Dr. Trent Stephens
The Importance of Knowledge
Not only is knowledge the key to a more wealthy life, it is also the key to travel and a happier, more fulfilled life. This talk also covers brain function and addiction. Who’s in charge of your brain? Don’t be afraid to be intelligent.
Science Can Be So Much Fun
Schrodinger's cat was a thought experiment designed to cast aspersions on Einstein’s theory of relativity. Instead, it has become the poster child of quantum theory. The fun of thought experiments is that they don’t require any equipment or a bunch of federal funding. Students as
young as grade school can begin conducting thought experiments. Although many such experiments have been conducted by physicists for many years, few biologists have engaged – except for Charles Darwin, and that turned out very well. Schrodinger's cat was all about the box
holding the cat – no one has thought much about the poor cat itself. Newton’s thought experiment about apples dropping from trees led to the invention of calculus and gravity, but no one has given much thought to the apple.
Creation, Geologic Time, Evolution
How and where did creationism begin? How are its concepts related to scientific investigation? Why is time the greatest problem for creationism? How is it that light from that are 95,000 light years away could have been created only 6000 years ago? Genes and chromosomes help us
understand how all of life is connected.
D’Arcy Thompson, On Growth and Form, and the Future of Biology, 1917-2017
“On Growth and Form is the greatest work of prose in twentieth-century science.” Stephens J. Gould. D’Arcy Thompson said, “Cell and tissue, shell and bone, leaf and flower, are so many portions of matter, and it is in obedience to the laws of physics that their particles have been
moved, moulded and conformed. They are no exceptions to the rule that God always geometrizes…We have come to the edge of the world of which we have no experience, and where all our preconceptions must be recast.” D’Arcy Thompson, On Growth and Form, 1917. I address the impact of On Growth and Form upon my own research and upon my vision of futurebiological research.
State Standards
These presentations meet the following state education standards for high school students:
Social Studies
World History and Civilization
6-9.WHC.1.8.1 Find examples of how writing, art, architecture, mathematics, and science have evolved in civilizations over time.
6-9.WHC.1.9.1 Explain the relationship between religion and the peoples understanding of the natural world.
6-9.WHC.1.9.2 Explain how religion shaped the development of civilizations.
6-9.WHC.1.9.3 Discuss how religion influenced social behavior and created social order.
6-9.WHC.1.9.4 Describe why different religious beliefs were sources of conflict.
6-9.WHC.5.1.2 Explain the global consequences of major conflicts in the 20th century, such as World War I; World War II and the Holocaust; and the Cold War.
World Languages
Cultures
Relating cultural practices to perspective
Standard CLTR 1: Investigate, explain and reflect on the relationship between the practices and perspectives of the cultures studied in the target language.
Objective: CLTR 1.1 Analyze the cultural practices/patterns of behavior accepted as the societal norm in the target culture.
Objective: CLTR 1.2 Explain the relationship between cultural practices/behaviors and the perspectives that represent the target culture’s view of the world.