Templeton Research Lectures

The previous work of project director Hava Tirosh-Samuelson has paved the way for a serious academic analysis of the cultural significance of transhumanism. That work focused primarily on movements and trends within the United States, and only touched on the European discourse on human enhancement and converging technologies. Europe is also a site for leading intellectual developments regarding postsecularism. In order to engage European intellectuals who are at the forefront of this scholarship and to expand the reach of the project, we plan to hold an interdisciplinary, international research conference in Germany to reflect on the connection between secularized religion and technological innovation. This conference will gather leading social theorists, humanists, theologians, specialists in technology and science policies, and other public intellectuals to explore the social, cultural, and religious ramifications of transhumanism. The conference is being organized in collaboration with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology’s Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (KIT-ITAS) and will be held in the Karlsruhe-Heidelberg region on July 8-9, 2013. Christopher Coenen with KIT-ITAS is serving as the conference coordinator.

The previous work of project director Hava Tirosh-Samuelson has paved the way for a serious academic analysis of the cultural significance of transhumanism. That work focused primarily on movements and trends within the United States, and only touched on the European discourse on human enhancement and converging technologies. Europe is also a site for leading intellectual developments regarding postsecularism. In order to engage European intellectuals who are at the forefront of this scholarship and to expand the reach of the project, we plan to hold an interdisciplinary, international research conference in Germany to reflect on the connection between secularized religion and technological innovation. This conference will gather leading social theorists, humanists, theologians, specialists in technology and science policies, and other public intellectuals to explore the social, cultural, and religious ramifications of transhumanism. The conference is being organized in collaboration with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology’s Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (KIT-ITAS) and will be held in the Karlsruhe-Heidelberg region on July 8-9, 2013. Christopher Coenen with KIT-ITAS is serving as the conference coordinator.

The term "transhumanism" denotes an ideology of extreme progress, giving coherence to the accelerated pace of advances in science and technology. As a future-oriented outlook, transhumanism offers a vision of and for humanity in which genetically enhanced humans will live extremely long, intensely happy lives, free of pain and disease. In this imagination of the future, humans will be liberated from the constraints of embodiment and will triumph over death by uploading the mind into machines. Transhumanism is, fundamentally, an eschatological narrative with ramifications that go well beyond the transhumanist community itself. It draws together a range of religious and secular motifs around an ideology of innovation, thereby giving rise to distinctive social practices, norms, policies and institutions with implications for human flourishing now and into the future. Some of the questions to be examined during this workshop include: 1. How does the transhumanist (religious?) narrative about the posthuman future stimulate technological innovations? 2. To what extent does the techno-social imagination illustrate the hybridization of religious and secular discourses? 3. What are the social and political ramifications of the transhumanist project, especially for liberal democracies? 4. Does transhumanism manifest the post-secular moment? 5. How should we study socio-technical imaginaries comparatively? 6. How do transhumanism and posthumanism reconfigure the relationship between modernism and postmodernism? Prior to the conference, a faculty seminar will be engaging these questions by focusing on the works of Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Cary Wolfe, and some essays about socio-technical imaginaries by Sheila Jasanoff, William Bainbridge, and Ilya Klieger and Nasser Zakariah. Recommended reading includes: Jürgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature (2003) Jürgen Habermas, An Awareness of What is Missing: Faith and Reason in the Post-Secular Age (2010) Cary Wolfe, What is Posthumanism? (2010) Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (2003) Introduction- Ben Hurlbut Robert M. Geraci 4/9/12 - 10:15am - 11:00am "It's Virtually the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine): Games, Play, and the Transhuman Inclination" Colin Milburn 4/9/12 - 11:00am - 11:45pm "Molecular Necromancy: Nanoscience and the Postmortal Conditionon" William Grassie 4/9/12 - 11:45am - 12:30pm Closing Discussion

