It was a calculated risk, putting science first.
While the sixth annual ideaCity05 conference saw brilliant speakers from a wide range of disciplines — art, design, social studies, health, education — founder Moses Znaimer decided to start each morning with hard science.
Even after an extra-large coffee, that can be hard to take at 9:00 a.m. But the audience, made up of influential business, politics and entertainment leaders, remained rapt throughout the entire event, giving a string theory researcher the same attentiveness it would a string quartet.
With ticket prices in the $3,000 range, you’d imagine they wouldn’t want to miss a second. Perhaps more importantly, there was a less tangible reason to take in every word: these speakers had the ideas that could save the world.
It’s a unique thing to spend three days listening to diatribes on poverty, disease, environmental destruction, animal abuse and terrorism, and come out feeling less pessimistic about the fate of mankind. But that’s how it goes at ideaCity, a forum to rejuvenate the mind and spirit, where the first — and last — word belongs to idealism.
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The Tragically Hip lead singer, Gord Downie, told ideaCity05 that Canada needs to distinguish itself more. “We look into America’s eyes to see ourselves constantly,” he said. — Photo by Digital Journal
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Here are some conference highlights dealing with the sciences:
Physician Dr. Guy Miller, in his search for the source of human energy to reverse the effects of debilitating diseases, presents Arctic adventurer Ben Saunders as a “catalyst on the energy continuum.” Saunders has trekked 1,800 miles in subfreezing weather for seven hours at a time, carrying a 400-lb payload.
Immunology expert and biophysicist Josef Penninger demonstrates how a single gene change causes a female fly to act male: singing, dancing and trying to dry-hump other females. Though his discoveries were groundbreaking, he recalls how tough it was to “explain to politicians why they should give you $10 million for fly sex. That doesn’t exactly win elections.” Penninger also mentioned why the outbreak SARS was beneficial, as it gave us the tools to identify and cure other deadly diseases.
Theoretical physicist Amanda Peet: “People think string theory is so impenetrable and impossible to understand that you need a few PhDs under your belt. We owe it to the general public to get a taste of what we do.” Peet didn’t invent string theory, but she later tells me her great idea for a phone-sex line where the operator mimics celebrities like Sean Connery.
A possible conflict of interest: playwright Tomson Highway, raised in the impassable wilds of northwest Manitoba, says we have to “think of Canada as a garden we have to protect.” Later, Major General Richard Rohmer suggests we essentially pave over the prairies. In one of the less feasible ideas of the event, Rohmer also describes a huge, presumably gas-guzzling airplane used to transport natural gas and/or politicians.
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As a strong supporter of the environment, Toronto mayor David Miller was on hand to introduce Robert Kennedy Jr. at ideaCity05. — Photo by Digital Journal
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Not all the prognostications are rosy. Public safety advisor Dr. James Young says more frequent and complex emergencies are inevitable, because human error is letting the disease genie out of the bottle. He cites Vietnamese farmers continually ignoring bans on infected chickens.
Best pseudo freak-out: Frustrated Toronto developer Harry Stinson yelling “Beware of the suits! Beware of the suits!”
Canyon Ranch Health Resort medical director Dr. Mark Liponis says “We know lots about disease, but not a damn thing about health.” He also says Moses Znaimer has the ultra-rare “longevity gene,” (read: immortality) ensuring many more ideaCities to come.
Neurologist and scent expert Alan Hirsch mentions a curious gap in aroma-induced nostalgia: Older people get misty-eyed upon smelling baked goods, while ’80s kids are more likely to be wistful for chemical concoctions like Pez, Play-Doh, and even jet fuel.
Most Digital Journal-like product endorsement: Author/documentarian Josh Freed hypes Google Desktop, which lets you search your hard disk by keyword. Practically nobody else in the audience has heard of it.
APSCA director Stephanie LaFarge says bestiality is going to be on the rise. One out of every 500,000 people believes in “consenting” animal sex, but there are already 10,000 websites committed to the practice.
An instant poll shows female ideaCity attendees are four times more likely than men to abstain from drinking at its open-bar parties.
What does singer Raffi Cavoukian have in common with Robert Kennedy, Jr. ? Both dream of a sustainable environmental future for the sake of their children. Raffi: “The child is the missing link in the ecology of the whole. Clean, renewable energy is in the heart and mind of every young person at peace.”
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Lawyer and environmentalist, Robert Kennedy Jr., fired out at polluters at ideaCity05. — Photo by Digital Journal
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Later, Kennedy explains why his crusade against profit-hungry polluters is more than ideological: “I have three sons who have asthma. We know that asthma attacks are triggered primarily by bad air, by ozone particulates coming from 11,000 power plants that are burning coal illegally. It’s been illegal for 15 years; they were supposed to remove those materials, the Clinton administration was prosecuting the worst 75 of them, but this is an industry that donated $48 million to President Bush and one of the first things he did when he took office was to order the Justice Department and EPA to drop those lawsuits. That one decision kills 18,000 Americans every single year — six times the number of people who were killed in the World Trade Center attacks.”
Medical reporter Carolyn Abraham, who studied Albert Einstein’s brain, says: “The nature of genius is a lot like love; you can’t go on in that constant state of dizziness or you’d pass out. It comes in flashes.” Einstein was still desperately trying to solve the Unified Field Theory on his deathbed. Like love, sometimes genius hurts.
Among other questions, Seed magazine founder Adam Bly asks, “Is there room for God in science?” Later, philosopher Sam Harris tells us how religious tolerance — or even respect for religious beliefs — is untenable when someone like Osama bin Laden can control a missile by laptop. He’s then refuted by distinguished scientist and author Vaclav Smil, who reminds us how communism’s “logical” antireligious stance led to the deaths of untold millions.
Writer Mark Abley gives an example of how languages survive and adapt: A Mohawk radio jock announces a song by “Hootie and the Fish that Has the Potential to Get Bigger.”
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As founders of international network Free The Children, brothers Craig (left) and Marc Kielburger rev up the crowd during the third day of ideaCity05. — Photo by Digital Journal
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June Callwood pleads for a child-centred society: “For one generation, let’s try it and see what kind of world we have.” The Kielburger brothers, who could be her protégées, agree: “If the world was run by street kids, there would be no street kids.” Both get a standing ovation.
Gunther von Hagens, who invented the plastination technique for his travelling corpse museum, says he got his warmest receptions in L.A. — something about being both open-minded and extremely body-conscious. He brought samples from real human heads on stage with him.
Gord Downie gets huge applause for announcing, “I don’t have a PowerPoint display.”
For more information about ideaCity05, or to get tickets to next year’s conference, visit www.ideacityonline.com
All photos of ideaCity05 were taken using the Nikon D2X.
