The Anniversary of the First Neuroethics Conference (No, Not That One)

By Jonathan D. Moreno

Jonathan D. Moreno is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania where he is a Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) professor. At Penn he is also Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, of History and Sociology of Science, and of Philosophy.  His latest book is Impromptu Man: J.L. Moreno and the Origins of Psychodrama, Encounter Culture, and the Social Network (2014), which Amazon called a “#1 hot new release.”  Among his previous books are The Body Politic, which was named a Best Book of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews, Mind Wars (2012), and Undue Risk (2000).

The 15th anniversary of what is widely viewed as the first neuroethics conference, “Neuroethics: Mapping the Field” was celebrated in 2017. The meeting was held in San Francisco, organized by the University of California and Stanford, and sponsored by the Dana Foundation. Cerebrum, the journal that is published by the foundation, celebrated the anniversary by publishing short memoirs by some of the speakers, including my own. The feature was dubbed “The First Neuroethics Meeting.”

Except that it wasn’t. The first conference that was recognizably about neuroethics was held in Washington, D.C. under the auspices of a conservative think tank, and its 20th anniversary is in 2018. 

It does seem that the 2002 meeting was the first one to use the term neuroethics in its title. With the support of Dana’s president, William Safire, the program brought together many of those who are still leaders in the field. But the earlier one, sponsored by a Washington, D.C. think tank, the Ethics and Public Policy Center and held at the National Press Club, also featured some of those who are still prominent. They included Harvard’s Steven Hyman, later to be the first president of the International Neuroethics Society, Adrian Raine who was then at the University of Southern California, and the present author. But those we might today consider the usual suspects were in the minority. 

And this is where it gets interesting. 

William Bennett, former Director of the

Office of National Drug Control Policy.

(Image courtesy of Wikimedia.)

Called “Neuroscience and the Human Spirit: Meeting the Challenges of Contemporary Brain Research,” the 1998 conference also featured some speakers who were prominent for other reasons, including Charles Krauthammer, William Bennett and Fred Goodwin. Krauthammer was and remains an influential political commentator. Bennett was President George H.W. Bush’s “drug czar” and would go on to be President George W. Bush’s Secretary of Education. Fred Goodwin was formerly scientific director of the National Institute of Mental Health who had been involved in a controversy after he seemed to compare inner city youth to primates. It is fair to say that these and other participants, like the Ethics and Public Policy Center itself, were identified with socially conservative views or at least had annoyed liberals in various ways. 

The National Press Club event was reported in a Nature Neuroscience editorial, which called the conference “unusual,” which indeed it was, even pioneering. “Its purpose,” the editorial noted, “was to examine the extent to which modern brain research threatens traditional views of humanity, including the western religious tradition.” Among the topics addressed were free will, the implications of predicting behavior, and the evolution of religious and moral beliefs. Many of the speakers were deeply concerned about the ways that more knowledge about and control over the brain could compromise traditional ethical and social conventions. 

What in retrospect reads like the rationale for the field of neuroethics, Nature Neuroscience heartily endorsed the goals of the conference. “[T]here are compelling reasons for further discussion. Neuroscientists should recognize that their work may be construed as having deep and possibly disturbing implications, and that if they do not discuss these implications, others will do so on their behalf. The diversity of views expressed at the conference suggests that reconciliation is not imminent, but it will nevertheless be valuable to define the areas of agreement and disagreement more precisely. The EPPC has performed a useful service in promoting that goal.”

Judy Illes, former president of the

 International Neuroethics Society, presided

over the Washington Conference in 2017.

(Image courtesy of Wikimedia.)

When neuroethics went self-conscious as an academic field after the Dana conference, its agenda was markedly different from that of the 1998 meeting. Not a single panel in San Francisco was devoted to the implications of modern brain science for religious faith, nor except indirectly to the effects on moral traditions. For the Ethics and Public Policy Center their conference was a one-off, but the center’s associates (many of whom are important figures in American conservative thought), no doubt regard the field’s themes as typical of left-wing academia in its exclusion of such concerns. 

