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CPU > Newsletter > 2005-2006 > 2/13/06 CPU NewsletterFebruary 13, 2006CPU EVENTS: John Mueller: Devils and Duct Tape: Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggeration (Wednesday, 02/15); ID: The Politics of Intelligent Design (Monday, 02/27) CPU EVENTS: 1. John Mueller: "Devils and Duct Tape: Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggeration" (Wednesday, 02/15) 2. ID: The Politics of Intelligent Design (Monday, 02/27) CO-SPONSORED EVENTS: 3. Mark Seddon, UN/NY Correspondent for Al-Jazeera International: "The Rise and Fall of Journalism - and The Rise of New Media" (Wednesday, 02/15) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. John Mueller: "Devils and Duct Tape: Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggeration" Date: Wednesday, 02/15 Description: John Mueller holds the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies, Mershon Center, and is professor of Political Science, at Ohio State University where he teaches courses in international relations. He is currently working on terrorism and particularly on the reactions (or over-reactions) it often inspires. His "A False Sense of Insecurity?" published in Regulation in 2004, gives some indication of his approach to the subject, and the ideas there are developed further in "Simplicity and Spook: Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggeration," International Studies Perspectives, May 2005, and in "Six Rather Unusual Propositions about Terrorism," Terrorism and Political Violence, Autumn 2005 . Mueller is the author of a book analyzing public opinion during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, War, Presidents and Public Opinion (Wiley, 1973) (called "a classic" by the American Political Science Review) and of Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (Basic Books, 1989) which deals with changing attitudes toward war. In a front page review of this latter book in the Sunday book section of the Washington Post, McGeorge Bundy commented, "Mueller makes you think, and his method of argument combines fresh insights with trenchant prose in a way that makes thoughtful reading agreeable." Mueller has also published Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War (University of Chicago Press, 1994) and Quiet Cataclysm: Reflections on the Recent Transformation of World Politics (HarperCollins, 1995). His Capitalism, Democracy, and Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery was published in 1999 by Princeton University Press. In his review in The Weekly Standard, David J. Silver writes, "Mueller's provocative book deserves a wide audience. . . . Mueller writes sharp, brisk, and witty prose that is unfailingly lucid." Mueller's book about international and civil wars, The Remnants of War, was published by Cornell University Press in 2004. Writing the The New Republic, Gregg Easterbrook called this book "brilliantly original and urgent." It was awarded the Lepgold Prize for the best book on international relations in 2004. Mueller has published scores of articles in such journals as International Security, American Political Science Review, Security Studies, Orbis, American Journal of Political Science, National Interest, Foreign Affairs, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Peace Research, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Foreign Policy, as well as many editorial page columns and articles in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New Republic, Reason, Washington Post, and New York Times. He has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Nobel Institute in Olso, Norway. Mueller is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, and has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has also received several teaching prizes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Monday, 02/27 Featuring: Rev. John C. Rankin is president of the Theological Education Institute (TEI) and Mars Hill Society of Hartford, CT. Raised an agnostic Unitarian and secular humanist before his conversion to a biblical worldview in 1967, he holds graduate degrees from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.Div.) and Harvard Divinity School (Th.M. Ethics and Public Policy). The author of the three volume series, First the Gospel, Then Politics., and host of the Mars Hill Forum series, John has been married since 1977, and he and his wife Nancy have four children. His website is: www.teinetwork.com. Barbara Forrest is the co-author with Paul R. Gross of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (Oxford University Press, 2004), which details the political and religious aims of the intelligent design creationist movement. She served as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the first legal case involving intelligent design, Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District, which originated in Dover, PA, and was resolved with a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs in December 2005. She is a member of the board of directors of the National Center for Science Education and the National Advisory Council of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She has appeared on Larry King Live and ABC's Nightline. Her radio interviews include NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow, Americans United's Culture Shocks with Barry Lynn, and Infidel Guy with Reginald Finley. She is a Professor of Philosophy in the Department of History and Political Science at Southeastern Louisiana University. Nick Matzke is a Public Information Project Director at NCSE. He has a double B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from Valparaiso University, and a Master's degree in Geography from U.C. Santa Barbara. He has a long-standing interest in evolution in a spatial context, particularly issues surrounding dispersal and convergence. Before coming to NCSE, he conducted extensive literature surveys on the origin of carnivorous plant traps and bacterial flagella. In