The New Scientist has recently interviewed Dr Paul Turke, paediatrician and advocate of ‘Darwinian Medicine’: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428600.300-hold-the-painkillers-says-darwinian-paediatrician.html. Dr Turke is working on…

Suppose that a despotic political regime is keeping its citizens in cramped and unhygenic labour camps. The survival and and economic productivity of the incarcerated individuals is sustained only through the widespread administration of an…

Worldwide media have been all over a case at the Strasbourg human rights court this week as it dismissed a man’s complaint over convictions for incest with his sister. Faced with a delicate moral question, the court ducked the issue, saying…

I love the BBC. Almost every day I browse the BBC News web site to catch up on current affairs. I especially love the BBC’s high quality TV and radio documentary output, and I confess that I am an avid Radio 4 listener. Alas, my love …

An article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports on the (alleged) frequent use of psychiatric drugs within the Haredi community, at the request of the religious leaders, in order to help members conform with religious norms. Haredi Judai…

I guess I should say, firstly, that I don’t.  Or at least, not directly.  I am a research fellow looking at the ethics and governance issues: the moral and political implications of geoengineering research and eventual deployment, should th…

By Julian Savulescu and Bennett Foddy  Former Brazilian President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has argued that the war on drugs has failed and cannabis should be decriminalised. He argued that the hardline approach has brought “disastr…

A scenario: You are with a group of friends in a bar on a Friday night and one of them has had rather a lot to drink – much more than he usually does. He seems happy, despite slurring his words and taking a few moments to get his balance. B…

An impressive study to be released in the journal Science on Monday uses new imaging techniques to reveal exercises of free will occurring in the brain. The authors scanned participants in their experiments who were choosing a playing card …

I have been thinking about babies recently, for various reasons (let’s call them Saul).  It had always struck me that procreation was a classic example of a prisoner’s dilemma.  It was good for each couple to have children, but if everyone …