2021 Scientific Breakthroughs and Notable Advances

Most scientific findings or discoveries are often sedimentary, slowly building on the edifice of understanding. Rare is the idea that marks a fundamental change to a system of thought, forcing the rest of science to bend to its own vision. But, on November 25th 1915 Albert Einstein published a theory that did just that. Over one hundred years later, we’ll discuss several of the best scientific achievements that 2021 had to offer—to explore and gain some understanding of the frontiers of science.

Science Magazine is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and is one of the world's top scientific journals. The major focus of the journal is publishing important original scientific research and research reviews, but Science also publishes science-related news, opinions on science policy and other matters of interest to scientists, and others who are concerned with the wide implications of science and technology.

Science magazine, and the also popular Science News magazine, annually assess the major scientific advances in the preceding year, and look forward to potential advancements in the coming year. This SDG will explore several of 2021’s breakthroughs and advances in different scientific disciplines as reported in those magazines and their websites. Our group will discuss the science leading up to the breakthrough, and the potential implications, scientific, economic, legal and ethical, of the recent advances.

This SDG will be accessible to anyone interested in studying, discussing and appreciating the merits and implications of advances across the frontiers of science. Gaining an understanding of the various concepts, principles and applications is desired. Understanding the related or underlying detailed "equations," and their use is optional.

What's New at the Supreme Court

The New York Times Washington correspondent Carl Hulse argues in his book Confirmation Bias that the Republican nominee for president in 2016, Donald Trump, won the election in significant part because the Senate majority leader refused to consider President Obama's nominee Merrick Garland  to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. During his four year term, President Trump was able to nominate and see confirmed three new justices to that Court. Though the makeup and decisions of the Supreme Court have long been a key issue to Republicans, especially evangelicals, now more than ever both political parties recognize the significance of who is on the Court and the impact their decisions have on American life.

This SDG will look at some of the Court's recent decisions covering issues as disparate as a woman's right  to have an abortion to cases involving President Trump, and the actions of his administration. We will examine whether the pundits who decry the tearing down of the 'wall' separating church and state, the diminution of protections accorded people charged with crimes and the inability (under the doctrine of qualified immunity) of those individuals whose rights have been infringed  to obtain vindication are correct. We will analyze those cases where the Court has been willing to overrule prior precedents as well as those cases involving voting rights, including Rucho v. Common Cause, a case that could have ameliorated the deep divisions within Congress.

The Middle Ages Revisited, Reconsidered and Repeating?

This S/DG is based on the highly acclaimed 2021 book by Dan Jones, "Powers and Thrones, A New History of the Middle Ages."  In this S/DG we will look at how climate change, pandemic disease, mass migration and technology revolutionized the medieval world, and impacted peoples from Europe Asia, and the Middle East.  We'll meet intriguing characters along the way, including St. Augustine, Attila the Hun, Mohammed, popes, explorers and more. 

From the fall of the Roman Empire to the sack of Constantinople, law, art, architecture, philosophy and science went through massive changes.  Nations died and were recreated.  Today we are also impacted by the forces of climate change, migration and pandemics.  Consequently, it will be fascinating to learn about this era and discuss the relevance of the Middle Ages to our own time. 

Mark Twain: Voice of the Gilded Age and Father of American Literature

So much needs to be known about Samuel Clemens.  It is more than his fine books, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Innocents Abroad, Pudd 'n Head Wilson, The Prince and the Pauper, Roughing It, and many more.  We need the printer, the publisher, the lecturer, the philosopher, the humorist, riverboat pilot, world traveler, critic, as well as the author.  Our core book achieves that balance and goes beyond Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain by Kaplan.  Mark Twain created an American literature that endured. The history of Clemens' time as well as his influence on people's thinking.  Mark Twain has made the West and the World as places we should smile and appreciate.  His lecturing must have been imposing at the podium, cracking stories and sharp comments to the throngs who heard him speak.  No wonder Hal Holbrook wanted to re-enact parts of his life.

Our trip will occur as a literary and historical journey through the settling of the West, the advent of the Gilded Age (he coined the term), and the growing up of America (19th Century).  Why did Twain eventually locate in Hartford, Connecticut for his later years?  What was it like growing up in Hannibal, Missouri?  How would you have liked to ride on a riverboat with your Pilot Twain?  What was it like to write as a journalist in Nevada and look for the Comstock Lode around Carson City?  Why did Twain go bankrupt when he was so popular?  How could Twain have thought General Grant's autobiography would make a highly popular book?  Why was Adventures of Huckleberry Finn even banned in some schools during Twain's lifetime?  Why are his books not always appreciated by the "Woke" patrons?  Why are some of his books banned by selected public schools?  What bound up Clemens and America so closely?  What did Mark Twain mean to America (courtesy, Prof. Stephen Railton)?

My strong interest in Twain goes back to grade school and beyond.  My first black and white filml I saw was shown at a country town school auditorium, Huckleberry Finn.  I was entranced with the characterizations.  Then, I ended up reading every Classics Illustrated Comic on the Twain books.  Go ahead a few years to high school and early college, and I found and devoured Kaplan's book on Twain.  Over the years after college and teaching positions, I heard Hal Holbrook's rendition at Cal Tech or the Pasadena Auditorium, I believe.  I still admit to paraphrasing one of Twain's famous phrases, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Come and join us for a stimulating 14 weeks of the life of Mark Twain, the writings and influence of Twain, and the legacy he has left all Americans and the world.  It is a journey worth considering.  Ron Powers' book has been labeled by one critic:  . . . "this is one of the best American literary biographies to appear in many years."  The photos are beautifully reproduced in the Powers book.  The figments of Twain's mind become alive (Weekly Standard).  The author Powers even calls him America's Shakespeare.  

