The Institute for Science and Human Values (ISHV) is a non-profit organization dedicated to "the enhancement of human values and scientific inquiry" through educational programs, publications, and conferences.
History
Paul Kurtz conceived of ISHV in 2009 as a branch of The Center for Inquiry, an umbrella group he established in 1991. However, having been "shorn of all effective authority," at CFI and related groups that he had founded, Kurtz chaired the inagural meeting of ISHV as an independent organization on June 27, 2010. ISHV is a continuing outlet for his vision of Neo-Humanism, which he described in detail in the Neo-Humanist Statement of Secular Principles and Values, signed by notable humanists including Steven Pinker, Patricia Schroeder, E. O. Wilson and Ann Druyan.
Explaining why he sought to establish yet another secularist organization in an already-splintered movement, Kurtz wrote, "I wish to take the time now to deal with a vital question that needs to be addressed by the Center for Inquiry, and I believe that it should be at the top of the agenda for the future. Here I am talking about the need to apply reason and science to human values. Unfortunately, the major emphasis of the Center had been on criticism of religious and paranormal claims--that is surely a key part of the agenda. But this has led to the neglect of another essential part of the vision that first inspired the creation of the Center for Inquiry; and that is the application of science and reason to ethical questions. The key question is whether secularists are able to develop secular ethical values that instill meaning and provide some basis for moral integrity."
Kurtz's alignment toward free thought, atheism, and rationalism on the one hand and humanistic ethics on the other was evident as early as 1989 when he expounded the basics of his philosophy in an article for Free Inquiry. Kurtz wrote, "There is a strong free thought, atheistic, and rationalistic aspect of humanism that should not, in my judgement, be muted," and continued further on, "Thus a vital component of secular humanism is criticism, not only of the sacred cows of the prevailing religious orthodoxies but also of other irrational claims made in the public forum."
"But," he wrote in the same article, "to advance the frontiers of a new eupraxsophy requires that we go beyond negative criticism and provide positive alternatives. Atheism has failed in part because it has been primarily destructive. It seeks to shatter false idols that men and women worship, to expose falsity and hypocrisy; but it has not supplanted the old beliefs with positive options. It has not satisfied the hunger for imagination and poetry."
He also wrote, foreshadowing his motivations for establishing ISHV, "If humanism is to have any long-range impact on society, it must cultivate moral awareness by means of ethical education."
Activities
The Developing Healthy Values workshop held in Tampa, Florda in May 2011 featured Dale McGowan and other experts on helping educators and parents to help students develop healthy morals and values.
Neuroscience and Neuroethics: Considering Nature, Nurture, and Norms held at The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia in March 2012 featured world-renowned neuroscience experts including Patricia Churchland, Eric Racine, and Gregory Berns discussing "how neuroscience inform contemporary discussions about human nature, the human condition, and human relationships," and "what the neurosciences provide to such discussion - and the actions that arise from them - in the next decades."
The Human Prospect and the Fate of Our Planetary Civilization symposium is scheduled for April 2013 at Columbia University , featuring Rebecca Goldstein, Philip Kitcher, Toni Van Pelt, and others speaking on "science, humanism, ethics, and the task before us."
ISHV has also played a role in international humanism, sending representatives to the January 2012 UNESCO conference "A New Humanism for the 21st Century" in Paris, the Society of Ontario Freethinkers' symposium "Evolving Beyond God: Why Africa Matters," and "the first atheists and agnostics convention in south Asia," sponsored by The Philipine Atheists and Agnostics Society in Manila in 2012.
The Human Prospect
Paul Kurtz founded ISHV's triannual journal The Human Prospect: A Neo-Humanist Perspective, edited by Norm Allen Jr., in early 2011. It features academic articles, interviews, film reviews, and other magazine-style features. Contributers include Kurtz, R. Joseph Hoffmann, , Frans de Waal, and John P. Anton, and interviewees have included Sikivu Hutchinson and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Kurtz was editor-in-chief of The Human Prospect until his death.
