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Twitter, paywalls, and access to scholarship — are license agreements too restrictive?

By Brian D. Earp

Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here.

Twitter, paywalls, and access to scholarship — are license agreements too restrictive? 

I think I may have done something unethical today. But I’m not quite sure, dear reader, so I’m enlisting your energy to help me think things through. Here’s the short story:

Someone posted a link to an interesting-looking article by Caroline Williams at New Scientist — on the “myth” that we should live and eat like cavemen in order to match our lifestyle to that of our evolutionary ancestors, and thereby maximize health. Now, I assume that when you click on the link I just gave you (unless you’re a New Scientist subscriber), you get a short little blurb from the beginning of the article and then–of course–it dissolves into an ellipsis as soon as things start to get interesting:

Our bodies didn’t evolve for lying on a sofa watching TV and eating chips and ice cream. They evolved for running around hunting game and gathering fruit and vegetables. So, the myth goes, we’d all be a lot healthier if we lived and ate more like our ancestors. This “evolutionary discordance hypothesis” was first put forward in 1985 by medic S. Boyd Eaton and anthropologist Melvin Konner …

Holy crap! The “evolutionary discordance hypothesis” is a myth? I hope not, because I’ve been using some similar ideas in a lot of my arguments about neuroenhancement recently. So I thought I should really plunge forward and read the rest of the article. Unfortunately, I don’t have a subscription to New Scientist, and when I logged into my Oxford VPN-thingy, I discovered that Oxford doesn’t have access either. Weird. What was I to do?

Since I typically have at least one eye glued to my Twitter account, it occurred to me that I could send a quick tweet around to check if anyone had the PDF and would be willing to send it to me in an email. The majority of my “followers” are fellow academics, and I’ve seen this strategy play out before — usually when someone’s institutional log-in isn’t working, or when a key article is behind a pay-wall at one of those big “bundling” publishers that everyone seems to hold in such low regard. Another tack would be to dash off an email to a couple of colleagues of mine, and I could “CC” the five or six others who seem likeliest to be New Scientist subscribers. In any case, I went for the tweet.

Sure enough, an hour or so later, a chemist friend of mine sent me a message to “check my email” and there was the PDF of the “caveman” article, just waiting to be devoured. I read it. It turns out that the “evolutionary discordance hypothesis” is basically safe and sound, although it may need some tweaking and updates. Phew. On to other things.

But then something interesting happened! Whoever it is that manages the New Scientist Twitter account suddenly shows up in my Twitter feed with a couple of carefully-worded replies to my earlier PDF-seeking hail-mary:

Read More »Twitter, paywalls, and access to scholarship — are license agreements too restrictive?

Political Change and the Olympic Games

by Luke Davies

The upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi has been in the news a lot recently. The controversy, as you will already know, is a result the introduction of another law discriminating against the LGBT community in Russia—Article 6.21 of the Code of the Russian Federation, the so-called “gay propaganda” law. [1] This law will allow the government to fine anyone who spreads propaganda about “non-traditional sexual relations” to minors. (The meaning of “propaganda” and “nontraditional sexual relations” is left quite ambiguous.) Given the insistence of Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko that competing athletes and visiting spectators must obey the laws of the country, there has been some disagreement about what to do. There are different levels of concern being given priority in the media, some more pertinent from an ethical perspective than others.

Here’s a spoiler: The trivial concerns have to do with the politics of the Olympic Games themselves; the real concern is with the harm to people’s lives in Russia.Read More »Political Change and the Olympic Games

Let’s Talk About Death: Millennials and Advance Directives

Sarah Riad, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Boston

Melissa Hickey, School of Nursing, Avila University 

Kyle Edwards, Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

As advances in medical technology have greatly increased our ability to extend life, the conversation on end-of-life care ethics has become exceedingly complex. With greater options both to end life early and extend it artificially, advance directives have arisen in an effort to preserve patient autonomy in situations in which he or she becomes incapable of making a medical decision. However, most people—especially young adults—do not think to plan for such moments of incapacity and the potentiality of an untimely death. With a youthful sense of invincibility comes a lack of foresight that prevents us from confronting these issues. The reality is that unexpected events happen. When they do, it is often very difficult to imagine what a person would have wanted and make medical decisions accordingly on his or her behalf. In this post, we suggest both a transition from action-based to value-based advance directives and an interactive website that would make the contemplation of these issues and the construction of a value-based advance directive appealing to and accessible for Millennials, the 20-somethings of today. Read More »Let’s Talk About Death: Millennials and Advance Directives

Can Facts Be Racist?

