Scientia (Rice University)

Scientia sponsors an annual series of colloquia (past years' programs are listed at bottom of this page) devoted to the exploration of a broad topic from a variety of points of view. These colloquia are open to the general public. The topic of the 2005-2006 Scientia colloquia is "Animals and Humans." Most of the colloquia consist of a speaker, a panel of discussants who respond to the speaker's remarks, and a period for questions from the audience. Unless otherwise noted, the colloquia will take place on the specified Tuesdays at 4:00 p.m., in the McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall (enter the main/foyer entrance and then room 1055, the fourth door right). A wine and cheese reception will follow each event.

The high point of the year is the distinguished Bochner Lecture, which is held in the evening (details forthcoming), instead of in the afternoon.

Fall of 2005 Colloquium Schedule:

Tuesday, 13 September 2005, 4:00 p.m., McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall

Name: Alastair J. Norcross, Associate Professor, Philosophy Department, Rice University

Title: "Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases"

Video archive available here:

Abstract: Suppose that in order to enjoy the taste of chocolate you had to torture puppies. Despite the undeniable significance of gustatory pleasure, you would not be morally justified in torturing puppies to pursue it. In this lecture, I argue that those who purchase and consume factory-raised meat are in the same moral position as someone who tortures puppies merely for the pleasure of chocolate. I consider and reject several attempts to show that the puppy torturer's actions are morally worse than those of the meat eater. I also argue that any attempt to justify the claim that humans have a higher moral status than other animals by appealing to some version of rationality as the morally relevant difference between humans and animals will fail on at least two counts. It will fail to give an adequate answer to the argument from marginal cases, and, more importantly, it will fail to make the case that such a difference is morally relevant to the status of animals as moral patients as opposed to their status as moral agents.

Panelists:

Hanoch Sheinman, Assistant Professor, Philosophy Dept., Rice University

Joan E. Strassmann, Professor and Chair, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Dept., Rice University

Tuesday, 18 October 2005, 4:00 p.m., McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall

Name: Lisa M. Meffert, Assistant Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, Rice University

Title: "Humans as Custodians of the Animal Kingdom: Concerns in Conservation Biology"

Video archive available here:

Abstract: From the private collections in ancient Egypt to the current management programs in public zoos, humans have taken on the responsibilities of custodians of the animal kingdom. Can we say that we have followed the Hippocratic Oath: "Above all: Do no harm"? We will discuss the biological challenges and ethical dilemmas of our efforts to preserve biodiversity, including work from the recently established Houston Zoo and Rice University Consortium in Conservation Biology.

Panelists:

Paul A. Harcombe, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Jennifer Korstian, Undergraduate Participant, Houston Zoo and Rice University Consortium in Conservation Biology

Stan Mays, Co-Director, Houston Zoo and Rice University Consortium in Conservation Biology, and Curator of Herpetology, Houston Zoo

Tuesday, 15 November 2005, 4:00 p.m., McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall

Name: John H. Zammito, Professor, History Department, Chair, German and Slavic Studies, Rice University

Title: "'If Animals are Machines, so are We': Calling Descartes' Bluff in the Eighteenth Century"

Video archive available here:

Abstract: When Descartes insisted that animal bodies were mere machines he was pressing three enormous claims. First, he argued that all bodies were mere material substance, and material substance was essentially inert. Second, he argued that mechanism was both the necessary and the sufficient causal account for all material phenomena, i.e., all organicism - animist or vitalist - was improper "science." Finally and most essentially, it followed that there must be an additional, autonomous realm of substance, spirit, whence derived the force necessary to "animate" the material world and in which man's decisive dignity vis a vis the rest of creation must reside. The Eighteenth Century challenged every one of these claims by the hyperbolic gesture of claiming that man could not be exempted from the argument. It would have to entail that man, too, was merely a machine (La Mettrie), a result that in fact overthrew Descartes' entire position. The result was a paradigm shift in the (life) sciences of the late eighteenth century, which Peter Reill has recently dubbed "Vitalizing the Enlightenment."

Tuesday, 6 December 2005, 4:00 p.m., McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall

Name: Huda Y. Zoghbi, M.D., Professor and Investigator, Baylor College of Medicine/Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Houston, Texas

Title: "Mouse Studies and What They Teach Us About Neurodegeneration, Deafness, and Breathing"

Video archive available here:

Abstract: Molecular genetic tools are key for research aimed at understanding the mechanisms underlying brain development and neurological disorders. In our laboratory we use two approaches to get a handle on genes mediating key neuronal functions and brain health. The first approach involves studying human patients that suffer from an inherited neurological disease in order to identify the responsible gene. We use genetic mapping studies to localize and identify the gene, and eventually we study the function of the disease-causing gene and the consequences of the mutations in mouse models. The other approach involves the identification of genes essential for normal neuronal function and brain development in lower organisms (such as the fruit fly) and studying their mammalian homologues. We have used both approaches to study two genes, SCA1 and Math1 . The use of mouse models has proven key in providing insight about the roles of these genes in balance, hearing, and breathing, and about ways to test potential therapies for neurodegenerative disorders.

