Nick BostromProfessor of Applied Ethics, Director, Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford Steve ClarkeJames Martin Research Fellow, Program on the Ethics of the New Biosciences, University of Oxford; Principal Researcher, AHRC f…

Right wing politicians in Switzerland have been embroiled in a series of legal battles for the last several years over the construction of ‘minarets,’ or the tall spires that indicate the location of a mosque and broadcast the call to praye…

Russell Powell has recently written here about the ‘New Atheism’ debate, the controversy over the scathing attack that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and other atheists have recently launched against religious belief. I want to add a…

Last week I participated in the Royal Society MP-Scientist Pairing Scheme where I got a chance to see Westminster from the inside. I was lucky to end up listening to a hearing in the Parliamentary Science and Technology Select Committee abo…

A group of Dutch researchers has announced a few days ago that they have produced the first in vitro meat. Attempts to create in vitro meat started in 2001 and the Dutch government put $2 to support research in this field, while PETA offere…

Global warming hawks claim the moral high-ground, claim to speak for what is right against grubby self-interest. It behooves those who take the high ground to behave well themselves. Do they?   Data and email exchanges between climate…

The health care reform bill currently being debated in the United States has re-ignited controversy there over abortion, and in particular over the availability of federal government funding to pay for the procedure. Earlier this month, the…

By now most readers will have heard about the case of the Belgian man, Rom Houben, apparently misdiagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state for 23 years. Rather than being unconscious, as persistent vegetative state patients are thought …

By: David EdmondsAs so often, I’m with King Wangchuck.  The former King of Bhutan, the fourth ‘Dragon King’, coined the term, Gross National Happiness (GNH).   Governments, he thought, should aim to boost the nation’s well…

In a report expressing concern about the increasing use of biometric information to protect security and privacy, the Irish Council for Bioethics (ICB) claimed earlier this month that “an individual’s biometric information is an intrinsic e…