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If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear: Wikileaks and RIPA
Governments around the world have condemned Wikileaks recent release of US diplomatic cables, often while simultaneously denying they matter; the reactions are tellingly similar to the previous reactions from the US military simultaneously claiming the leaks were highly illegal, dangerous and irrelevant. At the same time many have defended the release as helping transparency. As…
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Our Future as Human Lobsters
On Sunday, scientists at the Harvard Dana-Farber Cancer Institute announced that they had succeeded in reversing age-related decline in mice, using genetic engineering techniques. The scientists created transgenic mice with a gene for telomerase expression that could be switched on and off with a chemical signal.
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Advance notice: Everyday philosophy
Advance notice of a forthcoming talk at the Oxford Playhouse on the 11th February, given by Philosophy Bites author Nigel Warburton: What is philosophy? Who needs it? Writer and podcaster Nigel Warburton, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University, discusses the relevance of philosophy to life today. From questions about the limits of free…
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Is it ethical to force-feed prisoners on a hunger strike?
by Alexandre Erler The question, which generated debate a few years ago in the context of the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, is now arising again in Switzerland, where imprisoned cannabis farmer Bernard Rappaz has been on hunger strike for about three months now, in protest against a prison sentence he considers excessive. Rappaz…
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Who wants to be an abortionist?
By Lachlan de Crespigny Dr. Evan James never wavered in his determination to become an abortion provider. But he is unusual – few trainee doctors have a driving ambition to become abortionists. The U.S. has seen a 40 per cent drop in the number of doctors who perform abortions since the early 1980s. Those in…
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Opt-Out Day and Consequences
Part 2 of 2 of a series on TSA searches and Opt-Out Day The first post in this series argued that the TSA search policy violates a fundamental liberal right to sexual privacy. However, the fact that people have a reasonable claim that their rights are being violated does not ipso facto make Opt-Out day…
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Opt-Out Day and Rights
Part 1 of 2 on the TSA and Opt Out Day To say that the American Transportation Security Agency's new airport security policy requiring all passengers to either be scanned by a machine that sees through one's clothes or submit to an invasive pat-down by TSA agents has generated a great deal of controversy…
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Data or life? Ethical obligations to present and future patients.
By Jahel Queralt-Lange Each year 10.9 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed worldwide, and 6.7 million people die. The good news is that better drugs are developing faster. We all want to hear about “wonder drugs” and the scientific and medical communities feel the urge (and sometimes the pressure) to provide them. However, some…
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The Poison of Hate Speech Law
Today another show trial of a critic of Islam has been going on. No, not in Saudi Arabia. In Austria. Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff is being prosecuted for hate speech for describing Islam and Sharia law in public lectures. Reporters from the left wing NEWS, an Austrian magazine, recorded her lectures and gave them to the Vienna…
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Arik Sharon Back in the Sycamore Ranch
On the 4th of January 2006, the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (better known to his countrymen as ‘Arik’) suffered a massive stroke at his vast Sycamore Ranch. He was placed under induced coma from which he never recovered consciousness. The hero of the Yom Kippur war, the villain of the massacres in Qibya and…