History
Paul Kurtz conceived of ISHV in 2009 as a branch of The Center for Inquiry, an umbrella group he established in 1991. However, having been "shorn of all effective authority," at CFI and related groups that he had founded, Kurtz chaired the inagural meeting of ISHV as an independent organization on June 27, 2010. ISHV is a continuing outlet for his vision of Neo-Humanism, which he described in detail in the Neo-Humanist Statement of Secular Principles and Values, signed by notable humanists including Steven Pinker, Patricia Schroeder, E. O. Wilson and Ann Druyan.
Explaining why he sought to establish yet another secularist organization in an already-splintered movement, Kurtz wrote, "I wish to take the time now to deal with a vital question that needs to be addressed by the Center for Inquiry, and I believe that it should be at the top of the agenda for the future. Here I am talking about the need to apply reason and science to human values. Unfortunately, the major emphasis of the Center had been on criticism of religious and paranormal claims--that is surely a key part of the agenda. But this has led to the neglect of another essential part of the vision that first inspired the creation of the Center for Inquiry; and that is the application of science and reason to ethical questions. The key question is whether secularists are able to develop secular ethical values that instill meaning and provide some basis for moral integrity."
Kurtz's alignment toward free thought, atheism, and rationalism on the one hand and humanistic ethics on the other was evident as early as 1989 when he expounded the basics of his philosophy in an article for Free Inquiry. Kurtz wrote, "There is a strong free thought, atheistic, and rationalistic aspect of humanism that should not, in my judgement, be muted," and continued further on, "Thus a vital component of secular humanism is criticism, not only of the sacred cows of the prevailing religious orthodoxies but also of other irrational claims made in the public forum."
"But," he wrote in the same article, "to advance the frontiers of a new eupraxsophy requires that we go beyond negative criticism and provide positive alternatives. Atheism has failed in part because it has been primarily destructive. It seeks to shatter false idols that men and women worship, to expose falsity and hypocrisy; but it has not supplanted the old beliefs with positive options. It has not satisfied the hunger for imagination and poetry."
He also wrote, foreshadowing his motivations for establishing ISHV, "If humanism is to have any long-range impact on society, it must cultivate moral awareness by means of ethical education."
Activities
The Developing Healthy Values workshop held in Tampa, Florda in May 2011 featured Dale McGowan and other experts on helping educators and parents to help students develop healthy morals and values.
Neuroscience and Neuroethics: Considering Nature, Nurture, and Norms held at The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia in March 2012 featured world-renowned neuroscience experts including Patricia Churchland, Eric Racine, and Gregory Berns discussing "how neuroscience inform contemporary discussions about human nature, the human condition, and human relationships," and "what the neurosciences provide to such discussion - and the actions that arise from them - in the next decades."
The Human Prospect and the Fate of Our Planetary Civilization symposium is scheduled for April 2013 at Columbia University , featuring Rebecca Goldstein, Philip Kitcher, Toni Van Pelt, and others speaking on "science, humanism, ethics, and the task before us."
ISHV has also played a role in international humanism, sending representatives to the January 2012 UNESCO conference "A New Humanism for the 21st Century" in Paris, the Society of Ontario Freethinkers' symposium "Evolving Beyond God: Why Africa Matters," and "the first atheists and agnostics convention in south Asia," sponsored by The Philipine Atheists and Agnostics Society in Manila in 2012.
The Human Prospect
Paul Kurtz founded ISHV's triannual journal The Human Prospect: A Neo-Humanist Perspective, edited by Norm Allen Jr., in early 2011. It features academic articles, interviews, film reviews, and other magazine-style features. Contributers include Kurtz, R. Joseph Hoffmann, , Frans de Waal, and John P. Anton, and interviewees have included Sikivu Hutchinson and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Kurtz was editor-in-chief of The Human Prospect until his death.
