Welcome
Falling Walls Science Summit 2024: Starting to Unveil This Year's Speakers
Brain, © Colourbox
Scheduled to take place from November 7-9 in Berlin, the Summit offers a wealth of opportunities for engagement, networking, and immersion in groundbreaking science. You are invited to join it in person or virtually for three days filled with thought-provoking speakers and presentations showcasing cutting-edge science.
On November 9, Emilie Caspar, a renowned social and cognitive neuroscientist and Breakthrough Day speaker, will present her research on a critical contemporary issue:
“How Do Authority Figures Manipulate Our Moral Choices?”
In a world where more and more often authoritarian powers violate human rights and restrict freedoms, we are often left to wonder: who obeys their cruel and immoral orders? Why do people even follow commands they know are wrong?
Emilie Caspar is an expert in these dark corners of human behavior. At the Falling Walls Science Summit she will offer a unique look at the biological underpinnings of obedience, shedding light on why we might act against our conscience, what happens in our brains when we obey authority figures and how this knowledge can help us navigate authority in our lives.
The presentation will be streamed online free of charge. The link will be available on the Falling Walls website.
Book recommendation:
How can obedience and carrying out orders lead to horrific acts such as the Holocaust or the genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, or Bosnia? For the most part, it is a mystery why obeying instructions from an authority can convince people to kill other human beings, sometimes without hesitation and with incredible cruelty. Combining social and cognitive neuroscience with real-life accounts from genocide perpetrators, this book sheds light on the process through which obedience influences cognition and behavior. Emilie Caspar, a leading expert in the field, translates this neuroscientific approach into a clear, uncomplicated explanation, even for those with no background in psychology or neuroscience. By better understanding humanity's propensity for direct orders to short-circuit our own independent decision-making, we can edge closer to effective prevention processes.
“Historically, the most terrible things – war, genocide, and slavery – have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.”
Howard Zinn, American historian, political scientist and author of “A People's History of the United States”