Andy Miah calls the “surge in popular activism, broad democratic demands and institutional reforms” an “ethical turn”. I’m not at all convinced, particularly about the activism. Rather, and feeling most cynical, it seems that a particular middle-class liberal conception of what is valuable and good has had a marketing success by managing to monopolise the term ‘ethical’.
The English Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, is reported to be considering scrapping the lotteries which determine whether parents get their first choice of schools for their children. Balls is quoted as saying that the lottery system can feel “arbitrary” and “random”. Well, give that man a dictionary. The Telegraph adds that he ‘admitted that they were "unfair"’,… Read More »Lotteries and Fairness
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 the story, which is supposed to summarize the essential facts): The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the British Fertility Society… Read More »Which issues are moral issues? The Case of Egg Freezing
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 the researchers that they may be sued for libel if they continue to write on this subject in the future. As a response to another legal threat the publisher has removed the online version of the article. Trying to remove information from the net is often counterproductive ("the Streisand effect"), and now copies of the article circulate online. Nemesysco has inadvertently drawn attention to the issue of the article, likely to their own detriment.
But can a scientific publication be libel? Does libel law serve a moral purpose?
Two out of three women fail at each IVF attempt, and a large part of this is believed to be due to abnormalities in the number of chromosomes in the egg. Up to half of the eggs in younger women (and up to 75% in women approaching 40) have abnormalities. In traditional reproduction these failures would not be problematic, since attempts at conception can easily be retried. But in the case of IVF each attempt will be expensive and time-consuming. The new method is a small step towards truly efficient IVF. But does it solve the ethical issues?
Read More »Polar exploration: small steps towards cheaper, safer, easier IVF?
These days the Vatican’s statements sound a bit like a broken record, repeating continuously “Non possumus”. It started at the beginning of December when Benedict XVI refused to support President Sarkozy’s proposal that encourages the governments of the World to decriminalize homosexuality, proposal that should be added to the next UN Declaration of human rights.
It’s worth knowing that in the world more or less eighty countries have rules that punish sexual acts between homosexual people.
Nicholas D. Kristof reveals a plan to massively boost intelligence worldwide using a chemical additive.The additive is iodized salt. About 2 billion people worldwide suffer insufficient iodine intake, making it the most common cause of preventable mental impairment worldwide. About 18 million people are mentally impaired each year due to deficiency. Iodized salt is a very cheap way to improve their condition, and the micronutrient initiative is now sponsoring iodization together with partners like UNICEF and the World Food Programme. Is this just restoring people to health, or are we enhancing them?
Scientists in Korea have for the first time successfully cloned a dog commercially. Cloning of dogs is notoriously difficult. This brings us closer to human cloning. The film Boys from Brazil , made in the earlier 80s, portrayed accurately and vividly the process of cloning that produced Dolly. The later film The Sixth Day depicted… Read More »One step closer to human cloning
An interesting new study on the heritability of childhood obesity has been widely publicised. The paper, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found only a modest effect of shared environment on body mass index. The study used the common technique of comparing monozygotic and dizygotic twins; that is, twins who share all or… Read More »Obesity and genes
The UK government announced this week a multi-million pound program to make contraception more easily available to young people and to reduce teenage pregnancies. Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe.
If they are effective, these measures will prevent the birth of a large number of children whose lives would have been worth living. Is it discriminatory to try to prevent the birth of children to teenage mothers? What message does this send to those children in the community who have been born to teenagers about how we value their lives?
Read More »Preventing birth to teenage parents is discriminatory
