Is mathematics the Christmas present of the year?

by Anders Sandberg
December 6, 2010January 7, 2011

by Anders Sandberg

Is mathematics the Christmas present of the year? TheoryMine is a company that uses automatic theorem discovery and proof to generate new theorems via computer, which customers can then buy the naming rights for (for a paper describing the method, see The Theory behind TheoryMine). Is this a scam? Or does it devalue pure mathematics? Or is this a great new way of acknowledging its beauty?

Cloudy with a Chance of Dementia

by Matt Baum
December 3, 2010January 8, 2011

By Matthew L Baum

“A test could indicate whether people in their 40s are more likely to develop dementia later in life, scientists say. But wouldn’t many of us rather not know?” reads the picture caption from a recent BBC News Magazine article .

Is Discounted Therapy Fair?

by Practical Ethics
December 1, 2010January 7, 2011

by David Shipley

A friend of mine is a therapist. She faced the following dilemma.

My friend specialises in enhancing fertility and was approached by a prospective patient who wished to become pregnant but could not afford to pay the standard fee of £45 per treatment as she was on benefits. The woman was aged 40 and had no children. What should my friend the therapist have done?

If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear: Wikileaks and RIPA

by Anders Sandberg
November 29, 2010January 7, 2011

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 David Waldock twittered: "Dear government: as you keep telling us, if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear".

Is this correct?

Our Future as Human Lobsters

by Bennett Foddy
November 29, 2010

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

by Practical Ethics
November 26, 2010January 7, 2011

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… Read More »Advance notice: Everyday philosophy

Is it ethical to force-feed prisoners on a hunger strike?

by Alexandre Erler
November 25, 2010January 7, 2011

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 was sentenced to five years and eight months behind bars for trading in cannabis and various other offenses. The Federal Court, Switzerland’s highest instance, has ruled that Rappaz should be force-fed if necessary, but doctors in charge of him have refused to obey those orders. A criminal law Professor has argued that according to the Swiss Penal Code, these doctors should be prosecuted, as their refusal amounts to civil disobedience. How should we regard such a legal implication? Is it ethically acceptable, perhaps even required, to force feed someone like Bernard Rappaz?

Who wants to be an abortionist?

by Lachlan de Crespigny
November 25, 2010January 7, 2011

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 the field say there's likely a similar trend in Canada. Few Canadian hospitals provide abortions and numbers are dropping. Other countries, including Australia, have similar service provision problems.

Abortion is lawful in at least some circumstances in almost all western countries. Yet most have too few providers and current providers are aging with few replacements coming through.

Opt-Out Day and Consequences

by Zack Beauchamp
November 24, 2010January 7, 2011

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 a justifiable response. The mere fact that citizens have a rights claim against a particular policy does not justify the citizens employing any available response to enforce that right. Murdering TSA agents, for example, is morally out of the question.

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Opt-Out Day and Rights

by Zack Beauchamp
November 24, 2010January 7, 2011

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 would be putting it mildly. Fuelled by horror stories of TSA agents destroying a bladder cancer patient's urostomy bag and traumatizing rape survivors, a trickle of anti-search sentiment among security analysts has grown into a flood of public outrage.