Sheila Jasanoff, a Pforzheimer professor of science, technology and studies at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, gave an informative lecture at N.C. State.
The lecture was busy enough that there were not enough chairs. Some faculty members and students were forced to sit on the floor.
William Kinsella, associate professor of communication at N.C. State, introduced the multi-award winning and renowned speaker.
“Within the field of [science and technology studies], there is no one that does not know the name of Sheila Jasanoff,” Kinsella said. “She is highly respected, not only as an intellectual leader and theorist of the STS field, but also as a program builder.”
Jasanoff founded the Department of Science, Technology and Studies at Cornell University, and then moved to Harvard where she is the founder of the Kennedy School of Government’s program about Science, Technology and Society.
The lecture lasted more than an hour, and included a Q&A session afterwards in which four people asked questions.
One of the many topics Jasanoff spoke about during her lecture was the idea that bio-constitutionalism was prevalent. Bio-constitutionalism is related to the evolution of humans and how it can be related and applied to the U.S. Constitution.
“In the last 50 years, our understanding of what life is has changed tremendously, and we should rethink a lot of our pre-existing ways of guarding our liberties,” Jasanoff said.
She also talked about how governing rules vary across countries. According to Jasanoff, the nature of objectivity is transcendental, where in the U.K. it is empirical and observational.
Additionally, in the U.K., administrators are chosen by the issue-specific experience in their relevant field. However, in Germany the government is made up of all relevant voices that are willing to accommodate the reasons of others.
“I thought it was really interesting the differences between the U.S. and other countries, and the ways we viewed expertise and scientific knowledge,” said William Crumpler, a sophomore in engineering who attended the lecture.
Jasanoff also questioned whether cells were subject to scientific governance, or subject to political governance.
“Is owning your genome, same as owning you, is it the same as owning all your relatives as well because the genome contains shared information?
Jasanoff also added that many current laws in the country need to be rethought because humans have evolved a long way.
“These are all questions that we need to reconsider, they are questions of a constitutional nature that need be reconsidered in the light of the fact that we’ve changed the definition of what life is,” Jasanoff added.