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PREAMBLE
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1. Since the beginning of history, mankind has developed without ever becoming sufficiently aware of the problems that development might entail. Today mankind must face threats of its own making which limit its capacity to flourish and jeopardize the natural resources on which life depends. Tomorrow the consequences of inconsistent development may become catastrophic. The changes wrought by man in the world around him force mankind to change its behaviour using all the resources of the human mind.
2. Our science was born of man's ambition to know and understand our world and should remain faithful to that ambition. Throughout its creation and slow dissemination, our scientific civilization has not merely put forward concepts, objects, findings, and know-how. It has also, in broad areas, imposed a shared way of thinking, a "method" whose application has given rise, in the most concrete possible fashion, to an awareness of the unity of the human mind. For those traditionally termed scientists, the overarching motivation is still the need to understand, the ambition to discover the unknown, particularly in the triple field of the infinitely small, the infinitely large, or the infinitely complex, as gauged by our human scale. Our science gives us relational knowledge which corresponds to power over the real world. Contrary to popular belief, power is not the initial objective but rather an add-on, a byproduct of scientific discipline or asceticism, paid for in hard work. The main socially acknowledged function of scientific work seems to be the formulation and constant transformation of transferable knowledge which, being perfectly accessible to those who wish to acquire it, is thus universal, One of its goals is to go beyond the curse of "accumulated knowledge" with a view to developing a true economy of knowledge or rather an economy of thought in the fullest sense of the term.
3. Ever since science came into being, there has also been a de facto foundation of a world scientific community, both spiritual and bodily, which necessarily transcends all ideologies, boundaries, and national policies, and whose members share a common ethic, the scientific ethic. Embodied by this community, provided it decides to structure itself sufficiently, our science can and should make a fully independent contribution to the sort of thinking mankind needs today.
4. The world scientific community can no longer avoid its responsibilities to society as a whole. The community knows it must actively monitor the human consequences of scientific work for mankind and strive to predict these with all its members' critical imagination. It must strive to teach what science is and contribute to training every generation's minds in the processes, methods, and aims of basic science. It must, moreover, inform society of the social implications of what science does, voice its hopes and fears, make clear to everyone, at all times, what science is and what it is not, what we know, what we suspect, and what we do not know. Objective scientific information has become the first and foremost of the scientific community's new duties and it is a necessary condition to one and all becoming able to assess implications of what is going on. In view of the critical problems our global civilization is up against, the scientific community must organize itself in such a way as to make its voice legitimate and credible. THE WORLD INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE
At a critical moment in the development of our civilization and especially in that of science, prominent scientists from all over the world, representing all fields of endeavour, have decided to set up a radically new organization: the WORLD INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE. They invite scientists sharing their point of view to join and support them. 1. The calling of this organization which emerged - spontaneously and in full independence - from the scientific community itself is to work towards global awareness and science's assumption of responsibilities to mankind as a whole. The two main thrusts of its plan of action should be the following: on the one hand to formulate and disseminate the most objective scientific information possible, based on the same intellectual integrity and humility as is science itself, and on the other, to make explicit the scientific ethic which flows legitimately from this community, binding it and helping it shed light upon problems concerning science's responsibilities. With its science-derived values, the scientific community must use all of its methodological tools to analyze many an aspect of our technological - and passively experienced -development and publicize its findings. Such an organization, devoted on a permanent basis to thinking and to study, is designed to be a force for objective information and for concrete proposals. It will first and foremost consider the major problems confronting the quality of human life in the near and more distant future, problems to which science may make basic contributions (demography, climatology, molecular biology and genetics, computer science, nutrition, etc ... ) 2. Steps must also be taken in two more specific areas, one external, the other internal. Throughout the world, public opinion leaders and society as a whole are too generally ignorant of what science is. To many, science is a new form of magic, both black and white, and this view leaves ample room for the worst flights of irrational fancy. Amidst this confusion, basic science has rarely been so often challenged, and this is serious for mankind. Scientific information should also, perhaps more importantly, he information about science, about its approach and its ever typical search for 'approximate truth", enclosing the real world in an ever tighter circle.
What is at stake here is not the founding of a "Republic of Wise Men", a "best of all possible worlds" ruled by die pseudo-enlightened. Science is not, need it really be said, the only shared element in a civilization stretching across the globe. In our world, however, considering the increasing power science gives rise to, society must urgently come to a better understanding of science's approach and discoveries in order to reach decisions that are both lucid and truly justified. Basic science is neither a luxury nor a hobby but part of mankind's shared heritage. It is becoming, more than ever before, one of the essential engines firing our human adventure.
3. In view of the overwhelming nature of such tasks, the WORLD INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE does not in any way intend to gain exclusive rights of any kind. Its natural allies are the movements, academies and institutions, national or international, with which it has common goals, and who do excellent work. It intends to be a forum where all may work together; it also wishes to stand out, within science, because of its unswerving critical rigor, drawing clear lines between proven facts, assumptions, and toyings or dreams. Such is the rice of the Institute's usefulness.
4. The means of action may be traditional or innovative. All, however, require considerable effort for implementation. Conferences or meetings, to be fruitful, require well worked-out preliminary documentation. Possibilities include:
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