The UBC Faculty of Arts has jumped on the popular ‘big ideas’ concept and given it a decidedly Arts-focused bent. Six professors have just 10 minutes each to present an idea that changed their world.  Everything from Music to Economics, Philosophy to Political Science and First Nations Studies to Psychology are included in this thought-provoking forum.

Place: Buchanan Block A, Lecture Hall 101 1866 Main Mall
Time:  6 – 7 pm  Doors open at 5:30 pm

Free. Everyone welcome.

Patrick Francois – Economics
“Markets and Morality:  What effect does market competition have on people’s pro-sociality?”
Historically, social scientists have argued for both good and bad effects of markets on individual behaviour. But only recently have we been able to bring evidence to bear on it. I’ll explore a bit of that evidence, and discuss what it implies.

Joe Henrich – Economics, Psychology
“How Culture Drove Human Evolution.”
Explaining the origins of human nature, from our fancy brains to our altruistic sentiments, requires understanding culture. Deep in our species’ evolutionary history, cultural evolution created novel selection pressures that began to built our minds and bodies in unique ways, gradually producing the only ultra-cultural species. Biology shaped culture, and then culture shaped our biology.

Kathryn Harrison – Political Science
“The green invisible hand: Using markets to solve today’s environmental challenges.”
Climate change represents a failure of free markets on a global scale. When buyers and sellers engage in financial transactions that increase their welfare, they neglect the associated costs imposed on the rest of society and on future generations.  While some would argue that capitalism is the problem, an alternative solution is to rely on self-interest and market mechanisms to fix the failures of the market.  Policies such as cap and trade and carbon taxes create a “green invisible hand” that may provide the solution to our environmental problems.

Rena Sharon – Music  
“Art Song – Rescuing an Endangered Musical Species”
The urge to fuse words to musical pitches  – to sing a song – is universal. Our stories are captured and passed through generations of song. But what if a global archive of songs was at risk of disappearing? What is lost when a whole species of song vanishes?

Andrew Irvine – Philosophy
“Thinking the Impossible”
Intellectual advances often come by discovering that something once thought impossible turns out to be possible. But how do we distinguish between things merely thought to be impossible and things that really are impossible? Or is there a difference? Is it possible to think rationally about impossible things? (It turns out that the answer is Yes.)

Sheryl Lightfoot – First Nations Studies Program, Political Science
“Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, passed by the United Nations in 2007 and endorsed by Canada and the US in 2010, is intended to serve as a guiding framework for fair and just relationships between governments and Indigenous peoples.  Implementing the Declaration in North America, however, will require significant changes in current Canadian and American policies and practices.

UPDATE:
An audio podcast of this talk is now available below.

ThisHourHas6Ideas by UBC Faculty of Arts