Galileo and the The renaissance scientific discourse- First Roma Workshop on Past and Presente Perception of Science, Rome May 2009

The workshop sets out to make a contribution to closing the gap between the world of research and society at large. This involves going beyond the persistent divide in education between the sciences and the humanities in the spirit of what E. Morin has stressed recently in Seven Complex Lessons in Education for the Future. In his essay the French philosopher and sociologist demonstrated the urgent need to acquire an overall vision of knowledge to supersede the fragmentation into specialist disciplines. On one hand, the specialist disciplines have led to the enormous progress typical of the present age, but on the other, they have hindered the organization of knowledge required to tackle consciously increasingly complex problems (especially as regards democratic participation in society), which by nature are multidisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, multidimensional, transnational and planetary. The International Year of Astronomy 2009, which marks the fourth centenary of the first telescope observation, provides a good opportunity to reconsider Galileo’s work in the framework of the culture and society of his day, but with a special focus on the issues characterizing modern relations between science and society. Besides its intrinsic interest for the epistemology and the history of science, this field of enquiry may offer a good ground for interdisciplinary projects shared by researchers and university or high-school teachers with both scientific and humanistic backgrounds. The future of the European Union will depend greatly on the upcoming generations’ capacity to develop a sense of common European citizenship in the worldwide context and to improve skills in the field of scientific and technical knowledge. In this sense the efficiency of national educational systems is a crucial factor not only for the purposes of disseminating knowledge but also for economic development and democratic life. In recent years there has been a strong international drive to renew the teaching and communication of science. The movement involves close collaboration between school teachers and university researchers on continuous well-structured joint educational projects that hopefully will be included in the usual curricular teaching, also with a view to providing more effective career and education guidance to young people. That is why today’s workshop is part of the Science Degrees Project, which aims at offering guidance to young people and refresher courses to teachers.As stressed in its title, the workshop – this year promoted by the ACUME2 Network – wishes to be the first in a series of Rome meetings that contribute to exploring the Science-Society-Education relationship through various themes and from multiple perspectives. Lastly, we should like to stress how the choice of workshop venue in a building associated with Galileo’s story and the antique books exhibition organised in the Sala Monumentale of the Biblioteca Casanatense in concomitance with the workshop were aimed at highlighting the educational and scientific role of the immense Italian cultural and museum heritage as well as that of the experts working in this field. Aldo Altamore and Giovanni Antonini