Staring into the Zombie Abyss

By Guest Contributor Marc Merlin, Director of the Atlanta Science Tavern.



In his excellent review of the recent Zombethics Conference, Ross Gordon covers the central themes discussed during its morning session: a hypothetical neuroanatomy of zombies that would account for their hostile behavior, the possibility of the existence of philosophical zombies, soulless humans walking among us and, finally, the always-vexing question of free will, as it concerns both zombies and us.



Without a doubt these discussions have much to say about neuroscience and the philosophy of mind. What is less clear to me is what they have to say about ethics. They help us think more carefully about zombie behavior, but they offer little additional understanding of own our behavior, which is, after all, the grist for the ethics mill.

The Piano Kill, via Zombieland

The fact of the matter is that we are the ethical agents in the universe of human-zombie interactions. What motivates us and informs our behavior - consciously or unconsciously - is what is of primary importance here. Why is it that human characters in zombie dramas are moved to pursue the destruction of the walking dead with unabashed gusto, without the least apology or excuse? And why is their success at dismemberment and decapitation of zombie foes met with the eager applause of broad-based television and film audiences, many of whom would not be caught dead walking into a movie theater to catch the latest installment of the horror-porn “Saw” franchise?



From this perspective, the central zombethical question becomes, 'Why do we find zombies so delightfully kill-able'?



One implication of this line of thinking is that neuroscience research relative to zombie ethics should focus less on the mental states of zombies and more on the mental states that zombies (and their destruction) evoke in us. There being a dearth of real-life zombies with brains to scan, this shift of perspective toward the human offers obvious experimental advantages. In addition, it suggests a testable hypothesis: the response of the human brain when presented with depictions of the killing of zombies will be different than that when it is presented with depictions of the killing of other kinds of threats.



Speculating here a bit, it may be that zombies occupy a sweet spot of sorts when it comes to hateability. Since they possess hardly a shred of personality, which makes identifying with them difficult or impossible, they hold little claim on our store of empathy. Yet, unlike empathy, which is bestowed on all sorts of creatures - even expressive robots - the antipathy that we feel toward zombies may not be an equal opportunity disposition. Perhaps this form of hostility, bent on annihilation, is especially reserved for members of our own species or facsimiles thereof.



All this leads me to suggest a topic for next year’s Zombethics conference: Zombies: Why do we hate them so, and why do we kill them with such glee? Some brainy food for thought until Halloween 2013.

Want to Cite this Post?

Merlin, M. (2012). Staring into the Zombie Abyss. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/11/staring-into-zombie-abyss.html.

Doing Neuroscience, Doing Feminism: Interview with Dr. Sari van Anders

Dr. Sari van Anders

After attending the Neurogenderings Conference in Vienna, where participants debated whether it would be
possible to conduct feminist neuroscience research, I decided it would be
useful to interview an actual practicing feminist neuroscientist – and I knew
just who to talk to. Dr. Sari van Anders is an Assistant Professor in Psychology and Women’s Studies
at the University of Michigan. She earned her Ph.D. in Biological &
Cognitive Psychology from Simon Fraser University. In her social neuroendocrinology lab at the University of Michigan, she conducts feminist neuroscience
research on a variety of topics, with a principle focus on the social
modulation of testosterone via sexuality, partnering/pair bonding, and
nurturance. She has received grants from the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) and the American Institute of Bisexuality and has published articles in Hormones and Behavior, Archives of Sexual Behavior, and Psychoneuroendocrinology, among others.

I
asked her to talk about what she sees as feminist about her own behavioral
neuroscience research, how she has secured support for her work from other behavioral
neuroendocrinologists, and what advice she would give to early career
scientists who want to incorporate feminist concerns into their research. Read
on for Dr. Van Anders’ thoughtful and thought-provoking answers.

I have heard you
describe your research as a behavioral neuroscientist as ‘feminist.’ Can you
explain what you see as feminist about your behavioral neuroscience research?

Feminist science practice, like other aspects of feminism
(e.g., activism, praxis, theory, etc.), is not one thing. So the ways in which
I position my work as feminist may not be the same as the ways in which other
scientists might position their science, or the ways nonscientists might
position my work. With that caveat in mind, onwards! One important feminist
facet of my work is that I see science as one way to approach knowledge
creation/production, as opposed to the only way or the most valuable way.
Science can help us understand certain aspects of certain phenomena and is
valuable as such, but is more valuable when we recognize its limitations and
acknowledge the value of insights gained from other approaches.

Another important feminist facet of my work is that I see
vast gulfs of difference between bioscience and biologically determinist
thinking; so, I separate out natural from material, innate from trait, must
from is, etc. Our bodies and the biological systems inside of them are
recipients of socialization in the same ways our behaviors and cultural
practices are. Social modulation of hormones is a major thrust of my research
program… how could I (or we) think of our bodily systems as only preprogrammed
when we increasingly know how each biobody exists in a social context? A major part
of feminist thought critiques the split between gender and sex because it has
in large part left sex (i.e., biology; nature) as a fixed, natural, acultural
entity. Part of the work my research does is to expand notions of
sex/nature/biology such that we see biological properties as malleable and
socially located.