Looking through a lens two decades later, the Washington conference foreshadowed the science ethics wars to come. It took place right around the time that the first papers were published reporting the isolation of human embryonic stem cells in a University of Wisconsin laboratory and two years before the election of George W. Bush. The bioethics culture wars had not yet erupted into public view through limits on federally supported stem cell research and a presidential bioethics council that was anathema to much of the scientific community. Yet “Neuroscience and the Human Spirit” demonstrated the serious interest among those popularly known as neoconservatives in the relationship between modern science and traditional values. 

Although it was finally stem cell research that became the focus of controversy and allegations of a “war on science” in the early 2000s, in a far more muted fashion neuroscience led the way. 

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Moreno, J. (2018). The Anniversary of the First Neuroethics Conference (No, Not That One). The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2018/02/the-anniversary-of-first-neuroethics.html

The [insert adjective] Brain: Implications for Neuroscience in Popular Media

Via amazon.com

The Addicted Brain. The Female Brain. The Male Brain. Chemobrain. Buddha’s Brain. The Winner’s Brain. The Republican Brain. These days, it seems that everybody’s brain is being scanned and their behavior analyzed. In fact, these are all titles of books published in the past decade that communicate the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology research to lay audiences. As a budding neuroscientist, I am excited that science, and neuroscience in particular, has now flooded into popular American culture. Evidence of its expanding domain is everywhere: in magazines (Scientific American’s “MIND”), blogs (Neuroskeptic), radio programs (NPR’s “Radiolab”), podcasts (Nature’s “Neuropod”) and books. For further examination of the reasons for this cultural shift, see the discussion of the phenomenon in the new book “Brain Culture: Neuroscience and Popular Media,” by Davi Johnson Thorton, Southwestern University's Assistant Professor of Communication Studies.



I’m hopeful that this increase in neuroscience reporting will precipitate more public support for neuroscience research (as well as for other fields, of course), funding for and enrollment in STEM education, and improvements in scientific literacy among the American public (whose children currently rank 23rd out of 30 in science achievement scores among OECD nations [PISA 2009]); however, after sampling and digesting a smorgasbord of popular neuroscience reporting, my idealism is tempered with concern. While independent book authors and magazine editors have often received formal scientific training, many others lack the expertise required to accurately interpret science. In addition, media pundits are typically affiliated with corporate news agencies or non-profit groups that carry sociopolitical agendas, resulting in consistently biased reporting. With the advent of neuroimaging technologies, scientists are addressing highly evocative questions in neuroscience and psychology, such as the neurological underpinnings of political or sexual orientation, which the popular press is quick to pick up and spin for shock value. I will argue that the media’s frequent misrepresentation of neuroscience research poses serious threats to the public’s accurate understanding of the brain and human behavior, as well as to the neuroscientific community at large. Neuroscientists have an ethical responsibility to the public to promote fair and balanced reporting of their findings. I propose a first-step solution to this growing problem, wherein academic institutions support neuroscientists in developing an independent system of media fact-checking. Within this framework, neuroscientists can comment on the veracity of brain science reporting by the popular press.



Typically, more information is a good thing. In economics, having complete information about a product empowers the consumer to make more informed purchasing decisions and ultimately select the most suitable one. Science follows the same general principle: more data points equal more statistical power, allowing us to draw conclusions and generate theories. Once extensive data are compiled, conclusions reached, and theories refined, scientists are subjected to rigorous peer-review. Experts in each respective field meticulously verify a researcher’s claims and then either accept or reject her findings. Finally, theories are validated by other researchers’ attempts to reproduce the results or collect data that affirm or refute said theory. This empirical process forms the backbone of the modern scientific method. On this foundation, neuroscience can advance its theoretical framework explaining the brain’s structure and function.



In its truest form, journalism adheres to the same process. According to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, “journalism’s first obligation is to the truth,” and is in essence a “discipline of verification.” More extensively, the PEJ’s Statement of Shared Purpose calls for:



“A consistent method of testing information—a transparent approach to evidence—precisely so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their work…Seeking out multiple witnesses, disclosing as much as possible about sources, or asking various sides for comment, all signal such standards. The discipline of verification is what separates journalism from other modes of communication, such as propaganda, fiction, or entertainment.”