The term "transhumanism" denotes an ideology of extreme progress, giving coherence to the accelerated pace of advances in science and technology. As a future-oriented outlook, transhumanism offers a vision of and for humanity in which genetically enhanced humans will live extremely long, intensely happy lives, free of pain and disease. In this imagination of the future, humans will be liberated from the constraints of embodiment and will triumph over death by uploading the mind into machines. Transhumanism is, fundamentally, an eschatological narrative with ramifications that go well beyond the transhumanist community itself. It draws together a range of religious and secular motifs around an ideology of innovation, thereby giving rise to distinctive social practices, norms, policies and institutions with implications for human flourishing now and into the future. Some of the questions to be examined during this workshop include: 1. How does the transhumanist (religious?) narrative about the posthuman future stimulate technological innovations? 2. To what extent does the techno-social imagination illustrate the hybridization of religious and secular discourses? 3. What are the social and political ramifications of the transhumanist project, especially for liberal democracies? 4. Does transhumanism manifest the post-secular moment? 5. How should we study socio-technical imaginaries comparatively? 6. How do transhumanism and posthumanism reconfigure the relationship between modernism and postmodernism? Prior to the conference, a faculty seminar will be engaging these questions by focusing on the works of Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Cary Wolfe, and some essays about socio-technical imaginaries by Sheila Jasanoff, William Bainbridge, and Ilya Klieger and Nasser Zakariah. Recommended reading includes: Jürgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature (2003) Jürgen Habermas, An Awareness of What is Missing: Faith and Reason in the Post-Secular Age (2010) Cary Wolfe, What is Posthumanism? (2010) Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (2003) Introductions by Linell Cady and Hava Samuelson. Ronald Cole-Turner 4/9/12 - 8:30am - 9:15am "Conflicting visions: speciation and hybridization in religious and secular eschatologies" James Hughes 4/9/12 - 9:15am - 10:00am "The Politics of Transhumanism and the Techno-Millennial Imagination, 1626-2030"

Philip Clayton (Ph.D., Yale University) is a philosopher, theologian and public intellectual specializing in the entire range of issues—ethical, political, and theoretical—that arise at the intersection between science and religion. Over the last several decades he has published and lectured extensively on all branches of this debate, including the history of modern philosophy, philosophy of science, comparative religions, and constructive theology. Addressing the cultural battle over the relationship between science and religion, Clayton argues that rejecting the scientism of Dawkins, et. al., does not open the door to fundamentalism. Rather, a variety of complex and interesting positions are being obscured by this fight. By drawing on the resources of the sciences, philosophy, theology, and comparative religious thought, Clayton shows how the compatibility of science with religious belief may be integrated across a variety of fields, including emergence theory, evolution and religion, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience and consciousness.

Michael H. Shapiro (University of Southern California) is the Dorothy W. Nelson Professor of Law at University of Southern California Gould School of Law. Professor Shapiro earned his B.A. and M.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles and earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was associate editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. He specializes in bioethics and in constitutional law, and in particular, medical and legal ethical issues surrounding research and experimentation; reproductive, genetic, and behavior control; and death and dying. He teaches Constitutional Law and Bioethics and Law. A prolific author on medical ethics and legal questions in the advent of new technologies, Professor Shapiro has written Cases, Materials, and Problems on Bioethics and Law, 2nd ed. (et. al., 2003), “Human Enhancement Uses of Biotechnology, Policy, Technological Enhancement and Human Equality” in Encyclopedia of Ethical, Legal, and Policy Issues in Biotechnology (2000), and “The Identity of Identity: Moral and Legal Aspects of Technological Self-Transformation” (Journal of Social Philosophy and Policy, 2005).