Another way my work is feminist is that I think about
inequities while I do my work, including how social location might affect the
questions I ask and my own understandings of phenomenon, but also how a gender
or intersectional lens might help me understand my findings better (which it almost
always does). Critically engaging with one’s positionality has been called
‘strong objectivity.’ Theory compelled me and my own research has convinced me
that objectivity works closer to how we want it to when we constantly engage
with and interrogate our own biases and positions.

My work is also feminist because it’s informed by feminist
thought, especially feminist science studies, even when the work is not focused
on gender/sex. It’s feminist because I don’t think that science leads to
simpler answers; I’m not, and I don’t think science intrinsically is (except in
practice), reductionist. I study hormones and this research often leads me to
explode phenomenological categories. For example, we found that cuddling
increased testosterone – and followed up by theorizing and studying both
cuddling and testosterone with fascinating and – to my mind – transformative
findings about both. Similarly, we found that sexual desire is linked to
testosterone in sometimes counterintuitive ways, which has led us to ask: what are people desiring when they desire? These
are far from reductionist implications, because they leave us with more
questions about hormones but also the social phenomenon we’re studying (rather
than simplifying them). The world is complex, and science helps us appreciate
how complex.

van Anders has found that cuddling can increase testosterone levels in women

Image from Flickr by malloreigh

I also see my work as
feminist because I think about it as community- and alliance-building. If
knowledge production were collaborative rather than competitive, what would it
look like? We try to build those sorts of relationships with colleagues, junior
and senior, to make science what we wish it could be (i.e., where we constantly
push at the clarity and meaningfulness of our understandings of phenomena
together, critically, constructively, enthusiastically, and connected to lived
experiences). Finally, I think of my work as feminist because the knowledge we
create is situated, as I and my lab
happily acknowledge that our findings make sense in this time and place because
they were produced in this time and place.

Can you say a little
bit about what you mean by “inclusive research and lab practices”?

I’ve been thinking about inclusive research and lab
practices since early graduate school, and I’ve come to define it for myself as
an ongoing process that involves thinking about how my lab operates, research
methods, and science communication approaches. I could go on and on about this,
and love to, but will limit this to some concrete examples. In the lab, e.g., I
think about how I recruit people, how I make clear the implicit and explicit
‘rules’ of labs and my lab for the people who work in my lab and come from
diverse backgrounds, how diverse perspectives will help us get closer to more
truthful and rounded knowledge. I think about how we treat each other in ways
that are respectful of difference, sameness, and culture, and are realistic
about power.

In my methods, I think a lot about how we recruit
participants and who feels welcome into science and why. I work hard to make
our studies places where people from rightly science-skeptical groups have a
place, for reasons beyond or unrelated to difference (while still making room
to honor those differences). So, posters, questionnaires, recruitment ads, etc.
How do we ask questions - and most of my research is quantitative – that honor
people’s lived experiences? That map onto people’s realities? That reflect
people’s autonomy and respect their self-identities? These are grand goals, and
we are obviously therefore continually striving to do better at the principles that
underlie them.

Inclusive questionnaires as a part of inclusive
research methods

In science communication, I think a lot about the ways I
write papers and the ways that I am allowed
to write papers (I get some pretty hostile reviews that limit my ability to
communicate certain ideas or in certain ways), how I involve my students (e.g.,
I have a lot of undergraduate co-authors, including first-authors on my
papers), whom I speak to at conferences, how I get involved in mentoring, etc.

So... I see inclusive research practices as trying to
provide a model of science that explicitly acknowledges that science is a human
endeavor and therefore political – and a
model that therefore works within a consciously-articulated and progressive
frame. So, inclusive research practices is kind of like saying that ‘the
personal is political and it’s not just Politics that are political’ but in a
science-y way, like: 'the day-to-day of science is political, and it’s not just
Science that is political.'

The fact that you
have received a number of major grants and have published your work in the
leading journals in your field indicates that you have managed to secure the
support of other behavioral neuroscientists. How were you able to get other
scientists to support your research?

“Coming out as
Feminist”:
Feminists come in all sizes

Image from Flickr by Daniel Morrison

Well, one strategy of many feminists in non-feminist-allied
disciplines (of which behavioral neuroscience is certainly one!) is to go into
stealth mode. I had a major strategy which was to build up a large body of
research and then one day be like: surprise! This was feminist all along! I
think I’ve adhered to this strategy somewhat, but there are cues that
scientists pick up on (‘radical’ things like using self-identification terms
for sexuality, using non-binaristic gender/sex language, incorporating social
location) and I think now I’ve been made. Also, it became increasingly
difficult to do the work while straddling a fence – like, have you ever tried
to do anything while
fence-straddling? – because that meant partitioning myself in uncomfortable and
inauthentic ways…I found that the more people could level Feminist! as an 'insult,' the more they would. As soon as I became more explicitly
feminist, it became hard for others to level ‘feminist’
as an insult. Sort of like coming out, as in sometimes people have more power
when they can insinuate something you’re not yet sharing. I also think that my
subfields – behavioral neuroendocrinology (BNE) and sex research – are
feminist-friendly in their own ways. BNE already pays a lot of attention to
sexual diversity and gender/sex, as well as social location in certain limited
ways (e.g., how poverty might affect stress hormones). So it’s less of a leap
to think about how other aspects of social location might matter. Sex research
also has some progressive traditions and elements, and I’ve been lucky in that
I see myself continually able to mine that vein of progressiveness in all my
colleagues. I think I’ve had a lot of privilege that I’ve been able to use too;
I am trained in neuroscience, I’m white, I’ve had financial safety nets, I’m
Canadian and now in the U.S., so I think my position has let me do a lot with
fewer roadblocks than others might experience.

