Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Harvard Humanists, Early 1960s

My father was a graduate student in psychology and education at Harvard in the 1960s. Along with B.F. Skinner and one other graduate student, he founded "The Harvard Humanists". Going through old papers, he recently found the following mimeographed announcement of an "evening of informal discussion and refreshments" as I have reproduced below.

For this particular meeting, attendees included Isaac Asimov, Mary Bunting (president of Radcliffe), Tom Lehrer (yes, that Tom Lehrer), Frederick Mosteller (one of the most eminent statisticians of the 20th century), Nobel physicist Edward Purcell, George Gaylord Simpson (one of the most eminent paleontologists of the 20th century), and of course B. F. Skinner (whom they apparently took for granted and forgot to include in the typed proof).

Ah, Harvard in the 1960s! What a group of have informal discussion and drinks with. Just thought I'd share.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If I could I would love drunken conversations with any of them, but I don't think I want talk to any of them sober. Too intimidated I think

Mike Almeida said...

wow, that's amazing. you're not going to sell that on ebay...?

Mike Almeida said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I see. You're a second(?) generation academic dynast, distinguished scion of the House of Gable.