Personalised weapons of mass destruction: governments and strategic emerging technologies
Andrew Hessel, Marc Goodman and Steven Kotler sketches in an article in The Atlantic a not-too-far future when the combination of cheap bioengineering, synthetic biology and crowdsourcing of problem solving allows not just personalised medi…
Read MoreThe Fable of Speeding and Prance Legstrong
Imagine that the Teetotaler party came to power. They stood for family, safety and old fashioned values. Their first target was the car and the speeding culture. They wanted driving to be as safe as possible. Indeed, they would have preferr…
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When the science of sexuality meets the politics of gay rights
By Brian Earp See Brian’s most recent previous post by clicking here. See all of Brian’s previous posts by clicking here. Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here. Gay genes and gay rights: On the science and politics of sexuality If…
Read MoreSingularity Summit: How we’re predicting AI
When will we have proper AI? The literature is full of answers to this question, as confident as they are contradictory. In a talk given at the Singularity Institute in San Francisco, I analyse these prediction from a theoretical standpoint…
Read MoreToo much too young?
There has been outrage this week over a new sex education website aimed at young teenagers. Funded by an NHS West Midlands research fund, Respect Yourself has been developed by Warwickshire County Council in collaboration with NHS Warwicksh…
Read MoreNine to five philosophers
Owen Barfield was lunching in C.S. Lewis’s rooms. Lewis, who was then a philosophy tutor, referred to philosophy as ‘a subject’. ‘”It wasn’t a subject to Plato”, said Barfield, “It was a way.”’1 It would be dangerous for a modern professio…
Read MorePatient L’s Autonomy
‘Patient L’ is a man in a vegetative state, under the care of Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust. The Trust has placed a Do Not Rescuscitate order in his notes, yet his family claim that he himself would want to be revived if his condition deter…
Read MoreWatch your words! The challenges of law around the end of life
by Dominic Wilkinson Here in South Australia last week, a bill has been proposed to clarify the legal status of advance directives. One very small part of that bill involves a modification to an older palliative care act. The modification c…
Read MoreTechnology is outrunning science
It’s a common trope that our technology is outrunning our wisdom: we have great technological power, so the argument goes, but not the wisdom to use it. Forget wisdom: technology is outrunning science! We have great technological powe…
Read MoreThe Ban on Doping, Not Armstrong, Is the Problem with Cycling: Armstrong Is a Scapegoat for Cycling’s Hypocrisy
The International Cycling Union has stripped Lance Armstrong of his 7 Tour de France wins . UCI president Pat McQuaid said: “Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling. He deserves to be forgotten.” The UCI is acting in response to…
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