathan and the Air Pump fame) so, you may need to send more than one query to get a response.

Returning one more time to Situating Science, for those who want to see the whole Fall 2013 newsletter, here’s the PDF.

Situating Science in Canada; excerpts from the Winter 2013 newsletter

Situating Science is a SSHRC (Social Science and Humanities Research Council) funded network for Canadian Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Philosophy and History of Science scholars amongst others who examine the social impacts of science both in the present and in the past. The network is in its seventh and final year of funding (sunsetting) although there are plans for the future as per its most recent newsletter. Here’s a brief description of Situating Science’s  recent activities along with a listing of activities taking place in various Canadian cities over the next several months, as well as, a hint about future plans, from the Winter 2013 newsletter,

Happy New Year!

It’s been a busy few months. Members of the Cluster are now able to present you with all the latest in this Winter 2013 newsletter. In this issue, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Strategic Knowledge Cluster, Situating Science: Cluster for the Humanist and Social Study of Science (www.situsci.ca) is pleased to update you on activities …

Given our past successes, Cluster members plan to move forward with a few grant applications to sustain and initiate partnerships and activities. Some partners and stakeholders met in October to begin the planning process for a national and international partnership to explore sciences, technologies and their publics. They also plan to arrange to meet again this year to concretize plans for a sustainable network and national centre.

The Cluster hopes to build upon partnership activities with scholars and institutions in Southeast Asia and India. Members are currently planning to seek support for a Canada-Southeast Asia and India partnership to explore cosmopolitanism and circulation of knowledge.

The Cluster Centre and its many and varied local partners kept Dr. Evelyn Fox Keller busy during her 3.5 week fall visit to Halifax as the Cluster Visiting Scholar. Her time here allowed her to research genotypic plasticity, biological information and mathematical biology on top of participating in several activities, including a public lecture on “Paradigm Shifts and Revolutions in Contemporary Biology”. She then continued to Montreal to present and discuss her work at McGill [University] and UQAM [Université de Québec à Montréal] (CIRST) [Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie] and then to Toronto for discussions at York University, a University of Toronto IHPST [Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology] Brown Bag colloquium and a Wiegand Memorial Foundation Lecture on “Self-organization and God.” Select videos and podcasts of her public events are available on our website.

Dr. Anne Harrington, professor of History of Science at Harvard University, came to the Cluster Centre in October for a packed history of medicine luncheon conversation on “Culture in the Brain and Under the Skin”. This was followed by a post-performance discussion of placebo effect and medical attitudes and treatments after an original 2b Theatre production of “The Story of Mr. Wright.” Other recently supported events and visiting speakers to the Cluster Nodes include the Reading Artifacts Summer Institute at the Canada Science and Technology Museum (CSTM); Toronto’s Technoscience Salon on Ecologies; Women in Science and Engineering Symposium at McGiIll University; Dr. Suzanne Zeller, Wilfrid Laurier University in Halifax; Dr. Arun Bala, National University of Singapore at York University; Dr. Michael Lynch, Cornell University at U. Alberta [University of Alberta]; and many more.

II. UPCOMING WORKSHOPS, CONFERENCES AND EVENTS    

All of our events are supported by a host of partners and some are recorded, streamed live online or blogged about. Please visit our website for more information.

Fri. January 25, 5 PM, University of Toronto: “Technoscience Salon: Queer(y)ing Technologies.”

Wed., Feb. 27-28, National University of Singapore: “The Bright Dark Ages: Comparative and Connective Perspectives.”

Fri. Mar. 22-23, UBC [University of British Columbia]: Workshop on “Bodies in Motion: Translating Early Modern Science.”

Mon. April 1- Th. April 4, Calgary [University of Calgary], Edmonton [University of Alberta], Vancouver [University of British Columbia]: Dr. Evelyn Fox Keller continues her Node visits out west as the Cluster Visiting Scholar.

Fri. April 5, U. [University] King’s College: “Aelita: Queen of Mars” screening with live music.

Fri. Apr. 26-27, McGill University: McGill Node supports the Indian Ocean World Centreconference on “Histories of Medicine in the Indian Ocean.”

Fri. May. 3-4, York University: Conference on “Materiality: Objects and Idioms in Historical Studies of Science and Technology.”

Fri. Jun. 7-9, 2013, University of Calgary: Workshop on “Where is the Laboratory now? “Representation”, “Intervention” and “Realism” in 19th and 20th Century Biomedical Sciences.”

Mon. Oct. 21-23, 2013, U. Ottawa: Conference on “Science and Society.” In partnership with University of Ottawa’s Institute for Science, Society and Policy and the Professional Institute for the Public Service of Canada.

V. BLOGS, VIDEOS AND PODCASTS

Blogs: A fascinating array of blog entries on summer, fall and winter workshops, lectures and events are now available on our website here: www.situsci.ca/blog.

The entries treat topics as diverse as

  • “The Women Question in Science: Women in Science, Engineering and Medicine Symposium (WISEMS) 2012”,
  • “The Play’s the Thing: Putting History of Science on Stage”,
  • “The story I hold about myself: the epistemology of Mr. Wright”,
  • “Narrative Theory, Historical Ethics, Sound Reasoning Through Pseudo-Science, and Testing Implicit Bias: a day at the WISEMS”,
  • “A Week with the Wonder Photo Cannon”,
  • “Reflections on Reading Artifacts Summer Institute 2012”,
  • “Gender and the Digital Silo: Cultures of Knowledge at Situating Early Modern Science Networks Workshop” and
  • “Notes on Caring in a Technoscientific World”. Please feel free to share and comment.

Videos and Podcasts: Videos and podcasts of events are constantly uploaded and announced on our website and via our social media. The latest uploads include:

Evelyn Fox Keller speaking on “Self-Organization and God”, “Paradigm Shifts And Revolutions In Contemporary Biology” and “Legislating for Catastrophic Risk”.

Heinrich von Staden’s HOPOS 2012 presentation entitled “Experimentation in Ancient Science?