The Forum with Scott D. Sampson, Ph.D. - June 9, 2024
Release Date: 06/10/2024
The Forum with The Rt. Rev. Austin Rios
The Forum at Grace Cathedral
Note: The music stops at 0:50. September 29, 2024 at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco Join Grace Cathedral Dean Malcolm Clemens Young for an engaging conversation with the Ninth Bishop of California, The Rt. Rev. Austin Keith Rios, who was installed as Bishop in August. As the chief pastor of the diocese, Bishop Rios is entrusted with leading, supervising, and uniting our congregations, ministries, and diocesan institutions. Notably, he is the first Latino bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California. Discover more about his journey from his birthplace in Texas to the other places he has...
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The Forum with Debie Thomas
The Forum at Grace Cathedral
When your faith begins to feel too small, too confining, you could choose to leave it. But what if the faith we inhabit is roomier than we'd thought? What if our collapsing faith is just a closet in a much larger dwelling? Disillusioned by narrow theologies, church dysfunction, and constricted readings of Scripture, people are leaving Christianity in droves. But Jesus describes the reign of God as a house with many rooms, writes author Debie Thomas, one of the most auspicious voices in religious writing today. In this work of sprawling spiritual and literary imagination, Thomas claims that...
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The Forum with Debie Thomas
The Forum at Grace Cathedral
When your faith begins to feel too small, too confining, you could choose to leave it. But what if the faith we inhabit is roomier than we'd thought? What if our collapsing faith is just a closet in a much larger dwelling? Disillusioned by narrow theologies, church dysfunction, and constricted readings of Scripture, people are leaving Christianity in droves. But Jesus describes the reign of God as a house with many rooms, writes author Debie Thomas, one of the most auspicious voices in religious writing today. In this work of sprawling spiritual and literary imagination, Thomas claims that...
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The Forum with Michael Goldberg on Jukebox
The Forum at Grace Cathedral
In this special summer Forum, meet Addicted To Noise founder and former Rolling Stone senior writer Michael Goldberg and get a firsthand account of the first-ever collection of his photographs in the new book JUKEBOX: 1967-2023 Photographs.
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The Forum with Scott D. Sampson, Ph.D. - June 9, 2024
The Forum at Grace Cathedral
In all the many conversations about climate change, sometimes the story of what nature’s value is to us can get a bit lost. We have a lot to learn from the kinds of traditions that see nature as relatives, not resources; as communities, not commodities. We need a narrative that places us back within the natural world as actors in this multi-million-year drama. If we're able to do that — if we can put ourselves into that drama — then we can see that we have a role to play in a thriving future, not just for people, but for the entire biosphere, for all life on Earth. And there's perhaps...
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The Forum with Michele Benedetto Neitz
The Forum at Grace Cathedral
The internet of today is a far cry from its early promise of a decentralized, democratic network of innovation, connection, and freedom. In the past decade, it has fallen under the control of a small group of powerful companies. But the dream of an open network for fostering creativity and entrepreneurship doesn’t have to die. And it just might be saved by blockchain networks, which create a radical new way to design fair and freely accessible internet services that put users in charge. There is more to this technology's story than crypto scams! Michele Benedetto Neitz is a...
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The Forum with Malcolm Harris
The Forum at Grace Cathedral
The history of Silicon Valley, from railroads to microchips, is an “extraordinary” story of disruption and destruction, told for the first time in this comprehensive, jaw-dropping narrative (Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth). Palo Alto’s weather is temperate, its people are educated and enterprising, its corporations are spiritually and materially ambitious and demonstrably world-changing. Palo Alto is also a haunted toxic waste dump built on stolen Indian burial grounds, and an integral part of the capitalist world system. In , the first...
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The Forum with Sarah Ogilvie
The Forum at Grace Cathedral
The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Dr. Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others. is a history and celebration of the many far-flung...
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The Forum at Grace Cathedral with Tonya M. Foster
The Forum at Grace Cathedral
Prayer is a convergence of absence and will. A poem is a kind of prayer. — Dr. Tonya M. Foster Dr. Tonya M. Foster is a poet, essayist, editor, and Black feminist scholar. Her writing and research focus on poetry, poetics, ideas of place and emplacement, and on intersections between the visual and the written. She uses all types of words in her poetry: big and small, beautiful, and vulgar. It is a key tactic of her ongoing study of language. Every year we choose a theme to inspire us and to create new ways to grow as a community. Last year was our Year of Poetry. In 2024 we celebrate the...
