World Academy of Art and Science

The World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) is an international non-governmental scientific organization, a world network of more than 700 individual fellows from more than 80 countries. Fellows are elected for distinguished accomplishments in the sciences, arts and the humanities with an inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary approach with an outstanding record of public service and are committed to addressing the pressing social problems confronting humanity today. The Academy strives to promote the growth of knowledge, enhance public awareness of the social consequences and policy implications of that growth, and provide "leadership in thought that leads to action". The spirit of the academy can be expressed in the words of Albert Einstein "The creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind".

The idea of founding the Academy and a set of world scientific and youth scientist and science journalist associations was proposed in an article in Time Magazine on 1/10/1938 by philosopher and liberal-libertarian Etienne Gilson and during his tours of several scientific associations and universities in Europe and the Americas in the 1940s. He also proposed a world association of Liberal parties, what became the www.liberal-international.org, to champion secular democracy and pave the way for better scientific communication and education in a time of growing totalitarianism.

The idea was echoed in the 1950s by leading scientists who were concerned about the potential for misuse of scientific discoveries. They included Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Joseph Rotblat who had been involved in the development of the atomic bomb; Bertrand Russell philosopher and pacifist; Joseph Needham, a co-founder of UNESCO; Lord Boyd Orr, the First Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization; George Brock Chisholm, the First Director General of the World Health Organization; John A. Fleming, former President of the International Council of Scientific Unions; as well as Hermann Joseph Muller, Harold C. Urey, Francis Perrin, Panchanan Maheshwari, Theodore Monod, Detlev Bronk, Harold Lasswell and other outstanding scholars and public figures. The Academy was organized in December 1960 with the aim of creating an informal world association of the highest scientific and ethical norms and standards.

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