Special lecture: Jeff McMahan on Cognitive Disability and Cognitive Enhancement
Friday 27 February, 12.30 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.Venue: Seminar Room 1, Old Indian Institute, 34 Broad St, Oxford, OX1 3BD Abstract: There are some members of the human species whose cognitive capacities and potential are no higher than thos…
Read MoreTransparent brains: detecting preferences with infrared light
Researchers at University of Toronto have demonstrated that they can decode which of two drinks a test subject prefers by scanning their brains with infrared light. (Original paper here.) The intention is to develop better brain-computer in…
Read MoreBorn believers?
The latest issue of New Scientist features an article by Michael Brooks on the evolutionary origins of religious belief. Brookes spends most of the article considering the relative merits of the two main contending hypotheses. On one view, …
Read MoreEducating children on matters of food
As evidenced by recent declarations by the Children’s Secretary (see here and here), the British government is determined to fight childhood obesity and to initiate nothing less than a “lifestyle revolution”, resulting in more childre…
Read MoreAchievement and the welfare of children
A report commissioned by the Children’s Society claims that the aggressive pursuit of individual achievement is damaging the interests of children in the UK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7861762.stm The principal author is Lord Rich…
Read MoreWhich issues are moral issues? The Case of Egg Freezing
The link in the Guardian reads "Fertility experts warn about morality of egg freezing". In the Telegraph the word "moral" doesn't appear in the headline, but does appear in the lede (the first sentence of…
Read More<del>Eight</del>Fourteen is enough
As the Guardian reports, what started out as the more usual happy, wonder-of-modern medicine story of octuplets born in California has turned a little bit sour. It turns out that the 33 year old single mother of the eight newborns who lives…
Read MoreLies, libel and layered voice analysis
Two Swedish scientists have been threatened with legal action after publishing a scientific article sharply criticizing what they consider "charlatanry" in detecting deception. Nemesysco, a company named in the article wrote to th…
Read MoreWhy We Need a War on Aging
Based on presentation given at 2009 World Economic Forum in the Live Long and Prosper session, January 28, 2009 by Professor Julian Savulescu. There is no normal human life span, or if there is, it was very short. Life-expectancy for the an…
Read MoreAllen Buchanan: Leverhulme Lectures 2009′ Ethics in Political Reality’
We are pleased to announce Professor Allen Buchanan’s Leverhulme Lecture Series ‘Ethics in Political Reality’. Allen Buchanan is James B. Duke Professor Philosophy at Duke University. His research is in political philosophy, with a focus on…
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