Jean Edelstein was born in Brooklyn, New York to Polish/Romanian immigrant parents. She moved to Southern California to pursue a career in fashion illustration in 1940, but quickly turned her interests to the fine arts.
She became involved in painting from real-time dance performances and was eventually asked to partake in the dance performances, painting large scale wall murals, the "Let's Dance" series, of the dancers while the audience looked on. These performances have been staged throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, and consistently employed avant garde performers in Los Angeles and Balinese dancers in Indonesia where she merges music, dance and art.<ref name=Brown/>
Edelstein's Chinese accordion book art is the artist's latest body of artwork. Using the pleated scrolls, she chronicles dance performances and landscape, particularly China's Guilin and Stone Mountain landscapes and Southern California Japanese zen gardens.
She became involved in painting from real-time dance performances and was eventually asked to partake in the dance performances, painting large scale wall murals, the "Let's Dance" series, of the dancers while the audience looked on. These performances have been staged throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, and consistently employed avant garde performers in Los Angeles and Balinese dancers in Indonesia where she merges music, dance and art.<ref name=Brown/>
Edelstein's Chinese accordion book art is the artist's latest body of artwork. Using the pleated scrolls, she chronicles dance performances and landscape, particularly China's Guilin and Stone Mountain landscapes and Southern California Japanese zen gardens.
Warpalized
is the adjective for the work done to create a seamless image with multiple projectors
on a screen of any shape or form. The verb for the process to create a Warpalized screen is Warpalizing.
In the process of Warpalizing there are the following steps:
* Design, the projector set-up with projector position and orientation relative to the screen to cover the projection area and in the same time get enough overlap between the projectors for edge blending.
* Warp, the projector images to create a geomtrically correct image from the selected eye point.
* Color match, each projector to get a homogeneous color temperature between all the projectors.
* Edge blend, the overlap areas to create the complete illusion of a Seamless image with multiple projectors.
is the adjective for the work done to create a seamless image with multiple projectors
on a screen of any shape or form. The verb for the process to create a Warpalized screen is Warpalizing.
In the process of Warpalizing there are the following steps:
* Design, the projector set-up with projector position and orientation relative to the screen to cover the projection area and in the same time get enough overlap between the projectors for edge blending.
* Warp, the projector images to create a geomtrically correct image from the selected eye point.
* Color match, each projector to get a homogeneous color temperature between all the projectors.
* Edge blend, the overlap areas to create the complete illusion of a Seamless image with multiple projectors.
David Mitchell Rozga (October 4, 1991 - June 6, 2010) was an American teenager from Indianola, Iowa, United States, whose subsequent death brought international attention to the synthetic over-the-counter drug, known as K2. Proposed by the US Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, it was approved into legislation by the United States Congress in June 2011, that effectively banned the use and distribution of the drug in the United States. On July 10, 2012, President Barack Obama signed the legislation effective banning synthetic drugs.
On the evening of June 6, 2010, Rozga shot himself in the head with a family owned hunting rifle in an apparent suicide. After news of Rozga's death, it was reported by friends that they had smoked K2 with Rozga approximately one hour before his death. The nature of his death and reports from numerous family members, had led investigators to believe that it was likely Rozga was under the influence of a mind altering substance, at the time of his death.
Today, the death of Rozga is still being used as a face of political lobbying against the continuation of K2, and other legal synthetic drugs, such as bath salts.
On the evening of June 6, 2010, Rozga shot himself in the head with a family owned hunting rifle in an apparent suicide. After news of Rozga's death, it was reported by friends that they had smoked K2 with Rozga approximately one hour before his death. The nature of his death and reports from numerous family members, had led investigators to believe that it was likely Rozga was under the influence of a mind altering substance, at the time of his death.
Today, the death of Rozga is still being used as a face of political lobbying against the continuation of K2, and other legal synthetic drugs, such as bath salts.