I am not so naïve to think that merit is enough for
anything. But I do want to stake a claim to doing good work; I think I do great
work! People know that I love my work, and I think my enthusiasm is catching. I
think that my feminist approaches are intrinsically part of why my work is
great – feminist science is not just ‘good science’. Feminist science is more
than just good science, even while it also is
good science. So, the more critically engaged my science is, the better science I
produce.

I also think that I have worked extremely hard to be
bio-legible and speak to my colleagues in ways they will understand. I used to
think of my work as challenging/pushing/etc., but I now see my research program
as building/reframing/expanding. I think this noncombative approach is more in
line with how I’d like to see change happen when possible (‘be the change you
want to see’ sort of thing). And I think because I work within my fields but on
the margins, this insider/outsider status has given me a lot of space to do
what I do, but also others to be generous and supportive. I’m really careful,
too. I read book and article after book and article about the doing of science
in terms of the politics and management, etc. I’ve never believed that whatever
merit I do have will shine on its own as some sort of Sari-beacon, so I work
hard to connect with people who have shared interests in some way. I’m also
beyond extroverted (I’d way rather talk to a stranger than eat alone!) so that
makes it a pleasure to connect with people. And since science is done by and
with people, I think that this has helped too.

But you know, this question is hard to answer, especially as
I’m pretenure and still junior. I think I’ll have more perspective as time –
and I – march on.

How has your work
been received by feminist scholars and activists who are not scientists?

I often worry about how my work will be received by critical
scholarship audiences when I'm not there to situate it... and even when I am.
So it has been a really pleasant and welcome experience to find that folks from
across women's studies and critical scholarship seem to be really interested in
my work and, moreover, really extraordinarily generous. I think part of the
reason is that I really do listen to and am interested in what people have to say, and make changes in
my science. I think another reason is that I also try really hard to speak the
language. I think scientists are often worried about how their work will be
received and whether it will be attacked, like: why open up another front?! But I think critical thought and careful, conscious positioning go a
long way (in scholarship, and elsewhere!). Like I said about neuroscience, I
try to be biolegible. But I also often joke that I'm 'bilingual' because I can
speak to both groups and even joint groups, so I also try to be WS-legible. In part, I think this is because I
really truly understand that these epistemological approaches are so deeply
different that I can see where there's room for them to come together.

Do you have any
advice for students and early-career researchers who want to incorporate
feminist insights into their basic science research?

I can’t not recommend stealth mode. People are still so
misinformed about what feminist science would be that it could be such a major
and immediate stumbling block, especially to a junior person. I also can’t not
recommend authenticity. We all are most passionate about doing work that has
meaning, and I know those times when I’ve gone into deep stealth have been some
of the most professionally (and personally) deathly stultifying and unfulfilling times.

Sometimes stealth
mode is required

Image from Flickr by jeriaska

There are few guides to doing feminist science practice, but
I’m trying to build some – get in touch with me and others who seem like
allies. I’m also building a feminist science practice website just to
facilitate these sorts of alliances, so look for that! I have other more
prosaic suggestions: remember that you are the person on the ground, so you
have to make decisions that will
sometimes turn out to be wrong in ways you can only realize through
experience. Remember that no matter how grand your audience might be in your
imagination, you have to get through reviewers, editors, program officers, etc.
to get your work published and funded and that doing so involves negotiations
with your principles that not need to be positioned as ‘selling out’ to guilt
trip yourself. Finally, remember that what you’re doing is hard, because you’re
creating new knowledge (which is hard enough) but you’re also creating the ways
to create new knowledge, so be patient with yourself, excited at your successes,
and generous with your colleagues (and maybe also generous with yourself and patient with your colleagues).

Want to Cite this Post?

Gupta, K. (2012). Doing Neuroscience, Doing Feminism: Interview with Dr. Sari Van Anders. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/11/doing-neuroscience-doing-feminism.html.

Zombie Philosophy: Is It Coming For Your Brain?

When I told my friends I was helping to
put together a conference on zombie ethics with the Emory Center for Ethics, I invariably
received one of two responses:

1) That’s really cool! Where do I sign
up?

2) Sorry, what?

If you’re in category (1) and didn’t
manage to make it to the conference, read on to find out what happened. If you’re
closer to category (2), keep
an open mind. There may be more going on with zombies than initially
meets the eye.

Anatomy of a
Zombie

Dr. Steven Schlozman, an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical
School, delivered the first talk of the morning via Skype. Dr. Schlozman, a
zombie fanatic who grew up reading zombie stories and watching movies like Dawn of the Dead, has speculated extensively on what a zombie brain might look like. First, Dr. Schlozman suggests, zombies likely suffer from an
underactive frontal lobe that leads to impaired impulse control. Frontal lobe
dysfunction might stem from an overactive amygdala, where high levels of
activity have been linked to strong feelings of anger and lust. The anterior
cingulate cortex, which mediates the signal between the amygdala and the
frontal lobe, could also be impaired in a way that eliminates moral restraint. Together,
brain dysfunction in these three critical areas could lead to the insatiable
bloodlust that characterizes most classical zombies.

Dr. Steven Schlozman, author of The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse.

