The "Two Cultures" 50 Year Anniversary Conference

Over a year ago, we had an idea: We were doing a book that discusses the work of the British physicist-novelist C.P. Snow, and the 50 year anniversary of his world famous "two cultures" argument was coming up--May 7, 2009. Precisely 50 years earlier, Snow had delivered a lecture at Cambridge University lamenting the gap between scientists and humanists, or as he called them then, "literary intellectuals," and suggesting it was a grave threat to policymaking and to the future. We believe this is still a deeply important and resonant argument, and so we got in touch with the New York Academy of Sciences about having a C.P. Snow 50 year anniversary conference. Many months of fundraising and planning later, here we are--it's happening on May 9, 2009 (we had to get to a weekend) and features some stunning speakers: E.O. Wilson, Segway inventor Dean Kamen, Ira Flatow, Lawrence Krauss, Jonah Lehrer, Ann Druyan, Kenneth Miller, Carl Zimmer, and many, many others. The event is officially sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences, ScienceDebate, and the Science Communication Consortium. Click here for info. We hope any Intersection readers interested will try to attend. Move fast--tickets are limited. And we will be blogging much more about the conference, and about C.P. Snow and his legacy, in the coming months.