Monday, Nov 12 - Back Room
The Empiricist League presents: Bionic Science of Human Enhancement

Monday, Nov 12
7:00 pm in the Back Room

FREE / 21+

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Immortality! Cyborgs! Genetically enhanced supermen! The Empiricist League’s third FREE gathering will take place on Monday, November 12th at 7:15pm at Public Assembly (70 N. 6th St., in Williamsburg, Brooklyn). The program is as follows.

Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality

Jonathan Weiner is one of the most distinguished popular-science writers in the country: his books have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Scientific American. Mr. Weiner will speak to the Empiricist League about his latest book, Long for This World, and the motley array of scientists, researchers, and entrepreneurs who believe that human immortality is not only possible, but attainable in our own time.

More Human than Human: The Future of Brain/Computer Interfaces

Christie Nicholson produces and hosts Scientific American’s podcasts 60-Second Mind and 60-Second Science and is an on-air contributor for Slate, Babelgum, Discovery Channel and Science Channel. She is a Contributing Editor at CBS Interactive’s Smart Planet. She has spoken about technology and communication at MIT/Stanford VLAB, SXSW Interactive, Sundance Film Festival, the National Science Foundation, and the Space Studies Board of the National Academies. Ms. Nicholson will speak to the Empiricist League about the latest developments in brain/computer interfaces, including real life paraplegics-turned-cyborgs and the future of brain as machine.

Brave New World: The Promise and the Peril of Human Genetic Engineering

Daniel Grushkin is vice-president and co-founder of Genspace, the first-ever community biotechnology laboratory, and a journalist who covers the intersection of science, biotechnology and culture for publications including Businessweek, Fast Company and Discover. Wythe Marschall is a senior editor of the Atlas Obscura and of Pomp & Circumstance. He is the co-author of Suspicious Anatomy, an illustrated book of fake science, and the co-founder of the Hollow Earth Society. Mr. Grushkin and Mr. Marschall will speak to the Empiricist League about the promise of human genetic engineering to improve our strength and intellect, as well as its associated risks – from designer babies to human/animal hybridization.