I am an educator and neuroscientist who studies how the brain learns to read and what happens when a young brain can't learn to read easily, as in the childhood learning challenge, developmental dyslexia.

The dominant question for us with regard to literature has become, 'What does this have to do with me, with life as I know it?' That's the question answered by all these books about how Proust was actually a neuroscientist or how Proust can teach you emotional intelligence.

Computer programmers, biotechnologists, environmental scientists, neuroscientists, nanotech engineers - all of these fields, and more, should have at least a course in ethics as part of their degree requirements.