NPR - Can Science Shape Human Values? And Should It?

This episode of Talk of the Nation Science Friday aired a few weeks ago, but it's a nice conversation about science and values featuring some big names in the field, including Sam Harris and Steven Pinker.

Can Science Shape Human Values? And Should It?

November 5, 2010

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Talk of the Nation

[48 min 8 sec]

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November 5, 2010

Ira Flatow talks with scientists and philosophers about the origins of human values, and the influence of modern scientific thought on human values. Even if science can shape human morals, should it? Or does science bring its own set of preconceptions and prejudices to moral questions?

Lawrence Krauss
foundation professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Department
director, Origins Project
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona

Simon Blackburn
research professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Bertrand Russell professor of philosophy
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, England

Sam Harris
Author, "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values" (Free Press, 2010)
Author, "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" (W.W. Norton, 2005)
co-founder and CEO, Project Reason

Steven Pinker
Johnstone Family professor, department of psychology
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts

You can read the transcript at the NPR site if you don't have time to listen.

Tags: Science, morality, ethics, Religion, society, NPR, Can Science Shape Human Values?, Should It?, Talk of the Nation, Science Friday, Ira Flatow, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Simon Blackburn, Lawrence Krauss, philosopher, human values