neurodudes

Nature Neuroscience’s editorial board posts a call for a change (doi:10.1038/nn0406-457) in the incentive structure of neuroscience in favor of funding initiatives that foster synthesis.

A quote from the article:

“To shift the emphasis toward quality rather than quantity of scientific results, funding agencies could support specific integrative initiatives, such as large-scale meta-analyses in unresolved areas or experiments to tackle particularly contentious conflicts in the existing literature.”

It goes on:

“Simply having more time to think and interact with colleagues could foster consolidation and conceptual breakthroughs. Unfortunately for many academic researchers, such ruminating might carry the stigma of inactivity or, worse, speculation. However, science is largely a creative process, and the minds of scientists are ultimately its greatest resource. Legitimizing time for creative synthetic thought through funding might be an inexpensive way to shift the current incentive structure.”

This could be the beginning of an important change in the culture of the field.

http://redwood.berkeley.edu/wiki/TCN

Some seminal papers in computational neuroscience (and broader neuroscience) listed here. The journal club is (physically) at Berkeley, but I thought some might be interested in taking a look at the reading list.

PLoS Biology: Men, Women, and Ghosts in Science [open access article]

I don’t agree with all of the conclusions of this article but it is the #1 article on PLoS biology right now. (For example, I’m not so sure that the genetic differences in “thinking style” predisposes physics to be a field with less than 50% women.) But there are several interesting thoughts here, including a bit on autism as an extreme form of the “maleness” in the brain.

So, Edge has a new question for 2006 for its All-Stars of Academia to answer: What is your dangerous idea? (Suggested to Edge by Steven Pinker, who perhaps got the idea from a colloquium series at his old haunting grounds.)

Offhand, one might expect a broad range of perceived dangerous ideas, varying by research interests and such. What’s surprising is that many of the luminaries think that the “most dangerous idea” is this particular, same idea: As neuroscience progresses, popular realization that the “astonishing hypothesis” — that mind is brain — will create a potentially cataclysmic upheaval of society as we know and have profound (negative) moral implications as people claim less responsibility for their actions.

Of course, this just isn’t true. But, would you believe that
Paul Bloom,
VS Ramachandran,
John Horgan,
Andy Clark,
Marc Hauser,
Clay Shirky,
Eric Kandel,
John Allen Paulos,
and, in a more genetic context, Jerry Coyne and Craig Venter
are all very worried about this issue? (And I didn’t even read 50% of the Edge dangerous ideas… there might be even more… ) Is this really the most dangerous idea out there to all of these talented thinkers?

I feel strongly that science and morality have always been separate domains and that any worry that, by “debunking” the mind, we automatically become immoral machines is just ridiculous. Through this scientific knowledge, we might gain some humility, maybe better see our close relatedness to nonhuman primates and place in nature, etc., but we’re not going to flip out and become crazed zombies. This just isn’t going to happen.

Does anybody else think that this just isn’t a truly dangerous idea (although certainly an “astonishing” one, in the Crick sense)? Or am I wrong here?

Samples of academic worrying after the jump.
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Scientists Bridle at Lecture Plan for Dalai Lama - New York Times

Same story as before. As SfN gets closer, I’m sure we’ll only hear more about this. Oh, and for fairness, here are links to both the anti-DL and pro-DL petitions.

Neuron has a nice review article about the role of miRNAs, one of the new hot areas in molecular bio, in neuroscience. A little technical but a great look at a really neat emerging area.

A followup to our previous story about this:

The anti-Dalai Lama SFN speech petition is at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/sfn2005/

A newer, pro-Dalai Lama SFN speech petition is at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/sfn2005a/

Where are you when you get your best ideas?

The story below (Financial Times) is a bit whimsical but I was surprised to learn that, in a recent survey, people reported that only 1 in a 100 ideas happens at work.
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If you made a list of “dream classes” for learning computational neurobiology, what would be on it?
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