These principles clearly fall in step with good science. Accuracy (rigorous data collection), transparency (comprehensive detail of materials and methods), objectivism (allowing data to speak for itself), and validation (inviting other experts to comment) form the basis of sound science and sound reporting. While this scientist believes that the scientific community has done well in adhering to these values and policing those who fall short (largely through the process of peer review), many in the journalistic community who report on neuroscience have repeatedly failed to hold themselves accountable to their self-proclaimed empirical ideals.



Neuroscience reporting has the potential to inspire and stimulate dialogue, often managing to do just that. Part of my decision to undertake a PhD in neuroscience hinged upon the intriguing pieces I picked up on through radio and print, such as NPR’s “Radiolab,” or specialty magazines, like Scientific American MIND. Quality neuroscience reporting is typically written or edited by academics (Emory’s own Scott O. Lilienfeld edits SciAm MIND, for example) and is unencumbered by sociopolitical bias. Unfortunately, less informed or politically motivated approaches to neuroscience reporting seriously compromise the public and the research community in several ways.



Recent advances in neuroimaging technologies like fMRI and PET have enabled neuroscientists and psychologists to probe with ever-increasing accuracy the neurobiological underpinnings of human behavior. Often the most interesting research in the public eye is the most evocative. In the scientific literature, topics include the neural correlates of behavioral differences based on political affiliation, sexuality, morality, socioeconomic status, and race. For this reason, some media outlets are quick to pick up on and spin the results of such research to conform to the mores of their organizations and audiences. Poor neuroscience reporting tends to fall into one of two categories, depending on the degree to which the research aligns or misaligns with their ideologies. The “aligners” tend to hyperbolize scientific findings, overgeneralizing the scope and impact of the research, while the “maligners” discredit the findings or simply don’t report them. In extreme cases, maligners spew vitriol, exclaiming that neuroscientists are motivated by “eugenics” or “phrenology.”



A great example of this is the recent outrage expressed by the authors of “Science Left Behind,” Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell, in response to a Huffington Post article entitled “Why Republicans Deny Science,” written by author and podcaster, Chris Mooney. In his article, Mooney cites recent findings from a handful of studies illustrating, among other things, that self-identified “conservatives” exhibit stronger physiological responses to aversive stimuli and have larger amygdala volumes (a part of the brain involved in fear-processing). While Mooney accurately reports the findings and believes that this sort of science “ought to prompt more tolerance and understanding across our political divides,” a seemingly noble cause, he ventures into overgeneralization by claiming that such research may help explain “the conservative denial of science.” Berezow and Campbell angrily counter by claiming that Mooney is a eugenicist who “distorts science in order to fit a preconceived narrative.” Libel among journalists is one thing, but when they target the scientific community, things get personal for this neuroscientist. USA Today’s Jonah Goldberg, in response to Mooney, asserts that this type of “fad” neuroscience research is really “the new science of conservative phrenology.” While Goldberg keenly points out the limitations of such studies, such as sampling bias and their lack of ecological validity, he erroneously implies that no valid conclusions can be drawn from them. Obviously, misreporting and mud slinging do not constitute “excellence in journalism.” If journalists want to engage in such unprofessionalism, can they please just leave neuroscience and the public out of it?

