Join Scientists for Palestine, the Bisan Center for Research and Development and the Center for Palestine Studies for the inaugural session of the Bisan Lecture Series (BSL) with George Smith (University of Missouri).
The Virology of Ideas—An Indispensable Pandemic
Abstract: “Ideas” (cultural innovations) are likened to viruses that proliferate through community infection, being subject to massive random variation and ruthless natural selection as they spread. “Variants of interest”—extremely rare cultural Omicrons—emerge unpredictably from global communities; they’re not the intellectual property of individual brains. Individual brains’ contributions depend on their residence in a global “ideosphere”—the cultural analog of an ecological biosphere. Injury to any part of the global cultural community, such as Israel has inflicted in Palestine, is an injury to the entire global community. Liberation from such injuries is a cultural as much as a political and moral imperative.
Speaker
George Smith is Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri. He is a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (2018). Read more.
About the Bisan Lecture Series (BLS)
The Bisan Lecture Series aims at the full integration of Palestine into the global learning community. It sponsors discourses on subjects of cultural, scientific, and societal importance by leading research experts and public intellectuals of varied heritage and viewpoints. The interactive webinars are free and open to the public, and recordings of each will be posted soon afterward. The BSL will take place every second Wednesday of the month at 12:00 US Eastern Time / 19:00 Palestine Time / 18:00 Central European Time during the academic year.
The Bisan Center for Research and Development which sponsors the Series and which gives it its name, is a non-governmental, nonprofit, democratic and progressive Civil Society Organization (CSO) that seeks to enhance Palestinian abilities and potentials for building an active civil and democratic community. It is one of the six prominent Palestinian civil society organizations designated as “terrorist organizations” by the Israeli Defense Minister on October 19, 2021. This baseless defamatory accusation targets organizations recognized for their professionalism and competence in the field of human rights through research, exchanges, advocacy and training activities.
For more information about the designation and it’s implications on the work of the six organizations, watch the recording of Conflating Human Rights Advocacy with Terrorism, an event hosted by the Center for Palestine Studies in fall 2021.
For more information about the Series and the Bisan Center for Research and Development, click here.