Skip to content

Rebecca Roache’s Posts

Animal experimentation: morally acceptable, or just the way things always have been?

Following
the announcement last week that Oxford University’s controversial Biomedical
Sciences building
is now complete and will be open for business in mid-2009, the ethical issues
surrounding the use of animals for scientific experimentation have been
revisited in the media—see, for example, here ,
here,
and here.

The number
of animals used per year in scientific experiments worldwide has been estimated
at 200 million—well in excess of the population of Brazil and over three times that of the United Kingdom. If we take the importance of an ethical issue
to depend in part on how many subjects it affects, then, the ethics of animal
experimentation at the very least warrants consideration alongside some of the
most important issues in this country today, and arguably exceeds them in
importance. So, what is being done to address
this issue?

Read More »Animal experimentation: morally acceptable, or just the way things always have been?

Why the cheating objection to smart drugs doesn’t work

The BBC reports today
that increasing numbers of people are using prescription drugs like Ritalin—intended
as a treatment for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD)—to boost alertness and brain power.  Reports of the increasing popularity of ‘smart
drugs’ are synonymous with concerns about cheating (see here,  here, and here):
surely, the worry runs, taking drugs that help you do well at college is
equivalent to bribing your examiners into awarding you high marks? Those who take cognitive enhancement drugs,
just like those who bribe their examiners, are better placed to beat their
peers in the competition for the best educational qualifications and jobs, and
so cognitive enhancement is unfair. In
this case, shouldn’t cognitive enhancement be banned in schools and colleges?

Read More »Why the cheating objection to smart drugs doesn’t work

Knowledge may be power, but is it healing?

The
explosion of medical information on the internet is a good thing,
right?  Patients worried that their condition
is not being taken seriously, those who want a second opinion but are worried
about upsetting their GP by asking for it, and those with symptoms too trifling
or embarrassing to take to a doctor—all these people who, fifteen years ago, may
have felt at a dead end with the medical profession can now use
the internet to research their conditions from the comfort of their own homes.

Read More »Knowledge may be power, but is it healing?

‘Anyone who thinks the Large Hadron Collider will destroy the world is a t**t.’

This week is Big Bang Week at the BBC, with various programmes devoted to the switch-on of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on Wednesday morning.  Many of these programmes are covered in this week’s issue of the Radio Times—the BBC’s listings magazine—which also features a short interview with Professor Brian Cox, chair of particle physics at the University of Manchester.  Asked about concerns that the LHC could destroy the earth, he replies:

‘The nonsense you find on the web about “doomsday scenarios” is conspiracy theory rubbish generated by a small group of nutters, primarily on the other side of the Atlantic.  These people also think that the Theory of Relativity is a Jewish conspiracy and that America didn’t land on the Moon.  Both are more likely, by the way, than the LHC destroying the world.  I’m slightly irritated, because this non-story is symptomatic of a larger mistrust in science, particularly in the US, which includes things like intelligent design. [… A]nyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a t**t.’ (Final word censored by Radio Times.) [1]

Read More »‘Anyone who thinks the Large Hadron Collider will destroy the world is a t**t.’

Practical Ethics News to host Philosophers’ Carnival

Practical Ethics News will host the next Philosophers’ Carnival on 22nd September.  If you know of a particularly good philosophy blog post, please consider nominating it for inclusion via this link.  Posts need not be on the topic of practical ethics, although they should be accessible to a popular audience.  Posts relating to current affairs… Read More »Practical Ethics News to host Philosophers’ Carnival

Would you rather be invisible or be able to fly? (Or: are you a sneaky superhero?)

If, like
me, you were one of the kids whose preferred superpower was invisibility, you
may soon be in luck. The BBC reports
today that US scientists have
created a material that could one day be used to make people and objects invisible. The material, which has so far been created
only on a microscopic scale, neither absorbs nor reflects light,
meaning that anyone looking at an object covered in it would see what
lies behind the object rather than the object itself. It’s likely that such technology will be
snapped up first by the military, but perhaps, in years to come, invisibility
cloaks will be available to all.

For some,
the idea of being invisible is distasteful. Being invisible means being able to get away with anything – and
why bother to act morally when you can be sure that you’ll never be caught
out? In this case, would a world full of
people who can turn invisible at the drop of a hat be a world full of thieves,
cheats, and sneaks?

Read More »Would you rather be invisible or be able to fly? (Or: are you a sneaky superhero?)

Reproductive science: is there something we’re missing?

Thirty
years after the first test-tube baby, Nature
asks various experts for their views on what the next thirty years of
reproductive medicine will bring.
Some of the more startling predictions are:

  • No more infertility, with both children and 100-year-olds able to have children
  • Embryos created from stem cells, increasing the ease of embryo research and genetic engineering of children
  • … with the resulting greater availability of embryos making it easier to create cloned humans
  • Artificial wombs, enabling babies to develop outside the mother’s body
  • … which, some worry, could become compulsory as an alternative to abortion, or to avoid premature birth or fetal alcohol syndrome
  • ‘Genetic cassettes’ implanted in embryos to counteract the effects of inherited diseases
  • Increase in litigation following evidence that IVF babies may later suffer adverse effects from the environment in which they were grown as embryos

Read More »Reproductive science: is there something we’re missing?

Unpopular policy and public rationality

The BBC
reports that the Japanese
town of Kamikatsu
has become the first ‘zero waste’ town. Residents
compost all of their food waste, and must sort the rest of their rubbish into
34 different categories—all of which they must take to public waste centres,
since there are no rubbish collections from people’s homes. It seems that the inhabitants of the town are
generally enthusiastic about the scheme, which offers small financial rewards
for recycling, and has encouraged people to make an effort to reduce the
rubbish they produce.

This is one
of those relatively rare, uplifting stories about a scheme designed to reduce
environmental damage that is not only successful, but supported by the
community. Could something similar work
in the UK? Recently, many UK councils reduced domestic refuse
collections from once-weekly to once-fortnightly, with recyclable waste being
collected in the intervening weeks. Whilst this has boosted the amount of rubbish being recycled,
some news reports
reveal that the new measures are unpopular, and some councils have bowed to
public pressure by re-introducing weekly collections. Given the environmental impact of adding to
landfill waste sites, ought the government to placate the public by relaxing
measures designed to reduce waste, or should unpopular measures be enforced
regardless of public opinion?

Read More »Unpopular policy and public rationality

Here’s why you’re not smart enough

An interesting
article in The New York Times
describes how the way in which the brain forms memories can, over time,
lead to false information from noncredible sources being reinterpreted as true. The article notes that this may explain why
smear campaigns can be so effective in politics: those who spread misinformation ‘know that if
their message is initially memorable, its impression will persist long after it
is debunked’—and the rehashing of false information by victims during their defence simply adds to its plausibility in
the long term.  It seems, then, that
what we believe may often be based not on truth or credibility, but on repetition and emotional
resonance. 

Read More »Here’s why you’re not smart enough