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Teenagers and the right to be wrong
A teenager who is a Jehovah’s witness declines a potentially life-saving blood transfusion. Another teenager, self-conscious and strongly believing that it will make her happier, requests a boob job. When minors make decisions that may be against their own best interests, should we respect their decisions?
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Much ado about nothing
“A newborn is not a person, because a person is someone who has self-consciousness and has a sense of morality and rationality. In some cases of severely deformed babies, it could be reasonable to accept euthanasia like in Holland.” This simple idea, not really impressive and not revolutionary at all (read Engelhardt and Singer, for…
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Hacking the spammers
Why is there spam? The simple answer is that "there is a sucker born every minute" and email is cheap enough to reach millions of potential suckers who might want to buy Viagra, sure-fire investments and fake Rolexes. A new study has discovered that it is enough with one response to every 12.5 million emails…
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The Great Botox Experiment in Mood Enhancement
Suppose that the people around repeatedly smile or shake their heads. Although you may not notice it, it is very likely that soon you too will begin to smile or shake your heard. And it is likely that this will affect how you feel and what you think. Or at least this is what social…
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Top hats and top-ups: better health for the better off
The health secretary announced today that patients in the UK who choose to buy medicines not funded by the national health service, will no longer be excluded from receiving public health care. This announcement follows controversy about expensive cancer drugs that are available in other countries, but may not be available under the NHS. Given…
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Re-creating mammoths and the family dog: two different cases
The idea of reproductive cloning can easily be perceived as offensive, as a practice that constitutes the dark side of cloning and should be prohibited under all circumstances, by contrast with therapeutic cloning, the benefits of which are increasingly acknowledged. However, such reactions typically assume that it is human cloning we are talking about. Regardless…
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Election ex machina: should voting machines be trusted?
When election of public officials through public voting was instituted in the US,the framers of the constitution had no inkling about how large the voting public would one day become. Beside logistical problems that accidentally enfranchise goldfish and the many issues surrounding voter registration a growing concern is the reliability of electronic voting machines. As…
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Should We Be Erasing Memories?
Scientists from the Medical College of Georgia in the US recently claimed to be able selectively to wipe out traumatic memories (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/7685541.stm). These scientists experimented with mice and found that a particular protein plays a crucial role in the formation of memories. When they made the mice produce an excess of this protein, memories of…
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The Morality of Suicide Bombing
Since the 1980s, the popularity of suicide attacks – primarily bombing – has grown rapidly. There are now hundreds every year. As I write, the BBC is reporting a suicide bombing which appears to have killed eight people in Pakistan: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7701435.stm The motivation of suicide bombers has been widely discussed by sociologists, historians, psychologists, and…