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Polygraphs: placebo or trial by ordeal?
Chad Dixon, an Indiana man was recently sentenced to 8 months in jail for teaching people how to beat polygraph tests. The sticking point seems to be that polygraphs are used by the US federal authorities for screening applicants and detecting crimes, so if people could get past them they could do all sorts of…
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Google and the G20
The furore over Syria at the G20 meeting has distracted attention from the potentially highly significant agreement by the leaders of the world’s largest economies to support an ‘ambitious and comprehensive’ plan to address the massive global problem of multinational corporations’ failure to pay tax where they earn it, using transfer pricing and other methods…
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What’s wrong with adopting out an adopted child?
‘Re-homing’ is a term coined to describe the adopting out of adopted children. Reuters today published a long story on the practice, describing several cases in which children adopted from overseas by American parents were then put up for adoption again within the States, in one case only a few days after the initial adoption.…
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Teenage annihilation on an Aegean boat
An Old Bore writes: Last week I got the boat from Athens to Hydra. It takes about 2 ½ hours, and takes you along the coast of the Argolid. The sun shone, the dolphins leapt, the retsina flowed, the bouzoukis trembled, and we watched the sun rise over the Peloponnese. It was wonderful. At least…
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Burma, Myanmar and the Myth of Objectivity
by David Edmonds – twitter @DavidEdmonds100 Since my last blog post, there has been a decision within the BBC “to start to move” to calling ‘Burma, ‘Myanmar’. Burma has always been an interest of mine because it was the big story in the first few weeks when I began in journalism. Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband…
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In defense of the double standard for chemical weapons
As the US and other nations gear up for war in Syria, the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime against civilians has received great, perhaps inordinate attention. A little over a year ago, US President Barack Obama called the use of chemical weapons a “red line”, though was vague about what would…
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Twitter, paywalls, and access to scholarship — are license agreements too restrictive?
By Brian D. Earp Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here. Twitter, paywalls, and access to scholarship — are license agreements too restrictive? I think I may have done something unethical today. But I’m not quite sure, dear reader, so I’m enlisting your energy to help me think things through. Here’s the short story: Someone posted…
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Political Change and the Olympic Games
by Luke Davies The upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi has been in the news a lot recently. The controversy, as you will already know, is a result the introduction of another law discriminating against the LGBT community in Russia—Article 6.21 of the Code of the Russian Federation, the so-called “gay propaganda” law. [1] This law…
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Is unwanted pregnancy a medical disorder?
by Rebecca Roache Follow Rebecca on Twitter Abortion is often in the news. Yesterday, The Atlantic Wire reported a poll of Americans’ moral views, which found just under half of Americans believe abortion is morally wrong. Today, The Sun is running an article on the devastating effects on women of having abortions. And, a couple of weeks…
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Let’s Talk About Death: Millennials and Advance Directives
Sarah Riad, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Boston Melissa Hickey, School of Nursing, Avila University Kyle Edwards, Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford As advances in medical technology have greatly increased our ability to extend life, the conversation on end-of-life care ethics has become exceedingly complex. With greater options both…