For non-scientists who rely on news media to communicate new science, overgeneralization by the press can mislead people to draw conclusions that may incorrectly or even dangerously influence their thinking and behavior. For instance, by contending that studies in social neuroscience demonstrate how personality traits and behaviors, such as political affiliation, are “hard-wired,” reporters (such as Goldberg) misrepresent science and promote public misconceptions about the brain. It is well accepted that the brain is highly organized in advance of experience, but I challenge you to find a psychologist who will concede that behavior is “hard-wired.” In fact, quite the opposite is true; the brain is plastic, continually reorganizing itself in response to the internal and external milieu. An overwhelming body of research supports the notion that our behavioral outputs are similarly malleable. I take issue with any popular news article, book title, or headline containing the hackneyed phrase, “the [insert adjective] brain,” on similar grounds. The nuance contained within the original research can never be distilled into a single compelling phrase about a group of people. Learning about the plight of another group, also known as "perspective-taking," can increase one’s empathy for and understanding of that group, and this type of research has the power to do just that; however, do pithy headlines and brief reports like these lead people to further stereotype and distance themselves from those who are portrayed as categorically and neurologically different?



Discrediting neuroscientific findings is similarly detrimental and promotes public distrust of neuroscience and the importance of such research in elucidating the neurological mechanisms underlying human thought and experience. Take Roger Scruton's recent article in The Spectator, which introduces terms like "neurobabble" and "neurononsense," in reference to studies that link social behaviors to their neurochemical correlates (think oxytocin and pair-bonding). Scruton voices skepticism about the extent to which neuroscience can uncover the seat of human consciousness. Don't get me wrong: dissenting opinions like these are important scientific debate. I agree with Scruton that the whole of human experience cannot be distilled into a "brain in a box" theory. Nevertheless, debasing cognitive science research as pseudoscientific nonsense fosters public distrust in the pursuit of scientific explanations of human behavior. The public rightly expects neuroscientists to pursue avenues of research with the potential to enhance their understanding of themselves and others, but reading Scruton's commentary may lead a non-scientist to ask himself, "why does the public fund this kind of research if it has no value whatsoever?"



Scientists have a lot to lose here. Most research in this country is publicly funded and relies on governmental support for its advancement. Distrust of the scientific community may lead policymakers and their constituents to further restrict our meager science budget and slash discretionary spending for science education. If we are to prevent ourselves from falling even further behind other nations in science achievement, neuroscientists must step in and advocate on behalf of their own research to assure that it is communicated accurately to the American public. As scientists, we strive to better our understanding of the human condition through our research with the end goal of improving health and well-being. It’s our responsibility to make sure that our findings are presented to the public in meaningful, accurate ways that clearly illustrate the implications of our work for their individual and collective lives. I believe that scientists are falling behind in this area. However, there is hope.



Such hope may exist in the new wave of dedicated neuroscience journalists, some of whom have received formal scientific training in academia and/or industry (consider Jonah Lehrer, for example, who formerly worked in the lab of Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel). This group of reporters can act as unofficial go-betweens, translating neuroscientific findings into widely accessible dialogue unencumbered by sociopolitical bias, just as the PEJ’s Statement of Purpose suggests. The hope also lies with neuroscientists themselves. Nowadays, researchers are burdened by budget constraints that have created more and more competition for grants (less than 20% of NIH grants are funded) and publications in order to secure tenure. Coupled with advising grad students, managing a lab, teaching undergraduate courses, and attending conferences, neuroscientists are extremely busy people. This leaves very little time to engage with the public, although many rock-star neuroscientists still make time to do this public service. Given the present economic and political climate, it is of utmost importance that neuroscientists are accurately portrayed as the beneficent agents of change and discovery that they actually are.



I propose two changes that neuroscientists and their institutions can enact to begin rectifying these problems in neuroscience reporting. The first is on a neuroscientific community-wide level, the second on an institutional level. With respect to the neuroscience community, I believe that an organization could be established to “fact-check” the media’s reporting of research findings. Specialists in a given field could comment openly and publicly on the veracity of journalistic reports, in similar fashion to Politifact.org’s fact-checking of political candidates’ public statements. Alternatively, websites like Scholarpedia.org could be utilized more widely by researchers to make their ideas and findings readily accessible. Recent interest in open-access publishing for academic journals (see commentary in Science Magazine news) may be part of the solution; however, the esoteric language of research science may limit public gains from this strategy. Some neuroscientists directly engage with the public already, and are active on social networking sites like Twitter (see “Neuroscientists Who Tweet”), and I think this is a step in the right direction. On an institutional level, service and community outreach are encouraged for research faculty, and basically required for junior faculty seeking tenure. However, this could be better organized to encompass participation in fact-checking organizations or informational curation sites like Scholarpedia.



