2023 - 2024 Seminar Series
The Quandaries of Biotechnology: Theory and Practice
Friday March 22, 2024
BSLC 115
924 E 57th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
and via Zoom
1:00 pm – 6:00 pm
(See Schedule on Right Panel)
Register Here
How are new developments between biotechnology and big data including gene editing, brain-computer interfacing, and artificial intelligence changing our vision of what it means to be human? How does this bear in the ethical practices of medicine and research at the lab bench and at the bedside? How might an integrative vision of ethics contribute to this conversation? Are there alternative social imaginaries in which we can think about different technologies?
In this day-long spring symposium, scholars from the University of Chicago and the Chicagoland area are invited to discuss how biotechnology is shaping anthropology and whether the application of new biomedical technologies reflects an adequate understanding of human personhood.
This event will be open to the public and seeks to engage particularly with current students, faculty, and medical practitioners interested in the intersection between science, medicine, technology, and theology. Publication of this program’s proceedings is a possibility. Participants are invited to return for a second symposium in fall 2024 on biotechnology and artificial intelligence.
This event is free and open to the public. This event is cosponsored by The Program on Medicine and Religion at the University of Chicago, and The Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University. For more information, contact info@lumenchristi.org.
Schedule
1:00 – 2:30 PM CT – Session 1
“Medicine Within the Technological Enframing” – Kyle Karches (Saint Louis University)
“The Grand Inquisitor, Mustapha Mond, and the Attack on the Transcendentals” – Stephen Meredith (University of Chicago)
Q&A, Moderated by Jeffrey Bishop (Saint Louis University)
3:00 – 4:30 PM CT – Session 2
“Our Biotechnologies, Ourselves: Reflections on Innovation, Identity, and Culture” – Lesley Rice (Pontifical John Paul II Institute)
“Valuing the Particular: A Theological Perspective on Human Creativity and Technology” – Silvianne Aspray-Buerki (Cambridge University)
Q&A, Moderated by Jeffrey Bishop (Saint Louis University)
5:00 – 6:00 PM CT – Keynote Lecture
“Populations, Persons, and Precision Medicine: The Ethics of Emerging Information Technologies in Genetics and Medicine” – Paul Scherz (University of Virginia)
How Can We Flourish?
Monday January 22, 2024
Knapp Center for Biological Discovery Room 1103
900 E 57th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
and via Zoom
5:30 – 7:00 pm
Followed by Wine & Cheese Reception
Register Here
What is human flourishing? What insights might we draw from the humanities? What insights might we draw from the empirical sciences? Many empirical studies throughout the social and biomedical sciences and many policy discussions focus only on very narrow outcomes such as income, or a single specific disease state, or measures of feeling happy. Human well-being or flourishing, however, consists in a much broader range of states and outcomes. Join us for a lecture from Tyler VanderWeele (Harvard University), presented by the Lumen Christi Institute. Discussion will be given to the implications of a broader conception of human flourishing for personal well-being, for research, and for policy. This event is free and open to the public.
This lecture is cosponsored by the In Lumine Network, the Department of Public Health Sciences, and the Program on Medicine and Religion at the University of Chicago. It is made possible through the support of ‘In Lumine: Supporting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide’ (Grant #62372) from the John Templeton Foundation.
Transhumanism, AI, and The Soul: Science For Humans
Tuesdays, October 3 – October 24, 2023
Gavin House
1220 E 58th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
6:00 pm: Dinner
6:30 – 7:30 pm: Presentation
See Website
Wrestle with the moral and philosophical questions around the rise of artificial intelligence, breakthroughs in genetic engineering, and the quest for transhumanism. Michael Burns (a biology professor) and Joe Vukov (a philosophy professor) will show the group how to think about the human questions at the forefront of technological and medical innovation. This non-credit course was cosponsored by the University of Chicago Program on Religion and Medicine and the In Lumine Network.