Jean Bethke Elshtain (University of Chicago) is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics, with joint appointments in the divinity school, department of political science, and committee on international relations. A political philosopher, Elshtain has explored the connections between our political thought and ethical convictions in numerous books, lectures and articles, including Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought (1981, 1992); Democracy on Trial (a New York Times “Notable Book” for 1995); Augustine and the Limits of Politics (1998); Who Are We? Critical Reflections, Hopeful Possibilities (Best Book 2000 by the Association of Theological Booksellers); and Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World (2004). She has lectured frequently on issues of biotechnology and ethics, and was a contributor to the volume Biotechnology and the Human Good (2007). In 2003, Elshtain was the second holder of the Maguire Chair in Ethics at the Library of Congress. In 2006, she was appointed to the Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities and also delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, published as Sovereignty: God, State, and Self (2008).

Ronald Bailey (Reason Magazine) is the award-winning science correspondent for Reason magazine and Reason.com, where he writes a weekly science and technology column. He is the author of the book Liberation Biology: The Moral and Scientific Case for the Biotech Revolution (2005), and his work was featured in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004. Bailey testified before a congressional committee in 2004 on the impact of science on public policy. He is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. In 2006, Bailey was shortlisted by the editors of Nature Biotechnology as one of the personalities who have made the “most significant contributions” to biotechnology in the last 10 years. His articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Commentary, The Public Interest, Smithsonian, TechCentralStation, National Review, Reader's Digest and many other publications. Bailey won a 2004 Southern California Journalism Award for best magazine feature for his story, “The Battle For Your Brain,” which delved into the ethical and political conflicts over new brain enhancement technologies.

Steven P. Goldberg (Georgetown University) is James M. and Catherine F. Denny Professor of Law at Georgetown University. He is best known for his work at the intersection of law, religion, and science. His books include Bleached Faith: The Tragic Cost When Religion is Forced Into the Public Square (2008), Seduced By Science: How American Religion Has Lost Its Way (1999), and Culture Clash: Law and Science in America (1994), which won the Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award. Following graduation from Yale Law School, he was a law clerk to D.C. Circuit Chief Judge David L. Bazelon and to U. S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. He then worked as an attorney with the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. At Georgetown Law, Goldberg has served as Associate Dean and has won the Frank F. Flegal Award for Outstanding Teaching.

Charles Townes (University of California at Berkeley) is a Nobel Laureate, Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, and inventor of the laser. He earned a B.A. and a B.S. from Furman University, an M.A. from Duke University and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. Professor Townes was chair of the Physics Department at Columbia and Institute Professor at M.I.T. before joining the faculty at UC-Berkeley as University Professor in 1967. Dr. Townes was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics that led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle. His work in this area has been transformative: the Internet and all digital media would be unimaginable without the laser. In 1979, he received the Niels Bohr International Medal for his contributions to the peaceful use of atomic energy. Since his retirement in 1986, he has continued an active career, and in 2005 was named winner of the Templeton Prize for his work at the intersection of science and religion.

Paul Root Wolpe (Emory University) is the Raymond F. Schinazi Distinguished Research Chair in Jewish Bioethics and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Bioethics in the Emory School of Medicine, professor of religion and adjunct professor of sociology, and director of the Emory Center for Ethics. A nationally recognized intellectual leader in bioethics, Wolpe holds a Ph.D. in medical sociology from Yale University and was at the University of Pennsylvania until 2008. With an intellectual focus on the role of belief and ideology in medicine and science, Wolpe is considered a founder of the field of neuroethics. He writes prolifically on emerging technologies, including genetic engineering, reproductive technologies, nanotechnology and prosthetics, and his article, “Religious responses to neuroscientific questions” (in Neuroethics: Defining the Issues in Theory, Practice, and Policy, 2006), is considered the definitive article on the religious questions raised by advances in neuroscience to date. A past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, Wolpe is a co-editor of the American Journal of Bioethics and serves on the editorial boards of more than a dozen professional journals in medicine and ethics.