In summary, as lay interest in popular neuroscience continues to proliferate, journalists eschewing their obligation for fair and balanced reporting jeopardize both the public and the neuroscientific community. It is imperative that journalists recognize the importance of their position and act in accordance with their self-defined governing principles of ethics, as many already do. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that dissenting opinions are uncalled for. Rather they ought to avoid overgeneralization and discrediting. It is also incumbent upon scientists and the academy to engage the public in accurate, thoughtful, yet accessible dialogue about their research, and to find effective ways of doing so. Failure to do this has profound implications for the future of neuroscience research and science education in this country, and it is our ethical obligation to ensure that neuroscientists are portrayed as the good guys and gals they actually are.






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Kohn, J. (2012). The [insert adjective] Brain: Implications for Neuroscience in Popular Media. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/06/insert-adjective-brain-implications-for.html

Neuroethics journal club: Right-brained, wrongly reasoned

Who’d believe there’s a liberal professor (he freely acknowledges he belongs to this group) that’s willing to admit that conservatives might be right about something? Don't get too excited; he also thinks the reasoning that many conservatives use to decide what’s right is all wrong. What’s more, he thinks that neuroscience proves the way that many conservatives reason is wrong. The professor, Dr. John Banja, led a discussion of one of his articles last Wednesday at the second meeting of the Neuroethics Journal Club hosted by the Neuroethics Program at the Emory Center for Ethics.



I had this great idea to summarize Dr. Banja's message with music videos. It turned out to be harder than I thought (but I'm still peppering this post with pop)--there is not one song that has the words "virtue essentialism" in the title, although those words are in the title of Dr. Banja’s article: “Virtue Essentialism, Prototypes, and the Moral Conservative Opposition to Enhancement Technologies: A Neuroethical Critique”. Banja describes virtue essentialism as a type of argument often employed by scholars like Leon Kass, Gilbert Meilander, and Michael Sandel. According to Banja, there are three characteristics of “virtue essentialist” arguments: (1) they invoke concepts like “dignity” as if those concepts have an essence--i.e., definition--that everyone agrees upon, (2) they adopt absolutist positions, because their positions supposedly are based on clearly-defined concepts and, (3) they attack anything that smacks of moral relativism.



You might wonder why you should be worried about this virtue essentialism that Dr. Banja describes. Consider this: virtue essentialist arguments make up the backbone of many of the publications authored by President George W. Bush's President's Council on Bioethics (PCB). W announced he was creating the PCB back in 2001, during the same speech in which he announced he would only allow embryonic stem cell research to be carried out on cell lines already in existence. Bush promised that the council would "consider all of the medical and ethical ramifications of biomedical innovation," and appointed Leon Kass to be the head of the council.



You might still be wondering why this is relevant in today’s political atmosphere. We talked about that at the journal club, too. First I’ll explain how we got there. Banja is not alone in his concern about the arguments made by Kass and others. Ruth Macklin, writing in 2006, dissected just the sort of reasoning--or lack thereof--that Banja wants to attack, all neuroethics style. According to Macklin, issues in bioethics were not black nor white before these self-styled "conservatives" came along; she explicitly links their appearance to the polarized political climate of the Bush regime during which you were either one of us or one of them. Macklin also observes that Kass and others who call themselves "conservatives" in bioethics are characterized largely by being against anything "artificial: artifical reproduction, artificial life extension, artificial intelligence and artificial life, and, in general, making ourselves 'artificially better'."



Didn't I promise there would be rock? Here's David Byrne on "making ourselves 'artifically better'":

Byrne continues the tradition of rockers confounding us all by writing from a perspective that seems a little--gulp--conservative (cf., Graham Parker's You Can't Be Too Strong.)



