2010 Meetings

January Meeting Topic: Is Genesis humanistic, sort of?
Sunday, January 10th at 12 noon
Location: The Orient Restaurant
Genesis is known as the first book of the three Abrahamic religions. Most of it says remarkably little about who or what God is. Instead, it focuses on the stories of human characters, who were very flawed and imperfect. Retribution for unethical actions, if any, often came from other humans, not from God. Does that mean that Genesis is really humanistic? We will revisit the audiotape of a lecture by Prof. Gary Rendsburg, professor of Jewish History at Rutgers University, on a Teaching Company lecture series “The Book of Genesis.” Location: The Orient Restaurant, Towson. Directions: Take Baltimore Beltway exit 26 or 27 (York Road or Dulaney Valley Road) through the traffic circle to York Road, and go three blocks on the right to the Orient. Take a left to the parking garage on Chesapeake.

WASH Winter Dinner: Saturday, January 16, 2010, Noon to Two PM

WASH will have its traditional Winter Dinner, featuring a deluxe buffet of Mexican specialties including steak, chicken, seafood and vegetarian options. Location: Guapo’s Mexican Restaurant, 8130 Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, MD. The restaurant is three blocks south of the Medical Center Metro station, and has convenient free parking in the Woodmont Avenue garage in back of the restaurant. The speaker will be Jennifer Bardi, Editor of The Humanist Magazine and former writer, editor, and program director at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Reservations: Send a check payable to WASH for $40 per person to WASH Treasurer at PO Box 198, Abingdon, MD 21009, or sign up on line using the convenient Click and Pledge link found at the lower right on our web site, www.wash.org. Reservations must be received no later than January 12.

February Meeting Topic: Special Darwin Day event: Prof. Thomas R. Holtz on "What did Charles Darwin REALLY Discover?"

Sunday, February 14, at 10:30 am

Location: Joint meeting with Baltimore Ethical Society

Everyone knows that Charles Darwin was the pivotal figure in the science of Evolution, but fewer people are aware of what his particular contributions actually were. This talk will examine what was known about evolution prior to Darwin's work; Darwin's education and voyages; his co-discovery of Natural Selection; and some of his other contributions to the earth and life sciences. Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. is a dinosaur paleobiologist and Senior Lecturer in Vertebrate Paleontology at the Department of Geology, University of Maryland, College Park. His expertise is the evolution, anatomy, and adaptations of the carnivorous dinosaurs, with emphasis on the Tyrannosauroidea (tyrant dinosaurs: Tyrannosaurus rex and its kin). In addition to paleontology, he teaches courses on evolution, historical geology, global change, and the nature of science. He is the Faculty Director and co-creator of two residential honors programs in the sciences. As well as technical publications, Dr. Holtz has authored several popular audience works on dinosaurs, including Dinosaurs: The Most Complete Up-To-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages (Random House, 2007). He is frequently a consultant for and appears in documentaries shown on Discovery, National Geographic, BBC, and the History Channel, most notably the original Walking with Dinosaurs. His website is http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/.

For previous meetings, click here.