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Death Aquatic
Can science tell us how chefs should treat lobsters? The Independent this week implies it can. It seems that this is important to diners who want reassurance that their dinner has not been killed in a “barbaric” manner. Science may of course discover the quickest or easiest method of killing. Norwegian researchers in particular have
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Retaining privacy: the EU commission and the right to be forgotten
Do we have a right to be forgotten? That was the question posed to me by BBC Newsnight in the light of the EU Commission's latest draft framework for data protection policies. EU Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding stated that “The protection of personal data is a fundamental right”, and set out to fix current
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Why Bioenhancement of Mathematical Ability Is Ethically Important
by Julian Savulescu In a paper just released today, Cohen Kadosh and colleagues (Cohen Kadosh et al., Modulating Neuronal Activity Produces Specific and Long-Lasting Changes in Numerical Competence, Current Biology (2010), doi:10.1016/j.cub.2010.10.007) described how they increased the numerical ability of normal people by applying an electrical current to a part of the skull. So what?
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What is a pet worth?
by Russell Powell Imagine that you leave your sprightly canine companion to the vet for a routine teeth cleaning, only to learn that due to spectacular negligence on the part of the veterinary staff, he was confused for another terminally ill dog and was accidentally ‘euthanized.’ Imagine another even more horrific scenario, in which a
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Why god isn’t really a teapot.
By Lisa Furberg Russell’s teapot is an analogy intended to refute the idea that the burden of proof lies upon the sceptic to disprove the existence of god. The argument roughly goes something like this: If I were to claim that there is a teapot revolving about the sun and then further suggest that…
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Trolleyology
In the October edition of Prospect magazine, Practical ethics blogger David Edmonds provides an accessible and thoughtful insight into "Trolley problems"
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Could a ban on homebirth be justified?
Agnes Gereb, a midwife in Hungary, has been imprisoned for performing home births http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/hungary-midwife-agnes-gereb-home-birth. She faces various charges, including negligent malpractice and manslaughter (relating to a homebirth in which the baby died after a difficult labour). While home birth is theoretically legal in Hungary, in practice independent Hungarian midwives are not certified as being able
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Inviting invasion: deep space advertisments and planetary security
The Register warns that Dixons risks future of humanity with Star Wars-themed ads: the electronics chain, not satisfied with merely human customers also as a publicity stunt broadcast its ads into deep space, presumably for aliens to receive. This is done using the firm Deep Space Communications Network, who offers to beam messages into space
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Are some temperaments “better” than others?
by Alexandre Erler Jerome Kagan’s latest book, The Temperamental Thread, is – as usual with Kagan – a fascinating read. It draws on the three decades of research done by Kagan on the topic of human temperament. In a famous series of studies, Kagan examined the way infants reacted to unfamiliar or unexpected events. He
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Is professional integrity a futile argument?
by Dominic Wilkinson In an earlier post this week I argued that there are only two substantive reasons for doctors not to provide treatment that they judge futile – either on the basis of a judgement that treatment would harm the patient (a form of paternalism), or on the basis that providing treatment would harm