Kent psychologist lines up for Ethical Battles in Science and Medicine

The authority of science and the reputation of scientists at a time when career pressures can lead to distortions of the truth will be the subject of intense debate at a Battle of Ideas event on Sunday 21 October.

Titled Trust me: I'm a scientist, the debate will feature Dr Roger Giner-Sorolla, Reader in Social Psychology at the University of Kent and a leading authority on the role of emotions in moral judgement. Several of Dr Giner-Sorolla’s forthcoming publications will discuss the implicit incentives in science that have rewarded fraudulent and misleading data reporting practices.

Joining him for the debate will be: Professor Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust and the government’s next Chief Scientific Adviser (from April 2013); Imran Khan, Director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering; and Dr Stuart Derbyshire, Associate Editor of Psychosomatic Medicine and Pain and Reader in Psychology at the University of Birmingham. The session is convened by Nina L Powell, a doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham.

Trust me: I'm a scientist, which takes place from 5pm to 6.15pm in the Barbican Centre’s Frobisher Auditorium 2, is central to Ethical Battles in Science and Medicine, one of the principal themes of this year’s Battle of Ideas.

Dr Giner-Sorolla said: ‘For too many years scientific fraud and bias has been taken as an excuse to dismiss science entirely. But is science meant to be free of all human weaknesses, or simply a better approach to the truth than the alternatives?

‘I hope that anyone who attends the talk and debate will go away with a better understanding of the untold story of scientific investigation, and a more critical view of both science and its doubters.’

Further information on the event can be found at: www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2012/session_detail/6810

Contact: pressoffice@kent.ac.uk

Story published at 12:33pm 18 October 2012