The Joseph Priestley Lecture Series,
Science at the Solstice
The
Priestley Lecture series is inspired by the traditional Christmas Lectures
of the Royal Institution in London, initiated by Michael Faraday. Our
series is named after Joseph
Priestley (image at left), an 18th century Unitarian minister, early
chemist, discoverer of oxygen, and refugee from England for holding
such beliefs as a denial of mind-body duality.
For this annual celebration of science at the winter solstice, we invite active researchers and educators to amaze us with contemporary advances in worldly knowledge. Previous Priestley lecturers have included Robert Curl, co-discoverer of buckyballs; John Lienhard, engineer and radio host of "The Engines of Our Ingenuity;" Robert Hardt, mathematician; Connie Barlow, evolution educator; David Wheeler of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine; and our most recent lecturer, Dr. David Eagleman, also with the Baylor College of Medicine. See the description of Dr. Eagleman's 2011 lecture below.
Neuroscience and the Future of Justice
Dr. David Eagleman
Baylor College of Medicine
2:00 pm, Sunday, December 4, 2011
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston
Dr. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine,
examines how new discoveries can inform the way we make laws, punish
criminals, and develop rehabilitation.
Abstract: Emerging questions at the interface of law and neuroscience challenge our fundamental notions of free-will and the presumptions that lie at the heart of criminal behavior and punishment. Is it a legitimate defense, for example, to claim that a brain tumor or genetic mutation “made you do it”? Will neuroscience inform sentencing decisions by offering a better prediction of recidivism? Can novel technologies such as real-time brain imaging be leveraged for new methods of rehabilitation? If most behaviors are driven by systems of the brain that we cannot control, how should the law assess culpability? Dr. Eagleman will address these and other questions through the lens of Baylor College of Medicine’s Initiative on Neuroscience and Law, which brings together a unique collaboration of neurobiologists, legal scholars and policy makers, with the goal of building modern, evidence-based policy.
About Dr. Eagleman: Dr. Eagleman studies the biological basis of human experience. As a writer, he is making profound contributions to our understanding of what it all means, in both his fiction about the afterlife and his nonfiction books on synesthesia and on the contradictions of consciousness.
Recommended books by Dr. Eagleman: Sum and Incognito. For more information on his writings and media coverage, see eagleman.com; for his laboratory work, go to eaglemanlab.net