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Why ‘smart drugs’ can make you less clever
Nadira Faber Originally posted at The Conversation It is an open secret: while athletes dope their bodies, regular office workers dope their brains. They buy prescription drugs such as Ritalin or Provigil on the internet’s flourishing black market to boost their cognitive performance. It is hard to get reliable data on how many people take such “smart drugs” or…
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Cross Post: Women’s-Only Swimming Hours: Accommodation Is Not Discrimination
Written by Miriam Rosenbaum and Sajda Ouachtouki This article was originally published in First Things. Women’s-only hours at swimming pools are nothing new. Many secular institutions have long hosted separate swim hours for women and girls who, for reasons of faith or personal preference, desire to swim without the presence of men. The list includes…
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Video: Professor Julian Savulescu speaks in the DNA Manipulation Debate at The Oxford Union
The Oxford Union. The Motion: This House Believes the Manipulation of Human DNA is an Ethical Necessity. The Speakers: Julian Savulescu closed the case for the Proposition, as the fifth speaker of six in the debate.
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Article Announcement: Should a human-pig chimera be treated as a person?
Professor Julian Savulescu has recently published an article on the treatment of Human-Pig Chimera in the online Aeon Magazine. To read the full article and join in the conversation please follow this link: http://bit.ly/29NUj1c Professor Savulescu has written on this topic in the Practical Ethics in the News blog previously: https://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2016/06/organ-mules/.
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Won’t Someone Think of the Children?
Andrea Leadsom’s suggestion that being a mother made her a better candidate for being a leader than Theresa May, because it gave her a stake in the future that May lacked, seems to have sunk her leadership bid. The horrified responses to her remarks were motivated in important part by the observation that Leadsom was trading on…
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In Praise of Ambivalence—“Young” Feminism, Gender Identity, and Free Speech
By Brian D. Earp (@briandavidearp) Introduction Alice Dreger, the historian of science, sex researcher, activist, and author of a much-discussed book of last year, has recently called attention to the loss of ambivalence as an acceptable attitude in contemporary politics and beyond. “Once upon a time,” she writes, “we were allowed to feel ambivalent about people. We…
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Cross Post: If you can screen for brown eyes, you should be able to edit out genetic disease
Written by Dr Christopher Gyngell, This Article was originally published in The Conversation Not everyone’s choice of scarf. Shutterstock It has long been known that cognitive diversity is important to collective performance. Diverse groups are more productive, more innovative and better at solving complex problems than less diverse groups. And recent research suggests that cognitive…
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Brexit: lessons from the law
37% of the UK electorate voted to leave the European Community – slightly more than voted to remain. There is evidence that some of them regret their votes. The former editor of the Sun, Kelvin Mackenzie, who voted ‘Leave’, has spoken publicly about his ‘buyer’s remorse’. Others have indicated that they would not vote ‘leave’…
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Cross Post: Next time you ask the doctor for some antibiotics – consider whether you’re being immoral
Written by Alberto Giubilini, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics This article was originally published in The Conversation Antimicrobial resistance is the ability of microorganisms causing infections to survive exposure to antimicrobial drugs such as antibiotics. This is considered by some to be a slowly emerging disaster. According to the recently released Review on…
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Announcement: 2016 Effective Altruism Global Research Meeting Call for Abstracts
Location: August 5th to 7th, University of California, Berkeley Abstract Deadline: July 10th Contact: researchmeeting@centerforeffectivealtruism.org Overview The 2016 Effective Altruism Global Research Meeting is an opportunity for Postgraduate students and early stage academics from a variety of disciplines to present research relevant to Effective Altruism. The meeting will take place on August 5th to 7th,…