Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
bcohen | November 26, 2007
A Tom Toles editorial cartoon, from Sunday's Washington Post
I thought it was well put. It offers a concise vision of decision-making practices to someone (namely, me) predisposed to think about what makes evidence evidence and what makes for sound, well-supported reasoning. Among other things.
worldsfair | November 21, 2007Well, one of the big news items these days, is the "re-adjustment" of HIV infection statistics coming out of UNAIDS. Apparently, the numbers that have been used over the last couple of years have been too high and that the new numbers are significantly lower. For example, the worldwide infection numbers dropped from 40 million to 33 million. (news reports nyt, bbc)
In many respects, this begs the question, "So what?" These numbers are still the sort that can merit strong words such as "genocide" and/or "carnage" to attempt to let ordinary individuals like ourselves understand the horror…
bcohen | October 5, 2007
We at The World's Fair are proud to bring on the Grand Hotel Regina as our alternative sponsor for the month. It isn't just that we see a natural fit between the two of us -- they, in complete harmony with majestic Eiger and Jungfrau vistas; we, in complete unanimity with our distaste for the moral degradation of Dow Chemical. The thing is, if you talk to Alfred Krebs, the owner-manager of the Grand Hotel Regina, you don't end up with a megaton of carcinogenic chemicals in your watershed. Nor, as Alfred would be the first to tell you, could you get the same fine array of tennis courts,…
bcohen | August 22, 2007
*This post was also written by intern Kate Lee. See Part I here.
When it comes to practicing what I preach, there is room for a lot of improvement. I am limited by where I live, my current budget, my knowledge, and my bad habits, and I act in a way that goes against my ideals more often than I'd like to admit. I manage to swing big dinners with my housemates and friends several times a week, and that's definitely a great source of joy in my life. One arena in which I feel secure about my behavior is in the YOGURT sector. To finish off this post, I'd like to tell you about why buying…
bcohen | August 21, 2007
*This post was written by intern Kate Lee.
There's been a lot of discussion around the World's Fair lately about food (Food Miles, Chinese Agriculture, Science and the Farm Bill, Subsidies and the Small Farm). Up until about a month ago, I was employed by the food industry, and that position opened my eyes to a number of patterns in human food consumption around Boston. I became very attentive (in and outside of work) to the way people approached their food choices, what they chose, how they asked for it, how they consumed it, and how they exited the experience. I couldn't resist sharing…
bcohen | August 20, 2007
Yes, it's a Kaspar Schott, you're right. Vintage 1664. And just how would you determine the depth of well?
We're pleased to announce that this week's alternative sponsor for The World's Fair is none other than "How to Determine Depth of a Well." It's from Joco-Seriorum Naturae et Artis, by Kaspar Schott. And it explains (wait for it...) how to determine the depth of a well. Apparently you use paper cut outs of tiny little men and hope they don't get wet. And yes, the well needs to be transparent also, looks like.
Why are we proud to have well-depthers on board as a new sponsor?…
bcohen | August 12, 2007
For those who forgot, we began seeking alternative sponsorship at this site in the face of unstable valence properties in Dow Chemical's "Human Element." Last week, we read "Documents show that Dow Chemical has been pressing India to disassociate the firm from the 1984 tragedy," in Chemical and Engineering News (August 6, 2007, Volume 85, Number 32, p. 26). It's about how Dow is seeking to use some of its P.R. funds not just to plaster every magazine and website you've ever seen with their Human Element ad campaign, but to downplay (cover up, misrepresent, distance, poo poo, make appear as…
bcohen | August 10, 2007This post was written by guest blogger Wyatt Galusky.*
So, this blog entry represents, I am beginning to figure, the second of what I envision to be three interrelated posts, loosely grouped around quotes from Theodor Adorno. The first dealt with remainders and what we should do about an expressed preference for mystery.
In this post, I'd like to address fear of the unknown. The title of the post comes from the tired cliché drawn from cartography - that, once the limits of the known world were reached, monsters were inserted onto maps (apparently to both represent and explain the limits…
bcohen | August 7, 2007
This week's alternative sponsor for the blog. Inquire within.
Embarrassingly, Dow Chemical is still populating the scienceblogs webspace with it's P.R., and, regrettably, we here at The World's Fair have been lax to seek alternative sponsorship over the summer. But fear no more the carcinogens and toxins of Dow...embrace the knowledge of the Encyclopedia Britannica!
We say "give your child a fair chance," with the set that "Furnishes Accurate Knowledge." Available at Sears, Roebuck, and Co., with affordable monthly payments. What really grabbed us, excited us, about this sponsor is…
bcohen | August 2, 2007In turn, incidentally, I've written a guest post for Oronte Churm. It's here, and it's about a short story I use in my engineering ethics class by the brilliant Chinese author Gao Xingjian, called "The Accident."
In it, I touch on certainty, and although I don't know that this was intentionally placed there, I notice this quote at the top of Churm's page:
The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning.