Maxwell J. Mehlman is the Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University and the Director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western University’s School of Medicine. Professor Mehlman received a BA from Reed College in 1970 and a JD from Yale Law School in 1975. In between college and law school, he was a Rhodes Scholar, earning his second Bachelor’s Degree from Oxford University in 1972. After completing law school, he practiced with the Washington D.C. firm of Arnold & Porter, where he specialized in federal regulation of medical technology. He joined the faculty at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1984. Since 1986, he has been the Director of the Law-Medicine Center. The National Institutes of Health recently awarded Professor Mehlman a significant two-year grant to review, and then address, any public policy gaps in guidelines and ethical differences between therapeutic and enhancement genetic research that involves human subjects. His principal areas of research and teaching include: the patient-physician relationship; the rights of patients; genetics, ethics, and the law; biomedical enhancement; quality assurance and malpractice; rationing; and health reform. His recent publications include: Genetics: Ethics, Law and Policy [Second Edition] (2006, co-authored with Lori Andrews and Mark Rothstein); and Wondergenes: Genetic Enhancement and the Future of Society (2003).

Margaret Wertheim is an internationally noted science writer and commentator who, in addition to her books, has written extensively about science and society for newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. Her articles have appeared publications such as The New York Times, The Sciences, New Scientist, Omni, Science Digest, The Australian Review of Books, 21C: Magazine of Science, Technology and Culture, The Daily Telegraph, Die Zeit, Australian Geographic, Vogue, Elle, and Glamour. She has also written and produced several television documentaries, including "Faith and Reason," a PBS special about science and religion. Wertheim is the founder and director of the Institute For Figuring, an organization devoted to enhancing the public understanding of science, mathematics, and the technical arts (www.theiff.org), under the auspices of which she recently hosted a series of discussions concerning neuroscience and the perception of space at the Los Angeles public library. She is the author of two books: Pythagoras’ Trousers: God, Physics, and the Gender Wars (1995); and The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet (1999).

Maxwell J. Mehlman is the Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University and the Director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western University’s School of Medicine. Professor Mehlman received a BA from Reed College in 1970 and a JD from Yale Law School in 1975. In between college and law school, he was a Rhodes Scholar, earning his second Bachelor’s Degree from Oxford University in 1972. After completing law school, he practiced with the Washington D.C. firm of Arnold & Porter, where he specialized in federal regulation of medical technology. He joined the faculty at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1984. Since 1986, he has been the Director of the Law-Medicine Center. The National Institutes of Health recently awarded Professor Mehlman a significant two-year grant to review, and then address, any public policy gaps in guidelines and ethical differences between therapeutic and enhancement genetic research that involves human subjects. His principal areas of research and teaching include: the patient-physician relationship; the rights of patients; genetics, ethics, and the law; biomedical enhancement; quality assurance and malpractice; rationing; and health reform. His recent publications include: Genetics: Ethics, Law and Policy [Second Edition] (2006, co-authored with Lori Andrews and Mark Rothstein); and Wondergenes: Genetic Enhancement and the Future of Society (2003).

Ted Peters is professor of systematic theology at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and Graduate Theological Union and director of the Institute for Theology and Ethics, in Berkeley, California. The author of GOD-The World’s Future (2000), Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom (2002) and Science, Theology, and Ethics (2003), Peters writes prolifically on issues of science, theology and religion. His recent work includes Anticipating Omega (2006), Can You Believe in God and Evolution? (with Martinez Hewlett, 2006), and The Stem Cell Debate (2007). He is editor of Dialog, A Journal of Theology and co-editor of Theology and Science. In addition to his interests in religion and science, Peters writes on a broad array of theological issues. One of the most important recurring themes in his work is the willingness to converse with and learn from other religious traditions. Peters has been interviewed by a variety of media, and lectures widely on issues of Christian theology in the modern world, including concerns related to bioethics, stems cells, cloning and the implications of the new genetics.

