Category: News, Announcements, and Reports

Jon Stewart interviews Sam Harris on The Daily Show about his new book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

There were many interesting things brought up by Robert Sawyer in his interesting talk and the various discussions. I’m glad that we had him as a guest at the Center. One topic that caught my eye was his focus on the nascent science of consciousness and the associated ideas of human vs. machine intelligence. I’d like to share some thoughts about the science of consciousness in relation to larger issues of values in science.

From my perspective on the intersection of values with medicine, science, and technology, one very interesting question about different approaches to consciousness is the way that that the starting assumptions in each approach reflect different value-perspectives. This is especially pressing in an area like consciousness studies, where philosophical considerations loom so large, and there is so little unambiguous data or uncontroversial interpretation of the facts to constrain theorizing.

On Saturday, September 18 2010, the Center for Values hosted writers’ workshops on the craft of science fiction. The group of 20 plus science fiction savvies met with our two guests: Robert J. Sawyer and Tony Daniel.  For almost seven hours Rob and Tony were sharing their craft with us: how to work on a […]

Welcome to the new face of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology. To kick things off, I’d like to begin by introducing everyone to the Center – or as we sometimes like to call it, the C4V. I’d like to tell you a little bit about who we are, what are aims are, and what kinds of things we do.