Dehumanization and terrorism
Most people would agree that terrorism is no good. The word itself is rich with moralized connotations. It is true that some have argued that terrorism might sometimes be justified, but in popular discourse, terrorism is typically deemed ob…
Read MoreSupermarkets, Spending, and Influences on Choice
Something of a twitter storm erupted last week over a poster placed in a supermarket window. The poster, placed in a branch of Sainsbury’s, issued a “50p Challenge”, urging employees to encourage every customer to “spend an additional 50p d…
Read MoreHow Much Freedom Should We Give Up To Avoid the Spread of Infectious Diseases?
The first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola outside of West Africa has been reported. He is now in the US, receiving treatment. He arrived from Liberia via Brussels before reporting symptoms, which were initially mis-diagnosed and treated …
Read MoreIterated in vitro reproduction and genetic orphans
In an article soon to be published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Rob Sparrow imagines a procedure via which multiple generations of human embryos might be created in the laboratory. Egg and sperm cells would first be generated from exis…
Read MorePeople and charitable causes are importantly different things
Like Prot – the lovable character played by Kevin Spacey in the underrated movie K-PAX – you’re an intelligent benevolent extraterrestrial who has just been beamed to Earth. Sadly, unlike Prot, you have no return ticket. The good news for…
Read MoreA German MP on meth: Enhancement or not?
German MP Michael Hartmann was recently in the news because of his crystal meth use. The media was quick to compare Hartmann to other politicians who use other substances: the past marijuana use of Clinton and Obama, and the recent scandal …
Read MoreBad news for “intelligence-genes”
Intelligence and its heritability has been a popular topic in scientific communities and public discussions for long. Recent findings give new insight to the debate: one of the largest studies on genetic influence to intelligence and other …
Read MorePetrov Day
Today, 31 years ago, the human species nearly came to an end. Lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov was the officer on duty in bunker Serpukhov-15 near Moscow, monitoring the Soviet Union early warning satellite network. If notification was …
Read MoreWill Virgin staff really be allowed to take ‘as much holiday as they want’?
This week Richard Branson announced that Virgin would no longer be tracking people’s holidays. The move was apparently inspired by Netflix, who have similarly instigated a “no holiday policy” policy, which permits all salaried staff to ‘tak…
Read MoreFraming the Ebola epidemic
“CDC estimates Ebola epidemic could be over in Liberia and Sierra Leone by January!” So ran the headline of exactly no news outlets. Instead, a typical headline ran the following sort of dire prediction: “Ebola cases could reach 1.4 millio…
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