Here is the sequence of events.  1. Richard Dawkins tweets that all the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College Cambridge.  2. Cue a twitter onslaught – accusing Professor Dawkins of racism.  3. Richard Dawkins writes that a fact can’t be racist.Read More »Can Facts Be Racist?

Not all philosophers are equal

Not all ethical issues are equally important. Many ethicists spend their professional lives performing in sideshows.

However entertaining the sideshow, sideshow performers do not deserve the same recognition or remuneration as those performing on our philosophical Broadways.

What really matters now is not the nuance of our approach to mitochondrial manipulation for glycogen storage diseases, or yet another set of footnotes to footnotes to footnotes in the debate about the naturalistic fallacy. It is: (a) Whether or not we should be allowed to destroy our planet (and if not, how to stop it happening); and (b) Whether or not it is fine to allow 20,000 children in the developing world to die daily of hunger and entirely avoidable disease  (and if not, how to stop it happening). My concern in this post is mainly with (a). A habitable planet is a prerequisite for all the rest of our ethical cogitation. If we can’t live here at all, it’s pointless trying to draft the small print of living.Read More »Not all philosophers are equal

I’m Too Unsexy For My Shirt

Follow David on Twitter @David Edmonds100

Thinking only of your career prospects now, is it better to be sexy or unsexy?  This person was said to be too sexy and lost her job.   But at Abercrombie & Fitch the allegation is that you can’t get a job unless you’re good looking.  The A&F image of glamour has helped the company make enormous profits:  I once bought a T-Shirt for a godless child at an A&F store, to pay for which I had to sell my wardrobe. Read More »I’m Too Unsexy For My Shirt

Does philanthropy propagate an unjust system?

A week ago, Peter Buffett—the son of business magnate Warren Buffett—published an op-ed in The New York Times on what he called “the charitable-industrial complex.” His central thesis was that modern-day philanthropy is a form of “conscience laundering”: by engaging in large public acts of giving, the rich “sleep better at night” while keeping “the… Read More »Does philanthropy propagate an unjust system?

How do you want to die?

How do you want to die? Quickly, painlessly, peacefully lying in your own bed?

Most people say that. But then, people seem to cling to their lives, even if that could mean a less peaceful end. When asked whether they would want physicians to perform certain interventions to prolong their lives like CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) or mechanical ventilation (‘breathing machine’), people say ‘yes’.

Interestingly, a study discussed in a Radiolab podcast from earlier this year reveals that contrary to lay people, physicians do not want these life-saving interventions they perform on their patients performed on themselves.Read More »How do you want to die?

Killing by praying

Dale and Leilani Neumann are Pentecostal Christians. Their 11 year old daughter, Kara, fell ill. In fact she had (undiagnosed) diabetes. Her parents refused to obtain medical help. Instead they prayed.

‘Kara’s father testified that death was never on their minds.  He testified that he knew Kara was sick but was “never to the alarm of death,” and even after she died, her father thought that Jesus would bring Kara back from the dead, as he did with Lazarus.

The parents and friends testified that the parents took tangible steps to help Kara.  The mother tried to feed Kara soup and water with a syringe, but the liquid just dribbled out of Kara’s mouth.  The father tried to sit Kara up, but she was unable to hold herself up.  At some point, Kara involuntarily urinated on herself while lying unresponsive on the couch, so they carried her upstairs and gave her a quick sponge bath while she lay on the bathroom floor.

At one point, Kara’s maternal grandfather suggested by telephone that they give Kara Pedialyte, a nutritional supplement, in order to maintain the nutrients in her body.  The mother responded that giving Kara Pedialyte would be taking away the glory from God.  Kara’s mother had told another visiting friend that she believed that Kara was under “spiritual attack.”

Friends Althea and Randall Wormgoor testified that they arrived at the Neumanns’ home on Sunday at approximately 1:30 p.m.  The Wormgoors saw that Kara was extremely ill and nonresponsive.  Her eyes were partially open but they believed she needed immediate medical attention.  Randall Wormgoor pulled Kara’s father aside and told him that if it was his daughter, he would take her to the hospital.  The father responded that the idea had crossed his mind, and he had suggested it to his wife, but she believed Kara’s illness was a test of faith for their family and that the Lord would heal Kara….’ [1]

But the Lord did not. Or at least not physically. Kara died from diabetic ketoacidosis. The evidence was that, with conventional medical care, she would have lived. Read More »Killing by praying

Are You A Fox or A Hedgehog?

by David Edmonds

Follow David on twitter @DavidEdmonds100

Are you a Fox or a Hedgehog?  In practical ethics, far better to be a hedgehog.

Isaiah Berlin drew a famous distinction when discussing great writers and thinkers of the past.  The hedgehog knew one big thing.  The fox knew many things. Read More »Are You A Fox or A Hedgehog?