BU Conference: “How HPS can contribute to science education” 3/5 On the second day of the conference, I attended the working group session aimed at addressing the question, "How can history and philosophy of science contribute to students’ understanding of science, as well as help create scientific literate citizens?" The discussion focused on how K-12 programs [...]
BU Conference: "How HPS can contribute to science education" 2/5 The breakout meeting I attended focused on how HPS might be used to improve science education in the areas of : ethics of science, the role of science in a democratic society, and the evaluation of scientific evidence. By finding ways to include these topics [...]
This past December four Rotman graduate students, Yann Benétreau-Dupin, Melissa Jacquart, Craig Fox and Reuven Brandt participated in “How Can the HPS Contribute to Contemporary U.S. Science Teaching”. This two-day event, funded by National Science Foundation (NSF), consisted of a public conference that was part of the Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science, and a [...]
My carrots come from Baden, my beets from Alymer, my flour from Arva, and my quinoa from, well, the grocery store. An article on quinoa from this morning's Globe and Mail (published yesterday online) reminds health food nuts like me that, like meat-eaters, my favorite foods come at a high cost. For lovers of quinoa, the [...]
Recently, the Vancouver Sun reported on an ongoing legal case that potentially has important implications for neuroethics and the law. Kenny Ng, the patient at the center of the controversy, was injured in a car accident seven years ago and diagnosed, after rigorous clinical assessment, as being in a vegetative state. His wife would like [...]
S. Matthew Liao, director of the bioethics program at NYU, recently drew attention to important issues related to the use of propranolol to treat combat related post-traumatic stress disorder. In an interview published in the New York Times, Liao stated that a growing area of interest in the ethics of psychiatric therapy is the use [...]
By: Patrick Clipsham On November 19th 2012, Professor Patricia Churchland (UC San Diego) gave the first lecture in the Neurophilosophy Speaker Series, which is jointly sponsored by Western’s Rotman Institute of Philosophy and Brain and Mind Institute. Churchland is, without doubt, the ideal academic to give such an important lecture, as she has long been [...]
A recent BBC documentary profiles the extraordinary work of Western’s Dr. Adrian M. Owen on detecting unrecognized awareness in individuals diagnosed as being in a vegetative state (VS). Owen and his research team have developed a way for patients who are behaviorally non-responsive, and so incapable of revealing overt signs of awareness, to show that [...]
The Guardian recently ran an article about fraud in the sciences, noting the institutional pressures placed on researchers that play a part in motivating misconduct: "A recent paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that since 1973, nearly a thousand biomedical papers have been retracted because someone cheated the system. [...]
An Interview with Dr. Lainie Ross Dr. Lainie Ross is the Carolyn and Matthew Bucksbaum Professor of Clinical Ethics; Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, Surgery and The College; and Associate Director of the Maclean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, at the University of Chicago. On November 2nd, Dr. Ross joined us at the Rotman Institute as [...]
