A Century of Nobel Prizes: Science And Humanism - Renewing Dialogue Between Scientific and Humanist Culture
Paris, France
8 - 10 April 1999
This meeting brings together Nobel laureates, young scientists, sociologists and philosophers. Topics under discussion will include the universality of human rights, the present changes in science, and the interactions between science and society, science and traditions. The symposium will result in a declaration to be presented at the World Science Conference.
The symposium, under the patronage of Jacques Chirac, President of France, and chaired by Federico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO, aims to renew the dialogue between the two cultures, science and humanism. The 20th century, coming to an end, has been marked by unprecedented progress in scientific knowledge, but also by major setbacks for humanity - totalitarism and genocide. The resulting "general disenchantment" is in keeping with the present radical reassessment of the idea of progress. Modern science and the notion of human rights, which share a common origin - Enlightenment - are today equally contested.
In creating the prize that bears his name, Alfred Nobel was one of the first to link scientific progress to the development of peace and the bringing together of peoples. The Nobel prizes will serve as the leitmotiv throughout the symposium, which will study interaction between the development of scientific knowledge and the evolution of society.
The conference will take place at UNESCO's Headquarters, organised by the Interdisciplinary University of Paris, and will open on 8 April 1999, between 4 and 7 pm.
April 8, Opening session:
The Major Challenges Facing the 21st Century. An introduction by Federico Mayor will be followed by a message from Jacques Chirac, read by Rene Lenoir, a former minister and presently Advisor to the President on Social Affairs. A round table with guest speakers will follow.
April 9, morning: The Evolution of Nature and the Project of Science. Nobel prize laureates in Physics, Charles Townes and Martin Perl, as well as Raymond Chiao, Professor at the University of Berkeley, will discuss Beyond Familiar Concepts, which questions the idea of our common representations by the science of matter, and in particular quantum physics and its principles of uncertainty or of non-separability. The morning session will continue with another Nobel prize laureate in Physics, Arno Penzias, and two astrophysicists from CNRS, Bruno Guiderdoni and Jean-Pierre Luminet. Their speeches, grouped under the heading Beyond Space and Time, will discuss the sciences of the universe and general relativity, concepts that have profoundly shaken our ideas of time and space.
April 9, afternoon: From the Evolution of Life to the Appearance of Consciousness and Chaos and Complexity. This will feature three speeches by Nobel prize laureates in Medicine, Roger Guillemin, Baruch Blumberg and Christian de Duve, Nobel prize laureates in Chemistry, Sidney Altman, Ilya Prigogine and Mario Molina and Nobel prize laureate in Physics, Donald A. Glaser, as well as a speech by physicist and Member of the French Academy of Sciences, Pierre Perrier.
April 10: Science and Society. Maurice Allais, Nobel prize laureate in Economics, Gabriel Wackermann, Professor of Geographical Economy at the Sorbonne, Elisabeth Laville, a specialist in business ethics, Jean Chesnaux, ethnologist and Xavier Emmanuelli, Founder of "Medecins sans frontieres" and the "SAMU Social" (France) will speak on Human Rights, Economy and Culture (9.00 a.m. - 12.30 p.m.). In the afternoon, a round table with Jean-Jacques Salomon, Professor at ENSAM; Jean Dausset, Nobel prize laureate in Medicine; and Jean-Marie Pelt, Director of the European Institute of Ecology, will debate Science and Democracy. The day will end with Dialogue between Science and Philosophy. Taking part will be Robert Russell, theologian at the University of California at Berkeley, and William Hurlbut, Professor of Medical Ethics, Stanford University. This will be followed by a round table with two physicists, Bernard D'Espagnat, Basarab Nicolescu, and Henry de Lumley, Director of the National Museum of Natural History (Paris).
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