The Provost announces the third year of an annual series of related lectures on a topic of major campus and broader societal importance. The lecture series will bring the University's research and teaching mission to bear on some timely societal issues. It will have the campus community as its core audience, but will be directed as well to the Durham, national, and international audiences. The substance of the lecture series will be developed with input from an appropriate committee of faculty and others and will generally draw its presenters from outside speakers. In addition to giving a public lecture, speakers will be invited to meet with students and faculty in smaller group activities.
This year's series explores how advances in neuroscience, genomics, robotics, and artificial intelligence are not only changing our conception of what it is to be human but also creating possibilities for changing 'human nature' in fundamental ways.
The series is intended to provide the background required for those on our campus and in the broader community to better engage in the debate currently underway in American society regarding the issue of what it means to be human.
The Provost wishes to thank the following Lecture Series Advisors for their work in helping to design this year's series: Allen Buchanan (Philosophy), Guven Guzeldere (Philosophy), Ranga Krishnan (Psychology and Neuroscience), Kam Leong (Biomedical Engineering), Russell Powell (PhD candidate in Philosophy), Dale Purves (Neurobiology), Priscilla Wald (English), and Hunt Willard (Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy).
Spring 2008 Lectures:
Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008
Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - 5:00 pm
Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center
Patricia Churchland, UC President's Professor of Philosophy
University of California at San Diego
As we come to understand the role of genes in neuronal wiring, and neuronal wiring in the production of behavior, we are newly confronted with questions about choice and responsibility, and about the neural platform for moral behavior. Although questions concerning what free choice really amounts to have long been at the center of philosophical reflection, new discoveries, especially from neuropharmacology and neuropsychology, have lent them a special and very practical urgency. Against the backdrop of evolutionary biology, we are beginning to learn about the role of specific neurochemicals in regulating social behavior, and about the role of the reward system in acquiring social skills. Professor Churchland will discuss some of the broad issues arising from these recent developments from the perspective of neurophilosophy.
Patricia Smith Churchland has a BA from the University of British Columbia, an MA from the University of Pittsburgh, and a BPhil from the University of Oxford. She arrived at UCSD in 1984 where she pioneered the subfield of neurophilosophy, the interface between traditional philosophy questions concerning consciousness, knowledge, meaning, and free will and developments in neuroscience. Her best known book is Neurophilosophy (MIT Press 1986). A more recent treatment of neurophilosophical issues is found in her book, Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy (2002; MIT Press.) For biographical information, click here.
Click here for video of lecture.
Thursday, February 28, 2008 - 5:00 pm
Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center
Daniela Rus
Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Co-Director, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The field of robotics encompasses a broad spectrum of technologies in which computational intelligence is embedded in machines, creating systems with capabilities far exceeding the core competencies. These systems are capable to carry out tasks that are unachievable by conventional machines or even by humans working with conventional tools. We see a world in which robots co-exist with and work side by side to support humans. This is the next logical step in progress of computers and computation intelligence, moving from personal computers to personal robots. This robotics revolution will broaden the scope of robotics technologies from currently predominantly industrial and service applications (such as personal cleaners of floors, pools, furniture), to increased automation in unstructured environments such as dynamic human-centered spaces and underwater domains. In this talk Professor Rus will examine the market and sociological drivers for robotic technologies and discuss in detail some current trends that extend robot applications into unstructured domains that require increasingly smaller machines, as well as machines working autonomously in increasingly remote environments. She will discuss how robotic technologies will lead to the creation of programmable matter and explore several recent systems and their potential impact on everyday life.
Daniela Rus is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the Director of the Distributed Robotics Laboratory, Co-Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) Center for Robotics, and Associate Director of CSAIL. Her research is in distributed robotics and mobile computing. Professor Rus received her PhD in computer science from Cornell University. She is the recipient of an NSF Career award and a Sloan fellowship, and she is a Class of 2002 MacArthur fellow.
Click here for video of lecture.
Thursday, April 10, 2008 - 5:00 pm
Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center
Patricia J. Williams
James L. Dohr Professor of Law
Columbia Law School
Professor Williams will examine a series of cases in law, media, and medicine, that test what it means to be a “person.” She is concerned with how new biologized categories – particularly in the areas of disability, IQ, race and gender - are challenging both our humanity and our notions of citizenship. She will explore tensions among markets, leniency in experimentation and the public interest as well as track the history and continued proliferation of such category through the lens of the figures of speech as they are deployed to vivify or objectify specific bodies.
Professor Williams writes frequently on issues of bioethics in a column for The Nation magazine and is gathering those essays into an anthology. She is also working on another anthology of readings about the legal and policy implications of biotechnology covering territory from facial and iris recognition, to DNA profiles in law enforcement and the insurance industry, to discrimination in higher education and employment because of genetic predisposition.
