nansyajram
المشاركات : 349
تاريخ التسجيل : 19/03/2010
العمر : 1825
 |  موضوع: My Brain Made Me Do It  الجمعة مارس 26, 2010 1:41 pm | |
| My Brain Made Me Do It By Michael S. Gazzaniga
[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]
As our ability to understand and change the brain increases, brain scientists and numerous other professionals are considering the effects on society that have arisen. A new field of study, neuroethics, has resulted. Here, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Ph.D., a leading neuroethicist, offers a very real scenario likely to confront someone serving as a juror. Dr. Gazzaniga extends beyond the courtroom questions that must be addressed by society as a whole. Imagine being a juror on a horrific murder case. As a juror you know, or should know, some things about America’s judicial system. First, 95 percent of criminal cases never come to trial; most cases are either dismissed or plea-bargained. The latter resolution is in part driven by the fact that courts tell defendants that, should they be found guilty at trial, the punishment will be more severe. Second, there is a huge probability the defendant is guilty. When you take your seat in the jury box, you also know you’ll have to decide the case with eleven of your peers, people who may not be up on the latest scientific understanding about human behavior. You know most jurors don’t buy excuses, facts presented about a defendant in an effort to claim he or she is exculpable for the crime at hand. Jurors are tough, practical people. That is the profile of the American jury system. Nothing fancy, just twelve people trying to make sense out of a horrible event. Most have never heard the word neuroscience or given a moment’s thought to the concept of “free will.” They are there to find out whether the defendant committed the crime, and if they determine he did, they will probably throw the book at him. Very few juries are asked to consider whether a defendant is exculpable for reasons of insanity, and when they do hear such a defense, they usually don’t buy it. Against this real backdrop of what life is like in the American courthouse, a new wrinkle is appearing in the form of the perennial question: Do we as a species have “free will”? Did the defendant carry out the horrible crime freely and by choice, or was it inevitable because of the nature of his brain and his past experiences? As with so many issues where modern scientific thinking confronts everyday realities, the people in the jury box are not rushing to embrace this one. Yet it is my contention that even those tough jurors will have no choice, because some day the issue will dominate the entire legal system. Brain mechanisms are being explored that help us understand the role of genes in building our brains, the role of neuronal systems in allowing us to sense our environment, and the role of experience in guiding our future actions. We now understand that changes in our brain are both necessary and sufficient for changes in our mind. Indeed, an entire subfield of neuroscience, called cognitive neuroscience, has arisen in recent years to study the mechanisms of this occurrence. With this reality of twenty-first-century brain science, many people find themselves worrying about those old chestnuts—free will and personal responsibility. The logic goes like this: The brain determines the mind, and the brain is a physical entity, subject to all the rules of the physical world. The physical world is determined, so our brains must also be determined. If our brains are determined, and the brain is the necessary and sufficient organ that enables the mind, we are then left with these questions: Are the thoughts that arise from our mind also determined? Is the free will we seem to experience just an illusion? And if free will is an illusion, must we revise our concepts of what it means to be personally responsible for our actions?(Excerpted from [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], by Michael S. Gazzaniga. Dana Press, Washington, DC, 2005.) Stem cell treatments are a type of [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] that introduce new cells into damaged tissue in order to treat a disease or injury. Many [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] believe that stem cell treatments have the potential to change the face of human disease and alleviate suffering. The ability of [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] to self-renew and give rise to subsequent generations that can differentiate [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] offers a large potential to culture tissues that can replace diseased and damaged tissues in the body, without the risk of rejection and side effects.A number of [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] treatments exist, although most are still experimental and/or costly, with the notable exception of [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]. Medical researchers anticipate one day being able to use technologies derived from [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] and [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] research to treat [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط],Celiac Disease, [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] damage and neurological disorders, along with many others.[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]More research is needed concerning both stem cell behavior and the mechanisms of the diseases they could be used to treat before most of these experimental treatments become realitie | |
|
