This Declaration derives from an International Multidisciplinary Conference on “Human Behavior and the Meaning of Modern Humanism”, which was held at Delphi, Greece, June 14-17, 1995. The participants, from many fields of Science and the Humanities, pondered the human predicament. In a four-day intensive scientific exploration, participants from a wide range of disciplines* debated the dominant issues of the existence of the human species. This was the first occasion on which such an intellectually diverse group has approached the subject of human existence holistically and from so many different perspectives. A consensus was reached on the six issues below:
(1) Human population growth is of grave concern as a potential source of unprecedented human and natural catastrophe. Every nation must unite in the effort to determine planetary capacity.
(2) The abundance of resources in the developed world and the poverty in the developing countries is threatening political tension, mass migration, and violent confrontation. This problem, addressed until now with policies of “sustainable development”, must be approached anew with rational and scientific methods.
(3) Human-made modifications of the planetary ecosystem (“environment”) threaten to produce irreversible and catastrophic changes.
(4) Wars, and the dangers inherent in the use of weapons of mass destruction, threaten the survival of many forms of life, including human.
(5) Ongoing advances in science, technology, and biology are changing the world dramatically. However, the basic characteristics of human behavior and the central principles of ethics remain unchanged. Although these have, through the centuries, inspired humankind’s most glorious achievements, they have also been responsible for the most terrible monstrosities in human history. The development and implementation of a new global Ethic and Philosophy, to face the challenges of the emerging new world, is therefore vital for human existence.
(6) Survival of the human species also makes it absolutely necessary that the study of human behavior be intensified. This study should be holistic in character and integrate findings from biological, neurophysiological, cultural, philosophical, and other sources.
These issues are the most important in the world today. The future of humankind depends on resolving them. We cannot confront these issues with archaic philosophical, religious, and biological thinking. Such thinking explains the difficulties encountered at the recent International Conference on Environment and Human Population Growth. We need a new approach and a new organization. This conference has therefore unanimously decided to create the Delphi Society. This new society will approach the problems of human existence and the future of humankind holistically and from a multidisciplinary point of view with a unifying concept based on the patterns of human behavior. An understanding of human behavior is absolutely necessary if we are to explain how we came to our present plight. The study of patterns of human behavior will be a long-lasting project for the society, so that the action of the society today will have to be guided by an approximate understanding of human behavior.
The broad goal of the society will be to contribute to the greatest issues that humanity is facing today:
• Prevention of global catastrophe
• Creation of an environment supportive of peace and progress for all human beings
• Prevention of a sixth mass extinction of life on the planet, and preservation of the human species
The society will undertake the enormous task of translating these precepts into practical action. A plan of action will be designed based on objectives include the new concepts of “population health”, and “a new role for medicine” for a sustained balance of reproduction and optimization of the environment.
To promote these goals effectively, we will cooperate with governmental and nongovernmental agencies, business and industry, mass media, environmentalists and conservationists, and advocates of allied causes.
The Society has the ambition to succeed where all the religions and all the ideologies throughout the centuries have been largely unsuccessful, i.e., to define a way that will unite the human species.
Delphi, August 1995.
* Anthropologists, Sociologists, Biologists, Neurobiologists, Physicians, Physicists, Astrophysicists, Chaos Theorists, Environmentalists, Economists, Management Experts, Writers, Artists, Theologians, Clergy, Philosophers, Humanists, Businessmen, Journalists and Politicians.
