Law and Ethics
retrospectacle | November 4, 2007Scientists, read this statement.
A new era has dawned for those who fund the abusers and raise funds for them to murder animals with. You too are on the hit list: you have been warned. If you support or raise funds for any company connected with Huntingdon Life Sciences we will track you down, come for you and destroy your property with fire.
- Animal Liberation Front statement on behalf of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
Let it sink in. Now insert your research institution in the place of Huntingdon Life Sciences, and you know what might be in store for anyone doing, or associated with,…
retrospectacle | August 27, 2007As noted around the science blogosphere, something wicked this way comes. PRISM, or the Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine (created by the Association of American Publishers), is setting up a strawman argument against Open Access publications, claiming that the tradition of peer review is under attack. Open Access, such as PLOS journals and other initiatives, make it easier for people to have access to the research that they, as taxpayers, implicitly fund. Wouldn't you like to know what you are paying for, and whether it benefits your life? Wouldn't you like scientists…
retrospectacle | July 20, 2007I attended a seminar on gene therapy not long ago, and while I never talked much about it at the time, something stuck in my mind as someone interested in the field: is gene therapy a soft form of eugenics? Gene therapy, as referred to by most medical researchers or ethicists would likely be construed as a good thing, a positive thing meant to heal and help a person's suffering. Eugenics, on the other hand, is widely maligned as negative--to artificially produce or design offspring which fit certain criteria. If gene therapy *could* be construed as eugenics, and perhaps it can't, should we…
retrospectacle | February 28, 2007Check out this interesting op-ed piece in the NY Times today, on a case being heard in the Supreme Court over Bush's faith-based initiatives.
The question before the court is whether a group seeking to preserve the separation of church and state can mount a First Amendment challenge to the Bush administration's "faith based" initiatives. The arguments turn on a technical question of whether taxpayers have standing, or the right to initiate this kind of suit, but the real-world implications are serious. If the court rules that the group does not have standing, it will be much harder to stop…
retrospectacle | February 28, 2007File this under "How in the Hell......"
No one would be foolish enough to claim that racism and discrimination doesn't exist to some extent. Its an unhappy result of worlds and societies colliding, and I truly believe that as societies evolve, the issue improves. Thats why when someone exhibits blatant, angry racism in a public forum like an op-ed newspaper piece, its like taking giant steps backwards. Such is the case of Asian-American columnist Kenneth Eng who writes for AsianWeek, a, asian-interest paper for San Francisco area residents. Mr. Eng's running column, entitled "God of the…
retrospectacle | February 20, 2007YouTube, the open-source video upload site, is as popular as ever following its buyout from Google. However, today I came across a deliciously snarky editorial about YouTube's blatant use of copyrighted material. Is what YouTube doing really illegal? Can you REALLY get free egg rolls??
(Continued below the fold)...
Specifically, the author (Simon Dumenco at Advertising Age) is particularly irked at YouTube's response to Viacom's demands that 100,000 clips from their various media/shows/etc be taken down.
Right before Google came a-courting last fall, I described YouTube in this column as…
retrospectacle | February 20, 2007What's the point of this ad?
Your parents do it. They are probably doing it right now. But you don't want to know that. Just like you don't want to know what happens to chicks and chickens on factory farms. You don't want to know that behavioral scientists have discovered that the cognitive abilities of a chicken rival that of cats, dogs, and even young humans. But, whatever, as long as it tastes good, right?
Why would they want us to associate our parents doing the dirty with their campaign? Talk about a terrible brand association.
retrospectacle | February 15, 2007Wouldn't you think that NASA would use the most rigorous psychological test to screen for tough minds in potential astronauts? How then does the soap-opera-esque debacle with astronaut Lisa Nowak (you know, the one in the love triangle who's been arrested for attempted murder) even come to such a boiling point? That it *did* happen has brought into question NASA's ability to monitor the psychological state of the people who go into space. In response to increased scrutiny, NASA has promised to review its psych testing practices. The only lucky break in this situation is that Lisa Nowak "…
retrospectacle | January 5, 2007Although I thought about making a post about the refusal of the corrupt earmark system to just die already, I think something more in my scope of interest is the current ethics debate regarding a severely mentally handicapped child. Specifically, her parents have opted to surgically stunt their child's physical development to prevent puberty (hormones, menstruation, growth, etc) and to keep her weight at a level that they can manage. She is currently 9 years old, and has the mental capacity of a 3 month baby--she can only lie on her back and kick her legs/arms around. She relies on her…
retrospectacle | January 4, 2007 I came across an interesting topic on the Irascible Professor's blog: whether or not banning harmful food product such as trans-fat infringes upon a person's right to eat whatever they want, healthy or otherwise. This question is in response to libertarian John Stossel's article "What Will They Ban Next?" where Stossel opines that citizens' eating habits should not be monitored by the government. Stossel says trans fat gives French fries "that texture I like" and since heart disease in America is declining, "So, if they're [trans fat] killing us, they're not doing a very good job." Booooo.…
retrospectacle | November 29, 2006According to CNN, the guards who roughed up a Florida teenager at a military-style bootcamp, who later died, will be charged in his death. This incident, which took place around Pensacola, was a huge scandal for Florida which resulted in the resignation of Florida's top law officer and the end of state-run bootcamp.
