A manifesto for the sake of self-respect in Colombian Science

Symposium of the International Commission of Science and Cultural Diversity (IASCUD) in the XXI International Congress of History of Science

Kenneth O. May prize for Ubiratan D'Ambrosio

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Symposium of the International Commission of Science and Cultural Diversity (IASCUD) in the XXI International Congress of History of Science

CULTURAL DIVERSITY: NEW PERSPECTIVES IN
THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE.

History of Science has been concerned with a distinctive form of explaining, understanding and coping with the natural environment, which originated in the Mediterranean Basin, since early times.

To recognize that in every other region of the planet, peoples have also developed corpora of knowledge to explain, to understand and to cope with their natural environment opens New Perspectives in the History of Science.

The human species generated ways of dealing with the immediate environment, which provides air, water, nourishment, the other and everything needed for the survival of the individual and of the species. These are techniques and styles of individual and collective behavior, which include communication and language.

But it is characteristic of the human species to transcend the present, developing perceptions of past, present and future and their enchaining, thus providing means of explaining facts and phenomena. These means are memories, individual and collective, myths and the divinatory arts, which allow penetrating the future. In memory and myths are the traditions, which include history, religions and systems of values and explanations. The divinatory arts are practices, such as astrology, oracles, logics, such as, for example, the I Ching, numerology and the laws of nature [philosophia naturalis], or, using a comprehensive term, the sciences, which tell us what may happen.

These are the major challenges facing the human species: to survive, which requires an action in the moment of the encounter with nature as a whole and with the other; to transcend, which looks into before and after the moment, searching the past and probing into the future.

Knowledge is the response to the drives for survival and transcendence. A major research program is to understand how is knowledge generated, organized intellectually and socially, and diffused.

This full cycle of knowledge is intrinsic to the concept of culture, broadly understood as groups of individuals sharing common interest and values, and ways of knowing and doing. This includes families, tribes, communities, professional practitioners and nations. Clearly, the cycle of knowledge is very much affected by cultural encounters throughout history.

The symposium will focus on the social, political, environmental and cultural factors in the generation, intellectual and social organization, and diffusion of scientific knowledge, with particular interest in the dynamics of the encounter of cultures, contemplating both intercultural and intracultural exchanges.

The Symposium is organized in five main strands:

1) Antiquity: civilizations of the past and the encounters. FOCUS: Cases of scientific advance which reveal distinctive cultural characteristics.
2) Medieval encounters. FOCUS: The broadening of the concept of scholarship in the Middle Ages, culminating with the emergence of the universities.
3) The transpacific and transatlantic encounters. FOCUS: knowledge systems revealing fundamental differences.
4) Institutionalized Science. FOCUS: The creation of a scientific culture as a result of interest of the power structure.
5) The Web culture: scientific possibilities. FOCUS: More or less space for different ways of knowing? Reference to the "Science Wars", the Sokal and the Hut affairs.

Format: each strand will be dealt with by a number of speakers [4 or 5] in a panel arrangement, 2½ hours. Preferably meeting twice.

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Kenneth O. May prize for Ubiratan D'Ambrosio

The most prestigious prize in the field of the historiography of mathematics
is the Kenneth O. May prize, awarded by the International Commission on the
History of Mathematics, since 1989, every four years.
Famous historians of mathematics, like the late Dirk Struik, Alexander
Youschkevitch, Christoph Scriba and Hans Wussing are among the recipients of
the Kenneth O. May prize.
During the general meeting of the International Commission on the History of
Mathematics (ICHM) ­ taking place on July 9, 2001, during the XXI
International Congress of History of Science, Mexico City ­ the chairperson
of ICHM, professor Kirsti Andersen, announced that Ubiratan D'Ambrosio was
recipient of the 2001 Kenneth O. May prize for his extremely important
contributions to the historiography of mathematics, and for his opening the
eyes of historians of mathematics for ethnomathematics.
At this moment I should, in the name of the international ethnomathematical
community ISGEM, like to congratulate the Past-President of ISGEm, the
'father of ethnomathematics', professor emeritus Ubiratan D'Ambrosio ­ I
had the opportunity to congratulate Ubi personally in Mexico ­ for
receiving the Kenneth O. May award. It constitutes a great honour both for
Ubi and his family, and for our international community of
ethnomathematicians. It is a vigorous stimulus for all of us to advance
with the study of ethnomathematics, its dissemination and use in education!

Paulus Gerdes
President of the International Studygroup for Ethnomathematics (ISGEm)

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