Synthetron supported a European expert panel on ethics - at the request of the King Baudouin Foundation - to share their views on the citizens' recommendations for the Meeting of Minds project on brain sciences.
The highlights, summary report and full report can be viewed below.
The highlights:
The experts have agreed that the Meeting of Minds proposals uphold basic human ideals such as tolerance of diversity, care for the sick and the dignity of the mentally ill, that could easily become forgotten. This is possibly its greatest contribution, they said.
The ambitious and complex process by which the citizens eventually reached their conclusions also impressed the experts, as did the citizens' obvious commitment. Their great strength, they stressed, was their independence from vested interests.
The expert panel's attention was further caught by the citizens' views on diversity: that it should be celebrated and preserved. Scientists are defining new behavioural disorders, and inventing new drugs with which to treat them, and these are squeezing at the zone of behaviour regarded as "normal". As a result, diversity is disappearing - and the experts agreed this was a vital warning to be sounding.
These are some of the many observations made by a group of 12 leading bioethicists, philosophers, anthropologists and sociologists from across Europe during a one hour online webmeeting organised by the King Baudouin Foundation on the 26th of September 2006. The experts' intense hour of argument on the outcomes of Meeting of Minds, using an exciting new type of online discussion called Synthetron, was characterised by liveliness and disagreement, with a few precious areas of consensus emerging.
A summary report can be downloaded here.
The full report from Synthetron can be downloaded here .
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