Cults and the Q-Anon Phenomenon

Our cultural landscape has changed with the advent and wide dissemination (thanks to social media) of Q-Anon. Traditional religious affiliation had been falling in the U.S. even before the pandemic, yet a 2021 poll revealed that if Q-Anon were a religion, "it would be as big as all white evangelical Protestants... up there with a major religious group.” Is Q-Anon--which started in America but has gained traction all around the world-- indeed the newest religion? Or is it an extremist ideology? A conspiracy theory? A cult? A cabal? Or simply an elaborate alternate reality game? Our "Cults and the Q-Anon Phenomenon" SDG will give participants a chance to tackle these questions.

Cults and conspiracy theories (such as the blood libel) have been around since the beginning of recorded history. Have you ever wondered what has made human beings -- across cultures and across time -- susceptible to beliefs that demonize and even aim to destroy targeted "others?" This SDG is concerned with this question as it relates to cults and conspiracy theories in general, and Q-Anon specifically.

We shall examine and discuss how phenomena like Q-Anon arise in the first place and what purposes they serve. Our examination will begin with a look at Social Identity Theory. We will then try to ascertain how groups like Q-Anon gather adherents (radicalization, unfreezing) and how these groups impact society at large (as well as their own members). Certain demographics-- namely women and "the wellness/yoga community"— (to the surprise of many), have been particularly vulnerable to the Q-Anon phenomenon. Why? We will try to answer this question.

As with all cults/ideologies, some adherents may become disaffected. We will research the causes of disillusionment and address how/whether the disaffected can successfully leave this group – or any cult, how others may find it difficult to leave, and finally, what may potentially await former members once they separate from the group.

We hope you will join in exploring "Cults and the Q-Anon Phenomenon." 

NYC Architecture: Art Deco, Modernist, Brutalist and Beyond

New York City has a rich architectural legacy that contains innovative designs in virtually every style, including famous works by Frank Lloyd Wright, I.M. Pei and Frank Gehry. Each successive generation of architects has produced imaginative and iconic architecture for New York. This SDG will examine outstanding examples of urban architecture from the Twentieth and Twenty-First centuries, including Art Deco, Modernist, Brutalist, International and Contemporary masterpieces. We will read the American Institute of Architects Guide to New York City (Oxford University Press 2020) and How to Read New York: A Crash Course on New York Architecture (Rizzoli 2012). Participants will study pertinent architects and SDG topics using the core texts and online resources. (Second 7 weeks).

Time and Reality

What is Time? Time is a mysterious and fascinating concept humans in the history of mankind. Is time real, is time an illusion and if it is real how do you measure it? If it is an illusion how do you define it? In the Network of Time the author tries to understand the concept of time through Philosophy, History and Physics. Using plain language and little or no mathematics the author elaborates on Stephen Hawkins' A Brief history of Time. This SDG will use both books to study mankind's the concept of time through history and effects on societies.

Heartfelt Cinema

Films tell stories, often stories about love: who loves; who is loved; how the absence of love or presence of love affects us; what happens when loving goes well or goes wrong; how love is found; how love is lost.  In this SDG we will watch and talk about Heartfelt Cinema--about films that portray love.

Here are five of the fourteen films: In the movie “Tomorrow” is a lonely man who gets an unexpected gift, and gives a gift. “Dodsworth” is a pre-code film about an older husband and wife who are looking for love, or not, and are finding it, or not. In “Rumble Fish” the younger brother loves and idolizes his older brother, but the older brother knows better. “Cat People” is a fantasy that postulates love and sex as being transformative, but in a way no one wants. In “Leave Her to Heaven” love leads to jealousy, jealousy leads to hate, hatred leads to murder, murder leads to... 

We will watch these films and ten more. Come, join in the SDG, and talk about love. 

The Iliad

Almost 3000 years ago a Greek poet sung one of the greatest stories ever told and it remains the beginning of Western Literature. It took the singer over 15,000 lines of hexameter verse to tell the epic story of Greece vs. Troy. Romance, vengeance, politics, religion and a ten-year war, ostensibly because a woman left her husband for another man. Characters like Helen of Troy and the Greek hero Achilles have affected literature, art, and film down to the present day. With a cast of thousands, gods, heroes, and lots of blood on the battlefield, the Iliad is an astonishing panorama of pre-literate society in the eastern Mediterranean. Even Alexander the Great is said to have slept with a copy of the Iliad under his pillow while he was on campaign.

We now understand that the putative “author,” Homer, most likely began an illiterate singer who entertained Greek nobles with sections of his enormous creation. Only its oral beginnings can explain the method of composition, its use of repetition of scenes and long battle descriptions, the frequent formulas (“winged words”), and the poet’s use of epithets attached to individual characters.

We will read Robert Fagles’ translation of the Iliad as our core book, and consider a variety of themes as we proceed through the epic. We have suggested some topics for the weekly presenters, though of course you may find other interesting elements to explore including contemporary ramifications of the story.