Seminars

Broken Beakers and Brilliant Minds: Fixing the Machinery of Science

Mar 11, 2026

Broad Institute | Merkin Auditorium

Posted by Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard

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Add to Calendar + 2026-03-11 18:00 2026-03-11 20:00 America/New_York Broken Beakers and Brilliant Minds: Fixing the Machinery of Science

Broken Beakers and Brilliant Minds: Fixing the Machinery of Science

Matt Kaplan, Author and science correspondent for The Economist

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Merkin Auditorium

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

415 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142

6:00 – 7:00 PM | Reception and book signing to follow

 

From the energy crisis and feeding eight billion people to defeating cancer and coping with climate change, humanity faces some rather large challenges today. To tackle them, we need science running like a well-oiled machine. Unfortunately, it has more often resembled a clunky old engine: loud, temperamental and prone to breaking down at the worst possible moment.

It is tempting to blame recent funding cuts for science’s current woes, but focusing only on money rather misses the point. Many of science’s biggest problems have been around for years, sometimes centuries. Scientists have long been criticized, sidelined or attacked for having ideas that were too new, too inconvenient or simply too correct for the people in power at the time. Even truly unscientific behaviors, like character assassination and fraud, are not modern inventions… though they do seem to have enjoyed a recent renaissance.

The good news is that longstanding problems are not the same as unsolvable ones. Join Matt Kaplan, science correspondent at The Economist and author of I Told You So! Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled and Imprisoned… For Being Right, for a spirited and insightful talk on the history of these endemic issues and what we can do to finally consign them to the scientific scrap heap.

This free talk is open to members of the general public.

Learn more and register at broad.io/MattKaplan.

About the speaker

Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent at The Economist. He has written about everything from paleontology and parasites to virology and viticulture over the course of two decades. His writing has also appeared in National Geographic, New Scientist, Nature, and the New York Times. He is the author of The Science of Monsters and Science of the Magical, and co-author of David Attenborough’s First Life: A Journey Through Time. He completed a thesis in Paleontology at Berkeley, and one in science journalism at Imperial College, London. In 2014 he was awarded a Knight Fellowship to study at MIT and Harvard. Born in California, he lives in England.

 Broad Institute | Merkin Auditorium, Cambridge, MA, 415 Main Street

Broken Beakers and Brilliant Minds: Fixing the Machinery of Science

Matt Kaplan, Author and science correspondent for The Economist

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Merkin Auditorium

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

415 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142

6:00 – 7:00 PM | Reception and book signing to follow

 

From the energy crisis and feeding eight billion people to defeating cancer and coping with climate change, humanity faces some rather large challenges today. To tackle them, we need science running like a well-oiled machine. Unfortunately, it has more often resembled a clunky old engine: loud, temperamental and prone to breaking down at the worst possible moment.

It is tempting to blame recent funding cuts for science’s current woes, but focusing only on money rather misses the point. Many of science’s biggest problems have been around for years, sometimes centuries. Scientists have long been criticized, sidelined or attacked for having ideas that were too new, too inconvenient or simply too correct for the people in power at the time. Even truly unscientific behaviors, like character assassination and fraud, are not modern inventions… though they do seem to have enjoyed a recent renaissance.

The good news is that longstanding problems are not the same as unsolvable ones. Join Matt Kaplan, science correspondent at The Economist and author of I Told You So! Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled and Imprisoned… For Being Right, for a spirited and insightful talk on the history of these endemic issues and what we can do to finally consign them to the scientific scrap heap.

This free talk is open to members of the general public.

Learn more and register at broad.io/MattKaplan.

About the speaker

Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent at The Economist. He has written about everything from paleontology and parasites to virology and viticulture over the course of two decades. His writing has also appeared in National Geographic, New Scientist, Nature, and the New York Times. He is the author of The Science of Monsters and Science of the Magical, and co-author of David Attenborough’s First Life: A Journey Through Time. He completed a thesis in Paleontology at Berkeley, and one in science journalism at Imperial College, London. In 2014 he was awarded a Knight Fellowship to study at MIT and Harvard. Born in California, he lives in England.

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