[Fis] Call for Abstracts, WESS Conference, "Abstraction and the Emergence of Evolutionary Thinking", March 21 and 22, 2004

Dear Colleagues:

You are invited to participate in a conference sponsored by the
Washington Evolutionary Systems Society (WESS) and held in
conjunction with symposium of the Washington Academy of Sciences
(WAS). The conference will be held at the National Science
Foundation, Arlington, Virginia, on March 21 and 22, 2004.

Our objective is to create new insights into:

"Abstraction and the Emergence of Evolutionary Thinking".

Evolutionary thinking has extended itself into numerous disciplines
in recent decades. When viewed from the dogmatic structures inherited
from earlier centuries, evolutionary thinking can appear as an artful
blend of history, science and policy. It may include the seeds of
re-uniting the deeply fragmented natural sciences. The surprising
emergence of evolutionary thinking as a cornerstone of physical,
biological and social thought raises difficult and challenging
questions for the scientific community.

What is the nature of abstraction?

Are scientific abstractions consistent from discipline to discipline?

Is the emergence of evolutionary thinking a direct product of new
conceptual abstractions about the perplexity of science?

Are the traditional mathematical abstractions adequate for
generalizations over multiple disciplines?

Can traditional concepts, such as Liebniz's "monads" contribute to
developing new foundations for scientific abstractions?

Does the re-emergence of evolutionary thinking signify a renewal of
Darwinian social philosophy and political policies?

Or, is evolutionary thinking merely a temporal way station on the
path to a substantial integration of the perplexities of the abstract
sciences?

This conference can be viewed as an extension of the ongoing WESSbook
discussions on the nature of mind, matter, time, place and space.
However, all WESS members are invited to contribute to this
conference, independent of the local discussions here in the WDC area.

You are invited to submit an abstract (about 500 words) no later than
October 15, 2003.

The Washington Academy of Sciences has a deadline of Jan. 15, 2004
for manuscripts for publication. More than 20 other scientific
societies will participate in the meeting. WAS intends to publish
the proceedings of the symposia.

If you would like to submit a paper but may not be able to
participate in the conference, please contact me.

I am looking forward to a creative conference on the foundational
issues that both unit and divide us .

Sincerely

Jerry LR Chandler

President
WESS

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Received on Thu Jul 24 20:14:03 2003