Special Topics in Cognitive Neuroscience: Neuroscience and Society

Recent advances in neuroscience have given us a new set of tools for understanding human behavior, and these tools are increasingly used outside the ivory tower.  The proliferation of “neuro”-suffixed fields – from neuroaesthetics to neurotheology – calls attention to the many new applications of neuroscience.  In this seminar we will learn about the uses of neuroscience in law, business, education and mental health policy, as well as the implications of neuroscience for religion, morality and the psychology of art.  For each of these domains of application we will ask:  What is known? What is the reality:hype ratio?  How do the neuroscience-based approaches differ from more conventional approaches?  And considering all of the different applications together we will ask:  How are neuroscience approaches distinctive, in terms of what they can tell us and in terms of how we think about them?