Katherine Hayles is Distinguished Professor of english and media studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests concern topics related to literature and science in the 20th and 21st century; 20th and 21st century American fiction; electronic textuality, hypertext fiction and theory; science fiction; literary theory; and media theory. With degrees in both chemistry and English literature, Hayles is one of the foremost scholars of the relationship between literature and science in the late twentieth century. She is the author six books, including How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics (1999), which won the Rene Wellek Prize for the Best Book in Literary Theory for 1998-1999; and Writing Machines (2001), which won the Suzanne Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship. Her most recent book is Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary (2007). The winner of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEH Fellowships, a Rockefeller Residential Fellowship at Bellagio, and a fellowship at the National Humanities Center, Hayles is currently working on study of narrative and database

Andrew Pickering is internationally known as a leader in the field of science and technology studies. He is the author of Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics (1984), The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science (1995) and Chasing Technoscience: Matrix for Materiality (with Don Ihde, Evan Selinger, Donna Jeanne Haraway, and Bruno Latour, 2003). He has written on topics as diverse as post-World War II particle physics; mathematics, science and industry in the 19th-century; and science, technology and warfare in and since WWII. His most recent book, Sketches of Another Future: Cybernetics in Britain, 1940-2000 (forthcoming), analyzes cybernetics as a distinctive form of life—spanning brain science, psychiatry, robotics, the theory of complex systems, management, politics, the arts, education and spirituality. Pickering has held fellowships at MIT, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. He is professor of sociology and philosophy at the University of Exeter, where he moved in 2007 after serving as professor of sociology and director of an interdisciplinary STS graduate program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Don Ihde is Distinguished Professor of philosophy at Stony Brook University. He is the author of thirteen books and the editor of many others, including what is often identified as the first North American work on the philosophy of technology, Technics and Praxis (1979). In the mid-1970s, together with his colleagues at Stony Brook, Ihde developed an intentionally eclectic school of experienced-based “experimental phenomenology” with bridges to pragmatism, which has concentrated on elaborating the ways that instrumentation mediates between human beings and the world. His interests center around the philosophy of science and technology, with a recent focus on imaging technologies. In addition, work on intercultural perception and plural cultural patterns form part of his current research agenda. In 1990, Ihde, together with Indiana University Press, initiated a new monograph series in philosophy of technology that has since become one of the most influential collections of publications in the field. He has recently published Freedom and Nature: the Voluntary and the Involuntary (with Paul Ricoeur and Erazim V. Koha´k, 2007).

Jean-Pierre Dupuy is professor of social and political philosophy and director of the Centre de Recherche en Épistémologie Appliquée at the École Polytechnique, Paris. At Stanford University, he is a professor of French and Italian, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information and professor of political science by courtesy. A member of the French Academy of Technology, Dupuy’s research interests encompass cultural theory, social and political philosophy, the cognitive sciences, the epistemology of the social sciences, and the relationship of critical theory to logical and scientific thinking, extending to the paradoxes of rationality and the philosophical underpinnings and the future societal and ethical impacts of the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science. His book, The Mechanization of the Mind (2000), examined how the founders of cybernetics laid the foundations not only for cognitive science, but also artificial intelligence, and foreshadowed the development of chaos theory, complexity theory, and other scientific and philosophical breakthroughs. His recent publications include La Panique (2003), Aux origines des sciences cognitives (2005), and Retour de Tchernobyl journal d'un homme en cole`re (2006).

Daniel Sarewitz is the director of the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO) and professor of science and society at Arizona State University. His work focuses on understanding the connections between scientific research and social benefit, and on developing methods and policies to strengthen such connections. His most recent books are Shaping Science and Technology Policy: The Next Generation of Research (with David H. Guston, 2006) and Living with the Genie: Essays on Technology and the Quest for Human Mastery (with Alan Lightman and Christina Desser, 2003). Before joining ASU, Sarewitz directed the Geological Society of America’s Institute for Environmental Education and worked on Capitol Hill, first as a congressional science fellow, then as a science consultant to the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. He has written numerous articles, speeches, and reports about the relationship between science and social progress, including Prediction: Science, Decision–Making, and the Future of Nature (2000) and Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress (1996), and has done field work in the Philippines, Argentina, and Tajikistan. In 2007, he was named a Templeton Research Fellow, along with Brad Allenby, for their project, “Transhumanism, Nature, and Technology: Reinventing the Enlightenment.”