Dr. Schlozman cited several other zombie
characteristics that may be explained via brain pathology. Impairment of the
ventromedial hypothalamus has been associated with extreme hunger,
perhaps explaining zombies’ tireless pursuit of human flesh. Further, the slow,
lumbering gait often associated with zombies, (28 Days Later, Resident Evil, and the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead being prominent exceptions to this rule) may be associated with lesions to the basal ganglia and cerebellum, brain areas
that control balance and motor activity.

Philosophical
Zombies

If Dr. Schlozman is correct, Dawn of the Dead-type zombies could
conceivably be produced by an appropriate set of neurological interventions.
Yet some philosophers have argued that there may already be zombies amongst us:
what have been called, fittingly, “philosophical zombies.” Philosophical zombies are posited as materially identical to normal human
beings, yet lacking in consciousness. We tend to believe that our friends,
family, and coworkers have the same sort of conscious minds that we do, but how
do we really know? Is it possible that a person could have the same brain and body
as me, but not the same mind?

One rendering of the philosophical zombie problem.

Dr. Robert McCauley, Director of Emory’s Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture,
reviewed some of the major arguments for and against the existence of
philosophical zombies. According to McCauley, there are two major strands of
thought in modern philosophy: monism and dualism. Monism posits that the
universe consists of only a single kind of substance. In physicalism, that
substance is material; in idealism, it’s mental or otherwise immaterial. Dualism,
on the other hand, posits that both mental and physical substances exist. Exactly
what it means for a substance to be “mental” or “physical” may be somewhat
unclear, but McCauley points out that despite this ambiguity, we intuitively
have a sense of what these ideas mean. Regardless of what the world actually consists
of, it certainly “seems” that there are physical things, and it “seems” that
there are mental things.

In
the past several decades, McCauley argues that a new philosophical notion called
psycho-social identity theory (PIT) has risen to prominence. The PIT stipulates
that mental causation and physical causation are one and the same. As a result,
says McCauley, “we know where and how mental causation occurs” – it occurs in
the mind, which is also the brain. PIT has proven to be a useful paradigm for
modern-day neuroscientists, who have used the assumption that “the mind is the
brain” to derive a vast set of empirical findings on how the brain operates.

According
to McCauley, philosophical zombies have been raised as one of the main
objections to PIT. Some philosophers, most notably David Chalmers, have argued
that the conceivability of philosophical zombies suggests that dualism must be
correct. If it’s possible to imagine an individual materially identical to
myself but with no conscious mind, the argument goes, there must be a kind of
substance that is not material. Other philosophers, including philosopher of mind Daniel Dennett, have argued that arguments premised upon
philosophical zombies are best understood as an “intuition pumps”: thought
experiments that are “wonderful imagination grabbers,” but that rely largely on intuition and often fall apart when exposed to
rational scrutiny. From this perspective, says McCauley, positing a
materially-identical but non-conscious human is like arguing that health can be
removed without damaging organs or materially altering the body.

Given
that PIT’s assumptions are foundational to modern neuroscience, the
plausibility of philosophical zombies has significant implications for
scientific practice. If it’s possible to have a working brain without a working
mind, neuroscience may be missing important data by focusing only on material
brain structures.

Zombie Freedom

Following Dr. McCauley’s talk, Georgia
State associate professor of philosophy Dr. Eddy Nahmias considered a related issue: do zombies have free will?

Dr. Nahmias began by asking the audience
to raise their hands if they believed zombies had free will. Nobody, it seemed,
believed that this was the case. Dr. Nahmias then asked if humans possessed
free will, and most (though not all) of the audience agreed that we do. Finally,
Dr. Nahmias asked: why? What is it that grants humans, but not zombies, free
will? Answers to this question varied. Some suggested that human free will
exists due to our ability to suppress “animal impulses” and “instincts.” Others
argued that “working brains” or “personalities” are features that distinguish
humans as unique. Dr. Nahmias, however, suggested that a single principle
underlies all of these characteristics: consciousness. For Dr. Nahmias, zombies
lack free will simply because they lack consciousness.

This issue is important, Dr. Nahmias
argues, in light of controversies that have arisen largely in the last decade
regarding the existence of free will in humans. Daniel Wegner, Sam Harris, and Jerry Coyne  have all argued that free will is an illusion. According to Dr. Nahmias, these
critiques rely on an implicit model that looks something like this:

My own visual sketch, inspired by a model Dr. Nahmias presented at the conference.

In this model, the brain communicates
with an immaterial thing called the “mind” or “soul,” in which free will takes
place. When the soul has done its work, it communicates a decision back down to
the brain, and the brain causes us to take action. Free will skeptics often
argue that science has demonstrated the soul not to exist, and this being the
case, free will must not exist either.

Dr. Nahmias, however, argues that free
will doesn’t necessarily require any notion of an ethereal soul. Rather, he
argues that we should proceed from the following premises: first, that we have
conscious experience; second, that consciousness is probably located, more or
less, in the cortex; and third, that “it would be shocking” if conscious reasoning
had no effect on action. Given these premises, we can imagine a free will based
simply on the fact that consciousness exists. In this sense, free will exists,
and it influences our behavior insofar as conscious states influence our
behavior.