the area of evolution and earth history education, Nick specializes in making the scientific literature accessible and understandable to the public, in order to rebut antievolutionist claims about the evolution of biological complexity. During the landmark "intelligent design" case Kitzmiller v. Dover, Nick spent a year working for the Plaintiffs' legal team, providing scientific advice and researching the creationist origins of the ID movement, work which eventually resulted in the discovery of the now-famous creationist drafts of the 1989 ID textbook Of Pandas and People (this episode was recently written up in Skeptic magazine). After his appointment at NCSE, he intends to enter a Ph.D. program, where he can work on the integration of bioinformatics, biogeography, and large-scale evolution. Joel Cracraft is Lamont Curator of Birds and Curator-in-Charge of the Department of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History. He received his B.S. (Zoology) from the University of Oklahoma, M.S. (zoology) from Louisiana State University, and his Ph.D. (biology) from Columbia University in 1969. He was on the staff of the University of Illinois, Chicago (Anatomy and Cell Biology) before coming to New York in 1992 as Curator of Ornithology. He also has professorial appointments in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology at Columbia University and in the Graduate Program in Biology at the City University of New York. His research interests are in systematic biology, biological diversification, and biogeography. Much of his current research focuses on the higher level systematics of birds, and the radiation of the large Australian endemic avifauna, including birds-of-paradise, using both molecular sequence and morphological data. He has written or edited books on phylogenetic systematics (1979, 1980), phylogenetic analysis of molecular data (1991), the biodiversity crisis (2000), the Tree of Life (2004), and the teaching of evolution (2005), in addition to over 150 scientific papers. He is a recipient of the Elliott Coues Award from the American Ornithologists' Union, and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a member of 14 professional societies and has held office or served on the board of many of them, including being President of the Society of Systematic Biologists and President of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (2004). Over the past decade he has been active in "biopolitical" efforts to promote systematics and biodiversity science, including Systematics Agenda 2000/US (co-chair), Systematics Agenda 2000 International (Steering Committee), Biodiversity Panel, President Clinton's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology, OSTP (member), and the international biodiversity science program Diversitas (Steering Committee). He also served as an advisor to the American Civil Liberties Union at the Arkansas creation trial in 1981. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Mark Seddon, UN/NY Correspondent for Al-Jazeera International: "The Rise and Fall of Journalism -- and The Rise of New Media" Date: Wednesday, 02/15 Description: Mark Seddon is the UN/NY Correspondent for the soon to be launched English language channel, Al Jazeera International. After years of reporting for the BBC and others, from countries such as pre-war Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, China, Israel and North Korea, Mark brings a unique insight into both West and East, Christian and Islamic, Capitalist and Communist. He offers a fresh persepctive into what motivates the developed and the developing world, with a special emphasis on the latest conflicts and some candid advice on what to do about them. Mark was a former Editor of Tribune and member of the UK Labour Party's ruling National Executive Committee, which brought him into close contact with many key players such as UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and leading political/diplomatic figures both West & East, over many years. Mark has never been afraid of controversy or challenging accepted wisdom. He will argue that it is the failure of all too many politicians and journalists to do just that which is polarising our planet in new and ever more dangerous ways. At the age of fifteen, Mark turned his back on his Conservative background, and joined the UK Labour Party. That move would eventually lead him to become the youngest ever Editor of the Labour supporting Tribune, formerly edited by amongst others, George Orwell. Mark's experiences give him an inside knowledge of the UK Government's key players, how the UK media works – and how it differs from the US media. He will reveal why he gave up an established journalistic career in Britain and come to work in America for Al Jazeera International. Topics: "The Clash of Civilisations; Will the 21st Century Really Be America's Century?" Will the first part of the 21st century be defined by a new cultural and religious battle between West & East? Has the old Cold war been replaced with a new hot war of terrorism, kidnapping and the spread of weapons of mass destruction? Can America police the World on her own, while ignoring the rise of the new economic giants, China, ndia and Brazil? Are we seeing the beginning of the end of the American Empire – and would that decline be a good thing for the World? Would America's critics be happy to live in a World dominated by a new power, China? "The Decline and Fall of Journalism – and The Rise of the New Media" The past twenty or so years has witnessed much closer Government 'supervision' of journalists in the West. This has coincided with fewer, but larger media corporations, helping to shape the news agenda. The scope for independent, investigative and campaigning journalism has steadily shrunk – so much so that some of the journalists who still practice their trade in the old way are sometimes seen as 'enemy combatants'. To remove yourself from the CPU mailing list, please visit http://www.cupolitics.org . DO NOT reply to this email. ### |