Daniel Sarewitz is the director of the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO) and professor of science and society at Arizona State University. His work focuses on understanding the connections between scientific research and social benefit, and on developing methods and policies to strengthen such connections. His most recent books are Shaping Science and Technology Policy: The Next Generation of Research (with David H. Guston, 2006) and Living with the Genie: Essays on Technology and the Quest for Human Mastery (with Alan Lightman and Christina Desser, 2003). Before joining ASU, Sarewitz directed the Geological Society of America’s Institute for Environmental Education and worked on Capitol Hill, first as a congressional science fellow, then as a science consultant to the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. He has written numerous articles, speeches, and reports about the relationship between science and social progress, including Prediction: Science, Decision–Making, and the Future of Nature (2000) and Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress (1996), and has done field work in the Philippines, Argentina, and Tajikistan. In 2007, he was named a Templeton Research Fellow, along with Brad Allenby, for their project, “Transhumanism, Nature, and Technology: Reinventing the Enlightenment

Brad Allenby joined ASU in 2004 after spending over twenty years working for AT&T as counsel, senior environmental counsel, research vice president for technology and environment, and environment, health and safety vice president. During that period he also served for two years as Director of Energy and Environmental Systems at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and as the J. Herbert Holloman Fellow at the National Academy of Engineering. He also taught as an adjunct professor at Yale University School of Forestry, Columbia University ’s School of International and Public Affairs, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Virginia ’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. His principal areas of research and teaching include: design for environment; earth systems engineering and management; industrial ecology; NBIC (nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technology, and cognitive sciences) convergence and technological evolution. He has received a number of honors and distinctions such as being named the Herbert Holloman Fellow with the National Academy of Engineering, 1991–1992, a Fellow with the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, 1999–present, and the President for the International Society for Industrial Ecology, 2004–present. Some of his most recent publications include: Reconstructing Earth (2005); Industrial Ecology, 2nd ed. (2004, Co–authored with T.E. Graedel and has been published in Russian and Chinese); and Industrial Ecology: Policy Framework and Implementation (1999).

Brad Allenby joined ASU in 2004 after spending over twenty years working for AT&T as counsel, senior environmental counsel, research vice president for technology and environment, and environment, health and safety vice president. During that period he also served for two years as Director of Energy and Environmental Systems at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and as the J. Herbert Holloman Fellow at the National Academy of Engineering. He also taught as an adjunct professor at Yale University School of Forestry, Columbia University ’s School of International and Public Affairs, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Virginia ’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. His principal areas of research and teaching include: design for environment; earth systems engineering and management; industrial ecology; NBIC (nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technology, and cognitive sciences) convergence and technological evolution. He has received a number of honors and distinctions such as being named the Herbert Holloman Fellow with the National Academy of Engineering, 1991–1992, a Fellow with the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, 1999–present, and the President for the International Society for Industrial Ecology, 2004–present. Some of his most recent publications include: Reconstructing Earth (2005); Industrial Ecology, 2nd ed. (2004, Co–authored with T.E. Graedel and has been published in Russian and Chinese); and Industrial Ecology: Policy Framework and Implementation (1999).

