2024 Spring School OnlineKeynote Speakers |
Being a professional scientific researcher is much like being a professional musician, artist, or journalist. It is possible to make money doing it, but it isn’t a profession that people join to get rich. We are obligated by our professions to be ethical: we agree not to steal material from others, and to always be honest about our work. Scientific ethics is not regulated by law, so what motivates us to follow a code of ethics? Who teaches us the rules and who enforces them? What punishment is appropriate for those who break the rules? Sometimes the punishment is severe: the presidents of Stanford, MIT, and Harvard have recently resigned when their unethical conduct was revealed. I will talk about examples of breach of ethics in science, how they are discovered, and what happens when they are revealed. I’ll give examples of the pressures that encourage unethical conduct in science, and the effects of predatory journals and AI on the profession Jeanne Frances Loring, PhD is a world-renowned stem cell scientist and co-founder of Aspen Neuroscience. Dr. Loring’s work provided the expertise and intellectual property in genomics, iPSCs, and neurobiology that enables Aspen’s autologous therapy approach. |
The field that came to be known as bioethics in the late 1960s is an integral part of the liberal international order intentionally developed in the aftermath of the catastrophe of World War II. Following the Russian war in Ukraine there is every reason to believe that the set of norms and institutions that preserved peace in Europe through the first Cold War will be revised according to new assumptions that will structure international relations in a second Cold War. Bioethics will need to adapt to the conditions of the new Cold War, as it was shaped by the conditions of the last. Jonathan D. Moreno, PhD 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 a Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, History and Sociology of Science, and Philosophy. His most recent books are Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven but Nobody Wants to Die: Bioethics and the Transformation of Healthcare in America, co-authored with Penn president Amy Gutmann; and The Brain in Context: A Pragmatic Guide to Neuroscience, written with neuroscientist Jay Schulkin. Among Moreno’s previous books are, The Impromptu Man: J.L. Moreno and the Origins of Psychodrama Encounter Culture and the Social Network and The Body Politic which was named a Best Book of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews; Undue Risk, nominated for the Virginia Book Award; and Mind Wars, which was referenced by the screenwriter of The Bourne Legacy. He has published more than a thousand papers, articles, reviews, and op-eds. Moreno’s writings have been translated into German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Romanian. Moreno is a senior consultant to a six-year, 10 million euro project on cold war medical science on both sides of the iron curtain, funded by the European Research Council. Moreno’s op-eds have been published in venues including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Science, Nature, Slate, Politico, The Hill, Foreign Affairs, Axios.com, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today. He often appears on broadcast and online media. He was co-host of Making the Call, an Endeavor Content podcast, and was a columnist for ABCNews.com. Formerly Moreno was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC. and editor of the online magazine Science Progress. The American Journal of Bioethics has called him “the quietly most interesting bioethicist of our time.”Moreno is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. He has served as a staff member or adviser to many governmental and non-governmental organizations, including the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee, three U.S. presidential commissions, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2008-09 he served as a member of President Barack Obama’s transition team. Moreno received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis, was an Andrew W. Mellon post-doctoral fellow, holds an honorary doctorate from Hofstra University, and is a recipient of the College of William and Mary Law School Benjamin Rush Medal, the Dr. Jean Mayer Award for Global Citizenship from Tufts University, and the Penn Alumni Faculty Award of Merit. He has held the honorary Visiting Professorship in History at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. In 2018 the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. www.jonathandmoreno.com |
The Covid-19 pandemic created an exceptional public health situation in which health professionals, governments and the general public were faced with significant uncertainty regarding how best to proceed, and which public health interventions were justified. The numerous ethical issues that arose highlighted the important role of academic and professional bioethicists in the public space, and in policy making. Drawing on my experience as a North American academic bioethicist – who also does ethics consulting and regularly collaborates with professional ethicists – I explore some of the ways that we can carry out these different roles, mobilize our critical thinking and reflexivity, all the while maintaining our independence and credibility. Bryn Williams-Jones, PhD is a professor of Bioethics and Director of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine in the School of Public Health (ESPUM) at the University of Montreal. Prof. Williams-Jones is interested in the socio-ethical and policy implications of health innovations in diverse contexts. His work examines the conflicts that arise in academic research and professional practice with a view to developing ethical tools to manage these conflicts when they cannot be avoided. Current projects focus on issues in professional ethics, public health ethics, research integrity and ethics education. Prof. Williams-Jones is Co-director of the Ethics Branch of the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technology (OBVIA) and is Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Bioethics. In his bilingual blog BrynStorming, he shares his ideas on bioethics and academic life.
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