‘Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future’

Climate change, the energy crisis, global pandemics, nuclear proliferation—many of the most urgent problems of the 21st century require science-based solutions. Yet Americans are paying less and less attention to scientists, and the disconnect between the scientific community and mainstream culture grows wider every day.

Chris Mooney—senior correspondent for The American Prospect magazine and author of The Republican War on Science—will present “Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future” on Wednesday, April 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Kelley Lecture Hall at Goucher College.

This event is free and open to the public, but tickets must be reserved at www.goucher.edu/tickets or by calling 410-337-6333. A question-and-answer session and book signing will follow.

Mooney is senior correspondent for The American Prospect magazine and a regular science contributor to The Huffington Post. He is also the author of four books, the New York Times best-selling The Republican War on Science; Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming; Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future; and his latest: The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—And Reality. 

He has contributed to a variety of other publications in recent years, including Wired, Science, Harper’s, Seed, New Scientist, Slate, Salon, Mother Jones, Legal Affairs, Reason, The American Scholar, The New Republic, The Washington Monthly, Columbia Journalism Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe. He is also a contributing editor to Science Progress.

Mooney has been featured regularly by the national media, having appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, CSPAN’s Book TV, and NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross and Science Friday, among many other television and radio programs.He also has been profiled by The Toronto Star and The Seattle Times, and he has been interviewed by many outlets, including Grist and Mother Jones.

Named one of Wired magazine’s top 10 “sexiest geeks,” Mooney has also been visiting associate in the Center for Collaborative History at Princeton University, a 2009-2010 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, and a Templeton-Cambridge Fellow in Science and Religion in 2010.

Mooney graduated from Yale University in 1999, where he wrote a column for the Yale Daily News. Before becoming a freelance writer, he worked for two years at The American Prospect as a writing fellow, then staff writer, then online editor and co-creator of the popular blog Tapped.

His appearance at Goucher is sponsored by the Office of the President, the departments of Communication and Media Studies  and of Environmental Studies, and the Elizabeth B. and David Allan Robertson Lectureship Fund.

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