The Today Show Reports on an APA Meeting… in 1990
Back in 1990, the Today Show aired a segment on a meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA), taking place in New Orleans.
It was nearly 30 years ago, but even if you don’t recognize specific faces (though you might), you’ll certainly recognize some of the faces the conference attendees are making—and perhaps some of the cheesy jokes offered up by the reporter.
Enjoy:
(via Sophie Horowitz)
Thanks for sharing this with the world, Justin! A shout-out to others without whom this would be lost to the sands of time: My grandfather, Irvin Horowitz, requested the videotape from the Today Show back when it aired. Just now Mark Kaplan had it digitized, and emailed it to David Christensen (my dad), who emailed it to me.
Here are the people I recognized, other than those explicitly named in the titles: David Christensen and Mark Kaplan, already mentioned, Paul Horwich, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Bruce Brower, Arnold Wilson, Kenneth Westphal (from the back), Patrick Maher (briefly), Paul Coppock (I think), and me. I remember that session with Christensen. It was an excellent session. There was a long exchange between him and Maher. I took from it a counterexample to the principle of conditional update (on probability assignments), but I have never been able to remember whether I got it directly from Christensen or was just inspired by something he said. I really like the wise words of Judith Andre near the end of this video. She very effectively counters the mockery of the reporter.
So much for timeless truths. Only in 1990 would the subjects of this piece have to defend their hairstyles to Deborah Norville.