ethics
laelaps | November 2, 2007Mark of SB's own Denialism Blog has asked other science bloggers who use animals in their research to speak up and discuss what they do either in their own posts in the comments. I do not participate in lab research involving animals, but I have taken an interest in the subject, especially when non-human primates are used. While I don't doubt the importance of animal testing, I do have reservations about the ethics of using non-human primates in medical research. This is not to say that I advocate the acts of terrorism by extremists as related in Mark's posts, but I do have concerns about…
grrlscientist | October 24, 2007tags: book review, biotechnology, biomedicine, stem cells, ethics, Cloning: A Beginner's Guide, Aaron Levine
Would you drink milk from a cloned cow?
Should we clone extinct or endangered species?
Are we justified in using stem cells to develop cures?
When will we clone the first human?
Ever since Dolly the sheep was born, questions like these have been part of the public consciousness, and now, cloning is poised to revolutionize medicine, healthcare, and even the food we eat. Regardless of what certain politicians do to slow the progress of scientific research, cloning is here to stay, and…
voltagegate | October 16, 2007Just read an article about the apparently widespread use of tropical hardwoods in New York City. The numbers are impressive:
...the market for Ipé wood drives much of the industrial logging of the entire Amazon, and has increased dramatically in the past 20 years. An emergent flowering tree, which peppers the canopy of the Amazonian rainforest in hues of pink, magenta, yellow and white, Ipe grows in the rainforests at densities of only one or two trees an acre. This means that vast areas of the forests are razed to the ground to feed the market for a single tree. It is estimated that, for…
grrlscientist | October 3, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, H-index, impact numbers, scientific journals
A friend, Ian, emailed an opinion paper that lamented the state of scientific research and the effect this has had on science itself. In this paper, by Peter A. Lawrence, a Professor of Zoology at University of Cambridge, the main point is that modern science, particularly biomedicine, is being damaged by attempts to measure the quality and quantity of research being produced by individual scientists. Worse, as this system careened out of control, it gave rise to a new and more damaging trend: ranking scientists…
voltagegate | September 10, 2007Bill Moyers wrote a piece about surface mining the other day, talking about a recent change to the policy in 2006:
The proposed new rule codifies the 2004 buffer zone proposals and, according to THE NEW YORK TIMES, "seems specifically to authorize the disposal of 'excess spoil fills,' a k a mine waste, in hollows and streams."
THE NEW YORK TIMES in reporting the proposed changes stated: "The Office of Surface Mining in the Interior Department drafted the rule, which will be subject to a 60-day comment period and could be revised, although officials indicated that it was not likely to be…
voltagegate | August 29, 2007On the way home from the mountains Sunday night, I was decelerating around one of those lovely Pennsylvanian descending hairpin curves just as a big white dog trotted casually up the slope in the middle of the road. I swerved to avoid it, fully into the opposing lane, barely missed.
I swung the car around about a hundred feet down, pulling over to the side of the road. The dog had turned around, and was trotting towards my car, wagging its tail. Heather grabbed Oscar's leash and got out before I could say anything but "Careful," holding her hand out for him to sniff. It barely acknowledged…
grrlscientist | August 23, 2007tags: ethics, wifi, piggybacking
Recently, I have been following the stories of people who have been arrested for stealing internet access using their neighbor's wireless connections. For example, a man was recently arrested in London and another man in St Petersburg, Florida is now facing trial for using unsecured wifi signals.
These connections are usually open, meaning they are not protected with a password, although there are ways to circumvent WEP or WPA security. So, considering that a person can secure their wifi connection but chose not to do so, is it stealing to use someone else's…
voltagegate | August 13, 2007
I found this article on Reuters this morning that tries to spin old news into a fresh bit of controversy:
Doctors recommend a good dose of salmon or tuna in the diet because of its benefits to the heart. But is it good for the environment?
Surging demand for salmon in particular has been spurred in part by numerous studies touting the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, which are present in some kinds of fish.
A study published in June in the American Heart Association journal Circulation said a diet with liberal servings of fish, nuts and seeds rich in such nutrients can help lower a…
purepedantry | August 7, 2007The SciAm blog has a great discussion on current research into the neuroscience of morals. Two cool observations. First, while people tend to agree with the calculus of utilitarian moral judgments, they tend to reject them. Would you kill one person to save twenty? Even if you can morally justify that exchange, you are decidedly reluctant to do it. Second, this reluctance to make utilitarian moral judgments is neurologically based in the sense that if you lose a certain part of your brain (the ventromedial prefrontal cortex) you are more likely to accept this calculus.
Go check it out.
I…
voltagegate | July 27, 2007I finally got around to reading this study from PLoS One, another paper trying to address socioeconomic influences on ecology and biodiversity. The researchers explored a possible correlation between economic inequality - the distribution of wealth - and biodiversity in the US (state by state) and several other countries.