Apparently what happened was Martin Lee Anderson, 14 years old, felt ill and refused to continue exercising. After being roughed up by the guards (which was caught on videotape) for over 30 minutes, he passed out. To try to revive him, they used ammonia capsules (aka smelling…
retrospectacle | November 22, 2006In an effort to "encourage discussion" on race-based scholarships, a student group called the Boston University College Republicans (BUCR) has instituted a controversial $250 "Caucasian Achievement and Recognition Scholarship". Applicants must be at least 25% Caucasian, have a 3.2 GPA, and submit an essay on what it means to be a Caucasian-American in today's society. BUCR argues that scholarships that are preferentially given to members of a certain race, and excluding others, are a form of bigotry no matter which way the discrimination swings. By their own definition, this scholarship is…
retrospectacle | November 21, 2006Some fantastic morning reading from a USA Today opinion article entitled '"When Religion Loses Its Credibility," critiques the current religious stance on homosexuality---and wonders, what if religion is yet again proven wrong? This was written by a well-spoken, pro-science Baptist Minister (yes, they do exist.)
Religion's only real commodity, after all, is its moral authority. Lose that, and we lose our credibility. Lose credibility, and we might as well close up shop.
It's happened to Christianity before, most famously when we dug in our heels over Galileo's challenge to the biblical view…
retrospectacle | November 20, 2006According to a study of dog owners, people who own vicious and dangerous dogs, like pit bulls, have significantly more criminal convictions than the owners of tamer breeds. A vicious dog was defined as a breed that, without provocation, has killed or seriously injured a person, killed a dog, or was a pit bull. It excluded guard dogs and law enforcement canines.
Could this be used as a new form of profiling? (Continued below the fold....)
The study included 355 dog owners in Ohio, and was published in the Dec edition of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The results showed that 30% of…
retrospectacle | August 30, 2006"Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn't necessarily mean you're smart."
Lakehead University in northern Ontario set up www.yaleshmale.com in a bid to attract potential new students.
It shows a picture of Yale graduate Mr Bush with the caption: "Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn't necessarily mean you're smart."
"It was literally a tongue-in-cheek way of getting attention," university president and vice-chancellor Frederick Gilbert told Reuters news agency.
The website had received more than 7,000 hits, he said on Monday, and online comments had been 95% positive.…
retrospectacle | August 28, 2006According to this Yahoo news release, John Mark Karr won't be charged in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, leaving the 10 year old murder case still unsolved. (Hat tip to somnilista, FCD.)
Colorado prosecutors won't charge schoolteacher John Mark Karr with the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey after tests showed his DNA does not match DNA found in her underwear, two local TV stations reported on Monday.
Amid skepticism over Karr's claims to have been with the former Little Miss Colorado when she died, legal experts said that it would be difficult to bring the case to trial without a DNA…
retrospectacle | August 28, 2006Uh-uh girrrrllll, I know you didn't! This just makes me downright ashamed of America:
U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws."
The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.
Harris made the comments -- which she clarified Saturday -- in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention,…
retrospectacle | August 25, 2006A few days ago, I issued a challenge to my fellow ScienceBloggers:
"Are you for or against the death penalty, or (if its conditional), in what cases? Furthermore, do you believe that societies that sanction war are hypocritical for opposing the death penalty?"
Quite a few of my esteemed cohort stepped up to the plate and took a swing. If you are interested in my thoughts on the subject, well they are below the fold.
Mike Dunford of The Questionable Authority is "more or less opposed" to the death penalty but reserves the right to fry the extra-baddies.
Tim Lambert at Deltoid discusses some…
retrospectacle | August 21, 2006So, similar to how the guys over at the World's Fair have posed us ScienceBloggers with a couple questions, I have one of my own that I hope my brethern will undertake to answer:
"Are you for or against the death penalty, or (if its conditional), in what cases? Furthermore, do you believe that societies that sanction war are hypocritical for opposing the death penalty?"
This question was a spawn from a real conversation I had today w/ a friend, and I can't wait to see the answers this might generate. Readers, please also chime in! I'll probably post my answer as well as the others out there…
retrospectacle | August 18, 2006At 16 years old, kids can drive a car, but can they make decisions regarding their health? This is a topic which interests me---a month ago I blogged about the topic in reference to a child whose parents had involved him in a circumcision lawsuit. When exactly are children old enough to determine what happens to their bodies?
This issue has once again received press, this time in the case of a 16-year old cancer patient who wishes to refuse chemotherapy after the first round make him sick. Instead, he wants to try an herbal cure championed by a clinic south of the border, the Hoxsey method.…