Wednesday, January 26, 2011, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Women's City Club, 254 E. Fulton St., Grand Rapids, MI, View Map

Presented by Seth Mnookin, Author and Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair

Description

Join us for a lecture on The Panic Virus by Author Seth Mnookin.

Who Decides Which Facts Are True? In The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin draws on interviews with parents, public-health advocates, scientists, and anti-vaccine activists to tackle a fundamental question: How do we decide what the truth is? The fascinating answer helps explain everything from the persistence of conspiracy theories about 9/11 to the appeal of talk-show hosts who demand that President Obama “prove” he was born in America.

The Panic Virus is a riveting and sometimes heart-breaking medical detective story that explores the limits of rational thought. It is the ultimate cautionary tale for our time. Read More

About the Speaker

Seth Mnookin is the author of The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear (2010). He is also the author of the 2006 New York Times-bestseller Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top and in 2004, Hard News: The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media, was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year.

Since 2005, Seth has been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where he’s written about the American media presence in Iraq, Bloomberg News, and Stephen Colbert. In 2002 and 2003, he was a senior writer at Newsweek, where he wrote the media column “Raw Copy” and also covered politics and popular culture.

His work has appeared in numerous publications, including New York, Wired, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Spin, Slate, Salon.com, and other publications. A former music columnist for The New York Observer, he began his journalism career as a rock critic for the now-defunct webzine Addicted to Noise and has also worked as a crime reporter at The Palm Beach Post, a city hall reporter at the Forward, a presidential campaign reporter at Brill’s Content, and a jack-of-all-trades at Inside.com.

He graduated from Harvard College in 1994 with a degree in History and Science, and was a 2004 Joan Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. A native of Newton, Massachusetts, he and his wife currently live in Brooklyn with their thirteen-year-old cat, their six-year-old dog, and their one-year-old son.

Additional Details

Meetings are open to the Public

After the meeting, join us at Vitale's Restaurant, 834 Leonard NE, Grand Rapids, MI to socialize. View Map

Learn about Parking, Accessibility, and more.

Cost: $6.00 general admission. Free for Friends of the Center.

Contact: Jennifer Beahan, michigan@centerforinquiry.net, 616-698-2342