Monthly Archive for November, 2011

From Times Higher Education

Science, we often hear, is too important to be left to scientists. It is a daft thing to say, really. Scientists undergo long and arduous training, work implausibly hard and take specialisation to a degree rarely matched in other disciplines. If you want science done at all, leaving it to them seems an excellent idea.

The argument that others need to get involved still has real force, though. Science and the technologies it helps into existence are highly consequential. Those consequences are the sort of thing we all feel entitled to have opinions about. But in the face of all that training, and the esoteric knowledge that goes with it, how far should the opinions of the public count? What, in short, is the place of expertise in democratic discussion?

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By Benedict Carey from The New York Times

The scientists exchanged one last look and held their breath.

Everything was ready. The electrode was in place, threaded between the two hemispheres of a living cat’s brain; the instruments were tuned to pick up the chatter passing from one half to the other. The only thing left was to listen for that electronic whisper, the brain’s own internal code.

The amplifier hissed — the three scientists expectantly leaning closer — and out it came, loud and clear.

“We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine ….”

“The Beatles’ song! We somehow picked up the frequency of a radio station,” recalled Michael S. Gazzaniga, chuckling at the 45-year-old memory. “The brain’s secret code. Yeah, right!”

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By Michael Gazzaniga from edge.org

What I’m going to do is talk about neuroscience and how it may impact justice. I had to give a talk recently to judges and lawyers, but it really is the same talk you would give anybody. It is a summary of four years of effort that I’ve put into this MacArthur Law and Neuroscience project.

How that came about is there was a meeting in New York of lawyers, philosophers, neuroscientists, and psychologists. They met four or five years ago to talk about whether one should study the topic of law and neuroscience. I left the room to go to the bathroom or something, I came back and they said, okay, you’re directing it. So don’t leave the room when these things are going on because you get saddled with surprises!

Since “basic neuroscience for judges and lawyers” was exactly the wrong talk for you at 3:00 o’clock this afternoon, let’s say “perspectives on basic neuroscience” because the former one reminds you of your high school biology class which most of you probably didn’t like.

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