The University of the Third Age (DLDK)


Current Events Programme

Print All   Print Summary

Jun

18

10:30

Feral children: their linguistic development.

Philippe Hamel.

  • 📅Tuesday, June 18, 2024
  • 🕥10:30 - 11:30

Feral (or wild) children grow up without social contact, without linguistic stimulation. They are either subjected to ill treatment by uncommunicative "carers", or brought up by animals, or surviving in total isolation by their own resources. This talk will concentrate on four feral children, describe the circumstances of their early lives and the efforts of society to bring them into the fold through language teaching and patient socialization. We will briefly consider two conflicting theories that attempt to explain why the linguistic development of feral children is extremely difficult and in numerous cases impossible.


Jun

04

10:30

Robert Boyle (1627-1691): Genius, Polymath, Eccentric and Cork's Gas Man.

Jim Malone.

  • 📅Tuesday, June 4, 2024
  • 🕥10:30 - 11:30

Jim Malone is Robert Boyle Professor (Emeritus) of Medical Physics and was Dean of the School of Medicine at trinity College/St James's Hospital. He works/worked with various international organisations, including the UN's WHO, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the EC. He has broad interests in the Humanities and directed 2 Merriman Summer Schools. He has been reading Boyle's work in its original format for almost 50 years and has contributed regularly to the Robert Boyle Summer School.

He has a multitude of peer reviewed publications and including 3 books and a recent almost true memoir: "Tales from the Ivory Tower".

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is known as the father of chemistry and the son of the Earl of Cork. He was much more - a determined, undercelebrated, brilliant scientist and eccentric. He was born in Lismore castle in Waterford and lived through the English Civil War, regicide, interregnum, restoration, and died just months after the battle of the Boyne. He was among the last of the universal polymaths, and contributed substantially to medicine, physics, the life sciences, philosophy and theology. He was a founding member of the Royal Society and refused numerous honours including its presidency. He accumulated a vast range of cures and even wrote a short semi-autobiographical novella. Finally, he established the experimental method as we know it.

He was deeply religious, lived an exemplary if somewhat stoic Anglican life. He funded the first translation of the Bible into Irish. Like Nelson he was fascinated by alchemy and sorcery and not at ease with the boundary to empirical enquiry into these sensitive areas. His science and his personal spirituality are inextricably intertwined.

Jim started reading Boyle's copious original writings inn the early printed books room of the TCD library almost 50 years ago. They are informative about 17th century science and life, and rich in unintended humour. The talk is based on these writings and a comparison with what one learns from them with what one would learn from a 21st century scientist's writings. Boyle's opus brings the man to life and Jim seems now to know him better than many of those he meets regularly. Visual art is used to illustrate the talk.