“The Book of Why” Brings Causation Back into Science

The Santa Cruz Public Library System (SCPL) hosts Dana Mackenzie, local co-author of “The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect” for a book signing and discussion at the Aptos Library, 7695 Soquel Dr. on Monday, June 4th at 6 p. m.

The talk, titled “Mind Over Data: The One Thing You Know and Machines Don’t” explores the perplexing fact that science has struggled so much to make sense of causation, something that is intuitively obvious even to children. Before we can make machines or bots or AIs that are as smart as humans, we need to make them as smart as three-year-olds. Dana will share some ideas on how this can be done, and what the future goals for AI should be.

Dana Mackenzie is a mathematician and science writer. His books include, The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be (2003) and The Universe in Zero Words (2012).

The former book was named an Editor’s Choice by Booklist, and the latter was a finalist for the 2017 Premio Asimov (Asimov Prize) in Italy. He has lived in Santa Cruz since 1996, when he moved here to study in the Science Communication Program at UCSC. He is also well known to patrons of the Aptos Library as the organizer of the youth chess club, which meets every Tuesday afternoon.

There will be a book signing of The Book of Why, and 15% of book sales will benefit the Friends of the Aptos Library.