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WASHINGTON – The Institute for Science
and Human Values (ISHV) announced the names of the
people who will direct its mission today, including
President Stuart Jordan, a retired NASA physicist, and
Dr. Vincent Parr, associate of the late psychologist Dr.
Albert Ellis.
Dr. Paul Kurtz, chairman of the board,
said he was “excited and pleased” to have landed Jordan.
“Stu [Jordan] is a brilliant and
accomplished scientist, writer, and thinker. He
certainly had other options competing for his time and
I’m glad he chose to help lead the Institute. With Stu
on board my mind is eased and we can get down to our
essential work,” Kurtz said.
Kurtz announced the formation of ISHV
last July after resigning from the board of the Center
for Inquiry. He said the new organization will promote a
rational reevaluation of morality in order to strengthen
the moral framework of Humanism and “develop values that
are naturalistic and humanistic in character.”
Jordan said ISHV and Kurtz’s Humanist
vision will be catalysts for the international expansion
of the spirit of the Enlightenment.
“I'm stirred by this new responsibility
to develop the ethical aspects of secular Humanism,”
Jordan said. “By including science and reason in the
global discussion on morality and by promoting the
mutual independence of government and religion we will
contribute to a better world for all people.”
ISHV also announced that Dr. Vincent Parr
would serve on ISHV’s board of directors. Parr said he
feels a responsibility to carry on the work and ideas of
Ellis, one of the most prominent psychologists of recent
history.
“I will be setting up a complete
psychological service program for our members, staff,
and local community based on reason and compassion. It
will follow Ellis’s REBT (rational emotive behavior
therapy) approach and utilize mindfulness training that
Ellis was lecturing on before he died,” Parr said.
Parr is the founder and president of the
Institute for Advanced Study in Tampa. He was also
president of the Rational Living Foundation, a
predecessor organization to ISHV.
“Vince [Parr] is a great friend and his
vision for ISHV goes back several years,” Kurtz said.
“Without his ideas, support, and encouragement, we would
never have gotten off the ground.”
Toni Van Pelt, Southeast regional
director for the National Organization for Women, will
also serve as a board member and treasurer of ISHV. Van
Pelt worked as government affairs director for the
Center for Inquiry (CFI) until its Washington, D.C.
office was closed this year due to budget cuts.
“I think ISHV has an opportunity to
become a leading voice for Humanism and its values on
Capitol Hill,” Van Pelt said. We made significant
headway [with CFI] in getting members of Congress to
hear our message, and I plan to build on that success.
If Congress doesn’t hear an alternative point of view,
the members assume that everyone likes government
supported “faith-based” programs, for example. Part of
our mission will be to remind them periodically of the
values we share with millions of secularist Americans.”
Also serving on the board are Norman
Allen, Jr., former executive director of African
Americans for Humanism, and Jonathan Kurtz, president of
publisher Prometheus Books.
Allen, in addition to his work as a board
member, is editor of ISHV’s publication The Human
Prospect: A Neo-Humanist Perspective. He said the first
issue will come out near the beginning of next year.
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Jordan is a retired emeritus senior staff
scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where
he led the solar physics program and was editor and
author of an eight-volume international monograph series
on stellar astrophysics. He holds a PhD in physics and
astrophysics, was a Rhodes Scholar, was president and
longtime board member of the Washington Area Secular
Humanists, and served as science adviser to CFI’s Office
of Public Policy.
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