Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the world’s first successful polio vaccine and founder of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, believed that by asking ourselves if we are being good ancestors, humanity would orient itself towards a new way of thinking, ushering in a vital shift in global human ethics.
Dr. Salk also believed that the world problematic would best be solved by an epidemic of goodwill in which our mutual self-interest would be served by becoming more altruistic, a shift in perspective that would beg the question. "Is it the dollar value of a human or the human value of a dollar?"
When combined, these two beliefs suggest an evolutionary approach in thinking about what it means to be human and of our responsibility to self, to other and to the planet.
It is the work of the Human Futures Foundation, led by Dr. Salk’s writing collaborator and co-founder of Human Futures, Carol Anne Bundy, to explore these ideas through dialogue and exchange via writings, forums and films.
Tap image to play