The Science Studio

Jack Cowan is Professor of Mathematics and Neurology at The University of Chicago. His research is concerned with understanding how circuits in the visual cortex process information, which he uses mathematics to investigate. Cowan developed a neural field theory with H.R. Wilson and then showed how to use nonlinear stability theory to analyze how patterns of stable activity could arise in neural networks.

Patricia Smith Churchland, UC President’s Professor of Philosophy at UC San Diego, focuses on neuroethics and attempts to understand choice, responsibly and the basis of moral norms in terms of brain function, evolution and brain-culture interactions. Her books include Brain-Wise; Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain; and On the Contrary, with husband Paul M. Churchland. Paul M. Churchland is Professor of Philosophy at UC San Diego. With his wife and philosophical partner, Patricia, he has been an advocate of “eliminative materialism”, which claims that scientific theories about the brain do not square well with our traditional common sense beliefs about the mind. Among his books are Matter and Consciousness: A Neurocomputational Perspective and The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul.

V.S. Ramachandran is Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Professor with the Psychology Department and the Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego. A former BBC Reith Lecturer, he co-authored Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, with Sandra Blakeslee, and is the author of A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness.

Helen Fisher is an anthropologist who studies the evolution of love, sex, marriage and gender differences in humans. She is a Research Professor and member of the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies at Rutgers University, and a Chief Scientific Advisor to the online dating site Chemistry.com. Fisher has authored four books including Why We Love: the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love and The First Sex: The Natural Talents of Women and How They are Changing the World.

Richard Axel is a neuroscientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004 with Linda Buck for his work on the olfactory system. He is currently University Professor and Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biophysics, and Pathology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, as well as an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Rodolfo Llinás, a founding father of modern brain science, is the Thomas and Suzanne Murphy Professor of Neuroscience and Chairman of the Department of Physiology & Neuroscience at the New York University School of Medicine. He is co-editor with Patricia Smith Churchland of The Mind-Brain Continuum. His most recent book is i of the vortex: From Neurons to Self. He has published over 400 scientific articles.

ames D. Watson is a molecular biologist celebrated for his discovery of the structure of DNA with Francis Crick for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. Watson has authored several books including The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, and his most recent, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Watson currently serves as President of the Scientific Committee of the Champalimaud Foundation.

Daniel C. Dennett, the author of Breaking the Spell; Freedom Evolves; and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, is University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He was the co-founder (in 1985) and co-director of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts, and has helped to design museum exhibits on computers for the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Computer Museum in Boston.

Sir Harold Kroto, Chairman of the Board of the Vega Science Trust, a UK educational charity, in 1996 shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for the discovery of a new form of carbon, the C60 Buckminsterfullerene. He has received the Royal Society’s prestigious Michael Faraday Award, given annually to the scientist who has done the most to further public communication of science, engineering or technology in the United Kingdom.

Peter Atkins is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, Fellow of Lincoln College. He is the author of nearly 60 books, including Galileo’s Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science; Four Laws that Drive the Universe; and the world-renowned textbook Physical Chemistry. He has been a visiting professor in France, Israel, New Zealand, China, and Japan, and continues to lecture widely throughout the world.

Leon M. Lederman is Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois and Professor of Science at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, and has served in the capacity of Resident Scholar since 1998. He has also served as President and Chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is a member of the National Academy of Science, and has received numerous awards including the Nobel Prize in Physics (1988). He is author of the books The God Particle and Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe.

Steven Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and Slate, and is the author of seven books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate, and most recently, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature.

Anthony Grayling is Professor of Philosophy at Birbeck College, University of London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited many books on philosophy and other subjects; among his most recent are a biography of William Hazlitt and a collection of essays. For several years he wrote the "Last Word" column for the Guardian and is a regular reviewer for the Times Literary Review and the Financial Times.

Sam Harris is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason which won the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction, and Letter to a Christian Nation. His writing has appeared in Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere. He is currently researching the neural basis of religious belief while completing a doctorate in neuroscience. He is also a Co-Founder and Chairman of The Reason Project.

Horace Barlow is a British visual neuroscientist who has done much work towards understanding human vision and consciousness, beginning with his discovery in 1953 that the frog brain includes neurons which fire only in response to specific visual stimuli. He is currently working on research involving the role of motion blur in helping humans to determine the direction of motion of moving images. This year he has also participated in many functions related to the Darwin Bicentennial, as he is one of Charles Darwin’s great-grandsons. He is a fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge and received the 1993 Australia Prize for his research into the mechanisms of visual perception.