FREE PUBLIC EVENT: Organized by Susanne Smetana (Concordia University, Theology) on behalf of Prof. Paul Allen (Theology, Concordia), faculty co-ordinator of the Montreal universities Science and Religion Network (SRN) and Fellow of the Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford Fellowship programme. Sponsored by McGill University, Concordia University, St. Peter’s Anglican Church, SCIO and the Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation (CSCA).
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O God, What is Transhumanism Doing to Us?
Influenced by science fiction and driven by the combined effects of emerging technologies, transhumanism is a movement that seeks to alter human nature, especially capabilities for intelligence and select human physiological features. What do scientists think about the prospects of this movement? What do philosophers and ethicists believe we should be asking and doing about transhumanism? What do religious traditions highlight in response to radical human enhancement? A distinguished panel of four experts will weigh in and guide an evening of discussion preceded by pizza.
Panelists:
Dr. Christine Jamieson is an Associate Professor of Theological Studies at Concordia University, and an expert in the field of Christian bioethics. She is also the author of Christian Ethics and the Crisis of Gender Violence: Exploring Kristeva’s Reading of Religion, Culture and the Human Psyche.
Dr. Terry Hébert is professor and the Assistant Dean of Biomedical Science Education, Faculty of Medicine, at McGill University. Dr. Hébert is the lab director of the Hébert Lab, looking at G protein-coupled signal transduction systems.
Dr. Michael Hendricks is an Assistant Professor of Biology at McGill University, and a Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology and Behaviour. In his lab, he studies the neurobiology and behaviour of a small roundworm called Caenorhabditis elegans, looking to them to ask detailed questions about the genetic and environmental factors that cause changes in brain function and behaviour.
Dr. Cory Labrecque is professeur agrégé en éthique théologique et bioéthique at Université Laval, and the author of the forthcoming For Ever and Ever. Amen: Roman Catholicism, Transhumanism, and the Ethics of Radically Extending Human Life in an Ageist Society.
Moderated by:
Dr. Paul Allen, professor of Theological Studies at Concordia University, and co-author of “Catholicism and Science.”
Also sponsored by a grant given by Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and the Humanities II, a project run by Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford, the UK subsidiary of the Council
for Christian Colleges and Universities, with funding by Templeton Religion Trust and The Blankemeyer Foundation.