Alderman Stacks

Information and Disinformation

The twenty-first century has seen an unprecedented proliferation of information and of the technologies people use to process that information. The enlightenment promised the potential of greater mastery of the environment and decisions with more and better information. We drown in data, yet we can’t seem to agree on basic facts. After all the recent changes we seem no closer to solving the great problems facing the Earth or the human species. This Forum will examine from a wide array of positions and disciplines how we have arrived at this condition and how we might live better with all this information and all these technologies. The courses that inform this forum examine the tools and methods of data science, computer science, and the natural sciences. By delving into the social and human sciences, the Forum would range across issues and fields of study such as privacy, literacy, visual culture, intellectual property, intellectual history, philosophy of science, ethics, law, and policy.