Community Event: Brainwashed? What Neuroscience Can - and Can't - Tell Us about Ourselves

Conversation: Brainwashed? What Neuroscience Can - and Can't - Tell Us about Ourselves
reception with refreshments at 6 p.m., program at 7 p.m.
free and open to the public, please RSVP at event webpage http://clbb.mgh.harvard.edu/brainwashed/

Panelists
WBUR’s Meghna Chakrabarti, moderator
Scott Lilienfeld, Emory psychologist and co-author of the book Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience
Harvard psychologists and CLBB faculty Joshua Greene and Joshua Buckholtz

Brain science has advanced our understanding of many aspects of human behavior and experience, from how we make decisions to the circuits that allow us to feel emotions – and yet, as a society, we’ve been ambivalent about how these discoveries should change our view of ourselves. After all, over the past decade we’ve seen neuroscience applied in all sorts of social contexts – marketing, entertainment, mental health, politics, and the law – where its role is less clear and, by most accounts, inappropriate. But the question remains: how do we know what neuroscience can – and can’t – teach us about ourselves?