Zombies, says Dr. Nahmias, “are a
remarkably effective tool for thinking about free will” because they force us
to more fully examine our intuitions about what constitutes a free being. Clarity
on those intuitions, in turn, is vital to understanding what we mean when we
talk about “free will,” and without that clarity it’s difficult to engage on
questions of whether and to what extent free will exists.

The Case for
Zombies

There’s at least one other reason why
zombies might be an ideal starting point for public philosophical and ethical
discussions: everyone knows about them, and almost everyone agrees that they’re
at least a little bit cool. Personally, I don’t tend to get all that excited
about zombies – the only zombie movie I’ve seen recently is Zombieland, and my feelings were mixed – but I’m still a lot more likely
to get involved in a conversation that draws me in with this:

A bloodthirsty zombie.

than, say, this:

Rene Descartes.

It’s probably not a coincidence, then, that Dr.
Scholzman lectures at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in addition to
his work in psychiatry, or that Dr. Bradley Voytek and Dr. Timothy Verstynen  have converted their extended blogosphere discussion of zombie
neuroanatomy into a TedX talk on education.
Zombies are the rare commodity that can legitimately compete for the highly
sought-after Educational Triple Crown of philosophical, scientific, and pop cultural
relevance. For that reason, I wouldn’t be surprised if academic discussion on zombies mirrored the modus operandi
of zombies themselves: understated, powerful, and ceaselessly searching for new
brains in which to propagate themselves.

Want to cite this post?

Gordon, R. (2012). Zombie Philosophy: Is It Coming For Your Brain? The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/11/zombie-philosophy-is-it-coming-for-your.html

Exquisite Corpse: Why a Frighteningly Multifaceted Imaginary Creature can Help Tie Neuroscience to Society

Signs of the times:  candy corn is on clearance, already-cheap makeup and costumes are further discounted in bins at Wal-mart, and you're wondering when the next occasion will be where it is socially acceptable to dress like a sexy Klingon in public.  To add to the post-Halloween zeitgeist, here's a report on a recent zombie-themed neuroethics conference.

AMC's The Walking Dead. Which, if you aren't familiar with it, is about the zombie apocalypse and is watched religiously by all of your friends. From http://blogs.amctv.com

Why Zombies?

One of the themes throughout the conference was the question of what exactly is it about zombies, among all the rest of the undead and other monstrous phyla, that is so... appealing? The speakers often used the AMC series “The Walking Dead” as the zombie example du jour, highlighting the human-zombie interaction that series excels at as key for perking our interests. (Dr. Steve Schlozman, MD, writer of “The Zombie Autopsies” and die-hard zombie nerd made the point that a film about a bunch of zombies and no humans would be rather boring.  I might see this as a challenge to David Attenborough.)

Well, at least with most zombie movies it isn't about you.

Image from imdb.com

The point was made (again by Dr. Schlozman) that with zombies, it isn't about you - the fight is impersonal, like fighting against a natural disaster.  And that is part of what makes it so frustrating, and what makes us eventually turn against ourselves- in the end, you really can't hate a zombie for what it does, since it is by definition doing it thoughtlessly.  This idea of zombies as a fictionalized natural disaster was echoed through numerous hypotheses of what particular societal fears zombie movies and TV shows were helping us, as a culture, deal with (and perhaps the fact that there were so many that fit into this category spoke to the richness of genre).  These included the fear that “science” would enter our bodies and make us material (with a virus turning normal humans into soulless zombies in many versions of the story),  the fear of loss of individuality within a community, the fear of death, the fear of the futility of dieting and cosmetic salvage of physical beauty, the disenchantment of the body (as a physical mechanism rather than as a Godly miracle), as a reaction to selfishness through a loss of self, as a background consideration that allows us to imagine what a new post-apocalyptic community would look like, even as a fear of relentless and irrational religious fundamentalism.



In addition to this discussion of what the fear of zombies means about western culture, there was also talk of what zombies themselves could mean when viewed through philosophical and religious lenses.  Scott Poole and John Morehead suggested that zombies could be considered objects of religious contemplation in a(n increasingly) secular world (though it was admitted that the zombie apocalypse was in many ways a parody of the Christian vision of the apocalypse).  For example, the zombie could be thought of as a depiction of an “anti-angel,” or as the “void,” the sadness that is basic to human existence within certain worldviews.  Even the cosplay (or 'costume play') act of the “zombie walk” can be put in a religious context, as a discarding of one's own individuality and personhood in favor of joining a strange new kind of community.  In addition to these religious interpretations, Dr. Bob McCauley brought in the famous philosophical view of zombies-  entities that look and act human but lack that internal world that you are sure you have, and suspect others have as well.  (Note that Dr. McCauley quickly "de-animated" the philosophical zombies using an argument of philosophical zombie slayer  Dr. Daniel Dennett).

Where does Neuroscience come in?

Yes, there was a neurological explanation for zombies presented at the conference- and the reader is encouraged to look into the work of Steve Schlozman  as well as the Zombie Research Society for the meat on that - but what is more telling about fictional zombies than the details of their hypothesized neuropathology is the fact that the neurological explanation made the most sense for explaining what was happening. No one talked about genetic causes, gamma radiation, aliens, rotting flesh, rigor mortis, or moral/spiritual failings when providing a 'rational' explanation for zombies- somehow, we were all buying the idea that this looked a lot like something that was in neuroscience's turf (an explanation that has been used to great success by “The Walking Dead”).



