This year will see the world’s population reach 7 billion, and there is considerable media interest (e.g. six articles on it in today’s Guardian). However, almost all of the press focuses on the downsides of population growth bu…

Procedures that involve human embryonic stem cells cannot be patented, the European Court of Justice recently declared. Apparently on the basis that patents “would be contrary to ethics and public policy” “The decision from the …

By Brian Earp Gaddafi is dead. Dragged from a concrete drain pipe, the loathed Libyan dictator—crying, according to reports, “Don’t shoot!”—was executed by rebel soldiers today before a baying crowd. His bloody corpse, manhandled, paraded, …

By Charles Foster My son is dyslexic, and I’m glad. Most people think that I am deranged or callous. But I have two related reasons, both of which seem to me to be good. The first is that his dyslexia is an inextricable part of him. I can’t…

Steven Pinker, the well-known Harvard evolutionary psychologist, has a new book just out, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined, published by Viking. The claim which Pinker defends, that violence is declining and has de…

**Deadline: 31 October 2011** Applicants are sought for a law postdoc position of 2.5 year duration to work on the international interdisciplinary research project “Enhancing Responsibility: the effects of cognitive enhancement on moral and…

Katherine Viner of the Guardian has just chosen The Smiths’  Meat is Murder as her favourite album. The album came out in 1985, in the middle of a decade in which I myself was an enthusiastic advocate of vegetarianism. I began by being sway…

In the news this week, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics suggests that the NHS should test the idea of paying for the funerals of organ donors who have previously signed the organ donor register, in order to try to encourage more of the pub…

by Roman Gaehwiler The crusade against artificial performance enhancement in sports is varicoloured and almost exhaustively debated. Nevertheless, there are still several approaches from the athlete’s perspective which are worth to consider…

At the beginning of this month, the pheasant shooting season began. Pheasant shooting is little discussed – it’s usually seen just as a harmless country pass time. However, it’s far from clear that it really is as unobjectionable as this ne…