Mark Turner Gives Dobson Lecture April 21

By Genevieve Shiffrar, March 31, 2003

One of today's most influential and interdisciplinary scientists is Mark Turner, Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland. Although it may seem odd that someone with a Ph.D. in English is shaking up the scientific community, Professor Turner is revolutionizing our understanding of human cognition while dissolving the borders between the sciences and the humanities.

The College of Letters & Science is pleased to announce that Professor Turner will be presenting this year's R. Lowry Dobson Memorial Lecture, "The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and Creative Social Thought." The lecture will begin at 4:00 p.m. Monday, April 21, 2003 in Sibley Auditorium in the Bechtel Center. Professor Turner will be introduced by Dean of Social Sciences George Breslauer.

In his talk, Professor Turner will offer a theory of the nature and emergence of cognitively modern human thought. He will discuss principles of everyday human creativity. This capacity for everyday creativity underpins the phenomena studied within the social sciences. Indeed, it makes them possible. In his view, social science is headed ineluctably for an alliance with cognitive science to create a field of "cognitive social science." He will sketch some possibilities for its future.

At the University of Maryland, Dr. Turner is a member of the English Department and the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program. He currently serves as the associate director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. In addition to his Ph.D. in English, his M.A. in Mathematics is from UC Berkeley.

In "The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language," Dr. Turner argues that narrative and parable are basic principles of human cognition. Human beings are essentially literary: the basic mental operations of narrative and parable "make everyday life possible."

Mark Turner has also argued for a merging of cognitive science and the social sciences in his book, "Cognitive Dimensions of Social Science: The Way We Think About Politics, Economics, Law, and Society." He summarizes as he argues, "... cognitive science and social science should be brought together under the umbrella of the study of backstage cognition, or, more specifically, the study of meaning, reason, choice, concept change, and concept formation, as they are subtended by human neurobiology and played out over the world's societies and cultures."

This presentation is part of a science-focused lecture series to commemorate Dr. Robert Lowry Dobson, a Berkeley alumnus, faculty member and research scientist. Dr. Lowry Dobson received an M.D. from UCSF in 1944 and a Ph.D. in biophysics at Berkeley in 1950. Over the course of his long and distinguished career, he studied the effects of radiation, especially low-level radiation, at Berkeley, in Switzerland for the World Health Organization, and at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The R. Lowry Dobson lectures are intended to address overarching issues—issues that beg us to "openly wonder, or worry, or even dream aloud, about the meaning of it all." Past R. Lowry Dobson speakers include neuroscientist Jim Hudspeth, theoretical physicist David Gross and astronomer Tom Gold. The series's focus on paramount issues is in keeping with Dr. Lowry Dobson's belief that immersing oneself in an atmosphere where great ideas are developed, discussed, and debated, is essential to live life completely.