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How is the "current belief" challenged in science? Does change in physics differ from, say, change in psychology? Does the era of "Big Science," such as huge particle accelerators and the Human Genome Project, stifle creativity? And what is the role of independent individuals? How do "paradigms" work in science, and has the term been overused or misused? Is science ever relative, somehow conditioned by the prevailing culture? We look at specific challenges to the status quo, such as the accelerating universe and the regrowth of human brain cells. 

Participants: Ayala, Churchland, Ferris, Gelman, Tyson

	Francisco Ayala was recently profiled in a major story in The New York Times as the "Renaissance Man of Evolutionary Biology." He is professor of biology and philosophy at the University of California at Irvine, where he specializes in evolutionary genetics, using DNA to track the path and flow of evolution. He has published 12 books and 650 articles. He is past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
	Patricia Smith Churchland is professor of philosophy at the University of California at San Diego, where she focuses on the foundations of neuroscience and psychology. She has written extensively on how empirical research in these sciences helps to solve, or to restructure, traditional problems in the philosophy of mind, and to explore the changes in our self-conception that such research may provoke. Books include: Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain; The Computational Brain; and The Mind-Brain Continuum.
	Timothy Ferris is the best-selling author of nine books, including Coming of Age in the Milky Way (winner of the American Institute of Physics Prize), The Mind’s Sky, and The Whole Shabang. He is emeritus professor at the University of California at Berkeley and is a frequent writer in national publications such as The New Yorker and Scientific American, and commentator for National Public Radio and PBS. He serves as a consultant to NASA on long-term space exploration policy.
	Rochel Gelman, professor of psychology at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where she specializes in cognitive and language development, and learning theory. She has been a leader in the study of the thought processes of infants and young children, particularly showing that infants possess an understanding of numbers. She has been instrumental in training developmental psychologists to probe the secrets of infant and child mind. She was named the 1998 recipients of the William James Fellow Award of the American Psychological Society (APS).
	Neil deGrasse Tyson is Visiting Research Scientist in the department of astrophysics at Princeton University. He is also Director of the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He is the author of several popular books on science, including Just Visiting This Planet and Universe Down to Earth.
	Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator and host of the Closer To Truth television series and author of the Closer To Truth book. Trained in brain research (Ph.D. UCLA), he has published more than twenty books, including the Handbook for Creative and Innovative Managers and the seven-volume Library of Investment Banking. He is the president of The Geneva Companies, a leading merger and acquisition firm for private, middle market businesses.
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