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PRESS REVIEWS
Caltech 336 -
Shedding light on sociocosmic riddles, February
2, 2001
NationalGeographic.com -
feature article Multimedia Project Invites Discourse on Human Existence,
May 23, 2001.
Shedding light on sociocosmic
riddles
by Javier
Marquez
for Caltech 336
February 22, 2001, vol. 1, no. 4
What would it be like to sit in on conversations
between some of the greatest minds in the English-speaking world? And
contribute to those discussions and receive the impressions of other
participants? The producers of the television series Closer to Truth
wanted to know, so they created a multifaceted vehicle that allows viewers to
do this, and more.
Closer to Truth is, as the title suggests, an
attempt to approach a clearer understanding of perplexing questions about
society, the universe, and the relationship between the two. Some of these
questions have mystified thinkers and artists for centuries, while others have
risen only recently alongside scientific and technological advances.
During each show, a handful of experts are assembled
to discuss these universal themes, and the resulting interplay of ideas is
captured. In that roster of noted authors, researchers, and thinkers, Caltech
is primarily represented by Bruce Murray, professor of planetary science and
geology. The president of the Planetary Society and a pioneer in exploring the
solar system, Murray has appeared in five shows with titles such as "Will
the Internet Change Humanity?", "Can We Imagine the Far Future-Year
3000?", and "Will Intelligence Fill the Universe?"
Besides Murray, Caltech is represented by Vice
President and Provost Steve Koonin, who participated in the shows "Why Is
Quantum Science So Beautiful?" and "What Are the Great Questions Of
Science?" In addition, Vice Provost David Goodstein moderates an online
discussion based on the latter show.
According to Murray, "Closer to Truth is
an attempt to take on the dumbing down of America in the television world
because there is so little of substance there. These programs are
substantive."
The project is the brainchild of Robert Kuhn, a
Pasadena writer, investment banker, and business strategist. Kuhn serves as
the host and mediator of the half-hour programs. Always dapper in his dark
suit, he poses provocative questions and deftly directs the flow of answers to
keep the debates lively and engaging.
Closer to Truth's first season has produced a
comprehensive overview of grand questions that fall into broad themes. These
are Technology and Society, Creativity and Thinking, Health and Sex, Brain and
Mind, and Universe and Meaning. Every show takes a focused look at individual
topics that fall under these umbrella themes.
Those seeking answers, however, will have to look
elsewhere for definitive truths. "I think that part of the agenda here is
to expose the issue, not to resolve it," Murray said. "The
philosophy has been that you're not going to get convergence in these
discussions."
A side benefit to the debates, Murray noted, is that
they provide exposure for the collected guests. The show's question-and-answer
format, in a setting far from the lab and the classroom, presses the speakers
to express defend their positions as eloquently as they can. Each must also
tailor his or her message so that it is accessible to the layperson.
Murray stressed that the program's audience includes
not only the invited guests' peers and colleagues, but also the average
citizen who has pondered such questions. Because these questions address
concepts that affect scientists and non-academics alike, he added, the
potential audience for Closer to Truth is huge.
One aspect of the Closer to Truth project that
makes it distinct from so-called "knowledge affairs" programs is its
three-pronged media presence. Complementing the broadcast is an interactive
Web site (www.closertotruth.com) that contains much information as well as
streaming video and transcripts of previously aired shows. Furthermore, Kuhn
explores the issues in finer detail in the eponymously titled book that was
published last year.
Murray and Valerie Elachi, the Caltech-based
associate producer of CTT, maintain the project's Web site, which also offers
visitors opportunities for online expression of their views. The Web staff of
local PBS station KCET created the site.
"I think there is a long-term benefit in taking
high content quality in things like this and creating a really good Web
site," he said. "There's nothing in that set of 28 shows that's
obsolete this coming year. Those topics remain."
Murray's work on the site has given him the chance to
create and utilize a feature that provides a forum for viewer feedback and
response.
"I've had a parallel interest and secondary
career in trying to find ways to use new communication technology for serious
discourse," Murray said. One of those ways is a kind of online discussion
called HyperForum. This feature invites visitors to make their contributions
to four online discussions, the idea being that the conversations initiated by
the televised debates continue long after the credits roll.
