An Institute for Science and Human Values Symposium

This symposium scheduled for April 12-13th at Columbia State University is on "The Human Prospect and the Fate of Our Planetary Civilization: Science, Humanism, Ethics, and the Task Before Us."

Nathan Bupp, the lead organizer, writes about it in these words:

Diverse Set of Thinkers to Ponder Ethics, Science, Secularism, and the Human Future at ISHV’s 2013 Columbia University Symposium:

I am writing this piece to let everyone know about an upcoming special event for which I have had both the privilege and pleasure of playing the lead role in organizing and planning. The theme of the event was conceived by Paul Kurtz. In fact, this was the last major project undertaken by Paul before his sudden death last year on October 20th at the age of 86. I am saddened by the fact that he didn’t live long enough to attend this event -- as he was really looking forward to it and was especially pleased with the preeminent cast of speakers we have secured and the scope of the topics to be addressed -- but heartened to announce that the proceedings will be dedicated to his memory. I speak of the third annual Institute for Science and Human Values (ISHV) Symposium, which will convene this year at Columbia University in New York City on April 12-13, 2013. The theme of this year’s event is “The Human Prospect and the Fate of Our Planetary Civilization: Science, Humanism, Ethics, and the Task Before Us."

Featured prominently will be Dr. Philip Kitcher (author of Living with Darwin and John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia), who will be fresh from delivering the prestigious 2013 Terry Lectures at Yale University on the topic of “Secular Humanism.” We will also take the opportunity to launch Paul Kurtz's final manuscript The Turbulent Universe (published by Prometheus Books), poignantly befitting, as Columbia was his alma mater.

Many of the issues to be examined at this symposium occupy, I submit, a special urgency for secularists and humanists. That’s why I humbly suggest that this gathering is of paramount importance for our movement. The scientists, scholars, and authors that we have assembled will take an interdisciplinary approach to concerns at the forefront of humanism and society today. Discussions will center on how organized naturalistic and secular humanism can be translated into an effective public philosophy of pragmatic action and persuasion.

It will feature the following speakers:

Philip Kitcher • Rebecca Newberger Goldstein • Ronald Aronson • Susan Jacoby • James Giordano • Lindsay Beyerstein • John Shook • Toni Van Pelt • Terry O'Neill • Dr. Ron Miller • Bob Bindschadler • Stuart Jordan • Nel Noddings • Larry Hickman • Nathan Bupp • Jacques Berlinerblau • Barry Kosmin • Anthony Pinn • Linda LaScola • and others.

Highly recommend if you can make it. LINK.