“Reporter Nights” at SPS: Science Journalism in the Time of COVID-19 | Naomi Oreskes

Dr. Naomi Oreskes, author and Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University and Op-Ed Contributor to The New York Times, will join Claudia Dreifus, SPS Lecturer in Professional Studies and contributor to the Times Science section, for a virtual conversation regarding COVID-19.

Given the importance and relevance of the topic, SPS welcomes you to this class-in-session. While only selected students from the course will have the opportunity to engage with the presenters, all attendees will have the opportunity to submit questions for consideration in advance.

TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2020 | 7:10 P.M.

NAOMI ORESKES | DISTRUSTING SCIENCE: HOW WE GOT THIS PANDEMIC

Over the last twenty years, Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University, has been writing widely read books about the political consequences of distorting scientific knowledge.   

Dr. Oreskes' best-seller, "Merchants of Doubt," co-authored with Erik M. Conway showed how a group of prestigious researchers misled the public on the dangers of smoking to further an anti-regulation and anti-government political agenda.   

Her most recent work, "Why Trust Science?" was written as a response to the growing impact of climate change deniers and anti-vaccine activists.   

Published by Princeton University Press before the CoVid-19 pandemic took hold, Dr. Oreskes warned of the dangers of an increasing public distrust of science.   How much of the current pandemic can be attributed to this distrust of the knowledge of experts? What can the scientific community do to counter the false information spread by some political leaders and by some among the citizenry?

Naomi Oreskes will be interviewed by science journalist Claudia Dreifus, an instructor in the Masters of Sustainability Management program at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies and an adjunct professor of Technology and Media at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.  

She is the political and cultural interviewer of the New York Review of Books, The Daily.

RSVP here for Distrusting Science: How We Got This Pandemic

For questions, please contact Samantha Ostrowski, Interim Assistant Director, Graduate Programs in Sustainability Management and Science, at sostrowski [[at]] ei [[dot]] columbia [[dot]] edu (sostrowski[at]ei[dot]columbia[dot]edu).