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The Racist Shopper
By: David Edmonds The Equality Bill is currently making its way through the two unequal chambers of the British parliament. It’s radical and wide-ranging and the debate about it has been heated, but the most interesting contribution has come from the upper chamber, the House of Lords. In a thoughtful speech, Bhikhu Parekh, a political
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Easing the passing: Death booths, misrepresentations and the ‘Ugh factor’
Death is in the air. To stop us being engulfed by the ‘silver tsunami’, Martin Amis urges the construction of euthanasia booths, and encourages the elderly to go to them for a martini, a medal and a pharmaceutical nudge into the void. Terry Pratchett talks cosily about ‘shaking death by the hand’ as he sits
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Brain imaging and PVS: How excited should we be?
How exciting is the new research on the consciousness of patients diagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state (discussed here)? From a scientific point of view, this is an important piece of research. The ability to respond to yes/no questions is surely a reliable indicator of consciousness; once we have identified patients who can pass
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Is the brain half full – or half empty?
There have been dramatic headlines in the media ('Coma Man. I think…I’m alive') following the publication yesterday of a new study using brain scans to detect consciousness in profoundly brain damaged patients. For the first time scientists and doctors have demonstrated that some patients diagnosed with persistent vegetative state may be able to communicate using
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Persons of the Sea?
You’ve stumbled upon a group of beings. For all you can tell, these beings are self-aware, intelligent, have emotions, solve complex problems, and call each other by name. They have thoughts and feelings and probably experience life in a way that is very similar to your own. Are they persons? And do you have moral
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Mind the Gap?
Much attention has been paid over the last week or so to An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK, a government-sponsored study which has taken over ten years to produce: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/27/unequal-britain-report The study contains a huge amount of data, much of it on the gaps between richer and poorer groups. It turns out, for
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Professor George’s Unnatural Reasoning
Some of us know Professor Robert George as the ultraconservative Catholic bioethicist from Princeton. It could hardly be said that his writings have dominated discussion in contemporary ethics. It is thus slightly surprising to find out, in recent profile in the New York Times, that Professor George is a thinker of immense influence—the mastermind of
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Climate scientists behaving badly? Part 4: what is owed to other enquirers.
Now we move on to what is owed to other enquirers keep records of original data and methods and make such records freely available. The global temperature record produced by the CRU is one of the four sets of data on which the IPCC has relied, and in the opinion of many commentators it has
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Aid Beyond Belief
The days following the devastating earthquake in Haiti saw a surge in fundraising efforts from organizations all over the world. In this charitable climate, the atheist scientist Richard Dawkins set up an aid campaign of his own: Non-Believers Giving Aid. Why donate through his group? In addition to rallying fellow non-believers, Dawkins claims this offers
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Obesity and Responsibility
There has been a good deal of discussion about obesity recently, since the Royal College of Surgeons criticized access to weight loss operations in the UK as a ‘postcode lottery’: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/21/morbid-obesity-gastric-bands-nhs-costs One common response – for example by Catherine Bennett in The Observer ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/24/homeopathy-obesity-gastric-bands ) has been that the question of unfairness shouldn’t be