PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Contact: Nathan Bupp
Phone: (716) 636-4869 x 218
E-mail: nbupp@centerforinquiry.net
Paul Kurtz to Embark on Speaking Tour of India
September 02, 2008
Humanist and American Public Intellectual Paul Kurtz to Embark on Speaking Tour of India
Amherst, New York—Well-known humanist and American public intellectual Paul Kurtz has been invited to lecture at various universities and colleges in India. Kurtz is the Chairman and Founder of the international think tank Center for Inquiry (CFI), with satellite locations in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. With its international headquarters in Amherst, New York, CFI works to promote and defend science and humanist ethics around the world.
Kurtz will receive an Honorary Doctoral Degree from Periyar Maniammai University on September 9th where he will deliver the commencement address on “Critical Thinking and Planetary Ethics.” The university is in Thanjauur. He will deliver two other talks in Chennai, including the awarding of the “Veeramani Social Justice Award” to the chief minister of the State of Tamil Nadu.
Professor Kurtz will also speak on September 11th at 3pm in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Pune, often considered to be the “Oxford of the East.” He will keynote an all-day conference on “Secularism, Humanism, and Nation Building in Asia.” The university is host to a Center for Inquiry.
Kurtz will speak on September 13th at Maulana Azad Medical College in the Department of Community Medicine at 9:30am in New Delhi. He is Guest of Honor at a special symposium on the topic, “Beliefs and Myths: A Challenge to Public Health.” His talk will be on “Evidence-Based versus Alternative Medicine.” The college also hosts a new Center for Inquiry.
His final talk will also be in New Delhi. Sponsored by the International Rationalist Association of India, his topic is “The Scientific Temper and Secularism.” The lecture will be delivered September 14th at 5:30pm in the Triveni Auditorium.
This speaking tour is Dr. Kurtz’s seventh trip to India. Kurtz is professor emeritus of philosophy at SUNY Buffalo. He is author or editor of 48 books, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and president of the International Academy of Humanism.
Coordinator of this tour is Professor Innaiah Narisetti, chairman of CfI India in Hyderabad. Prof. Narisetti can be reached at innaiahn@yahoo.com.
The Center for Inquiry is a think tank andresearch institution devoted to the appreciation of science and reason and their applications to human conduct. The purpose of the Center for Inquiry is to promote reason, science, and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor. The Center for Inquiry is a transnational nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that encourages evidence-based inquiry into science, pseudoscience, medicine and health, religion, ethics, secularism, and society. CFI's Website can be found at www.centerforinquiry.net
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