The Science of Liberty: How Liberalism Arose From Science and Sparks Prosperity
A Conversation With Timothy Ferris
Date: Thursday, Feb. 26
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: Stewart Center’s Fowler Hall
This event is free and open to the public with a general admission ticket.
Timothy Ferris is the author of a dozen books including “The Science of Liberty,” “Seeing in the Dark,” “The Whole Shebang” and “Coming of Age in the Milky Way,” which was translated into 15 languages and named by The New York Times as among the leading books published in the 20th century.
In his bestselling “The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature,” published in 2010, Ferris highlights the pivotal role that science plays at the core of liberty and free expression and as a precursor to a liberal society while also advancing and promoting economic prosperity.
His three documentary films — “The Creation of the Universe,” “Life Beyond Earth” and “Seeing in the Dark” — premiered in prime time on PBS.
Ferris produced the Voyager phonograph record, an artifact of human civilization containing music, sounds of Earth and encoded photographs launched aboard the twin Voyager interstellar spacecraft now exiting the solar system. He also was among the journalists selected as candidates to fly aboard the space shuttle in 1986.
Called “the best popular science writer in the English language” by Christian Science Monitor, Ferris has received the American Institute of Physics’ science-writing prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his works have been nominated for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
A former newspaper reporter and editor of Rolling Stone magazine, Ferris has written over 200 articles and essays for major publications. He also edited the anthologies “Best American Science Writing 2001” and the “World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics.”
A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Ferris has taught in five disciplines — astronomy, English, history, journalism and philosophy — at four universities. Currently, he is a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.
A native of Miami, Ferris earned bachelor’s degrees in English and communications from Northwestern University.
