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Can We Rely on Science to Catch Up?

Can We Rely on Science to Catch Up?

In an article published in the Australian on 12 October 2009 (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26195539-30417,00.html ), Des Moore the director of the Institute for Private Enterprise (http://www.ipe.net.au/ipeframeset.htm ), makes an interesting contribution to debate about the appropriate policy response to the threat of climate change. He suggests that we should rely on science to produce a viable solution to energy production that does not cause CO2 emissions. This might happen either because science leads to improvement in the efficiency of some currently known means of energy production that is not currently economically viable, or because scientists develop an entirely new means of producing energy. Because we can rely on this happening it makes no sense to institute costly emissions reduction policies now, or so Moore argues.


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The ethics of mind-reading

Recent developments in neuroimaging have created concerns about the ethics of 'mind-reading'. A technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has led to significant advances in the ability to determine what someone is thinking by monitoring their brain activity. Early research focused on determining very simple features of a person’s mental state, such as whether or not they were currently looking at a picture of a face. However, new research by John-Dylan Haynes of the Max Planck Institute has gone beyond this, allowing scientists to determine which action the subjects in their trial were intending to perform before they performed it (see a summary, or the paper itself). The task in question was to decide whether to add or subtract the two numbers which would later be shown. After being trained on a number of examples, the system could predict which of the two operations the subject would later perform. Furthermore, a study at Carnegie Mellon University showed that it was possible to determine which word from a given list a subject was thinking of, even if it had not scanned that person’s brain before.

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Protecting our borders with snake oil

The UK Borders Agency has recently come under fire for looking into the use of DNA tests and isotope analysis to determine the true nationality of asylum seekers. It is not just refugee support groups who are outraged, scientists are equally upset (perhaps more). The problems are many: there is no reason to think ancestry and ethnicity fits with nationality, the relevant genetics and isotope data is noisy, the research may not have been vetted for reliability, and it is not inconceivable that noise in the tests could be used as excuses for dismissing people who actually have valid asylum reasons (like linguistic tests occasionally do).

The project is unfortunately just the latest example that governments may be too eager to buy snake oil: on this blog I have previously criticized the use of voice-based lie detectors, the legal use of fMRI to determine guilt, ethics for military robots, pre-emptive DNA testing and electronic voting machines. The problem here is not that these technologies can't work, but that they are deployed far earlier than any careful demonstration that they actually work well enough to fulfil their purpose. It is a "science fact" problem: it is hard these days to tell what has proven to work, what is being developed and what remains a theoretical possibility. Especially when it is being pushed by enthusiastic researchers and salesmen.

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Cheating Darwin? The Ethics of Sexual Selection

Cheating Darwin? The Ethics of Sexual Selection

In a recent article titled “Cheating Darwin: The Genetic and Ethical Implications of Vanity and Cosmetic Plastic Surgery” in the July issue of the Journal of Evolution and Technology, Kristi Scott considers the potential evolutionary harms of cosmetic plastic surgery and other beauty-related enhancements. Her ‘worry’ is that individuals who have undergone cosmetic surgery and other significant ontogenetic aesthetic enhancements will not disclose this fact to their potential mates, who will then make procreation decisions based on misleading information.

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Non-resisted suicide and depression

In late 2007 a young woman with a history of depression and several previous suicide attempts presented to an emergency department following an overdose. She gave doctors a copy of her living will, written 3 days previously, in which she made it clear that she wanted no measures to be taken to save her life. Earlier this week Roger Crisp and Julian Savulescu argued separately in this blog that the wishes of competent patients to end their lives should be respected. But if we believe that suicide can be rationally sought, and should sometimes not be resisted, should this include those who have been diagnosed with depression?

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Suicide woman allowed to die

By Julian Savulescu

As read about in the Telegraph, doctors allowed 26-year-old Kerrie Wooltorton to die after she swallowed poison and gave them a letter instructing them not to intervene.

 

Reference:  Savulescu J. Should All Patients Who Attempt Suicide Be Treated? Modern Medicine 1995; Feb:113-120.  Reprinted in: Monash Bioethics Review 1995; 14: 33-40. With reply to critics: Savulescu, J. "Response to Bailey." Monash Bioethics Review 1996; 15: 44-5.

Should All Patients Who Attempt Suicide Be Treated?

Summary

Some patients who attempt suicide refuse treatment.  These patients are invariably treated if brought to hospital.  There are several reasons for this.  These reasons justify the treatment of many of these patients, but not all.  Some patients who attempt suicide ought to be allowed to die.  My argument for this claim turns on judging some patients who attempt suicide to be sufficiently competent and rational to be allowed to die. 

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Reshaping the financial system after the storm

The question of the social utility of the financial services and of the appropriate modes of remuneration of its actors has occupied a central place at the G20 meeting held in Pittsburgh. Indeed, the G20 leaders expressed a shared willingness to back new global regulatory standards for the banking industry. Yet, their reasons for doing so need some unpacking.

The recent interview by Prospect magazine of the FSA Chairman Adair offers a case in point, as does his recent speech at Mansion House. Turner suggests that the financial services sector should slim down to a more ‘socially useful’ size and reduce bankers’ pay accordingly. He also estimates that market deregulation has led to an oversized financial sector. Finally, he proposes that regulators should step in to reconnect the size, profit and pay level of the sector to what is ‘socially optimal’.

Though it may sound intuitive, the idea of a ‘social optimum’ that could be used as a guideline for regulating finance is ambiguous and deserves a close look.


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Living Wills and Assisted Suicide

Kerrie Wooltorton is believed to have been the first person to use a living will as part of a successful attempt to commit suicide: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/01/living-will-suicide-legal . The 26-year-old wrote her will, and then three days later took poison and called an ambulance. The will said that no steps were to be taken to prolong her life, and that she desired only to be made as comfortable as possible and not to die alone.

If doctors had kept her alive, they may have been open to legal action. Indeed any interference with Wooltorton against her wishes could have been interpreted as an assault. But might there nevertheless be a moral case for ignoring a living will in such circumstances?

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Should we be afraid of virtual reality?

Prominent
authors like Susan Greenfield and Roger Scruton have raised worries about the rise of virtual worlds such as Second Life, which
they fear might have a negative impact on human relationships, as people
increasingly spend their lives hidden behind an “avatar”. The movie Surrogates, recently released, precisely pictures a future humanity that lives
as it were by proxy: the story takes place in a world where people stay at home
and send remote-controlled “surrogates” – androids that are typically younger
and better-looking versions of themselves – out in the world to do things for
them. In the same vein, American futurologist Ray Kurzweil predicts that within a quarter of a century, virtual reality (VR) will rival the real
world: “If we want to go into virtual-reality mode”, he says, “nanobots will
shut down brain signals and take us wherever we want to go. Virtual sex will
become commonplace”. However, far from sharing the worries of people like
Greenfield and Scruton, Kurzweil believes this is a prospect we should look
forward to.*

 

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T-illegal actions and the case for legal ambiguity

Question: When is a crime not a crime? Answer: when it will never be prosecuted.

The release this week by the Director of Public Prosecutions of his interim policy on prosecution of assisted suicide raises a number of questions – as discussed yesterday in this blog by Simon Rippon. The new policy formalises what has been informal for some time, that family members of patients with terminal illnesses (or other serious conditions) who help the patients to travel overseas to access assisted suicide are unlikely to be prosecuted for their actions. But their actions will still be technically criminal. Should there be a class of ambiguous actions that are neither legal, nor illegal?

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