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The European Academy of Sciences

in cooperation with

The Académie Royale de Belgique

Conference

Progress in Science, Progress in Society

 

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Palais des Académies, Bruxelles

November 18 & 19, 2016

 

 

The European Academy of Sciences is happy to acknowledge and thank the Académie Royale de Belgique for its scientific and technical support.

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Organization Committee

 

Académie Royale de Belgique:

Charles Joachain (Président), Jean-Marie André, Hugues Bersini,  Gilbert Hottois

 

Académie Européenne des Sciences:

Claude Debru (Président), Hélène de Rode (Secrétaire Perpétuelle), Natividad Carpintero-Santamaria, Martin Carrier

 

 

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The European Academy of Sciences proposes to organize together with the Académie Royale de Belgique a Conference devoted the theme Science and Society considered from the point of view of Progress. Does Progress in Science ultimately mean Progress in Society? How to ensure that scientific progress becomes both materially and intellectually beneficial to society, including people which are far away from it and socially excluded from it?

 

Progress is a common feature of science and of human societies generally speaking. There is no doubt that one of the driving forces of the material and intellectual progress of mankind has been science and technology. However, these are not the only forces acting on human history, so that their role is not always fully recognized and even sometimes refused in some parts of the world.

 

One of the reasons for this lack of recognition may be that there is an increasing gap between the internal perception of science and science as perceived by society, perhaps because the extremely rapid scientific advances and their potential applications are poorly perceived by many. So that there is no direct implication leading from science to the public understanding of science, in spite of enormous, never ending efforts made recently. Science remains in its very nature a demanding, elitist exercise, far from the ordinary concerns of most people. Science does not appear to people as an end in itself. It is only a means among other ones for the service of society at large.

 

Indeed, an increasing number of citizens, even in modern developed countries, in Europe and elsewhere, show a growing distrust for science or even for any kind of progress, due to an increasing sensitiveness for risks, thus hampering knowledge acquisition and consequent improvement of living conditions. In the current context of individualism, the freedom of refusing is a way of asserting the primacy of the individual with regard to objective knowledge. There is an enduring conflict between objective knowledge and subjective legitimacy, because objective knowledge stands out frequently in sharp contrast to common views.

 

In domains like life sciences and medicine, one can observe that fundamentalist anti-science attitudes are rapidly gaining weight in some parts or society. There is a need of an empirical sociological analysis of these attitudes, or of other attitudes like the refusal of medical practices in the field of public health. The value of science is often underestimated, with potential consequences which may appear at the political level. Another danger encountered by scientific progress has to do with the varying delays between fundamental research and its applications, leading to short-term policies and possibly to the neglect of long-term investment.

 

In this present context, it seems timely to contribute to the reflection at the European scale on issues like trust, distrust, communication, and scientific governance and organization.

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The Future in Science in the 21st Century : Progress in Science, Progress in Society

Registration form available here

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