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On Forgiveness
by Charles L. Griswold (This piece was originally published in “The Stone” series of the New York Times (on-line), on Dec. 26, 2010, and is also available here along with responses by readers. Thanks to Roger Crisp for inviting me to post it here, and to the NYT for permission. Copyright held by the NYT.) We are in
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On rebuilding Noah’s Ark and drinking old Burgundy
In North Kentucky, forty miles from its Creation Museum (where you can see Eve riding on a triceratops and videos in which weeping girls blame their moral degeneracy on their failure to believe in the verbal inerrancy of Scripture), ‘Answers in Genesis’ is building a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark. It’s an expensive business. The…
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Can Liberals Support a Ban on Sex Selection?
Australia essentially bans sex selection, except to prevent babies being born with serious sex-linked disorders. The National Health and Medical Research Councils also prohibits it in its guidelines. A couple in the state of Victoria is currently appealing to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to allow them to access IVF and to deliberately have
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Predictors of Alzheimer’s vs. the Hammer of Witches
Matthew L Baum Round 1: Baltimore I first heard of the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witches, last year when I visited Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, MD, USA. A doctor for whom I have great respect introduced me to the dark leather-bound tome, which he pulled off of his bookshelf. Apparently, this
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Neurotrash and Neurobabble
Colourful images of brain scans tend to dominate the science sections of the popular media, and it is now fashionable to affix ‘neuro’ to most words of English. But there is a predictable grumpy backlash. The philosopher Roger Scruton finds the recent wave of neuroscience rather distasteful. It is all merely (in a phrase he
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Vegi-quette
A group of us often meet at our friend Mohammed’s place – and we normally order in a takeaway. Mohammed’s a devout Muslim, but I always get a pepperoni pizza. I did this again last night. We use Mohammed’s plates and cutlery, and he looks a little pained at having pork in his house, but
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DIY enhancement: morphological freedom or self-harm?
by Anders Sandberg Lepht Anonym is a DIY biohacker, extending her body and senses through implantation of home-made cybernetics in her own kitchen. (YouTube video of her lecture) Most of her work is about extending the sense of touch, using implanted magnets to acquire “magnetic vision” and (hopefully) an implanted version of the northpaw magnetic
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Addiction by design
A new report released by the US Surgeon General last month reminds us that cigarettes are designed with addiction in mind. Tobacco companies infuse tobacco with ammonia so that the nicotine crosses the membranes in the lungs faster, reducing the delay between inhalation and pharmacological effect. They add flavourings like chocolate and vanilla to the
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Trading Organs for Freedom
In Mississippi, sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott are to be let out of prison on the condition that Gladys donates a kidney to Jamie. (See also an article in the Guardian) They are both serving life sentences for being accessories to armed robbery, and would otherwise not be eligible for parole until 2014. Jamie Scott is
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Is it the thought that counts?
There was a jolly fire in the fireplace. The snow was falling outside the windows, to the delight of children and despair of transport planners. Aristotle sipped on the mulled wine, watching while Kant meticulously wrapped another jar of homemade mustard. “Dear Immanuel, are you going to give all your friends mustard?” “Everybody except Georg.