Over 80 students and staff members of Imperial College, together with members of the local Jewish community, gathered Monday evening to hear Imperial Professor and TV personality Lord Robert Winston speak about his new book “Bad Ideas”, due for publication on February 18th.
In his latest book, Lord Winston takes a fresh look at man’s greatest discoveries and innovations and asks whether our dependence on science and technology has led us into a precarious situation which is doomed to become worse before it gets better.
As well as tracing the history and fall-out of our very worst ideas, this book also advocates the merits of scientific progress. For our drive to invent and improve the world around us is what, after all, makes us human.
Many Imperial students were present, and also students from other nearby colleges and universities. Imperial Mathematics student Mark Harris said that he was “very interested in his [Lord Winston’s] subject matter, and his examples were all thought provoking and presented in a way I had never thought of before”.
Professor Winston connected the ‘drive to invent’ to the first biblical commandment in Genesis (1:18), “be fruitful and multiply, fill the world and conquer it”. He explained the term “conquer it” as meaning that it is telling us to take control of science and harness the innovations that we come up with and use them for positive things.
“The talk was thought-provoking and well received, both by scientists and non-scientists” Rabbi Mendy Loewenthal, director of Chabad of South Kensington said.
As Adam Szerenyi, an undergraduate in finance at Budapest University, said: “he brought scientific concepts to a level that make them universally understandable”.
The event, held in Imperial College’s Electronic and Electrical Engineering building, was organised by Chabad – Lubavitch (UK).
Chabad – Lubavitch (UK) has long been active on university campuses in London, including Imperial College, with classes and social programmes. In 2008, the activities expanded to include a full time Chabad House in South Kensington, serving the needs of Jewish students and other locals.
Since their inception they have been extremely busy with holiday programmes, weekly packed Friday night Shabbat dinners, numerous lectures and much more.
For more information, visit www.chabadofsouthkensington.org
You got the posuk wrong – Genesis 1:28 not 1:18.
Good talk though!
Keep up your great work
What does this have to do with Chabad?