What's wrong with virtue essentialism and why do we need neuroscience to figure it out? Banja began by discussing "essentialism," which as you might guess is the view that everything has an essence. There is something about Lady Gaga that is essentially Lady Gaga. You might say she was "born this way" (bad joke, sorry). Essentialism, explained Dr. Banja, has been around at least since the time of Plato, who captured it essence (again, sorry) in the Socratic dialogue with Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks what the essence of “holiness” or “piety” is. Socrates runs into Euthyphro down at the courthouse and, thinking that it might help him defend himself in his upcoming court case, asks Euthyphro for a definition of “piety”. As Dr. Banja emphasized, the best Euthyphro can do is come up with some examples. He fails to define it in a way that Socrates can’t deconstruct. Here’s the moral of the story: if it were true that concepts like "holy" had some essence, then we could somehow discern that essence and know when our actions were holy (or "fair" or "just", etc.).



Then Wittgenstein came along and dared to suggest that we might not classify things based on their essence that our god-given reason is supposed to somehow have access to. Instead, he suggested we categorize things based on "family resemblances"--things that they have in common. Wittgenstein's insights spelled the beginning of the end for essentialism. He was implying that there might not be any source of morals outside of humanity. Maybe there's no right or wrong outside of what we say is right or wrong.



Song time again! Perhaps Stereolab can use their perfect pop powers to help us understand the source of the morals that form the backbone of a society.



The once-firm moral foundation that Wittgenstein started to undermine really crumbled once neuroscience and psychology came into the picture, said Dr. Banja. In the 70s, psychologists like Eleanor Rosch began to test how people categorize. These experiments gave rise to prototype theory, a theory that holds that we are able to classify things not because our reason has access to their essence, but because our brains build prototypes. Such prototypes are the “statistical central tendency of a body of concrete exemplars,” to recycle Dr. Banja’s quote from philosopher Andy Clark. In other words, we supposedly classify things by keeping a running average for every category and by measuring the distance of any item we are classifying from the average. I would show you an image from a study Dr. Banja described so that we could understand prototype theory, but in the spirit of this semi-musical post, I think I have to link to songs that neuroscience grad student Laura Mariani mentioned at the journal club. This music, composed by Komar & Molamid and David Soldier, is based on the results of an on-line survey. Click on the links to hear the “prototypes” of what people consider to be the "most wanted song" and "most unwanted song".



Prototype theory, concluded Dr.Banja, presents some problems for virtue essentialist arguments as defined above. It holds that there can be no completely objective definition of concepts like "dignity". Hence, anyone who argues against something like cognitive enhancement because they feel it degrades dignity will have to accept that their idea of what dignity means might not be agreed upon by everyone. This is a good result. It replaces the moral majority with a democratic process of ethics.


In closing, we discussed why virtue essentialism seems to work, even if it is flawed. Dr. Banja recalled the points he made at the end of his article: it works because it appeals to people. It plays their heartstrings. The excesses of the Bush administration showed that Republicans had learned how to hit the right notes to get all the votes, according to Dr. Banja. My labmate Lukas Hoffman countered that you could say the same thing about the Democrats. With the Tea Party on one hand and Occupy Wall Street on the other, it’s certain that people are feeling like something is wrong more and more, and believing that they know what that is. How can they be reminded that everything might not be what it seems? Education is key, offered MD/PhD student Orion Kiefer. And he's right. Anyone who has a sound grasp of science will understand that theories can sometimes be overturned, even theories about right and wrong, and that there’s always room for debate.



Next month's meeting of the journal club will take place November 16th from 1-2pm. You can RSVP by sending an e-mail to neuroethics@emory.edu. Dr. Paul Root Wolpe, director of Emory's Center for Ethics, will facilitate a discussion on emerging technologies and lie detection.



-- David Nicholson

Neuroscience Graduate Student (Sober Lab)



I leave you with one last tune to inculcate you against the siren song of anybody that would make appeals to your gut feelings about what’s right and what’s wrong.





Want to cite this post?


Nicholson, D. (2011). Neuroethics journal club: Right-brained, wrongly reasoned. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2011/10/neuroethics-journal-club-right-brained.html