They used the Gini coefficient for measuring economic inequality. Gini coefficients are expressed in a scale from 0 to 1.0, with 0 being an area in which all families/households earn exactly the same income (perfect equality) and 1.0 being an area in which one family earns…
purepedantry | July 11, 2007Johnathan Wolff publishing in the Guardian cites the case of Naomi Oreskes as to why the equal time idea of journalism doesn't work for science:
I learned to shut my mouth on the topic after hearing a lecture from a San Diego philosopher of science, Naomi Oreskes, who reported the results of a review of the scientific literature on global warming. Not one peer-reviewed scientific article, of the hundreds she surveyed, denied that the earth was warming or that human action was at least partially responsible. The sceptics, she argued, were largely members of independent thinktanks, often…
chaoticutopia | June 27, 2007I usually try to stick to PG topics around here, and try to include a picture in every post. Well, I'm about to break both of those rules. Actually, I had plans to write about beavers this week... but this (coincidentally?) came up instead. ScienceBlogs has gone a-buzz over bikini waxing, since Tara wrote about a young woman who suffered painful complications and infections after a "Brazilian" wax. Her post and the article she cites are not for the squeamish, so beware before you click the link, or continue below.
To make a long story short, this young lady had a bikini wax, and later…
voltagegate | June 27, 2007PETA's prez sent Michael Moore a letter last week calling him a hypocrite for being fat while promoting his new film, SiCKO, a documentary criticizing the US healthcare system. Let the fat jokes begin!
Congratulations from PETA on the reviews for SiCKO. Although we think that your film could actually help reform America's sorely inadequate health care system, there's an elephant in the room, and it is you. With all due respect, no one can help but notice that a weighty health issue is affecting you personally. We'd like to help you fix that.
Zing! He's sure to take the request seriously now…
grrlscientist | June 10, 2007tags: death penalty, murder
I am a person who argues against the death penalty for ethical and economic reasons (I won't get into those here), but I was quite surprised to learn that one argument that has been made against the death penalty (but not by me) seems to have been refuted; whether the death penalty serves as a deterrent to murder. In fact, a series of scientific studies published during the last five or six years have shown that between three and 18 lives could be saved by the execution of each convicted killer. Further, if executions were sped up, the deterrent effect would be…
grrlscientist | June 2, 2007tags: Reed Elsevier, arms fairs
Good news, everyone! It turns out that Reed Elsevier, the publisher and exhibitions group, has finally ended their involvement in the arms trade yesterday as the result of a two-year boycott by doctors, healthcare groups, authors and pacifist organizations.
Elsevier, which owns the medical journal The Lancet, had faced boycotts and continued protests for the past two years from authors, academics and medical professionals. Last year 13 authors, including Ian McEwan, A. S. Byatt and Nick Hornby, joined in by calling on the company to quit the arms trade market…
voltagegate | May 22, 2007I've always been conflicted about vegetarianism. I have known many vegetarians and vegans in my life and it is a lifestyle choice that I can respect for its intent. I genuinely dislike factory farming of any food product, animal or plant. We take it for granted that our supermarket shelves will be stocked with mountains of flesh for consumption, and I hate to think of all the meat that is wasted.
Last night I skimmed a Facebook post fervently discussing vegetarianism. The author posted a huge list of claims, from its health benefits to supposed evolutionary ties, and I wanted to take some…
purepedantry | May 17, 2007The NYTimes has an interesting article on the increasing amount people are willing to pay for donor eggs:
A survey published this month in the journal Fertility and Sterility, "What Is Happening to the Price of Eggs?" found that the national average compensation for donors was $4,217. At least one center told the authors of the paper that it paid $15,000. Many centers did not respond.
Though laws prohibit the sale of transplant organs, sperm donors have always received small payments, and prospective parents in the United States are allowed to compensate women for their far greater…
voltagegate | May 16, 2007"This is the first age that's ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one."
-Sir Arthur C. Clarke
voltagegate | April 28, 2007Zuska blasted some moron at SciAm for referring to our own Shelley Batts as "attractive" during his summary of Shelley's recent run in with the lawyers at Wiley over the reproduction of a research figure:
Excuse me? "Seems to be attractive"? WTF???
I mean, what the f*ck does that have to do with anything in the story? Why the gratuitous mention of Shelley's appearance?
Oh, I know why. Because she's a WOMAN. And women, at all times, you must remember that you are women first and foremost. Your appearance is ever and always an issue, and no matter what the hell you are ever doing - be it…
purepedantry | April 27, 2007Ronald Bailey at Reason reviews an interesting article in the American Journal of Bioethics by Martha Farah and Andrea Heberlein and the responses to it. Farah and Heberlein argue that while an innate system for the detection of personhood exists in the human brain, it is so prone to being fooled by clearly non-person objects that it suggests that no reasonable standard for personhood can exist. Many commenters took issue with that argument.
Money quote:
Farah and Heberlein contend that the personhood brain network evolved because as an intensely social species, our ancestors' survival was…