From this perspective, zombie-ism is an illustration of a neurological disorder that has cultural, philosophical, and even religious significance. This provides us with a host of neuroethical questions that zombies can help us answer by acting as cultural guideposts. What sorts of brain damage might inhibit or destroy “free will,” “personhood,” or “consciousness”? Zombies are a familiar example where many think those qualities have been destroyed.  How extensive must brain damage be before we consider someone “brain dead”?  The zombie might provide an example of a “high-functioning” individual that is written off as “no longer human” or at the very least “no longer worth protecting” (in a fictional post-apocalyptic setting). What sorts of resuscitation (or even “resurrection”) might be desirable, in the face of traumatic brain injury? Probably not the zombie case (though Fido voices some disagreement on this). What sorts of brain functions are the root of theological concepts such as "the void" and "basic human sadness?" Potentially those are still present in zombies. Beyond just connecting the science to pop culture, this is a way to connect the science to familiar points in human values - through a thoroughly value-laden and often discussed monster.



I look forward to next year's symposium, and between now and then, whether in idyll horrific fantasy or in use of popular memes as guideposts for mapping out societal values, I suggest you consider the zombie.





Want to cite this post?

Zeller-Townson, RT. (2012). Exquisite Corpse: Why a Frighteningly Multifaceted Imaginary Creature can Help Tie Neuroscience to Society. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/11/exquisite-corpse-why-frighteningly.html

Teaching Intersex, Teaching Interdisciplinarity: Interview with Sara Freeman

Sara Freeman

Graduate Student

Department of Neuroscience

Emory University

In this post, I would like to highlight the work of another
Emory graduate student, Sara Freeman. Just when Cyd Cipolla and I (in the
Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) were coming up with our
plan to teach an interdisciplinary course bringing together gender studies and
neuroscience, we found out that Sara (in the Neuroscience Graduate Program) was
developing her own interdisciplinary course bringing together developmental
biology and the sociology of gender.

Sara’s course, which she is teaching this semester, is
called “Intersex: Biology & Gender,” and is cross-listed in the departments
of Biology, Sociology, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. “Intersex”
is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with
physical reproductive or sexual characteristics that cannot be easily
classified as male or female (for more information, visit the Intersex Society of North America or the
American Psychological Association’s page on intersex). FYI: October 26th was Intersex Awareness Day! In Sara’s course, she is teaching about both the developmental biology of
intersex in humans and the social, political, legal and ethical issues related
to intersex.

I wanted to interview Sara about her course because I see
her work as highly relevant to the field of Neuroethics. First, Neuroethics
benefits from interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists (especially
neuroscientists) and researchers in the social sciences and the humanities, and
by including material from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and
by bringing together students from all of these fields, Sara’s course is
fostering exactly the kind of interdisciplinary collaboration that Neuroethics
needs. Second, Sara’s course is encouraging her students to grapple with
important neuroethical and bioethical questions, including ethical issues
related to the medical treatment of intersex individuals (see Dreger for a
review) and ethical issues related to the use of intersex individuals as
research subjects in scientific studies on sex/gender development. Read on to
find out more about Sara’s course!

Question: What inspired you to teach the course?

Image from "One in 2,000" (used with permission)

Almost a year and a half ago, a friend of mine showed me a
short documentary called “One in 2,000” which is about intersex in humans [for
info about the film, visit this link]. I was surprised
to learn how prevalent intersex is, and as a graduate student in the biomedical
sciences, I was even more surprised to learn that the most common “treatments”
for these conditions include surgical intervention to “normalize” ambiguous
genitalia (often performed on newborns), gonad removal, and lifetimes of
hormone therapy. I was even more outraged to learn that in the past, these
procedures were oftentimes performed without full disclosure of medical
information to the parents or to the patients themselves. Later in the video, as
I watched dozens of names of intersex conditions drift across the screen, my
outrage began to shift to embarrassment, because I only recognized four of
them! Because my undergraduate and graduate training has been in reproductive
biology, sexual behavior, and neuroscience, I expected that I would be fairly
knowledgeable about the hormones, receptors, and developmental pathways that
lead from an embryo through stages of sexual differentiation during
development, and finally into a reproductively-capable and arousable adult man
or woman. At that moment in time, my apparent intellectual ignorance of this
topic, my outrage at the ethics of medical authority, and my growing interest
in gender studies started to work together as a motivating force. I started
doing some research and quickly learned that although many of the biological
causes for intersex are well described, there remains a considerable lack of
social awareness and understanding of intersexuality. With this in mind, I
decided to draft a syllabus for an interdisciplinary undergraduate course about
intersex in humans.

Question: When you originally designed the course, what did
you want your students to learn from it? How did you plan to make the material
accessible to students from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities?

I designed this class as a cross-disciplinary introduction
to both the developmental biology and the sociology of intersex. It examines
how biologically an intersexed body might develop and what the existence of
these bodies means for the binary concept of gender in our society. I wanted to
pose the question to my students, “What is a male and what is a female?” and to
draw answers from a variety of disciplines. Thus, the course includes topics
from the biomedical sciences, like chromosomal biology, embryology,
endocrinology, and anatomy, as well as topics from sociology and the humanities,
such as gender theory, the role of gender in our society, relevant legal,
medical, and ethical issues, and what the study of intersexuality can glean
from historical movements such as feminism.

