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Guest Post: Epigenetics: Barriers to the translation of scientific knowledge into public policies

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Written by Charles Dupras and Vardit Ravitsky

Bioethics Programs, School of Public Health, University of Montreal

 

Environmental epigenetics is a rising field of scientific research that has been receiving much attention. It explores how exposure to various physical and social environments (e.g. pollution or social adversity) affects gene expression and, eventually, our health. Environmental epigenetics can sometimes explain why some of us carry increased risks of developing specific diseases. It provides activists a powerful vocabulary to promote environmental awareness and social justice. This new vocabulary, which allows us to discuss the consequences of disparities at the molecular level, has been enthusiastically mobilized as an effective way of stimulating political will for promoting public health preventive strategies.Read More »Guest Post: Epigenetics: Barriers to the translation of scientific knowledge into public policies

Cross Post: Ig Nobel Prize Winner: Why I Lived Like a Badger, an Otter, a Deer and a Swift

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Written by Charles Foster, Research Associate, University of Oxford

This article was originally published in The Conversation

I have lived as a badger in a hole in a Welsh wood, as an otter in the rivers of Exmoor, an urban fox rummaging through the dustbins of London’s East End, a red deer in the West Highlands of Scotland and on Exmoor, and, most hubristically, a swift, oscillating between Oxford and West Africa. For this I was recently awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for “achievements that make people laugh, and then think”. Why I did this is not an unreasonable question. There are many answers. One is that I wanted to perceive landscapes more accurately.Read More »Cross Post: Ig Nobel Prize Winner: Why I Lived Like a Badger, an Otter, a Deer and a Swift

Cross Post: What do sugar and climate change have in common? Misplaced scepticism of the science

Written by Professor Neil Levy, Senior Research Fellow, Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

This article was originally published on The Conversation

Erosion of the case against sugar. Shutterstock

Why do we think that climate sceptics are irrational? A major reason is that almost none of them have any genuine expertise in climate science (most have no scientific expertise at all), yet they’re confident that they know better than the scientists. Science is hard. Seeing patterns in noisy data requires statistical expertise, for instance. Climate data is very noisy: we shouldn’t rely on common sense to analyse it. We are instead forced to use the assessment of experts.Read More »Cross Post: What do sugar and climate change have in common? Misplaced scepticism of the science

Anybody Out There?

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By Guy Kahane

These days it seems as if every couple of weeks or so we get reports about newly discovered planets that are ever more similar to Earth. The most recent discovery, planet Proxima b, is the closest planet found so far; Scientific American called it ‘the Earth next door’. Last October, an amateur group of astronomers noticed that the star KIC8462852 was flickering in an odd way, its brightness changing by up to 22 per cent, a much larger change than could be explained by any familiar cause. Some science fiction fans speculated that this might be a ‘Dyson Sphere’—signs of a super-advanced civilization desperately trying to harness energy from their sun. No convincing explanation of this effect has been found so far, and another star, called EPIC 204278916, was recently spotted exhibiting the same mysterious flicker. Then it was reported that Russian radio astronomers recorded a two-second burst of mysteriously strong radio waves coming from a sun-like star in the Hercules constellation.

We know we shouldn’t get too excited. Even if there are numerous Earth-like planets out there, they may all be lifeless. And scientists will probably eventually find perfectly natural explanations for these strange flickers and signals (the Russian report already seems to be a false alarm, caused by terrestrial interference). But still: it’s hard not to anticipate the day—perhaps in the coming few years, perhaps later in our lifetime—when strong, perhaps undeniable evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe will emerge. It sure feels as if that will be an incredibly important discovery. Arthur C. Clarke once said that “there are two possibilities: either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” But it’s not that easy to explain why.

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Invited Guest Post: Healthcare professionals need empathy too!

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Written by Angeliki Kerasidou & Ruth Horn, The Ethox Centre, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford

 

Recently, a number of media reports and personal testimonies have drawn attention to the intense physical and emotional stress to which doctors and nurses working in the NHS are exposed on a daily basis. Medical professionals are increasingly reporting feelings of exhaustion, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. Long working hours, decreasing numbers of staff, budget cuts and the lack of time to address patients’ needs are mentioned as some of the contributing factors (Campbell, 2015; The Guardian, 2016). Such factors have been linked with loss of empathy towards patients and, in some cases, with gross failures in their care (Francis, 2013).Read More »Invited Guest Post: Healthcare professionals need empathy too!

Cross Post: We have a moral obligation to allow drug analysis at music festivals

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This article was originally published in The Conversation

Written by Julian Savulescu Sir Louis Matheson Distinguishing Visiting Professor at Monash University,

Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

Connor Rochford Medical Student, Monash University

Daniel D’Hotman Medical Student, Monash University


Drug analysis would be a safe, ethical and cost-effective way to reduce harm to young people. Shutterstock

At the Stereosonic festival last year, Sylvia Choi died after consuming a contaminated ecstasy tablet. Unfortunately Sylvia’s narrative is all too familiar – a bright future extinguished at a music festival that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

This summer, many young people will also choose to consume various illegal substances in pursuit of a good time. Regardless of their personal choice to break the law, most would agree that they should not have to die for it.Read More »Cross Post: We have a moral obligation to allow drug analysis at music festivals

CONSENSUS STATEMENT ON CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION IN HEALTHCARE

On the 7th, 8th, and 9th of June 2016 a group of philosophers and bioethicists gathered at the Brocher Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, to participate in a workshop on healthcare practitioners’ conscience and conscientious objection in healthcare. Conscientious objection is the refusal by a healthcare practitioner to provide a certain medical service, for example an abortion or medical assistance in dying, because it conflicts with the practitioner’s moral views. Aim of the workshop was to discuss the ethical and legal aspects of conscientious objection in healthcare, in view of proposing some guidelines for the regulation of conscientious objection in healthcare in the future.

At the end of the workshop, the participants formulated a consensus statement of 10 points, which are here proposed as ethical guidelines that should inform, at the level of legislations and institutional policies, the way conscientious objections in healthcare is regulated. The 10 points are the following:

Read More »CONSENSUS STATEMENT ON CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION IN HEALTHCARE

Should we watch the Olympics?

Arthur Caplan and Brendan Parent

Cross-posted from OUP Blog, Ethics of Sport: Essential Readings 

We used to have to take time off from work –or at least leave work early– to watch the Olympics on TV. Now we can thank the engineering marvels of DVR and web replay for protecting our love affair with the Games from our evil work schedules. We are, rightly, mesmerized by the combination of talent, discipline, skill, and genetics embodied by the world’s greatest athletes. While admittedly luck plays a role, these elite athletes use strategies tuned over decades to prove who is the best on the world’s biggest sports stage. What is not to like? This year’s games promise to be epic with greats like Bolt and Phelps closing out their legacies, unstoppable rookies like Simone Biles planning to make their mark, and new sports like Rugby and Golf looking to reach new international audiences. Ready or not, here comes Rio 2016!

Read More »Should we watch the Olympics?

Announcement: Research Fellow – Global Terrorism and Collective Moral Responsibility

Applications are invited for a full-time Research Fellow in Philosophy to conduct research and related activities for the ERC Advanced Grant Research Project Global Terrorism and Collective Moral Responsibility: Redesigning Military, Police and Intelligence Institutions in Liberal Democracies (the ‘Project’) under the supervision and direction of Professor Seumas Miller (Principal Investigator). The Fellow will conduct… Read More »Announcement: Research Fellow – Global Terrorism and Collective Moral Responsibility