In a scanner darkly: The next 50 years of neuroscience
Leaders
Hao Tam Ho
Jean-Michel Hupé
Collaborators
No response
Brainhack Global 2023 Event
Brainhack Marseille
Project Description
To celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2020, the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) published an upbeat viewpoint on “The Next 50 years of Neuroscience”. Apart from the fact that the article reads like a blatant admission of SfN’s commitment to transhumanism, more worryingly, it exposes the society’s and, by extension, the field’s complete disengagement from reality. There is not a single reference to global warming in the article, which mirrors exactly the daily silence on environmental issues in neuroscience labs around the world. This has led us to suspect that either neuroscientists live in a parallel universe or climate change is pure science fiction.
But hold on! Guilt-ridden and eco-anxious, a number of neuroscientists have recently published (in Neuron and Nature Reviews Neuroscience no less) recommendations on how to reduce the ecological impact of neuroscience research, demonstrating some awareness of what is going on outside the ivory tower. Incredulously, they claim that it is possible for neuroscience labs to "go green” by, e.g., stopping the exhausts from fume hoods when not in use and attending conferences and meetings virtually instead of flying there - all without affecting scientific output, of course. These uninspiring, unambitious and completely ineffective “mini” steps have the advantage of giving neuroscientists the illusion that they are contributing to mitigating rather than aggravating the ongoing environmental crisis. Thus, there is no need to question the objectives of neuroscientific research in the face of a potential ecological and societal collapse within possibly much less than 50 years.
We think it is time for neuroscientists to face reality. Therefore, we propose to write an opinion piece for a major neuroscience journal where we want to clearly and honestly discuss the challenges for the community in this time of ecological and socio-political upheaval. To our knowledge, such a publication does not exist yet. Moreover, we hope to convince the Brainhack community as a whole to support our project, which would send a strong signal to the rest in the field.
We shall start by reading and reacting to the three references listed below. Other key resources will include reports related to climate change and planetary boundaries, as can be retrieved from the IPCC and IPBES websites, for example. If needed, the organisers will present an up-to-date summary of the ecological situation to ensure that all participants are equally well informed. The workshop will follow a "world café" framework where all ideas, reflections and facts useful to the paper shall be discussed in order to bring about a consensus on the content and organisation of the article. The writing of each part will be done in sub-groups with ongoing rotations for the revisions. All participants will be listed as co-authors of the paper. The two organisers will be responsible for finishing up the paper, submitting it and so on. But any participant will be welcome to join this "steering committee" after the workshop.
Milestones :
(1) list of issues, arguments or facts that we may bring in the paper
(2) consensusual short list of what we will put in the paper
(3) organized list (paper skeleton)
(4) first draft of the paper
Curiosity
Responsibility
English reading
Wrtiting skills
Onboarding documentation
No response
What will participants learn?
Participants will learn to think beyond their specialty and research project. They will learn from other disciplines. They will behave as a responsible citizen instead of just a scientist
Data to use
No response
Number of collaborators
more
Credit to collaborators
All contributors will be co-authors of the publication.
Image
Leave this text if you don't have an image yet.
Type
other
Development status
0_concept_no_content
Topic
other
Tools
other
Programming language
not_applicable
Modalities
not_applicable
Git skills
4_not_applicable
Anything else?
No response
Things to do after the project is submitted and ready to review.
[ ] Add a comment below the main post of your issue saying: Hi @brainhackorg/project-monitors my project is ready!
Title
In a scanner darkly: The next 50 years of neuroscience
Leaders
Hao Tam Ho Jean-Michel Hupé
Collaborators
No response
Brainhack Global 2023 Event
Brainhack Marseille
Project Description
To celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2020, the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) published an upbeat viewpoint on “The Next 50 years of Neuroscience”. Apart from the fact that the article reads like a blatant admission of SfN’s commitment to transhumanism, more worryingly, it exposes the society’s and, by extension, the field’s complete disengagement from reality. There is not a single reference to global warming in the article, which mirrors exactly the daily silence on environmental issues in neuroscience labs around the world. This has led us to suspect that either neuroscientists live in a parallel universe or climate change is pure science fiction.
But hold on! Guilt-ridden and eco-anxious, a number of neuroscientists have recently published (in Neuron and Nature Reviews Neuroscience no less) recommendations on how to reduce the ecological impact of neuroscience research, demonstrating some awareness of what is going on outside the ivory tower. Incredulously, they claim that it is possible for neuroscience labs to "go green” by, e.g., stopping the exhausts from fume hoods when not in use and attending conferences and meetings virtually instead of flying there - all without affecting scientific output, of course. These uninspiring, unambitious and completely ineffective “mini” steps have the advantage of giving neuroscientists the illusion that they are contributing to mitigating rather than aggravating the ongoing environmental crisis. Thus, there is no need to question the objectives of neuroscientific research in the face of a potential ecological and societal collapse within possibly much less than 50 years. We think it is time for neuroscientists to face reality. Therefore, we propose to write an opinion piece for a major neuroscience journal where we want to clearly and honestly discuss the challenges for the community in this time of ecological and socio-political upheaval. To our knowledge, such a publication does not exist yet. Moreover, we hope to convince the Brainhack community as a whole to support our project, which would send a strong signal to the rest in the field. We shall start by reading and reacting to the three references listed below. Other key resources will include reports related to climate change and planetary boundaries, as can be retrieved from the IPCC and IPBES websites, for example. If needed, the organisers will present an up-to-date summary of the ecological situation to ensure that all participants are equally well informed. The workshop will follow a "world café" framework where all ideas, reflections and facts useful to the paper shall be discussed in order to bring about a consensus on the content and organisation of the article. The writing of each part will be done in sub-groups with ongoing rotations for the revisions. All participants will be listed as co-authors of the paper. The two organisers will be responsible for finishing up the paper, submitting it and so on. But any participant will be welcome to join this "steering committee" after the workshop.
Link to project repository/sources
https://www.jneurosci.org/content/40/1/101.abstract https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627320301422 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-020-0311-5
Goals for Brainhack Global
Milestones : (1) list of issues, arguments or facts that we may bring in the paper (2) consensusual short list of what we will put in the paper (3) organized list (paper skeleton) (4) first draft of the paper
Good first issues
issue one: ecological crisis
issue two: meaning of research in neuroscience
Communication channels
https://mattermost.brainhack.org/brainhack/channels/bhg23-marseille-next50yearsneuroscience (replaces the previous framateam link)
Skills
Curiosity Responsibility English reading Wrtiting skills
Onboarding documentation
No response
What will participants learn?
Participants will learn to think beyond their specialty and research project. They will learn from other disciplines. They will behave as a responsible citizen instead of just a scientist
Data to use
No response
Number of collaborators
more
Credit to collaborators
All contributors will be co-authors of the publication.
Image
Leave this text if you don't have an image yet.
Type
other
Development status
0_concept_no_content
Topic
other
Tools
other
Programming language
not_applicable
Modalities
not_applicable
Git skills
4_not_applicable
Anything else?
No response
Things to do after the project is submitted and ready to review.
Hi @brainhackorg/project-monitors my project is ready!