How Humanity Might Avoid Devastation

Dr. Nicholas Maxwell on Population growth, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species.

Population growth, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, vast inequalities of wealth and power around the globe, the lethal character of modern war, pollution of earth, sea and air, and above all the impending disasters of climate change; all these looming global problems indicate we face a grim future.
In order tackle these problems intelligently, effectively and humanely, requires that our institutions of learning, our universities and schools, are rationally designed and devoted to the task. At present, they are not. We have inherited from the past a kind of academic inquiry so grossly irrational that it has actually contributed to the genesis of these problems. The great intellectual success of modern science and technological research has made possible, even caused, all these global crises.
As a matter of supreme urgency we need to bring about a revolution in academia so that humanity may acquire what it so desperately needs: a kind of inquiry rationally designed and devoted to helping us make progress towards as good a world as possible.
Nicholas Maxwell has devoted much of his working life to arguing that we need to bring about a revolution in academia so that it seeks and promotes wisdom and does not just acquire knowledge. In 2003 he founded Friends of Wisdom an international group of academics and educationalists concerned with the role of universities in this regard. He has published widely including eight books. For thirty years he taught philosophy of science at University College London, where he is now Emeritus Reader.

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