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The Forum with David Ackerly
The Forum at Grace Cathedral
History and ecology teach us the inevitability of change. And in this century, the climate is changing faster than ever. Warmer temperatures and record low precipitation in the recent California drought left 100 million trees dead in the mountains, and California cities and agriculture vulnerable. David Ackerly, climate change biologist and professor at UC Berkeley, has been studying how fast plants and animals may need to migrate uphill or northward as the planet warms. These velocities could be as high as five miles per year — exceeding the ability of most species to find new homes and...
info_outlineIn all the many conversations about climate change, sometimes the story of what nature’s value is to us can get a bit lost. We have a lot to learn from the kinds of traditions that see nature as relatives, not resources; as communities, not commodities. We need a narrative that places us back within the natural world as actors in this multi-million-year drama. If we're able to do that — if we can put ourselves into that drama — then we can see that we have a role to play in a thriving future, not just for people, but for the entire biosphere, for all life on Earth. And there's perhaps no better place to start than urban settings like San Francisco!
Dr. Scott D. Sampson is the Executive Director of the California Academy of Sciences, where he leads the institution’s world-class museum as well as its programs of scientific research, sustainability, and education. A renowned paleontologist, passionate science communicator, and seasoned museum leader, Sampson may be best known, especially to preschoolers and their parents, as “Dr. Scott the Paleontologist,” the on-air host for the Emmy-nominated PBS KIDS television series Dinosaur Train. He is the author of multiple books for general audiences, including: Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life; How to Raise a Wild Child; and You Can Be A Paleontologist.
Join Malcolm Clemens Young, dean of Grace Cathedral, for a conversation with Dr. Sampson about falling in love with nature, his mission to regenerate the natural world, and helping it become wilder each year.
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About the Guest
Dr. Scott D. Sampson is the Executive Director and William R. and Gretchen B. Kimball Chair of the California Academy of Sciences, where he leads the institution’s world-class museum as well as its programs of scientific research, sustainability, and education. A renowned paleontologist, passionate science communicator, and seasoned museum leader, Sampson joined the Academy in September 2019. To some, namely preschoolers and their parents, Sampson may be best known as “Dr. Scott the Paleontologist,” the on-air host for the Emmy-nominated PBS KIDS television series Dinosaur Train. Outside of this enthusiastic audience, however, Sampson is better known for his many other contributions to scientific research and public engagement. Among his peers in the scientific community, Sampson is highly regarded for his expertise on Late Cretaceous dinosaurs, from theropods in Madagascar to horned dinosaurs in North America. And in the museum community, Sampson is celebrated as a skilled organizational leader, a passionate advocate for connecting people to nature, and a champion for the critical role that collections-based scientific institutions like the Academy play in global efforts to understand and sustain life on Earth. Before joining the Academy, Sampson served as President and CEO of Science World British Columbia, one of Canada’s premier science centers. There, he launched a suite of bold new programs designed to dramatically scale STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art/design & Math) literacy across the province and facilitate a more sustainable future. He also focused on operating a sustainable, equitable institution, which included introducing a number of new initiatives aimed at increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion, including community access and engagement programs for underserved and Indigenous communities. Sampson has also served as the Vice President of Research and Collections at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and, prior to that, Chief Curator at the Natural History Museum of Utah. He has also worked as an independent museum and media consultant, advising on fundraising and exhibition design for clients including the American Museum of Natural History and the Oakland Museum of California.
In addition to his role as a science advisor and host for Dinosaur Train, Sampson has extensive media and science communication experience, including as the science advisor and host of the four-part Discovery Channel series Dinosaur Planet and as the author of multiple books for general audiences, including: Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life (University of California Press, 2009); How to Raise a Wild Child, a book aimed at helping parents, teachers, and others foster a deep connection with nature in children (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015); and You Can Be A Paleontologist, a book for young enthusiasts of dinosaurs, science, and nature (National Geographic, 2017). Sampson has won numerous awards and honors, including the Public Service Award from the Geological Society of America, the Lifetime Legacy Award from Environmental Learning for Kids, and Time Magazine Canada’s “Who Defines the new Frontiers of Science” list. He also served as the National Ambassador for Nature Rocks, a global initiative of The Nature Conservancy aimed at inspiring families to explore nature.
About the Moderator
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young is the dean of Grace Cathedral. He is the author of The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau and The Invisible Hand in Wilderness: Economics, Ecology, and God, and is a regular contributor on religion to the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner.
About The Forum
The Forum is a series of stimulating conversations about faith and ethics in relation to the important issues of our day. We invite inspiring and illustrious people to sit down for a real conversation with the Forum’s host and with you. Our guests range from artists, inventors and philosophers to pop culturists and elected officials, but the point of The Forum is singular: civil, sophisticated discourse that engages minds and hearts to think in new ways about the world. More about Grace Forum Online:
gracecathedral.org/the-forum