It was very important to me that the course be cross-listed
in departments from different areas of academia, and to my great delight, it
was listed in the Biology department, the Sociology department, and the
department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. I hoped that by studying
medical ethics, the biology of human sexual development, and gender theory and
sexuality, students from any academic background would appreciate the natural
individual sexual variation in both human bodies and behaviors. Gaining these
new perspectives relies on the unique level of discussion and engagement that
results from a classroom of students from diverse disciplines who would
otherwise not interact academically. For example, pre-med students from the Biology
department would learn about the gender-related issues in the practice of
medicine, which is a discipline that tends to uphold the binary approach to sex
and gender. These pre-med students will undoubtedly have to make important
decisions regarding sex and gender later in their careers as physicians, and it
is critical for them to start discussing these concepts with students outside
of their discipline. Similarly, non-biology majors from the Sociology or
Women’s Studies departments would learn the specifics of the genetic, hormonal,
and developmental basis of the human sexual variation that their disciplines
have been studying and celebrating for decades.

At that point, as your question reflects, the challenge for
me was to make sure that the material was accessible to the students. I hoped
to accomplish this in a few different ways. First, I established an online,
collaborative glossary and encouraged the students to keep track of each word
in the course material that they’ve never seen before and to add those words to
the collective glossary, along with a brief definition. I hoped that this
exercise would attack the common and often reflexive feeling of stupidity that
accompanies being exposed to a term or idea of which one was previously
ignorant. In this way, as the students completed the reading assignments each
week, they could celebrate and share the new words they learned. Right now, we
have over 140 entries in the glossary, and almost all of my students are participating!



Second, I acknowledged that I cannot be an expert in every
topic, and I invited several guest instructors from various departments to help
teach the course. These incredible individuals include: Kara Kittelberger
(Neuroscience), Jordan Kohn (Neuroscience), Kevin Watkins (Neuroscience), Katy
Renfro (Psychology), Anson Koch-Rein (Institute of the Liberal Arts), Aimi
Hamraie (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), Dr. Kim Wallen (professor in Psychology),
Dr. Briana Patterson (pediatric endocrinologist from Emory Hospital), Dr. Pat
Marstellar (director, Center for Science Education), and Dani Harris, an
intersex person and advocate from the Atlanta community (Atlanta Police
Department). During the planning and conceptualizing phases of my class, I also
met with several other generous graduate students (Kristina Gupta, Cyd Cipolla,
Mairead Sullivan, Pii Dominick), instructors (Dr. Kevin Cryderman, Dr. Sara
McClintock, Dr. Deboleena Roy, Dr. Irene Browne, Dr. Tracy Scott), and staff
members (Sasha Smith, Danielle Steele). Without these people, my class would
not exist.

Lastly, in order to make two of the more challenging
biological concepts accessible for all students, I collaborated with Matt
Gilbert (web developer, graphic designer, instructor, and the friend who first
showed me the “One in 2,000” documentary mentioned above!), to create two online,
interactive “games”. The first is a meiosis game that allows students to
interact with the X and Y chromosomes as they replicate and divide during the
creation of eggs and sperm. Students can directly observe how variation in this
process can result in an embryo with a set of sex chromosomes other than the
expected XX or XY. The second online tool is a steroidogenesis game that
outlines the complex enzymatic pathways that synthesize steroid hormones, such
as testosterone and estrogen. Students can visualize how a body’s enzymes build
these hormones and can interact with that process to test their knowledge. By
making difficult biological pathways interactive, we improved the accessibility
of these core biological concepts for all students.

The "meiosis game" Sara and Matt Gilbert created for the course

HHMI Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant No. 52005873

The "steroidogenesis game" Sara and Matt Gilbert created for the course

HHMI Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant No. 52005873

Question: How has the course been going so far? Have you
been surprised by anything that has happened?

The course has been going wonderfully so far, in my opinion.
The guest lecturers have been engaging, the students have been open and
inquisitive during class discussion, and there has been tremendous support from
the Emory community. As far as surprises, I think my own biggest personal
surprise was that I haven’t really felt nervous. I was expecting to have to
deal with some nerves each day before class, but I find myself comfortable in
front of a classroom, which was definitely a pleasant surprise! I have also
been pleasantly surprised at the great level of maturity that the students have
exhibited in class. I imagined that because our discussion topics were often
going involve details about the genitals and sexuality, it might be challenging
for students to feel comfortable saying some of these words out loud. But they
have been very mature and confident and have handled the course material better
than I ever expected!

Question: Do you have any advice for other instructors who want to
teach interdisciplinary courses?

Collaborate. Don’t be afraid to reach out to a distant
department. Speak freely about your ideas. There are no dumb questions.
Acknowledging the intellectual areas in which you feel weakest will likely
result in a plethora of knowledge and support, which will overwhelm any potential
inadequacies that may accompany that acknowledgement. It’s ok not to know the
answer. Spend time following tangents. Be prepared to have the foundations of
your knowledge shaken. Welcome alternative viewpoints. Learn to speak using
unencumbered and discipline-free language, and if you find a situation where
that is too difficult, be prepared to explain your word choice and its
foundations to others.

Question: Has teaching this course influenced your current research in
any way or your plans for future research? Has it influenced how you think
about neuroscience research on sex and gender?

