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The World Knowledge Dialogue Entire Programme

Thursday, 14 September

1:00 p.m.	Registration
3:00 / 3:05 p.m.	Opening Read the Summary	André Hurst, President, WKD Foundation
3:05 / 3:15 p.m.	Introduction to the Symposium Read the Summary	Pascal Couchepin, Swiss Federal Councillor, Head of the Department of Home Affairs
3:15 / 3:25 p.m.	Bridging the Knowledge Cultures in the Age of Innovation Read the Summary	Jàn Figel', European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism
	Scientific session 1	Chair: Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, President, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan
3:25 / 3:35 p.m.	Introduction: "Two Cultures, one Human Mind" Read the Summary	Francis Waldvogel, President Emeritus of the Swiss Polytechnical Institutes, Program Director of the WKD
3:35 / 3:45 p.m.	Address (video) Read the Summary	Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino Research Professor in Entomology, Harvard University, USA
3:45 / 4:00 p.m.	"The Rules of the Game" of the first Symposium: Objectives and Importance of the Dialogue Read the Summary	Dame Julia Higgins, Professor of Polymer Sciences at Imperial College, London, Foreign Secretary and Vice President of the Royal Society, UK
4:00 / 4:15 p.m.	Break
4:15 / 5:15 p.m.	Keynote Lecture I: From Brain Dynamics to Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination Read the Summary	Gerald M. Edelman, Nobel Laureate, Director of the Neurosciences Institute and President of Neurosciences Research Foundation, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurobiology, The Scripps Research Institute, USA
5:30 p.m.	Welcome cocktail and networking

Friday, 15 September

9:00 a.m. / 12:15 p.m.	Scientific session 2 Read the Summary	Main topic I: New Discoveries Defining Complexity Moderator: Dame Julia Higgins
9:00 / 9:30 a.m.	Searching for Simplicity in Complexity; Growth, Innovation, Economies of Scale, and the Pace of Life from Cells to Cities Read the Summary	Geoffrey West, President and Distinguished Professor, Santa Fe Institute, USA
9:40 / 10:10 a.m.	Understanding and Managing Planetary Complexity Read the Summary	John Schellnhuber, Founding Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Professor at Potsdam and Oxford Universities, Distinguished Science Adviser of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK
10:20 / 10:30 a.m.	Break
10:30 / 11:00 a.m.	Why Physics is Easy and People are Hard Read the Summary	Ian Hacking Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, Canada; Professeur au Collège de France, Paris, France
11:00 / 12:15 p.m.	Discussion and short presentations
	Paul Cilliers: Knowing Complex Systems. The limits of understanding Continuation of discussions Ernest Hartman: Boundaries between Fields and Boundaries in the Mind Read the Summary
12:30 / 1:30 p.m.	Working lunch	Round Table: 6 short presentations
	Markus Karner: Cross-disciplinary Dialogue in Academia: Debating Complexity and Organic Development at Singapore Management University Veronica Boix Mansilla: Many Cultures of Academic Inquiry, Nurturing students' capacity to bridge Akimasa Sumi: A new Initiative at the University of Tokyo - Integrated Research System for Sustainable Sciences(IR3S) and Transdisciplinary Initiative for Global Sustainability(TIGS) Questions KP Mohanan: Many Cultures of Academic Inquiry Mark Freed: Toward a NonModern NonHumanism Wei Wu: What Went Wrong? -- The losing battle of Confucian doctrine against cheating in science Questions Read the Summary
1:30 / 2:30 p.m.	Keynote Lecture II: "Towards a Neuroscience of the Capable Person: Unity, Diversity and Oneself as Another" Read the Summary	Jean-Pierre Changeux, Professeur au Collège de France, Professor & Chairman of the Department of Neurosciences at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, France
2:30 / 6:00 p.m.	Scientific session 3	Main topic II: Origin and Migrations of Modern Humans Moderator: Dame Julia Higgins
2:30 / 3:00 p.m.	Human Migrations in Prehistory – the Cultural Record Read the Summary	Ofer Bar-Yosef, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard and Curator of Paleolithic Archaeology, Peabody Museum, Harvard, USA
3:10 / 3:20 p.m.	Break
3:20 / 3:50 p.m.	The Origins of Modern Humans: Linguistic Issues Read the Summary	Bernard Victorri, Director of research CNRS, Lattice Laboratory, France
4:00 / 4:30 p.m.	A Genetic View of Human Origins Read the Summary	Svante Pääbo, Director, Department of Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
4:40 / 6:00 p.m.	Discussion and short presentations
	Michael McCormick: Initiative for the scientific study of the past at Harvard University Discussions (Cont'd) Edward Slingerland: Who's Afraid of Reductionism? Consilience, Cognitive Science and the Humanities Discussions (Cont'd) Read the Summary
7:00 p.m.	Cultural event and Gala dinner

Saturday 16 September

	Scientific session 4
9:00 / 10:30 a.m.	Workshops (parallel sessions)
9:00 / 10:30 a.m.	Workshop 1: Dialogue driven by political instruments and respecting academic autonomy Read the Summary	Chair: Ruth Dreifuss, Former Swiss Federal Councillor and former President of the Swiss Federal Council
9:00 / 10:30 a.m.	Workshop 2: Dialogue driven by academic institutional governance Read the Summary	Chair: Georges Haddad, Director, Division of Higher Education, UNESCO, Honorary President, University of Paris 1, Panthéon–Sorbonne, Paris, France
9:00 / 10:30 a.m.	Workshop 3: Dialogue driven through education Read the Summary	Chair: Richard R. Ernst, Nobel Laureate, Professor Emeritus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich
10:30 / 10:50 a.m.	Break
10:50 / 12:05 a.m.	Feedback from workshops and General Discussion Read the Summary
12:05 / 12:35 p.m.	Concluding Lecture: What have we learnt and where do we go from here? A perspective for the 2008 Symposium Read the Summary	Dame Julia Higgins, Professor of Polymer Sciences at Imperial College, London, Foreign Secretary and Vice President of the Royal Society, UK
12:35 / 13:30	Farewell buffet

Quick Jump to

Dialogue between the sciences

I New Discoveries defining Complexity

II Origin and Migrations of Modern Humans

Special Focus

The World Knowledge Dialogue at a glance

The World Knowledge Dialogue Symposium 2006 is an institutional initiative to bridge the gap between the natural and the human/social sciences starting from new, revolutionary discoveries with potential impact at the scale of paradigmatic changes.Click for more information and summaries of sessions.

Focus on Young Scientists

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
-- Albert Einstein

Thirty-eight Young Scientists were selected from around the world to actively participate in The World Knowledge Dialogue.