Professor Williams is James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. A graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard University, Professor Williams practiced as deputy city attorney in the Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney; and as staff lawyer with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. She has served on the faculties of the University of Wisconsin School of Law, City University of New York Law School, and Golden Gate University School of Law. She has been at Columbia since 1991. She is also a Fellow at the School of Criticism and Theory at Dartmouth College, and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Professor Williams has published widely in the areas of race, gender, and law, and on other issues of legal theory and legal writing. Her books include The Alchemy of Race and Rights; The Rooster's Egg; and Seeing a Color Blind Future: The Paradox of Race.
Professor Williams began her career practicing in the area of consumer protection, specializing in health issues. She worked on regulations involving nursing homes, the criminally transgressive behavior of doctors and nurses, the sale of false cancer “cures,” and the enforcement of sterilization laws. Throughout her career she has written about reproductive issues from the perspective of those contracts (the legal vehicle of all that is alienable) which affect the body (the site of all that is deemed inalienable).
Currently, Professor Williams teaches a course entitled, “DNA in the Domain of Legal Language.” Later this spring she will serve as a rapporteur for the 2008 international conference on Translating Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Genomics.
____________________________________Fall 2007 Lectures:
Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 5:00 pm
Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center
Human Nature: Bad Biology and Bad Social Theory
Richard Lewontin, Professor of Biology and Zoology
Harvard University
The concept of a human nature, a non-trivial set of intellectual, moral, motivational and behavioral characteristics shared by all normal human beings, has been at the base of all social and political philosophy. This notion has been taken over by biologists who have created theories of sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and psychological genetics claiming that evolution has created a human genome that dictates the content of this nature. Such claims, however, are a consequence of serious errors in the understanding of biology as well as a simplistic view of the diversity of human behavior and history.
Richard Lewontin is an evolutionary geneticist working both on the mathematical theory of population genetics and on experimental determination of genetic structure of natural populations. He works particularly at the molecular level, having introduced the study of molecular population genetics over 30 years ago. His investigations in this field have included both work at the protein level and at the DNA level, assessing and explaining the observed variation in DNA and protein sequences in natural populations. On the theorectical side, he has developed the theory of multi-locus natural selection and linkage which takes into account the randomizing effects of recombination and the ordering effects of natural selection. This has now become a standard apparatus in population genetics and evolution.
Professor Lewontin is active in the philosophy of science and has written a number of papers with philosophers of science on questions of evolutionary theory. He has also been concerned for a very long time with the questions about the inheritance or non-inheritance of human behavioral traits like I.Q. and temperament.
The research group that he organized has, over time, had about 150 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and visiting professors as contributors to the intellectual work of the group.
Click here for video of lecture.
Thursday, November 8, 2007 - 4:00 pm
Biological Sciences Building, Room 111
Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why we Are Who We Are
Frans B.M. de Waal
C.H. Candler, Professor of Psychology, Emory University Director, Living Links Center, Yerkes National Center
Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal is a Dutch-born ethologist/biologist known for his work on the social intelligence of primates. His first book, Chimpanzee Politics (1982) compared the schmoozing and scheming of chimpanzees involved in power struggles with that of human politicians. Ever since, de Waal has drawn parallels between primate and human behavior, from peacemaking and morality to culture. His scientific work has been published in hundreds of technical articles in journals such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, and outlets specialized in animal behavior. De Waal is also editor or co-editor on nine scientific volumes. His eight popular books - translated into more than a dozen languages - have made him one of the world's most visible primatologists. His latest books are Our Inner Ape(2005, Riverhead) and Primates and Philosophers (2006, Princeton ).
De Waal is C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University and Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Center in Atlanta , Georgia. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (US), and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. Time selected him as one of the World's Most Influential People of 2007.
For a complete description of the lecture click here. For an audio recording of the lecture, click here.
Monday, October 29, 2007 - 5:00 pmLove Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center
How are we to think about Human Nature?
Simon Blackburn, Professor of Philosophy
University of Cambridge
If we want to think about human nature, a whole variety of investigators clamor for attention: evolutionary psychologists, neurophysiologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, primatologists, as well as traditional humanists, historians, and philosophers. How are we to retain our bearings amid all the interpretations the different sciences and different approaches offer?
Simon Blackburn is currently the Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Educated at Clifton College and Trinity College Cambridge he has held positions as a Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge; Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Pembroke College, Oxford; and the Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In addition, he has held visiting appointments at the University of Melbourne, the University of British Columbia, Oberlin College, Princeton University, Ohio State University, the Universidad Autonomia da Mexico, and was for ten years Adjunct Professor at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra. From 1984 - 1990 he edited the journal Mind. He was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2001. He has written several books including: Ruling Passions (1998), Think (1999), Being Good (2001), Lust (2004), Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed (2005), and Plato’s Republic (2006).
Download the talk from Duke iTunesU
____________________________________Previous Series:
2005 - 2006 - Science, Evolution, & Religion Series
2006 - 2007 - PRIVACY AT RISK?