Spring of 2006 Colloquium Schedule:

Tuesday, 17 January 2006, 4:00 p.m., McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall

Name: C. J. Peters, Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Experimental Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston

Title: "Emerging Virus Diseases from Animals to Humans"

Video archive available here:

Abstract: Professor C.J. Peters, who is known internationally for his contributions to the control of dangerous and emerging infectious agents (some of which are also bioterrorism threats), serves as Director for Biodefense of the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases (CBEID) at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB). The CBEID, a multi-disciplinary umbrella organization building on the strengths and work of more than 25 researchers in UTMB's Center for Tropical Diseases and Sealy Center for Structural Biology, is a catalyst for research and development efforts that address an urgent national need. In doing this, it takes advantage of a wide diversity of research strengths at UTMB, in fields ranging from basic molecular and structural biology, to animal models of infectious disease pathogenesis, to more applied aspects of vaccine development and evaluation within the recently established Sealy Center for Vaccine Research. Professor Peters will speak on his current views on the threat of avian influenza and other viruses that emerge from nature and threaten humans. The patterns seen in avian influenza resemble those of other "new" viruses such as SARS, Nipah, and Ebola and do not suggest that complacency is a desirable option for humankind.

Tuesday, 28 February 2006, 4:00 p.m., McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall (previously scheduled for the 14th)

Name: Cary E. Wolfe, Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor, English Department, Rice University

Title: "Animality and Disability, or, Learning From Temple Grandin"

Video archive available here:

Abstract: The case of Temple Grandin confronts us with complex theoretical and ethical questions that can be brought into sharper focus by deploying stereoscopically two emergent fields of cultural studies that her particular case invites: Animal Studies and Disability Studies. Grandin, who reflects on her life with autism in her books Thinking In Pictures and Animals in Translation, is an animal science Ph.D. who has designed one third of all livestock-handling facilities in the U.S. She argues quite compellingly that her experience with autism and its specific characteristics (the intensely visual rather than verbal quality of mental life, an extremely acute sensitivity to tactile stimulation, and so on) has given her an unusually empathetic understanding---"a cow's eye view," to borrow the original title of Thinking in Pictures---of how non-human animals experience the world, one that has enabled her to design animal holding and handling facilities that are far more humane for the animals involved. At the same time, Grandin routinely describes her mental processes in terms of technologies such as VCR tapes, TelePrompTers, and the like. "My mind," she says in one of her essays, "is like a web browser." When we recall the privileged place of the visual in the humanist sensorium, and the commonplace description of non-human animal behavior in terms of mechanistic, stimulus-response models (familiar since Descartes), the stakes of this spectacularly mixed metaphor---"I have a cow's eye view of the world but my mind is like a web browser"---come more fully into view. This lecture will attempt to understand what we can learn from the case of Temple Grandin, and how it can be of use in orienting us toward a new understanding of the central questions in which both Animal Studies and Disability Studies are keenly interested.

Tuesday, 21 March 2006, *4:30 p.m., McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall

*NOTE: This lecture was scheduled for 4:00 p.m., but has been delayed until 4:30 p.m., to accommodate the time frame for the "Richard E. Smalley: Celebrating an Extraordinary Life" Memorial Service and Reception.

Name: Anthony A. Wright, Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston - Medical School

Title: "Testing Animal Intelligence and Cognition"

Video archive available here:

Abstract: How animals compare to humans in intelligence has captured the imagination of scientists and philosophers for millennia. Only over the last few decades has it been possible to test how animals think and process the world around them. I will discuss current approaches in the testing of animal intelligence and what the results might mean. I will also discuss approaches in testing general cognitive abilities of animals such as whether they can learn higher-order rules and concepts and whether they remember and forget things in the same general way and according to the same general processes that we do.

The Bochner Lecture:

Monday, 10 April 2006, 7:00 p.m., McMurtry Auditorium, Duncan Hall

Name: Irene M. Pepperberg, Professor, Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, and Research Associate, Harvard University

Title: "In Search of King Solomon's Ring: Studies on the Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots"

Video archive available here:

Abstract: For almost 30 years, I have used a modeling technique to train Grey parrots to use English speech referentially, and then I use this to test their cognitive abilities. The oldest bird, Alex, labels over 50 exemplars, 7 colors, 5 shapes, quantities to 6, 3 categories (color, shape, material), and he uses "no", "come here", "wanna go X" and "want Y" (X and Y are appropriate location or item labels). He combines labels to identify, request, comment upon or refuse more than 100 items and alter his environment. He processes queries to judge category, relative size, quantity, presence or absence of similarity/difference in attributes, and show label comprehension. He semantically separates labeling from requesting. Recently, he demonstrated his understanding of a zero-like concept and simple addition He thus exhibits capacities once presumed limited to humans or nonhuman primates.

Studies on this bird and other Greys show that parrots given training that lacks such aspects as reference, functionality, social interaction will fail to learn referential English speech. Other data suggest that the extent of learning depends on the form of input. Studies on how parrots acquire an allospecific code may elucidate mechanisms of other forms of exceptional learning: learning unlikely in the normal course of development but that can occur under specific conditions.

Co-Sponsor: School of Continuing Studies

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Past Scientia Event:

2005 Panel Discussion: "Hurricane Katrina and Houston: Implications for our Future"