Yes, this course has definitely changed the way I think
about neuroscience research about sex and gender. I’m much more critical of the
field in general, and I’m also more aware of the misuse of the word “gender” to
describe animals in a research study. Also, after learning so much about intersex
subjectivity and medical ethics, I considered shifting my career track
entirely! I felt compelled by the idea of studying the issues surrounding why
many intersex individuals are lost to follow-up in the medical community, and I
thought about applying for a post-doctoral position at the Kinsey Institute at
Indiana University. Instead, I decided to accept a post-doc offer to continue
neuroscience research on peptide hormones and primate social behavior at UC-Davis
next summer. While my research aims for the immediate future don’t include any
specific plans to study intersex or gender, I definitely plan on teaching my
intersex course in the future as often as I am able to.

Want to Cite This Post?

Gupta, K. (2012). Teaching Intersex, Teaching Interdisciplinarity: Interview with Sara Freeman. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/10/teaching-intersex-teaching.html

Who is to blame when no one is to be praised?

Let’s imagine for a moment that I am extraordinarily brilliant, but my brilliance is not due to my own hard work nor is it due to the wonderful instruction I have received; rather my brilliance is due to the fact that I was born with gene X. Let’s further imagine that the effects of gene X are robust. That is, the effects of gene X (my extraordinary brilliance!) are largely insensitive to environmental variation and developmental course. As long as some minimal conditions of life are met, having gene X guarantees that I will be exactly as brilliant as I in fact turned out to be.



Question: Who is to be praised for my brilliance?

The glasses pair well with the genes.






If your intuition is similar to mine, your answer is probably something along the lines of: “No one, really. Your genius appears to have been innately determined in a way that your genius didn’t really depend on the actions or efforts of you or other people. Neither you nor anyone really deserves praise for that.”



As you can tell from my answer, I think that this ‘no praise’ intuition is driven, at least in part, by me classifying the development of the characteristic as being innately determined in such a way that the development of the characteristic is largely insensitive to environmental variation.



But here is the kicker: According to a new and provocative paper by Joshua Knobe and Richard Samuels, people are significantly less willing to classify an attribute as innate when the attribute is negative than when the attribute is positive. This is true even when the scenario that leads to the negative attribute is described as being the result of a gene that is largely insensitive to environmental conditions.



Even more surprising is that this effect held true even for scientists who were actively working as researchers in fields that regularly used the concept of innateness (e.g., biology, psychology)!



But, of course, the badness or goodness of the characteristic is irrelevant for whether a given characteristic is innate.



But the problem may be even worse. If praise/blame attributions are moderated, at least in part, by innateness judgments, then our praise/blame judgments would be asymmetrical for reasons that are unjustifiable.



But not all news is bad news.



When people viewed both the “bad” and the “good” version of each vignette prior to making the innateness classification, people were able to recognize that the goodness and badness of the characteristic was irrelevant, and, on average, the asymmetry in innateness classifications disappeared.



What does this all mean?



Well, these findings suggest another potential strike against the idea of the “objective juror” (see related posts by Cyd Cipolla here and here). If (certain degrees of) innateness should mitigate responsibility, and if we are biased toward not seeing negative characteristics as innate, we will be biased away from mitigating responsibility in criminal cases even in cases when we should.



This research also suggests a way to guard against potential biases. If a lawyer or judge is worried that a particular piece of information might bias jurors, the lawyer or judge may only need to provide the appropriate contrast case in order to get jurors to recognize that a particular piece of evidence may be irrelevant.



Want to cite this post?

Shepard, J. (2012). Who is to blame when no one is to be praised? The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/10/who-is-to-blame-when-no-one-is-to-be.html

Zombies and Zombethics! Symposium

Zombies and Zombethics! Walking with the Dead: An Ethics Symposium for the Living on Halloween 2012.

This symposium will feature a Zombie Braains Inspired Panel (among many other exciting panels, see Zombethics Tab for more info) inspired by The Walking Dead Clip Below. This discussion will include a stellar group of virtual and local speakers followed by a moderated discussion.



If you already RSVP'd, lucky you! If you didn't RSVP, see how to get on the waiting list below.  The Zombie Walk at 1130am is open and does not require registration. Contact Alison Kear (akear@emory.edu) for details.



The Walking Dead: Season 1 Episode 6: Test Subject-19 Brain Scan of Transformation









GUEST PANELISTS

• Steve Schlozman, MD. Dr. Schlozman
  
  is a psychiatrist and Professor at Harvard as well as author of The Zombie Autopsies.

Also joining us will be our local friends of the Neuroethics Program:

• Eddy Nahmias PhD. Neurophilosopher and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgia State University. Dr. Nahmias will discuss the relationship between the brain and free will.

• Bob McCauley, PhD. Director of Emory's Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture and Professor of Philosophy. Dr. McCauley will discuss the relationship between the brain and mind.

• Darryl Neill, PhD. Professor of Psychology at Emory.  Darryl Neill will discuss the psychological underpinnings of zombiehood.

The session will be moderated by Emory's Neuroethics Program Director, Dr. Karen Rommelfanger.





This event is hosted by the Center for Ethics and organized by the Neuroethics Program and the Religion and Public Health Ethics Program.

The event is free, but seating is limited and attendance will be by RSVP only! Seating is now by waiting list only. Contact Alison Kear (akear@emory.edu) to be added to the waiting list.

 For full day's events, please click the Zombethics Tab.