--Erich Fromm
I think dealing with that idea is part of the same conversation, in some way, that Wyatt Galusky brought up last week on mystery and "the remainder" -- that space…
bcohen | July 26, 2007"Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) announced [on July 24th] that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected four key Monsanto patents related to genetically modified crops that PUBPAT challenged last year because the agricultural giant is using them to harass, intimidate, sue - and in some cases literally bankrupt - American farmers."
The article "MONSANTO PATENTS ASSERTED AGAINST AMERICAN FARMERS REJECTED BY PATENT OFFICE: PUBPAT Initiated Review Leads PTO to Find All Claims of All Four Patents Invalid" from the Public Patent Foundation, explains recent follow up action in…
bcohen | July 9, 2007This post was written by Jody Roberts.*
After more than a decade of anticipation, the EPA released a draft list of possible endocrine disrupting chemicals that will be subject to a new screening protocol - this according to a new brief in Environmental Science and Technology. So, those of you who've been following this topic from its media peak back in the days of Our Stolen Future might assume that we'd find chemicals like bisphenol-A or classes of chemicals like phthalates - both of which have been the subject of tremendous amounts of research recently. But, well, that's not the case.…
bcohen | July 5, 2007Don't miss our previous sponsors, and, for all you potential new sponsors, don't forget to contact us about some of our valuable web space.
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Oh that loveable Dow Chemical. Their extra-ordinary budgeting capabilities for advertisemsent and public relations (see sidebars around Scienceblogs and a glaring visibility in print media over the last year or so) outshines only their extraordinary abilities to deflect environmental responsibliity.
So much so that even many of their shareholders (which technically includes me, since I have a retirement account from them, meager as it may be) are…
bcohen | July 3, 2007This post was written by Wyatt Galusky.*
If you love the earth too, buy, buy, buy.
So, I suppose it had to happen at some point - the Sam's Club model of environmentalism. Buy More (consumables imprinted with the imprimatur of the Earth). Save More (of aforementioned planet). Alex Williams reports in Sunday's New York Times on the burgeoning commoditization of the environmental movement, and the various views people have taken on this process. This on the heels of the two biggest big box stores - Wal-mart and Home Depot - taking the "green" plunge.
As a committed environmentalist, I have…
bcohen | June 26, 2007Part II of our conversation with Cyrus Mody, Ph.D., about nanotechnology and society. Part I is here. Part III is here.
For all installments of this Authors-meet-Bloggers series, see our archive.
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TWF: What are the real potential problems with nanotechnology?
CCMM: I like the idea of a problem that is both real and potential - it's a good shorthand for all of the ambiguities surrounding nano. Well, the issue that gets discussed all the time (on and on and on) is toxicological and environmental risks from nanoparticles. This has become a policy obsession the last couple years because…
bcohen | June 25, 2007The World's Fair sits down with Nanotechnology Scholar Cyrus C. M. Mody to discuss the history, ethics, and policy world of nanotechnology. And other stuff.
Mody is a Science and Technology Studies guy, and now a member of the Department of History at Rice University. He is a leading light in science studies and/of nanotechnology; his work has appeared in numerous professional journals (see end of this post for a select bibliography); he is a sometime participant at nanotechnology and microscopy meetings (his earlier work was on the recent history of probe microscopy); and, of course, he is…
bcohen | June 21, 2007He again insists on ending the Iraq War, or, again, so I surmise from this quote half-heard on the radio this morning:
"Destroying human life to save human life is just not ethical."
I always suspected he didn't read our blog. Maybe he didn't check the RSS feeds he signed up for, or maybe he just read it too quickly, I don't know, it's just, we don't really talk as much as we used to.... But anyway, didn't we handle this life and ethics thing yesterday?
bcohen | June 20, 2007So I surmise from a half-heard radio report this morning. On my way into town today I heard part of a story where Bush was said to have stated (I'm paraphrasing, from memory) taxpayers should not have to support the destruction of human life.
I can only assume this was a comment in reference to the Iraq War. What a remarkable reversal of policy! Does he now support ending bombings? Why isn't everyone talking about this?
bcohen | June 12, 2007[To go with this post on images of consumption and that post on what we eat in a week.]
"Each year, between 20 and 50 million tons of electronic waste is generated globally. Most of it winds up in the developing world."
The caption from Foreign Policy was simply, "Throwing Stuff"
Foreign Policy has a photo essay, "Inside the Digital Dump," about the ungodly mounds of electronic waste we ship over to China. Oh you should go take a gander. And I offer a few sample images here for the faint of clicking. They say, by way of preface, "Welcome to the digital dumping ground, where the poor…
bcohen | June 6, 2007Artists Chris Jordan, from Seattle, has a fascinating series of images making "contemporary American culture" more visible. It's called "Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait."
The series will be on display at New York's Von Lintel Gallery starting mid-June. A student of mine sent me the link, and I'll put a few of the images below. This is right up the same alley as Dave's post a while back on "What different parts of the world eats in one week." But check out Chris Jordan's site, and check out the actual show in person if you can.
In quiz fashion, then, I ask: what is the…