John Tooby is best known for his work in pioneering the new field of evolutionary psychology, along with Templeton Research co–Fellow Leda Cosmides. For the last two decades, Tooby and his collaborators have been integrating cognitive science, cultural anthropology, evolutionary biology, paleoanthropology, cognitive neuroscience, and hunter–gatherer studies to create the new field of evolutionary psychology. The goal of evolutionary psychology is the progressive mapping of the universal evolved cognitive and neural architecture that constitutes human nature, and provides the basis of the learning mechanisms responsible for culture. Tooby uses cross–cultural, experimental, and neuroscience techniques to investigate specific cognitive specializations for cooperation, group psychology, and human reasoning. Through the Center for Evolutionary Psychology, Tooby directs a field station in Ecuadorian Amazonia in order to conduct cross–cultural studies of psychological adaptations and human behavioral ecology. He is particularly interested in documenting how the design of these adaptations shapes cultural and social phenomena, and potentially forms the foundation for a new, more precise generation of social and cultural theories. The lead author and co–author on countless papers, articles, and research studies, Tooby co–edited the pioneering work, The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture in 1992. He and Cosmides have two books forthcoming—Universal Minds: Explaining the New Science of Evolutionary Psychology and Evolutionary Psychology: Foundation Papers. Among several other projects, Tooby is also working on a book on the evolution of sexual reproduction and genetic systems. The emerging discourse of transhumanism affords Tooby and Cosmides the opportunity to reflect on their research findings about human nature in a context of rapidly changing biotechnology. What is it that makes us human? And what is it, if anything, that makes us transhuman? Tooby has also contributed to such popular venues as the New York Times and Slate Magazine. He has been the recipient of a J. S. Guggenheim Fellowship and has served as President of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Tooby and Cosmides received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award and were named Templeton Research co–Fellows by Arizona State University in 2006.

Sander van der Leeuw (Arizona State University) is Professor and Director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU. An archaeologist and historian by training, Van der Leeuw’s research interests have been in archaeological theory, reconstruction of ancient ceramic technologies, regional archaeology, (ancient and modern) man–land relationships, GIS and modeling, and Complex Systems Theory. He has done archaeological fieldwork in Syria, Holland and France, and conducted ethno–archaeological studies in the Near East, the Philippines and Mexico. Since 1992, he has been involved in a series of research projects financed by the European Union in the area of socio–natural interactions and environmental problems as well as the history of archaeology and its uses in the creation of national and regional identities. Among these projects are “Archaeomedes,” concerned with understanding and modeling the natural and anthropogenic causes of desertification, land degradation and land abandonment and their spatial manifestations, “Environmental Perception and Policy Making,” “Concerted Action and Environmental Communication,” and, most recently, the creation of a Europe–wide network of Long Term Socio–Environmental Research sites. His publications include Modeling Socioecological Systems, Quelles natures voulons–nous? Pour une approche socio–écologique du champ de l’environnement, and Archaeology: Time, Process and Structural Transformations.

James Hughes (Trinity College) is currently Associate Director of Institutional Research and Planning at Trinity College in Hartford, where he teaches Health Policy, Drug Policy, Infectious Disease Policy, and Research Methods in Trinity’ Graduate Public Policy Studies program. In 2004, Hughes was appointed the Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association and he became Executive of the affiliated think tank, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, and a member of the Working Group on Ethics and Technology at Yale University. Dr. Hughes speaks on medical ethics, health care policy and future studies worldwide. His work is characterized by a hopefulness that technology and democracy can help citizens overcome some of the root causes of inequalities of power. He is the author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future in which he explores many of the issues and possibilities as technology increasingly changes the nature and character of being human. He also produces the weekly syndicated public affairs talk show Changesurfer Radio and contributes to the Technoliberation project and the Cyborg Democracy blog.

William Grassie (Metanexus Institute) is the founder of the Metanexus Institute, executive editor of the Institute’ online magazine and discussion forum with over 40,000 weekly page views and over 6000 regular subscribers in 57 different countries, and national program director for the Templeton Research Lectures on the Constructive Engagement of Science and Religion. He has been a visiting professor at Temple University, Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania, and specializes in the philosophy of science and religion. Grassie lectures widely on topics related to science and religion. His recent projects have included a series of conferences, workshops and symposia on “Beyond Intelligent Design, Scientific Debates, and Culture Wars: Towards a Constructive Theology of Evolution.” He has also written recently on the topic of transhumanism in the context of the dialogue between science and religion.

