A Parliament of Science

Science for the 21st Century

Edited by Michael Tobias, Teun Timmers, and Gill Wright

Subjects: Science And Technology, Public Policy, Ethics, Environmental Studies
Paperback : 9780791458143, 179 pages, September 2003
Hardcover : 9780791458136, 179 pages, September 2003

Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Michael Tobias
Introduction

I. Biosphere, Ecology, and Sustainability

Crispin Tickell
The Scandal of Unsustainability

Robert May
The Sixth Wave of Extinction

Anthony C. Janetos
Protecting the Biosphere

Robert Watson
Where Science and Policy Meet: The Search for a Common Language

Madhav Gadgil
Ecology: Modern Science and Traditional Wisdom

II. Science, Policy, and the Public

Federico Mayor
The Eyes of the Universe

John Durant
Hope, Anxiety, and Doubt: The Public View of Science

Rita R. Colwell
The Role of the Citizen

Leon M. Lederman
Particles and Poverty

Julia Marton-Lefèvre
Only People Give Me Hope

III. Science and Peace

Frans B. M. de Waal
The Biology of Making Peace

Joseph Rotblat
A Life Devoted to Peace

Yechiel Becker
Science for Peace

IV. Science for the Twenty-first Century

Ismail Serageldin
The Cry of the Eight Hundred Million

M. S. Swaminathan
The Soul of Sustainability

Bruce Alberts
Sharing Knowledge for Development

Mohamed H. A. Hassan
Let Our Children Bridge the Gap

Margaret Somerville
Doing Science in Ethics Time

Bibliography

About the Editors

Index

Interviews with scientific leaders focus on the challenges, promises, and perils of science and technology.

Description

Based on interviews with eighteen prominent scientists and public policymakers from around the globe, A Parliament of Science provides a rich overview of the challenges, promises, and perils of science and technology in the twenty-first century. What can we hope for? What must we fear? How can scientists, civil society, and politicians work together to harness science and technology into a power for the good of all humanity?

Those interviewed speak candidly of their passions, hopes, and concerns as they explore the scientific and policy implications of the major issues of our time, including sustainability, politics, cloning, ethics, global climate change, the digital divide, and mass extinction of biological species. This welcome introduction to the debate on mankind's needs for a true "science for the twenty-first century" also serves as a sobering reappraisal of where we have been, what our ingenuity has wrought for better or for worse, and where we and the whole planet seem to be headed.

Michael Tobias is the author of twenty-five books and writer, director, and producer of nearly one hundred films, mostly concerned with global environmental and ethical issues. He is the coeditor (with J. Patrick Fitzgerald and David Rothenberg) of A Parliament of Minds: Philosophy for a New Millennium, also published by SUNY Press. At Global Vision Network, a privately funded think tank in England established in 1996, Teun Timmers is Senior Programme Developer and Gill Wright is Chief Executive.