New publication: Can we “remedy” neurohype? And should we?
For the American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience, I wrote (together with colleague Jenny Slatman and my promotor Tsjalling Swierstra) an open peer commentary.
We respond to the article of Grubbs (2016): The Arts and Sciences of Reading: Humanities in The Laboratory. We argue that for humanities scholars, it is not so easy to reduce neurohype, and also not always desirable to do so. While hyped claims about neuroscience can have real and negative side-effects (think about the reiteration of stereotypes, or using the authority of science to back up questionable policies), it also provides us with an fruiful venue to explore how we use science to articulate the good in times of post-normal science, and it allows us to deliberate on the desirability of neuro-interventions in an early phase of technological development.
You can read our commenary here: Can We “Remedy” Neurohype, and Should We? Using Neurohype for Ethical Deliberation. AJOB Neuroscience, Volume 7, Issue 2, 2016. DOI: 10.1080/21507740.2016.1189978.
I wasn’t familiar with the format of an open-peer commentary (OPC) before. So what is it? From AJOB’s website:
“The purpose of the Open Peer Commentary model of publication is to provide a concentrated, constructive interaction between author and commentators on a topic judged to be of broad significance to theAJOB Neuroscience community. Commentators should provide substantive criticism, interpretation, and elaboration as well as any pertinent complementary or supplementary material, such as illustrations; all original data will be refereed in order to assure the archival validity of AJOB commentaries.”
In our experience, the format has its advantages: it allows for fast writing and publishing, and provides a nicely condsensed debate in the pages of the journal.