Two Cultures Event in NY

This just came over the wire from Darlene the Science Cheerleader. If you have no idea what the "Two Cultures" book is all about, see my review here: http://bartacus.blogspot.com/2008/01/book-review-two-cultures-c.html

Come meet me in NYC on May 9th at the NY Academy of Sciences. I’m one of the speakers at the Two Cultures event, described below by Shawn Otto, CEO of ScienceDebate.org:

We live in a time when more scientists are being trained than ever before, with nearly 30,000 science PhDs awarded in 2006. Yet scientists find themselves frustrated by inaccurate media coverage, poor science education, public science illiteracy, a resurgence of anti-evolutionism, and challenges to scientific expertise on issues like climate change.

In his seminal lecture, “The Two Cultures,” delivered on May 7, 1959, the British ovelist, physicist, and government science adviser C.P. Snow famously decried a “gulf of mutual incomprehension between science and the humanities.” For Snow, this rift was “a sheer loss to us all.”

In an age when the world’s greatest challenges revolve around questions of science and technology, in a world governed by policymakers and a public sometimes unaware of science’s role in dealing with those challenges, this rift can undermine political will and the ability to solve them. This rift is the focus of our work at Science Debate.

On May 9, 2009 visionaries, scientists, authors, and the media will join together to explore the persistence of the “two cultures” gap and how it can be overcome. Don’t miss this unique and important event, featuring keynote addresses by Pulitzer Prize winner E.O. Wilson, former Congressman John Porter, and Segway inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen, and panelists including Matthew Chapman, Darlene Cavalier, Ann Druyan, Ira Flatow, Lawrence Krauss, Kenneth Miller, Shawn Otto, Stuart Pimm, Corey Powell, Andrew Revkin, and many others, cosponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences, Science & The City, the Science Communication Consortium, ScienceDebate.Org, and our media sponsor, Discover Magazine. The moderators include Science Debate’s Chris Mooney & Sheril Kirshenbaum, co-authors of the forthcoming book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future.