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Parkinson’s medication blamed for sexual offences
Adrian Carter and Wayne Hall, from the Neuroethics group at the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research, Australia Follow NeuroethicsUQ on Twitter by clicking here The medication that provides significant relief from debilitating motor disturbances in people with Parkinson’s disease appears to cause a range of psychiatric disturbances that are as distressing and difficult…
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Mind Over ‘Dark’ Matter – The Higgs-Boson & The Value of Theoretical Academic Enquiry
CERN’s recent discovery of a particle consistent with the long sought-after Higgs boson has been hailed as a momentous achievement in physics. According to press releases, the finding provides substantial support for the standard model of the universe, since it explains why the particles proposed by the standard model should have mass. Although the complex physics…
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Stop Persecuting Armstrong: Time for a Doping Amnesty in Cycling
By Julian Savulescu and Bennett Foddy The anti-doping witch hunt being perpetrated by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is ruining cycling. There is a simple solution: an amnesty for dopers and relax anti-doping laws. The Story So Far Lance Armstrong has accused the USADA of running a vendetta amidst claims from a Dutch newspaper that 4…
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Should minimally conscious patients be allowed to end their lives?
Two recent articles by neurobiologist and science writer Mo Costandi raise ethical quesions about the treatment of brain-damaged patients in the light of new research. Doctors distinguish between patients in a vegetative state, who are completely unresponsive and assumed to lack conscious awareness, and patients in a minimally conscious state, who some degree of responsiveness…
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Reducing Religious Conflict conference podcasts now available
Dear all, Podcasts of the papers presented at the recent ‘Reducing Religious Conflict’ conference held in Oxford 18-19 June 2012 are now available at: http://www.src.ox.ac.uk/2012-2conf.htm Presentations at the conference included: Scott Atran, Anthropology (University of Michigan and National Center for Scientific Research Paris) Religious and Sacred Imperatives in Human Conflict Liz Carmichael (Faculty of Theology,…
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Artificial organs: “good guys” finish last to technology
It is hardly a keen insight to note that there are a lot of problems in the world today, and that there are also lots of suggested solutions. Often these can be classified under three different labels: “Good guy” solutions which rely on changing individual people’s attitudes and behaviours. Institutional solutions which rely on designing good…
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Après nous, le déluge: legislating science
The North Carolina senate tried to pass a bill in June banning state agency researchers from using exponential extrapolations in predictions of sea level, requiring them to just using linear extrapolations. After being generally laughed at, the legislators settled for a compromise: state agencies were forbidden to base any laws or plans on exponential extrapolations…
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Can the religious beliefs of parents justify the nonconsensual cutting of their child’s genitals?
By Brian D. Earp See Brian’s most recent previous post by clicking here. See all of Brian’s previous posts by clicking here. Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here. See updated material below – reply to a critic. Of faith and circumcision: Can the religious beliefs of parents justify the nonconsensual cutting of their child’s genitals?…
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Honesty and Science
Honesty is a virtue. The strange thing about honesty is that we do not seem to see even the simplest aspect, telling the truth when it is owed, as a duty. People who would be horrified at hurting anyone will trim, twist, exaggerate and lie at the drop of a hat, especially when it advances…