While taping of this season's shows is currently being planned, possibilities
for the future are open. The Web site will also grow to include more topics in
the HyperForum, including a new one on parapsychology. Murray added that he is
actively forming relationships with other universities, research
organizations, and individual viewers to increase participation and raise the
discussions to new levels.
Multimedia Project Invites Discourse on Human Existence
By John Roach
for National Geographic News
May 23, 2001
Will the Internet change humanity? Why do we make music and art? Does sex have a future?
What will tomorrow really be like? Questions such as these lack simple answers, but open
discussion of them is vital to understanding the nature of human existence.
At least that's the theory of Robert Kuhn, an investment banker with a Ph.D. in brain science from the University of California in Los Angeles and a passion to use communications technology for intellectual discourse, not to sell advertising.
Kuhn's passion led him to form a partnership with KOCE, a public television station that serves southern California, to create Closer to Truth
- a multimedia enterprise in which artists, scientists, philosophers, and members of the general public discuss the fundamental scientific and ethical questions of modern times.
"We are looking at becoming the program of record for new knowledge," said Kuhn, "where new knowledge is presented and long-term implications discussed."
The project centers on 28 television shows that were taped in 1999. For each show, a panel of four or five experts on a given subject
- most of them well known in their fields - sit around a table and discuss one of the fundamental questions facing society.
In one show, Leon Lederman, director emeritus of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, and winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1988, joins a panel of men discussing why quantum physics is so beautiful.
Viewers can provide feedback after the shows through a related interactive Web site. One viewer of the show on physics, who described herself in an e-mail message as a "young woman interested in absolute knowledge," wrote to say she was "transfixed" by the discourse.
"The way they spoke of quantum mechanics, it was as if they were talking about a woman they had all shared a tremendous affair with," she wrote. "The way they waited as each man spoke of it, as if to compare the experience. That's why I watched so transfixed, wishing I were this thing
they described."
Tool for Serious Discourse
The shows, distributed by American Public Television of Boston, are fully funded by a foundation established by Kuhn, K2 Media Productions, at a cost of about U.S. $200,000. They began airing, in no particular order, on public television stations across the United States, and can also be viewed on the show's Web site through a format known as streaming video Closer to Truth.
Bruce Murray, a planetary scientist and geologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who has been a panelist in several of the shows, said a major strength of Closer to Truth is its integration with the Internet.
Murray helped Kuhn develop the accompanying Web site so the general public can participate in the discussions, through a Web tool known as a
HyperForum. "It is a moderated discussion conducted in non-real time," said Murray. "People have to take
time to think about what they are saying and use their real names."
The use of real names and a moderator, said Murray, helps insure that the discourse is not offensive and results in something that people find interesting to read. Visitors to the Web site can also participate in opinion polls and catch up on the latest news in science and technology
through a link to SciTech Daily Review.
"We do think the Closer to Truth Web site is an example of the best of what the Web is and can be a mechanism for serious discourse," said Kuhn. Future episodes, which the team hopes to tape later this year, will be even more integrated with the Web site, he added.
Targeting a Thoughtful Audience
Closer to Truth does not aspire to attract the large masses of viewers who regularly tune in to shows on commercial television such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire or Survivor. Instead, the show's producers want to reach what they believe is a growing segment of the population interested in the progression of ideas.
"We recognize that there is a majority of the American population that, when coming across a panel of four distinguished scientists discussing an issue, will not stick around long enough to find out what the issue is," said Mel Rogers, president of KOCE. "But there is a segment of the
population out there that will."
Public television stations, unlike commercial television, lack a system like Nielsen ratings to determine how many people tune in to Closer to Truth. But a local ratings survey of the Los Angeles area found that about 50,000 people had tuned in to a recent episode, said Rogers. And about 5,000 people visit the Web site each week.
"We want people to find us and grow with us," said Kuhn. "As the world becomes more
knowledge oriented, more and more people are going to have
discretionary time to consider important questions."
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