John Tooby (University of California, Santa Barbara) is Professor of Anthropology and co–director of UCSB’ Center for Evolutionary Psychology, where he and his collaborators use cross–cultural, experimental, and neuroscience techniques to investigate specific cognitive specializations for cooperation, group psychology, and human reasoning. Under Tooby’ direction, the Center maintains a field station in Ecuadorian Amazonia in order to conduct cross–cultural studies of psychological adaptations and human behavioral ecology. He is particularly interested in documenting how the design of these adaptations shapes cultural and social phenomena, and potentially forms the foundation for a new, more precise generation of social and cultural theories. For the last two decades, Tooby and his collaborators have been integrating cognitive science, cultural anthropology, evolutionary biology, paleoanthropology, cognitive neuroscience, and hunter–gatherer studies to create the new field of evolutionary psychology. His numerous scientific papers and publications include, The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, and two forthcoming books—Universal Minds: Explaining the New Science of Evolutionary Psychology and Evolutionary Psychology: Foundational Papers. He has been the recipient of a J. S. Guggenheim Fellowship and has served as President of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Tooby and his principal collaborator, Leda Cosmides, were named Templeton Research Fellows by ASU in 2006.

Ashok Gangadean (Haverford College) is Professor of Philosophy and was the first Director of the Margaret Gest Center for Cross–Cultural Study of Religion at Haverford. His primary concern throughout his career has been to clarify the universal logos or common ground at the heart of human reason and rational life. He is Founder–Director of the Global Dialogue Institute, which seeks to embody the dialogical powers of global reason in all aspects of cultural life. His book, Meditative Reason: Toward Universal Grammar (l993) attempts to open the way to global reason. A companion volume, Between Worlds: The Emergence of Global Reason (l997) explores the dialogical common ground between diverse worlds. His forthcoming book, The Awakening of the Global Mind further develops these themes for the general reader. He is co–convenor of the recently formed World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality which brings eminent world leaders together in sustained deep dialogue to cultivate global vision and wisdom for the new millennium. This high level Commission has been supported generously by the Breuninger Foundation and has held annual retreats in the past three years at their Wasan Island Retreat

Pascal Boyer (Washington University) is Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory in Arts & Sciences. An anthropologist and psychologist, he is internationally recognized for his studies of how people and communities perceive and understand characteristics of their culture. His work centers on questions concerning the understanding of culture and its scientific investigation as it relates to the mind and the brain. Most of his research is focused on the cognitive processes involved in acquiring, storing and transmitting cultural knowledge, norms and preferences. The aim is to show how the organization of the human mind influences human cultures by making certain types of ideas or norms extremely easy to acquire and communicate. He has done anthropological and psychological research on the transmission of oral epics in Africa and on the transmission of religious concepts. He currently is engaged in cognitive experimental work on young children’ concepts of animate beings and numbers. Professor Boyer is the author of a numerous books and articles, including The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion, which has been called a landmark study of religion and of cognitive approaches to culture, and most recently, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought.

Leda Cosmides is best known for her work with John Tooby in pioneering the new field of evolutionary psychology. This multidisciplinary new approach weaves together evolutionary biology, cognitive science, human evolution, hunter gatherer studies, neuroscience, and psychology into a new approach to discovering the mechainsms of the human mind and brain. According to this new view, by understanding the adaptive problems our hunter–gatherer ancestors faced during their evolution, researchers can uncover the detailed functional designs of the emotions, reasoning “instincts” and motivations that human evolution produced. Cosmides is professor of psychology and anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she co–directs the Center for Evolutionary Psychology with John Tooby. She was educated at Harvard and Stanford (postdoctoral). Awards for her research with Tooby include the American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Behavioral Science Research, the American Psychological Association’s Early Career Award; a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, and a J. S. Guggenheim Fellowship.