Fifteen Years Bologna-Declaration – When will we replace students with computers?

The Bologna-Declaration was signed fifteen years ago and envisioned a regime of quantification, standardization, and quality assessment for Europe’s universities. Since then, we have witnessed the adaptation of education and science in line with the Europe of Knowledge fancied by ministers of education. To finalize this process, we should consider to...

May 2015

What is a Credit Point?

Have you ever thought about what kind of system you are studying in? Certainly it is based on meaningful standards, isn’t it? But that something is meaningless does not prevent administrations from requiring it of you.What is a Credit Point? A virtual currency to measure your study progress? An instrument to standardize higher education courses and...

May 2015

Nature: Research shows that Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud are the best scientists ever!

Assessment has become ubiquitous in the present science system. Particularly output measures such as the Impact Factor or h-index are very influential in determining scientific progress at all career stages. Presently, there is a surge in resistance against this assessment regime – resistance that also criticizes many other things going wrong in the...

May 2015

Enhance your brain? Enhance our minds!

Scientists have often commented on political/social problems and some suggested that new technology provides the solution. People calling themselves transhumanists extend this idea radically: By overcoming human nature, using means such as genetic modification or brain implants, we will also overcome our large-scale problems until ultimately turning...

May 2015

Visions for Neurophilosophy – Meeting at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, March 21 & 22 2013

The Chair for Neurophilosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich organizes an international and interdisciplinary meeting on neurophilosophy on March 21 & 22 2013. Colleagues interested in the neurosciences and their implications for other disciplines and society are invited to participate.To advance science and knowledge, to treat debilitating...

May 2015

Plagiarism: German Minister of Education and Science Annette Schavan Steps Down After Losing Her PhD

It is already the fifth necessary restructuring of the governing cabinet of Germany within the current legislative period. Annette Schavan, minister for education and science, declared to step down from her function today in order to prevent further damage to her office and the government after the philosophical faculty of the University of Düsseldorf...

May 2015

Adam Lanza or the Genes of a Mass-Murderer

Scientists will analyze the genome of the young man who recently killed almost thirty people in a mass shooting in the USA. Biology has been used frequently to understand criminality in the course of history, but with little success. It is unlikely that the genetic analysis will contribute to understanding the terrible crime. By contrast, it carries...

May 2015

Science and the Search for the Soul (3): Pluralistic Causation and How to Avoid the Reductionistic Fallacy

Many sciences use a broad model of causation that allows causal relations to exist on many levels, including social interaction; a reductionist view, by contrast, would even hamper scientific progress instead of supporting it; and agnosticism, after all, is a viable and rational position in a debate if neither side can present convincing arguments.What...

May 2015

Science and the Search for the Soul (2): Not Everything That Exists is Purely Physical

The world is more than just an assembly of physical particles. Pragmatical arguments force us to give up the idea that, ultimately, everything must be accounted for by physics. This allows a pluralistic and complementary view for all scientific disciplines and helps us to avoid a philosophical stance that takes the world to be much more simple than...

May 2015

Science and the Search for the Soul (1): Psychology, Physics, and Metaphysics

Are humans nothing but a conglomerate of physical particles behaving in accordance with physical laws? Can we show that the existence of a soul and an afterlife are scientifically impossible? Is agnosticism a viable alternative? My proposal to overcome a deadlocked metaphysical debate.“You,” your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions,...

May 2015